Apathy

 Apathy

By Richard P. Joseph

Well I did it again.  I visited a church in an attempt to find a church home but I don’t think it’s going to happen.  I haven’t been going to church for over 10 years because of my grave disappointment with faulty doctrine, weak and  liberal pastors, and the same ole dead sermons that get people nowhere.  The sermon today was on “Apathy”.  How apropo.  The pastor was making an attempt to encourage the small flock in the paths of hospitality and love in order to bring more souls to Christ.  Nothing wrong with that.  The only problem is that I have been hearing this same sermon since the 1980’s and nothing ever changes.  

The reason nothing ever changes is that the pastor is a victim of faulty theology.  He started out using 2 Peter 4:7 where Peter declares that he is living in the last days.

  

1 Peter 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.

 

He then used 1 Peter 4:8-10 to teach hospitality and love.  The funny part is that he actually said “and this was written 2,000 years ago” and then pushed the idea that we need to be ready because “we” are living in the last days!  I wonder if they ever stop and listen to what they just said.  If Peter was living in the last days and the New Testament is wroth with statements of imminency, then how are we in the last days?   How is 2,000 years something that is “at hand” or “about to occur”?  The answer is, it’s not.  And besides all this, everything Peter and Jesus said actually came true in AD 70.  The last days were the last days of Judaism, not the end of the earth.  This means that the second coming of Christ was accomplished during the first century, just as Jesus said it would be.  Christians have been gaslighted for so long now, it is small wonder why they are apathetic.  They sit in a pew from childhood to old age, hearing the same thing over and over and over again and still never catch on.  They never stop and ask “why doesn’t what I am told ever line up with scripture or history”   But forget the history, they don’t even know what happened to even ask about it.  I always stop and ask people “what happened in AD 70?” and I get a blank stare every time.  If you want to beat apathy then learn scripture and understand that Jesus Christ never lies.  He did indeed return in judgment in AD 70 and fulfilled all prophecies.  Once you understand that we are in the everlasting kingdom now, then we can speak out boldly about our faith.  We would no longer be sitting around waiting for the end of the world to happen.

We would be busy making our world a better place.  We would be applying biblical principles to everything in society. We would be spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ without shame.  But we would not be sitting around waiting for Jesus to return because that already happened 2,000 years ago just like Peter and all of the other New Testament writers said.  Go back and read it again and then read the history that goes with it and it will all of the sudden make sense.   All of these pastors really mean well but our seminaries have latched on to the Scofield doctrine and just can’t let it go.  Do your due diligence and reread the New Testament and study the Old Testament so that you know how to interpret what you are reading and pay attention to detail.  Then ask questions.