The Premillennial View of Eschatology (Part 2)
This article is one in a series of messages preached by Forrest Keener, during the Sunday evening services, at Bethel Baptist Church in 1985, and transcribed for use in the Baptist Watchman. The essence of purpose, in preparing and delivering this series of messages, is not eschatological, but rather to seek an overall biblical view of the vast doctrine of the kingdom of God as it is revealed in the New Testament. It is my hope and expectation that eschatology will then fall into place rather easily. It is my prayer that God will bless this brief work to the edification of His people, wherever it may reach.
Open you Bibles tonight to Romans chapter 11, and
to II Thessalonians, chapter 2. In the eleventh chapter of Romans, I want to
read three verses which are among the verses we read last Sunday night. Then I
want to draw your attention to three verses in II Thessalonians. Romans 11:27:
"For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance."
And then II Thessalonians, chapter 2 and verse 1, and we will read down to verse 3:
"Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;"
The texts that I have read tonight–especially the second–is not to prove the premillennial theory, but it is to emphasize some problems that premillennialists face today. These are not problems with the Bible, but problems with their own conduct, to which this particular verse of scripture very definitely applies.
Now, I am continuing my series on The Mysteries of the Kingdom; this is message number 22, and I am speaking tonight on the premillennial view of eschatology, especially the premillennial view of the second coming of Christ. This is a continuation of what I began last week. I started last week on the subject and was not able to even come close to completing what I had hoped in my outlines. So tonight I am going to deal with the other side of the issue, that is, some problems that are faced by Premillennialism.
Last week I spoke on the doctrines that are peculiar to and absolutely necessary to Premillennialism. By that I mean doctrines that all Premillennialists necessarily hold, and doctrines without which you could not have Premillennialism. I mentioned that I touched only four of those and they were as follows: The constant imminence of Christ's return, The restoration of national Israel to their land, A literal thousand-year reign upon the earth, and a two-part resurrection, as opposed to a general resurrection. Now, it may well be argued, both by some postmillennialists and some amillennialists that they could, or do, hold to one or two of these particular doctrines that I have mentioned.
But if you expand upon those doctrines, so that you have anything of major consequence to do with the implications that naturally flow out of them, it will necessitate a very strong variation on their part. For instance, a postmillennialist may say, I believe in the thousand-year-reign (and they do), but it would not be a literal thousand-year-reign such as we are looking forward to, as Premillennialists. It would be very different. They would change the nature of the thousand years as such, and we could go on with the variations that would have to be noted.
I have pointed out that Premillennialism stands sure, so long as any one of these basic doctrines or concepts stands unrefuted. In other words, if you can prove any one of those four–let me say again, The constant imminence of the Lord's return; the restoration of national Israel to their land; a literal, earthly thousand-year-reign; and a two-part as opposed to a general resurrection–prove any of those unquestionably and you will ultimately have to be a premillennialist. If you believe them you will have to be a premillennialist. As long as one of them stand, Premillennialism necessarily stands.
Tonight I want to 'turn the coin over,' so to speak, and I want us to consider some of the problems that Premillennialism faces. Not in that they have a difficulty with the Bible as far as I am concerned, but I do think they have some difficulties in the way that they have used the Bible, and in some cases in having not used it.
I. The Natural Human Tendency to Doubt Whatever Tarries
The first problem that I want to mention, is the natural human tendency to doubt anything that we have to wait on very long. The premillennialist invariably declares the imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I frankly do not know of anything that would cause the natural man to doubt the imminent return of Christ and the premillennial philosophy any more than the length of time that we have waited for the return of Christ. Now you say, Preacher, are you saying that all of the men who do not believe the premillennial theory are natural men as opposed to being spiritual men? No, that is not what I am saying.
But I am saying that everyone of us, whatever our scheme of eschatology is, still has enough of the natural man hanging on to us, that we will invariably relate to some of those natural tendencies. The classic illustration of this is in the book of II Peter, chapter 3, verses 3 through 10, where Peter said concerning the scoffers of his day, that they say, "Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were." Now Peter said, "For in this they are willingly ignorant," and I would say the same thing to anybody who says that today–but there is a sense in which all of us are bent in that direction. The fact of the matter is this: Anything what we have to wait for very long, we become rather skeptical concerning it.
When you study the parable of the tares among the wheat in the New Testament, when you study the parables of the ten virgins, and many of the other parables, you see a very common tendency brought out quite clearly, and that is the tendency to doubt that, or to question that, which does not happen immediately. You remember one of the things that the Pharisees questioned about the Lord, was why He was not bringing about the Kingdom as they expected. He was not going to do things the way that they expected that He would, but that was not the great issue there. Their impatience for their expectation was the issue. So whether or not we look at the return of Christ...viewing it as salvation, or viewing it as judgment, we definitely know that we have to see it as having lingered. The promise has been there a long time.
The Apostle Paul said to the disciples of his day and time that they were looking for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were expecting, they were anticipating the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. If they were, they were unquestionably Premillennialists. Did you know that? Listen to me, if there was a Christian anywhere in Paul's day that was in any way looking for the second coming of Christ in his lifetime or or anywhere close to it, he had to be a premillennialist. Surely you can figure that out, and it does not take very long. He had to be a premillennialist. There is no way that you could get a millennium into that time frame in any reasonable sense, and I do not see how an amillennialist could even claim the possibility of that. But that is not the point, I just threw that in there to be ornery.
Let me go on with my point: When we begin to see the time extension...in other words, we see something promised, and we think we understand how it is going to operate and it doesn't do that, and it doesn't do that, and it doesn't do that, and we wait, and we wait, and we wait, we begin to wonder: did we have it wrong? Were we mistaken about how this was going to come to pass? And I think this is one of the great seeds of Amillennialism and postmillennialism, so let's not feel that every man that felt that way, or feels that way, is a fool!
Do you remember John the Baptist? When the Lord Jesus Christ did not do things the way he thought he was going to do them, and as quickly as he thought, he sent of his disciples to the Lord and he said, Art thou he that was promised, or should we seek another? And so human nature is invariably running in that direction. Premillennialism, as a doctrinal concept, has that to contend with. This is not a biblical problem that they have, but it is a practical problem that we must fight against.
II. The Simplistic Drawn by Its Simplicity
Secondly, and this is not quite as nice: the simplistic who are drawn by the simplicity of this doctrine. Do you hear what I am saying to you? There is a difference in simplicity and being simplistic. But the fact of the matter is, that wherever you find simplicity, simplistic people will usually radiate to it. I am not trying to be insulting, but what I am saying is this, that when you begin to read your Bible, not as a scholar, but as a simple Joe Blow man on the street, you are basically going to be a premillennialist.
There are many, many very ignorant Premillennialists today. Now, this does not discredit the doctrine! Some people think it does. In other words, if you can find an ignorant premillennialist, by all means put all the attention you can on the ignoramus because that will tend to discredit the doctrine! But do you realize that this very same rationality, or rationalization, or rationale, was used concerning Christianity in the early days? 'They perceived that these were unlearned and ignorant men...' surely this thing called Christianity must not be real because these are base men that we see,–these are not men of high degree, these are not Pharisees, these are Galileans!
These are, so to speak, the scum of the earth! We certainly could not lower our religious integrity, and our standards of religious integrity, by embracing something like that! You see, it does not discredit the doctrine, even though the fact of the matter is, it has been rightly that way with Christianity. The very principle of Christianity is that. He praised God and he said, 'Thou hast hidden there things from the wise and the prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for it seemed good in thy sight.' Never discredit any kind of a biblical doctrine on the basis of the fact that it does not seem to be embraced by the intellectual, or conversely on the basis of the fact that it is embraced by many people who are very simple.
The truth of the scripture is not reserved for the scholar. Did you hear me? I have nothing against being a Bible student. I believe we ought to be Bible students. I believe we ought to search the scriptures. I believe we ought to desire and ought to strive to rightly divide the word of truth, but let me tell you something and you hear what I am saying, God wrote this book for His children, for His simple little children to sit down and read and to learn from. And when we assume that what the average, earnest, seeking Christian reading this book, would conclude merely by reading this book, is wrong because it is not garnished with scholarship, we are terribly wrong in our assumption. It is ridiculous for us to think like that.
Contrary to that, men seeking to be students sometimes tend to go away from the simple and to look for the complex. In other words, that verse of scripture seems so obviously to say that, any dumbhead reading that verse of scripture would understand that,–it must have some kind of a deeper, more complex meaning reserved for smart fellows like myself. You would be amazed how many people tend to think like that. God forbid that we think that way! It is out of order! If it sounds higher, we will seek it. If it sounds simple, down to earth, surely it is out of order. Now, because of the fact that the simplistic people have been drawn to this doctrine, many outlandish statements, foolish statements, ignorant statements, unbiblical statements, unfounded statements, unreasonable statements, even ungodly statements, have been made by people who believe in premillennialism, who always talk and seldom think! It is a fact...a sad fact, but it is a fact. But that does not make the doctrine untrue! Do you follow what I am talking about? Just the fact that someone disgraces a doctrine by stupidity, does not make the doctrine any less true, but what it does do is it makes you and I have to be more careful about how we present it. If not, we will align ourselves with and identify ourselves with those people who would take away from the doctrine.
III. The Prolific Scholarship of A-mils in Other Areas of Doctrine
A third problem that premillennialism has is the prolific scholarship of the amillennialists in other areas. I want you to understand what I am talking about. If we listen to a man and he speaks eloquently, biblically, exegetically, thoroughly and with obvious accuracy in many areas, and we hear him speak for a long, long time, we hear what he says and it seems to be right, and it seems to be good. He handles his Bible well, he uses his Bible profusely, we will begin to have great confidence in that man. And so when he come to us and tells us something that is new or different from that which we have heard before, we tend to say, I had better listen, I had better just back off and see what he has to say because since he is right in these other areas, he very possibly is right in this area also. Almost every pastor I know, including myself, has the book shelves in his study filled with basically good writers of amillennialists, but writings which are good in other doctrinal areas. Now, what am I talking about? Well, if you go up to my study, or to about any other pastor's study that I know anything about, you will find theology books by such men as Louis Berkhoff, Charles Hodge, and many other Bible students or theologians who have written good material down through the years, and these are going to be men who are basically Princeton theologians. By that I mean they are essentially Presbyterians. Not all Presbyterians hold to amillennialism, but essentially those men do. So when you begin to read after those men in areas of theology you are going to find them to be very thorough, and they are going to be accurate. They are going to be basically deep, they are going to delve into theological issues. I am talking about theology proper, those issues that deal with God, and the personality of God, and the triunity of God. They will be deep and they will be thorough, and they will be accurate most of the time, and they are going to be impressive! And when you move on to the area of soteriology you will find them accurate and very impressive. May I say this, that in areas of soteriology they are always incomplete and inconsistent. For even though they will essentially tell you that you are saved 100 percent by grace,–they sill also claim, and I think it is a contradiction that is so glaring, that you are brought into that grace by various means of grace, such as infant baptism, and things of that nature. This is very inconsistent, but the point is this: they are impressive in all those areas.
Conversely, there has been a tremendous neglect of premillennialists in our day and time,–that is premillennialists contemporary with those men and following–there has been a tremendous neglect to write, to study and to set down these truths in organized, systematic fashion to leave for our young men to read. If you want to read accurate Baptists in any great length you will have to go farther back, and you will be picking up men who write in rather difficult English. But as you look at comtemporaries of our day and our father's days you are going to find that Baptists have essentially been too negligent in this area. Therefore, when young men begin to read the Princeton theologians and those following them in areas of eschatology, there is no one standing nearby to discredit them. Do you see what I am talking about? I want to read something to you... I very seldom quote myself–I often repeat myself, but I seldom quote myself–but I want to do so for a purpose tonight. I want to read something that I wrote some years ago. This is taken from the Baptist Watchman, May of 1979, and it is a tape special called 'Grace, not Calvinism.' I want you to listen to something that is said here, and I want you to see how it has come to pass,–and I did not even get it from prophecy, I got it from looking, and seeing what was then beginning to happen:
"Because the doctrine of salvation by pure grace in any organized and consistent system is frequently tagged 'Calvinism' or associated with the same, I've tried to set forth in order these eight messages for the sake of what I hope is clarification of the issues before us. I have entitled the series 'Grace, not Calvinism.' The series contains eight messages: over seven hours of Bible exposition and preaching on the doctrines of grace. It is my earnest desire and prayer to God that they may be used to teach God's plan of salvation and exalt the God of our salvation as well as showing that 'whosoever will' may freely partake of that salvation. In order that this series may be available at the very lowest possible price, I have produced them in consecutive order on five 90-minute tapes without wasting the space at the end of the tapes."
Now, listen to this:
"Please, brethren, we live at a time when these issues have been so misunderstood and falsified, that they are almost totally neglected. Consequently, our young men who want answers from contemporary teachers must go to Presbyterian or Reformed theologians, who are most often universal-church men and amillennialists, to read or hear any objective exposition of the subject at all. Such things ought not to be. Some basically sound schools outlaw the study, teaching, and some even the discussion of these issues. Opinions arrived at by mere supposition and avoiding of a subject must always be either erroneous or at least held with bad conscience. Please seek to have and hold an objective Bible view of this subject..."
"...or we will soon lose the respect or our young preachers. I get letters every month to establish this."
This is a plea to my brethren, to contemporary preachers of my day to talk with their young preachers about the issues of pure grace. We have distributed hundreds of sets of these tapes,–I do not even know how many, but many, many. One church in California ordered 22 sets at one time. What I got in response to this plea, instead of agreement and support from my fellow independent Baptist preachers, was essentially anger that I suggested that the subject must be discussed. As a result we have young men all over the country today who have fallen and are falling prey to the Princeton theologians and their amillennialism, because independent Baptist preachers to some extent have carelessly but also bullheadly discredited themselves with their own young preachers. It is sad! It ought not be! Scholarship is never necessarily wisdom. Because these amillennial Princeton theologians can sound scholarly and can write both prolifically and carefully and accurately, does not mean they are right! But we will never prove they are not right unless we teach carefully and accurately. Innuendoes and wild, ignorant statements will not do the job. I know that having said that I am going to be accused of innuendoes and wild, ignorant statements. I know that, and I am expecting it, but it cannot be helped. I would simply say this, I would to God that we had in our day and time able writers for instance like John Gill, who are premillennialists...now someone may say, Oh, Brother Keener, John Gill was not a premillennialist! I beg your pardon! Though he embraced some terms and some terminologies and even some postmillennial philosophy that I would disagree with, and he held some eschatological views that are now obviously wrong, he was very definitely a premillennialist and a man who believed in a resurrection of the saved a thousand years before the resurrection of the unsaved, and a literal 1000-year reign of Christ upon this earth. A good writer. Again, I would not agree with everything he said, but a good writer. We do not have writers of that stature today. I never could be; I could not be in a million years because I do not have the education. I do not have the ability,–it is just not there. But there are men who do, and who will not take the time, who will not direct themselves and discipline themselves in that area. I have said before and I will say it again: there is a sense in which I resent having to do this work that I am trying to do on the Kingdom of God, because there is no doubt in my mind that there are men alive today who are infinitely better qualified that I, but they will not put out the tremendous amount of work that is necessary to do it. I believe that one of the problems that premillennialism faces today is the the scholarship, not the accuracy,–not the biblical foundation, but the scholarship of many of the amil writers. Let me say one more thing: the pendulum swings, if you know what I mean. If you go back to the late forties and the early fifties, there was a great resurgence of premillennialism in this country, and much fighting the postmillennialism, which was in the process of dying anyhow. But if you go back and read you will find there was great issue between them. Men were separating fellowship over this issue, and premillennialism became the order of the hour. Young preachers who took their Bibles and just began to read their Bibles were premillennialists, as they should be. There were men who put together good funds, and foundations, and institutions, and started book publishing companies, to promote premillennialism, and it was promoted. But do you think the amils are going to sit still for it? They are not! About the turn of the decade 1960 to 1970 the cat came back, so as to speak, and the book shelves began to be flooded with inexpensive and even free books, being distributed everywhere, by the amils to counteract what had been done by the pre-mils twenty years earlier. And so today we have in the ...what should I say...the unseasoned, gullible, the seeking young men an influence in the directin of amillennialism and/or reformed postmillennialism, which was exactly what we had around 1950 and following of the young men in the other area. So the pendulum swings, but the truth does not change.
IV. Inadvertent Slander by Careless Speculation
The last problem I want to talk about, that we have as Premillennialists, is a serious problem, and not to our credit at all, and it is this. It is inadvertent slander, not for the purpose of slander, but through careless speculation. I have said before, any ignorant dumbbell, that does not know one end of his Bible from the other, can put a large, full-page ad in the paper announcing a meeting out here at McMahon auditorium, or any where else from Carnegie Hall to a coon hunter's convention, and can announce the most far-fetched, ridiculous, unbiblical (so long as they are sensational) subjects upon which he is going to speak, and fill the place! Now I realized that the great majority of Premillennialists are not like that, but in some instances, in the process of trying to prove our point, or to create interest in our opinion, we radiate that. No enemy of any doctrine can do it as much harm as a careless friend.
Do you know what I am talking about? The greatest damage to any cause can always be most easily done from the inside. I mean, the Trojan-horse-theory always works better than battering down the walls, and the devil can work from the inside of the ranks of Premillennialism and do more damage than he will ever be able to do from the outside. During my ministerial lifetime I have heard enough speculation by men, who are premillennialist on the whole subject, to make it both suspect and repulsive to me.
In other words, if I were not studying my Bible–I do not mean studying books about the Bible– but if I were just sitting on the side line and listening to men preach and listening to the two sides present their issues, I have heard enough stupidity quoted by Premillennialists to make the whole subject repulsive to me. That is sad! They inadvertently slander the doctrine while claiming to–and I think trying–to promote it. Let me give you an illustration. This has not happened during my ministry, but during my lifetime. During the second world war we had two men who were acclaimed to be the antichrist very boldly and vocally by pre-eminent independent Baptists: Mussolini and Hitler. Both of them were very unquestionably proclaimed to be the antichrist. Now, in the last fifteen years I have heard some very strong, and read some very strong statements, that both Henry Kissinger and Khomeini probably were the antichrist. Isn't that sickening? And listen, that is just a couple or three out of dozens! Some men actually think they are commissioned to such speculation.
With that kind of stupidity floating around, is it amazing that a young preacher would say, Let me read another book that does not sound so stupid? It is not amazing to me at all, and he falls right into the scholarship trap! It happens over, and over, and over again. During my ministry, and I think within the last 10 years,–I know within the last 15 years– I have heard independent Baptist preachers proclaiming that the Lord Jesus Christ was going to come back in a specific month. Would you believe that some of them re-financed, sold property, and re-arranged property, on the basis of this claim that went out among independent Baptist preachers. Can you imagine the damage that this did to teenage boys in those churches who have since surrendered to the ministry and began to study.
Can you imagine the amount of discrediting that came upon Premillennialism by that kind of foolishness? I ask you tonight: do such things as that promote watchfulness and diligence and proper anticipation on the part of the average Christian sitting in the pew, or does it promote skepticism and religious folly? And I answer you: it will not promote proper watchfulness! When we have all of these 'dingbats' running all over the country crying, Wolf, wolf, and writing all kinds of little theories such as tales about 666 on somebody's credit card and all that kind of good garbage and pure hog slop, you cannot expect that young men are going to feel that there is a great credibility in Premillennialism, unless by God's grace they get it from their Bibles. God help us to realize that the devil is always going to be fighting truth.
In conclusion let me say this, that our only proper course is to lay aside the spurts and spits of the experts and open our Bibles, and try to digest our Bibles. Let me say to every member of this congregation and to every person who listens to this series of tapes: Do not build your eschatological views upon what Forrest Keener has to say! And don't build them upon what any amillennialist, or postmillennialist, or premillennialist, has to say,–digest your Bible! Study the kingdom of God from the perspective of your Bible, and if it makes a postmillennialist, or an amillennialist, or a pan-millennialist, or a premillennialist out of you,–so be it! Whatever the Bible will do to you, will be good for you. and I believe it will make a premillennialist out of every one that studies it. I do not, in any way, sanction all that he has done through the years, but so far as Bible preaching and teaching is concerned, a significant man of our day is Dr. Criswell, pastor of the First Baptist church of Dallas, Texas.
I do not approve of his union with the Southern Baptist Convention, or of the perpetual compromise that he has made with the Southern Baptist Convention through the years, but he is a tremendous teacher of the Word of God. Some years ago I read an article that Dr. Criswell had written on 'Why I am a Premillennialist,' and I am not even going to go into all of the reasons he gave, I am certainly not ever going to use his outline although there is nothing wrong with it, but I am trying to do this without reproducing and regurgitating other men's brains and books. I told you I would try to do that when I started, and I intend to do so. But I simply want to mention the introduction to his message. He said: Years ago, in my church, I began to preach through my Bible, simply expounding scripture as I came to it with nothing else.
And he said, As I began to deal with issues of the second coming of Christ, my contemporaries began to say to me, You sound like a premillennialist. Now, this was in a day and time when it was very unpopular to be a premillennialist among the upper echelon of Southern Baptist preachers. That was one of the big issues between Dr. J. Frank Norris and Dr. George W. Truett, and some of the men, some of the contemporaries in his day and time. They were postmillennialists and amillennialists. Most of those that were post went back to the a's. And so it was unpopular for Dr. Criswell to be a premillennialist.
And he said, I do not know what I am,–I have just been preaching what I came to as I came to it in my Bible. If that makes me a premillennialist, alright. Now, I think that is a good attitude! Whatever else he has done, I think that is a good attitude. And I believe in the depths of my heart and soul that any person who will seek not to be overly affected by men, Forrest Keener included, and will take their Bible and sit down and begin to read their Bible and say, What does this book have to say to me about the second coming of Christ, will be a premillennialist when he gets through. I believe that with all of my heart. Only if he will digest the Book and not mix it with too much garbage, either from Premillennialists or anti-premillennialist along the way, read the book, read the book.
Having said that, may I close by saying, The Lord is coming back! I am not going to tell you in this decade, in this generation, in this century. I am not going to tell you anything like that, because I do not know. I would be a fool to tell you because He told us that He was leaving us in the dark, not totally, but relatively, concerning that day and hour. We know something about the signs, but oh, they can be difficult. The point is this, that it could be any time. So far as I can tell from my Bible, He might come back today. Are you ready to meet Him? Is your house in order?
