Posted on 10/07/2008 8:41:53 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
The pages of failed end-of-the-world prophecies could make up a whole new testament. Now there's the Rev. David Jeremiah, an East County mega-pastor and TV evangelist who says the end is coming, in the words of a familiar church song, “soon and very soon.”
In a new book that hit bookstores this week, Jeremiah offers 10 “prophetic clues” he says point to an imminent conclusion many Christians have clung to for 2,000 years – the Rapture (when the faithful will be summoned instantly into Heaven), followed by the Tribulation (a seven-year period of turmoil), Armageddon (the final battle of good versus evil) and the Second Coming of Jesus (to reign on Earth).
Jeremiah doesn't set a date in “What in the World Is Going On?” (Thomas Nelson; $22.99). But his urgency is clear: “His return is close at hand,” he writes, adding that Christians should be motivated “as never before to live in readiness.”
“I have no intention of setting any dates or saying this is when this is going to happen,” Jeremiah says, settling back on a couch in his office at Turning Point, his international television and radio ministry headquartered in Lakeside.
“All I'm saying is some of the things that the word of God prophesied would take place as we near this time are happening in ways you cannot contradict.”
The 67-year-old senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, where he preaches to 7,000 people at weekend services, says he was motivated to write this book after so many people kept questioning him about world events.
He reached out to other biblical prophecy scholars for their thoughts. Among them was Tim LaHaye, co-author of the best-selling “Left Behind” series of Christian apocalyptic novels. In 1981, Jeremiah followed LaHaye as senior pastor of Scott Memorial Baptist Church, which later became Shadow Mountain.
The 10 signs Jeremiah settled on range from the emergence of Israel as the dominant country-of-residence for Jews and the rise in power of Russia and Iran to the world's reliance on Middle Eastern oil and the coming together of countries under the European Union.
“I'm not a sensationalist,” says Jeremiah, a grandfather and two-time cancer survivor who is a well-known speaker at evangelical venues like the Billy Graham Training Center.
“I would be the last person in the world to try to draw sensationalist truths from the Scripture,” he adds. “You can get a crowd if you know how to frame your stuff, but I'm past all that. I don't need to do that. But what I do know is this: This is a different day unlike anything that I've ever known, unlike anything the world has ever known. So what does that mean?”
What it means for him is that conversion efforts need to be jump-started like a battery in a long-idled sedan.
“We've forgotten that there's an urgency about what we've been called to do,” he says. He leans forward on the couch, as if to emphasize his impatience. “I think it puts an urgency and a seriousness into our walk.” Jeremiah is particularly tough on Islam in his book. Islamic terrorism is among the signs he says are pointing toward the end times.
“One of the most baffling and unsettling puzzles about Islam is the constant contention on the part of some Muslim leaders that they are a peace-loving people,” he writes. “Yet even as they make the claim, Islamic terrorists continue to brutally murder any person or group with whom they find fault.”
Jeremiah does not believe Allah and God are the same. He also believes that Islam hates Jews and Christians.
“Experts say that 15 to 20 percent of Muslims are radical enough to strap a bomb on their bodies in order to kills Christians and Jews,” he writes. “If this number is accurate, it means about 300 million Muslims are willing to die in order to take you and me down.”
His solution: convert Muslims to Christianity.
Jeremiah says he is not trying to be incendiary; he's just being true to his convictions. “I'm not intolerant,” he insists. “I just believe totally what I believe, and if I have to go along in order to get along, water down what I believe, I'll never do that.”
But Khaleel Mohammed, associate professor of religious studies at San Diego State University and a voice for moderate Islam, says Jeremiah isn't helping matters.
“It's not constructive in any way for the Christian or the Muslim,” Mohammed says. “Everything he is saying is so divisive.”
Mohammed also thinks Jeremiah's portrait is one-sided; after all, thousands of Muslim civilians have died in the American-led invasion of Iraq.
“I'm not denying there are Christians and Muslims agitating against each other, but I don't think it's religious,” Mohammed says. Still, he adds, the future lies in interfaith cooperation, a move the “old guard” on both sides is resisting. “They are just fighting against the tide. ... Among Muslims, you'll find preachers who are as nonsensical as Jeremiah.”
Scholars who study end-times prophecies say Jeremiah's book, and others like it, should be handled with care.
“I would say the odds are enormous, if not overwhelming, that he, like every other Christian prophet over the last 2,000 years, will be wrong,” says Richard Landes, associate professor of history at Boston University and director of the Center for Millennial Studies.
Jews and Muslims also have their doomsday beliefs, Landes says, but apocalypticism has been particularly rampant in Christianity. It was, after all, Jesus himself who forewarned his followers in the New Testament to “keep watch” and “be ready” for his return.
Ever since, Christians have watched for signs of the Second Coming, scanning the Bible for clues and codes, says Jon Stone, a religious studies professor at Cal State Long Beach.
Stone acknowledges there is a built-in audience for books like Jeremiah's. “I think people like to be in on a secret, to know something other people don't know,” he explains. “This is, by far, the biggest secret in terms of religious things.”
Jeremiah is planning a series of sermons at Shadow Mountain this fall on living with confidence in a chaotic world. He plans to tell the congregation, among other things, that this is the time for the faithful to hang together, to focus on the church and the Bible.
Jeremiah says biblical prophecy isn't a popular pulpit topic. “A lot of buddies of mine say they don't ever preach on prophecy because they think it's irrelevant. ... Well, if they read the Bible, they will find out that if you study prophecy, it gives you incredible insight as to how you should live your life today.”
He resists efforts to be coaxed into being more specific about when all this is going to happen. It's not about that, he repeats. “It is about the awareness of what the events that are happening in the world today mean and how we can look at it through the third lens of the Bible and make more sense of it than we would otherwise.”
Exactly. In another 11,000 years the "North Pole" star will be Vega.
Awesome, I have a question for you. Did the earliest church know that they were called to die for the Messiah? When we become Christians, are we not supposed to take up the cross? Is that not a foundational principle of the true church?
I have a question for you. What does it mean in Revelation 20 where those who died DURING the tribulation took part in the FIRST resurrection. Please read the whole chapter, because if the resurrection mentioned in Thessalonians is the first resurrection (preceding the rapture of the saints),then this resurrection of the dead when Jesus comes back at the end of the tribulation is NOT the FIRST resurrection as is stated twice. I know it is confusing, but I believe Thessalonians refers to the end of the world and the last battle.
Those who are beheaded during the tribulation are the first to rise from the dead at the ONLY return of the King of Kings, at the end of the tribulation as is stated in Rev. 20. Its best to read books as a whole.
I love it! I am studying art and want to do graphic design. I also LOVE WEST VIRGINIA! What a beautiful place. Are the people as wonderful as the land?
By the way—666 is “MAN’S NUMBER”.
The end is near!
Women and minorities hardest hit!
Well, these ARE the end times. We just don’t yet know the hour or the time of His coming.
It couldn’t happen until the Jews came back to Israel, and this happened in 1948.
There will be life after the rapture. Many people will even then come to know the Lord and be saved. Babies, in my opinion, are innocent and will be saved just like they are now. As they grow older, they will make their own decisions.
The word Rapture isn’t in the Bible. It talks about a taking away, which is the same thing.
It’s not called the rapture in the Bible. That’s a fairly new word to describe it. It’s called taking away in one scripture.
Thank you for the explanation. I didn’t know that.
I like this part! Hiliarious! Doesn't say who these "thousands of Muslim 'civilians' (yeah right!)" are. How about . . . . radical extremist Muslim terrorists???!!!!
I do not know about the earliest church, but there were some martyrs living in the first century AD who were not willing to give up their faith when they faced death. The inside frieze of St. Peter's Basillica lists the names of such martyrs. Most probably died at Nero's Circus; the Colliseum had not been built when the very earliest martyrs died. It was not until the very end of the first century AD, under the reign of Dalmatian that some MAY have been crucified in the Colliseum.
The Bible was not collated and accepted as the Word of God until the third century AD. It was not a single agreed upon book until Emperor Constantine made the east and west wings of the church come up with one canon. (Previously they differed by 2 books). Therefore, the earliest church did not have the Bible routinely available as it is today, although there were thousands of letters written by the various bishops.
The earliest Christians were from the low ends of society throughout the Roman Empire. Christians formed a social net by helping out people and in the process converted many low income pagans to Christianity. (Except for Caligula, Nero and Dalmatian, the Emperors of the the first two centuries of Rome were supportive of Christianity. They provided a social net, were good soldiers, paid their taxes, etc., etc., etc.) The fundamental question for these new converts was, "Do you believe that Jesus Christ died to take away your sins?" If they answered yes, then the reply was, "Welcome Aboard!" Christianity was very inclusive in its infancy!
It was not until the second through fourth century AD that the true nature of Jesus and God was fully understood. Many of the heresies of the first five centuries of Christianity had to do with Christ's nature. (Prophet? Separate God? Triune God? Equal to Father? Subservient to Father?) And of course, it was not until much later that the East and West churches split over the filoloque dispute. Filo means son and the issue was whether or not the Holy Spirit descended from just the Father, or from the Father and the Son.
Are we supposed to take up Jesus Cross? Yes! Absolutely! Will new converts understand this? Probably not. Mankind did not understand Christianity for at least 400 years (and still does not fully understand it, I might add). To expect a new convert to be able to "get it" all at once is a bit much to expect. We all have our own pace of learning and our own spiritual growth patterns. Understanding Christ takes a life time and then some. Nonetheless, it is always great to say, "Welcome Aboard" to a fellow confessor.
Have a great day!
Oh, gee. That’s a GREAT reason not to go to church. Sarc.
Somebody told me that the original Greek word translates into a Latin word that we derive the word "rapture" from. Thanks for the note!
Thank you!
Actually, it first happened in 68AD, about when Revelation was written. Then all the armies of Rome came to take down the attempted independence of Israel. The final battle was on the field of Meggido (Armageddon) where, at Masada, the mountain overlooking Meggido, the Jewish rebellion was ended.
See #16
Depends on when you believe we’ll be zapped. I think Christians WILL go through much of the tribulation. I’m not a pretrib believer, but a pre-wrath believer. We will NOT go through the wrath of God, but we may go through the wrath of anti-christ.
No, it’s not egotism. We’re watching the signs of the times and reading prophecy which SEEMS to indicate to us that the end times are here or near.
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