Setting a date for the rapture? Step right up, don’t be shy!

Other Posts:

How to Calculate when Jesus will Come – without even being a prophet!; “Let’s Put a Warning Label on False Prophets!“; Did your pastor/teacher/expert/YouTube guru set a wrong date for the Second Coming? Don’t let them off the hook; Another Astounding Prophecy to Toss in to the Trash Can


Autumn swings around, and with it this year’s harvest of Rapture Predictions. This year it’s September 23 (tomorrow!). And yes, I have looked over the “proofs”; given the late date, they are not worth the time it would take to overturn them.

Each Rapture Prediction typically begins with a bang and ends with a whimper. The author spends a year or two selling a ton of books and merchandise; the date comes and goes; and the “prophet” trails off in a mumble.

My advice is psychological and spiritual, and I will take a bit of liberty with Martin Luther’s dictum to “Sin boldly.”

If you plan to commit the SIN of setting dates (and I choose the verb “sin” with care), then

SIN BOLDLY.
BE DOGMATIC.
BET ALL YOUR CHIPS.
ALL IN OR ALL OUT.
WIN BIG OR LOSE BIG.

Only by sinning boldly, and in the aftermath owning up to your wickedness, will you set yourself up to repent of that sin. To put Luther in his proper context, “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.”

But let’s not have this shilly-shallying, which sidesteps the issue of sin in the first place, and later allows you to slip the leash of repentance.

This time I’ll quote Shakespeare, also sort of out of context!

That you…never shall,
With arms encumber’d thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As ‘Well, well, we know,’ or ‘We could, an if we would,’
Or ‘If we list to speak,’ or ‘There be, an if they might,’
Or such ambiguous giving out…this not to do…
Hamlet, Act I Scene 5

“Such ambiguous giving out”: that’s the twilight sin that leads to failed redemption. Shakespeare might say, Don’t hem and haw and say, “Well, maybe, we can’t set dates, but here is my prediction anyway, I know more than I can let on, people in high places tell me important things that I cannot share, NASA scientists are worried even though they deny it,” and so on.

Sin boldly – then, for the sake of your soul, repent just as decisively.

“Setting a date for the rapture? Step right up, don’t be shy!” by Gary S. Shogren, PhD in New Testament, Seminario ESEPA, San Jose, Costa Rica

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Published in: on September 22, 2017 at 8:46 am  Leave a Comment  
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False Apostles are Smacked Down by Hurricane Irma!

Companion essay: “Why would a hurricane hit Texas and Florida and not, for example, Alabama?”

As Hurricane Irma approached Florida in September 2017, Latin America awoke to hear a number of its anointed prophets and apostles shouting, “You, Irma, go away!”

This is a manifestation of the doctrine known as the Prosperity Gospel, the Rhema Doctrine, the Word of Faith, and more recently, “Decreeing” = I decree such and such to be so, and it will come to pass.

Decreeing a thing and asking God to intervene in a thing sometimes sound alike, but they couldn’t be more opposite.

  • The prayer of faith is humbly asking God for help. Prayer is based on our trust in God’s power and grace.
  • The decree is telling nature (or money or property or health) that you yourself have the authority over them. Sure, the name of Christ is tossed in for good measure, likewise some prayers to God, but by definition it is not prayer. It is Prayer’s Evil Twin, Magic.

I have seen videos of a half dozen of these “apostles” commanding Irma to go away, but perhaps Miami pastor Guillermo Maldonado is the best example, and it’s in both Spanish and English. He ordered Irma not to cross the shores of Florida and told it: “as an apostle with authority over this territory…I command to the winds of the east, I command the hurricane Irma…I command you disintegrate, dissolve.”

CLICK HERE TO VIEW. He gets to the meat of it around 2:00

Now, what happens if Irma turns away from making landfall?

  • If God answered your prayers? Thank him, show him gratitude!
  • But if Maldonado made the hurricane go away? Thank him, by whipping out your credit card.

Let’s add one thing: people have posted these videos, after Irma hit, in the forlorn hope that at long last God’s people will see through this charade and stop giving these fakes the attention they crave. Or maybe these leaders will repent, go on TV, admit to being stymied, and give back your money.

I think I know human nature enough to guess that that will not happen.

What will the false prophets claim now? Some version of, “I, your anointed prophet, was right all along! So don’t blame me!” Perhaps one of the following:

  1. “Hurricane Irma would have been a lot worse, but my decree seriously weakened it.”
  2. “Hurricane Irma was in fact stopped, but, you know, on the spiritual plane, not on the meteorological one.”
  3. “I think the Christian attitude would be to help the victims, not assign blame to a godly leader. So, if you question why Hurricane Irma hit despite my decree, you are a bad, bad person.”
  4. “God told me afterward that Hurricane Irma was punishment on us for some thing or another, and so it couldn’t be stopped.” (Probably the sin will be a lack of faith. Which you can now rectify by whipping out your credit card, and operators are standing by to receive your donation.)

Of course, some people will combine many or all of the above. Ruddy Gracia hit 3, maybe 4 of them, now that I look at his post-Irma post, as does Ana Mendez. And people who point out the failure of their prophecies are hypocrites, liars, apostates. As in my prediction #3, above.

When a hurricane hits, it does a lot of erosion. But no storm, not even a Category 5, can erode the arrogance of the human heart.

“False Apostles are Smacked Down by Hurricane Irma!” by Gary S. Shogren, Professor of New Testament, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica

Published in: on September 15, 2017 at 5:32 pm  Comments (3)  
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Why Would a Hurricane Hit Texas and Florida, and not, for example, Alabama?

Related essay: “False Apostles are Smacked Down by Hurricane Irma!“

I offer the following difficult theme with, I hope, all respect to those who suffer and with prayer God’s blessings on the residents of Texas as they pull their lives back from the flood and the Caribbean and Florida post-Irma. And we will close with an appeal for donations.

Hurricane Harvey, 2017

Human beings are wired to look for cause and effect. The car won’t start; that means the battery must be dead! That bell keeps ringing; there must be someone at the front door!

But we don’t always get it right.

My favorite “false cause” story comes from the great Northeast Blackout of 1965. Millions from Ontario through Pennsylvania went without power for hours. When it hit, a Conway, New Hampshire, boy was on his way home from school. As boys will do, he was hitting stuff with a stick. He swung with all his might at a telephone pole, and just as he connected, the lights went off all over town! He ran home distraught, telling his mother that the blackout was all his fault! (more…)

Published in: on September 6, 2017 at 4:19 pm  Comments (1)  
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Bible Prophecy, ch 1 – “Bible Prophecies” that are NOT found in the Bible

This is a long essay with numerous footnotes. The reader may prefer to download it in pdf form: Shogren_Bible Prophecy #1 Bible Prophecies that are NOT in the Bible

I plan on at least two more articles in this series, in which I will describe End-Time expectations that may or may not be found in the Bible, depending on your interpretation; and End-Time expectations that are in the Bible.

I grew up in the woods. By “woods”, I don’t mean a park with some scattered trees, but a place where large patches were so choked with brush and thorns and fallen branches and boulders from the last Ice Age that it was literally impossible to pass through. My mind returns to the woods every time I fight my way through the thicket created by our modern prophets. Because of their creativity, the predictions that people claim to be in the Bible outnumber, exponentially, the predictions that actually are in the Bible. That is why, before we can begin to talk about Bible prophecy, we have to clear the ground of heavy undergrowth, the things that people have been told are in the Bible, but which we cannot seem to find on any actual page of Scripture. I write this, not because I don’t love Bible prophecy, but because I respect it too much to see it taken lightly.

The very length of this article is the unfortunate side-effect of the tonnage of “prophecy myths” that are out there. One reason for this is that End-Time predictions are big business: take a look at the books by Tim LaHaye, Jack Van Impe, Jonathan Cahn, John Hagee, and even David Jeremiah. The Left Behind series of books alone has sold over 65 million, not to mention the movies and the merchandise. Irwin Baxter has no difficulty selling his very expensive DVD’s; and there are influential sites like Rapture Ready and End Times Prophecy News and Signs of the End and The Jeremiah Project and Terry James Prophecy Line or groups such as Hagee’s Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Many of them employ the same opening stratagem: “I have been studying and teaching Bible prophecy for X number of years; therefore, you should trust me to know what is in the Bible!”

In fact no: the Word of God tells us what to believe, and the believer has no need of a Prophecy Gatekeeper to access its pages.

Here we will focus on those who teach with the Bible in one hand, and today’s headlines in the other.[i] There are two problems with their method: first, it assumes that Bible prophecy must be being fulfilled in today’s news, as opposed to headlines from AD 582, 1007, 1851, or 2086; two, the prophecy experts have the unhappy tendency of starting with the news headlines, and then reading them back into the Bible. The 2016 Blizzard? Yes, someone discovered that it was an End-Times event, but only after the storm.[ii] Minor stock market crash in 2016? Same thing, and from the same source, the always-ready-to speculate Charisma News. While we would take to the streets in protest if some theologian placed his or her own tradition about the Bible, we don’t blink when the high priests of prophecy do basically the same thing with today’s headlines. We won’t even delve into the secular gurus such as David Ickes or Alex Jones or the Flat Earthers, who preach an apocalyptic viewpoint with very little Bible mixed in.

If some evangelicals (and yes, some Catholics,[iii] some Orthodox,[iv] some Adventists, plus the majority of the sects) are known for this sleight of hand, then the Jehovah’s Witnesses have to get the blue ribbon. Their modus operandi is to zero in on the Anxiety of the Day, knock on your door, mention how anxious people are about it, and then show how they, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, saw it all coming ahead of time! Exhibit A: this issue of Awake magazine from 1968: “Is it Later than you Think? Is time running out for this generation? What will the 1970’s bring?”

Take any headline from today’s paper, or Time magazine, or YouTube, or your newsfeed, or Facebook, and if you really, really try, I guarantee you’ll be able to find a Bible verse to show how it was predicted long ago. Syria in the news? Just look in the concordance and you will find a verse that fits.

Wow! All those 7’s, and just because Donald Trump sent a few small missiles into an empty airfield, one which the Syrians were able to quickly repair and start using again.

Another example: I just saw on CNN, “Promising Zika Vaccine Moves to Next Stage.”[v] And so let’s say I channel my Prophetic Ingenuity to put together an article like this:

“Revelation 16 says that there will be many plagues, which will kill a huge number of people. And what do we see in the news? People are coming down with Zika, and desperately trying to find a vaccine, instead of repenting from their sins.”

Now – remember that I did this “blindfolded,” without peeking, but let’s see if I can find someone doing this very thing (more…)

Published in: on April 27, 2017 at 1:23 pm  Comments (1)  
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Another astounding prophecy to toss into the trash can

Well, so here we are on October 6, 2016, and another false prophecy, made by a false prophet, has fallen flat.

cahn

Jonathan Cahn’s wacky, mystical Shemitah scheme is a classic example of the logical fallacy known as the Texas Sharpshooter – a Texan claims to be a great marksman, and he takes 6 shots at the side of a barn. He then goes to the wall, takes out some chalk, and circles the six holes. “See?? I hit every single circle, right on the mark!” Cahn too is able to “prove” how his system predicts the future – but only AFTER the event.

33c113d0

I noted that he took down this prediction from YouTube a few days before Sept 27. That’s why this link will be “broken” if you click on it (here’s the LINK) .

He will go on now to set other dates. And sell more expensive books.

So, now here’s MY prediction, based on an informal study of false prophets: (1) Cahn will deny he ever made this prediction; or (2) he will claim he interceded for America, and God spared us because of his, Cahn’s, great faith; or (3) he will claim that the economy really did tank, but, you know, invisibly.

Or some combination of these three.

Like many false prophets, Cahn moves millions of dollars of merchandise. And yes, he is happy to accept US currency for his books and videos.

On this blog we follow the rule: Charity and mercy towards those who make honest mistakes, but no slack shall be cut for greedy false prophets.

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Related posts:

How to Get a Great Deal on Prophecy Books!

How to Calculate when Jesus will Come – without even being a prophet!

Did your pastor/teacher/expert/YouTube guru set a wrong date for the Second Coming? Don’t let them off the hook

“Another astounding prophecy to toss into the trash can,” by Gary S. Shogren, Ph.D in New Testament Exegesis, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica

Published in: on October 6, 2016 at 11:29 am  Comments (7)  
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How to get a great deal on prophecy books!

So, you paid retail for that book that lays out the details for the End Times? Really?! Because only suckers pay retail.

I will tell you the best way to get discounted prophecy books, and you don’t even have to buy my DVD or attend one of my seminars.

The secret THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW is:

Wait a year; and then when the prediction doesn’t come true, you can pick the books up, pennies on the dollar. You’ll find them in the discount rack in your Christian bookstore, or an online seller will suddenly announce a great SALE!

I bring this up, since CBD just sent me this announcement for the book that changed the whole way we think about the Second Coming, the World, and Everything – now knocked down to a mere $4.99:

Screenshot_2016-05-20-21-15-32 (2)

Now: if a Prophecy Expert publishes one book, and it becomes a hit, he will follow it up: multiple sequels, videos, cds. So, while I’m at it, let’s see: Yes, indeed, it looks like all the Blood Moon and Shemitah merchandise is on sale!

screenshot_2016-05-20-21-16-04-2

I guess that Four Blood Moon‘s subtitle, a very vague promise that “something is about to change,” just didn’t hold water: it’s about as unspecific as “God is telling me that someone in this congregation has back troubles!” or “Within 72 hours you will see a woman wearing a hat and then you will realize that I am God’s prophet!” That is, not a whole lot of help for planning ahead.

In this case, I haven’t run across a Blood Moon Lunchboxes on sale; there are Blood Moon T-Shirts, although still at full price (a nice all-cotton tee still retains its value):

blood_moon_tshirt

The dynamic is the same, year after year: today’s outlandish prediction, becomes tomorrow’s prophecy movement, becomes the day after tomorrow’s Pet Rock, Hula Hoop, Beanie Baby, Pog.

They are already selling the predictions for late-2016, 2017, 2018, but take my advice: I wouldn’t pay retail for them.

FOLLOWUP:

trip

Here’s another sale! Now absolutely free, a book that guarantees you a face-to-face encounter with Jesus! I’m not kidding: to quote –

Jesus appeared to [author] David E. Taylor face to face and told him, “I will appear to everyone who reads this book and hears this message, tell them this.”

Wow! But the fact that it’s now in the Remaindered pile in the back of the electronic bookstore probably says something about how readers have been disappointed!

Related posts:
How to Calculate when Jesus will Come – without even being a prophet!

Did your pastor/teacher/expert/YouTube guru set a wrong date for the Second Coming? Don’t let them off the hook

Another Astounding Prophecy to Toss in to the Trash Can

“How to get a great deal on prophecy books!” by Gary S. Shogren, Ph.D in New Testament Exegesis, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica

Published in: on May 23, 2016 at 10:41 am  Comments (3)  
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Just read the BIBLE!

[Readers might enjoy my essay, “How to Calculate When Jesus will come – without even being a prophet!” In it I deal with people who keep making false predictions.]

If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed the announced Bible, below, was a hoax. It is not.

The demonstrably false prophet John Hagee is not only making truckloads of money through his “non-fiction” books on prophecy…

…he also publishes his very own Bible with Thomas Nelson. Somehow I missed this, but it’s been around for a few years. This is the 2015 edition, due out this month. He is probably going to be updating some of his predictions that have failed over the past few years.

Jack Van Impe has his own prophecy Bible too.

Better to buy a Bible Bible for a few dollars, or read it online gratis, instead of an expensive Bible, filtered through the personal impressions of some teacher or another.

You are better than this, Thomas Nelson.


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Published in: on November 4, 2015 at 3:20 pm  Comments (3)  
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What has Corinth to do with Patmos?

Devotional given at Wycliffe Associates for the assembled Translation Team, on Oct 7, 2015.

B2XX0G greece, dodecanese, patmos, psili ammos

Patmos, where John saw the beast rising from the sea

I am doing two tasks for Wycliffe at the moment – with my online group we are writing translation notes for 1 Corinthians and we have reached chapter 10. Here this week our group is working on Revelation and we are on chapter 10 there as well. These are two very different books, which leads to my title, with apologies to Tertullian: “What has Corinth to do with Patmos?”

Revelation, as we have seen, is filled with apocalyptic language.[1] When you read through it, you begin to notice that for every truth there is a dark parallel.

  • You belong to the Great Harlot, or you belong to the Bride of the Lamb;
  • you are a citizen of Mystery Babylon or a citizen of the New Jerusalem;
  • you have the mark of God on your forehead or the mark of the beast imprinted on your hand or forehead;
  • you follow the Lamb that was slain and later resurrected, or the beast who somehow managed to survive a fatal head wound;
  • you are a victim of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or redeemed by the one who comes riding on his white horse, the Word of God who is called Faithful and True;
  • you are invited to the wedding banquet of the lamb, or you yourself will be a banquet for the vultures;
  • you will use your tongue to repent, or your will chew your tongue in agony.

We could mention a dozen more parallels or literary “foils.”

So, in Revelation, for every question, there are only two answers: the right one and the wrong one. Everything is cast in terms of black and white.

1 Corinthians is the other book where I am helping to write Translation Notes, and it is a very different document! It is a different genre, of course, and that changes the style of writing, but it also has a different audience.

In Corinth, some of the believers can only think in terms of black and white. (more…)

Published in: on October 7, 2015 at 8:43 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Did your pastor/teacher/expert/YouTube guru set a wrong date for the Second Coming? Don’t let them off the hook

It appears to be the busy season of people telling us when Jesus will return. I have seen five dates for the period of September-December 2015 and others for 2016 or 2017. Four of those dates have already passed us by. Whether these date-setters claim to be prophets or not, they all transgress the Lord’s warning – “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.” (Matt 24:23); and Paul’s statement that we shouldn’t let anyone confuse us with their predictions (2 Thess 2:1-2).

As I have written at length elsewhere, these Date Setters tend to fall into predictable behaviors. Download the entire article here: “Shogren_How to calculate when Jesus will come without even being a prophet!”

First, people speak with great confidence ahead of time, naming dates or months or years and offering incontrovertible proof that the Lord will return as they predicted.

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Second, when he does not return, what happens? Most date-setters have a strong psychological (more…)

Published in: on September 30, 2015 at 3:36 pm  Comments (3)  
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“Children of the Light” 1 Thess 5:4-11 [Sermon Notes on 1 Thessalonians, Week 14]

Note: These are sermon outlines, not full messages.

Let’s begin with a “tip” for Bible reading – it’s a good idea to look for repetition, repeated words or ideas. This certainly helps in the case of this passage. I would like you to look for pronouns: we, our, us; you; they, them, those

4 But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. 5 You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. 6 So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. 9 For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 10 He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

INTRO

If you asked a Greek person of Paul’s day, how might we divide people into groups, one answer is: Greeks and barbarians; someone else might offer, men and women; someone else, slave and free person

If you asked a Jewish rabbi in Paul’s day, how can we divide people into groups, the typical answer would be, Easy – Jews and non-Jews (or Gentiles, or Greeks)

What Paul is saying is that there are two groups of people in the world: people in Christ, who also walk in the light; the rest

Col 3:9b-11 – “you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

Gal 3:28 – in Christ “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

This is what he says here in 1 Thess 5 – you are in darkness or in light; you are drunk or sober; you are dozing or you are alert (more…)

Published in: on September 23, 2015 at 1:20 pm  Leave a Comment  
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