The Re-release Of An Old Song

by Terry Hall
World Net Daily carries a story relating Pat Robertson’s reflections on recent earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. The noted televangelist sees signs of the second coming of Christ and the end of the age in these front-page events. Robertson provides benefit in his advocacy of Godly morals, the reality of God, the divinity of Jesus and the inspiration of scripture. However, in his prophetic interpretations, he misses the mark.World Net Daily carries a story relating Pat Robertson’s reflections on recent earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. The noted televangelist sees signs of the second coming of Christ and the end of the age in these front-page events. Robertson provides benefit in his advocacy of Godly morals, the reality of God, the divinity of Jesus and the inspiration of scripture. However, in his prophetic interpretations, he misses the mark.World Net quotes Robertson as saying “If you read back in the Bible, the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia, he said that in the latter days before the end of the age that the Earth would be caught up in what he called the birth pangs of a new order. And for anybody who knows what it's like to have a wife going into labor, you know how these labor pains begin to hit. I don't have any special word that says this is that, but it could be suspiciously like that."

Robertson’s prophetic paradigm is that we are living in the latter (or last) days and the related prophecies are about current events. This simply does not match a close examination of scripture, plus it unintentionally undermines the credibility of inspiration. This song has been sung repeatedly over the last two centuries as the dispensational prophetic model has gained following. At various junctures, storms, earthquakes and disasters of one sort or another have been touted as events warning of the imminent return of Christ and the end of the world. This is a cycle repeated frequently since the 1820’s. You can look it up. Those to whom Christians carry the biblical message of God’s salvation and the availability of His leadership for their lives often site these failed projections as reasons why they are not compelled to respond to that message. The fact is the bible message is phenomenally credible in its historical and biblical context.

The terms “latter days” and “last days” were never used in scripture to speak of the twentieth or twenty-first centuries. They were terms referring to the closing time frame of the Old Testament temple worship and animal sacrificial system. Daniel 10:14, about 600 years before the incarnation of Jesus, contains the following statement from an angel of God: “… and (I) came to make you understand what is to befall your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.” The latter days were a time for God’s dealing with Daniel’s people, i.e. - Old Covenant Israel. In chapter 12 Daniel asks when these things would come to pass and is told by the angel of chapter 12 “…when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be accomplished.” The Old Covenant temple and sacrificial system, which was in its end time as Paul wrote the Thessalonian letters, ceased to function in 70 A.D. when the Roman army broke the siege of Jerusalem and destroyed not only the temple, but Jewish genealogical records as well.

At the TruthVoice 2005 Conference, one of my presentations contained an analogy I believe to be accurate. Let’s say a man buys a picture puzzle at a thrift store and attempts to put it together at home. I’m told by puzzle-putters-together that the way it’s done is by looking at the picture on the box. But what if some clown switched the box tops? Successfully fitting the pieces to together to look like the box top would never happen. And if pieces were fitted together, the picture from the wrong box top is not what would emerge. What would form as the pieces went together is the original picture…while the man and his friends may observe “that can’t be right, it doesn’t look like our box top!”

Planet Preterist is part of a network of people powerfully demonstrating that the pieces of bible prophecy, when fitted together, don’t match the picture on the box top of dispensational futurism. That’s why Robertson, Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe and others continually have to rearrange the pieces from decade to decade as their projections fall apart one after the other.

The writer of Hebrews did not picture the last days to be 2000 years removed from his contemporaries. He said “ In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” (Heb.1:1-2). He clearly places himself and his contemporaries in the last days, and frames the ministry of Jesus as being a last days event. The emerging biblical picture is that the Old Testament prophets foresaw an end to the prototypical temple/animal sacrificial system when God’s true sacrificial lamb (Jesus) came into the world to offer a sacrifice that actually provided atonement. The New Testament writers understood by inspiration that they, not we, were then living in those last days. The pieces fit. Once a sacrifice was offered that actually atoned, then the sacrifices that were a foreshadowing would came to an end. Thus the Hebrew writer adds this fitting piece -“On the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect); on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God…this one was addressed with an oath, ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘Thou art a priest for ever.’” This makes Jesus the surety of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

The pieces fit the scripture context as well as first century historical context of the end of typological old covenant temple worship. It was in its last days from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in about 30 A.D. and spanning the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. by the Romans. This forty year period, non-coincidentally, parallels the forty year transition of typological Israel from slavery to the promised land. Paul pictures the law system as leaving man in slavery (bondage) to sin, and the Christ freeing man from that bondage. Again the writer of Hebrews explains to his first century audience “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? If the worshipers had once been cleansed, they would no longer have any consciousness of sin. But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’ as it is written of me in the roll of the book. ”When he said above, “Thou hast neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Lo, I have come to do thy will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.“ (Heb. 10:1-9).

Robertson added this comment- “What was called the blessed hope of the Bible is that one day Jesus Christ would come back again, start a whole new era, that this world order that we know would change into something that would be wonderful that we'd call the millennium," he continued. "And before that good time comes there will be some difficult days and there will be likened to what a woman goes through in labor just before she brings forth a child."

The pieces in the box don’t fit together as framed in that comment. Though accurately speaking of Jesus coming again, a new world order, and the preceding trouble analogous to labor pains, Robertson is trying to fit them to a current-events box top. The Gospel Of Mark quotes Jesus as setting those labor pains in the terribly troubled times leading to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. “ And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.” And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished?” And Jesus began to say to them, “Take heed that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines; this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs.”

Notice how the biblical pieces fit. To correctly identify “the end” and where that piece goes, we properly look earlier in the context. The thing spoken of in that context is the end of the temple, not the end of the planet! The earthquakes and attendant signs were to precede that event, and were analogous to labor pains. A reading of Josephus in the sections of Wars Of The Jews dealing with the events leading to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. we find that wars and famines indeed occurred in those days…those last days, leading up to the end…that end.

When dispensationalists and futurists take current events as their box top and try to fit the pieces of bible prophecy together, they have to keep changing box tops as current events change. Thus at one point Hitler was the beast, but no…now we see it must be Khrushchev. Wait…it’s Henry Kissinger…no Saddam Hussein. The end would be in 1973…no, 1948…no the turn of the millennium.

The real picture emerging from the pieces of biblical prophecy as they are fit together doesn’t keep changing with current events. The end spoken of by Old Testament prophets was the end of the temporary typological Old Covenant system which could not atone for sin. It would enter its last days when God’s true sacrifice, Jesus, came into the world to die on the cross. The end would come in that generation, before some of Jesus’ contemporaries died. That end was at hand as Peter wrote his epistles (1 Peter 4:7, 17). That age ended and a new age began (Hebrews 9:8,9). A new world order was established, a world in which we now have a sacrifice in Jesus which has accomplished what could not happen in the old covenant age…the old world. Our sins have been paid for. We no longer have to live separate from our God. We may now live daily in full fellowship with him.

“And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.” (Revelation 12:10).

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing this that our joy may be complete.” (1 John 1:1-4).