I was just thinking how miserable it must be to go through life without faith.

I just got done letting my dog outside to do his business… and as he was standing on my lawn gazing back at me at the door, something overcame me. I thought deeply how I will miss him someday when he’s no longer standing there staring back at me.

But then I was comforted… because I believe that one day I’ll be able to play ball with him, run with him, give him tummy rubs, and he will be endlessly at my side… someday in eternity with my Lord.

What a comforting thought that even when he leaves me someday that my Lord will make it possible for us to be reunited. My best pal… my best friend. Forever.

How sad if I just thought that he would become dirt… and his soul and spirit would be lost forever along with mine.

– Brother Matt

My question for you today is, “Are you concerned enough about Christ’s return?”

I see so many people go through life that don’t give any thought at all to his return. They may even go to Church. They may even pray with their families. They may even think they are good Christians…

But they aren’t really concerned about where it’s all going to end up. And assume that what their pastor or priest is telling them is all they need to know.

Are you concerned enough?

And why should you be concerned?

Well the bottom line is, it’s your life that is at risk here. We are all on the globe called the Earth. And we are hurtling through space. And unless we know exactly how to live our lives, we may end up not only hurtling through space, but hurtling into the bowels of Hell!

You have to know how to live your life and what to believe. A big part of that is knowing where you are going to end up and the consequences of your actions. You learn that by diving into the Word of God and studying the topic of the End Times.

You must understand the purpose of our lives, what Christ did for us, and what he expects from us so that in the end we are in the right place, in the right state of mind, and have done the right things so that we may sit with him in his kingdom forever and ever…

The alternative you do not want to be part of.

If I told you that if you continued doing what you are doing today.. that certain action you think is trivial.. that you were going to die within the week. Would you pause? Would you rethink that action?

THAT is how important THIS is.

– Brother Matt

You probably don’t know this.. or maybe you do if you’ve been hanging around this site for a long time. But I have a Lutheran background. I was Baptized and Raised in the Lutheran Church.

A number of years ago the Lord took me on a journey.. I felt ‘called’. I came very close to pursuing the road of becoming a Pastor; I was an Elder in my Church for a while..

And my faith grew deeper and I felt called to bury myself in the Scriptures more so then in the past.

I was eventually drawn to one specific area of Scriptures - the Last Days - Prophecy - The End Times - Eschatology. And there was certainly a plethora of information on the Internet regarding it.. books everywhere about it! I read and read..

And I started this site to help me explore this area… I wanted to learn about others views (and what an educational journey it’s been!).

But the odd thing was even though I spent many years studying the Bible, going to Church every week, Bible Studies… even Bible Camp when I was younger. Much of what I was reading about the End Times was VERY foreign to me.

The Lutheran Church seemed to sort of skim over the entire subject. And that was where I left it for a while. I thought, well, they just don’t deal with the subject matter.

But then my eyes were opened one day! No, it turns out, that wasn’t the whole story; it wasn’t that the Lutheran Church was just not talking about it. The whole story is they believe in a shade of something called Amillennialism - a very different view from many that frequent this website.

Amillennialism is a widely held belief by many Christian denominations (more popular then many of you might immediately think). It’s popularity might surprise you because of the attention other lines of Doctrine (i.e., pre-millennialism) get through the media, movies and the many very popular books over the years - you’ve probably heard of the Left Behind books?

It is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church and is held by many Lutherans and others in the Reformed tradition.

For fun the other day I did a search through our End Times Forum.. now we have over 30,000 posts by members over the last couple years.

I did a search for Amillennialism or Amillennialist (it might have been talked about since I wrote this) and nothing came up. Nothing! Did I mention above it’s widely held? Lutherans? You’ve heard of them right? Catholics? Yep, I bet you’ve heard of them! Some of you reading this are even going to belong to one of those..

There isn’t much love for this view in our community..

I’m not going to go into great detail in this post (although expect me to talk more about this doctrine view in the future!).

Just a few high points..

The biggest difference that affects many things is that those that believe in this view do not believe that there will be a literal one thousand year reign of Christ on earth to come. Amillennialism: If you break the word itself down, ‘A’ is a prefix in Greek meaning not - no. So it literally means ‘no millennium’.

Actually that’s not really accurate though.. because they do believe in a millennial reign of Christ. The difference is it’s a spiritual reign through His church and not an earthly reign in the future. And we’re in it.

Have you read the Left Behind books? Do you spend every waking hour trying to connect current events to the Bible? What’s going on with Israel? How’s the U.S. fit in the Bible? Who’s the Anti-Christ? Are you waiting for the secret Rapture?

Well, if you are an Amillennialist.. you won’t be.

That’s why it’s all foreign to us (Lutherans, Catholics etc..) when we go outside what we are taught in the Church and by our Pastors. It’s taught as a very simple scenario. And many things in the Bible are not taken literally (another important difference)..

Take a look at this one person’s writing from a number of years ago.. still relevant today:

• Questioning Amillennialism

It’s a great, passionate, personal read… You can hear the frustration in her words!!

When you have a Church you love and people you trust indoctrinating you.. it’s a tough pill to swallow when you start to ask questions and you can’t get satisfactory answers.

Again, I’ll chat more about this because it is something that has and does influence me considerably. I just wanted to put it out there.. It’s never been discussed directly in the forum here.. and I think it deserves to be looked at and discussed.

-Brother Matt