Publishing Armageddon

American Vision ^ | 7/24/2006 | Gary DeMar

[topcat54]

Events in Israel are viewed by millions of evangelicals as a sure sign that the rapture is near. Again! Jerry Falwell, who stated on a December 27, 1992, television broadcast, that he did “not believe there will be another millennium . . . or another century,” has written on July 23, 2006:

It is apparent, in light of the rebirth of the state of Israel, that the present-day events in the Holy Land may very well serve as a prelude or forerunner to the future Battle of Armageddon and the glorious return of Jesus Christ.1

Something similar happened in 1990. John F. Walvoord recycled and revised his Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis to fit with what was then considered to be the latest in the fulfillment of Bible prophecy in our day. The 1974 edition opened with this declaration: “Each day’s headlines raise new questions concerning what the future holds.”2 As we now know, Walvoord’s book was guided by current events and not sound methods of biblical interpretation. Described as “the world’s foremost interpreter of biblical prophecy,” in 1991 he expected “‘the Rapture to occur in his own lifetime.’”3 While Walvoord didn’t invent the prophetic speculation game, as Frank Gumerlock points out it his The Day and the Hour, he did make a ton of money playing it.

Walvoord’s book was reprinted in 1976 and then sank without a trace until a revised edition appeared in late 1990. By August 1991, it had sold 1,676,886 copies.4 It was decisively predictive based on the events transpiring in the Gulf War:

The world today is like a stage being set for a great drama. The major actors are already in the wings waiting for their moment in history. The main stage props are already in place. The prophetic play is about to begin. . . . Our present world is well prepared for the beginning of the prophetic drama that will lead to Armageddon. Since the stage is set for this dramatic climax of the age, it must mean that Christ’s coming for his own is very near.5

Not many people realized that the basic content of the revised edition was nearly sixteen years old when it was reissued in 1990. When the Gulf War ended abruptly, the book was being remaindered for twenty-five cents a copy, if you bought it by the case!

Walvoord’s failed predictions have not deterred other prophecy writers from taking up the mantle of prophetic dogmatism by proclaiming that prophecy is being fulfilled today. And what about their past failed predictions that seemed so sure at the time? They simply moved on “without ever acknowledging their mistake.”6 This is because current events, not Scripture, serve as their interpretive grid.

In 1974, Thomas S. McCall and the late Zola Levitt wrote The Coming Russian Invasion in which they stated that “the Armageddon conflict grows out of the Russian invasion of Israel.” Now that the former Soviet Union no longer has super power status, a new prophetic theory had to be invented to fit current events. Since necessity is the mother of invention in the end-time speculation business, prophecy speculator Mark Hitchcock wrote The Coming Islamic Invasion of Israel. But that was in 2002 and it’s old news. Now that Iran is threatening Israel again, prophetic publishers are looking for the next prophetic blockbuster to take advantage of the always gullible Christian market. Similar in title to Walvoord’s book that was first published in 1974, Hitchcock has written Iran—The Coming Crisis: Radical Islam, Oil, and the Nuclear Threat. How many unsuspecting readers will know that Hitchcock has traveled this prophetic road before in The Silver Kingdom: Iran in History and Prophecy published in 1994?

The only winners in the Armageddon game are the authors who tell us it’s near and the publishers who print their books by the truck load. The losers are the integrity of God’s Word and the poor souls who pin their hopes on prophetic speculations passed off as certainties that are always said to be near.

Gary DeMar is president of American Vision and the author of more than 20 books. His latest is Myths, Lies, and Half Truths.

Reprinted with permission: American Vision P.O. Box 220, Powder Springs, GA 30127, 800-628-9460.

Notes:

1. Jerry Falwell, “On the threshold of Armageddon?” (July 23, 2006): www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51180

2. John F. Walvoord and John E. Walvoord, Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1974), 7.

3. Quoted in Kenneth L. Woodward, “The Final Days are Here Again,” Newsweek (March 18, 1991), 55.

4. Press Release, “Kudos,” Zondervan Publishing House (August 1991).

5. John W. Walvoord, Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990), 228.

6. Stephen D. O’Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 191.

[Seven_0]

In all these years I never realized anyone could have another understanding of that parable except one of fortifying courage and complete reassurance in Jesus Christ.

All that Christian confidence for nothing. Who'd a thunk it?

Take the first four parables in Matthew 13, each of them shows a mixture of evil in the kingdom. In the first parable, we have four types of soil. Only one produces fruit. In the second parable we have the introduction of tares among the wheat. In the third parable, we have the birds lodging in the branches and in the fourth parable. The woman putting leaven into three measures of meal.

The first two parables are explained for us. The next two are not explained, but are left for us to discern. Notice that in the explanation of the first two parables, Christ tells us the meaning of all the symbols, and then sums them up. Can we use this method in the other two parables and in other scripture as well? You may not realize it, but you have interpreted the parable exactly this way. Where did you get the meaning of birds?

Try these verses:

Matt 13:4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:

Matt 13:19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.

There are other verses that will help to refine the meaning of the symbols and nature, God's other book, offers much help. The fact that birds fly, associates them with the prince of the power of the air, (Eph. 2:2)

It should not be difficult to accept that there is evil in the kingdom.

Matt 13:41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;

Seven

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Of course there is evil in the world.

But the parable of the mustard seed is one of encouragement and strength.

I guess we tend to find what we're looking for.

[Seven_0]

Of course there is evil in the world.

You wrote 'world' instead of 'kingdom.' They shall gather out of his 'kingdom.' Is there evil in the kingdom of heaven?

But the parable of the mustard seed is one of encouragement and strength.

I agree, but it is much more than that.

I guess we tend to find what we're looking for.

Sometimes we find things we don't like. The word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

"Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.

And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.

And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.

Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?

And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." -- Matthew 17:15-20

Jesus is comparing a lack of faith to an impotent life.

Jesus contrasts that with the tiny mustard seed which, like true faith in the Trinitarian God of creation, will grow to become effective and fruitful.

As God wills.

I think it's fairly "perverse" to see the parable in any other light.

[Gamecock]

Has anyone here read this yet:

Description: "Jesus Christ will soon return to the earth. This book, like the rapture fiction novels it discusses, finds its hope in that statement’s truth. Nothing that this book argues should therefore be understood as in any way underplaying the significance of our Lord’s second coming, or its central importance in consistent Christian living. The New Testament documents shine with the anticipation of glory, and this book must not dull that hope.

Rapture Fiction and the Evangelical Crisis seeks to retain rapture novels’ enthusiasm for the return of Jesus Christ at the same time as it examines their presentation of the gospel. Its most basic argument is that rapture novels have emerged from an evangelicalism that shows signs of serious theological decay. In their descriptions of conversion and Christian living, rapture fiction novels demonstrate a sometimes inadequate understanding of the gospel, the church and the Christian life. These novels are some of the best-selling ‘evangelical’ titles in the world, but the faith they represent cannot be identified with the historic orthodoxy of evangelical Protestantism, the ‘faith which was once delivered unto the saints’ (Jude 3). The novels’ combination of theological inadequacy and massive popularity is evidence that evangelicalism is now in serious crisis."

Crawford Gribben is the lecturer in Renaissance literature and culture at the University of Manchester, a member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and the author of The Irish Puritans: James Ussher and the Reformation of the Church (Evangelical Press). Before his current post at Manchester, he taught in the School of English at Trinity College, Dublin, and was a visiting lecturer at the University of Lausanne and a visiting scholar at Westminster College, Cambridge. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His research interests centre on three major themes: the literary culture of puritanism; relationships between literature and theology, especially in Irish and Scottish contexts; and the history of apocalyptic and millennial thought.

A sample chapter can be read here.