The Great End-time Fiasco
A fiasco is defined as being “a complete or ridiculous failure, humiliating breakdown.” And the essence of “the great end-time fiasco” is twofold:
Element #1) Things that were supposed to happen didn’t happen as New Testament expectations proved false.
Here’s how the much-revered C.S. Lewis framed these “fail expectations” in his essay, “The World’s Last Night” (1960):
“‘Say what you like,’ we shall be told [by the skeptic], ‘the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing.
‘Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And He was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.’
‘It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement ‘but of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.’ The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side.’”
Did you hear what C.S. Lewis said? He said Jesus was literally wrong when He made numerous time-restrictive predictions and statements regarding his coming again, his return. But as we shall see, the embarrassment belongs to C.S. Lewis.
Element #2) The Church invented “delay theory” in direct contradiction of Scripture.
If you have never heard of this sidestepping, excuse-providing theory, I’m not making it up. The Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times contains this topic in a section titled: “Delay of the Parousia.”
Below are three significant scriptural problems for this “invented” delay theory.
Problem #1 – If God’s plan of redemption was, indeed, delayed, you would hope and expect that this “delay” would show up somewhere in the Bible, if for no other reason than this revealed truth: “Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). So where did God ever reveal a “delay” of something as big as his plan of redemption to one of his prophets, to Jesus, or to any New Testament writer?
Problem #2 – In three places the Bible emphatically declares there would be no delay (Hab. 2:3; Ezek. 12:21-25; Heb. 10:37).
Sadly, the Church has been preaching delay for nineteen centuries and counting.
Whom should we believe—the uninspired Church or the inspired writers of Scripture?
What do you think?
(Excerpted from Unraveling the End: A balanced scholarly synthesis of four competing and conflicting end-time views.)
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