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Shammu
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« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2008, 04:23:42 AM » |
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I have my own opinion of Hal Lindsey. He has proven in the past, to be a false prophet. Much of The Late Great Planet Earth is written about events which are supposed to happen in the near future relative to 1970.
Hal Lindsey has created a time frame in the above quote which could conclude in the 1980’s, with special emphasis on 1988 as the conclusion of one forty-year generation following the rebirth of Israel in 1948. Some may desire to blunt the impact of the above prediction by saying that Hal Lindsey was not dogmatic in the statement or that it has another meaning. Contrary evidence of Hal Lindsey’s meaning is found in another book written by him at the very outset of that decade. Titled, - The 1980’s: Countdown to Armageddon, its message is obvious from the outside. Somewhat was going to occur in the 1980’s: Tribulation and Armageddon.
Reasoning to support that expectation is found on page 12, where Hal Lindsey answers a skeptic’s question: “Why do you think that all the various prophecies will come to pass during this generation?” He answered: “The answer is simple. The prophets told us that the rebirth of Israel, no other event, would be the sign that the countdown has begun. Since that rebirth, the rest of the prophecies have begun to be fulfilled quite rapidly. For this reason I am convinced that we are now in the unique time so clearly and precisely forecast by the Hebrew prophets.”
"The rebirth of Israel had a definite prophetic significance, which meant that a prophetic countdown had begun in 1948 and must conclude by 1988, and was supported by the additional evidence of rapid prophecy fulfillments."
These are not vague speculations. Hal Lindsey is speaking about “clear and precise” predictions based on the Hebrew prophets. On page 43 of the same book, another statement is made which explicitly defines the time frame for prophetic fulfillment: “It will be crucial if we are to understand the events which have been predicted, and, I believe, will occur in the 1980’s.”
Hal Lindsey was confident enough in the time frame to place the fulfillment of predictions found in The Late Great Planet Earth that he wrote an entire book to support that claim and filled it with statements about dreadful events which were approaching.
After the 1980’s concluded, these explicit predictions have become an embarrassment to Hal Lindsey. In the Introduction to Planet Earth - 2000 A.D.: Will Mankind Survive?, Hal Lindsey summarizes his previous works in a very positive manner, and carefully isolates himself from his failed predictions. He speaks about the generation that followed the events of 1948 in two different paragraphs, saying in the first......
”Jesus promised us that the generation that witnessed the restoration of the Jewish people to their homeland would not pass until ‘all these things’ including his return to Earth, would be done. The Jewish people declared the rebirth of their nation in 1948. They recaptured Jerusalem in 1967. A Biblical generation is somewhere between 40 and 100 years, depending on whether you take the example from Abraham’s day or from the discipline of Israel in the Wilderness of Sinai. In either case, you do the arithmetic, folks. No matter how you cut it, there’s not much time left.” The time frame set by Hal Lindsey for the occurrence of his predictions was the decade of the 1980’s. Failure in setting the date of the events is significant and inexcusable.
Current events were not compatible with Hal Lindsey’s interpretation of prophecy.
Above all else Hal Lindsey forgot.........
Deuteronomy 18:22 When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or prove true, that is a word which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.
Isaiah 44:25 [I am the Lord] Who frustrates the signs and confounds the omens [upon which the false prophets' forecasts of the future are based] of the [boasting] liars and makes fools of diviners, Who turns the wise backward and makes their knowledge foolishness,
Jeremiah 29:8-9 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Let not your [false] prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you; pay no attention and attach no significance to your dreams which you dream or to theirs, 9 For they prophesy falsely to you in My name. I have not sent them, says the Lord.
1 John 4:1 BELOVED, DO not put faith in every spirit, but prove (test) the spirits to discover whether they proceed from God; for many false prophets have gone forth into the world.
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