A number of years ago (before the AIDS scare started) I remarked that churchies are always waiting until prophecies start actually being fulfilled (and reported in the newspapers) before they start preaching that this is just what the Bible said would happen all along. For the most part, it's not very convincing when this happens. I said that it would be far more convincing if we just closed the newspaper, studied our Bibles, and then announced to the world something that had not, as yet, been reported in the newspapers. I said at that time that, if I were going to take that approach, I would predict that there is going to be a dramatic increase in the number of "plagues" or epidemics in the world, since that seemed to be the one sign related to the return of Christ which had not at that time yet started happening. So now, a few years later it seems like every week we read about some new virus that has hit the public. Epidemics are becoming almost commonplace. And even as I am typing this, right now, the TV has been turned on in the adjoining room and the ABC is airing a program called "plague wars," which tells of deadly germ warfare weapons being in the hands of more and more terrorist groups, and of instructions on how to make them being advertised on the internet! But I never made my predictions about all of these plagues that were on their way at that time. Instead, the one big public thing we did as a community a few years later was to travel to the U.S. in 1990 to warn about the "fall of America". Our campaign was a huge success in terms of getting our message out. Literally hundreds of media reports in over 100 different U.S. cities told of our warning. And then later that same year (just after we had departed) world communism collapsed and NOT the U.S.! Technically, what we said is still true (i.e. that the communists will eventually recover from their "deadly wound" and turn on the U.S. with sudden destruction); however, God seemed to have allowed us to pick the absolute worst possible time to establish any credibility. As far as the general public was concerned, we were as wrong as it is possible to be. So obviously I searched my soul and asked God for some kind of explanation as to what was going on. Why didn't he lead me to successfully predict the increase in plagues? Why didn't he hold us back from predicting the fall of America until sometime closer to the fall itself? Or better still, why hadn't he given me some insight into the fact that the "deadly wound" referred to the collapse of communism, so that we could have predicted that successfully?
The answer lies back there in our original observations about miracles. An evil generation seeks a miracle, but there will be no "sign" given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jonah himself had a miraculous "sign" in terms of his survival inside the whale. But the city of Nineveh was not told about that. Instead, it received no sign at all… except Jonah's call on them to repent. If we apply this to the miracle of predicting the future, then we must believe that Christ is saying that Bible prophecy should not be shared with the rest of the world; it is only to be understood by the believers themselves. The very first verses of The Revelation tell us that it is a revelation to the "servants of Jesus Christ". Not a revelation to the world at large. Not a revelation to an apostate church. Probably not even a revelation to someone who is seriously considering following Christ. If people are not prepared to serve Christ simply because what he has said is true, and because the Spirit of God has spoken to them through what he has said, then what the Revelation or any other Bible prophecy contains is apparently not for them to see. It's only there for those of us who are already committed to serving Christ (as opposed to just "professing" faith in Christ). Well, that seems to be a literal interpretation and application of what Christ said about "signs" and about Jonah. But something in our nature tells us that it is not true, that people who could be overwhelmingly dazzled by undeniable proof of God's existence would just naturally change their lives and start to follow him. Today's technological world is not easily convinced by healings and resurrections. There are a hundred and one ways that such things could be staged or tricked. And the same is true of just about every other miraculous claim.
But predicting the future is the one tempting exception. If we could say almost anything with total certainty and have it come to pass exactly as we predicted, then people would definitely stand up and take notice. If we could say that Reno, Nevada is going to experience an earthquake tomorrow at 3pm; or that the Aussie dollar is going to rise to exactly 74.3cents U.S. tomorrow; or that the Prime Minister of Israel is going to be shot dead tomorrow, the media would go for it. They do every time, even though they know that the would-be prophets of such objectively measurable phenomena are almost invariably wrong. But if we were right, and then if we were to be right a second time, and then a third time, it would not take long before the entire world would be giving us the respect that such a gift deserves. At least that seems to be the case. But of course you need to have some Bible prophecy to start with in order to test this theory. Probably no Bible prophecy is more overwhelmingly verifiable than the prophecy about the Mark of the Beast. Admittedly, it's already happening, so it doesn't say that much for the would-be prophet. But, hey, we aren't trying to promote ourselves anyway... are we? We just want people to give the Bible the respect that it deserves. So why don't we point out to the whole world the amazing fulfillment of this prophecy, which says that there will be a time when the entire world will be forced to carry some kind of a mark in their hand, without which they will not be able to buy or sell; and then show them that the banks of the world are spending a fortune on a program to bring about exactly that, in the form of a tiny implant under the skin of everyone on earth... an implant which will only need to be flashed under a scanner every time we make a purchase or wish to make some other bank transaction. And we have found from personal experience that our theory works almost exactly as we had expected.
The general public is amazed. Some people become very sobered about where it is all leading. They almost invariably come asking for more information. But what doesn't happen, is that people do not forsake all and start to live by faith in obedience to Christ. Instead, they start lobbying for easier gun laws, supporting racist political candidates, and buying bigger and bigger barns to hold all the supplies they think they will need when the tribulation begins. In short, they become less loving, show less faith, and exhibit less generosity as a result of the revelation. Actually, my first clue that this would happen came from studying the people who were out there warning the world about the Mark of the Beast before me. Whether it was Dave Wilkerson, or that women who wrote a best seller on it (I think her name was Roth), or the Children of God, or the Branch Davidians, none of them were teaching obedience to the teachings of Christ as the solution to the world's problems. I have for many years been suspicious of any doctrine which the churches can teach with any degree of enthusiasm; for such doctrines have always turned out to be dry wells, or clouds without water. In other words, they all contain some element of truth; but the final fruit is not obedience to Christ. And this is the case with teaching about the Mark of the Beast. So are we to believe that people who are willing to risk their eternal salvation by disregarding Christ's ultimatum in such passages as Luke 14:33 are seriously going to face torture, starvation, and/or death before they would take the Mark of the Beast? Of course not. They have already denied Christ, so all their talk about the Mark of the Beast is just part of a wicked generation playing parlour games with a wicked generation, until the real crunch comes, and then they will knuckle down and do what the government tells them to do once again.
So for that reason I have given up trying to warn of the Mark of the Beast, and I have given up entertaining hopes of one day being able to say, "I told you so!" Instead, I am going to insist that people either put up or shut up. Either start obeying Christ or shut up with all their talk about Bible prophecy, water baptism, demons and angels, glib shallow prayers for salvation, etc. etc. All of these things are nothing but counterfeits for real faith; and any genuine Christian who hears us talking about obedience to the Son of God is going to know in their own hearts that what we are saying is the truth. They will respond to us as Nineveh did to Jonah. And if they don't, they will be destroyed. It's as simple as that.
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