Episode 89: Listener Emails and Seminary Experiences

Is Jesus merely a condiment on the burger of world religion?


In this Edition of Radical Grace Radio we go over some listener emails, and Pastor Greg LeSeiur Tells about his days at ELCA Seminary in Gettysburg... Where apparently he learned the Jesus is reduced to being a condiment on the burger of World Religion. Apparently other religions are just fine, but they are better if you add Jesus... We know, it's bad.
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Larry in KY Writes

Something Matt mentioned in the last was the first time Iâd heard
someone else really articulate it, someone whoâd been there once and
that is the spirit of antichrist wafting in the protestant church. I
use to tell my wife back during my struggles with âwas Christ really
for meâ, that dark, dark, dark time, âI believe more deception and
covering up of Christ occurs not so much overtly but under the guise of
âniceâ and smiles and from well meaning fellows and pastors. Not the
kind of guys youâd label, âthatâs my enemyâ.â Iâve told her, ââI think
weâve been tainted by dispensationalism and Hollywoodâwe think
antichrist and Pharisees are these âdark smoking back room hand
wringing plottersâ, or the church Lady on SNL a few years back.

But
Iâm beginning to think thatâs a fake or rouse to keep us from looking
at the real antichristic spirit of our age, even in the protestant
church. For the real Christ and him crucified cover uppersare not at all like that. In a sense that would be obvious and EASY
to avoidâlike a thief coming at you a mile away with his gun drawn. No
now days itâs sold to you under nice things and generally morals we all
want. Christ is covered up more there than anywhere so that either you
end up overly proud of yourself that you are doing it OR you end up in
despair thinking, âIâm lost for sureâ.â If youâve been in that you
know what that is like and its hard to uncover. In a sense a Hollywood
Pharisee would be refreshingly easy to refute!

You all have done a WONDERFUL job of reorienting what antichrist and
all involved is. It donned on me the other day listening that it makes
sense â the deception even of dispensationalism. If the devil can get
the church laity to be looking for the boogy man in some political
figure, he can then sneak in under the radar under morals and things
whether from Rome or within the protestant church itself in general and
REALLY cover up Christ. Because we can unite with Rome around a moral
issue but at the price of the Gospel itself.

Great, great, great work brothersâkeep it up you have no idea how much you feed us!


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Josh writes...

I heard the "water valve" illustration and find it to be compelling.
However, I feel that illustration still places a burden on the PERSON
and not on GOD because the person can close the valve. In working with
this illustration, we all close the valve all the time. So, how does
the valve stay open for some even when they try to close it and for
some it closes. If election is truly based solely on God, then he must
choose whose valve opens and whose valve closes at the end of their
life. I don't see how you can get around the fact that God elects for
salvation and selects some for condemnation. If condemnation is based
on something in us denying God's offer of salvation then, by default,
salvation is also based on the lack of that same thing IN US. I don't
believe you can have election for salvation from God without selection for condemnation by God as well.

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Jason writes...

I am listening to the program on "The United States of the Beast".
Didn't Luther, Calvin, and all the Reformers point to the dynasty of
the Popes as the beast of Revelation? It seems to fit to me. Maybe I
am getting ahead of myself because I didn't get to the end yet. Some
Lutherans sound really anti-Calvinist. Am I damned for being
Calvinist? If so let me know why before it's too late. I love
Lutherans no matter what they say. Martin Luther rocks. In Christ,
(unless Calvinists are damned)

Jason

Just heard the end. I agree with Luther. Luther rocks!

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The Term Antichrist

I have a Catholic neighbor who thinks Obama is the antichrist. I am not at all ready to go there.

Michael Horton, not the actor, but the author of the insightful Christless Christianity and Professor at Westminister Seminary California, was asked if Obama is the antichrist and he responded to the Washington Post (see Resources here):

I mean no offense, but this is the sort of teaching that many people are getting in extremely conservative churches where Christ is as evidently left out of the picture as in any rant by Jeremiah Wright. Judging by the enormous popularity of the Left Behind best-sellers, many Christians today are more fascinated by the Antichrist than by Christ. How many books on Christ's person and work top the New York Times Best-Seller List for months?According to First John, "many antichrists have gone out into the world" even during the time of the apostles, and John identifies them as those who distort the gospel concerning Christ. Even if one holds that there is still a future Antichrist figure who will consummate this line of false prophets, the New Testament teaches that he will take his throne in the temple-that is, in the communion of saints (the church). He will be a religious figure who uses the secular power of the state to persecute the saints. If we're keeping our eyes peeled for the Antichrist, we should keep our eyes fixed on Christ. If we really know who he is and what he has done in history for our redemption and what he will do when he returns, then we'll know his impostors when we see them. If we are witnessing something like "Christless Christianity" across the religious spectrum today, this is what the Bible calls "the spirit of antichrist." And if that's true, then whatever one's politics, don't look for the Antichrist in Washington, but in false religion.

A poll on a Reformed blog asks if the Roman papacy is the antichirst and that poll is running neck and neck yes and no. There are only four verses in the Bible with the term antichrist. But we don't know that there is one antichrist according to I John 2:18 where John says it is the end times since there are many antichrists. I John 2:22 and 2 John 7 say that antichrists are those who deny the Father and the Son. I John 4:3 and I John 2:18 say that the antichrist was already in John's world. These Scriptures seem to help a Postmil position.

Postmillennialist and Partial Preterist Dr. Kenneth Gentry reviews the passages in first and second John and concludes, "Antichrist is a contemporary heretical tendency regarding the person of Christ, which is current among many in John's day." p. 378 in He Shall Have Dominion, 3rd Ed. In the same book he also in a chapter on "Eschatological Characters" distinguishing the beast, the great harlot and the man of lawlessness. Gentry concludes his "Eschatological Characters" chapter by writing, "Several prominent evil characters lurk in Scripture's prophetic drama. Too often Christians know these names better than their biblical and historical contexts. . . . Adherents to pessimistic eschatologies see these evil minions of Satan as providing evidence against the postmillenial hope. . . .When we carefully study these characters in terms of their historical context, the prophecies concerning their imminent appearance comport well with preteristic postmillennialism." p. 394

Episode 88: The First Resurrection: Revelation 20:5

Have we partaken already of the first Resurrection?


In this edition of Radical Grace Radio, we talk about literalism applied to the Revelation of Jesus Christ, we look at how Jesus interprets his Revelation, and we get a chance to talk about the consequences of believing messed up versions of End Times Teachings and how it leads us to false Gospels.

Question of the week: Can you get a right faith from wrong doctrines? Email us at RadicalGrace@ live.com your take on this question.

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Episode 87: Sowing Hatred by Teaching Doctrine?

Does teaching right doctrine cause hatred?


In this edition of Radical Grace we take time to clarify the historic position that Lutherans have confessed concerning who or what the Anti Christ is. We talk about what our confessions say, and about how this same spirit of Anti Christ exists not just in Rome in the form of the Holy See, but also in Evangelicalism, obscuring the Gospel just as much as Rome does.

Also, a caller challenges us on this, stating that we shouldn't be sowing hatred in a time where religious hatred is rampant in the world.

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Episode 86: The Unites States of the Beast?

Daniel 9


This week on Radical Grace Pastor Greg LeSeiur joins us again, and this time we talk about another part of the book of Daniel, Chapter 7 and the four beasts. Also, Pastor Gary has a very disturbing idea of what the beast of Revelation is, plus we answer a listener named Daniel who asks the question we all ask from time to time... If I've fallen away from Christ, can I be restored to the kingdom, or am I lost eternally?

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Hyperpreterists and Transmillennialism

You would think we were done or at a standstill wrestling with our four main viewpoints (Historical Premillennial, Pretribulation Dispensational Premillennial, Amillennialism and Postmillennial Part-Preterism), but not so. Here is a view I definitely reject. Red flag it! I heard Roderick Edward on a podcast from Covenant Radio yesterday. Edwards is a former 15-year Hyperpreterist and warms against the movement, as does Dr. Gentry (see resources on this web site). Todd Dennis launched Hyperpreterism on the Internet in the 1990s, although it was started in Ohio in the 1970s. Edwards explains that Hyperreterism puts everything we have been discussing in the past--Christ's second coming, the resurrection and the judgment. It all happened in A.D.70 they say!

Roderick Edwards has also posted the following YouTube Presentation that explains the history of this system. There are several camps in the movement, including an emergent church trend with Virgil Vaduva.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e75KHVhQVA