The internet has enabled millions of people to have access to far more information than any previous generation in history. However, not all the information you find on the internet is necessarily reliable. Anyone can be an author now, with a potential worldwide readership, and all sorts of weird and wacky individuals have taken advantage of this freedom to make some pretty bizarre statements and predictions, often backed up by the flimsiest of evidence.
Unfortunately, there is a strain of Evangelical Christianity which developed a particular propensity for this well before the internet age. Dispensationalism, which can ultimately be dated back to J. N. Darby in the 1830s, has had a long track record of claiming that unfulfilled prophecies in the Bible are about to be fulfilled in the very short term, often in a very literalistic way. Adherents of this school of theology have sought to find a contemporary application for some of the most difficult and obscure verses in scripture. W.W Fereday’s The Lord will come and the Lord will reign, published in 1898, claims that Rosh, Meshech and Tubal mentioned in Ezekiel 38:3 refer to Russia, Moscow and - Tobolsk! A more recent book in the same vein is Hal Lindsey's 1970 bestseller Late Great Planet Earth.
Such works, besides being very sensationalistic, are also very depressing. It's real Private Fraser stuff - we're all doomed, doomed because this is what God has predicted - decline, decline and more decline. Don't expect revival blessings; the rapture is the only hope on offer.
Dispensationalism claims to be more faithful to the Bible than any other theological system, but closer examination shows it to be very selective in its "literalism," ignoring any verses that seem to offer any hope of revival. In my experience, most members of Brethren assemblies, in many of which dispensationalism was the unofficial theological position, tended to take its more wilder predictions with a pinch of salt. Those who took it on board hook line and sinker, buying all manner of elaborate charts which purported to offer a step-by-step timeline leading to the Second Coming, tended to become infected with Private Fraseritis, exuding a general atmosphere of doom and gloom.
Let us not be under any illusions. Things have been pretty bad for the church in the west in the last 100 years, but it is nonsense to suggest that this is because the Bible has prophesied that the EU the Bilderbergers, Common Purpose, the Freemasons, America's security services or whoever will be raised up with an unstoppable agenda of evil. The Bible does offer a reason for the wickedness we see all around us, but it is found not in some obscure passage in Revelation or Ezekiel, but rather in verses like Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" When God refrains from sending a revival for any length of time, wickedness, particularly among those in authority, will increase. It's as inevitable as the law of gravity.
However, just as the Bible makes this statement about the unchanging wickedness of human nature, it also makes a statement about the unchanging nature of God's mercy towards a penitent people. "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14) Repentance and prayer within the church can accomplish much. In the UK, of all places, we can look back through our history and see the force of this verse. God was so gracious to us in the 18th century - a period which began with violence rampant on a far greater scale than today, but ended with a strong Evangelical church, blessed by the ministry of George Whitefield, John Wesley and others. Yes, we have fallen far in these days, but there is no Biblical reason why the tide cannot be turned and the godless legislation which has come in like a flood particularly since Roy Jenkins in the 1960s thrown into the dustbin. Wicked men seldom maintain their unity for long. "Their foot shall slide in due time" as Deuteronomy 32;35 puts it, and once again, history bears this out. Think of the Papal schism of 1378, the falling out among the French or Soviet revolutionaries, or even the present upheavals in the British Labour Party. We need to pray more, seek God's face more and worry less about the power of the ungodly.
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Unfortunately, there is a strain of Evangelical Christianity which developed a particular propensity for this well before the internet age. Dispensationalism, which can ultimately be dated back to J. N. Darby in the 1830s, has had a long track record of claiming that unfulfilled prophecies in the Bible are about to be fulfilled in the very short term, often in a very literalistic way. Adherents of this school of theology have sought to find a contemporary application for some of the most difficult and obscure verses in scripture. W.W Fereday’s The Lord will come and the Lord will reign, published in 1898, claims that Rosh, Meshech and Tubal mentioned in Ezekiel 38:3 refer to Russia, Moscow and - Tobolsk! A more recent book in the same vein is Hal Lindsey's 1970 bestseller Late Great Planet Earth.
Such works, besides being very sensationalistic, are also very depressing. It's real Private Fraser stuff - we're all doomed, doomed because this is what God has predicted - decline, decline and more decline. Don't expect revival blessings; the rapture is the only hope on offer.
Dispensationalism claims to be more faithful to the Bible than any other theological system, but closer examination shows it to be very selective in its "literalism," ignoring any verses that seem to offer any hope of revival. In my experience, most members of Brethren assemblies, in many of which dispensationalism was the unofficial theological position, tended to take its more wilder predictions with a pinch of salt. Those who took it on board hook line and sinker, buying all manner of elaborate charts which purported to offer a step-by-step timeline leading to the Second Coming, tended to become infected with Private Fraseritis, exuding a general atmosphere of doom and gloom.
Let us not be under any illusions. Things have been pretty bad for the church in the west in the last 100 years, but it is nonsense to suggest that this is because the Bible has prophesied that the EU the Bilderbergers, Common Purpose, the Freemasons, America's security services or whoever will be raised up with an unstoppable agenda of evil. The Bible does offer a reason for the wickedness we see all around us, but it is found not in some obscure passage in Revelation or Ezekiel, but rather in verses like Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" When God refrains from sending a revival for any length of time, wickedness, particularly among those in authority, will increase. It's as inevitable as the law of gravity.
However, just as the Bible makes this statement about the unchanging wickedness of human nature, it also makes a statement about the unchanging nature of God's mercy towards a penitent people. "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14) Repentance and prayer within the church can accomplish much. In the UK, of all places, we can look back through our history and see the force of this verse. God was so gracious to us in the 18th century - a period which began with violence rampant on a far greater scale than today, but ended with a strong Evangelical church, blessed by the ministry of George Whitefield, John Wesley and others. Yes, we have fallen far in these days, but there is no Biblical reason why the tide cannot be turned and the godless legislation which has come in like a flood particularly since Roy Jenkins in the 1960s thrown into the dustbin. Wicked men seldom maintain their unity for long. "Their foot shall slide in due time" as Deuteronomy 32;35 puts it, and once again, history bears this out. Think of the Papal schism of 1378, the falling out among the French or Soviet revolutionaries, or even the present upheavals in the British Labour Party. We need to pray more, seek God's face more and worry less about the power of the ungodly.
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