Okay, in order to make proper sense of these videos you'll need to view them in the correct order. Watch them top to bottom.
The first video represents a whole raft of songs written and recorded in the spirit of Larry Norman's I Wish We'd All Been Ready, and a whole snarl of movies written and produced in the spirit of Thief in the Night. These songs and movies all assumed that the best way to get lost souls into God's kingdom was to scare them with thoughts of "The Rapture." Evidently plain declarations of the justice and mercy of God exhibited in the Cross of Jesus Christ and careful expositions of the Bible were not deemed sufficient means to win people to the LORD.
These songs and movies were so ubiquitous in the seventies that most Christians born before 1970 have some sort of "rapture horror story" of their own. My sister, Sylvia, has a real hum-dinger which we get to hear from time to time at family gatherings.
The second video gently pokes fun at the "scare'em saved" ethos of the first video. We don't get to hear the sermon that follows the song, but I sincerely hope it was an exposition of scripture that draws attention to the reality that the "cloud coming" in Daniel 7:13 (and therefore Matthew 24:30) was not to the earth, but rather to "the Ancient of Days" (i.e. to God in heaven.)
For the record, I love the brothers who wrote the rapture songs and produced the rapture movies, and truly admire their zeal whilst simultaneously contending that it was not "according to knowledge" (Romans 10:2).
2 comments:
Your blog topic is apt - "Last Day's madness"
I have come to realize, while attending Pat Robertson's University, that there is something about the "thief in the night" passage that applies very soberly to preterists and reformed Calvinists. We must live like every day is our last our last on earth whether it be last to minister to a neighbor, take out the garbage, or love on our wife. The reason, however, that we must live this way is not because we see Christ riding the lightning bolt from the east - but because our life is a vapor and Christ can bring us home any time. It always strikes me funny when people out here refer to their own personal "judgment" (coming before the throne of God) in terms of Christ's return. When really, they should be speaking of that "judgment" in terms of when Christ will take them home in death. Each day in our car we make a thousand decisions that could end our frail lives, and each night when we close our eyes we blindly put our whole faith in God that we will open them in the morning. To me, the sobering thing about the "thief in the night" verse is not that Christ could come at any minute, but rather that my time here could expire any minute. Now that is reason to repent.
- Jess R. Monnette
Hey Jess,
Amen.
Gene
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