1029. Postmillennialism Mars the Co-Operation of the Holy Spirit

Postmillennialism Mars the Co-Operation of the Holy Spirit

"And if a man also strive for masteries yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully" (2Ti_2:5)

Does not every true minister seek for the co-operation of the Holy Spirit in his work? If so he must seek, in everything, to co-operate with the Spirit?

How can a minister expectantly pray for the Spirit to bless his message, when he stands in the pulpit and proclaims, "Peace," while the Spirit prophesies war?

When the Spirit says there shall be a falling away, that wicked men shall wax worse and worse, dare a man preach that men are waxing better and better?

When the Spirit calls this age, "this present evil age" how can one who seeks the Spirit's favor call it the age of enlightenment, and of good?

When the Holy Spirit gives command to preach the Gospel to every creature, with the objective of taking out of the nations a people for His name, how can a preacher urge that we are to take the world for Christ?

Before we can expect the Spirit to bless our ministry, we must obey His voice and preach the Gospel He bids us.

It really matters what we believe, and what we preach about the Second Coming. The two schools, the "pre" and the "post," are at variance about things vital both to the mission of the Church, and to its doctrine. Some postmillennialists may preach much good Gospel and stand true to the Cross and to grace, and therein they may experience the co-operation of the Holy Spirit.

Few postmillennialists ever, however, preach on the Second Coming at all. To say the least, they have left a great and a gracious part of their commanded testimony untold. As a result they often mistake the purport of the vital truths, which they do preach. They leave out of their message that, which, if proclaimed, would make their lives a new power for God, and their Bible a book full of new truths and blessedness. Really, the Second Coming is the key that unlocks dispensational truth and rightly divides the Word of Truth.

Let us explain more fully what we mean:

There are many preachers, who claim to be neither "post" nor "pre." This means that they profess to leave out of their ministry a great bulk of Scripture, and must therefore leave those who look to them for teaching wholly in the dark as to the Blessed Hope.

Such preachers must learn that even in preaching the Truth they know, and which is not prophetic, that their preaching is usually tainted with non-scriptural and God-dishonoring postmillennialism.

It is with difficulty that they can preach without the ideal of the "world-wide sweep of the Gospel in this age" creeping into their sermons. If they preach on the Cross, they would fain emphasize that the Gospel of the Cross must girdle the globe with salvation. If they preach on the Church, they can with difficulty refrain from calling it "the Kingdom." If they preach on the resurrection, they can scare withhold a few words concerning a supposed "general resurrection."

When the "post" insists that the world of men are fast evolving from the "infamy of the swine herd to the splendor of God" while the Spirit testifies that "iniquity shall abound" and "man shall wax worse and worse," where is the co-operation?

When the "post" urges that the Gospel will dominate commerce and regulate trade, and the Spirit urges the climax of commercialism in a time when "no man can buy or sell save he that has the mark of the beast" where is the co-operation?

To have fellowship with the Spirit we must obey the Spirit.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR