Futurist seem to believe all preterist are nuts. Sometimes we have to show them we are not.
Edwards was highly influential in the Baptist life of America. He was the first historian of Baptists in America. Albert Henry Newmans in his book (A History of the Baptist Church in the United States 1894). said Morgan Edwards certainly did bring strange things to the Baptist people in America in 1788.
Edwards believed that the lake of fire brimstone was on the moon! Edwards was a literalist so far as the New Testament was concerned, but not as much as with the Old Testament. Edwards believed that Abraham looked for a real literal city. He acknowledged the Bible was the word of God, while not denying the textual difficulties.
Falwell told about 1,500 people at a conference in Kingsport, Tenn., on a Thursday that he believes the second coming of Christ would be within a years. That was 8 years ago.
And dont forget the Y2K thing.
Jerry Falwell also distributed a packet on The Y2K Time Bomb, including a video, A Christians Guide to the Millennium Bug, advising people to be prepared for disaster. Y2K is Gods instrument to shake this nation, to humble this nation, Falwell said. He may be preparing to confound our language, to jam our communications, scatter our efforts, and judge us for our sin and rebellion for going against his Lordship.
Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, who have sold more than 10 million copies of their Left Behind series of books about the Apocalypse, prophesied global upheaval on Jan. 1, 2000. The Y2K bug could trigger financial meltdown, warned LaHaye, making it possible for the Antichrist to dominate the world.
From 1998-99, we had plenty of our Dispensational friends searching their Bibles for evidence of the rapture and the end of all things as the Year 2000 dawned. Many books, tapes, and videos were written, produced, recorded, and bought by millions of people, many of whom were convinced the end was at hand. The prophecy know-it-alls were wrong again.
Since September 11th, 2001, even more people are wondering about the end of all things, and Tim LaHayes popular Left Behind book series (the first volume of which was originally published in 1995) has profited immensely from both the Y2K hysteria and now from the awful terrorist attack of 9-11-01.
Indeed LaHaye and Jenkins book series have now sold over 35 million copies. That doesnt include the motion picture adaptation of the Left Behind novel or the many other spin-offs, such as Left Behind for kids, the Left Behind board game, CDs, DVDs, etc.
Fear mongering about the end of the world and the return of Christ have made millions of dollars for men like LaHaye, Lindsey, Van Impe, Hagee, and Hunt, to name only a few.
But now that the evidence of the meltdown and world domination by an Antichrist did not happen what do Christian still do? Make these men richer by spending millions of dollars on their now carton books Left Behind series.
Back in the early 1970s, prophecy author Hal Lindsey predicted the Return of Christ would occur in 1988, Hal Lindsey was wrong, but that has not stopped him from writing many more prophecy books and it has not stopped Christians and non-Christians from buying his books.
Who is the antichrist? is a question that rings through out the religious communities of today. There are all kinds of theories being taught concerning the personality, actions, and identity of this antichrist. We have heard it being proclaimed that the antichrist was Hitler, Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Moammar Kadhafi, Saddam Hussein, and the list goes on and on. Of course, these have proven to be wrong. Is it finally time for us to go back and find out what the Bible teaches? The answer is so simple and so easy but, because of our religious training, it is oh so hard to accept.
Those Christians who believe that we are drawing close to the last days are continually trying to identify both the beast and the antichrist. This game of find the beast and identify the antichrist has become the adult Christians version of the childs game of pin the tail on the donkey. Every few years, the participants place blindfolds over their eyes, turn around six times, and march toward the wall.
Sometimes they march out the door and over a cliff, as was the case with Edgar C. Whisenant, whose best-selling two-part book announced in the summer of 1988 that Jesus would surely appear to rapture His church during Rosh Hashanah week in mid-September. Half the book was called On Borrowed Time. The other was more aptly titled, 88 Reasons why the Rapture is in 1988. I can think of one key argument why his books thesis was incorrect: no rapture so far, and it is now February, 1989. So much for all 88 arguments. The anti-Christian world got another great laugh at the expense of millions of fundamentalists who had bought and read his two-part book. The story of Mr. Whisenants book was front-page news briefly around the U.S. But Mr. Whisenant is now ancient history, one more forgotten laughingstock who brought reproach to the church of Jesus Christ while he piled up his press clippings.
This is the whole problem. The victims self-consciously forget the last self-proclaimed expert in Bible prophecy whose predictions did not come to pass. They never learn to recognize the next false prophet because they refuse to admit to themselves that they had been deceived. The game has been going on throughout the twentieth century, generation after generation,
God is not the author of confusion. (1 Corinthians 14:33) This is a foundational premise upon which all doctrine is established. It is not the character or the nature of God to have included in His Word any content that would create confusion, divisiveness, and/or ambivalence among the Church.
Nothing discredits the presentation and defense of the Christian faith and makes it more of a laughing stock in the eyes of the non-Christian world than the barrage of failed predictions, imminence speculations, and scare tactics of sincere Christians bound by our current irresponsible doctrine of the end-times.
