Field Guide to the Wild World of Religion: 2011 Edition. Pamela J.D. Dewey
on a variety of other doctrinal matters, it is the prophecy teaching that establishes the credibility of such teachers in the minds of their followers.
The Allure
We live in a world full of turmoil. Especially since the events of 9/11/01, many people have much less of a sense of basic security than they have ever experienced before. More and more are fearful, not just of specific problems such as terrorist acts or wars, but of “the unknown” in general. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon made it clear that there are forces in the world that could conspire to unleash the “totally unexpected” in a way never before experienced in the U.S..
Into this swirling uncertainty step teachers who claim to have The Keys to unlocking a future that is certain. They claim to be able to unveil the future so that their followers can have the assurance of knowing what’s next in the unfolding of history. Even though not one of them agrees totally with any other one of them regarding the details of these keys or the process of this unveiling, that makes little difference to those who are attracted to each one. For few people ever bother to compare the teachings of a wide variety of these teachers and groups. It is typical for an individual Bible student to be attracted to just one source of prophetic teaching, and to invest all of his/her energy into absorbing every bit of minutia put out by that one source.
They are usually not disappointed. Most End Times Prophecy ministries put out an endless stream of “amazing information”—at least once a month in a newsletter, perhaps once a week if they have a regular television show, and even more frequently if they have a website. This adds to their allure for those who wish to be constantly reassured with new evidence that their chosen prophecy guru is able to open the secrets of the Bible in regard to the times in which we live. In addition, the fact that they are kept in the know by their guru may give them a sense that they are among an elite group that has the special favor of God. Many such teachers feed this sense by affirming that their ministry is so important to the “Plan of God” for the world that supporters of that ministry are, indeed, part of what might be termed a Spiritual Special Forces brigade.
Concerns
The primary purpose of prophecy in the Bible, even predictive prophecy, is to clarify to specific people what God plans to do to them or for them—based upon their own actions. The focus is not on the event that may come, but on the hearts of the people involved. Nations whose leadership and citizenry are involved in blatant disobedience toward God are warned to repent to avert His anger. Nations that are discouraged because they are under chastisement from God are encouraged with promises of a bright future if they will turn and obey. It is also clear that many of these promises of good and evil are based on universal principles—any nation which will undertake to serve God can count on His eventual blessings; any which turn their back on Him can count on His eventual intervention to discipline them.
In this context, study of Bible prophecy is a useful tool to encourage the individual Christian, or groups of Christians, to consider carefully the fruit of obedience and disobedience to God.
But this is not the usual emphasis of End Times Prophecy pundits and groups. Although they may occasionally mention this aspect of Bible prophecy, they are usually much more focused on “figuring out” a chronological scheme for exactly what God is going to do in the near future. And it is here that danger lies for the individual Christian who may be tempted to be swept up into active involvement in such a ministry. For most of the teaching about Bible prophecy is not really about Bible prophecy in general, but on what is termed in theological circles as biblical apocalypse.
Prophecy and Apocalypse
A biblical prophet is an individual who speaks on behalf of God, to deliver a message from Him to an individual or a group. Although the common use of the word prophecy in modern English implies a “prediction about the future,” this is not technically what the message of a prophet is all about. The prophets of the Bible gave many messages to others that were not specific predictions of what was absolutely going to happen. They were, instead, warnings, chastisement, or encouragement from God. Sometimes those messages would include information about the future, but that was not the essence of the prophecy. In many instances, even the predictions about the future were conditional. The people of the ancient nation of Israel at Mount Sinai were given a message from God through Moses. It told what would happen to them if they obeyed, and what would happen to them if they disobeyed. Moses was functioning as a prophet to declare the word of the Lord to them.
What most people commonly consider Bible prophecy—the dogmatic, unconditional prediction of coming events—is technically termed apocalypse. The word means a revealing, and the implication is that these things being revealed are predestined to come to pass no matter what mankind does or doesn’t do. Much of the book of Daniel in the Old Testament is apocalypse, as is the book of Revelation. (The Greek word translated revelation in the book of Revelation is apokalupsis.) In this type of prophecy in the Bible, the future is most often outlined in shadowy metaphors of symbolic beasts and other startling symbolic phenomena. The over-arching, primary purpose of these passages seems to be to reassure the servants of God that, even though evil times are to come upon the earth, the ultimate outcome will be the victory of the forces of God and good over the forces of the Devil and evil.
Thus, in general:
An apocalyptic message is not given by a prophet
to sinners to call them to repentance—
it is given to saints to give them hope.
While apocalypse is a kind of prophecy,
most prophecy in the Bible is not apocalyptic.
As noted in this overview, apocalypse is the kind of prophecy that is not “conditional” upon the actions and attitude of specific people or nations. It is straight “looking into the future.” And thus End Times Prophecy pundits are convinced that, if they just peer hard enough into the apocalyptic passages, they will be able see a crystal clear view of the future. Unfortunately for their listeners and supporters, this view is all too often not crystal clear quality, but crystal ball quality! For the apocalyptic messages as delivered from God to the biblical prophets were almost all couched in metaphorical terms, employing highly symbolic images, full of fantastic beasts and strange terrestrial and heavenly phenomena.
When ancient King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had a strange, symbolic dream, he turned to the Jewish prophet Daniel, whose people were in exile in Babylon at the time, for an interpretation. What did Daniel do in order to understand the meaning of those strange symbols? Did he return to his Babylonian dorm room and get out his scrolls of the scriptures, his concordance scrolls, his history scrolls, his lexicon scrolls, and other research materials ... and try to “figure out” the dream that way? No. He returned to his Jewish companions and asked them to pray with him that God would give him the interpretation. And He did.
But what do most End Times prophecy pundits do with material in the book of Revelation—and those portions of the book of Daniel that were not explained to Daniel—in order to understand the future? They get out their Bible translations, their Interlinear Greek/Hebrew/English Bibles, their Greek and Hebrew lexicons, their history books, their newspapers, and their calculators. And they try to humanly crack the code of the meaning of the shadowy types and strange symbolism.
A thing that strikes one who browses around in the vast literature that has grown up about the book of Revelation is the UTTER DOGMATISM with which so many put forth their opinions, not as opinions, but in categorical statements, as to the meaning of the most mysterious passages, as if they know all about it, and their say so settles the matter. We think a spirit of reverent humility, and openness of mind, would be more becoming in those seeking to interpret a book like this. (Henry Halley, Halley’s Bible Handbook, 24th ed., p. 684)
Wise counsel! Why has it been so widely ignored among modern commentators? One possible answer: With a limited audience among which to garner supporters for evangelistic ministries, the most dogmatic and bombastic teachers are often the most successful