Ah, the perils of prognosticating Judgment Day. Frankly, Mr. LaHaye needs to pick up a history book if he thinks that today's events are somehow worse than, say, World War II and the following Stalinist regime in the USSR. The amount of carnage in the first half of the 20th century dwarfs anything we're seeing today.
Christ specifically warned that we're not entitled to know when He's going to return. Mr. LaHaye is selling books, and it's in his best interest to titillate the public with fantastic predictions. Our futures are better served looking both ways before crossing the street, than reading tea leaves of "the end times". We just don't know.
Bingo!
Maybe not.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Maybe.
Maybe not...
I'm leery of multimillionaire booksellers holding forth on Christian eschatology. I seem to remember guys like Hal Lindsey cashing in back in the Seventies, and I don't remember them fondly.
I can only speak for me, but I try to stay in the day and live my life knowing Christ comes when He comes, at any time, when He chooses. This business of dating dates and naming names smacks of fortunetelling and chicanery.
There will always be a few million Christians he can gull with his updated Scofieldian shtick.
The author is a fiction writer that profits from feeding the fears of his readers. Why should I listen to him? I have no fear, I am saved and impatiently await my Lord's return. To put it bluntly...I'm tired and want to go Home.
Is this the "End Times?"
No. Things aren't bad enough. Not by far.
I don't understand the obsession with prophecy. Daniel was allowed to give us markers, "signs" if you will, to let us see the road ahead. We already know its there but even if we try to peer down that road the markers are still in fog. We won't see them until we're upon them.
Prophecy has a way of taking care of itself,no matter how hard man tries to further its intent.
You’d better pray to the Lord when you see those flying saucers
It may be the coming of the Judgment Day.
It’s a sign there’s no doubt of the trouble that’s about,
So I say my friends you’d better start to pray.
They’re a terrifying sight as they fly on day and night.
It’s a warning that we’d better mend our ways.
You’d better pray to the Lord when you see those flying saucers,
It may be the coming of the Judgment Day.
Many people think the saucers might be someone’s foolish dream,
Or maybe they were sent down here from Mars.
If you’ll just stop and think you’d realize just what it means,
They’re more than atom bombs or falling stars.
And though the war may be through there’s unrest and trouble brewin’,
And those flying saucers may be just a sign
That if peace doesn’t come it will be the end of some,
So repent today, you’re running out of time.
When you see a saucer fly like a comet through the sky,
You should realize the price you’ll have to pay.
You’d better pray to the Lord when you see those flying saucers,
It may be the coming of the Judgment Day.
"Those Flying Saucers"
The Buchanan Brothers
Victor Records, 1947
Actually the End Times according to the Bible are all the days remaining after Christ acsended into heaven in anticipation to His Second Coming. So we are in the end times and approaching The Last Days which would be the Trib period(When he who is the Beast is revealed). The End Times are described as a period where violence, every sort of vice, disease, and disasters increases. This eventually leads to...The End. We are now in the preparational stages and I've noticed that many here seem to be mocking, but consider this...The Bible mentions that during the Tribulation period(which is yet to come) the Beast(Antichrist) will cause everyone to receive his mark and those who refuse will be killed. Now I remember 30+ years ago that there were people laughing at the idea of someone being able to mark you and trace your every move. We have that technology today.
Since Lehaye's dispensationalist view is the only one he accepts what does that make the challengers to this interpretation? Dare we say the "H" word?
The only end times coming will be for the West if we let the Islamofascists have their way.
Here's my idea,
I'll send the good folks who believe this my personal contact info.
As the end approaches, they should all send me all their money, (they won't be needing it) with instructions on how to spend it once they are gone.
I will hold their cash in trust until the rapture or 180 days wichever comes first, then if there is no rapture, I will return most or some of the money.
deal?
People have been predicting the end of the world since it started.
What is really funny is that when the end happens, nobody will be around to say "Hey! You were right!"
END TIMES; PROPHECY; DREAMS/VISIONS PING LIST
PING.
Please let me know if you want on or off the list.
II. SIGNS THAT ARE TO PRECEDE THE GENERAL JUDGMENTThe Scriptures mention certain events which are to take place before the final judgment. These predictions were not intended to serve as indications of the exact time of the judgment, for that day and hour are known only to the Father, and will come when least expected. They were meant to foreshadow the last judgment and to keep the end of the world present to the minds of Christians, without, however, exciting useless curiosity and vain fears. Theologians usually enumerate the following nine events as signs of the last judgment:
The General Judgement1. General Preaching of the Christian Religion. Concerning this sign the Saviour says: "And this gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come" (Matthew 24:14). This sign was understood by Chrysostom and Theophilus as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem, but, according to the majority of interpreters, Christ is here speaking of the end of the world.
2. Conversion of the Jews. According to the interpretation of the Fathers, the conversion of the Jews towards the end of the world is foretold by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (11:25-26): "For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, . . . that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved as it is written: There shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob".
3. Return of Enoch and Elijah. The belief that these two men, who have never tasted death, are reserved for the last times to be precursors of the Second Advent was practically unanimous among the Fathers, which belief they base on several texts of Scripture. (Concerning Elijah see Malachi 4:5-6; Sirach 48:10; Matthew 17:11; concerning Enoch see Sirach 44:16)
4. A Great Apostasy. As to this event St. Paul admonishes the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:3) that they must not be terrified, as if the day of the Lord were at hand, for there must first come a revolt (he apostasia).The Fathers and interpreters understand by this revolt a great reduction in the number of the faithful through the abandonment of the Christian religion by many nations. Some commentators cite as confirmatory of this belief the words of Christ: "But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?" (Luke 18:8).
5. The Reign of Antichrist. In the passage above mentioned (2 Thessalonians 2:3 sqq.) St. Paul indicates as another sign of the day of the Lord, the revelation of the man of sin, the son of perdition. "The man of sin" here described is generally identified with the Antichrist, who, says St. John (1 John 2:18), is to come in the last days. Although much obscurity and difference of opinion prevails on this subject, it is generally admitted from the foregoing and other texts that before the Second Coming there will arise a powerful adversary of Christ, who will seduce the nations by his wonders, and persecute the Church.
6. Extraordinary Perturbations of Nature. The Scriptures clearly indicate that the judgment will be preceded by unwonted and terrifying disturbances of the physical universe (Matthew 24:29; Luke 21:25-26). The wars, pestilences, famines, and earthquakes foretold in Matthew 24:6 sq., are also understood by some writers as among the calamities of the last times.
7. The Universal Conflagration. In the Apostolic writings we are told that the end of the world will be brought about through a general conflagration, which, however, will not annihilate the present creation, but will change its form and appearance (2 Peter 3:10-13; cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:2; Apocalypse 3:3, and 16:15). Natural science shows the possibility of such a catastrophe being produced in the ordinary course of events, but theologians generally tend to believe that its origin will be entirely miraculous.
8. The Trumpet of Resurrection. Several texts in the New Testament make mention of a voice or trumpet which will awaken the dead to resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; John 5:28). According to St. Thomas (Supplement 86:2) there is reference in these passages either to the voice or to the apparition of Christ, which will cause the resurrection of the dead.
9. "The Sign of the Son of Man Appearing in the Heavens." In Matthew 24:30, this is indicated as the sign immediately preceding the appearance of Christ to judge the world. By this sign the Fathers of the Church generally understand the appearance in the sky of the Cross on which the Saviour died or else of a wonderful cross of light.
Sure could've purchased an awful lot of rice, beans, and water for the poor and homeless with that money...but whatever works for you, Tim.
I don't know if you caught this.
Essays on Eschatology James Patrick Holding
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/eschatology.html
Eons ago I recall getting from a "turn or burn" relative one of those neat brochures that outlined an interpretation of the book of Revelation with pictures of people being "raptured" and trucks and cars and planes crashing as souls flew out of the driver's/pilot's places. I have of course read my Hal Lindsey, but since taking a more scholarly bent to my studies, haven't thought much about it. I have said to others, if the parousia comes in my lifetime, it shall find me either asleep or in a library somewhere. The subject was of that little concern to me.
But it has become clear that certain questions dealing with eschatology, in particular the questions, "Did Jesus predict a soon return? Did the Apostles expect a soon return?", have become grist for the skeptical and critical mill. Of course we know well that skeptics ... are about as likely to understand what they are reading as they are to understand quantum physics. But I have corresponded with at least one person who has said that they were "losing their faith" over this very question, and I am sure others exist as well. ... [more at above link.]
Mr LaHaye is a known fraud, a man who planned his invention of a phoney "religion" and described his plan in detail to his room mates and friends decades before pulling it off.
::sigh::
There, I feel better now. :-)