Who knows? Maybe 2006 is the year the truth might find its way into the mainstream. While there is still time.
Hurry, while the prophetic clock is still ticking! Matthew 24:34 reads "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till ALL these things be fulfilled." Which generation? Why, our generation!
Back when Hal Lindsay wrote The Late Great Planet Earth, Israel's foundation (1948) was still recent history. Consider that a "biblical generation" at that time was believed to be around forty years in length. Thus, with the reestablishment of the Nation of Israel, the expectation was that the Tribulation and Christ's Return would occur within a biblical generation, IE within Lindsey's readers' lifetimes (1988 occurring forty years - one generation - after the reestablishment of Israel). Now two more decades have passed, the EU has grown beyond 10 members, the Soviet Bear has fallen, and last time I looked, I don't have a UPC bar-code tattooed on my forehead (or a techno-ID chip implanted in hand) and every car I see on the highway still has a driver. Either someone forgot to set the alarm on that prophetic clock, or we just kept hitting the snooze button.
It's been almost sixty years now, since the foundation of Israel. Assuming the Rapture hits tomorrow, you still need to tack on an additional seven years to account for the Tribulation period before a Pretrib Second Coming. Thus, either the biblical length of a "generation" is greater than 58 years and growing (assuming Pretrib rapture, 65+ years if Posttrib), or Hal Lindsey and Co. have badly misjudged which prophetic time period we're living in, and thus badly misunderstood Matthew 24:34.
Now two more decades have passed, the EU has grown beyond 10 members,
There were never the number of 10 members. They jumped from 9 up to 12 when UK, Denmark and Ireland(?) jumped in at the same date!!!