I agree that we are not to do "exegesis by current events," but neither are we to ignore current events altogether. God gave signs to indicate that Christ's first Advent was near, but few heeded them. Thankfully Simeon and Anna expected him and we're ready. Jesus gave us signs to look for, so we would be ready. The danger of over-spiritualizing or over-symbolizing prophetic passages is that people get lulled into thinking Jesus is never coming back. Then we become like the five foolish virgins who had no oil for their lamps. I choose to be a wise virgin, ever expectant and ready for my Lord's return.
Hal Lindsay was not the first to err by being too certain about exactly how unfulfilled prophecy will be fulfilled. And he will not be the last. May he rest in peace.
After being introduced to him in high school as a new believer, I spent the next decade or so being terrified of the end! Thank God I finally got serious eschatological information into my head. I still find myself being regarded as a heretic when I say I don't believe in the rapture!! As the late Keith Green said--pray there is a rapture but live like you're not expecting it!!
So, you disagreed with his hermeneutic. That should stop the world in its rotation for a moment. Congratulations and all hail.
You have committed the sin of defamation. You have called a man a false prophet who never dreamed of prophesying anything. He and other dispensational premillennialists of his era thought they saw things in the lives of people and nations which correlated in eerie ways with prophetic things in the Bible. My tendency is to think their hermeneutic mistaken. I, too, see the fantastic imagery of Revelation as symbolic, but as none the less true for being so.
However, in the last year, as it has become obvious that Iran was the primary funder and goader of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, as we have seen Russia and China developing if not an alliance then an understanding and cooperation, as we have seen Jerusalem become a cup of trembling to the nations, and most ominously, as we have seen an eruption of anti - Semitism in the West which I, who was born in 1952, could never have imagined I would see in my lifetime, it has occurred to me that Hal Lindsey and other dispensational premillennialists may not have been as far of the mark as you and other non - dispensational premillennialists have snickered they were.
I suppose it's in the nature of guys like you to be oblivious to portents.
Still, I think you're more right than wrong.
I don't know your background, but I would be willing to bet there will be a lot more souls in Heaven because of Hal Lindsey and his down-market, somewhat sensationalistic paperbacks than there will be because of any ministry of yours.
As others have noted, Jack Chick, who forty years ago was deplored as a mountebank by all the Protestants with credentials, has turned out to have been if anything too unimaginative in his portrayals of Catholic abuses. The same may well prove to be true of Hal Lindsey. What is in no doubt is that he was an ardent soul winner, which the Bible tells us is the sign of a wise man.
Meanwhile, you have some confession of sin you need to make.
I agree that we are not to do "exegesis by current events," but neither are we to ignore current events altogether. God gave signs to indicate that Christ's first Advent was near, but few heeded them. Thankfully Simeon and Anna expected him and we're ready. Jesus gave us signs to look for, so we would be ready. The danger of over-spiritualizing or over-symbolizing prophetic passages is that people get lulled into thinking Jesus is never coming back. Then we become like the five foolish virgins who had no oil for their lamps. I choose to be a wise virgin, ever expectant and ready for my Lord's return.
Hal Lindsay was not the first to err by being too certain about exactly how unfulfilled prophecy will be fulfilled. And he will not be the last. May he rest in peace.
After being introduced to him in high school as a new believer, I spent the next decade or so being terrified of the end! Thank God I finally got serious eschatological information into my head. I still find myself being regarded as a heretic when I say I don't believe in the rapture!! As the late Keith Green said--pray there is a rapture but live like you're not expecting it!!
Followed him in the late 70s and early 80s when I first got saved.
So, you disagreed with his hermeneutic. That should stop the world in its rotation for a moment. Congratulations and all hail.
You have committed the sin of defamation. You have called a man a false prophet who never dreamed of prophesying anything. He and other dispensational premillennialists of his era thought they saw things in the lives of people and nations which correlated in eerie ways with prophetic things in the Bible. My tendency is to think their hermeneutic mistaken. I, too, see the fantastic imagery of Revelation as symbolic, but as none the less true for being so.
However, in the last year, as it has become obvious that Iran was the primary funder and goader of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, as we have seen Russia and China developing if not an alliance then an understanding and cooperation, as we have seen Jerusalem become a cup of trembling to the nations, and most ominously, as we have seen an eruption of anti - Semitism in the West which I, who was born in 1952, could never have imagined I would see in my lifetime, it has occurred to me that Hal Lindsey and other dispensational premillennialists may not have been as far of the mark as you and other non - dispensational premillennialists have snickered they were.
I suppose it's in the nature of guys like you to be oblivious to portents.
Still, I think you're more right than wrong.
I don't know your background, but I would be willing to bet there will be a lot more souls in Heaven because of Hal Lindsey and his down-market, somewhat sensationalistic paperbacks than there will be because of any ministry of yours.
As others have noted, Jack Chick, who forty years ago was deplored as a mountebank by all the Protestants with credentials, has turned out to have been if anything too unimaginative in his portrayals of Catholic abuses. The same may well prove to be true of Hal Lindsey. What is in no doubt is that he was an ardent soul winner, which the Bible tells us is the sign of a wise man.
Meanwhile, you have some confession of sin you need to make.
I remember listening to him back in the '80's, on Saturday afternoons. He did have a wide following.