when you look inside this issue and I've read it over and over again I don't know
how good your eyes are if you can see that on the screen but it shows the
feature article has a little sidebar and it's called the glossary of terms
decoding the evangelical lingo this is for the average Joe that doesn't
understand anything about Bible prophecy and is trying to figure all this out it
gives a description here of the different terms that are being used and
then what those what those definitions are what they mean there one of them you
see is the rapture and then it says the rapture is the moment predicted in
Thessalonians that remember that this is first Thessalonians chapter 4 we're
going to come to this in just a little while the moment predicted in
Thessalonians when Jesus will suddenly remove the faithful from the earth and
then it mentions after that the tribulation which quote is the 7 years
of calamity described in the book of Revelation and then it mentions
Armageddon the Millenium premillennialism pre-tribulation ISM and
below that it says that pre-tribulation ISM was popularized by the 19th century
British evangelist John Nelson Darby that Jesus would rapture the faithful
before the tribulation now remember this because we're gonna come back to Darby
but these these this little glossary here simply describes the terms defines
the terms for people out there in the secular world the average person so that
they understand what prophecy supposedly is teaching at least according to Left
Behind now let me just give you a quick overview of what Left Behind teachers as
I mentioned already number one it teaches this idea of a rapture when
Jesus will come invisibly Christians will disappear vanish they'll be taken
up to heaven nobody on earth will really understand what has happened they won't
know that Jesus has come and that will be the beginning of a seven year period
of apocalyptic terror for those that are left behind and that's why they call it
the Left Behind series all who are left behind during those seven years this man
rises up this evil man called the Antichrist and the Left Behind series
his name is Nicolae Carpathia he he gains
control of the United Nations he rebuilds the ancient city of Babylon and
from that headquarters he rules the world and this man Antichrist he
eventually makes war on the Jews this leads to a final battle called
Armageddon and at the end of the seven year period that's when Jesus comes
visibly in the clouds of heaven for the whole world to see him and that is
called the second coming so this is the basic scenario that I think especially
as a result of September 11 a lot of people are reading these books all
around the country they've been translated into many many languages
they're in different countries all over planet Earth and this is the scenario
that people are believing that they're learning that they're studying that
they're trying to understand now what we're gonna do in this miniseries
endtime delusions is we're going to take a look at each one of these in detail
right from the Bible not just from my own opinion not just the words of Steve
Walter but we're gonna look at it right here from God's book today we talk about
the rapture part one our next program part two is on the seven years of
tribulation part three is on if the Antichrist and part four is on the topic
of Israel so that's the sequence that we'll be looking at now before we really
get into part one and really take a close look at what the Bible says about
the rapture there is a new development that I think that you should be aware of
and let me get my Time magazine over here and recent issue of Time magazine I
think you'll find this very very significant that anybody that's
interested in prophecy should be aware of this new development oh wait a minute
how'd that get up there oh this is another new development I thought it
would weave in here well before I get to the new development in Time magazine I
was thinking today Lord how do I weave this in now some of you are aware that
that my wife had some complications a few months ago and in her pregnancy and
there was an emergency operation in a cesarean and on July 22nd 2004 this
little baby was born and I'm a proud proud
some people ask me you know how's your son how's he doing well he's doing great
I tell you my life has changed I've learned so much about about God about
his love about his goodness and I was thinking Lord this is a heavy topic
getting into the rapture and all these things and how can I just you know weave
in a just a little bit of a of a baby blessing so you'll have to forgive me
I'm a proud papa and so there he is Seth Seth Michael Wahlberg but I wasn't
kidding I wasn't kidding there is a new development that you should be aware of
this is actually today's issue of Time magazine just came out this November
22nd 2004 and this is absolutely fascinating for those that are up on the
whole Left Behind series there's a little article that came out in this
issue you can see it right there I put it in my computer and it's called is it
the end of the world as this author knows it and there's a picture of Tim
LaHaye there's a picture of his Left Behind book and the question is asked
there will LaHaye get left behind now this is actually phenomenal let me
explain what has happened the publisher of the Left Behind series is Tyndale
publishing there in Wheaton Illinois Tyndale has made millions of dollars off
of these left behind books and so of course has Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
that the co-authors these books have just become phenomenal bestsellers well
what has happened in the last few months and I know it's been building for a
little while but it actually finally just broke
is that Tyndale has decided to release another series of fiction books and the
first one just came out same publisher and and this series is a rival series to
left behind if you can believe that and this is what this talks about let me
just read a couple things here it says Tyndale house and I'm reading what's on
the screen there if you can see it if you got good eyes
Tyndale House has launched a rival series directly challenging mmm
challenging the premise that born-again Christians will be raptured into heaven
while those left behind face the Antichrist during the apocalypse this
new book is called the last disciple and I've got it right here
how many of you this book the last disciple and if you
heard of this just just a couple of hands the last disciple written by a
hand cannon Graff and Sigmund Brower is a book that is that is a new fiction
series put out by the same publisher and it says here the last disciple argues
that the book of Revelation describes the persecution of first century
Christians under Nero not some future tribulation of believers Tim LaHaye when
he found out about this he was absolutely shocked he said he felt
betrayed he said that the publisher is taking money that he helped make for
them and to use that money to promote this series he didn't think that any of
these books would sell well Time magazine this week came out and said
that the last disciple sold 50,000 copies in six weeks versus 85,000 four
left behind in its first year so obviously people are reading the last
disciple the last disciple basically says that the prophecies of Revelation
about the coming of Jesus Matthew 24 the Great Tribulation the Beast the
Antichrist that all of this is not ahead of us this is all behind us this all
took place in the first century Nero was the Beast he was the Antichrist and the
tribulation was right before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and
that's what this series is teaching I can say a lot about this I I'm gonna
limit myself because we've got a lot more to do but in a nutshell what has
happened just recently is that now we have two views that are competing with
each other in the mainstream Christian world the left-behind view says most of
the prophecies are in the future after the rapture the last disciple book says
most of them are in the past around 70 AD the left-behind view is technically
called futurism the last disciple view is technically called preterism meaning
it was all back there in the past so you've got the preterist and you've got
the futurists and there is an incredible battle brewing and I've got some more
radio interviews coming up on this got one coming up on Monday one coming up on
Tuesday actually got a phone call from a Christian publication in Florida called
a magazine and they want to interview me on Monday and then another Christian
radio station believe it's in Wyoming will be interviewing me on Tuesday
talking about this lot of confusion and I hope in the series to unravel the
confusion and we're going to specifically talk about preterism and
about the last disciple more when we get to the topic of the Antichrist which is
our our third meeting in this series