About Christianity and the Christian Faith
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- The Gospel According to Mac? August 26, 2009
- Doing Missions When Dying is a Distinct Possibility August 3, 2009
- The Temptations of Theological Learning July 30, 2009
Mike is a former senior pastor and church planter in the Pacific Northwest, and served for three years as the executive producer of The Albert Mohler Program, a nationally syndicated radio show dedicated to Christianity and culture. Mike is a Ph.D. Candidate in American church history at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary writing his dissertation on radio and the American church during the period 1920 to 1950. Mike is husband to Julia and father to four wonderful children: Samuel (9), Anna (7), John (6) and Michael (1). When not reading, writing or editing, Mike loves sports, music and hanging out with his family.
[The following blog post by John Piper, republished here with permission, originally ran on Monday, March 9 at the Desiring God blog. You can see it here.]
The Bible says, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21).
David Wilkerson will cause a good many hearts to pound faster with his pronouncement that “AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN.” New Yorkers especially will swallow hard: “It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut.”
What shall we make of this? The part that depends on the Bible we should take with absolute seriousness. You don’t need to have special revelation to know that the rejection of Jesus Christ as Lord is the norm in America. Therefore, we stand under the judgment of God and it is only a matter of time till the present judgments (Romans 1:18-32) give way to spiritual awakening or punitive calamities (2 Thessalonians 1:6-8).
But the part of the prophecy that goes beyond what the Bible says, we measure by biblical standards. Two things give me pause in Wilkerson’s extra-biblical specifics.
First, it does not resonate with my spirit when he claims that God told him to “lay in store a thirty-day supply of non-perishable food, toiletries and other essentials” because when disaster comes “grocery stores are emptied in an hour.” God might have said this. But it doesn’t smell authentic to me. Too prudential. Too reminiscent of the embarrassing Y2K excesses.
Second, my confidence level drops when the Scriptures are not handled carefully. Wilkerson says, one way we can respond is: “As David says, ‘He fixed his eyes on the Lord on his throne in heaven—his eyes beholding, his eyelids testing the sons of men’” (Psalm 11:4).
This does not have the feel of authority to me because what Psalm 11:4 really says is: “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.”
So my take on this prophetic word is that the scare will probably do good for a lot of people. The Bible is a scary book. And the future that is coming on unbelievers is scary beyond anything any preacher could conjure up.
But my own effort to be discerning says: Stick with the Bible, David. It is scary enough. And it is absolutely true. And your credibility will never fall.
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Rom 3
"As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live." Eze 33:11
"Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Luke 13
The earth and sin will be destroyed by "the splendor of His coming" (2 Thes 2), but people need to hear about God's love, forgiveness, and His desire to have everyone in His kingdom.
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