I keep wondering. The bible says “This generation shall not pass away until all these things come to pass.” And they begin with Israel being re-united.
This happened in 1948 and the average lifespan of a generation, according to the bible, is 70 years.
Just sayin’.
Also, consider all the Jewish people from all over the world who have and are now reuniting with their homeland Israel. God’s time clock is running down. Look up and be ready.
American Christian evangelist and author, Hal Lindsey, aged 40, had his book, The Late Great Planet Earth, published in 1970. The book is a treatment of literalist, premillennial, dispensational (an evangelical, futurist, Biblical interpretation that understands God to have related to human beings in different ways under different Biblical covenants in a series of "dispensations," or periods in history), eschatology (the study of 'end things', whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, the end of the world and the nature of the Kingdom of God). Coming on the heels of the Israeli-Arab Six-Day War (1967), the book fueled the popularity of dispensationalism and its support of ethnic Jews as the "chosen people of God". It was later made into a film, “The Late Great Planet Earth”, with Hollywood actor/ director/ writer/ producer Orson Welles doing the narration and was released in theaters in 1979. Many of Lindsey's later writings are sequels or revisions and extensions of his 1st book.
The Late Great Planet Earth compared end-time prophecies in the Bible with then-current events in an attempt to broadly predict future scenarios leading to the rapture (a word not used in the Bible) of believers before the tribulation and Second Coming of Christ to establish his thousand-year (i.e., millennial) Kingdom on Earth. Focusing on key passages in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation, Lindsey originally suggested the possibility that these climactic events might play out in the 1980s, which he interpreted as 1 generation from the foundation of modern Israel in 1948, a pivotal event in some conservative evangelical schools of eschatological thought.
He cited an increase in the frequency of famines, wars and earthquakes, as key events leading up to the end of the world. He also foretold a Soviet invasion of Israel (War of Gog and Magog). Like many previous books, The Late, Great Planet Earth postulated an Antichrist ruling over a 10-member or 10-nation European confederacy. Lindsey believed that what was then the 6-member European Economic Community (later the 28-member European Union) could be a forerunner of this confederacy, which he considered to be a revival of the Roman Empire.
Lindsey wrote that the biblical prophets identified certain nations would ally with other countries to form "4 major spheres of political power" during the same time era that Israel would be reestablished as a nation. These nations and their allies were identified as: (1) Russia with its allies, (2) China with other nations of the Orient, (3) Egypt with other Middle East countries, and (4) an alliance of Western European nations. He stated that the prophets did not directly or indirectly refer to the U.S. He concluded that this was an indication that the U.S. would no longer be a leader on the world geo-political stage by the time the Tribulation of the end times arrived, but he suggested that Ezekiel 13:13 could be speaking of the U.S. in part.
Ezekiel 13:13 (NIV, © 2011) 13 “‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: In my wrath I will unleash a violent wind, and in my anger hailstones and torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury.
Although Lindsey did not claim to know the dates of future events with any certainty, he suggested that Matthew 24:32-34 indicated that Jesus' return might be within "1 generation" of the rebirth of the state of Israel, and the rebuilding of the (3rd) Jewish Temple, and Lindsey asserted that "in the Bible" 1 generation is 40 years. Some readers took this as an indication that the Tribulation or the Rapture would occur no later than 1988. In his 1980 work, The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon, Lindsey predicted that "the decade of the 1980s could very well be the last decade of history as we know it".
Matthew 24:32-34 (NIV, © 2011) 32 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it[a] is near, right at the door. 34 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
Lindsey's earlier predictions all assumed that the Cold War would continue indefinitely, and had eschatological significance; he explicitly identified Russia with the apocalyptic figure of Gog. He also assumed that the 1960s counterculture would eventually become the dominant culture, and become the source of prophesied "immorality" that would lead to the establishment of a false religion.
His 1996 book, Planet Earth – 2000 A.D: Will Mankind Survive?, stated that Christians should not plan to still be on earth by the year 2000.
In 1994, he created a weekly television program, “The Hal Lindsay Report”, which was focused on Biblical prophecy and current events. He is still making weekly editions for the program at aged 84. They air on the Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN) under his own financing.