An MSNBC host (Lawrence O’Donnell) caused a stir when he proclaimed:
“The Book of Revelation” is a work of fiction describing how a truly vicious God would bring about the end of the world. No half-smart religious person actually believes “The Book of Revelation.”
It appears the self-proclaimed socialist doesn’t believe in the Bible (his choice), so his opinion of Revelation isn’t surprising, and if that’s all it represented (his opinion), it wouldn’t be worth noting.
But as we’ve noted, a coming church division is nearly upon us, as it has become “mainstream” to substitute an alternative gospel, disbelieve the Bible, and ridicule anyone taking the Bible as the Word of God.
O’Donnel’s comments aren’t surprising to anyone hearing his rants. The important idea comes in comments about what he said, and reinforces the truth about the coming church division between progressive, liberal “Christians” and orthodox Bible-believing Christianity.
His belief that Revelations is fiction is his own belief but not the view of the majority of Christians. I believe Revelations teaches what will happen when the final judgement comes. It may or may not be metaphoric. None of us know the answer to that. The fact O’Donnell believes his view of the teachings of the Bible is the only answer is appauling.
Note the liberal response:
Only about ¹/₅ of this country’s Christians share your beliefs and a very, very small percentage of the world’s Christians share them. These beliefs are primarily American in nature and have only been around for about the last 200 years. I might add that I have many friends who are Bible professors at our local Baptist university (I go to church with them) … NONE of them share nor teach your beliefs.
… Further, most serious theologians believe that it was simply written about events which had ALREADY occurred and is not prophetical at all.
First off, this liberal poster commits several logical errors:
- Argument from majority — “Only ¹/₅ share your beliefs”. Of course, it doesn’t matter what “most” believe, only what is true (most believed the world was flat, for example, but that didn’t make it true).
- Argument from authority — “theologians”. Just because someone has a PhD doesn’t make their opinion automatically true.
- Ad Hominem — “most serious”. In other words, if you don’t believe what they say, you’re not “serious”.
All those are designed to change your opinion, without actually providing any real evidence. None of those deal with the issue — is it true?
The commenter only presents one real argument — the Book of Revelation was written about events which already occurred. This idea we can examine as a matter of fact, not opinion — it should be a simple matter to prove or disprove the only actual argument the commenter provided.
Scholarship: Has Revelation occurred already?
The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. (Revelation 8:7)
Hmmm. A third of trees and all the green grass was burned up? Don’t recall that happening, do you?
And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed (Revelation 8:9)
A third of sea-life, and a third of all ships gone? Must have missed the headlines. And of course, these famous verses:
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. (Revelation 13:16–18)
That hasn’t happened either.
A simple, casual reading of the text proves the error of the “serious theologians” theory of Revelation as a matter of fact. It’s not an opinion, it’s obvious these things haven’t occurred in history, so their bizarre ideas discredit them from any serious contention on the order of someone saying the sky is orange.
You’re free to accept or reject the Bible as you wish, but a “serious theologian” expecting you to believe Revelation already happened deserves as much credibility as a “serious mathematician” wanting you to believe 2+2=5. Sadly, those who fail to do their homework accept bizarre ideas like this, social justice, collective and/or universal salvation, replacement theology, and more heretical, against the Bible ideas.
Next week, we’ll discuss the danger of failing to take the Bible as it is, as we prove Jesus was a Reagan/Bush Republican, not a liberal social-justice Democrat — a common sense position nobody can Biblically disprove.