Posted on 04/01/2024 6:12:24 PM PDT by grumpa
In September 2021, many people went into a frenzy when the United States Postal Service announced that their mail delivery service would become permanently slower. This new phenomenon is called Pre-Parcel Anxiety. “We live in a society where we build expectations and uphold perfectionism. We want things here and now. We want efficiency and struggle with patience,” psychotherapist Owen O’Kane explains.
Today, we’re seeing what I’m calling Pre-Trib Anxiety. The world is in such a mess that anticipation of the always-imminent rapture is making people anxious. Where is it? It should have been here by now. Why is there a delay? This anxiety is being treated (if I can use that word) by prophecy prognosticators assuring Christians that the rapture is right around the corner. We are closer today than we’ve ever been. How long have we heard that claim? Seeing an eclipse or a blood moon is thought to be an email from God that your rapture parcel is on its way.
With the Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024, I’ve been asked to deal with claims that it’s an imminent warning for upcoming prophetic events. Are Christians being duped again, like when in 1970 Hal Lindsey strongly intimated that the so-called rapture would take place before 1988 in his book The Late Great Planet Earth and when Edgar Whisenant claimed the same for September 1988 in his booklet Why the Rapture Will be in 1988?
Then there was Harold Camping of Family Radio who was notorious for issuing a succession of failed predictions of dates for the end times. Camping first predicted that Judgment Day would occur on or about September 6, 1994. When it failed to occur, he revised the date to September 29 and then to October 2. In 2005, he predicted the Second Coming of Christ would occur on May 21, 2011, when the saved would be taken up to heaven in the rapture, and that “there would follow five months of fire, brimstone and plagues on Earth, with millions of people dying each day, culminating on October 21, 2011, with the final destruction of the world.”
What’s different today with claims that solar and lunar eclipses and so-called blood moons are signs that the “rapture” is around the corner? Not much. It’s been done to death as any history on the subject will show. American Vision has published Frank Gumerlock’s The Day and the Hour which is an encyclopedic study of false end-times speculations.
People have short memories or no knowledge of such foolishness. There are consequences to such foolishness in the name of “Bible prophecy.” Camping’s prediction for May 21, 2011, prompted ridicule from atheist organizations and rebuttals from Christian organizations.
In what I’m seeing and reading, there is general ignorance among Christians when it comes to Bible prophecy that fall into two categories. First, there is the “you’ve heard it said” category. Popular prophecy writers are trusted authorities on prophetic matters. These people have a very large audience. Their prognostications are shared around the internet without much skepticism.
Second, the most popular prophecy system that predicts the so-called rapture of the church today feeds this sensationalism. Seeing the sun go dark (which did not and will not happen) and the moon turning to blood (which did not and will not happen) are used as supposed physical confirming signs that millions of Christians have been taught that verify the end times. Additionally, the “signs of the times” seem to fit current world conditions.
In the end, it all comes down to what the Bible says. I realize that everyone who writes on the topic says this, but I suspect that many in the imbibing prophetic public have rarely taken the time to put what they read and hear to the test even though the Bible commands us to “test” or “examine everything carefully; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21). John writes something similar, “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). Even the most authoritative Christian is not exempt as the Bereans show us: “Now these were more noble minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). The Bereans tested Paul and examined him carefully, and he didn’t object. He welcomed these students of the Scriptures.
So much of prophetic speculation today is wrapped up in the idea of presumed unfilled prophecy related to national Israel. This is a huge interpretive mistake.
Prophecy writers with a futurist bent can’t seem to grasp the significance of the New Covenant. Like the Judaizers, they want to keep some remnant of the Old Covenant alive. Israel becoming a nation again in 1948 is said to be prophetically significant. Within 40 years of that date, the end times would manifest themselves. When 1988 came and went, the prophetic goal posts were moved. Nineteen sixty-seven became the new starting date. But that took us to 2007, and we are now 17 years beyond that date. The starting date and the length of a generation are repetitively elastic. People like Henry Morris and Tim LaHaye said 1917 was the starting date. LaHaye eventually abandoned this view, and Morris’ calculation faded when the last surviving soldier from the First World War died. For example, Morris argued that “this generation” in Matthew 24:34 was a reference to World War I: “That is, the generation which sees all these signs (probably starting with World War I) shall not have completely passed away until all these things have taken place.”
The claim is that some redemptive elements from the Old Covenant related to Israel remain to be fulfilled. The temple must be rebuilt. The priesthood must be reestablished. The breeding of modern-day red heifers is said to be a prophetic sign related to unfulfilled Bible prophecy even though the book of Hebrews refutes such a belief.
“The commands concerning the red heifer were a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Christ for our sins. Jesus was “without blemish,” just as the red heifer was to be. As the heifer was sacrificed “outside the camp” (Num. 19:3), Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem (Heb. 13:11-12). And, just as the ashes of the red heifer cleansed people from the contamination of death, so the sacrifice of Christ saves us from the penalty and corruption of death.”
Christians supporting the reinstitution of these OC practices in the name of God fulfilling unfulfilled promises made to Israel borders on the absurd. It is ridiculous and contrary to everything we find in the New Testament.
So-called blood moons and eclipses become important end-time signs even though they have been common and predictable events throughout the centuries. We always know when and where they will appear. The darkening of the sun and moon and falling stars were common sign indicators for the fall of nations, for example, OT Babylon:
“For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash their light; The sun will be dark when it rises And the moon will not shed its light (Isa. 13:10).”
And Old Testament Egypt:
“And when I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud And the moon will not give its light.
“All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you And will set darkness on your land,” Declares the Lord GOD.
“I will also trouble the hearts of many peoples when I bring your destruction among the nations, into lands which you have not known. And I will make many peoples appalled at you, and their kings will be horribly afraid of you when I brandish My sword before them; and they will tremble again and again, every person for his own life, on the day of your fall.” (Ezek. 32:7-10).
Nothing physically happened to the sun, moon, and stars when God judged Babylon and Egypt. Jesus used language from the OT and applied it to first-century Jerusalem (Matt. 24:31), the “this generation” of Matthew 24:34. What Jesus quoted from the OT in Matthew 24:31 didn’t have anything to do with eclipses or moons that looked red.
The April 8th solar eclipse has prophecy speculators speculating for the umpteenth time that the end or the rapture must be near. It’s a shame that so many Christians are taken in by the prophetic hype. It’s all because too many Christians are still living in the shadow of the Old Covenant.
To be continued…
LOL. It's not "alleged" if it has been set down in writing for 2000 years. With a minimal effort, an openminded person can find it easily on the internet where it's there for all to see. Even Martin Luther and the "Reformers" had recourse to them and cited them frequently.
Your whole Bible interpretation house of cards is built on speculation and hearsay...Then that leaves you with nothing more than YOUR own fallible personal interpretation of the Bible.
LOL. I haven't offered any interpretation at all, let alone my "whole Bible interpretation"!
Sure you have.
You keep putting up your interpretation on end times events and the return of Jesus for all to see.
Additionally, you accept the Catholic religion interpretation as valid, which means that you agree with it since it matches yours.
LOL! Those who think an eclipse is a sign need to know that we can predict eclipses way out in the future...and it will get a LOT worse before Jesus returns...by then, these will seem like the good old days...
They believe He came already ... in 70 AD ... and we are living in the millennium now.
I gotta say ... if this is the kingdom ... I'm very disappointed.
Demar is a date setter ... he just retroactively sets the Second Coming date in 70 AD.
I still have two cheap booklets “Why the Rapture will be in 1988! along with other books dealing with the End Times. One claimed nuclear war with Israel in 1985! another 50 year old book claiming the Rapture “would be in your life time!” Another declaring the End Times were upon us 30 years ago. That book eventually rotted and fell apart waiting.
Yet the Bible clearly states that No Man will know when that will be. Jesus himself said “Will he find FAITH when he returns?” indicating a non-Christian world. Maybe it is like LOT at Sodom, The LORD said “I will not destroy it for ten righteous people...” But the world seems to have far less righteous people every decade.
As I look at the state of the World today I often long for the End Times. Then a family walks by with little children and I instead pray..”Dear LORD, Give them a chance to make a decision for you. Amen.”
Amos 5: 18Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD! What will the Day of the LORD be for you? It will be darkness and not light. 19It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake.
20Will not the Day of the LORD be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it?
Pimping yet another blog site? How many do you have??
You have various and often contradictory opinions from various ECFs. Ya know, for a group that claims an existence of 2000 yrs you’d think they’d been able to dogmatically define more than a very small number of texts.
I tell my boys this, “I’m not necessarily afraid of dying because I know where I’m going, it’s more about how I die. I’d much rather go quickly and in peace, rather than in a violent end or a prolonged illness.
The Church Fathers Didn’t Teach Sola Scriptura (Part 1)
Grumpa - I cannot wait for my Crown of Righteousness!
2 Timothy 4:8
We don’t have anxiety meeting our King.
We long for it!
You Preterists on the other hand will have much to answer for in your false teachings, scoffing, and mocking of The Lord’s Return.
If this is the “kingdom”, we’re all in trouble!
These people don’t even think about what they are saying and posting just to keep their blogs and egos going.
They still refuse to answer how Nero (their AC) pinned his ‘Mark’ on Mayans, Chinese, and Pacific Islanders to enforce Revelation 13.
It’s childish to even debate them with their view of reality.
Amen!
Don’t ever let these naysayer heretics rain on your expectation of Our Lord taking us home!
He will!
He said so!
This is our Eternal Hope!
Amen!
And that Crown of Righteousness to go with it..
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