A new book out (2010) by Marvin Pate. There are some interesting facts
and other points I need to answer and comment on.
In the Introduction to the book Pate tells us correctly that with the
return of the Jews and a Jewish nation declared in 1948, there had
been a stirring of interest in end-time prophecy, and as he says:
"Never mind that the date of Christ's return kept being revised from
1978 to 1988 to 1998 to 2008. Still the convition stands that the end
is nearer than ever."
Well of course the end is nearer than ever, does not take some PhD
degree to figure that the return of Christ is nearer since after 1978.
As he goes on to say the State of Israel inspired a proliferation of
prophecy books, films, and conferences, especially by Hal Lindsey
with his "Late Great Planet Earth" book and the "Left Behind" series.
Such books have sold MILLIONs of copies. And we have had all kinds of
interpretations of the book of Revelation based upon Russia, China,
credit cards, Internet, Hitler, Mussolini, Henry Kissinger, Mikhail
Gorbachev and etc.
Then there is Nostradamus (who died in 1566) who forecast the Millennium
would come in 2026.
Well, many different people have interpreted Nostro boy differently. I've
heard Nosto fellow was said to have written the end of this age would be
in the year 2000. Obviously if that was so, Nosto guy was WRONG!
Pate wrote that Michael Drosnin's "Bible Codes 1 and 2" predicted that
World War 3 would occur in 2006. He was WRONG also!
Then we have the Matan prophecy that the end of the world will be in 2012.
They will be DEAD WRONG also!
Apparently a group called "Zoroastrianism" (having its roots in Persian
soil), expects at that time the end-time holy war to break out. Islamic
extremists say this will be the battle between faithful Muslims on the
one hand and infedels (Jews, Christians, and all others) on the other hand.
They will also be WRONG!
Apparently Hasidic Jews expect the Messiah to come and destroy the Dome
of the Rock in Jerusalem, and to replace it with the holy temple of Ezekiel.
They are partly right, the Exekiel Temple will be built under the direction
of the Messiah, but their off with how the Messiah will come and all other
end-time prophecies.
Talking about the "millennium" or 1,000 year age in Revelation chapter 20,
Pate tells us that the hope of the golden age millenniem is nothing new.
Yet there is the post-millennium teaching, the Kingdom of God came when
Christ came the first time. And still there is the "amillennialist" school
of thought: the Kingdom came but is not yet fully triumphant, in time it
will be they say.
The "pros" - and "a" - millennium teachers are BOTH WRONG!
The 1,000 year reign mentioned in Revelation 20 is YET TO COME, AFTER
THE RETURN OF CHRIST, as given in Revelation 19.
The Catholic church once predicted the end of the age was to come just
before the clock struck 12 midnight for A.D.1000. They were WRONG!
Then as Pate says we had something similar for the end of 1999 and 2000
with the Y2K stuff and panic, as millions of computers would come crashing
down and planes would fall out of the sky etc. and etc. I remember it
all very well. What the people still going along with all this end-time
end, was that the fellow who blew the whistle on it all happening 10 years
earlier (he was correct IF the world did not do something about it with
their computers) was saying in 1998 and 1999 that the world had done
what was needed to be done, and everthing would be just fine. And indeed
so it was!
Pate goes on to show the "Great Disappointment" of 1844. A Baptist minister
by the name of William Miller had through a very complicated understanding
of Daniel 8:14 and Daniel 9:24, had arrived at a date of March 21, 1844,
for Jesus' return.
Many did not planr their crops. But Miller was WRONG! But not to give up
so easy....Miller and his following, reset the date for Christ return to
October 22, 1844.
It all FAILED! They were WRONG!
Then we had the Jehovah's Witnesses, setting the date for Jesus' return in
the year 1914.
They were WRONG!
We had the Seventh Day Adventists figuring out where Miller went wrong and
reinterpreting that Christ moved in heaven in 1844 and it became known as
the "sanctuary doctrine."
Pate gives us some interesting stats:
The amount of predictive matter in the Bible: 8,352 verses out of its total
of 31,124.
Proportion that is predictive:
27 percent; Old Testament: 28.5 percent; New Testament: 21.5 percent.
Books with the most predictive material:
Ezekiel: 821 verses
Jeremiah: 812 verses
Isaiah: 754 verses
How this is derived at is not given or explained by Pate, hence could be WRONG!
New Testament:
Matthew: 278 verses
Revelation: 256 verses
Luke: 250 verses
How this is derived at is not given or explained by Pate, so could well be WRONG!
Books most hightly predictive according to the proportion of verses
involving forecasts of the future:
Zephaniah: 89 percent predictive
Obadiah: 81 percent predictive
Nahum: 74 percent predictive
New Testament:
Revelation: 63 percent predictive
Hebrews: 45 percent predictive
2 Peter: 41 percent predictive
Interesting but faulty, as the Protestant prophets like Pate do not
understand the Old Testament prophetic books per se. They can see where
obvious future predictions are given, but they do not know the truth
of who God is speaking to in the Old Testament prophets, hence their
percentage calculations are useless.
I have expounded for you the Old Tedstament prophets as pertaining for
today, under this section of "prophecy" on this website.
They may be somewhat more correct with the New Testament percentage.
Pate goes into some "near and far" predictions. There are near and far
predictions in the Bible, but again the Protestant prophets will not be
correct on many of them, and will miss a whole lot of them that will
happen again at the end time.
It is true as Pate says that some prophecy have been fulfilled and some
have not, and history does help to see what was fulfilled. But again
he and others like him miss Jeremiah 30:1-3 and as to why the Old Testament
prophets wrote their books - a second fulfilment at the time of the end,
the end of this age.
Pate goes off track, like many others, who claim that prophecies like
Matthew 24 had much fulfilled in 70 A.D. The truth of the matter is that
Matthew 24 had just about NOTHING to do with 70 A.D. And all that can be
said about 70 A.D. is a type - very small type - of what will happen at
the end of this age, as the world-wide application of Matthew 24 takes
place just as Jesus was predicting.
We shall end this first look at Pate's book with his page 19 and 20 talk
about the Kingdom of God. As he correctly states, both Jew and Christian
theology longed for the arrival of the Kingdom of God or the 1,000 year
reign of the Messiah on earth. As related to this we do have the terms
"eschatology" and "apocalypticism." The first is to do with the "end time"
and the second to do with "a specific genre" or specifics within the
end time prophecy.
Pate is correct in how to understand "last days" or "last times" as used
in the New Testament. I have covered it also in other studies on prophecy.
The end times in a broad-way started when Jesus came to earth in the flesh.
But there is in prophecy a much narrower window of "last days" or "end of
the age" or "the Lord's day" - which most definately is connected with the
last 42 months of this age and the beginning of the age to come.
Next time we shall look at what Pate has to say about the Kingdom of God as
understood by the New Testament and "church history" from after the 1st
century A.D.
..........
To be continued
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