We MUST Tell Our Kids The Truth!
By Dan Delagrave

We Christian parents need to stop telling our kids lines like “when Jesus comes again…dadadadada”.  Why?  Because Jesus put the fulfillment of his Second Coming within the timeframe restriction of “this generation” (Matt.24:34, Mk.13:30, Lk.21:32).  That’s all the reason we need!

A Biblical generation was thought of in the same sense as a generation is thought of today - a lifespan period of time.  The word “this” in the English dictionary means “pertaining to the present”.  Jesus OBVIOUSLY meant the THEN-PRESENT generation of the Apostles when he said that all things, which included his Second Coming and the end of the age, would be fulfilled before “this generation” passed away.  It isn’t even debatable, to be quite frank with you.  In Lk.17:25, Jesus told the Disciples that he must first suffer many things and be “rejected (crucified) of this generation”.  We all know what generation crucified Jesus, and it wasn’t “the 1948 generation”, or any other modern invention!  We MUST remain consistent a few chapters later in Lk.21:32, where Jesus said that “all”, not some, would be fulfilled before “this generation” passed away.

So we need to start telling our kids THE TRUTH.

Pastors today are in a tough position.  They face LOSING THEIR JOB should they tell the truth.  This is unlike the first century, where pastors weren’t plugged into a clergy system that gave them a comfortable salary for preaching the truth.  This is why pastors today commonly AVOID teaching Bible prophecy.  In other words, rather than risk losing their job should they have a change of mind about their denomination’s official position on eschatology, they avoid the subject altogether.

Let’s face it, a typical pastor today who suddenly began teaching the Preterist view of eschatology would get OUSTED in short order.  It’s the nature of the beast (the conventional church system and denominationalism).  Many pastors are simply unwilling to give up a comfortable salary and good standing before the community in order to openly teach the truth.  So they “leave well enough alone”.  Come on, now.  Can we be just a little bit real here?

It has been said that the next reformation will concern eschatology.  That reformation, is, in fact, already underway.  As Thomas Ice, founder of  “the Pre-Trib Research Center” and perhaps the leading defender of Futurism today (particularly of the Premillennial, Dispensational sort), said, “The Preterist view is gaining widespread acceptance on all levels today.”  Folks, literally NOTHING that Hal Lindsey, self-proclaimed “father of the modern prophecy movement”, has taught or predicted in the last forty years have come true.  All the speculation surrounding the new millennium, such as the Y2K pandemonium, came to naught without as much as a “7-yr peace treaty”.  No rebuilt temple, no Russian invasion of Israel, no micro-chip mark of the beast, no one-world religion, no ten horns, and no world-wide dictator has come to fruition like the Premil authors said it would.  It’s all been a sad, moneymaking travesty due to wrong eschatology to begin with.

People want answers to all the failed hype and false predictions.  This has caused “a second reformation”.  Believers have gone “back to the Bible” for answers, where they have noticed a particular TIMEFRAME for the fulfillment of Bible prophecy, that being “this generation”.

We MUST tell our kids the truth if we are to keep this much needed reformation going strong for generations to come.

The “1948 generation” proved to be a false teaching.  Here we are almost 60 years removed from 1948 and still no Jesus on a big chair in Jerusalem, not to mention any of the aforementioned staples of Dispensational eschatology seeing fulfillment either.  The WRONG GENERATION was in mind all along.

Let’s talk about “the 1948 generation”.  That view of “this generation” is based on a wrong interpretation of the fig tree parable in Matt.24:32-33.  It is commonly taught that this parable is saying that when Israel, the fig tree, came to life again in 1948 then “the terminal generation” began.  What I want you to see, though, is the fact that, in LUKE’S VERSION of the parable, Jesus exhorted the Disciples to take note of not only the fig tree but “all the trees”.  While the fig tree in scripture did indeed denote Israel, we must be consistent here.  If the parable is saying that Israel will come to life again some day, then so must “all the trees”.  Were “all the trees”, or ALL THE NATIONS, born again as political states in 1948????  NO!!  The fact is, the parable is not speaking of modern Israel at all.  If it were, then we would have to see evidence that ALL the nations became new political states at that time too, that is, if consistency means anything at all.

Needless to say, “1948 generation” advocates prefer to cite MATTHEW’S VERSION of the fig tree parable, which only mentions the fig tree and not “all the trees”.

Those who cite the fig tree parable to support a Dispensational bent on Bible prophecy claim that, in the next verse, the stated timeframe restriction for its fulfillment - “this generation” - is “the generation that saw Israel come to life in 1948″.  Yet, that interpretation of “this generation” is not consistent with how Jesus used that very same term elsewhere.  We’ve already examined Lk.17:25, where Jesus referred to the generation that crucified him as “this generation”.  Another verse that demonstrates the then-present nature of “this generation” is Matt.23:36.  Jesus pronounced seven “woes” upon the hypocritical Pharisees of his time, and called them “the children of them which killed the prophets”. (v.31)  He said, “That upon you (the hypocritical Jews of his day) may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth.” (v.35).  Then he summed up his scathing pronouncement to the Pharisees by saying, “Verily I say UN to you, All these things shall come upon this generation.”  OBVIOUSLY, the term “this generation” in Matt.23:36 referred to the very ones Jesus was speaking to at that time!  Again, we MUST remain consistent when, just a few verses later in Matt.24:34, Jesus said virtually the same thing - “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”

The words “all these things” included the Lord’s Second Coming and the end of the age, in conjunction with the Temple’s destruction.  All three elements were what the Disciples asked Jesus about, and Jesus put the fulfillment of ALL THREE under one and the same time statement of “this generation”.  Therefore, we cannot separate by thousands of years the Lord’s Second Coming from the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, since all three things were prophesied to be fulfilled before the then-present generation had passed away.

Sadly, Futuristic eschatology, at best, puts the fulfillment of “some” things in the first century, while other things are to be fulfilled thousands of years removed from that time.  But what right does anyone have to change what Jesus said twice about in the space of ten verses, that is, the fact that “all” would be fulfilled before that generation had passed away?  The TRUTH is, we have no option but to simply accept what Jesus said and begin adjusting our understanding of all else accordingly.  Unfortunately, modern teachers keep adjusting the clear timeframe Jesus gave to accommodate false notions about the nature of the kingdom.  Church, that ought not to be!

Let’s face this too - NO MAN wants to get a crazy look from his kids, especially kids that are old enough to have already had a futuristic interpretation of the Second Coming of Christ ingrained into their minds.  But we have no choice short of not saying anything at all.  The result of not telling them the truth is IGNORANCE and all that curtails from it.  That includes a lot of silliness, unrealistic expectations, and, ultimately, disillusionment.

Telling our kids the Preteristic truth about Bible prophecy also equips them with a tremendous apologetic for the Christian faith.  The Sceptics constantly use “the non-return” against the deity of Jesus and the inspiration of the Bible.  Jesus didn’t return WHEN he said he would, therefore he was a false prophet and the Bible is uninspired, so the Sceptics say.  Telling our kids, the truth - that all was fulfilled within the first century parameters of “this generation” - gives them the only rock-solid refutation of the “non-return” accusation against Christianity.

We MUST tell our kids the truth.

as of 2-2007

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