Encore Post: Before the world comes to an end, Jesus told his disciples, there would be earthquakes, famines and pestilences. Fearful things and strange signs in the heavens would appear. (Luke 21:11, Matthew 24:7) As with wars and rumors of wars, these signs aren’t of much help in predicting the Second Coming of Christ. After all, disaster is a part of the curse that Adam and Eve received for committing the first sin. St. Paul describes creation as subject to futility, groaning like a woman in childbirth. (Romans 8:20-22)
Pastor Hans Fiene observes that because of the fall, the creation is cursed, turned from harmony with us to being hostile towards us. The world is trying to kill us with extremes of heat and cold, disease, floods, forest fires, famine and other disasters. Human beings need to exercise dominion over it to survive.
These signs were present from the very day Jesus predicted them. Even as Jesus died on the cross, an earthquake struck the Holy Land and the sun went dark during midday. Famine struck during the dark days of the AD 60s and 70s. Throughout the millennia that followed, many natural disasters have destroyed many lives.
Many Christians have concluded that these events will become more and more frequent as we get closer to the Second Advent. Perhaps. The problem is we will never know for sure that such indicate the return of Christ in our generation. The key to understanding what these events tell us is to realize they describe the time from the Ascension to the Second Coming. They are not like the prophecy of the Virgin Birth, the town of Bethlehem or the precision of Psalm 22 describing the crucifixion. What these signs do is remind us that the world is cursed and will one day fail. It keeps us from getting too comfortable in our sin and warns us to repent and cling to Christ.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Pastor Emeritus Fort Wayne, Indiana
Blogger’s note: Somehow I forgot running these posts after Last Things #7… I’ll run them starting now. Apologies for them being out of order.
Encore Post: As the winter approaches in many areas of the world, plants, animals begin to prepare for the change in the climate of their home. In the American Midwest, the leaves on many trees change color and fall from their branches. The Canada Geese first fly in circles and then most head south for the season. The Juncos, small sparrow-like birds are the last to leave where I live and the first to arrive in Spring. When these things happen, you can expect winter weather and cold will not be far behind.
The date Christ’s return is unknown to us. Jesus taught that even he did not know when it will happen — only the Father in Heaven. (Matthew 24:36) Yet we do know Jesus’ return is near. He told his disciples that they know summer is near when the fig tree starts to grow leaves. They knew — and we know — that time is growing short because we see the signs of the times that the Lord gave them.
Yet the signs of the times are not specific events, nor are they like variables in some prophecy algebra problem — you know — insert the invention of television, the establishment of the modern nation of Israel, the identity of the anti-Christ and the use of bar codes and then you know the year of Christ’s return. These signs are like those that identify the season — they tell us the kind of times that we live in. These signs tell us the world is passing away.
Since Jesus told his disciples they would see these signs in their generation, what is taking so long? Over two thousand years does not seem like soon — at the very gates — to us. St. Peter explains this to us. The return of Christ is not measured on our human calendar. It is on God’s scale. For the Father, a thousand years passes like a day passes for us. (2 Peter 3:8-9)
We have a similar experience. When we are on a long trip with young children, they often ask: “are we there yet?” We say, “soon.” But while an hour or two is soon for us, it is very long for the children! He waits for the last person who will be saved to repent. And we should be glad for it — it includes us!
Yet still we remain alert. We do not know when that day will come and the great marriage feast of the lamb will begin. We want to be ready for that party!
Rev. Robert E. Smith Pastor Emeritus Fort Wayne, Indiana
Yes, we certainly can. This incenses the enemies of the church, who find their god in the authority of the state instead. Sadly, every election season, this comes up. There are precious few limitations on how or when pastors may exercise our liberties both within and outside the pastoral office. (“Office” here means vocation, job, or duty, rather than the place where my books live).
Rev. Dr. Christopher Thoma, senior pastor of Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church, Hartland, Michigan holds an annual conference called the Body of Christ in the Public Square. He’s hosted speakers in the ten or so years he’s been holding the conference at Our Savior including: Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Candace Owens, Riley Gaines, Ben Carson, Jack Phillips, and Rev. Dr. Jamison Hardy (fmr. President of the English District – LCMS, and current president of the LCMS Concordia University System). That’s not exactly a balanced list of speakers.
Rev. Thoma recently posted this in public (published with permission):
“Considering a particular jab following worship today — one suggesting my political preferences “might be too visible to the public” — I’m just going to put this image right here. [the image: Rev. Thoma with a political yard sign] Let there be no “might be” regarding my predilections. [He doesn’t conceal his political opinions]. In addition to the image, I’ll share a summary of the Johnson Amendment (since it was mentioned in passing) that I wrote a few years ago. I share it not necessarily to claim my rights above the need for expressing Christian love in such conversations (which I certainly attempt to do), but rather so that others are not confused with regard to a clergyman-citizen’s actual freedoms. Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod leadership, pastors, and parishioners would do well to take note.”
Rev. Thoma’s post from a few years ago (ibid):
“Of course as a Lutheran pastor, I’m probably not going to say from the pulpit, “Vote for so-and-so!” At its heart, that’s not the task of preaching. Although I’ll admit that in this day and age, it’s becoming more and more likely that such a phrase might actually be necessary homiletically.
Babies are being murdered. The freedom to preach and proclaim the Gospel is being smothered. The twisting of Natural Law in ways that disintegrate the family while adulterating God’s design in holy marriage are actual planks in political party platforms. Too many Christians sitting in the pews are choosing to elect leaders who support these diabolical things, even as the Word of God speaks against them.
[We can certainly now add to this list: Critical Race Theory, distorting God’s forgiveness; and trans ideology, distorting God’s gift of gender.]
With this, it should be no surprise if a pastor does what he can from the pulpit to aim his flock toward candidates who are most aligned with the will of God and not the will of devilry. But either way, whether saying “Vote for so-and-so” seems appropriate or not, if a pastor wanted to say it from the pulpit, according to the law he could. He is free to preach and teach as he chooses, even if particular parties or candidates are promoted. Admittedly, as the efforts of a pastor and church (a non-profit religious organization) might meet with the Johnson Amendment’s particulars, there are certain things they cannot do. For the sake of clarity, here’s the best summary I can offer of the law in this regard.
Firstly, the Amendment states that a non-profit religious organization may not endorse or oppose a particular candidate in a way that results in the imposition of punitive action against members of the organization who endorse or oppose a different candidate, contribute to or use a church’s resources for the benefit of one candidate over another. This typically happens when one particular candidate or party is granted open access to a church’s membership roster. [(RR 2007-41, p. 11, Situation 18)]
Secondly, a non-profit religious organization may perform such activities as register their members as voters, distribute non-partisan voting guides, invite candidates to speak, directly address issues and legislation (abortion, marriage, and the like), even employing the church’s resources to move for or against these issues. Preaching is not excluded. [(RR 2007-41, p. 3-4, Situations 1-2)]
Thirdly, as an individual, the pastor or religious leader of a non-profit religious organization may do whatever he or she feels led to do within his or her station —which includes but is not limited to publicly endorsing a candidate, supporting (or encouraging support toward) a party or campaign, and the like, as long as the efforts are not done using the church’s material resources. There are no limitations on the pastors as individuals serving in their offices. The few limitations above that do exist are only for the religious entity as a whole and only if the religious entity is a non-profit organization.” [(RR 2007-41, p. 10-11)]
Rev. Thoma didn’t and the IRS barely addresses the parsonage. So, I’ll add for your benefit:
Fourthly, the pastor’s home, a parsonage, is in his possession and not a material asset of the church, as explained by the Treasurer’s office of the Texas District – LCMS. The parsonage is a taxable portion of the pastor’s pay. The benefit is limited in scope. Pastor only has exclusive use of it, while he is serving. But, during the term of the benefit, the church does not have possession of it. The church may not place signage at the parsonage, nor use it uninvited.
“Charities, including churches, placing signs on their property that show they support a particular candidate.” (IR-2006-36) Without access to do so, neither the church nor her agents acting in their office, have placed nor can place anything on the parsonage yard. The pastor is a resident, when he is at home, and not acting from his office.
Despite their volumes of guidance, the IRS rarely, if ever enforces their rules concerning the unclear letter of the law in the Johnson Amendment. It is impossible to prove a negative. As such, in the absence of a clear directive defining the situation of a parsonage, none of the other criteria apply.
Concerning the Johnson Amendment on it’s own merits, the law is probably on thin ice. It was introduced in retribution against two Texas non-profits that supported LBJ’s primary opponent. The Johnson Amendment stands contrary to the free exercise clause of the first amendment (American Center for Law and Justice). “Congress shall make no law”… except the Johnson Amendment.
Encore Post: When people speak of the Second Advent of Christ, the focus almost always is on his descent from Heaven, with all the angels and all the saints who had died. That is a natural thing to do, because it is very dramatic. The skies parting, the army of heaven with countless members descending with the Son of God in his full glory. The tombs are rended, the dead raised as the author of life calls them forth in the glorious resurrection of the last day. Then the drama of the destruction of sin, death and the power of the devil and the summons all must obey to the Judgment Seat of Christ. Then the book of life is opened, all secrets are revealed and those with faith in Jesus pronounced “not guilty” before the throne of God, for the Son of God, the Lamb who took away the sin of the world, was slain for their sake. Then the unbelieving will be sent with Satan and his angels to the unending lake of fire prepared for them.
But the best is yet to come and gets little attention. Perhaps it is because we merge it in our minds with the state of the dead who, in this age, die in the Lord. They are with him forever. And yet their state is not yet perfect. Their bodies are yet to be called by Jesus from their graves, so they may be fully restored and improved for eternity.
Perhaps it is because we really can’t understand it. So, the Scripture describes it for us and paints several images for us. Eternal life is — well — eternal! We will die only once and once resurrected, live forever with the Lord. It will be without sin. Having been defeated on the cross. We are cleansed of it forever. There will be no more sorrow or sighing or grief or pain, for these things will pass away. God will dry every tear from our eyes. Our bodies will be glorified, purged of sin and its curse. We will shine like the stars in the joy of our Heavenly Father. We do not know what we will be like except that we will be like Christ.
Best of all, we will be with Jesus and see him face to face. Then, with joy, we will sing his praises forever.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Pastor Emeritus Fort Wayne, Indiana
Encore Post: When Jesus returns from heaven, all Christians will be united with him forever. Those who have died will rise from the grave, their souls reunited with their bodies. All will be restored to be just like him, sin and death removed forever. While that is much more than enough for us, it is not the only thing he intends. He will make a new heaven and a new earth, removing the effects of sin and death forever. A key event in that restoration is the judgement seat of Christ.
The angels sent forth to raise the dead will gather all before the throne — both the saved and the lost, all angels and demons will be brought before him. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Saints and angels will all sing his praises. These events are beyond our comprehension and so the Holy Spirit has revealed in Scripture the things we can understand in words and images, sometimes in ways we can’t put together easily. Yet all are true.
At the throne of judgement, the Book of Life will be opened, where the names of all God’s people are written. Every event in human history, along with every thought and deeds we thought secret. The standard to judge these deeds will be God’s Holy Law. The verdict is clear — God is righteous and no one else. Yet for the sake of the sacrifice of the Lamb-who-was-slain, all who trust in Jesus will be declared not guilty. All their sins were forgiven and forgotten. All that remains is the good deeds done for the sake of Christ. These will follow us into eternal life.
Jesus himself recounts how this works: whenever we cared for the least of his children, we did it to him. The lost, however, will be remembered for what they did not do. So, in the end, the saved will shine in the joy of God the father and live forever with him. The lost will be thrown into hell with the demons forever separated from God and his love.
Following the judgement, the Marriage Feast of the Lamb will begin. We will live with God and his people forever in a celebration that never ends.
Encore Post: Called the “Jewish opinion” by the Lutheran Confessions, the belief in a Millennium comes from a face value reading of Old Testament prophecy and poetry about the Church or about eternal life with God after the Second Advent. It also treats the Book of Revelation, written in a symbolic code called apocalyptic, in a similar way. By doing so, it uses difficult to understand passages to complicate the very clear words of Jesus, Peter, Paul and other New Testament writers. It is the view of the Pharisees that caused them to rule out Jesus as the Messiah, because he did not intend to battle the Romans and to miss that the Scriptures pointed to the birth, life, sufferings, death and Resurrection of the Son of God.
The word itself comes from Revelation 20, where the reign of Christ through in his church is described as 1000 years. This number is not a literal 1000 years, but is Jewish numerology. The number ten meant to them perfection and when multiplied three times, the number of God, it means when everything is completed. It points to our times when the Gospel has reached every corner of the earth.
While it may seem harmless to believe such things, it detracts from the what Christ has commanded us in order to read every event, looking for the return of Christ. Instead, we should be ready, as Jesus instructs us, making disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching them, knowing he is with us always.
Encore Post: They were ordinary days. The seaside resort of Pompeii was bustling with the daily activities of the luxurious retreat for the richest of Romans, escaping the pressures of the imperial capital of ancient Rome. That is until Mount Vesuvius buried it in ash for 1700 years. It was a lazy Sunday morning in Hawaii, slower than normal for a navy base — until Japanese bombs shattered Pearl Harbor that December 7, 1941. On a bright, lovely September morning, a pastor drove from downtown Fort Wayne, practicing a sermon for chapel on the first regular day of classes for Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne — a sermon he rewrote on the ride in as he learned airplanes had destroyed the Twin Towers in New York City that September 11, 2001. Life was normal — until the world changed.
On another ordinary day, when people will go about daily life as usual, eating, drinking, marrying, working in the field and in businesses, Jesus will return from Heaven. (Matthew 24:37-41) He will appear in the sky with the angel armies of Heaven and the souls of his people with him. Every eye will see him. He will send his angels to gather both those who are saved to meet him and the damned to be judged. ( Matthew 13:41, 49, Matthew 24:30-31) There will be no rapture, where Christ appears secretly to claim his own and leave the world in tribulation. This notion comes from a misunderstanding of the dispensationalists.
At that time, Jesus will break the seal of the grave forever. All people will rise from the dead in the great resurrection of the dead. All souls will be reunited with their bodies and Christ’s own will be transformed to be just like him. (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17) As much as great dread has been put in this day, it is for Christians, the most joyful day of all, even with the next event — the Last Judgment — coming. For the goal of the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord is this day — when all is made right, we are restored to his image and we will shine like the stars in his kingdom. So, the Church has always prayed: Come, Lord Jesus, Come!
Encore Post: Jesus had quite a bit to say about his return. The signs that we are in the last days are clear. He will return suddenly, so be ready! The angels will descend, the dead will come to life again, we will all gather before his judgment throne. The lost will then be thrown with the devil and his angels into hell and we will go with him to live forever. But where is talk about the Tribulation and the Millennium? Jesus never speaks about a seven-year period of special punishment of the world for their sins or an earthly reign at the end of time, much less a thousand year one. So where does the talk of a millennium on Christian radio, in endless end time and prophecy books come from?
The concepts of the Rapture, the Great Tribulation and a one thousand-year reign of Christ prior to the final judgment are less than 200 years old. John Nelson Darby first taught the idea that faithful Christians would be “raptured” — removed from the world at the end of the current age just as God poured out his wrath in a seven year “Great Tribulation” when the Anti-Christ would rule and severely persecute people who became Christians — mostly Jewish people. At the end of this period, Christ was to return to rule the world for 1000 years. After that he was to judge the world, condemning the lost, the devil and his angels to hell, while the saints will live with God forever.
These views, popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible and evangelical authors, became an established theology among Fundamentalist, Evangelical and independent Protestant Churches. Some pastors and evangelists speculated that current events fulfilled Biblical prophecies, treating the Bible like a giant algebra problem. Some even set a date for the rapture — and recalculated when the prediction failed. Yet the whole view of the end is not true.
All of the signs Jesus taught apply to all the time between the Ascension of Jesus and his return at the end of time. No one knows the day or the hour of his return (Mark 13:32). It will be a normal day like any other — until it is not. (Luke 17:26-35) Jesus calls on us to stay awake. We do not know when he is coming for us — at the end of days — or the end of our days. Either way, we should be about what God has called us to do, so when he comes to take us home, we are ready to greet him.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
Encore Post: Many of our evangelical brothers and sisters are fascinated by Biblical prophecy. Seeing the evil around us, they are convinced that we are living in the very last years and months before Christ returns to raise the dead, bring an end to sin, death and the power of the devil, gather all in the final judgement and begin the marriage feast of the lamb that has no end. They are not alone — in every period, Christians were convinced they were living in such times — even St. Paul and Martin Luther!
What makes their view unique in the church’s history is they accept a theological view called Dispensationalism, a Christian school of thought that was born in the 1800s. It adopted the ancient view that Christ would reign on earth literally for 1000 years after he returned in glory. It set this view in a way of looking at history inspired by the 19th century cultural movement known as Romanticism. Dispensationalism was developed by Charles Nelson Darby, D. L. Moody and C. I. Scofield.
Dispensationalists believe God divided the world into seven dispensations (also called economies and administrations). In each age, God supposedly revealed himself in different ways. Salvation was offered according to different plans for each age (for example, under the Law of Moses, salvation was by works, but in the church age, by grace) and humans were held accountable to the set of rules for that age. They get to these views by treating at face value prophecies written in figurative and symbolic language and using the interpretations they discover to understand in a complex way the simple and clear words of Jesus and the apostles.
For them, this age will end when events predicted in prophecy occur. They look to current events to fulfill these prophecies, treating the Bible as a giant algebra problem. Some have used such calculations to predict end-time events. Among these are the rapture, when all true Christians will suddenly be removed from the world, leaving only unbelievers, the Tribulation, when they will be punished, and those who come to faith seeing these events are persecuted and the Millennium, when Christ and the church will rule the world a thousand years. Two problems with this: Christ promised he would return suddenly and the last judgement follows immediately (so the Bible is not an algebra problem) and these versions of a rapture, millennium and tribulation are not in the Bible.
Encore Post: As the turn of the millennium approached, people began to wonder if maybe Jesus would return. They sold all their property and gave the money to the poor. They went on pilgrimages. Some gathered with the Pope to celebrate the last moments of the millennium. It is said some died of heart attacks anticipating the end of days. But when the bells of St. Peter’s tolled in the New Year and Pope Silvester the First made the sign of the cross in benediction, the Trumpet did not sound and the dead were not raised. With great relief, they welcomed in the year 1000.
840 years later, a Baptist farmer became convinced that he had decoded the Bible’s prophecies of the second advent. It would be on March 21st, 1843, he announced. So people sold all their property and gave the money to the poor. They traveled distances to hear William Miller. When March 21st came, they gathered with him in white robes. But the Trumpet did not sound, and the dead were not raised. The disillusioned called it the Great Disappointment.
Throughout the years, Christians have been tempted to ignore Jesus’ warning that no one knows the day or the hour. (Matthew 24:36) In 1988, one man claimed, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t know the month and the year.” Truly distressed by the trials of this world, they latched on to the thought that they were in the last days. In the process, they missed the work that God had for them to do.
Rather than focus on any one day, Jesus calls on us to always be ready, because we do not know when he will return. That is true not only of the end of days but of the end of your own days. Our lives are short and in God’s hands, who alone knows when it is best for us to be by his side. When that day comes, be it in the end of days or at the end of our days, his angels will come and escort us home forever. In the meantime, be alert! Work while it is still day, because you do not know when you will rest from your labors. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!
