Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative

I come from a very dispensational background, and attended a Bible college that is also very dispensational. However, while in college I started seeing things in the Scriptures that did not sit well with my dispensational education. I consequently dropped the dispensational distinctive of a rapture (a pre-tribulational, pre-millennial eschatology – pretrib-premil) before a 7 year tribulation on the earth and accepted a historical pre-millennial position (post-tribulational, pre-millennial eschatology – posttrib-premil), meaning that I believed that Jesus has only one second coming, and that is after the tribulation, before the millennium.

However, the longer I have studied Scripture, and reading books like Revelation, the more I realised that interpreting the Bible across the board with a wooden literalism, will lead to a misunderstanding of the Bible, especially those that deal with end-times prophecy. The fact is that the Bible was not written in only one genre, but several. If we interpret books like Revelation as if it is a simple history written before it happens, then we will see all kinds of weird things.

Sam Storms’ book, Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative, was released in 2013. I read it. And, it was good! Sam Storms was also a dispensationalist, but came out of that many years ago. In this book he deals with the claims of dispensationalism and debunks its eschatological theology while successfully laying down his beliefs of amillennialism.

Storms’ book is well written, easy to read and he deals with all the relevant passages to refute on the one hand dispensational doctrine, and to state on the other hand what he believes about these passages. Passages such as Mt 24; Dan 9; Rom 11, Rev 13, 17, 20; and 2 Thess 2.

After having read this book, I certainly feel that it may be the time to study amillennialism in more detail.  That detail is certainly provided in Storms’ book, and I may need to to read his book again, but this time more intently.

What I am writing here is not a book review as such, but more of a recommendation. For a quick and easy review, you can read this one at Amazon.

All I can say is that this book has triggered something in me to take amillennialism more seriously and that is what I am going to.

I give this book:

Did God use Harold Camping?

Today’s post was not written by me, but by Mark LaCour from Grace Bible Fellowship, and can be read here.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Mark LaCour

"Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. (2 Thess. 2:1-2).

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Harold Camping

Harold Camping isn't the first preacher to be a "victim" of bad math. Jonah had the number of days to judgment correct, but God mercifully extended the deadline. Hananiah shortened the number of years of judgment, and it cost him his life (Jer. 28). But bad "accounting" methods don't produce false prophets -- arrogance does. While Harold Camping and his faulty "math" has exposed him for who he is, don’t think for a second God hasn't used him. Notice a few ways:

First, God has used him to show the world how foolish it is to date the future. It's one thing to "look for the blessed appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior" (Titus 2:13), it's another to circle a date on a calendar and hour on a clock. The former emphasizes our desire to be with Christ, the latter our desire to be seen as someone important with inside knowledge from God.

Second, God has used him to harden people in their arrogance. More than one atheist has patted himself on the back that he's more "enlightened." While he correctly assizes Camping as foolish, he mistakenly generalizes from that foolishness there is no return of Christ at all (2 Pet. 3:3ff.) And God uses Camping's foolishness to harden the atheist with that effect (2 Thess. 2:9-10). Laughing at the "fool on the hill" doesn’t equate to every Christian being a fool. We’re just not on the hill.

Earth (4004 BC–21 Oct 2011 AD)

So, apparently the rapture (see my post on this idea here) will occur on 21 May 2011 and the end of the world will come on 21 October 2011! Forget all that Mayan nonsense of 2012. Harold Camping has made his prediction according to the Bible alone (I wonder what the other preachers have been doing?), and you just better be ready!

I better organize my son’s birthday party earlier this year

You can read more about this lunacy here.

For more on Harold Camping and his heretical views, visit Alpha & Omega Ministries.