Eschatology Failed!!!

[Pastor Dave]

Eschatology, by Tyrone Cropper

Are the correct views of ESCHATOLOGY really all that
important? Yes! The correct understand of Eschatology
is important because many within our Society and Political
arena and the World, make their decisions based on their
beliefs about eschatology.

Surely you will admit that the wrong views of eschatology
can influence the way a person sees world events.

Now I am about to walk into the Lion’s Den.

Some interpreters of the Bible believe that Bible prophecy
and our daily newspapers are both talking about Eschatology
events. They say that the major world events reported
in our daily newspapers are also predicted in the Bible.

"One only has to read a newspaper or listen to a newscast
in order to see Bible prophecies being fulfilled."

<Insert comment: And yet the Futurists claim it isn't,
"newspaper prophecy"? The above looks like an
admission to me!>

They will say the 20th Century (and now the 21st) is
the focus of Bible prophecy. Lest now look at how some
believed world events were predicted in Bible prophecy.

<Insert comment: Note how the "century of Biblical focus"
changed with their calendar?!>

Hal Lindsey predicted 30 years ago that the Soviet Union
would play the key role – but now that there is no Soviet
Union, he says it will be Islamic fundamentalism. Also
about 30 years ago while Nasser was still alive, he said
that Egypt would spearhead a pan-Arabic, Anti-Israeli
movement. But now that Egypt has signed a treaty with
Israel and they are living in relative peace, he no longer
makes that claim.

In other words, NEVER HAPPENED!!!

<Insert comment: But hey, according to the Futurists,
these people are not wrong when their predictions
don't happen and they accept whatever excuse is
given! That's because for the Futurist, if it isn't all
about them today, then the Bible is useless and yes,
they have even admitted this to me, thinking they
were actually giving a good defense for their
doctrine! Is this not the very definition of
spiritual blindness and being "willingly ignorant?!>

In Hal Lindsey book Late Great Planet Earth in 1970,
Lindsey made a cautioned prediction that a pre-tribulational
rapture would take place in the early part of the 1980s,
seven years before Israel’s fortieth anniversary as a
reestablished nation. He wrote: "A generation in the
Bible is something like forty years. If this is a correct
deduction, then within forty years or so of 1948,
all these things should have take place.

NEVER HAPPENED!!!

Hal Lindsey theorized that Jesus would return probably in
or before 1988 (in his book The Late, Great Planet Earth),
since that would be a generation after the Jews returned
to Israel (from the false interpretation of Matthew 24:34).
When that didn't happen, he said that a generation could
be 70 years or even 100 years, so Jesus should return
before 2018 or 2048.

<Insert comment: Why admit you're wrong, when you
can just make a generation longer, knowing that the
self serving Futurists will, like you, accept whatever
you can imagine up and claim it's Biblical truth,
even though that would mean that what you said
before wasn't?! But don't worry, they'll stupidly
defend that as Biblically true as well, actually
pitting themselves against themselves, while
claiming to be honest! After all, doesn't "imminent"
mean, "any amount of time that you want it to mean"?>

In 1980, Hal Lindsey wrote, "We are the generation that
will see the end times . . . and the return of Christ.".
The Terminal Generation? Please listen to a few brief
excerpts from the book.

"We must conclude that it is most definitely the general
time of the Rapture" (p. 178).

"With world events fitting into the precisely predicted
pattern for the return of Jesus Christ, how much more
should this terminal generation take to heart the
passages of exhortation in the Bible!" (pp. 182-183)

It was during the 1980s that books like Hal Lindsey's
Countdown to Armageddon appeared in many Christian
bookstores hailing that the end was very near. After all,
it was reasoned that Israel was settled in 1948 and a
generation was forty years.

He was of course WRONG!

There is no doubt he can rattle off chapter and verse
with the best of them. Unfortunately all his knowledge
of scripture has produced precious little discernment in
the man that many look to as a master of Bible prophecy!

In the 1980s - Hal Lindsey predicted that a "United States
of Europe", with its own central government will form
and will control the military and all political structures.

Where does that Bible say, "United States of Europe"?
Futurists will actually reference verses when you ask that.
But guess what they don't say? "United States of Europe"!

In their book, Facing Millennial Midnight: The Y2K Crisis
Confronting America and the World, Hal Lindsey and
Cliff Ford predicted widespread confusion and panic
over the Y2K crisis. They said the interstates would
be so jammed the "automated traffic controls could
be inoperable or unreliable" (p. 112). They speculated
that many American banks would have to close and
would never reopen (p. 144). The title of their book
of false prophecies implies that all of the trouble
surrounding the Y2K problem would mean that
we were facing millennial midnight.

NEVER HAPPENED!!!

Remember Van Impe making a video called "2000:
Time Bomb" and thought it was Biblically prophesied
that the Y2K bug would usher in a period of chaos
that would lead to the rapture, tribulation, and rise
of the antichrist.

Jack Van Impe frequently predicted widespread global
catastrophes and destruction resulting from the Y2K
problem, which he believed to be a fulfillment of Bible
prophecy.

NEVER HAPPENED!!!

Jack has many times suggested dates for the beginning
of the tribulation period. In the Jan-Feb 1997 issue of
Perhaps Today Van Impe claimed that the year 2001
"will see the start of the Great Tribulation. Political
chaos, natural disasters, nuclear war and the worldwide
rise of Islam will usher in mankind's final hour."

A 1993 video was entitled A.D. 2000 - The End?
An article in the January-February 1993 issue of
Perhaps Today magazine included a detailed chronology
to demonstrate that the Lord will probably return in
September of 1999.

He was of course, WRONG ALSO!!!

Van Impe is of course obsessed with Revelation and its
fire-from-the-heavens eschatology. Van Impe has spent
nearly his entire career telling his gullible flock that
the rapture could "literally happen any second," which,
you would think, would cause somebody's brain somewhere
to fire a synapse or two, making them ask, "Okay, so when
already? Give me a date and time so I can make sure to
max out all my credit cards before I go!".

Remember Jack making comments before the year 2000
that Jesus should return by 2004, then it was 2007, then
he pushed it back to either 2012 or 2018.

Guess what??? NEVER HAPPENED!!!

1989 - Benny Hinn predicts that the United States' first
female president will be elected "within the next few years"
and will destroy the nation.

NEVER HAPPENED!!!

2000 - Hal Lindsey says that the Battle of Armageddon
will take place in the year 2000.

NEVER HAPPENED!!!

2002 - Pat Robertson predicts that Detroit and San Francisco
will be hit by terrorist attacks.

NEVER HAPPENED!!!

Gary North the founder of Christian Reconstruction had
taken the Y2K bug to a whole new level of hysteria.
Gary was convinced that global economic chaos would
result from a worldwide collapse of financial computer
systems. Gary’s global economic chaos made on impact
on the daily lives. People still filled up their car with
gas, and paid with credit card.

NEVER HAPPENED!!!

Some of you may remember in 1982, Jupiter Effect claimed.
There was to be an unusual alignment of planets that would
form a perpendicular line from the sun to cause earthquakes,
power plant meltdowns, and other major disruptions on earth.

NEVER HAPPENED!!!

John Hagee in his book The Beginning of the End: (Nashville:
Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1996), Hagee claims to be able
to read the signs of the times and to make predictions
concerning the end of the age. Hagee argues: that nuclear
bombs and star wars weapons systems—(are) other irrefutable
signs that we are in the terminal generation" (p. 91).

How can anyone argue with a prophet, right?

Hagee goes in to say with most Dispensationalist
premillennialists believe "the generation which sees
the rebirth of Israel is the terminal generation" (p. 93).
Now the rebirth of Israel occurred in 1948. And a
generation is usually considered to be about forty years.
So the end of the terminal generation should have
occurred in 1988 eight yeas before Hagee published
his book.

Huh???

In his "Nuclear War and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ"
(Old Time Gospel Hour, 1983), Jerry FaIwell says that the
Russians (the usual term used by Dispensationalists) will
invade Israel, and their forces will be annihilated "on the
mountains of Israel.".

Well that also DID NOT HAPPEN!!!

Rev. Carlos L. Ramirez in a sermonette in the Amarillo
Globe-Times (April 9, 1984) writes; "We are in a terminal
era, close to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, in which
angelic forces are warring against demonic forces for the
control of this planet that wandered away from the Lord."

In a interview with the Los Angeles Times (March 3, 1981).
Pat Robertson states the flowing.. "And Russia will be the
offender and will be ultimately totally destroyed. [The war]
will come down out of the north -- that has to be the Soviet
Union -- upon the midst of the earth -- Israel and the
Middle East...That’s why most of us believe in the imminent
return of Jesus Christ.". He is talking about Armageddon.

In a interview a (CBN program, July 9, 1982). Pat Robertson
interpreting Ezekiel 38 free-quotes: "...when Israel is
regathered from the nations...I am going to put hooks in the
jaws of the confederation that is going to be led by someone
named Gog in the land of Magog (the Soviet Union). And
the people that will be with it are Beth Togarmah (Armenia),
Put (Libya), Cush (Ethiopia), Gomer (South Yemen) and
Persia".

NEVER HAPPENED!!!

In 1948, Hal Lindsey and many fundamentalists, on the
basis of Israel and the generation of Luke 21:29-31,
predicted that Jesus would return within 40 years of 1948.
Well, 1988 came and passed without the secret return of
Jesus to rapture the church—no large groups of Christians
were reported as missing then or since, another failed
prediction of the seven-year tribulationists. (1)

Who could ever forget the Korean group placed newspaper
advertisements predicting that the 'Rapture' would take
place on October 28, 1992.". When asked about this error
later their response was "We got the message from God
wrong." (2)

Church historian Samuele Bacchiocchi, in his book
"Hal Lindsey's Prophetic Jigsaw Puzzle,' details several
of Lindsey's failed predictions. Among them: that Christ
would return in 1988 during a colossal nuclear clash
between the armies of Europe and Asia. Then came
Grant Jeffrey's book, "Armageddon: Appointment with
Destiny". In it he says that his research showed that
the year 2000 would be the possible end.

NONE OF THESE THINGS HAPPENED!!!

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist denomination,
predicted 1836 for the date of the second advent. (3)

The 1800s witnessed an epidemic of "Millennial Fever"
and a rash of date setting for Christ’s return. Joseph
Wolff, the world renowned missionary, preached 1847
as the date of "the coming glory and personal reign of
Jesus Christ. In fact many other fundamentalist ministers
were setting dates for the end of the world. (4)

In 1994 Arab Christian prophet Om Saleem claimed that
the antichrist was born November 23, 1933, that his
unveiling would come in 1993 and the rapture in 1994. (5)

In 1994 Harold Camping, a radio evangelist, wrote a book
entitled "1994?". In it, Camping says, "if this study is
accurate, and I believe with all my heart that it is, there
will be no extensions of time. There will be no time
for second guessing. When September 6, 1994, arrives,
no one else can be saved, the end has come.". Thousands
believed Camping's distorted biblical teachings, but again,
the end did not come as Camping had wished. (6)

In 1997 Mary Stewart Relfe wrote in 1983 that she had
been praying to "know the year" of the Lord's coming,
and that subsequently she received detailed "divine
revelations" from God. She relaeased a chart showing
World War III beginning in 1989, the Great Tribulation
starting in 1990, and that Jesus Christ will come back in
1997, just after Armaggeddon.". (7) In 1998 Larry Wilson,
a former Seventh-day Adventist pastor, predicted four
massive global earthquakes beginning around 1994 and
ending in 1998 with the Second Coming. (8) Are these
men who make these false predications honest in what
they preach? Yes. However so many of us out there
are starving for truth but yet our minds are so blinded
with the traditional futurist view of eschatology that
most of use have been taught that it is all that is out
there. The most dangerous element of this prophetic
paradigm, is its doom-and-gloom world views.

NONE OF THESE THINGS EVER HAPPENED!!!

Is anybody getting the hint yet???

1. Ibid.,) p. 54.

2. Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness) p 18.

3. LeRoy Edwin Froom, THE PROPHETIC FAITH OF OUR FATHERS,
Vol.3 (Washington, DC: Review and Hearld, 1954), p. 602.

4. From, Vol. 4. pp. 323, 324.

5. 99 Reasons Why No One Knows When Christ Will Return
by B.J. Oropeza, InterVarsity Press, 1994) pg 149

6. 99 Reasons Why No One Knows When Christ Will Return
by B.J. Oropeza, InterVarsity Press, 1994) pg 12, 48-50

7. Soothsayers of the Second Advent by William M. Alnor,
Fleming H. Revell Company, 19890) pg 35

8. Reasons Why No One Knows When Christ Will Return
by B.J. Oropeza, InterVarsity Press, 1994) pg 77

--

Pastor Dave

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed; That
whenever any form of government becomes destructive
of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter
or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...
...when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design
to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,
and to provide new guards for their future security."
- Thomas Jefferson