The Bright Hope of Defeatism: A Critique Of Historic Premillennialism
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INTRODUCTION
Hello everyone, and welcome back to our new series called A Practical Postmillennialism, where we are talking about the end-times doctrine called postmillennialism. We will define that term and see a Biblical case for that doctrine in the weeks ahead. Still, in these early episodes of this series, we need to look at the other eschatological views and show how they are not only deficient but actually contribute to a defeatist mindset that has hampered the Church in the modern world, caused her to retreat from culture, expecting an imminent return of Christ who will come and rescue a bruised and beaten up church. This inglorious view has done much to harm the bride of Christ and immobilize her for mission. So before we get to the Biblical view of the end-times and the good news that postmillennialism puts forward, we have to wade through the dirty waters of eschatological defeatism, identifying it for what it is, and flushing it back to where it belongs.
In our first blog, called Defeating Defeatism, we tackled the most egregious of the end-times perspectives, a relative newcomer among the positions on eschatology, which is called Dispensationalism. There, it was shown how Dispensationalism is a theological system of fragmentation, slicing the Bible up into seven arbitrary and totally made-up epochs, which have little to nothing to do with each other. Like ripping a chapter out of seven different books, combining them together, and trying to create a cohesive story, Dispensationalism produces only incoherence and (as a viewpoint) inspires no one to do anything. This does not mean all Dispensationalists are lazy couch potatoes who are merely eeking their way through life. But, it does mean that whenever dispensationalists do any Kingdom work, evangelizing and making disciples, building and planting churches, they are not operating consistently within their own frame of reference. If the sky is always falling, there is no time to build. Which means whenever they do build, they are betraying their own view.
Furthermore, by destroying the unity of Scripture, assigning the Church to an arbitrary era that is doomed to fail, and by punting all of the promises of Jesus' Kingdom to an indeterminate epoch we will never see in the future, proponents of this view naturally withdraw from culture, because frankly, what's the point? We will never win; we will only lose, and our only hope is to be slingshotted out of here in an unbiblical rapture. The consequences of this action are devastating. While they have removed themselves from culture, society has supremely decayed, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy for the prophecy pundits. Instead of seeing the clear and obvious truth that society has worsened because the Church has failed to engage it (as the salt and light as Jesus commanded), dispensationalists continue to avoid culture. It continues to worsen because of that, and their fever to escape the mess they have created ever increases. Like a fussy child who uses meltdowns to manipulate the parents, refusing to clean his room because it has gone from bad to worse, knowing mom will eventually step in and perform the rescue mission, dispensationalists frantically adopt increasing levels of mania over society and the future, much like the prophets of Baal, attempting to get Christ to come and take them home. This "winning" view has produced a landscape of losers, and it is high time for us to discard it.
In our second episode, I invited renowned Bible teacher and scholar Gary Demar onto the PRODCAST to help us understand how, Biblically, this view does not work. For over an hour, Gary took us through one passage after another, proving how a rigid commitment to futurism does not account for what we see in the text. He showed us how wars and rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, the abomination of desolation, the great tribulation, and others are not signs of a future tribulation period under a European Antichrist. But actual historical events that happened in the lead up to the destruction of Jerusalem. And as I said, Gary Demar took on one passage after another for over an hour, completely and totally undermining that view. I highly recommend you go and check out that episode.
Today, we will look at the more reasonable older sister of Dispensationalism, Historic Premillennialism. By Premillennialism, I mean that Jesus will return pre (which means before) He institutes His millennial reign. Unlike Amillennialism and Postmillennialism, which see Jesus currently reigning on His throne in heaven, Historic Premillennials await Christ's future and physical reign on earth, which will last for a thousand calendar years. To properly examine this view and to show how it is deficient, I will need to move quickly, painting with broad strokes, and I will not be able to be exhaustive. My goal is to show that this view is not Biblical and actually produces anti-Biblical attitudes in the Church, which has led to the mess we are currently in in this country. That's right, I believe Premillennialism (both Historic Premillennialism and its red-headed Dispensational heifer) is one of the chief reasons that society is murdering a million babies a year, why men are trying to become women, why our political elites are embracing Marxism and running our country into moral chaos, and so much more. How can I say that? Because when a view so successfully undermines the Church's mission, causing her to retreat, to stop making disciples, to stop advancing, and to cease holding culture accountable, should we be surprised when pagans run into all kinds of rank and disgusting errors? If you leave raw hamburger meat out on the counter it putrifies. That is what meat does when it is not preserved in the refrigerator. In the same way, Premillennialism left society to hide in the eschatological basement, waiting for her rapture. Sadly, while the Church has been waiting for fifty years at the rapture bus top, hands in pockets, doing little else, the meat of American culture has turned a slimy green, and the moral maggots have crept in and totally infested it.
I hope this series, in some small way, can be a part of changing that. With that, let us begin our time today by describing the history of Historic Premillennialism.
THE HISTORY OF PREMILLENNIALISM
THE ANCIENT VIEW
Among the end-times positions, two schools of thought go back to the ancient and apostolic Church. After the canon of Scripture was closed, all of the apostles died, and as the early Church began to spread in a hostile world, there began to be prominent and influential Christian thinkers who weighed in on a variety of theological subjects to help the Church become robust in her thinking. Unfortunately for us, eschatology was one of those doctrines that took significantly more time to systematize, which means we only have scant statements and underdeveloped postulations of what the earliest Christians living in the first three centuries believed about the end-times. But, of our information, two basic views rise to the fore.
The first view, set forth most prominently by Augustine of Hippo, is that when Christ ascended into heaven, He sat down on His throne to reign. As proponents of this view attested, he was not waiting for a future period where He would return to reign for a thousand years. He is reigning now, which made the thousand years described in Revelation 20 a non-literal number of years. To be clear, this group believed Jesus was reigning from the moment He ascended into heaven and would continue to reign over His Kingdom, the Church, until He was finished building His Kingdom.
The other view, represented in the ancient Church, is that Jesus would return at some point in the future to reign physically on earth for a thousand years. This end-times view shows up in fragmentary form quite early in the writings of church fathers (such as Papias, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian) and was laid out most fully by a man named Irenaeus of Lyons in his work called Against Heresies in 180 AD. This view, bolstered by a commitment to a literalistic hermeneutic, tried to explain Old Testament prophecies of worldwide peace, prosperity, and global justice as a future, physical period on earth that would commence after the Messiah's return.
In fact, this is where postmillennialism and Premillennialism agree, seeing those Old Testament prophecies as coming physically to the earth under the reign of Christ. Postmillennialists understand these things coming gradually and increasingly upon the earth through the Church as Jesus reigns victoriously over her in heaven. The Premillennialists, however, see the current age we are living in collapsing in fantastic defeat, the Church being unsuccessful in her task to disciple the nations, which will prompt Jesus to return to a world filled with evil, to put it away, to be crowned as its new King, to reign bodily on earth for a thousand years, and near the end of that rule, a group of people will rebel against Him, and He will win a final battle. Premillennialists understand the reign of Christ to be a future event. Postmillennials understand the reign of Christ as happening now.
THE MIDDLE AGES
As the Ancient Church began to gain ground in the Roman world, Premillennial thought also began to wane. With later apostolic fathers (such as Origen) promoting an allegorical view of the millennium, Augustine of Hippo's towering theological influence, and Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman empire, Premillennialism faded from the majority opinion to the minority report in the 4th century AD.
Augustine, in particular, was influential in this transition. He argued that the millennium described in Revelation 20 was not a literal number of years, in the same way, that God does not own the cattle on a literal thousand hills, but on all hills. Instead, according to Augustine, the one thousand years represented the ongoing reign of Christ over His Church. This became the prominent view in the early Roman Catholic Church and remained the majority position in Christendom until the 16th century when a few radical offshoots of the Reformation gravitated back to premillennial thinking. For context, the view that Christ is currently reigning over His Church and not waiting for a future return for that reign to ensue has been the dominant position of Church history, especially between 400 and 1600 AD.
THE MODERN ERA
During the Protestant Reformation, Augustine's eschatological allegoricalism was a decisive influence upon the magisterial reformers. This meant that the overwhelming majority position on eschatology in the Reformation was that Christ was currently reigning over His Church, not awaiting a physical reign on earth at some point in the distant future. At the same time, a few radicalized offshoots of the Reformation, such as the Mennonites and Anabaptists, departed from the allegorical view of the millennium and began constructing various end times positions. Some groups began returning to premillennial thinking, reinvigorating the discipline in seed form, which the Plymouth brethren would later take up in the 19th century. From this group, we get John Nelson Darby, who became the father of dispensational Premillennialism and is responsible for bringing Premillennialism back into the forefront of Christian eschatological thinking.
Before the Reformation, Premillennialism was mostly unattested for nearly a thousand years of Church history. After the Reformation, it was only slightly reinvigorated through a few Reformation offshoots to become a marginal position in a predominantly Amillennial and Postmillennial world. Yet, by the 19th century, under the influence of John Nelson Darby, Dispensational Premillennialism would explode to become the primary view of eschatology in Evangelical America, still influencing most people's views on the end-times to this day. This is not a credit to Dispensational Premillennial thinking or how accurately it conceptualizes Scripture. But, it is what happened in the history of its development.
Dispensationalism was always a flawed view and was never really adopted among Reformed churches. Churches that held tightly to the theology of the Reformation and adopted its confessions almost entirely avoided dispensational thinking since it so clearly deviated from covenant theology and a proper hermeneutic for understanding Scripture. This was until George Eldon Ladd, a 20th-century theologian, revived Historic Premillennialism from the ashes of history, giving some Reformed thinkers a possible third option for eschatological schemas, especially among various strains of Baptists.
Unlike Darby, who divided the Bible into arbitrary dispensations, Ladd rightly saw the Bible as one unified redemptive story, seeking to reintegrate it into His theological work. This included reintegrating Israel and the Church, whom Ladd saw as distinct redemptive peoples, yet one under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He also rejected the rapture-driven escapism of Dispensationalism, adopting instead a posttribulational view of the rapture where the faithful suffer right alongside the pagans in Antichrist's seven-year reign of terror before Jesus Christ returns. Ladd also correctly identified that the pietism and purely allegorical interpretation among some amillennialists did not do justice to the prophetic promises given in the Old Testament, which describes these events as future realities that will come to pass on earth and not just spiritually in heaven. All these modifications by Ladd and others were improvements and certainly reinvigorated a return to true historic Premillennialism that had been dormant since the second-century days of Ireneaus. Yet, while it was an improvement, the entire system was still built upon an entirely flawed premise.
A PLANK IN THE EYE CALLED FUTURISM
We are all products of the world to which we were born. Modern Premillennialism is no different. It was born into a world of German higher critical thinking, the rise of secularism and theological liberalism, and a gamut of academic disciplines seeking to undermine the sanctity and sufficiency of Holy Scripture.
Few places in the Scriptures canon where these attacks were leveled more ferociously than onto the person and work of Jesus Christ. From accusations that He never existed and was a failed messianic upstart to Him being a false prophet who did not come back in the time frame that He had given, secularists were continually attacking the credibility of Jesus more ferociously than piranhas on a hambone. This was not a foolish strategy. If you can invalidate the author and perfecter of the Christian faith, if you can remove the cornerstone from the structure, then you can dismantle the entire structure of our faith.
Of all the places critical scholars aim the barrel of their criticisms most effectively, it was at Jesus' predictions contained within the Olivet Discourse. If they could show that Jesus was a false prophet, that what He predicted to happen had not come true, then they could dismiss Jesus as one of a legion of gods that were invented by mortal men. In doing that, they could live however they wanted without being held accountable to an absolute sovereign.
According to these scholars, the only possible way to understand Jesus in the Olivet Discourse is to see Him predicting His return. Jesus, according to them, made it more than abundantly clear when He thought He would return, which was in a single generation from the time of His death. Remember the context: Jesus had just cursed a fig tree that was typological for Jerusalem's downfall (Matthew 21:18-22). He had just told three parables about how the Kingdom of God would be taken away from the apostate Jewish leaders and given to a people who would bear the fruit for God, the Church (Matthew 21:28-32, 33-46; 22:1-14). Then He pronounced 7 successive covenant woes upon the city, telling them that all of the wrath God had been saving up since Cain killed Abel would be poured out onto that generation of false shepherds, the Jewish leadership (Matthew 23). As a result, their city would be set on fire (Matthew 22:7), and their house, the temple, would be left to them desolate and empty (Matthew 23:38). And after walking out of the city that morning, Jesus made Himself even more apparent by telling His disciples that not even one stone from that temple would be left upon another (Matthew 24:1-2). Instead, wars and rumors of wars would occur, false prophets would arise, famines, earthquakes, heightened persecutions, tribulations, and an abomination that caused the temple to be left desolate, all culminating in the dazzling return of Christ within a single generation (Matthew 24:29-41). Since liberal scholars can clearly understand from the context that Jesus intended to return in a single generation, and since they see no evidence that Jesus actually returned, they level the blasphemous charge that Jesus is a false prophet and, therefore, not God, but only man.
It was during this period, when pagan men were running roughshod over the text, believing that they had invalidated the Christian faith by dethroning the Christian Christ, Premillennialism was born. Out of the best intentions, this view attempted to craft an eschatological position that rescued Jesus from the attacks these liberal theologians were making. To do this, Premillennialism needed to reinterpret everything Jesus was saying. Instead of seeing the Olivet Discourse as happening in the past, they would need to find some reason for seeing it all occur in the future, which would invalidate the accusations being pummeled against Jesus.
Thus, instead of attempting to show how these events really happened within the time frame Jesus said that they would, Premillennialists argued that most of church history has misunderstood the time frame Jesus was giving. Instead of these predictions occurring during a single generation (Matthew 24:34) while the people who heard Him say these things were still living, Premillennialists began to argue that these events were never intended to happen in the past. In fact, they still have not happened yet and won't happen until the indeterminate future. What this means is that when the disciples asked Jesus what would be the sign of the downfall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jewish temple (Matthew 24:3), Premillennialists would have us believe that Jesus ignored His follower's questions and instead decided to talk about things that would not happen for another 2,000 plus years and had zero relevance to their lives. They would have us believe that all of the signs Jesus gave were for a future generation of people who would read this passage as a roadmap on how to walk through the great tribulation.
If that sounds like a thoroughly insane way to interpret this passage, then you are right. Not only would that overlook the disciples, their question, and the entire setting of Jerusalem's downfall, but it would also ignore all the evidence we could present to liberal theologians that proves Jesus' prophecy came true! There were wars and rumors of wars happening in the first century. And that was a much more critical sign back then since no wars were happening during the period known as the Peace of Rome, the Pax Romana. There were an astonishing number of earthquakes between AD 30 and AD 70. There was an empire-wide famine. There were false prophets. There was an uptick in persecution by the Jews. One by one, all of the signs Jesus gave to us in that chapter can be shown to have already happened, gloriously fulfilling everything Jesus said.
This is even true of the second coming when you understand what Jesus meant. He is not promising the end of human history coming where He raptures out the Church, as the Premillennialists suggest. He is promising a judgment coming against Jerusalem that was just like the days of Noah. Look at what Jesus says:
37 For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40 Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. - Matthew 24:37-41
Jesus is not arguing for an end of history coming. He is not arguing for a rapture of all the righteous Christians on earth. He is arguing for a cataclysmic judgment that looks like and smells like the judgment poured out on the generation alive during the preaching of Noah. Noah preached for them to repent, but they remained hardened in heart. As a result, all of the wicked were swept away in a devastating flood of God's wrath.
In the same way, because Jerusalem's leaders killed God's Son and refused to repent and turn to Him, they would be swept away by the torrent of God's fury. This happened when the floodwaters of the Roman legions descended upon the city, drowning the rebels in their own blood, letting their dead bodies decompose in the heat of the sun (Matthew 24:28) until they set the city on fire and carried away its wealth in their boats. Do you see the Noahic themes?
Jesus is not talking about a rapture. He is talking about coming in judgment against Jerusalem! He is even using the same kind of language that the prophets used when God poured out judgment on pagan nations. God rode on the clouds in judgment against Nineveh (Nahum 1:3). The sun went dark when Babylon was destroyed (Isaiah 13:10). The moon would not give its light in the downfall of Egypt (Ezekiel 32:7). The heavens and the earth quaked in the prophecy of Joel (Joel 2:10), which describes the coming catastrophe on Jerusalem. These are apocalyptic images Jesus is using to show how Jerusalem is under the curse of God and will very soon be destroyed within a single generation. And guess what, it all happened! Far from these passages invalidating the prophecy of Christ or undermining His divinity, they overwhelmingly substantiate it and make it the single greatest fulfillment of prophecy ever given. Bar none.
And this proves the point. In order to rescue Biblical passages from a supposed societal skepticism, Premillennialism has removed them from a church-age fulfillment and punted them deep into the post-rapture future. Instead of doing the hard work to see what the original author intended to communicate to the original audience, many Premillennialists assume an automatic future fulfillment, with little to no exegetical warrant for doing so.
For instance, when Isaiah said, "Unto us, a child is born," the Premillennialists will say, "That is about the birth of Christ." And they would be right. But in the same verse, when it says His Kingdom and the spread of His government, and peace will know no end, they say: "Well, that part won't happen until the millennial Kingdom." My question is, how in the world do they think that is what Isaiah meant? Isaiah said the King would be born and begin a Kingdom. Not that He would be born, take a 2000-year siesta, and then start a kingdom. That is ludicrous.
Here is another example. When Daniel foresees the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven (Daniel 7), Premillennialists assume that this is speaking about the second coming of Christ, where He makes war with the Antichrist and abolishes all rebellion on the earth, inaugurating His millennial Kingdom in bold form. But this is so clearly not what Daniel is speaking about that it is hard to take such a silly viewpoint seriously. Daniel says the Son of Man goes UP to the Ancient of Days. He does not come down.
Further, Jesus Himself said that He was the Son of Man, He was the one who would ascend up to the ancient of days on the clouds, and that the wicked high priest Caiphas would be an eyewitness (Matthew 26:24). For Caiaphas to be an eyewitness, this event cannot be in our distant future. It happened just a few days after Jesus was raised from the dead, meaning that this passage from Daniel has already been fulfilled by the working of Jesus Christ. And since Daniel says that this is when the Son of Man will receive His Kingdom, coming into His glory, stepping into the beginning of His worldwide expansion of dominion, we should not see that as a future "millennial kingdom" event but as something that has already begun and that we are currently living in.
I can give plenty more examples, but it is clear that Premillennialists have adopted a hermeneutic of futurism. Instead of asking what this meant to the original audience, they asked what it "means to me." This has fueled endless speculation and newspaper exegesis and settled into the Church like whooping cough, strangling Jesus' Church of vigor and life.
HOW PREMILLENNIALISM PRODUCES PUTRID PESSIMISM
While offering a better view of eschatology than Dispensationalism, the doctrine of Premillennialism will inadvertently cast a shadow over Christian life and mission. As understood in the Historic Premillennial framework, this anticipation for a post-rapture advent will contribute to a sense of defeatism among believers. It will produce a culture of negativity that looks to the evil in the world instead of faithfulness to Christ. I will cause a generation of churchgoers to wait passively, with their hands in their pockets, on a rapture that isn't coming instead of actively engaging in churches, working to see all of Christ permeate their homes, and building the Kingdom in our generation so that we can joyfully hand the tools off to the next. In what follows, I will briefly describe why Premillennialism produces such rank pessimism.
REASON 1: A DEFEATIST ATTITUDE
A key concern in Premillennialism is fostering a defeatist attitude, which is far from a Biblical virtue. Instead of adopting a Biblical posture of hope, courage, or longsuffering, this outlook leads to sinful attitudes and motivations. Romans 8:37 states, 'In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.' This verse emphasizes victory through faith, not demoralizing defeatism. By emphasizing the ever-worsening of the world until Christ's return, believers begin to think their efforts in society are hopelessly futile. This mindset does not produce godliness, vigor, and a "can-do" spirit among Jesus' servants. Instead, it leads to pessimism and a passive acceptance of the world's decline, merely expecting the certainty that the worldwide ship is sinking, which is excellent news because it will expedite the Lord's imminent return. This anti-Christian mentality undercuts the Christian imperative to disciple the nations and spread the Lord's Gospel!
REASON 2: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DEFEATISM:
Similarly, Premillennialism paints a picture of a world inevitably spiraling towards disaster, which appeals to the carnality of men living in this country. Instead of feel-good stories, positive news, or even entertainment focused on building things, news organizations pump defeat, death, and disaster into our homes on a minute-by-minute basis. So many of our movies are about the world coming to an explosive end. Whether it is an asteroid killing everyone, AI taking over everyone or a cyber attack on our grid, this society is addicted to digital death and destruction that is made ubiquitous through the ever-growing web called the internet. It has been the expectation we all live under. Sadly, Premillennialism appeals to this kind of carnality in fallen men and in ignorant Christians. Instead of appealing to the virtues or the fruits of the Spirit, Premillennialism presents a constant barrage of future chaos and moral decay, leading Christians into an addiction to abject despair, fixated more fervently on which prediction has come true this week instead of obeying what Christ has said.
REASON 3: CHURCH'S ROLE IN AN INTERIM AGE:
Premillennialism also casts the current age as entirely unimportant, contradicting the Biblical call to active stewardship within the world (Genesis 1:28). Instead of taking dominion, being fruitful, multiplying families, and subduing things to the glory of God, Premillennialism produces a piss poor mindset that expects the Church that Jesus blessed to lose. No matter what we do, it will all crash and burn anyway, which would be a horrible locker room pep talk. Can you imagine a coach coming into the locker room saying: "Boys, do not be deceived. We cannot win out there. You may try as hard as you can, but at the end of the game, you are going to lose." What do you think that team will do if they believe that coach's message? They will slack off, lazily go through the motions, and get their rear ends handed to them. Then, they will walk away saying, yeah, the coach told us this would happen! That is precisely the kind of outcome Premillennialism is producing. An age of people who expect to lose. Praise God that history tells a different story, which means God is not beholden to our sinful, pessimistic attitudes. He will have the victory!
REASON 4: A PASSIVE CHURCH WAITING FOR REDEMPTION:
Premillennialism, by placing the inauguration of Christ's Kingdom in the future, encourages the Church to keep circling the runway in a perpetual holding pattern until Jesus returns. This has led to all kinds of ecclesial passivity where the Church's mission is not something we do today but rather an appeal for divine intervention. As mentioned above, it is like a child waiting for the parent to clean the room for them. Jesus did not commission us to such a petulant posture.
REASON 5: MISSIONARY WORK IN THE SHADOW OF THE MILLENNIUM:
One of the most critical teachings Jesus gave to His Church, the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20), is the commitment to missionary work, the spreading of the Gospel, and the making of disciples. This directive does not convey an immediate or imminent end but emphasizes a long-term, ongoing, sustained effort to reach all the nations. This task implies both time and rigorous dedication.
However, under the shadow of premillennial Mirkwood, emphasizing a rapidly deteriorating world and an imminent return of Christ, the modern Church can perceive this commitment as less urgent or entirely futile. No one invests time, energy, and resources into a sinking ship.
On the other hand, examples like the missionary efforts of William Carey, often hailed as the father of modern missions, demonstrate the foolishness of the premillennial view. Carey worked in India for over four decades amidst significant challenges without seeing any substantial results. Yet, his lifelong commitment laid the foundation for a significant Christian presence in India in the years following his death. This longer-term horizon for missions and discipleship is essential for the Church. And, like Jesus and the earliest apostles, the world can be turned upside down again when we faithfully do the work Jesus called us to do, consistently and joyfully over multiple decades.
REASON 6: THE PARALYSIS OF IMMINENT EXPECTATION:
Premillennialism, which holds that Christ's return is imminent and could happen at any moment, also causes tremendous problems in the individual Christians and churches. While this urgency can encourage a state of ongoing readiness and spiritual alertness, which Christ certainly speaks about, it can also lead to spiritual paralysis. The intense focus on awaiting Christ's return might shift attention away from engaging with the present world, creating a Christian more focused on waiting than doing. Remember, it was the one who buried his master's coin and waited for him to return who was beaten for his disobedience and stupidity. And, it was the ones who were found joyfully and diligently working when the master returned who were rewarded for their labors.
REASSESSING OUR FRAMEWORK:
While Premillennialism provides a framework for understanding the end times, it is not a very good one. In fact, it is a thoroughly wretched one that is miles away from being Biblical. You could drink a gallon of windshield washer fluid, but that is certainly not advisable, nor will it quench your thirst. In the same way, holding to a premillennial view of the end times is certainly your prerogative. Still, it will undermine Biblical attitudes and Biblical behavior and will lead to passivity, inactivity, and other blatant sins.
As mentioned before, whenever a person becomes captivated with missions, discipleship, and seeing the Lord's Kingdom grow and spread on earth, it rarely can be attributed to a premillennial worldview. In cases where premillennialists do these robustly Biblical things, they oppose their worldview. That is why I cannot present this viewpoint as a viable Biblical view. From my research and assessment, it is clear where it belongs, which is in the dumpster fire it has created.
Instead of adopting such an odious viewpoint that so clearly stifles Christian engagement in the world, slows missions and discipleship to a halt, does not promote Christian faithfulness to the commands of Christ, and produces a sour disposition (instead of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.) it is evident and necessary for us to reevaluate our eschatological position, which we will be doing in the weeks ahead.
CONCLUSION
Brothers and sisters, as we conclude today's journey through the winding paths of eschatological defeatism, let us pause and reflect. We've put on the waders, squished our way through the ugly swamp water of premillennial pessimism, and seen its potential to dampen our zeal for Christ and hinder the mission He called us to. And while that kind of mud and muck hold countless Christians paralyzed and in a morbid stupor, I do not want us to end that way. I want us to lift up our eyes to the savior, which is where our help comes from!
I want us to remember, dear Christian, that we are not a people of despair and defeat. We are a people of hope! Our Lord Jesus Christ, seated at the Father's right hand, is reining now. He is not on a hammock soaking up the vacay rays… He reigns supreme over all creation, He will restore all creation, and He will not wait until the church crashes and burns to begin the clean-up project. He has given you and me the mop. He has called us to be active participants in His redemption story. Because of this, let us embrace this with zeal and passion, casting aside the chains of fear and the biting immobility of defeat that Premillennialism has offered us, and let us be the kind of people whom Jesus will find working. Working in our homes. Working in our marriages. Building in our churches. Engaging sinful culture. Let us never be ostriches that hide our heads in the sand. Let us be young lions that boldly and courageously declare the Gospel of our triumphant Lord. Let us be found working!
In the coming weeks, we will examine a Biblical case for postmillennialism, a perspective that does not paint a picture of doom and gloom but one of triumph and glory. A view that aligns with Christ's Great Commission is consistent with the Biblical Scriptures and urges us to go forth boldly, to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that He has commanded us, and trusting that He is with us always as we labor (Matthew 28:19-20).
We will explore how this perspective empowers us to be salt and light in a world that so desperately needs the preservative truth of Christ and the illumination of His grace. We will look at how it encourages us to invest in long-term missions, remembering that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). And we will see how we are called to be builders of His Kingdom (Matthew 16:18), cultivators of His garden on earth (Genesis 2:15), until He comes again in glory (1 Corinthians 15).
As we end today's episode, let us rise from the latrine of defeatism and wear the kingly mantle of godly hope. Let us be the generation that sees the Church cease from its retreating, invigorated to begin advancing, and able to see the gates of hell falling down at our Gospel-shod feet. Let us bring the Good News of Jesus Christ, heralding His Kingdom that is ever-growing, ever-reaching, and ever-transforming to a world that is ever-dying and ever in need of the life that only Christ can provide.
As you go into this week, carry with you this hope. Ponder the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 15:13, who said, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." Let this hope be your strength, your guide, and your motivation.
Join us next week as we evaluate one more deficient view of eschatology before we examine the Biblical view, called postmillennialism. Until then, thank you for tuning in to the Prodcast. May God bless you, keep you, and lead you until we see each other again.
