The Illusive Last Generation
The end-time Prophecy Industry has hoodwinked believers for generations with tales about how they are the last generation and will see Christ’s return. Popular
prophecy preachers have been telling us for generations that we are the “last
generation” and we will live to see Jesus arriving “on the clouds” in all his glory.
Let us hope and pray so!
And
this means a long list of related prophetic events must also occur BEFORE
he arrives! Of course, so far, none of these predictions and projections have
yet come to pass.
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| [Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash] |
There is something perverse in promising one generation of believers after another that they live in the very “last days” and will certainly see the “Son of Man” coming to gather his elect. In fact, this confident assertion has been around in the church since at least the 1830s.
SHIFTING PREDICTIONS
But
today, the Prophecy Industry looks to the founding of the modern state of
Israel in 1948 as the starting point of the ever-changing “last generation.”
Originally, the popular belief was that Jesus would come within one “biblical
generation” of that year, which the “experts” defined as “about forty years” in
length.
Obviously,
that did not happen. Despite books like ’88 Reasons Why Jesus Will Come in
1988,’ that year came and went with no rapture or second coming.
But
rather than consider whether the entire premise was wrong, the Prophecy
Industry changed its definition of a “biblical generation.” Today, the claim is
that such a generation is anywhere from forty to one hundred and twenty years.
Others reset the final generation’s start date from 1948 to 1967 when Israel
recaptured Jerusalem, or to some other subsequent significant event in the
Middle East. Of course, we are now more than forty years beyond 1967, so
additional adjustments are again necessary.
To
state the obvious, Jesus has not yet arrived in glory. But several other popular
expectations are also missing, including but not limited to—
- The 7-year Tribulation.
- The rapture.
- The Antichrist.
- The 10-nation European confederacy.
- The attack on Israel by “Gog and Magog.”
- The construction of the third temple in Jerusalem.
- The revived Roman Empire.
- The global “beast” system.
- The “mark of the beast.”
- The false prophet.
- The “man of lawlessness.”
- The Battle of Armageddon.
I
would add the “apostasy” to the list, but I suspect it is already well
underway. The present horde of deceivers that continues to “tickle the ears” of
millions of Christians suggests this is the case.
Perhaps
these events are yet to come, but the prophecy preachers are running out of
time and excuses. But rather than admit their egregious errors, the end-time prophecy
peddlers simply redefine their terms and their recalculate chronologies.
One
prediction that has come true is Christ’s warning that many deceivers will come and
propagate false information and distorted expectations about his coming. The
evidence for that is plain and abundant for anyone with eyes to see.
It
is time to face facts: Either Bible prophecy has failed, its popular
interpreters are wrong, or they have lied and misled millions of Christians. Should we not open our eyes and see what the Bible actually says on these matters?
Things
went awry from the start when the Prophecy Industry created loopholes and
sledgehammered them into the warnings of Jesus - “No one except God alone
knows the day or the hour,” and “the Son of Man is coming in a season
when you least expect him.”
The
usual excuse is that Jesus said we could not know the “precise day and hour,”
but we can know the general “season” of his return. Yes, well, Jesus also said “it
is not for you to know times or seasons,” plural. And he did, in fact,
state that his disciples do not know the ‘kairos’ or “season” – (Mark 13:33).
Such loopholes are necessary for the prophetic game to work. If the words of Jesus are taken at face value, no one can presume to know whether we are the “last generation,” and the whole moneymaking house of cards collapses.
But
Scripture has not failed, and Bible prophecy is reliable. The proliferation of
deceivers, deceit, and apostasy in the contemporary church validates its many
warnings. In contrast, the Prophecy Industry has failed, and miserably so.
Ironically, its very existence validates the many New Testament warnings about deceivers
proliferating in the last days.
But
having seen their predictions and projections falsified by subsequent events
time and again, now, many of these hucksters are turning to calendrical cycles,
numerology, astrology, Kabbalah mysticism, and other forms of divination and
occult practices to peer into the future and make new prognostications that will
dazzle their victims.
The
deception can and will only get worse, and the predicted final “apostasy”
is, from Satan’s perspective, moving along quite nicely.
