Spirit Of The Times
Irony Of The Times
I just can't help but think about how terribly funny (and simultaneously sad) it is, that at the end of the year 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future.
Sound like another of my articles? This one is thanks to Gary DeMar (go figure). . .
At that time, "Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science, and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through the study of the pagan past.Islam was now expanding at the expense of Christendom. . .The Ottoman Turks, after snuffing out all that remained of the Byzantine Empire, had overrun most of Greece, Albania and Serbia; presently they would be hammering at the gates of Vienna."
That information was taken from Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1942), 3.
Anyway: the intent of this article is to point out that the prevailing attitude of the times was a pessimistic one, similar to the attitude of many Christians today, and yet...the end has STILL not come.
Think of the wasted hours many may have spent in anxious worry over the advance of the Turks, the spiritual state of the Empire, or the fact that the refigerator had yet to be invented.
What can we learn from all this?
4 comments:
"Misplaced optimism will hurt men, but pessimism will drive them to their knees."
Why am I so intruiged by these blogs of yours?
This is very good information, and I am sitting here wondering why I've never heard anything like it before.
http://www.preterist.org/whatispreterism.asp
Paste that into your browser WAGNERLOVER.
...
You've never heard of it before, because today's pseudo-theologians would rather you don't.
"Bible prophecy absolutely makes sense when approached from this past-fulfillment (preterist) perspective! It puts emphasis on the spiritual nature of God's Kingdom, not on the physical, materialistic, sensual, and sensational. It teaches a realized spiritual salvation in Christ and the Church now, instead of a frustrated hope for a postponed sensually-gratifying paradise way off in the future. It has an optimistic worldview that gets involved, makes a positive difference, and lights a candle, rather than cursing the darkness, longing for a rapture-escape, or retreating from society."
I like that.
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