Signs of the Times

I am in the midst of reading John MacArthur’s “The Truth War.” After having listened to two lectures from Dr. Riddlebarger’s series on eschatology and the Antichrist, the thought struck me: It appears that dispensationalists, in their haste to update their newspaper eschatologies to include the latest conjectures, have missed perhaps one of the most prominent signs of the end times: the widespread apostasy that threatens to engulf the church. If modernism is a disease, postmodernism is a cure that is worse than the disease itself, acting as a catalyst or accelerant to spread this apostasy to all corners of Christendom. No wonder Jesus remarked, “When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?”

I just wish that McLaren and his lapdogs would have the guts to quit calling themselves “Christians” or “followers of Christ.” The “Christ” they follow is one of their own imaginations, which is idolatry, a violation of the first and second commandments:

I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

But then again, the EMC’ers would no doubt argue that these are social constructs, and hence mere suggestions at best. I’m surprised McLaren hasn’t declared a five-year moratorium so he can figure out if the ten “suggestions” are really something that apply to the church as a whole, anyhow.

Speaking of suggestions, here’s mine:

Mr. McLaren, how about a five-year moratorium on your pretending to speak for Christianity? How about a five-year moratorium on opening your mouth and obfuscating what God has said in Scripture? (Honestly, you’d think that someone with degrees in English could express himself more lucidly than the tripe I read in Generous Orthodoxy and A New Kind of Christian.) How about a five-year moratorium on calling yourself “Christian/Christ-follower”?

You go cloister yourself somewhere and think about it. In the meanwhile, don’t call us – we’ll call you.