UPDATE: John Piper takes a look at Wilkerson’s prophecy and responds rightly.
David Wilkerson (Cross and the Switchblade, Times Square Church) is predicting a world changing disaster, and advises that you dust off those cans of Spam you still have from Y2k. It’s getting serious coverage by the unhinged conservative media.
I wrote about Evangelical anxiety about the end of the world in the “Evangelical Anxieties” series in February of 07. Not only have I not changed my mind, I’m more bothered by this than ever.
If eschatology were a multiple choice question, with answers like this:
a) be Christ centered
b) proclaim the Gospel
c) do missions and evangelism
d) look forward to the new heaven and the new earth
e) be idiots
…guess what a large chunk of Evangelicalism would choose?
Evangelicals really can’t get enough of this stuff. Wilkerson- and a thousand other end times prophets like Kim CLement- have predicted similar events before. The “end of the world” section of the bookstore is only the front end of the “end of the world warehouse” that stores all the books that have been predicting the end of the world as long as evangelical authors could find a pen.
In no other area of Christian belief are Evangelicals more irresponsible and bizarrely repetitive. If doing the same thing, over and over and over again with no result, qualifies as a form of mental illness, then we can fill up an entire chain of hospitals. We’re talking about people who will take their eschatology and turn it into a VIDEO GAME here.
The Bible is obviously too simple for Evangelicals at this point. The instincts of some Christians tell them that it never can just mean what it says. So when Jesus says “no one knows, not even the Son,” or “don’t believe people who say they know,” it actually means “Oh yeah, we can know ALL about future events. Just get the right teacher with a big chart and you’re in there.”
Maybe it’s the fact that weird eschatology is the closest thing Christianity has to the kind of material that shows up on the Sci-Fi channel late at night. Bad acting. Cheap special effects. Teenagers caught having sex. Maybe rapture anxiety just plays like a bad B-movie, so Evangelicals get it.
The history of Christian apocalyticism is a story in and of itself. I recommend Jason Boyett’s Pocket Guide To The Apocalypse. Seriously. Get it. Good book with lots of humor and even more information.
I am never more envious of Catholics/Orthodox than on the subjects of evolution and eschatology. Catholics simply don’t lose their minds over this sort of thing. The catechism is calm. If the pope has anything to say about the end of the world, it must be edited out. You’d never hear Benedict going on like Tim Lahaye. (Too bad Art Bell isn’t on Christian radio.)
I’m sure Catholics and Orthodox have their hysterical eschatology committees like every other religion, and I’m sure Fr. So and So is out there in the road with a placard proclaiming the end, but you just get the impression that Catholics are in the “it will all work out” camp, and they aren’t going to get in the bunker with Ned Flanders. Have a beer. Go to a Barbeque. Don’t start screaming. No one likes a religion with people screaming.
Evangelicals don’t seem to blink when they realize that the business of various apocalyptic scenarios is making millions of dollars for people convinced it’s all about to be over. They don’t mind that the people making these prophecies either abuse, don’t use, or no longer need to use a Bible. No, from Thief in the Night to 89 Reasons Christ Will Return in 1989, we just keep on keepin’ on.
My evangelical students read Left Behind with far more interest than they read scripture. If everyone who read Left Behind read ONE other decent Christian book, a Great Awakening would arrive. My students also assume that all Christians buy into this approach to the future. I haven’t met one yet, in 17 years, that has a pastor who even sent clue one that we might not be on the verge of the great tribulation because the stock market is zonked. Judgment house. Hell house. Rapture house. We really need an amusement park to get the whole show together.
Does it occur to most Evangelicals that their brothers and sisters around the world sort of LIVE in the Apocalypse? If we have a Columbine or a Katrina, John Hagee is n TV the next night with a chart so big you can see it behind him. Meanwhile, in Sudan, it’s all just another day at the office.
Americans are afraid of the end. They are afraid of losing their life here. They don’t want II Thessalonians 1 to happen. They want to keep running up their credit cards and driving the leased SUV.
Kingdom? New world? End of old world? Resurrection? Christ all in all?
Missional hope? Reach the nations? Gospel to every people group? Bible in every language?
Don’t be bothered by earthquakes, rumors of wars, bank collapses, elections, etc?
Nah. Put in the next Left Behind movie. The one where Kirk Cameron sings “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” to Carpathia.
[Comment ideas: 1) Catholics and Orthodox are allowed one comment to make fun of evangelicals. 2) What's your best story about Evangelicals and Apocalypse fever?]
Anna, HUG posted a link to a very comprehensive “three days of darkness” site. I’m just goggling that amid the apocalyptic destruction, true believers are supposed to “put adhesive paper on vents” inside their houses. (It’s really in there; I couldn’t make up something that crazy-but-mundane!
)
>…Mr. Wilkerson may be right, and he may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure he’s FOR the cause of Christ.
I agree.
HUG
Re: your comment “Pin-the-Tail-on-The-Antichrist ATE 15-20 years of my life. Who will restore the years the Pre-Trib Locusts have eaten?” I laughed so hard, the cat jumped off my lap.
Martha
You stated “Live every day as if it could be your last, because one day it will be.”
This is so true.
We must be ready and anticipating Christ’s second coming,as Christians have been doing since his ascension.
Rapturists are so eager to be taken and often so sure that they will be “raptured” in their lifetime. In reality,all Christians to date have not experienced the second coming yet, and no one has been raptured. All Christians before us have died and the same will probably happen to all of us before Jesus returns, but when we die we are with Him. As Martha said “Live every day as if it could be your last, because one day it will be.”
To be a little pharasaical, I thank God that I was not brought up with rapture teaching.
Three Days of Darkness — the Catholic answer to Left Behind Fever. I first heard of it from a somewhat-flaky Trad Catholic, then from my Assyrian sister-in-law (one of her relatives was VERY into it). Surprisingly, my writing partner (a Protestant pastor) had also heard of it.
It’s supposed to be three days of supernatural darkness covering the world as part of the kickoff to The End (which in this eschatology is not so much a seven-year checklist as a series of supernatural heralding events separated by indeterminate periods of time). It’s also referred to as “The Chastisement” (which is also the Catholic EotW term for what Evangelicals call the Great Tribulation). Here’s what I remember about it:
1) Only Blessed wax candles will give light; the Darkness will drink up all other light sources. (Someone over at Slacktivist mentioned his relatives obsessing whether synthetic wax blends would qualify or whether they had to be 100% beeswax.)
2) Only grapes left to soak in Holy Water will give nourishment. (My in-law’s relative was said to keep a bottle of holy water filled with grapes on her person at all times just in case.)
3) All who are not sealed indoors when the Darkness comes will be struck dead. Those who are caught outdoors without shelter “will die as martyrs” (no further clarification of this term). All who even peek outside (“to watch the demons eating all the Protestants” — my writing partner) will be struck dead.
4) Satan and all his demons will be released from Hell for these three days to “Chastise” the world and all people living will be completely aware of their sins as God sees them.
I’m not sure of the aftermath of all this, but (from some side comments on Slacktivist) apparently post-Darkness the world will be completely Trad-Catholic, monasteries and convents filled to overflowing, etc. And when this Catholic Golden Age wears off, another apostasy will take place and the next phase of The End will begin.
I commend the best book on the end times I know. ‘And the lamb wins’ by Simon Ponsonby. It is reasoned biblical insight amid existing libraries full of books written out of fear, lunacy and silliness about the last days. Well worth checking out.
I read this yesterday. Funny, DW is one of the few people I would bother giving a second glance to, although his way of looking at things is a bit skewed IMHO.
But still, something about this resonated for me. But who knows, maybe I’m just cracked and more susceptible to apocalyptic doom-mongering than I consciously realise
It is a sad testimony to the pampered and weak nature of Americans in general that even the least disturbing event: (think recession, stock market losses, rising gas prices, unemployment, a non-white president, or 13 American Idol finalists instead of 12) leads to the type of anxiety, paranoia and fear which provides a fertile ground for others to sew the most outlandish claims of impending doom.
And yes, compared to past events and current events elsewhere in the world, these are trivial things that will pass just like the 73′ oil embargo and Adolph Hitler.
My father finally helped get me off the Hal Lindsay bandwagon in the 70′s (I was really being a Pharisaical jerk at the time) by telling me “I don’t know when Jesus will return, and neither does anyone else, but one thing’s for sure; it is one day closer today.” That to me sums up in the simplest way possible, the proper and accurate belief system on the matter.
…like a website that will send emails to all of your family and friends, letting them know you’ve been raptured? — Alan
Ever since hearing of that site (a pay-per-message site, by the way), I have wanted to trip their deadman switch and send out ALL their stored emails.
I think TV Tropes would call this “Hilarity Ensues”…
I belong to a church that got started when Jesus *didn’t* come back in 1844 (Seventh-Day Adventist). There is still an almost exclusive focus on Daniel and Revelation in some conservative circles.
As a holdover from the late 1800′s, the Pope is the traditional Adventist Anti-Christ, and some “evangelistic” crusades are apparently rather lurid
http://spectrummagazine.org/blog/2009/02/21/what_public_really_says_about_adventist_evangelism
(discussions similar to those here)
I hadn’t heard about the Three Days of Darkness, but in reading the bit about taping over vents and not going outside and if you are caught outside you will die…it kind of sounds like a nuclear bomb went off!
Growing up Catholic, I don’t remember hearing much about the “rapture,” but for a while I was involved with a charismatic independent Protestant group and they would talk about that a lot. Luckily (I guess), they emphasized the joy that we would have as we joined Jesus in the sky and didn’t “gloat” about all the horrors the unbelievers would have to face.
Ah Michael…. Larkin’s Dispensational Truth – that thing was on our bookshelf at home for as long as I can remember. My dad was really into that at the time and remember reading and looking through it several times when I was youger and still at home – I didn’t understand much of it at the time but what little I did tended to scare the
hell out of me and it finally got to where it stayed on the bookshelf and I don’t know if dad still has it – probably does as he is still into that though not as much as he was when I was a child. You’re right on the charts – it was, still is, the big daddy on that front excepting maybe John Hagee’s charts which are wall paper for the stage his church in San Antoino. Great stuff! Thanks!
The Guy from Knoxville
wilkerson might be wrong. but what if he is right? what then?
Best story (or worst)…the charismatic church I went to highschool was abandoned by the head pastor because he needed to move to another state and find a cave to live in during the end times…
And also, my mother is convinced that she is going to hide Jews (Corrie Ten Boom) style during the end times…she even has a bunch of cohorts who are all planning a sort of underground railroad.
whoa:
Then you do what Jesus says. You do what Third world Christians do every day.
Tomorrow has enough trouble. Live today.
peace
ms
Ah, the Three Days of Darkness! I vaguely remember some murmurings about that back in the 80s (merciful hour, what *was* it about the 80s in Ireland? It was a very grim time, to be sure, but still!)
Never really got off the ground around here, though; most people prefer the traditional pilgrimages to Lourdes and Fatima (and Medujuorje got really popular for a time) if they’re going to indulge in prayer and mortification. Actually, Lough Derg is still *the* Irish pilgrimage destination for penance and suffering (and it’s home-grown to boot!) with climbing Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday (the last Sunday in July) second favourite.
Though ‘mortification’ is perhaps not the mot juste; my mother went on the pilgrimage to Lourdes for the first time in her late 60s and the second year the parish group went, they were almost kicked out of their hotel because of the nightly hooleys (which were so good, pilgrims from other countries staying in other hotels used to turn up for the craic). The proprietor did *not* think this was a reverent way for pilgrims to behave – of course, they’d never had Irish staying in this particular hotel before. The next year she went, they made sure to stay in a different hotel
Praying and visiting the grotto during the day, then drinking wine, singing and dancing at night – I think Chaucer would recognise that
whoa asked ‘What if Wilkerson is right or wrong?’
I’ll consider him worth listening to if he’s willing to submit to Deuteronomy 18:14-22. God laid out some really specific consequences for false prophets — people who announced things that didn’t happen.
Back then, the consequence of a false prophecy was death. Painful death, usually involving rocks and other things that would legitimately be called cruel & unusual. I’d be satisfied with modern ‘prophets’ giving a “or I’ll shut up and go away” guarantee on their words. If there’s no consequences for being wrong, then why should we take someone seriously?
Nathan,
Wilkerson avoids that by denying knowledge of when it will happen. This leaves his predictions open to the defense that “it hasn’t happened yet, but just you wait!” If he would predict when these horrible events will happen, and thus leave himself open to being proven right or wrong, it would be easier to gauge his authenticity.
I lean away from the whole rapture/end of the world is here approach to Revelation. Seems like mostly Hollywood crap to me. But maybe it has something to do with the fact that at church camp as a kid, we had “rapture practice.” Now granted, it was a tongue in cheek sort of thing, but still… You have 100 or so middle school and under kids and you tell them to jump in the air with their hands up to practice for the rapture?? That has got to leave some sort of scar. In fact, my younger brother brought a friend with him one year. He was a pretty good kid, but ended up mostly being a pot head for a long time. Years later, he was sitting with my brother (and probably high) and said “you know what’s really messed up… how they used to make us do rapture practice at that camp.” Nice way to turn impressionable minds towards Christ!
I was actually led to Christ after reading the Late, Great Planet Earth.
It was to this sci-fi aficionado a doorway into at least considering the claims of the gospel.
That many of these people now seem to be whack jobs (Lindsey, La Haye and others) seems irrelevant to me now.
There is serious academic and theological work that seems to support the dispensationalist, pre-trib point of view so I do not dismiss it outright.
However, as IM has pointed out, nobody knows so I don’t worry about it any more.
Looking back it all seems like a lot of hype and phoniness but it did help me to see the Lord as a Person involved in the world and not a god on Olympus unconcerned with the ways of men.
Lindsey wrote a book called “The Liberation of Planet Earth” that was one of the first in-depth discussions of the Gospel I ever read. Probably sold ten copies, and I have two.
You left out Anglicans — as far as I know we’re ALL amillennial (at least in Australia). I have never read a Left Behind book and only saw an excerpt from the movie in Bible College because we were doing an overview of Revelation and the teacher wanted to give us a sense of what dispensationalists believed (since most of us had never met this stuff). Most of us just sat shaking our heads in amazement. I know they do sell Left Behind at the christian bookshop, and I know a few people who have read it — but all the ones I know just thought it was a fictional thriller.
I do have one exception though, my scripture teacher back in 6th grade. (Yes, we do STILL have people from local churches come in weekly to teach “scripture” in state schools)She was an elderly Anglican lady who, week by week gave us a bible story we’d all heard before. Then, one week, just the once, it was like she morphed into someone else. She started talking about the book of Revelation, jumbling up the whole lot in one 30 minute lesson. she told us (this was 1966) that Jesus was going to come back by 1970, 1975 at the latest, because we were all Laodiceans. We’d never heard this stuff before or after, and were just confused. The fact that the world is still going post-1975 forever hardened me against end-time panics.
This hit my in-box today:
Subject: IMPORTANT: One of the most urgent Youth-focused Evangelism opportunities in years
To:
(Please read and forward this email to your Sr. Pastor – this is very important. Thank you. )
As you know, the LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces PC Game has brought more than 1000 gamers to Christ! And now, we are offering the #1 best-selling Christian game of all-time in an EVANGELISM PACK for your church or ministry at a price you can not pass-up ($49.95 for 25 games; just $2 per game)! This is a $475 retail value for just $49.95.
And this version of the game includes the original Left Behind Novel paperback edition, too, right inside the box!
We only have 10,000 units remaining. When they’re gone, they are gone! With Easter coming up, what are you waiting for?
Please order your pack NOW at
Grateful to serve with you during these uncertain times.
With warm affection in Christ,
Anglicans don’t have a specific creed. The 39 Articles is more of a misc.
My personal one is when a co-worker was convinced that 9/9/99 was going to be THE DAY. Those numbers mean something upside down! This was about 4pm in the afternoon they day before, and I called up the Jerusalem Post’s website to see if there was any news on 9/9/99 about people disappearing. There wasn’t, so that was the end of a lot of theorizing.
Re: Left Behind Video Game. I’ve heard so many awful things about that game that I’ve started scouting out the local CBA store to see if it’s in the clearance aisle yet. It is, but it’s still $15 and I’m not paying that much for a joke.
The other story I have is the Jack Van Impe album I used to own from 1971. Jesus will come back no later than 1977, so be prepared.
The NEWEST Pretrib Calendar
Hal (serial polygamist) Lindsey and other pretrib-rapture-trafficking and Mayan-Calendar-hugging hucksters deserve the following message: “2012 may be YOUR latest date. It isn’t MAYAN!” Actually, if it weren’t for the 179-year-old, fringe-British-invented, American-merchandised pretribulation rapture bunco scheme, Hal might still be piloting a tugboat on the Mississippi. roly-poly Thomas Ice (Tim LaHaye’s No. 1 strong-arm enforcer) might still be in his tiny folding-chair church which shares its firewall with a Texas saloon, Jack Van Impe might still be a jazz band musician, Tim LaHaye might still be titillating California matrons with his “Christian” sex manual, Grant Jeffrey might still be taking care of figures up in Canada, Chuck Missler might still be in mysterious hush-hush stuff that rocket scientists don’t dare talk about, John Hagee might be making – and eating – world-record pizzas, and Jimmy (“Bye You” Rapture) Swaggart might still be flying on a Ferriday flatbed! To read more details about the eschatological British import that leading British scholarship never adopted – the import that’s created some American multi-millionaires – Google “Pretrib Rapture Diehards” (note LaHaye’s hypocrisy under “1992″), “Hal Lindsey’s Many Divorces,” “Thomas Ice (Bloopers)” and “Thomas Ice (Hired Gun),” “LaHaye’s Temperament,” “Wily Jeffrey,” “Chuck Missler – Copyist,” “Open Letter to Todd Strandberg” and “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “X-Raying Margaret,” “Humbug Huebner,” “Thieves’ Marketing,” “Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal,” “The Unoriginal John Darby,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” “The Real Manuel Lacunza,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Pretrib Rapture – Hidden Facts,” “Dolcino? Duh!” and “Scholars Weigh My Research.” Most of the above is written by journalist/historian Dave MacPherson who has focused on long-hidden pretrib rapture history for 35+ years. No one else has focused on it for 35 months or even 35 weeks. MacPherson has been a frequent radio talk show guest and he states that all of his royalties have always gone to a nonprofit group and not to any individual. His No. 1 book on all this is “The Rapture Plot” (see Armageddon Books online, etc.). The amazing thing is how long it has taken the mainstream media to finally notice and expose this unbelievably groundless yet extremely lucrative theological hoax!
[I recently collided with above web bit - Anthony]
I didn’t see it anywhere in the comments and I apologize if I missed it. Has anyone brought up the deal with St Malachy? I remember it being a big news item after Pope John Paul II died, because there was supposedly only two popes left now, Bendict XVI and whoever the last one will be. Not that I am placing any stock in that one either, but it fits here in this conversation.
Ahhh, end-times prophecy.
One of the things that nearly shipwrecked my faith.
Specifically, I lived in fear for years after reading Salem Kirban’s books 666 and 1000 as a pre-teen.
I still have a fear of guillotines.
“I still have a fear of guillotines.”
That seems a rational fear to me.
At least if you don’t obsess over it.
The fact is, end-times sell.
The church in the USA is effectively operating like any other free-market capital enterprise. If rabid eschatology gets numbers, sells books and makes money, then do it. After all, it’s all about numbers – because empty pews mean empty coffers.
The same can be said of gay rights and evolution. If people will pay to be suspicious of the science they don’t understand, and the gay people they didn’t much like in the first place, then these issues will take pride of place (over third world hunger, massacres of Sudanese Christians, wars in the middle east, greed, and anything else actually important that Christ preached about.)
IMonk said: “Catholics simply don’t lose their minds over this sort of thing.”
When I was a practicing Roman Catholic I was completely unaware that there was any such thing as end times prophecy. Remember, the average “Joe” Catholic who sits in the pew week after week, dropping their five dollar bill in the basket does not read the Scriptures. They hear the readings at the weekly mass and that is all the Scripture they get. They are not aware and therefore do not even participate in end times discussions.
I have never read the Left Behind series nor do I put much stock in those with end times predictions. I do hope however that the end times occurs in my lifetime. I can not think of a more exciting time in the life of the Church than being a part of “wrapping this whole thing up”. I would like to be a part of the Church that gets to see it and participate in it. I am not afraid of it. Bring it on.
Come Lord Jesus Come!
Didn’t C.S. Lewis say something in Mere Chrisianity about not understanding people who say they can’t wait for the second coming because when the author walks out on stage the play is finished?
Dave Wilkerson wrote a end of the world book back in the 80′s called The Vision. I read it when I was around 18ish. So, what happened to that vision? Doesn’t the Bible talk about prophets whose prophecies don’t come true.
I have a friend who was a very ambitious practical joker. Late on Saturday night, when he was in Bible college, he set up his car, engine running, his clothes neatly laid out in the drivers’ seat. He got most of his dorm mates to lay their clothes out in their beds or in front of a running TV. One guy was left to weep and wail and cry out, “I’ve been left behind!”
Then the resident end-times-obsessed roommate arrived home from a late date. I wonder if he’s recovered yet.
“With Easter coming up, what are you waiting for?”
I think I’ll stick with the whackin’ great delicious chocolate Easter egg, thanks all the same.
Though Joseph – maybe I should pass this on to my sister? I have young nephews (9 and 12) who are ripe to be saved!!!!! by video gaming!
Ah, yes, the prophecy of St. Malachy! Blame the Irish!
For those of you who have been so unfortunate as to miss this, it’s a list of Popes alleged to have been seen in a vision by St. Malachy, the 12th century archbishop of Armagh, going all the way up to The End Of The World. (Needless to say, there’s no evidence St. Malachy ever had anything to do with this ‘prophecy’).
The apocalypse-watchers have made a parlour game out of trying to match up the popes with the predictions; for Benedict XVI, they took the last one on the list (before “Petrus Romanus”, the very final Pope) which is “De Gloria Olivae” or “glory of the olive”.
As Wikipedia neatly lays it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes
“Prior to the papal conclave, this motto led to speculation that the next pontiff would be from the Order of Saint Benedict, whose symbols include the olive branch.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, elected in April 2005, is not a Benedictine, but did choose Benedict XVI as his regnal name, partially named after Benedictine founder Benedict of Nursia), which might be regarded as a fulfillment of this prophecy.”
No, if you really want to know when things are looking bad, then I can inform you of the reliable, infallible sign: St. Patrick (during his fasting and prayer on Croagh Patrick) obtained as a favour that seven years before the end of the world, Ireland would sink beneath the waves (he could not bear to think that the island he loved would be subjected to the destruction of fire and all the rest of it detailed in Revelation).
So – if we start subsiding, the rest of ye have only seven years left!
There’s a dude over at Worldview Weekend that say the Jesus will return in our time. He says he knows this because Daniel is told in that the vision he has seen is sealed until the end times and that when people with insight and wisdom understand it, then it will be fulfilled. He understands the prophecy, where evidently no on before him did, therefore it is the end time and Jesus will come back in our time.
Beth, that was genius!
True story: I signed my life over to Jesus in November 1987, right before the whole “88 reasons why the Rapture will happen in 1988″ thing started gaining steam. Being young and ignorant, I sent a little money to the people running that canard and got their booklet detailing the “88 reasons”. Two things I found:
1) They only had about 20 “reasons” that pertained to why they thought the Rapture would happen in that particular year. The rest were either repetitions of those 20, or reasons why they thought the Rapture would happen at some point, or urban legends, or … you get the idea. And most of the 20 “reasons” weren’t all that compelling to a fairly naive college freshman (which I was at the time).
2) I’m pretty sure they spent far more money on mailers to get me to donate more than I sent them in the first place — and were still sending them to me OVER A YEAR after the time they said the Rapture would happen had come and gone.
That started my education on what goes on behind the scenes (and in the minds) of some so-called ministries. I’m no longer that naive.
Also, I read the entire Left Behind series, and all it did was enforce my belief that evangelicals are willing to read any novel that claims to be “Christian” as long as the writing is mediocre. The fact that a middling talent like Jerry Jenkins is now head of the Christian Writers’ Guild says a lot about the (low) standard of writing quality upheld in Christian fiction circles. (Okay, getting off topic here …)
* It does not follow that dispensationalist eschatology must be wrong or unorthodox because it has inspired cheesy films and books
* Most non-dispensationalists I have met don’t really understand the key points of dispensational hermeneutics and eschatology — but will bash the system, nevertheless; I’ve stopped listening to them for this reason
* The vast majority of dispensationalists don’t try to predict the end with accuracy, but do heed Jesus’s words in Matthew 24: “You will know the signs of the end,” etc.
* Many of the early Christian lived in expectation of the end, believing Jesus would return during their lifetimes, and while it’s wrong to obsess about these things, it’s also wrong to go to the other extreme and say “Where is this coming he promised?” (2 Pet. 3:4)
Beth,
I heard of an incident in a class at the Bible college I attended. The class was talking about the rapture and the “last trumpet sounding.” One of the guys had fallen asleep. The professor had everyone leave their papers and pens right where they were and leave the room. One of the students got his trumpet and blew one long blast just outside the classroom door. They said the poor guy woke up, looked around, and turned white as a sheet.
Chris:
two questions
Do dispensationalists believe that the Jews in Israel now are going to be largely wiped out in a Holocaust?
Do dispensationalists believe that Jesus will return and reinstate temple worship, with sacrifices?
just curious.
ms
Couple points.
We are to be wise as serpents, and respond to the times
Being a calvanistic armenian myself, my philosophy is witness to them all and let God sort them out, and a panmillieniumist, that it will all pan out in the end.
I do have a story though, early 80′s in school, I had a prof who was ectstatic over the fact that the world buzzard population was booming, sure that God was preparing for Armageddon. heh.
Of course I had another prof who was sure Jesus changed the water into grape juice, but that’s another story.
dadofhomeschoolers.
Okay, I am thoroughly confused. In glancing through all these posts it seems as though those posting either (1) do not believe in a rapture at all or (2) do not believe in a tributlation period or (3) do not believe in any theological view except that things will go on just as they have been (sort of reminds one of the “days of Noah”, doesn’t it?). I could be wrong, of course – there’s always a first time.
I supposed I’m one of those consumer-oriented Christians, or a “fat cat”, for believing in a pretrib rapture. Actually, I don’t really care when it occurs because I know God is in charge of the whole thing and He will never allow His own to be ashamed – maybe martyred but not ashamed.
[mod edit]
Anyway, just wanted to say that I believe Jesus is coming again – we don’t know when and He doesn’t either – but we DO know it is going to happen. [mod edit]
I received an email in the week prior to the inauguration that fit well with the Bible study on the Old Testament prophets I began in January at the church I pastor.
Someone down in Florida had a near-death experience in which “Jesus” gave him a specific prophecy regarding the Rapture. According to this guy, President Bush was the last president before the Rapture, so something would happen on January 19 to prevent Bush from leaving office.
I replied to the person who sent it to me:
“OK, this sounds intriguing. I wonder if the guy will submit himself to stoning if it doesn’t occur, as prescribed in the Mosaic Law for false prophets.
“I’m expecting a somewhat quiet weekend. Gymnastics Friday night, sermonizing Saturday night, and 2 glorious worship services Sunday. I suspect I’ll make my doctor’s appointment on Monday and receive a renewal of my Adderall prescription.
“If he’s right, I’ll apologize to him in heaven after the Rapture.”
I suppose I’ll have much for which to apologize in eternity, but doubting someone’s near-death prophecy won’t make the list.
On a historical note there are:
Many Christians who wouldn’t believe in a ‘rapture’ – the majority historically.
Some Christians who don’t believe in a tribulation – mostly postmills with a few amills.
Very few Christians who believe that things go on and on forever – mainly hyper-preterists on the internet.
You dont’t have to believe in a rapture to be an orthodox christian.
One thing that really bothers me about the whole dispensational pre-trib scene is how much importance the devotees place on it. It seems to be a primary article of faith, rather than an unessential that we can disagree about. I had an experience similar to austin (top of the comments): an otherwise sound, local “Bible” church refused to let me become a member because I could not sign their statement of faith that included a specific pre-trib rapture section. This ranks in importance with salvation by faith, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, etc? I may well be there today if it wasn’t for that unnecessary bit of discrimination.
I see Wilkerson and his ilk as being all part of God’s plan for the end of the age. They are intended to marginalize and bring contempt on the people of God. The heathen world will become hardened to any idea of Christ returning.
Not only that, people within the Church will become discouraged also and the very biblical doctrine of premillenialism (I am Posttrib) will be despised and ridiculed as it is on this site.
So, mock away. But don’t expect to be patted on the back by Jesus when you see Him coming in the clouds.
Just because Chicken-Little was wrong last time doesn’t mean that the sky can’t fall in the future.
I agree that ANYONE trying to predict the “day or the hour” of WHEN the 2nd coming will occur is an idiot that doesn’t know scripture … but that-being-said, Jesus and the prophets did describe signs and situations to indicate when the end of this age was close and at-hand.
I think MS’s rant on this has become a classic case of throwing out the baby with the proverbial bath-water.
The whole thing, on Spencer’s part, seems to me to be a sour-grapes exercise in apologetics for the cause of Mary Baker Eddy: “Whack-the-Conservative-Evangelicals-who-don’t-speak-well-of-us-and-call-us-a-cult.” I think another name for that is wish-fulfillment.
jb
@Headless Unicorn Guy
“As in “Even Ned Flanders has more sense than thatâ€?
(Think about what I just said…)
Or the “Lifeboat†parody in the episode when a comet was about to impact Springfield?”
–both actually, bravo for catching it.
Michael, thanks for the questions. I believe I’m speaking for most dispensationalists in saying we believe that in during a 7-year Tribulation period preceding the Second Coming of our Lord, Israel will be attacked by several other nations — from her north and from her east, most significantly.
This will occur around the climax of this 7-year period, at which time the Lord will descend with his army to defend Israel and judge these nations. This, we believe, is prophesied in Daniel 9, Matt. 24, and throughout Revelation (I could give more specific references if need be). Around the beginning of this 7-year period, we believe the nation of Israel, almost completely en masse, will recognize Jesus Christ as their own Messiah, and evangelize for him. This, we believe, is the removal of the partial hardening spoken of by Paul in Romans 11 and mentioned in several other passages.
To answer the second question, some do and some don’t. I haven’t decided what I believe about this yet (this also holds for the time of the rapture — I just don’t know). If sacrifices are reinstated (during Christ’s millennial kingdom, for instance), it will be to commemmorate Christ’s Sacrifice, just as the Mosaic sacrifices looked forward to this Event. I realize that this notion chafes the sensibilities of a lot of Christians, and I understand why — but by the same token, the fact that the Lord commanded the Israelites to sacrifice livestock for several centuries, I would suggest, causes the same internal reaction in us — yet this was God’s will, was it not?
In several of the OT prophets, you hear God saying (to paraphrase): “You (Israel) WILL obey my laws. I will ensure that. We WILL get this relationship right at some point. You WILL walk with me.” I think those kinds of statements might be fulfilled during the reign of Christ, the thousand years spoken of in Scripture, when he rules the new earth from Israel, and Israel worships him as he prescribed. Then the Mosaic, Davidic, Abrahamic and New Covenants will all be fulfilled at once, in their fullness.
A counter-question for non-dispensationalists is, “How do you account for the very specific prophecies about Israel laid down in Ezekiel 40?” It seems a huge stretch to me to try to allegorize things like: “And the side rooms, one reed long and one reed broad; and the space between the side rooms, five cubits; and the threshold of the gate by the vestibule of the gate at the inner end, one reed” (v. 40:7, ESV).
Ultimately, I find dispensationalism so tenable (in spite of its unwieldy name!) because it takes account of passages like this, and like Daniel 9, very thoroughly, and to me, very satisfactorily. But hear me, I respect my covenant theologian friends. Their system is coherent, even if (to me) it does not have the same explanatory power. What I DON’T do is bash them and treat them as if they’re a semi-cult for believing as they do. I’m not saying you have done this or do this, Michael — just commenting on some of the attitude I pick up on- and offline, at times, towards ‘dispies’.
When does prophecy become prophecy?
Who determines when prophecy is prophecy?
I didn’t read where David Wilkerson said that time was going to end.
Once again Wilkerson is spewing out another “predictive” prophecy. At least this time he was wise enough to say it without putting a date on it like he did in the 1970′s with his book “The Vision.” He should have been banned from his pulpit them for a blatant false prophecy. He is unrepentant in this after 3 decades. He does on a large stage what Pentecostals of all stripes due on a small stage nearly every Sunday, give “prophecies” which later turn out to have been false. Why will the church not discipline its members and put these people out as charlatans?
If as the author of the article of coming evangelical collapse is correct and only the charismatics will be in large numbers, the collapse will be total.