Excerpt from
“Beyond The End Times – The Disastrous Power of Cataclysmic Imagery”
Failed Prophets of a False Premise
Remember the last round
of apocalyptic ravings which accompanied the Persian Gulf War? Major news
magazines featured headlines like: “Is This the Battle of Armageddon?” “Is The
End Near?” “Apocalypse Now?” “Revelations in the Middle East.” Another spate of
doomsday books came out from respected church leaders touting, once again,
end-of-the-world proclamations. The national television networks gave them
prime-time exposure. And what happened? Nothing! The following satirical
cartoon appeared in the Wall Street Journal shortly after the Persian Gulf War
ended and the failed apocalyptic outbursts and doomsday predictions subsided
without explanation: What impression does it give you? “There go those
religious nuts again.” Rarely if ever do endsayers explain or apologize when
they’re proven wrong. They back off, wait a while, update their predictions,
adjust their scenarios, and start all over again. Some followers become
confused, some frustrated, and some disillusioned. Surprisingly, many others
don’t seem to mind and rarely hold their leaders accountable. The
end-of-the-world scenario is nothing new. History is littered with good and
godly people who’ve claimed certain knowledge of the end and tried to fit the
events of their day into the fulfillment of end-time prophecy. The following is
only a partial list of past mistakes. We give these examples, as well as others
used in this book, not to impugn anyone’s character or demean the faith they
represent, but rather to illustrate the problem. Many of them we know as people
of sincerity and integrity. We report only what they have said or written
publicly. Keep these two questions in mind as you read this historic list: 1)
What do all these people have in common? 2) Is there a lesson to be learned
here?
A.D. 500. Church father Hippolytus (A.D. 170-236)
predicted the world would end in A.D. 500, based on his
analysis of the dimensions of Noah’s Ark.
A.D. 999. When the last change of millennium drew near, hardly
anyone knew it, since most of the world of the day did not use the
Christian-based calendar, and could not read. Europe was the exception, and the
Christian expectations of an imminent end of the world flooded the continent.
Accounts very, but terrified masses feared the 1,000 years spoken of in the
biblical book of Revelation would be up and Christ would reappear to end it
all. Signs and warnings were eagerly sought in the final months leading up to
A.D. 1000. It is said that activity in European monasteries
nearly ground to a halt as
A.D. 999 wound down.
A.D. 1033. When Christ didn’t make an appearance in
A.D. 1000 quick recalculations were made on the premise that
Revelation’s 1,000 years should be figured from his ascension and not from his
birth. But
A.D. 1033 was also a bust.
A.D. 1100s. Joachim of Fiore, an Italian monk and leading
biblical prophecy scholar of his day, challenged the allegorical
interpretations of Augustinian origin and brought back a literal perspective.
According to his date-setting technique, the end was to come between
A.D. 1200 and 1260.
A.D. 1501. Christopher Columbus allowed 155 years of all
mankind to be converted to Christianity, after which the world would end.
A.D. 1546. Before he died, Martin Luther stated many times
that ‘verily the day of judgment (or end of the world) is not far off; yea,
will not be absent three hundred years longer.” He also believed that “all the
signs which are to precede the last days had already appeared.”
A.D. 1835. Joseph Smith, father of Mormonism (The Church of
Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints), prophesied that the coming of the Lord
was near and that “56 years should wind up the scene.”
A.D. 1835. “Our lot has fallen under the solemn period
emphatically designated in Daniel as the time of the end!” declared Archdeacon
Browne, of England, as quoted in The Last Times, by Joseph A. Seiss, D.D.
A.D. 1818. William Miller, founder of the Millerite movement
in America, predicted that Christ would come and the world would end sometime
between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. Stressing the systematic nature of
his methodology and rationality of his conclusions, Miller’s end-times mass
movement swept through the United States and generated much excitement. The
date was later revised to October 22, 1844.
A.D. 1848. “Had the present state of Europe been prophesied
fifty years ago, would any have credited the prophecy? We believe that in this
year we have seen the beginning of the end.” The New York Evangelist, as quoted
in The Last Times.
A.D. 1852. ‘No well-informed man can look upon the world as it
is, without coming to the conclusion that some great consummation is about to
take place.” Dr. Baird, in Rochester, as quoted in The Last Times.
A.D. 1856. “It is agreed, by all believers in the Bible, that
mysterious scenes await our world… God’s purposes are fixed, and the wheel of
his wonderful providence is rolling us on to the funeral of the world that now
is.” The Last Times.
A.D. 1874. Claiming to be the sole possessors of God’s
revealed truth, the Jehovah’s Witnesses began a string of prophecies for the
end of the world which continued through the years 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910,
1914, 1918, 1925, 1975 and 1984.
A.D. 1917. Three dramatic visitations of the Virgin Mary
occurred in Fatima, Portugal. The first unveiled a terrifying vision of hell
and prophesied the end of World War I. The second visitation warned of another
major conflict (WWII), the rise of communist Russia, and its collapse and
conversion to Christianity if enough people prayed and consecrated it to Mary.
The content of the third visitation, whose outward visual manifestations in the
sky were witnessed by 50,000 – 70,000 people, has been kept secret by the
Catholic Church. Some speculate that it predicted a fiery end to the world and
is being kept secret for fear of setting off worldwide panic.
A.D. 1926. Oswald J. Smith, one of the leading missionary
statesmen of his day, wrote in his book, Is The Antichrist At Hand? That “the
Great Tribulation, the arrival of the Roman Empire, the reign of the Antichrist
and the Battle of Armageddon must take place before the year 1933.”
A.D. 1970s. Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, again a
title that speaks for itself, outsells everything. Lindsey cites the rebirth of
Israel in 1948 as the prophetic sign. Within one generation (forty years, by
1988) we would witness the end of the present world and the return of Christ.
He envisioned the new interpretative idea of a nuclear war starting in Israel,
resulting in radioactive fallout and a melted earth. The dust jacket of the
book’s 1977 edition warned readers not to make plans beyond 1985.
A.D. 1978. “The world must end within one generation from the
birth of the State of Israel. Any opinion of world affairs that does not
dovetail with this prophecy is dismissed.” Gary Wilburn, “The Doomsday Chic,”
Christianity Today.
A.D. 1878. West Coast pastor Chuck Smith writes in his book
Future Survival that he is “convinced that the Lord is coming for his church
before the end of 1981.”
A.D. 1980. “Many people will be shocked by what will happen in
the very near future. The decade of the 1980s could very well be the last
decade of history as we know it…We are the generation that will see the end
times …and the return of Christ.” Hal Lindsey, The 1980s: Countdown to
Armageddon.
A.D. 1988. Edgar C. Whisenant, a retired NASA rocket engineer
and prophecy teacher, sends shock waves through fundamentalist circles with his
4.5 million copies of 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. A revised
sequel came out the next year: 89 Reasons Why the Rapture Will BE in 1989. His
first book was front-page news around the U.S. His second one wasn’t.
A.D. 1990. Dallas Seminary President John F. Walvoord
rereleases his 1974 book, Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis. It sold
over one and a half million copies playing off the apocalyptic fears of an
American war with Iraq leading into the final Battle of Armageddon. When the
war was over, so were its sales.
A.D. 1991. The ultra-orthodox Jewish Lubavitch movement
announced the imminent arrival of the Messiah. Their candidate died in 1994.
A.D. 1991. Dallas Seminary professor Charles Dyer released his
book The Rise of Babylon: Sign of the End Time, in which he argued that Iraq’s
Sadam Hussein was rebuilding the ancient city of Babylon, whose end-time
destruction is prophesied in the book of Revelation. His thesis was blown apart
by the United States’ defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War, but may soon resurface.
A.D. 1992… “Rapture Oct 28 ‘92 Jesus Is Coming Don’t Receive
The 666 Mark!” Front-page pictures of this sign were splashed around the world
by the news media. The source was a Seoul, South Korean church with 20,000
members. Shortly thereafter, its pastor, Lee Jang Rim, was sentenced to a
two-year jail term for defrauding members of over $4 million.
A.D. 1993. Harold Camping, the man I debated on CNN’s Larry
King Live mentioned in the last chapter, predicted the return of Christ and the
end of the world for September 1994 in his book, appropriately titled 1994. The
examples could go on and on. As times for the end have come and gone, and
predicted events have failed to materialize, embarrassments are quickly
forgotten. New endsayers come on the scene, adjust their scenarios to adapt to
changing world conditions, and recalculate their figures. Soon a new wave of
endsaying speculations and warnings washes ashore, proclaiming humandkind’s
bleak and frightening future. It’s the highly adaptive mechanism by which the
endsaying trade survives. The next wave of “prophets” proves just as effective
at stirring up its brand of sensationalism and fanning it from an ember into a
flame. The unsuspecting hearer, encountering endsaying for the first time, may
easily be sucked in by its use of current events. And on it goes. Can there be
anything more foolish than this stream of endsaying prophets whose announced
times, dates, and urgent warnings have passed away without incident? Examine
their track record. Laugh if you must. Better yet, ask yourself how so many of
these respected leaders and their followers could be so mistaken? Surely
something is wrong. Yet this is exactly how many of us are being programmed
today. If there is a lesson to be learned here, why not learn it now? What,
then, do all these endsayers have in common? Obviously, they all have been
proven wrong—100 percent dead wrong. Their names were added to a long and
growing list of failed prophets. Their error, however, was not one of timing,
as is normally assumed. Rather: All endsayers will be proven wrong within their
due time, the same as their predecessors. Why? Because it’s not their timing
that was or is wrong. It’s their concept that’s wrong. They are simply failed
prophets of a false premise. If we are slow to learn from them, we are only
doomed to repeat their folly and fall for their schemes. Berean Attitude =
search scriptures Acts 17:11 See www.prophecyrefi.org