According to Moses, “When the prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh and the word does not come to pass, that is the word Yahweh has NOT spoken.” If this guideline remains applicable, many churches have embraced an interpretive school of prophecy that does not represent what the Bible says, namely, Dispensationalism, and this is demonstrated by its long history of failed predictions, speculations, and expectations.
There have
been many supposed prophets and prophecy “experts” over the centuries who have
predicted the soon return of Jesus. Though the details have varied from one prediction
to another, two things have remained the same.
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| [Photo by Jo Szczepanska on Unsplash] |
First, the perpetrator either did not heed the warning of Jesus that no one except God knows the timing of his return, or he created loopholes in Christ’s words. Second, EVERY such prediction has failed, and the failure rate remains at 100%. Great effort is made to find exceptions to his warning and to rationalize why his words do not mean what they do or do not apply to us today.
For example, popular
preachers claim that though Jesus said we could not know the “day or hour,”
he did NOT say we could not know the general “season” of the end. This
argument employs false logic, an argument from silence, forming a
conclusion based on what Jesus did NOT say.
Neither did he
say we could not know the week, the month, the year, the decade, or the century
of his return. Should we now assume we can predict his return within all those
timeframes with the only exception being the precise day and hour of his
arrival?
This line of reasoning is contrary to the Lord’s clear intent, which was to stress that God alone knows the timing of the end. Moreover, that is precisely why he repeatedly exhorted his disciples to remain prepared for his sudden and unexpected arrival.
Furthermore, Jesus did declare that his followers could not ascertain the “season”
or ‘kairos’ of his coming. Before his ascension, he warned the
disciples that it was “NOT for you to know TIMES,” plural, “and SEASONS,”
plural, information that God alone knew and knows to this very day – (Mark
13:33, Acts 1:7-9).
PROFITING
Dispensationalism
has become what should be described as an End-Time Prophecy Industry. It
has thrived over the last several decades despite its many failed attempts to
produce verifiable prophetic fulfillments. Make no mistake, it is a money-making
endeavor. It can only maintain its audience and income by peddling heightened
expectations about the immediate future.
For example, until
1988, the “experts” claimed Jesus would return within a "biblical
generation" of the founding of the nation of Israel in 1948, and according
to them, this “biblical generation” is approximately forty years in length.
That would mean the Lord should have returned by 1988.
Since that
date, rather than admit error and return to the biblical drawing board, the Prophecy Industry has
worked tirelessly to redefine what a “biblical generation” is so that now the “prophecy
experts” claim it ranges anywhere from forty to one hundred and twenty years.
Having learned their lesson, they build comfortable fudge factors into
their guesswork.
Similarly, the
Prophecy Industry sold books, seminars, and videos in which they
predicted the Soviet Union or “Rosh” would become the army of "Gog and
Magog" and invade Israel from the north. Instead, the U.S.S.R.
collapsed under its own weight in one of THE most pivotal
events of the last century, one that NONE of the “prophecy
experts” saw coming.
In the 1960s
and 1970s, prophecy teachers claimed the European Common Market would evolve
into a ten-nation confederacy centered in Rome, a revived Roman Empire from
which the Antichrist would reign over the nations. Instead, it morphed into the
European Union, which today has twenty-seven member states and is based in
Brussels, Belgium, and it is now teetering on economic and military collapse.
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| [Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash] |
Examples can be multiplied, but the more relevant question is, “When has the End-Time Prophecy Industry ever made an accurate prediction that came true?” More telling is how the Industry reacts to its failures. Rather than admit its blunders, it redefines terms, recalculates dates, and reformulates chronologies.
The history of
Dispensationalism and its failures should warn us to heed the Lord’s warning about
coming deceivers who would propagate false information about his coming and
thereby “deceive MANY.” We must recognize the End-Time Prophecy
Industry for what it is, a vehicle for propagating some of the same deceptions that Jesus warned us to expect, and an effective scam for “making
merchandise” out of God’s people.
RELATED POSTS:
- Apostasy and Misdirection - (Believers who are watching for apostasy outside the Church will be among the first who are overtaken by it as it operates in the Assembly)
- Serpents in the Assembly - (The Spirit of Antichrist is working to destroy the church from within, especially through deceivers and false teachers)
- Times and Seasons - (We have all we need in Jesus and his teachings, so why are so many seeking answers in counterfeits and pale imitations?)