About Us

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

   Lynn Kern was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota and graduated from the University of Minnesota, Duluth.  He became a Christian in his senior year of high school and began to work with youth at First Presbyterian Church.  While finishing his college degree, he became involved in a youth ministry(Teen Action) which prompted him to study and teach Biblical truths.  This became his early training in Biblical studies and inspired him to write tracts and Bible study materials. 
  
   It was during this time that he met his wife, Paula, and was married in 1970.   By this time, Lynn had been teaching in the Duluth Public Schools and the opportunity to reach youth had greatly increased.  The youth ministry moved to their home and continued to grow as young people themselves took on the leadership.   Lynn and Paula started their family with their daughter, Laura, and their son, Tim.  In 1974, Lynn and Paula pursued their interest in missions and moved to the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana to teach at a Christian school.  Because of limited funds for the school, Lynn left the reservation after a year and a half and responded to an offer to be the pastor of Rosebud Community Church in the small ranching community in Montana.  This was his opportunity to enter the pastoral ministry and develop his teaching of the scriptures.  While in Rosebud, their second son, Paul, was born. 
  
   After three years in Rosebud, Lynn and Paula were offered the opportunity to return to the Crow Reservation to pastor the Crow Foursquare Church at Crow Agency, which was the same church they had worked in through the Christian school.  It was there that they built a new church, discipled Kenneth Pretty on Top to be his successor as pastor, and added their fourth child, Bethany.  While pastoring at the Crow Foursquare Church, Lynn became a "circuit-riding preacher" by also pastoring the Colstrip Foursquare Church in Colstrip, Montana, some seventy miles from Crow Agency.  After nine years, Lynn and Paula responded to the opportunity to pastor Family LIfe Center, a Foursquare church in East Helena, Montana.  They pastored the church for eight years before returning to Minnesota in 1996.  In all these churches, they met many wonderful people and experienced the work of God in the lives of His people.
   Lynn was invited to become the Associate Pastor of Hermantown Community Church by his brother-in-law who is the Senior Pastor.  Pastor Thor Sorenson, who had started the church, had been one of the youth leaders during the Teen Action days in Duluth.  He had ministered as a youth leader, then youth pastor in the Duluth area before becoming the founding pastor of HCC.
It was Lynn's desire to spend more time pastoring people and discipling those who responded to life-changing faith in Christ.  Lynn and Paula are presently living outside the city of Cloquet, Minnesota and are helping to raise their two grandchildren, Nathan and Tyler.  They have seven grandchildren. 

FROM THE AUTHOR
Let No One Deceive You!

   "Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him, that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.  Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God."  (II Thessalonians 2:1-4)

Is This Deception?

   A few years ago I was struck by the realization that the majority of our Evangelical Christian community, which prides itself on Biblical truth and scholarship, has believed and promoted a theory that has no Biblical support.  I speak of the Pre-tribulation Rapture Theory, which teaches that Jesus will come in a secret, any moment rapture(catching away) of the church before the Great Tribulation.  The popularized expression of this view is seen in the Left Behind series - a fictional presentation dealing with those who missed the secret rapture and were left behind to go through this tribulation period.  Though most of the prominent ministries, churches, and Bible teachers support and promote this view, the scriptures do not.  Even the majority of Bible scholars do not support this view.  The popular view isn't always the right view.

    The Apostle Paul warned, "Let no one in any way deceive you,..."  In this very context, Paul is stating a truth that contradicts the pre-trib view of escaping the Great Tribulation.  He tells the church in Thessalonica, who had heard a rumor that Jesus had already come, that the day of Jesus return could not come until two specific signs had been fulfilled: the apostasy(a falling away from the faith) and the Antichrist revealed, who would declare himself as God.   Jesus taught the same thing in Matthew 24:15-21 concerning the Abomination of Desolation.  The revealing of Antichrist and the establishment of his control takes place at the beginning of the Great Tribulation, which is the last three and a half years before the Second Coming of Christ.  How can there then be a pre-tribulation rapture of the church if the church is taught to look for these two events?  Is it deception to teach that the church will be gone?  Yes!

What Does It Matter, Anyway?

   I hear many Christians say, "It doesn't matter which view of the Second Coming of Christ is correct, just as long as you are ready."  This view is also known as the "Pan-trib" view, whatever pans out will be all right with them.  I would agree that being spiritually ready is the key to our daily walk with God as well as facing any crisis, persecution, or whatever spiritual challenge may come.  However, this view is based upon two unscriptural conclusions.  First, that it doesn't matter because there are a number of views and interpretations of Christ's coming that make it difficult or impossible to know what the Bible really teaches.  So, we don't really need to pay attention to the subject of Christ's return.  Is there an openness to deception with this conclusion?
   Second, that it doesn't matter because the signs and events pointing to Christ's return really aren't that important.  The reason they are perceived as not important is that they don't really have any spiritual value in our practical Christian life.  This attempt to down-play the importance that Jesus and Paul placed upon the signs and events can leave a Christian vulnerable to deception.  Remember, Jesus and Paul taught them as part of being spiritually prepared and ready for the time preceeding the Second Coming of Christ.  When people are going to be deceived by signs and wonders of false prophets, teachers, and the Antichrist, does it matter whether or not we understand the signs and events Christ and Paul taught us to look for? 
   "I wish I could find the fellow who started this myth that 'theology is not important; just love Jesus.'  This deceptive attitude has rendered many Christians ineffective as they lull themselves into a false sense of security.  And nowhere is this more evident than in the area of eschatology(the study of the end-time events)." (Donald R. Clasen,  "Preparing for the Future")

 God Wouldn't Allow His Church to Go Through the Great Tribulation

   Unfortunately, the most common argument for the pre-trib rapture is that God wouldn't let His people go through the Great Tribulation.  Those who defend this statement give little or no scriptural support or historic evidence to support this view.  Oh yes, they will state scripture which says that God's people are not to suffer the wrath or judgment of God.  Well, of course they will not suffer God's judgment because God's wrath is not against His people.  God's judgment on the rebelliious, sinful  world and the tribulation of God's people by Antichrist are two different things.  In the books of Daniel  and Revelation, as well as the teachings of Jesus, there is specific references to God's people going through a time of persecution at the hands of Antichrist.  It is ironic that the pre-trib view of Left Behind suggest that most of those saved during the Great Tribulation will face persucation and death.  That's  justified to support their theory that the left behind people have to suffer for missing the rapture.  This makes the any moment, secret rapture of the church even more exclusive and inviting to today's Christian community.

   The History of the church does not support this view.  Throughout the centuries, millions of God's people suffered and died for their faith.  Today, statistics suggest that every day approximately 500 Christians are being martyred for their faith around the world.

   "It is ever the lot of Christian believers to suffer for their faith.  Most Western Christians are fortunate (or are they?) in that the general call to suffering has been relatively painless for present generations.  We fail to understand that our reprieve is a historical oddity; we mistakenly assume that past generations have done all the suffering necessary as groundwork for our cultured Christian society, and that the way is clear for a gentle ride into glory." (Arthur Katterjohn, The Tribulation People)

   "There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this.  Most of them have little knowledge of what is already going on across the world.  I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution.  In China the Christians were told, 'Don't worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated - raptured.'
Then came terrible persecution.  Millions of Christians were tortured to death.  Later I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly, 'We have failed.  We should have made the people strong for persecution rather than telling them Jesus would come first.'  Turning to me he said, 'You still have time.  Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution, how to stand when the tribulation comes - to stand and not faint.' "  (Corrie Ten Boom, "The Coming Tribulation")

   Before you assume that you will escape the time of Great Tribulation before Christ returns, I suggest you study to see what your Bible really teaches.  Don't just accept the teaching of pre-trib or Left Behind just because it is popular.  I want to invite you to read my book, Jesus Is Coming; But When?  I believe it will present a strong Biblical view of the events leading up to the Second Coming of Christ and help you prepare your spiritual life for what will happen in the end-times.  "Let no one in any way deceive you."