One of the best definitions of humility that I have ever heard comes from the pen of William Law. “Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less”, Law said.

Along the same lines, C.S. Lewis wrote: “Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call “humble” nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody… He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”

Law and Lewis are spot-on. As I’ve pointed out in this column before, a regular ingredient of pride is a sense of accomplishment. And so it is in fact impossible to pursue humility and find it, for the sense of accomplishment at the end of the journey will destroy it.

To understand this, we merely need to remind ourselves of Soren Kierkegaard’s legendary words: “God always creates out of nothing, which means that before he can use something he first reduces it to nothing.”

Theologians speak much of God’s ability to create “ex nihilo” (Latin for “out of nothing”), but Kierkegaard underlines the importance of “ad nihilo” (“towards nothing”, the etymological roots of our English word “annihilate).

Herein lies the secret to Christian humility: Only God can create out of nothing, and only God can reduce to nothing. Human beings can engineer the work of the cross no more than they can fabricate the resurrection. Both the letter of the law that kills and the Spirit that gives life come from God.

And so humility is not to be found by looking for it. Rather, it is the natural outcome of looking away from ourselves and to Jesus Christ.

Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out. John 12:31

One of the central themes of the Bible (many say it is the central theme) is the coming of God’s kingdom. Christians oftentimes appreciate the idea but fail to identify themselves fully with it. The reason is not hard to find: In the past few centuries monarchies worldwide have been replaced by republics. Hereditary rule is a foreign concept in democracies, and so the ancient idea of serving under a king from a royal bloodline has mostly become an alien one. Hence the widely held view that the British Monarchy is outdated and should be abolished.

But this does not mean that the message of the Bible should become diluted in our understanding. It simply means that we should grasp it at the level where we currently make sense of political liberation and rule.

The footage on our television screens this past week, of the celebrations in the streets of Tripoli, provides us with just such a glimpse. It represents the effect of very good news, namely that an evil and corrupt ruler has fallen and that a legitimate government is about to be set up. And so the people are rejoicing as a result of their liberation. It is a parable of the gospel, of the coming of a kingdom, which is why the joy is so infectious.

There is a danger, however. The scenes of Tripoli are not unlike those that greeted Jesus Christ as he entered Jerusalem riding a donkey. The Hebrew cry “Hosanna” is not a synonym for “Hallelujah”, as many believe, but means “please save” or “save now”, implying a fervent plea for national liberation from Roman domination. This was the expectation, and when Christ failed to provide it he was rejected as the Messiah. Within days the hosannas were replaced with another cry: “Crucify him!”

Jesus knew better. The evil dictator was not Caeser, but Satan – the “prince of this world.” And Christ’s liberation was not national, but universal.The streets of Jerusalem and Tripoli provides us with a picture, but that is all it is. A shadow, a type, signifying that which is to come.

But there’s another parable in there, one that that we dare not miss. People are celebrating victory because the evil regime is something of the past. In the words of the Bible, the house is being plundered because the strong man has been bound. We saw the plundering of Gadhafi’s mansions on CNN. The once mighty ruler has been disarmed and has now become a public spectacle, to use another line from the New Testament. Yet, in spite of all this, the shooting continues and good people are still dying. Is there a contradiction in there? Not at all. In the words of Revelation 12, the dragon has lost the war and has been cast out of heaven, yet he has a season on the run before his final destruction. This is his last opportunity to inflict as much damage as possible.

Examples of this interim phase between victory and final redemption abound. On April 24, 1945, Soviet armies surrounded Berlin. It was the beginning of the end of World War II. In the ensuing week German resistance collapsed and on the afternoon of 30 April the desperate Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. The war in Europe, for all practical purposes, was over.

However, in early May people were still being tortured and killed in many of the concentration camps. Some camps, like Auschwitz, had been liberated. Others, like Stutthof, were not. Knowing that their time was short, frantic Nazis organised mass exterminations of prisoners before becoming prisoners themselves. The war was over, but for tens of thousands of men, women and children the maltreatment continued exactly as it did before.

The last days of the concentration camps provide Christians with a powerful metaphor for understanding their pain and suffering in this world: Victory and final redemption are oftentimes separated by a gap, with victory becoming a theoretical reality before it becomes a practical one, a belief before it becomes an experience. In the concentration camps victory was no more than a rumour, and the only benefit thereof was the light of faith and hope that was ignited by believing it.

This is the way the Bible authors spoke of salvation. They realized that Christ had conquered the enemy and that his Kingdom had come, yet they knew that the full benefits of the victory would only be experienced at his visible return.

This is the current state of Libya, and so we are reminded that it is quite possible for a kingdom to have arrived without having been set up. This is also the current state of the church. We have arrived, yet we haven’t. No contradiction there.

To misunderstand this is to expose yourself to a sniper’s bullet. The various versions of triumphalism, currently doing the rounds in many churches, do exactly that. If you believe you should be perfectly healed, holy, prosperous and so on, you make yourself extremely vulnerable to a deep disillusionment that has absolutely nothing to do with God’s inability to deliver on his promises and everything with your misunderstanding of the lesson above.

Let us learn from the streets of Tripoli.

(This is an expanded version of two columns that have previously appeared in Bloemnews)

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11

End time hype, which received a huge boost in the early seventies with the publishing of Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, has been at an all time high since the release of authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ 16 novel Left Behind series. In spite of the fact that more than 35 million of Lindsey’s books and more than 63 million of the Left Behind books have been sold, not everyone is applauding.

A number of prominent theologians are pointing out that these books represent but one view of eschatology amongst several, and not necessarily the most satisfying or historically accepted one. They also argue that, due the particular sensationalist slant of this view (called the “literalist, premillennial, dispensational” view), it has translated extremely well into novel format and especially onto the big screen. Lindsey’s book was adapted into a 1979 movie (narrated by Orson Welles) and the Left Behind series into 3 action thriller films, with a fourth one being planned. Due to the commercial success of the books and films a questionable interpretation of the Bible’s teaching on the “end-times” have now become mainstream, the critics say.

Strain out those Gnats!

Needless to say, eschatological debates amongst Christian are at an all time high as a result of these developments. Premillennialists are arguing with amillennialists who are arguing with postmillennialists. Pre-trib rapturists have a problem with mid-trib rapturists who have a problem with post-trib rapturists, and all of them frown upon so-called “pre-wrath” rapturists. And so it goes on. In fact, the arguments are so severe in certain circles that believers are breaking fellowship with one another because of eschatological differences. A case in point is the compulsory resignation of Marvin Rosenthal from his position as director of the Friends of Israel organisation a few years ago. The reason? Rosenthal changed his views from believing that the rapture of the church is going to take place before the great tribulation to believing that it is going to take place before the period when God’s wrath is going to be poured out at the end of the tribulation.

One cannot help but wonder how on earth Christians got to a place of such pettiness. There was a time when comedian Emo Philips’ classic joke was just a joke (it was voted the funniest religious joke of all time), but now it would appear to have been more of a prophecy than a joke. For those who cannot remember:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What denomination?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.

The problem, it would appear, is the very one pointed out by Jesus in his rebuke of the Pharisees: “You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” Whilst the straining out of the gnat indeed seems like a time-wasting display of trivial-mindedness, the greater problem has to do with the swallowing of the camel. Put differently, the real tragedy is not that the devil manages to get us obsessed with nonessentials, but that he makes us lose focus of the essentials in the process. As Mark Twain quipped: “Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.”

Keeping the Main Issue the Main Issue

The main issue pertaining to the so-called “end times” has never been the timing of the rapture, the nature of the millennium or the nationality of the antichrist. No, the main issue is aptly stated in Jesus Christ’s own words at the opening of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24): “See that no one leads you astray.” This reference to a spiritual seduction and apostasy in the last days, and the reminder to be on the alert, are repeated a number of times in the New Testament, for instance 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 and 9-11 (quoted at the beginning); 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 3:1-5 and 4:3-4; Revelation 13:11-14 and, of course, in the rest of Matthew 24.

One does not need to be a scholar in theology to detect the single greatest characteristic of the coming great deception. In 2 Thessalonians 2 the apostle Paul tells us that the “apostasy” will be characterised by “power” and “signs and wonders”. In the so-called “Olivet Discourse” (Matthew 24) Jesus says that “false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (verse 24). In similar fashion the book of Revelation tells us that the “false prophet” will perform great signs and deceive those who dwell on earth” (Rev 13:13-14).

This is where the primary focus of any eschatological study should be. What makes this focus even more imperative is the fact that we live in a time of great natural calamities, economic uncertainty, war (with the constant threat or “rumours” of greater war), and, above all, global religious transformation. Not only do we see a great apostasy from the Christian faith all across Europe, but in the past few decades we have seen much of the Christian church undergoing a radical shift from a focus on God’s Word to an obsession with signs, wonders and personal experience that is often highly subjective and mystical. Supernatural phenomena in the church are on the rise, and especially angelic appearances are becoming more commonplace in certain Christian circles. If we find ourselves in the last days, what do these changes signify? Is the church coming closer to God and experiencing the foretaste of some latter day great revival, or are we in the process of being deceived?

(Excerpted from the article Angels & Demons that appeared in the Auksano magazine)