As recently as this week’s SBC annual meeting in Louisville, oracles were reading the headlines and predicting the imminent end.
COSBE President Rod Herrod, a vocational evangelist from Sevierville, Tenn., preached on “The Countdown to Armageddon.” Reading from several Bible passages, he noted several signs pointing to the imminent return of Jesus Christ, including:
- The moral sign: As in the days of Noah, society is immoral and exhibits spiritual ignorance.
- The miracle sign: The rebirth of Israel in 1948, which Herrod likened to a miracle.
- The money sign: Increasing numbers of people use debit and credit cards instead of cash, thus contributing to the escalation of identity theft. Herrod said economic pundits say the answer is to make the account number a part of the person.
- The Muslim sign: “We better understand that Allah is not god and the Koran is not a great religious book and Muhammad is not a great spiritual leader. Only Jesus has that privilege.
- The misery sign: Wars, rumors of wars, pestilence, famine and earthquakes point to Christ’s return, Herrod said.
“All of us know that an earthquake is a contraction of the earth. And ladies know the closer the contractions come, the closer the baby is to delivery,” he said.
I suppose a lot of the Messengers who listen to this stuff are unaware of the scholarship which leaves the provenance of most of the texts of the Bible in doubt — but what excuse does a seminary-educated preacher have? None. They give these talks and parse the minutest nuance of Holy Scripture and the newspaper headlines and proclaim this and that and know the whole while they don’t know a damn thing.
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