- At the ooutset it needs to be stated that Bible prophecy is probably not a valid use of the Bible. The industry of Bible prophecy did not get going until the middle of the 19th century in America.
- It also needs to be stated that Jesus warned against it at His ascension and in Mt 12:38/9. Jesus takes precedence over any book in the Bible.
The first pre-Christian reference to the End is to be found in an Assyrian tablet dated 2800 B.C. “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days, There are signs the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common”.
It seems that for as long as people have been in the world they have been predicting the end of it. The first record of a Christian doomsday cult hails from 156 AD. These were the Montanists, who believed that Jesus would return within their lifetime.
In the 4th century AD St. Martin of Tours was saying that the Antichrist had already been born and was among us. Down the centuries theologians have been equally as sure and equally wrong.
The approach of the first Millennium produced widespread speculation about the End.
In the16th. century Thomas More thought that the End was imminent. Luther forecast the End, as did John Wesley – both comfortably outside their own life-span!
Isaac Newton, a Deist, wished to be remembered as a theologian rather than as a scientist. He was obsessed with numbers in the Bible and made innumberable prophesies, including the End.
Billy Graham has recently said: “The Second Coming is on the horizon”.
There are literally thousands of apocalyptic sects making prophesies about the End, They are independent and come to conflicting conclusions. Many might be called Zionists: the key to the End is to be found in what is taking place in and around Israel.
The Irvingites prophesied that the End would occur in 1835,1838,1842,1845,1855,1866 and 1877.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have prophesied the End in 1914,1918 and 1925. Eventually, the prophecy was softened to “before the end of the 20th.century”.
Many claimed Marian visions have been reported in the last 30 years: Nicaragua, Spain, Taiwan, Medjurgorje, Rwanda, Austria, Syria,Chile, Argentina, Ireland, England, Italy, Korea, Egypt, the Phillipines, N.Ireland, Ukraine, USA, Ecuador, Canada, former Czechoslovakia, Australia and Iraq.
Most of these contain rumblings of the End. None has been approved by Rome.
One of the pre-requisites of the End is that the Gospel be preached to all peoples. We are not there yet.
In Saudi Arabia the Faith is officially banned. In Borneo there are an estimated 775 tribes whose languages the West does not understand. There are said to be a further 100 across the world
About 300 pilgrims a week arrive at Tel Aviv to witness the End. They are variously dressed as Jesus, Mary, Moses, Gabriel etc.. They have one-way tickets. The manager of the airport puts them all on return flights home!
The End will come one day. No-one knows whether it will be within the next 50 or 100 or 200 or 1000 etc. years.
One of the events before the End is the conversion of Israel. St. Paul in Rom.11:25f. states: “One section of Israel has become blind but this will last only until the whole pagan world has entered (the kingdom) and then after this the rest of Israel will be saved as well”.
But how will the Jews be saved?
Two explanations are current:
- God, in a merciful act independent of any acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah or of a mass conversion prior to the End, would be reconciled to His people.
- At the End “all Israel” would be pardoned its culpable hardening; would accept Jesus as the Messiah; and would have its sins taken away as a fulfilment of the Covenant.
Much of this has been ignored by Christianity over the centuries. The norm has been for the Vatican, Moscow and Christian nations to persecute the Jews as the murderer of Christ. Little attention has been given to the fact that Jesus forgave His enemies from the Cross.
- Some further points:
- Outstanding forecasts in the Bible were largely fulfilled at Pentecost.
- There is no bibliccal forecast of such monumental events as the Holocaust and the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- The forecast re the dry bones was realised at the return from Babylon. It cannot refer to the setting up of the state of Israel in 1948, as a king is mentioned and there was no king in Israel in 1948.
- Ultra-Orthodox Jews do not regard the state of Israel as the restored biblical Israel.
- A majority of people living in Israel are not Jewish.
- Many Israelis are not religious.
- The language of the book of Revelation is not literal – see Jewish and other Christian apocalypses.
- Millenarianism was not taught by the descendants of the apostles.
- For a teaching to be accepted it needs the endorsement of at least a majoriity of the Body of Christ, as with the definitions of the divinitiy of Christ, the Trinity, of the two natures of Christ……..
- In many ways the Church replaced Israel: Mt 21:43, Acts 13:46, 15:17,28:28, Rom.9:24-6 1 Pet 2:9-10