Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Obsession With Bible Prophecy: The Devil Loves It

Obsession With Bible Prophecy: The Devil Loves It
By Chuck Baldwin
August 18, 2016

(NOTE: I have stated before that I believe that the Fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 fulfilled Daniel's "time of the end" prophecy and resulted in the second coming of Christ in judgment on Israel, the casting of Satan into the bottomless pit, thus rendering him powerless, and the ushering in of the Kingdom of God in it's full glory. Nevertheless, Baldwin makes some good points about the danger of politicians using so-called unfulfilled Bible prophecy to make political decisions - OO)

Christians of all stripes and persuasions believe in the return of
Christ, nuances of prophetic interpretation notwithstanding.
Furthermore, personal interpretations of prophecy are NOT fundamental
to our salvation or our service to God. One will find faithful and
unfaithful believers at every point along the prophecy spectrum.

That said, after more than four decades of pastoring, it is my firm
conviction that the obsession with Bible prophecy demonstrated by a
host of professing Christians today is one of our country's BIGGEST
problems. On the whole, obsession with prophecy either takes those
obsessed completely out of the freedom fight or it actually puts them
on the side of those who are trying to usurp our liberties.

For some (especially those who believe in a "pre-tribulation
Rapture”), prophecy has mostly turned them into indifferent,
apathetic facilitators of tyranny. They say things like "This is all
predicted in the Bible, so there's nothing we can do about it" or
"Jesus is coming soon, and I won't be around to see it, so I'm not
worrying about it" or "Since this is all part of prophecy, we should
not even try to resist, because to resist is to interfere with God"
and similar nonsensical, asinine statements.

Others see all kinds of self-interpreted "signs" proving whatever they
WANT to believe in order to convince people that their prophetic
predilections are superior to everyone else’s for the purpose of
exalting their own hyper-inflated, super-spiritual egos. In other
words, these particular folks are living in their own self-created
fantasy world that renders them absolutely worthless--or even
detrimental--to the freedom fight.

Still others are so jaded in their prophetic infatuation with the
modern state of Israel that they interpret everything through the
dark lenses of misguided obfuscation to the point that they are
unable to see events clearly and accurately, which makes them prone
to the manipulations of Neocons and other enemies of freedom.

People have been interpreting Bible prophecy to suit their own fancies
for over 2,000 years. The fact is, no one knows exactly how and when
the events surrounding Christ's return will take place. NO ONE. I
don't care how "smart" and "knowledgeable" they think they are on the
subject. THEY DON'T KNOW.

But in the meantime, their inflated opinions of their own brilliance
mostly serve to make them totally indifferent to the loss of liberty
or even actively supportive of the forces that are trying to usurp
our God-given liberties. Either way, freedom loses.

The first question the disciples asked our Lord after His resurrection
from the dead concerned prophecy: “When they therefore were come
together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time
restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)

Look carefully at Christ’s response to them: “It is not for you to
know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own
power.” (Acts 1:7)

Did you get that? “IT IS NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW.”

Students of the scriptures have been studying “end time” prophecies
since the completion of the canon of Scripture. And the
interpretations have been, and still are, as varied as the people
proffering them.

We could assemble the most brilliant apologists in the world for the
various interpretations of Bible prophecy and let them present the
reasons for their interpretations and each of them would be able to
present a very coherent and convincing scriptural case for their
position. And the fact is, the best any of them would be doing would
be making a studied, educated GUESS at how it all MIGHT happen.

Come on! Get real, folks! Some of the smartest men of history have
been making educated guesses regarding the return of Christ since the
Apostle John finished writing the Book of The Revelation. Date
setters have come and gone--along with the dates they set--for 2,000
years. And the educated guessers of today are no smarter than they
were then.

Jesus wasn’t kidding around when He told the disciples (and us), “IT
IS NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW.” The one thing that He did want us to know is
that it is our duty to “Occupy till I come.” (Luke 19:13) Therefore,
until Christ comes (whenever that is), we are to “occupy” or “take
care of business.”

Regardless of one’s private interpretation of prophecy, our duty as
Christians is the same: we are to take care of business. We are to
tend to our family business, our vocational business, our spiritual
business, our community business, our national business, etc. Until
He comes, we have a divine mandate to “take care of business.”

Premillennial. Postmillennial. Amillennial. Pre-tribulation. Mid-
tribulation. Post-tribulation. Complete Rapture. Partial Rapture. No
Rapture. Dispensationalist. Preterist. When it comes to our duty to
“take care of business,” IT DOESN’T MATTER. We all have the same
duty.

Unfortunately, the preoccupation and obsession with Bible prophecy has
diverted people’s attention away from the business at hand. So many,
many Christians have become so heavenly minded that they are no
earthly good. And pastors and preachers are mostly to blame. They
spiritualize everything to the point that they have rendered the
scriptures of NO practical relevance whatsoever.

Talk to the average Christian about his or her duty to their country,
and they immediately zone out into a trance and start regurgitating
hackneyed clichés about how “God is in control” and we are not
supposed to be concerned about it because it’s not a “spiritual”
issue or how they are going to be “raptured” to heaven and escape all
of the bad stuff, etc. Furthermore, to the average pastor, duty to
country amounts to nothing more than some nonsensical drivel about
mindless submission to government. It seems to most pastors (well,
American pastors anyway) government is GOD. Romans 13 is the only
Scripture they know to cite--and they grossly misinterpret it to
boot. To most pastors, the stories of Daniel, the three Hebrew
children, the judges of Israel, David and Saul, Christ and the
Pharisees, the early church and the Judaizers, etc., are of NO
practical consequence to life today.

I challenge you to press your pastor with this question: “Were
America’s Founding Fathers scripturally justified in rebelling
against the British Crown?” Come on! I dare you to press your pastor
for an answer to that question. You might be shocked at just how many
pastors actually believe our Founding Fathers sinned by rebelling
against the government of Great Britain.

Yet in pulpits all over America, pastors lead their churches in
celebrating Independence Day on or around each July 4th. They wave
the flag, sing patriotic songs, and get up and talk about how
thankful they are to live in a free nation. But wait a minute! This
country they are celebrating is a nation birthed in rebellion. If
these pastors believe our founders were unjustified before God in
fighting that war for independence, how dare they turn around and
celebrate the victory of an act that they claim to find sinful? Talk
about hypocrisy!

It is little wonder why Christians are among the highest percentage of
people in the country who don’t vote; why Christians are among the
biggest cheerleaders for America’s incessant wars of aggression
overseas; why Christians are among the largest percentage of viewers
of the mainstream propaganda media (especially FOX News); and why
Christians (at least Christians in the United States) are among the
most gullible and easily duped people by Neocons and Zionists on the
planet. (Can anyone say G. W. Bush, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and
Ted Cruz?)

And guess what the most consistent common denominator is for all of
the above? You guessed it: Bible prophecy. It is no hyperbole to
suggest that the more people obsess over Bible prophecy, the more the
devil likes it. Why? Because for the most part the obsession and
preoccupation with Bible prophecy takes a majority of Christians
completely out of the freedom fight. On the whole, churches stopped
being the “salt of the earth” decades ago. If you want a freedom
fighter in the foxhole with you, you will largely need to look
somewhere besides the average pastor and church.

I would dare say that the subject of prophecy takes up the greater
percentage of all of the sermons, Bible conferences, books, videos,
seminars, television and radio broadcasts, etc., in modern
Christendom. And what has it done for us? What has it done for the
church? What has it done for America? What has it done for the
suffering saints across the globe? What has it done for a lost and
dying world that desperately needs spiritual direction, leadership,
and purpose in this life? NOTHING. Not a dad-blasted thing (as my
father used to say). All it has done is rendered the church
completely ineffective, indifferent, and impotent. Oh, yes, and
conceited, arrogant, and proud.

Study prophecy all you want, but if doing so puts you on the wrong
side of liberty, it only fulfills the purposes of Satan, not God.

Not only that - but every time one of these guys claims to know the date or even roughly the time frame and turns out to be wrong, it discredits all of Christianity. It puts a religious spin on the term "useful idiots".

The best thing Christians can do (in this regard) is ignore the prognosticators and as the writer suggests, "take care of business" - which also includes observing the "beattitudes".

My experience with those obsessed with prophecy seems to be that they want to know how long they can do their own thing and still repent in time to go to Heaven.

speaking of prophecy, an older lady working as a pharm tech in a nearby pharmy told me one day that all True Christians would be far better off dead.

now, that's an encouraging thought to hear when dropping by to pick up a bag of medicine.

Looking at the world today makes me think the end may be closer to now than it was 2,000 years ago.

With that said, I'll close with my favorite Jefferson quote:

"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."

Her heart was in the right place.

Gotta wonder how specifically that reflection was connected to your visit.

I'm positive it's at least 2,000 years closer.

Not in any church I've attended more than twice.

well, at a 50,000 feet view of things, it was pretty encouraging actually. i knew she meant well in her sharing of important information.

and yes, if time really does end, we're some 2000 years closer to it than when Jesus walked the Urthen.

None of that happened in 70 AD. Jesus did not return visibly in the clouds like was promised. Satan was not sent to the pit (or this would be a sinless world), and this certainly isn't God's kingdom in it's full glory (how could God's kingdom be so rampant with sin).

Big difference between the producing of bountiful fruits and religious nuts.

I completely agree. I had never even heard of that 70 AD doctrine until a couple years ago. I've talked with some of those folks and there's no way to convince them any different.

I completely agree. I had never even heard of that 70 AD doctrine until a couple years ago. I've talked with some of those folks and there's no way to convince them any different. [quote]

I heard it forty years ago from an Episcopalian so it's not new.

Why would you waste time trying to convince someone of something that can't be proven either way?

God's default answer to a lot of questions seems to be: "What is that to YOU...... follow Thou me."

Obsession with some goat fugger fairy tales is way weird, prophecy or no.

Yes, over-attendance to the "end times" does occupy time and resources better given off to serve in the here-and-now, but this person sounds like a typical Reformer (the 70 AD reference identifies him as a amillennial preterist) meaning the spiritualization of all the prophetic scriptures, giving rise to the "50 different ways to leave your lover" interpretations of the apocalyptic scriptures. Preterists are one flavor of amillennialist and generally believe that all of Revelation had been fulfilled by 70 AD and has no significance for the future. Not quite so fast my friend!

While Jesus said no one knows the time, He also said "to know the seasons" meaning having circumstantial awareness of what's happening. And who can deny we are closer to the End that at any other time in history. Who can deny that "what is wrong is right, and what is right is wrong", is occurring before our very generation in our own country?

theres a great turning away out there for a reason, no doubt. if xtianity was real, why isn't it working better than it is?

in other words, has Real Christianity ever been tried? anyone know for sure?

to press further, in 2000 years of receiving the msg, then for certain here we are. how much further do we need to go, might you say?

that begs the question, if Christianity is so good, why haven't we installed it on the urth quite yet?? anyone know for sure?

Anyone claiming to know when the rapture will happen, instantly proves they are a false prophet. In Matthew 24:36, Jesus himself said "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only."

As George mentioned, we can see more and more of the prophecies happening around us, but how long before it happens is impossible for us to understand. God exisits outside of time as we know and understand it.

69 weeks have been fulfilled, the 70th week has not begun.

I feel strongly both ways.

What "the Bible says" wasn't the starting point for the Christian faith when Christianity first started because there was no Bible to say anything. The Jews had an Old Testament, which meant nothing to the Gentiles, and nobody had a New Testament. Despite not having The Bible, the church grew and flourished. The New Testament wasn't even put together until about 350 years or so after the events of Jesus' life on earth. But for the first 350 years of Christianity there were hundreds of thousands of people who became followers of Jesus...and without The Bible.