Ok...So...Change of plans I guess 8)

Well...Looks like the Emmaus Road Ministerial Association didn't happen. However...I have embarked on a journey that has been absolutely incredible. The Preterist Broadcast Network has taken it's first step. We now have a dedicated preterist broadcast media outlet. We also now have a podcast archive that is growing by 13 podcasts per week. We are listed on itunes' radio page. #5 & 6 out of 152 streams. We are also listed in Itunes' podcast feed section under "preterist radio" or "ad70.."

Plans change...Praise God for His plans and timing and not ours. I couldn't have imagined this 6 months ago. Then again 6 months ago I didn't know that I wasn't going to be able to go back to my old career of turning wrenches full time. Something I miss.

Guess I don't have to wonder anymore why God planted me at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa's School of Ministry and radio ministry for 5 long years. I guess he wanted me to learn how to build and run a radio station...Among other things.

Well...Merry Christmas to everyone.

The Emmaus Road...

Sometime in the second half of 2009 I am hoping to embark on a project called The Emmaus Road Ministerial Association. The purpose of this ministerial association will be to offer services to those that hold to an understanding of fulfilled prophecy that may have caused them to find themselves alienated or unable to pursue certain avenues of ministry which require ordination and licensure.

My motivation for doing this is born out of my own frustration resulting from my transition from one theological paradigm to another. A transition that has left me unable to be ordained through the organization in which I worked for many years and from whom I received my degree in pastoral ministry.

I also want to be able as I am sure others do to be able to sign a statement of faith that doesn't require me to go directly against my conscience and what I believe, just for the sake of attaining ordination or licensure.

I chose the name Emmaus Road because of the story found in Luke 24:13-35. I feel as though my journey from futurism to preterism was very much like the time these two disciples spent with Jesus. I thought I had known the Bible relatively well but until a fulfilled view of eschatology had been revealed to me it was as if my eyes had been restrained just like these two on the road with Jesus. They were with Him...Yet they didn't know Him. And just like these two I wanted to tell everyone about what I had just discovered. Unfortunately for me as with most that hold to a fulfilled view of eschatology, our joy was not met with the same delight as the message the two on the road to Emmaus had.

The first step will be to start a church.

Your prayers are greatly appreciated as I begin my journey down this road.

Michael Loomis

Ok...I'm back...8)

Sometimes it's tough digging up old bones. That and going on 4 months disability with a recent prognosis of not being able to continue doing what I have been doing for the last 19 years is a lot to deal with. No more professional screwdriver and wrench turning for now. At least for now anyways...Who knows what a little physical therapy and acupuncture will do. 8)

Anyhow...Day 24 is on it's way...

Be blessed, Mike

Leave of Absence...

I think I need to take a little time off from this project. I guess in some sence I feel that I have somehow missed the point...

I'll get back to you shortly to finish this story...But until then...I'm going to be what I should be...

God Bless...

The Lake of Fire and the New Creation...Day 23

A few months before I had swallowed the red pill of preterism I had begun editing and producing a teaching program called "Reality," with Pastor Britt Merrick. For those surfers of you out there you might recognize his name. He is the son of Al Merrick, founder of Channel Island surfboards. Britt is the pastor and founder of a church located in Carpinteria California by the same name as his radio program...Reality. I thought that this was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Not only did I get to listen to some great teaching...But I was also getting paid to do it. 8)

Before Britt began his own church he was a youth pastor at a Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara. And so of course this meant that his teaching style pretty much lined up with Calvary Chapels distinctives. Which was great...Until I embraced a fulfilled view of eschatology. 8( And I must admit that it was kind of hard at first to sit and listen to hour after hour of teaching that I no longer agreed with. However...One of the unforeseen benefits of this was that it actually helped reinforce the fulfilled view that I was quickly learning about. Funny thing about this whole thing is that he spends a lot of time in his teaching proclaiming the typical pre-millenial futurist point of view. Matter of fact the most popular of his teachings was his end-times series. And here I was...A preterist...Producing one of the most popular programs airing on Calvary Chapel owned radio stations around the world. Helping promote a view that I felt was misleading. Eventually this would be one of the deciding factors as to my leaving the station.

O.k. So it had been about three weeks now since I had come to understand a fulfilled view of eschatology. I had just finished making my way through the New Testament, line upon line, verse by verse and I had some more questions. The one that I chose to address first was found in Revelation 22. It was the freshest of all seeing as how I had just finished reading the book. From the futurist perspective, Revelation 22 describes the conditions of a time in the future after Jesus returns, after the great white throne judgment takes place and after sin and death are destroyed and creation is remade anew. Basically a new creation in which righteousness dwells and sin and death has been eradicated. Yet I couldn't reconcile this with what I was seeing in Revelation 22.

Revelation 22:1-3 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him.

And so I thought...Wait a minute. If the curse had been reversed and sin had been dealt with why was there still any need for "healing of the nations?"

The next problem I encountered was just a few verses later. Verses 14-15.

Revelation 22:14-15 Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.

If this passage is to be understood quite literally we then have a major problem. You see...This passage is describing the New Jerusalem that is part of the new creation that takes place after the judgment in which sin, death and the devil have been eradicated and yet there are still, "dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie," outside the gates of the New Jerusalem.

And so I approached one of the pastors on staff that was teaching in our school of ministry with this conundrum of sorts. I first asked him about these leaves that were for the healing of the nations found in Revelation 22:2. He said, "I think it is better understood as they are for continual health rather than actual healing...You see, at this point they are in the new creation. There is no more sin therefore it can't be understood in a wooden literal sense."

I then asked him who these people were that are outside the city. His answer was that this was a picture of the eternal state of those that had died the second death. That is, those that had not accepted Christ before the last day. He pointed me back just one chapter to Revelation 21:8 "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

I said, "Wait a minute...If Revelation 22 is painting a picture of the eternal state beyond the great white throne judgment and the second death then how is it these people are still alive outside the gates the New Jerusalem?"

And he said, "Well you see...If being inside the New Jerusalem is the destination of those that believed then outside the gates would be the abode of those that didn't believe...The lake of fire."

And then I responded with Revelation 22:14 "Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city."

And then I said, "And who is outside the gates?"

He smiled and said, "Well...We need to be careful to not press the analogy too far." Or something to that effect. He smiled, turned and briskly walked away. Sigh...<---Long drawn out sigh. 8) It was passages like these that couldn't be satisfactorily answered within a futurist framework of interpretation that would eventually drive the final nail in the coffin of the "Left Behind" theology that I had been holding to so tightly.

What do you mean there's no Santa??? Day 22

So...After a couple of weeks of going through the New Testament line by line with my IPod in one hand and colored pencils in the other it had become quite clear to me that I was never going to be able to look at the Bible again like I once used to. Even to this day when I come across someone in an online forum, discussion group or even in person that tell me that I am wrong and that I need to repent of my ways, I can't in good conscience do so. The only thing that I can think of that is equivalent is believing in Santa Claus. You see...When I was in kindergarten there was this boy by the name of Joey Willis. He was the rebellious one of the bunch in my kindergarten class at Bethany Lutheran School. He was a little bit of a bully. A little bit loud if I remember correctly. He was the first person that introduced me to the proper use of the middle finger in getting the attention of the teacher. And to top it all off...He had a dirt bike. And so needless to say...He was the king of show-and-tell. Another thing about Joey Willis. He had this crazy notion that Santa Claus wasn't real. How crazy was that?

Well over the following couple of years other boys in the class had joined the band wagon and of course wanting to be part of the in crowd I of course chanted the same mantra. "Santa Claus wasn't real." But inside I knew that they were wrong. I mean for crying out loud, how could he not exist when there were presents from him under the tree and a stocking filled with joyous delight every year...right on time contrary to what they other boys had been saying. 8)

Then one fateful morning, in the late 70's, about a week or so before Christmas as I was getting ready for school I noticed this big pile of presents on the love seat that resided on the south wall of the living room of my parents house. And contrary to my mothers verbal warning from the kitchen as she was busy cooking breakfast not to dig to deeply, I dove in. Deep!!!

The reality of what Joey Willis had been preaching year after year every Christmas season flooded over me like a 55 gallon drum of warm honey. Suddenly a sick feeling welled up in the pit of my inner most being and a lump found it's way to my throat as I saw that Santa's presents had found their way to my house a week before they were supposed to...and in a sick twist of fate...Santa had the same penmanship as my mother. With a gift to me from my mother in my right hand and a gift from Santa in my left hand the reality that I had been denying had now become undeniable. MY MOTHER WAS JOLLY OLD SAINT NICK!!! 8)

And so it was with my understanding of Bible prophecy. I would never again be able to look at the Bible in the manner in which I had for many years. I was no longer reading something that was written to me as much as it was as though I were reading someone else's mail. Now I'm not by any means suggesting that the Bible is not written to us. Surely it is, just as I would suggest that it was written to all men of all time, ever since the time it was penned. However it was becoming ever more clear to me on a day by day basis through my studies, that I first needed to understand what it meant to those people of which it was first written to before I could apply it to myself.

And so the long and the short of it is that I had begun to see the last days spoken of in the Bible as fulfilled in the last days of Israel's old covenant age and that I could no longer go back to the end times understanding that I had once held.

Now...as I read passages like 1 Peter 4:7 "But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers."(NKJV)

and

1 John 2:18 "Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour."(NKJV)

I could no longer in good conscience see these things as speaking of something yet future to us some 2000 years after they were written. These apostles had been given the signs of the times by Jesus in Matthew 24 so that they could discern when then end spoken of by Jesus would take place. And by their own testimony they were convinced that "the end was at hand" and that it was "the last hour."

And now I was convinced as well...

Calvary Chapel Preterist...Day 21

And so it had at this point been about a week since I had come across the fulfilled view of Bible prophecy. And what an emotional week it had been. Especially because of the context in which I had discovered it. Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa was not the place to find an objective point of view on something outside of what they held as one of their distinctives. And so one morning as I was driving home from school something led me to stop by one off my old haunts...Parkcrest Christian Church in Long Beach and see my friend Mike Goldsworthy. At that time, if I remember correctly he was still the pastor of the high school ministry and he had this really cool little office in the back. Well...Come to think, the whole office facility at Parkcrest is pretty cool. You see...As the church was making plans to expand about 10 years ago a mortuary that was on the same piece of property was about to put the property up for sale but first offered it to Parkcrest. Needless to say they snatched it up like a 3rd baseman does a line drive. Not only did it have a ton of office space but it also had a sanctuary/chapel right out on the main thoroughfare compared to the main church building that was set back quite a ways. If you are ever in the Long Beach area I'd recommend stopping by and checking out one of their weekend services. <---Shameless plug. 8)

Anyhow...Back to my visit with Mike Goldsworthy. I'm not sure why I thought to stop in and see him but I would find out very quickly that God must have had his hand in this chance meeting. We snaked our way back through the offices and conference room to an outside courtyard and then back into another door through an office setting to Mike's office. A small office with a small forest's worth books covering one wall and a door to the outside world on the other. Oh...And of course a large chair, or maybe it was a small love seat for guests. After a few minutes of small talk I asked him about where he stands on the issue of eschatology. With a smile on his face and a little bit of trepidation in his voice he answered, "something along the lines of a the partial preterist camp." I was kind of surprised but more relieved than anything.

Knowing me, I probably spent most of the time talking that morning about everything that had happened over the last week or so. I was just so incredibly happy to find someone that was not hostile to my unfortunate, difficult and precarious situation. But...I had been awake all night and early into that morning and what would now soon be afternoon and I really needed some sleep. As I was leaving he recommended a book to me that he said really helped him out with where he was at. It was "The Last Days According to Jesus." by R.C. Sproul.

And so the following day I stopped by Lighthouse Christian Store and picked up a copy. I kept it with me and read a few pages here and there when I had the time. It's not a long book. Something like 250 pages or so. Definitely a worthwhile read especially if the popular views taught on T.V. and in a lot of churches today has left you scratching your head. Sproul does an incredibly good job demonstrating quite reasonably how the olivet discourse, in Matthew 24 was fulfilled just as Jesus had said...Before that generation(40 years) would pass away.

As well at this same time I had concluded that the best thing to do was to go word for word through the New Testament with a fine tooth comb and see what I could dig up now that this paradigm shift had taken place. And so I didn't just open up my Bible and start reading. I took my Bible on mp3 and listened to it while following through line upon line with a set of colored pencils ready to mark things up. This project took about two weeks to tackle. Now my Bible had all of the timing statements related to the end times/last days hi-lighted in green. I'd say that this was a watershed moment...But it was more like sitting under a waterfall for two weeks. There was no turning back.

How would I reconcile this with being a Calvary Chapel pastor? Could I still be a Calvary Chapel pastor and teach a preterist view of eschatology? How would I reconcile this with working for Chuck Smith?

These are just a few of the questions that would make what remained of the last semester of The School of Ministry the most difficult 3 months of my life. 8(