Looking back on the year-and-a-half when I was a Preterist, I remember how gradual and insidious my acceptance of that doctrine was.  It did not happen overnight, but came after a long period of investigation, during which my theological parameters shifted farther and farther left, until at last Preterism seemed the most logical and acceptable view in the world.  Once I was in it, however, getting out was nearly impossible.  In fact, it is no mistake to say that I became a true Preterist addict.

  I am not proud of this fact.  However, it’s something I have to own up to, inasmuch as it impacted my ministry in more ways than one.  Despite the damage it almost did to my walk with God, I find that in some aspects my former preterism comes in handy.  Now as I refute Preterism, I am able to do what the average futurist cannot do.  I can provide Biblical answers to such questions-of-the-day as: “How about the timing texts?” and “What does it mean by ’this generation?”  If anything, my year-and-a-half of Preterism gave me a greater depth of theological understanding.  But for all that, its potential utility is outweighed by its toxicity.   It is not even worth investigating, but is a dangerous heresy to avoid at all costs.

  Former Full Preterist William Price writes:

  Preterism usurps the biblical hope of believers in the future return of the Lord Jesus the Messiah. It denies the rapture and resurrection as literal events, and believes Christ’s return was spiritual, contrasting it to what the angels said in Acts 1. Preterism believes that all of Matthew 23-25 is fulfilled, and this is a lie because stones still stand in jerusalem to this day. I know this heresy personally, because I use to be in it, and I tell you, as strong as a case they may make, they in fact are presenting spiritual gnosticism in presenting the preterist heresy.

 I see this now more than ever.  And I also (sadly) acknowledge the futility of trying to convert a Preterist addict back to the “faith delivered to the saints.”  Preterism, be it remembered, is an emergent form of Christianity.  It is not evangelical in nature.  It does not operate in a positive and interactive manner with other individuals.  Rather, it is infiltrative in its methods, and subversive in its approach.  Instead of preaching the Gospel to lost souls, preterists seek to draw Christians away from the faith they once received.  According to Tertullian, this is one of the identifying marks of heresy:

“But what shall I say concerning the ministry of the word, since they make it their business not to convert the heathen, but to subvert our people? This is rather the glory which they catch at, to compass the fall of those who stand, not the raising of those who are down. Accordingly, since the very work which they purpose to themselves comes not from the building up of their own society, but from the demolition of the truth, they undermine our edifices that they may erect their own.”

  Have you ever stopped to consider that at least 95% of Preterists are former Dispensationalists?  How did they end up as Preterists?  It started when they took a dose of the Preterist stuff, and got a rush from that ‘exalted gnosis’ which made them seem greater in wisdom than their simpler brethren.    After a few more hits, many of them became addicted.  And so, they went out to sell the dope to others.  Having turned junkies, they became thugs, prostitutes, and vagabonds.  Thrown out of their churches, cast out of fellowship with other Christians, they set up shop in a desperate effort to “get back at” mainstream Christendom, and to acomplish in some other way what they were unable to effect within the fold.

  In moving among these Preterist addicts, what have I found?  Well, I’ve found that once someone has actually accepted the doctrines of Preterism, and started teaching others, the chances of that person ever returning to the true faith are almost nil.  If you’re going to convict a would-be preterist, you must try to get him/her early, before he/she has actually made the switch from orthodoxy to heresy.  Typically the first thing a true preterist addict will do is to go out and test his new goods on someone else.  If he wins a few debates, the power goes to his head.  As the junkie gets more and more addicted to Preterism, side effects will proliferate and health will be damaged.  In the end, you’ll have someone whose soul is totally poisoned by the doctrines, someone whose heart has lost any sensitivity to the word of God.  That is a dead soul, a walking sepulchre.

  Realizing this, I attribute my conversion away from Preterism to the grace of God.  I remember there was a time when you couldn’t tell me anything.  I had all the answers, and I just knew that Preterism was the truth.  Spurred by Satan, I felt an irrational but pressing need to “share” my “faith“ with others.  And during the whole time I knew deep down that what I was preaching was heresy.  I thank God that He deliberately closed all my ministerial opportunities during this time.  He removed me from the public assembly, for it was not His will that I should spread my heresy to others.  That is what all Preterists need, I think: a good quarantine.

  But we find that not all are as isolated as they should be.  Some, in fact, are now masquerading as orthodox Christians.  If this describes you, allow me to give you a word of advice.  Despite your apparent ‘switchover,’ you haven’t changed a bit.  You’re still the addict and junkie you’ve always been, and you still hate the Christianity of the Bible.  Can’t you see what your “ministry” is all about?  You may succeed in taking others in by your snares, but the elect will not be deceived.  Let Christians only look at your fruits, and they’ll see the rottenness and depravity that characterizes your existence.  Yes, these are some strong words.  But the Lord Jesus Christ told us to beware of such as yourself.  Repent, repent!  That is what you must do.  I only hope your repentance will come quickly before you damage more souls with your lies. 

   Yes, the time has come when many do not endure sound doctrine.  Now, more than ever before, the church must be on guard against those who work to overthrow the faith preserved in the New Testament.  If you the reader are seriously examining the merits of Preterism, my advice is to steer as far from these doctrines as you can.  Don’t listen to teachers who promote Preterism in any form.  Keep close to your local church ministry, and forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.  Above all, pray always and study your Bibles daily, that you may (if need be) have an effective weapon against the adversary when he approaches.  There is a blood-red tinge in the eastern sky.   The end of the age is looming near.  ”If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha” (1 Cor. 16: 22).  Amen.