Mankind's New Beginning

One very important aspect of Biblical Truth that I have come to understand is that, the Truth of God's Word is always supportive of business that is done according to His principles and values.  However, the many erroneous assumptions and myths, that are popular in our current postmodern church, are indeed negative toward business and tend to stifle the efforts of honest Christian men and women to conduct their business according to God's principles and values.  The most egregious of these myths and assumptions are those that concern what has become commonly known as "The Great Tribulation," which a majority within the postmodern church believe is an event yet to come, and in the eyes of many it seems always to lurk just around the next corner in our human experience.  I.e. "the great tribulation is coming soon," "the rapture is coming soon," "Jesus is coming soon," "be ready to go at any moment," "don't be one of those ‘left behind,'" "don't get involved in things of the world, ‘business, politics or activist groups."

Such overriding tendencies in teaching and general opinions expressed among the members of the greater postmodern church, cause honest Christian business men and women to feel disenfranchised from the main body of believers.  True service to God is more often hailed to be a preacher, Sunday school teacher, music director or teacher in a bible school.  True service to God is, rarely if ever, presented as a career in business, politics or the sciences.  This uninformed and biblically incorrect attitude which prevails in a majority of the post modern church is very destructive, for the healthy ongoing development of the Kingdom of God!

There are many sources of excellence on this issue, with insight into how it has come about and the facts of all the biblical truth that set aside these myths and assumptions, with the clear and distinct revelation of God in His Word.

One of these very excellent sources, among many, is the commentaries and biblical research of David Chilton.  In addition to the one source I will present today there are four other works currently available in free Epublications; "Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulators," 1981, "Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion," 1985, "The Days of Vengeance: An exposition of the Book of Revelation," 1987, "Power in the Blood: A Christian Response to AIDS, 1987.  Our current example for today is from, "The Great Tribulation," also of 1987.

I will quote a portion of the publisher's preface for your examination.

Publisher's Preface by Gary North:

 "Mankind's New Beginning"

"It is one those oddities of recent intellectual history that perhaps the most succinct and perceptive comment on the Christian view of history is provided by a secular Jew law at Harvard University.  In the introduction to his book, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition, published by Harvard University Press in 1983, Harold J. Berman makes a crucial observation on the centrality of the resurrection in Christian historical thought.  He begins with an important insight into the Hebrew attitude toward historical time.

                ‘In contrast to the other Indo-European peoples, including the Greeks, who believed that time moved in ever recurring cycles, the Hebrew people conceived of time as continuous, irreversible, and historical, leading to ultimate redemption at the end.  They also believed, however, that time has periods within it.  It is not cyclical but may be interrupted or accelerated.  It develops.  The Old Testament is a story not merely of change but of development, of growth, of movement toward the messianic age-very uneven movement, to be sure, with much backsliding but nevertheless a movement toward.'

"Berman then goes on to explain how Christianity adopted this view of linear time, but added a key new element:

                ‘Christianity, however, added an important element to the Judaic concept of time: that of transformation of the old into the new.  The Hebrew Bible became the Old Testament, its meaning transformed by its fulfillment in the New Testament.  In the story of the Resurrection, death was transformed into a new beginning.  The times were not only accelerated but regenerated.  This introduced a new structure of history, in which there was a fundamental transformation of one age into another.  This transformation, it was believed, could only happen once:  the life, death, and resurrection of Christ was thought to be the only major interruption in the course of linear time from the creation of the world until it ends altogether (pp. 26-27)'

"The Great Tribulation shows that this transformation of the old order into Christ's new order was decisively manifested in the public termination of the old order:  the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple and its sacrificial system.  This was the shaking of the foundations in history.

"Modern Christians are almost totally unfamiliar with the events of A.D. 70.  The eschatological viewpoints that predict the great tribulation in the future led to neglect in popular Christian literature of the story of the fall of Jerusalem.  David Chilton has performed a major educational service to the church of Jesus Christ in reminding us what a momentous event the fall of Jerusalem was.  From the fall of Jerusalem until the future conversion of the Jews (Romans 11), which will inaugurate a period of unprecedented earthly blessings (vv. 12-15), nothing else comes close as a public manifestation of Christ's new order.

"What we need to understand is that Satan is a great imitator.  God defeated him at Calvary, but he still seeks to defeat Christians in their lives.  God imposed a great tribulation on the old order of the apostate Hebrews, but Satan imitates God by imposing holocausts on mankind through his followers.  Christ inaugurated a new world order, and so Satan's followers now promise to bring us a new world order.  The Marxists do, the Nazis did, and the New Age Movement does.  It is all a counterfeit.   Accept no substitutes!  Remember Christ's words:  ‘But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come unto you' (Matthew 12:28).  He cast out devils by the Spirit of God, so the kingdom of God had come to them.  It is now our inheritance as members of Christ's new nation, the church, for He told the Jews of His day: "The Kingdom of God shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matthew 21:43).  Christ's new world order has come, and the fall of Jerusalem is proof.  As Berman says of the resurrection:  ‘This introduced a new structure of history, in which there was a fundamental transformation of one age into another.  This transformation, it was believed, could only happen once:  the life, death, and resurrection of Christ was thought to be the only major interruption in the course of linear time from the creation of the world until it ends altogether.'  The worst is over! (Gary North)

For this FREE book: "The Great Tribulation" and the complete works of David Chilton you may go to: http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/sidefrm2.htm

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