Saddam Painted as Anti-Christ
Dear Brother Boyd: While flying
back from Pittsburgh to Florida yesterday, I read your good and interesting
article, "Prophetic Speculators That Will Not See". In light of that
article I thought you might like to see an addition to that item in the
"Researcher". Imagine the income that Robertson will get from his
book, "The New Millennium";
Walvoord from 500,000 copies
of "Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis". And now he has a
revised edition of 550,000 more copies going out. And think of Edgar Whisenant
having 3.2 million copies of "88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will be in 1988'
on the book shelves and we are already 3 years past his date! Many G.A.R.B. and
Independent Baptist Churches wouldn't think of having a Mormon, Jehovah
Witness, etc. in their pulpit but they push this false doctrine from their
pulpits.
Dr. R. E. McNeill
THIS APPEARED W THE NEW CASTLE NEWS THIS PAST WEEK.
The daily march of Middle East headlines is a sure
sign that it's time for another round of the that religion writer William
Alnor calls "pin the tail on the anti-Christ;'
In many pews the faithful are flipping open their
study Bibles in well-marked passages such as the following:
"The oracle concerning Babylon...Hark, a tumult
on the mountains, as of a great multitude! Hark, an uproar of kingdoms, of
nations gathering together! The Lord of hosts is mustering a host for
battle" reads Isaiah, chapter 13. "They come from a distant land,
from the end of the heavens, the Lord and the weapons of his indignation, to
destroy the whole earth"
Yes, the land of ancient Babylon is roughly the same
as today's nation of Iraq.
"So we have all kinds of people saying that Saddam Hussein is the anti-Christ and it's time to get ready for the end of the world;' said Alnor, who teaches journalism at Temple University and the Philadelphia College of Bible. "I don't think that's true and the serious Bible prophecy teachers don't seem to think it true, either...But let's face it. Fear sells"
Former Repubican presidential candidate Pat Robertson
is near the top of current Christian best-seller lists with a volume called
"The New Millennium" The religious broadcaster writes that the world
is getting ready for a new cycle of history in the year 2000. "The real long-term meaning of the
Saddam Hussein affair would be this: At the site of the Tower of Babel where
the nations of the world were once dispersed, all the nations of the earth
came together and entered into a military alliance which began..;
a "'
Eventually, says Robertson, this alliance may turn against Israel, a key twist
in most end-time scenarios.
In the biblical prophecy , Robertson is one of
the more mild-mannered participants, said Alnor, author of 1989 book called
"Soothsayers of the Second Advent" The same goes for the Rev. John
Walvoord of Dallas Theological Seminary.
The original edition of Walvoord's "Armageddon,
Oil and the Middle East Crisis" sold 500,000-plus copies in the '80's. At
the end of January, 550,000 copies of a revised edition were ready for
bookstore shelves from coast to coast. Alnor actually recommends this book,
along with a few other such volumes.
"I don't make fun of Bible prophecy. I believe
there are signs of the times and that biblical prophecy is real...But I also
believe that God takes slander seriously.
"Picking dates for the end of the world and
naming the anti-Christ is dangerous. Scripture tells us that Jesus warned his
followers not to speculate about the details of his Second Coming"
So-called experts have pinned the
"anti-Christ" label on everyone from Ronald Reagan to Jimmy Carter,
from Henry Kissinger to Austrian President Kurt Waldheim. Pope John Paul II is
a popular choice among Catholic-bashers. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tops
many lists of candidates to fill the biblical role of the global leader in the
final days before the apocalypse of Armageddon.
The most infamous recent example of end-times
manship was a booklet called "88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in
1988;' by former NASA engineer Edgar Whisenant. At least 3.2 million copies
were printed before Aug. 11-13, 1988, Whisenant's predicted dates for the
beginning of the end. A later edition picked a date in 1989.
"When these so-called prophecy experts make
mistakes, they rarely stand up in public and say, 'Hey, I blew it; " Alnor
said.
"What most of them do is go on pontificating.
That's a very dishonest to play with readers. I don't think God is
amused.”
…From
The Researcher, Volume 21, Number 2, Spring1991