Ah it seems to be quite the common occurrence as of late that my posts are few and far between.  Thank you all for your prayers over the last few weeks as we’ve been preparing for the big move.  It’s been a tough but good time with a lot of good-byes and dealing with the emotions of leaving our home of the last four years.

While my wife was skimming the News Feed on Facebook earlier tonight she shared with me a post she saw of a news article from a conspiracy website.  I’m not sure of the link, but it was something along the lines of the US government is planning to kill X thousand Americans.  This fear that so many conservatives seem to be feeling strikes me as odd.  For the Christians who read these kinds of articles, we need to put them down and pick up the Scriptures.

Now the prophecies of the Bible have been of interest for many people, myself included, for a long time.  These prophetic signs and visions were given to us by the Lord through the prophets and the apostles so that we could watch for what is to come, but so often it seem that we focus on the events and less on the Person that these events are preparing us for (i.e. Jesus Christ)!

And this fear based ideology is being promulgated by false teachers and false prophets who present a message of fear in an attempt to scare sinners into conversion or to inform believers of hard times to come without the truth of what we should be doing.  Take these guys for instance:

I remember seeing billboards and buses all over the place with warning signs of the end of the world coming on a 21 May 2011.  But in case you missed it, we’re still here and the Son of Man hasn’t come on the clouds nearly 3 years later.  We can announce Judgement Day but what good does it do to carry around billboards and loud speakers if we’re not taking the time to get to know and love the people at the table 10 feet away?

You see, part of the problem with these false prophecies is that they’re invoking the name of Jesus to validate their claims and gather attention and when they don’t come to pass it brings ridicule and mockery to the name of Jesus.

The Truth of Bible Prophecy

13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”  (Matthew 33:13)

Jesus was speaking here to the religious leaders in what has come to be called The Seven Woes.  The teachers and the Pharisees were adding their own fears, traditions, and experiences to the Word and proclaiming them as truth to the people.  My fear is this: as Christians if we are adding to the revealed and prophetic Word our own fears, traditions, and experiences we are proclaiming a false message.  When we do that it is a stumbling block for many and the offense it brings is not a godly offense.

Any prophecy or teaching that focuses on fear rather than the preeminence of Jesus is a false prophecy or teaching.

The purpose of the prophecies in the Bible are to awaken hope in the Children of God and to give us something to be watching for.  The message is never one of terror for the believer because even if we’re to suffer and die in the course of it’s fulfillment our reward is in the life to come as we gather at our Father’s feet to enjoy Him forever and ever.  In other words, keep watching but focus on the Person of God and not the events of the world.

I hope this is helpful to some of you.  As always, feel free to comment or email if you have something to add.  Keep being awesome, and I’ll try to post again sooner rather than later.