Tag: prophecy

Please Stop Buying Books On Prophecy

Are we hurting the church? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was going to do a book plunge today, but other events showed up in my own personal life and I had to talk about those. Yesterday at church, I hear some of the ladies in the row behind me talking about a book with such an excitement. Would that it was N.T. Wright or Mike Licona or Edward Feser or William Lane Craig or someone like that. Nope. It was the Harbinger.

I’m a member of Nextdoor, an online chat site where you chat with others in your community. Someone posted Jeremiah 29:11 for a new year and as we know, posting something from the Bible never stirs up controversy. In the thread, someone else recommends the Harbinger saying it is very prophetic.

Now I have reviewed the book here and definitely recommend David James’s excellent response to it here. (For those interested, James comes from the dispensationalist perspective and still has a problem with the book.) It’s an awful book and not only is it bad theology, it’s bad writing period. The Da Vinci Code was a load of nonsense, but at least it had an interesting story to it. The reporter in The Harbinger makes the staff at the Daily Planet look like Einsteins.

I don’t know if someone has happened recently to get people talking about this book again, but they are.

So what I want to say again to people is PLEASE STOP BUYING BOOKS ON PROPHECY! I would really love to see a day come when doctrines like the resurrection or the Trinity or the virgin birth (Which I do affirm) are taken as seriously as prophecy. Would that one day churchgoers would have discussion before church about various theories of the atonement instead of trying to figure out who the antichrist is.

The reality is, we’ve all been through it before. How many people were taking people like Hal Lindsey and Edgar Whisenant super seriously? How many people gave up all they had for Harold Camping? How many people bought into the Four Blood Moons material? How much of that material has lasted?

We rightly would hold a pastor accountable if they had a major moral failing, such as having an affair. Should we not do the same thing if they have a failing such as trying to claim God says X in prophecy and it doesn’t happen? This is why James 3:1 tells us few will should be teachers because they will be held to a greater accountability.

Honestly, being a prophecy expert would be a great position to have in Christianity. You are an expert just because you say you are and you write books and hold seminars that everyone takes seriously. Within your own lifetime often, you are shown to be wrong, but you wait a few years and publish another book with another interpretation and you’re still held to be an expert.

How many books are gathering dust in the back of Christian bookshelves for claiming XYZ is the antichrist and that person is dead now? There have been people who have claimed Trump was the antichrist. Some people claimed Obama was. No doubt, some people will claim Biden is or that Kamala Harris is. As the hype spreads, the rest of the world looks on and thinks we’re nuts.

They already think that. We don’t need to give them more ammunition.

Not only that, but we miss the real messages of Scripture. We become focused on ourselves and think that Jesus is coming for us because, well, we’re just such a special generation. The fact that Jesus is going to return someday should give us joy, but it should also give us some degree of terror and urgency. What are we doing to spread the message? What kind of lives are we living?

I don’t know how many times I have to answer atheists who insist that Jesus said He would return soon and they use all the same texts to argue it. They insist, like everywhere else, on a hyper-fundamentalism that not even the most fundamentalist Christian I know of would accept. As I started Bart Ehrman’s book on Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, I made a prediction that he would never once mention Orthodox Preterism in his book. I wish I had made a public bet beforehand because my prediction was entirely accurate.

Folks. There are other doctrines in Christianity besides prophecy and considering how many people with a dispensationalist hermeneutic have got the interpretations wrong, you first off have to wonder why you should take this next guy doing it seriously. I would like you to go a step further. Why should you take the hermeneutic and even the mindset behind it seriously?

I’m not saying you have to jump immediately into the Orthodox Preterist camp, but please at least consider abandoning a bad prophecy hermeneutic today.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Why Don’t We Hold False Prophets Accountable?

How should we treat those who claim to be prophecy experts? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

You get the news one day and you hear a story about a pastor having an affair at a church. The usual cry is that the pastor should step down. Absolutely. Sexual sin should be taken extremely seriously.

You read something about the pastor stealing from the offering plate. The pastor needs to step down. Absolutely. Theft is something very serious and should be taken that way.

You read about a pastor who claimed that the Bible says that the world will come to an end on such and such a date and we need to be ready for the rapture. The date never comes. The pastor is asked to step down immediately because false prophecy should be taken seriously.

Whoa. Wait. Hold on. That last one doesn’t really happen. Too many prophecy experts have written books about who the antichrist is and when the rapture will take place and they’re not held to account for it.

I thought of this looking at my Facebook memories last day when I asked if anyone saw when John Hagee had repented for his Four Blood Moons nonsense. Of course, I made the post in jest pointing out that I wanted to make sure I hand’t missed anything. Nope. Hagee never repented. He never recanted. I know of no record of him giving back money from the book sales. He was still teaching and still broadcasting.

So let’s get this straight.

We deal with sexual sin and we deal with theft and other such sins. If a pastor had a problem with a harmful addiction, we would at least demand he get help. However, a pastor makes very public statements about prophecy that real people respond to and suffer real losses from and bring real shame on the body of Christ and we do nothing?

Keep in mind, in the Old Testament, when you had adultery, that was grounds for death. It was the safe for false prophecy. However, we treat false prophecy like it’s just a matter of missed interpretation and that’s it. It’s not. Many people can give up on going to college or getting married or sell retirement accounts or anything like that. Are they being gullible and naive? Yes. Does that justify what the prophecy experts do? No.

Not only that, but we embarrass Christianity to outsiders. Those on the outside looking in decide that if the faith tolerates that kind of thing and believes foolish things like that, they want nothing of it. We already believe enough things that we have a hard time convincing outsiders of. I understand a proper skepticism. Let’s not add to it with demonstrable things. A skeptic has to research the resurrection of Christ to really be able to argue against it effectively. For a false prediction, he just has to wait for the day to come and he has all he needs. Many will sadly, and wrongly, take the false prophecy as a grounds for rejecting the resurrection.

Instead, hold them accountable. If a book by a prophecy expert makes a prediction and gets it wrong, don’t buy them again. Don’t listen to them anymore. Someone like John Hagee should have lost his platform immediately after making a national deal about blood moons and then having nothing come of it. If we disregard it, we tell the world truthfulness really doesn’t matter to us and if it doesn’t, then why should they listen to us on any other such matter?

Also, prophecy is different from many other areas because someone can be demonstrably shown to be wrong. We all believe some wrong things about Scripture, but with prophecy, we are making predictions and claiming that this is what God is saying. That’s dangerous grounds indeed. Those who make such claims need to be held to the highest standards.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

COVID and end times

Is this a judgment from God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s bound to happen. I’m sure it was going on before this, but I just hadn’t seen it. I’m talking about the idea that we are in the end times and that this is a sign of judgment and that the rapture is about to take place.

Now readers of my blog know that I think the rapture idea has no biblical basis whatsoever, but even if I did, this is the wrong way to present it. So many people start thinking that as soon as any crisis hits, that must be it. Jesus must be coming. I mean, Europe went through the Plague and we had the Spanish Flu a century ago that killed far more people, but as soon as COVID hits, boom. That’s it. It’s judgment.

Not only that, but you get the conspiracy theories flying around. Here’s one I saw last night that’s going around Facebook now.

“The vaccine that is coming…
As many of you heard Moderna is in stage 3 of their vaccine testing. If all goes well it’ll become federal law to get the vaccine.
Here’s something many of you don’t know, guess who the first CEO of Moderna was? A Cornell graduate by the name of Anthony Fauci, who was a roommate with none other than Bill Gates. Are you paying attention? It was at Cornell that Bill Gates designed the RFID (Radio-frequency identification) and patened it under US2006257852. Are you awake yet?
Now let’s really go down the rabbit hole. Moderna was a pharmaceutical company that started in Germany under the name IG Farben. IG Farben is infamous for it’s mass production of Zyklon-B, the primary gas used to kill millions during the Holocaust. After Germany fell, IG Farben was dissolved and its assets sold off by a Nazi turned American by the name of, you guessed it, George Soros. Soros rebranded the company as Moderna.
And who was the primary stockholder of Moderna until his death? Jeffrey Epstein. His role in Moderna is where he made his fortune and established his connections. Let that sink in.
Wake up people! You are being conditioned and controlled.”
Please copy and paste this, I did!

Yes. You did copy and paste it and apparently without researching it. Many of you know I think we’re being more hysterical about this virus than we need to be, but that doesn’t matter. I still want even intellectual opponents to be treated fairly.

Let’s look at a few things. Fauci was never a CEO of Moderna and he and Bill Gates went to separate schools anyway. They weren’t roommates. Gates also never designed the RFID. His company could use it, but he is not responsible for it.

As for IG Farben, I am skeptical of that claim entirely especially considering the idea of George Soros. I am not saying I support him, but when World War II ended, he was 14 years old. Really? A 14 year-old was given all that power to decide what to do with a company like that?

As a conservative, I find it irritating to see people do this. As a Christian, I find it shameful. Someone just saw this and hit copy and paste without bothering to check. The Bible has a term for that. It’s called bearing false witness.

Sometimes my wife reads the Bible around me and reads it out loud. Recently, she was reading Exodus 23. What did she come across? Don’t spread false rumors. One good way to make sure you don’t do that is to check on the rumors. If you are not sure, you can ask someone who knows better than you, but don’t just blindly share.

Of course, there was end times stuff with this. Every recent generation has been convinced Jesus will return in their lifetime. They have all been wrong. Prophecy experts keep being wrong over and over but this time, this time they’re correct. I don’t know why people keep listening to these experts over and over. It leaves me thinking about the scientist Jeff Goldblum’s character talks to in Jurassic Park 3: The Lost World.

Keep in mind you can disagree with me on my assessment of COVID and it doesn’t change the point. You can also, thankfully, be a dispensationalist and not go down this route, and if you are one who doesn’t go down this route, please do something about your fellows who do this.

Try and be a bit more sane people. This fear is not of God. Spreading false rumors definitely isn’t.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:14

Has the Gospel been preached to the world? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Okay. So now we’re getting somewhere aren’t we? I mean, the Gospel hasn’t been preached everywhere has it? There are still unreached people groups out there aren’t there? If that’s the case, there’s no way we have a first-century fulfillment is there?

Let’s start with Luke 2. In this passage, a census went out to all the world. Really? They got the census over in China and Australia? The people living here in America had to come and be registered? When we hear about the world in the Gospels, we have to consider the context and many times, it refers to the Roman Empire at the time.

Paul in Colossians 1:23 said that the Gospel had been proclaimed to every creature under Heaven. In Romans 1, he says the whole world has heard about the faith of the Romans. Again, we have to ask if this is something literal or not.

Now some might say that there is a dual fulfillment going on. I plan on getting to that later on. For now, all I have to do is show there is a first-century fulfillment to the text. Let’s also take a little look at what it means of the end shall come.

Again, if we are talking about the end of the world, then it’s quite odd that Jesus still goes on to talk about all these events that will happen after the end of the world. Maybe the end of the world just isn’t that big of a deal. If we’re talking about the coming end of the age, it makes more sense. We will also see as we go through that several predictions do not make sense with an end of the world scenario. They do make sense with a first-century localized scenario.

Some of you will be wondering about how this goes with taking the text literally. That is a concept that is highly misunderstood. Literally does not mean in a wooden sense but rather according to the intent of the author. Jesus is here speaking as if He was an Old Testament prophet. That kind of language was common in the Old Testament prophets.

Next time, we will see what happens in verse 15.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:13

Is the Discourse talking about salvation? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of the favorite topics evangelicals like to discuss is salvation. It’s a great topic, but just because the Bible uses the word saved, it doesn’t mean it’s talking about salvation. For a case in point, let’s look at today’s verse.

“But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

One of my favorite examples of this is in Acts 27. When the ship Paul is on is in the sea in the middle of a storm, some sailors decide that they will flee in a lifeboat. Paul has already told them that everyone will be spared, but they’re not believing it. So what does Paul say?

“Then Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.”

Wow. So Paul was saying salvation was out of reach? Now to be fair, being dead could make it hard to get saved, but Paul is talking about something else. He is talking about surviving the storm at sea.

So when Jesus is talking about this, He is talking about avoiding death. He is not saying that enduring earns one salvation, although one who has salvation ultimately will endure. Now were there plenty of reasons for someone to not endure?

Yes. Apostasy will be a reality for the early church at this point. The book of Hebrews is the prime example of this. This was not persecution to the point of shedding blood as the writer of the piece himself says, but it is persecution that is leading people to be tempted to return to Judaism.

Christianity was a shameful movement at the start and if you are staying in it for salvation, well, Judaism already has that. Why not return to Judaism and avoid the social ostracism that takes place with Christianity? It was a tempting offer and that’s why the author makes repeated warnings to people to not abandon Christ. This letter quite likely has more such warnings than any other letter.

Jesus is describing people in Jerusalem going through a similar time, except it will be far worse, which we will get to later. This will be an event to endure indeed. There are some who place this in a “great tribulation” in the future which could very well return us to a salvation by works. As we go on through the discourse, I hope you will see that such an interpretation is unnecessary. Everything can easily fit into the first century.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:12

Will people be more wicked? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Today, we continue our look at the Olivet Discourse. We are going to be talking about wickedness. Let’s look at the verse.

“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold”

Okay. So maybe some could say that this can apply today, and of course, it could. However, what we are asking is if it applies to the time of Jesus. This is what is known as a necessary but not sufficient condition. Just because it applies to the first century, it is not sufficient to show that it must be the time Jesus has in mind, but it is necessary that that time be included.

So was there an increase in wickedness?

Indeed there was. Look at what Josephus says about the practices going on at the time. When the siege started, everything seemed to be permitted. Murders were frequently taking place. An excellent fictional look at this are the chronicles written by Brian Godawa on the topic.

Nero and Caligula were both crazy emperors. Nero especially was known for wickedness. (One reason I think he’s the Beast in Revelation, but that’s for later) Nero could kill anyone easily, even if that someone was his own mother.

This was going on also in the New Testament. Jude and 2 Peter both have long sections on wicked people. It’s generally thought that one borrowed from the other since they are quite similar, but that would mean at least that both saw the problem. I am aware some skeptics place 2 Peter late, but I am not someone who places it later on.

Consider 2 Timothy 3:1-9

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

Note something about this. Timothy is told to avoid these people. These people are already around. Paul is speaking about present realities going on in the life of Timothy. Some will say, “But this speaks of the last days!” Yes. Let’s see what was said in Acts 2.

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

“‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.
I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

When did Peter say the last days would come? When God would pour out His Spirit on all people. We see this going on at Pentecost and it happens throughout Acts with Gentiles getting the Holy Spirit. Some will wonder about the wonders described later on, but we will get to that eventually in the discourse. We already live in the time that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved so both bookends of this passage are fulfilled. Keep in mind that this is similar to the question about the end of the age. The last days are not the last days of the world but of the age the people were living in.

So again, we have a consistent fulfillment.

We shall continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse—Matthew 24:7

Have there been more earthquakes? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I remember being in a Bible study group for men in high school and sometimes we would talk about end times. Our leader told us that there was an increase in earthquakes. This was seen as a sign of the end times. Why would anyone think that? Look at verse 7.

” Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. “

We covered wars last time, so let’s look at famines and earthquakes. Note that the text doesn’t say there will be an increase in earthquakes. Even if we went with that, the truth is that there hasn’t been an increase in earthquakes at all. We just have a better means of detecting earthquakes and we hear reports of them from all over the world, something that wasn’t possible in the first century. See here for details.

Yet even in Scripture, we see earthquakes. There is one at the crucifixion of Jesus and there is another around the time of the resurrection. When Paul and Silas are in prison, there is an earthquake.

Various writers also wrote of earthquakes. You’ll find them in Tacitus and in Josephus. There was an earthquake before the eruption of Vesuvius. Earthquakes were happening. Thus, if we are looking for earthquakes as a sign, this can still fit in to the first century very easily.

How about famines? Yep. We have those too. The big one was the one Agabus talked about in the book of Acts. This is also likely the situation going on in 1 Corinthians 7 and the present situation where Paul said it might not be good to marry. After all, if you can’t provide for yourself, providing for a wife also will be much harder.

If anything, we have far more means to battle famine today. When they happen, it is likely because of evil governments ruling over innocent people. After all, we could airlift food anywhere in the world that we really wanted to.

So for those who are thinking what we see today could be a sign that Jesus is coming, don’t be too sure. We’re still well within a first-century context here. Some might be thinking later verses will sink this theory, but we’ll see when we get there.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Purple Cow Fallacy

How do we interpret prophecy? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s not a secret to my readers that I am an orthodox preterist in my eschatology. Sometimes, I like to debate with futurists and dispensationalists. Eschatology is just a subject I enjoy discussing. I will also say my wife is still a futurist, though not a dispensationalist, because I do not press the issue on her and want her to come to her own conclusions.

Anyway, one mistake I see futurists often making is what has been described to me as the Purple Cow fallacy. In this, imagine a famous rock star in the 60’s. He predicts after his retirement that one day another great musician like him will show up. It will be known this has happened when the hide of a purple cow is seen across America.

There are two schools of thought on how to interpret this prophecy. The first is the globalist school of thought. This is the one that says that the sky will turn the color of the hide of a purple cow. The other is the localist. These say that a man will take the hide of a purple cow and put it on the back of his car and drive across America.

One day, the localists claim the prophecy has been fulfilled as someone has driven across the country like that. The globalists are immediately aghast. How can you say that the prophecy has been fulfilled? Would not everyone have seen the sky change color that way?

You and I are observers on the outside. We think this whole prophecy thing is a crazy delusion so we have no skin in the game. Still, from our perspective we can point something out. We can point out that the globalists could be right on the meaning, but in this debate, they are begging the question. They are assuming that the prophecy is only fulfilled if their interpretation of it takes place, when what is under question is the interpretation of the prophecy.

We Christians have to deal with this as well and this includes dispensationalists and futurists. How many Jews tell us “How can you say the Messiah has come? Would not the world already be living in perfect peace and harmony and the third temple be built?” Christians have to say that obviously hasn’t happened yet, (And for the third temple I dispute it ever will) but that doesn’t mean the Messiah has not come because that is begging the question about what the prophecy means.

So it is with dispensationalists that I encounter often where it is assumed that a prophecy must be interpreted a certain way and if it hasn’t happened or I don’t think it will happen that way, then I am calling into question Scripture. Not at all. I am calling into question your interpretation and to keep pointing to your interpretation is to beg the question.

This is not an argument per se that futurism and/or dispensationalism are wrong, but it is a request to stop using a fallacious argument. This also does not prove preterism is true either, though I am convinced it is. However, if you do debate this kind of topic regularly, watch for this fallacy. Once you become aware of it, you see it happening often.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why The Church Should Deal With Prophecy Experts

What difference does it make if Christians claim to be prophecy experts? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last Friday I wrote about how to be a prophecy expert, which was rather tongue in cheek in its approach. Now why do such a thing? Granted, I don’t care for dispensationalist thinking a bit, but is there something more to it? Is there some actual danger that is at work with this?

Yes there is. For one thing, when a preacher like John Hagee makes these claims, people take it seriously. Some of these claims have been so serious that people have sold their homes and such, particularly with people like Harold Camping. People then broadcast all of this everywhere and guess what the media sees as representative of Christianity?

Let me state this right upfront also. There are plenty of good dispensationalists who love Jesus and don’t at all buy into this kind of behavior and condemn it. They don’t go out making active predictions about when the rapture will take place and don’t try to find fulfillments of the Bible in the news everyday. I even had a dispensationalist come on my show to critique The Harbinger.

Now let’s get back to the media. This idea is something then that really damages our witness to the world. If we can be shown to be wrong on something that people can verify easily, such as a simple realization that the end of the world didn’t come on such and such a date, why should they take us seriously on what they can’t verify so quickly, such as the resurrection of Jesus?

If a pastor does this, the pastor needs to be held to account. John Hagee should not have the public ministry he does after his blood moons error. When we have a pastor who has an affair or something of that sort, we call him to account, and rightfully so. Shouldn’t we do the same with a pastor who shares false teaching at this level?

Note also that these people never seem to recant of their errors. Hagee has never said anything in repentance about the blood moons that I know of. I know a lady who blocked me from her channel on YouTube because she made predictions based on the solar eclipse a couple of years ago in August and I kept asking if she would repent. Nope. Never happened.

Second, prophecy experts can tend to distract us from our real mission. There are Christians with all the charts and graphs that can tell when the rapture is to take place and who the antichrist is, but they don’t have a clue on the doctrine of the atonement, or the Trinity, or the resurrection of Jesus.

This is not to say that one could never study the former, but if you know more about that than you do about the essentials, you have a problem. We have a tendency to go for this knowledge that seems more esoteric. After all, you are in the know if you know that stuff.

This gets to another concern. Many people study this so much that they try to figure out everything about who the antichrist is. They spend less time thinking about who Jesus is. Shouldn’t He be our main focus?

Finally, these ideas also have very large political ramifications. How do we treat the nation of Israel and peace treaties and such? Many people are hesitant to see any peace treaty signed because they are convinced that’s the antichrist. (As if if that was the case, we could somehow stop a prophecy from being fulfilled.) How much energy has been spent trying to make a red heifer (You know, God needs the help). What we think about prophecy could affect people all over the world we don’t know about.

I encourage Christians to really study end times ideas on their own. I say that as someone who grew up with the dispensationlist movement. Now I have found my eschatological home in orthodox Preterism. This viewpoint makes the most sense of all of the Scriptures, but if I abandoned it tomorrow, I would still have the same problem with prophecy experts.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

How To Be A Prophecy Expert

How does one come to be an authority on prophecy? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I often get amazed when I go on YouTube or into a Christian bookstore and see the craziness that is prophecy interpretation. These are normally some of the most popular books in the bookstores. It doesn’t matter that these people keep getting things wrong and keep changing their views and using the exact same hermeneutic. They are still experts. How does this happen? Let’s have some fun and look at the making of a prophecy expert.

Step One — Declare yourself to be a prophecy expert.

This might sound like a small step, but it’s a necessary one. You see, the world will need to know that you’re a prophecy expert. “But I haven’t gone to Bible college and I have no degrees or credentials!” That can help, but it’s not necessary. You can set up a channel on YouTube and get instant notoriety that way. Of course, if you have any credentials, that could land you a bigger audience, but we all have to start somewhere.

Step Two — Watch the news first.

It would be really difficult to write a book in 2003 about how Trump will be elected president in 2016 and claim to find that in prophecy. A far better route is to start with what is already happening and then go back and see how that was truly prophesied in Scripture. Then, go and extrapolate from that what you think will happen. This is when you go to the Bible. You go there and look and see if you can find anything in there that will back up your claim. That brings us to our next point.

Step Three — Avoid context of Scripture.

One cannot be picky about what the author intended or what a historical or social situation was at the time of writing. Caring about the real message the author wanted to get will cause us to miss the meaning we want to find. Feel free by all means to play a kind of hopscotch where you just jump around from place to place and find whatever you mean and make it a vague reference. What’s that? Your audience might actually look up the passages and see what you’re talking about? Ridiculous. Won’t happen. Don’t worry about such nonsense.

Step Four — Like Prego, it’s in there.

Rest assured also that every event you want to talk about is in the Scriptures. Every president has been prophesied and every Pope has been prophesied and every war and new law has been prophesied. It’s in there. You just have to look hard enough. For my fellow Americans, rest assured God loves us and we are obviously His favorite country so naturally, we’re all over the Bible.

Step Five — Ignore it when you are wrong.

We all make mistakes. The important thing is to act like they never happened. That’s right. Got your blood moon prediction wrong? Don’t admit it. Did the Harbinger not come through? Don’t admit it? Obama really wasn’t the antichrist? Say nothing about that! The Pope really wasn’t the man of sin? Be silent!

You see, if you don’t acknowledge your mistakes, odds are your audience won’t either. What? You think people really will care about your mistakes? You can be sure that this isn’t the case because so many prophecy experts have gone before you and this has never held them back. They keep going on and on.

Step Six — Repeat the cycle.

Okay. So the time has come. You made your mistake. It’s out there for all to see. What do you do now? Go back to step one. Repeat the whole process once more. Past failures don’t matter. Amazingly, as someone who has been proven wrong over and over and thus have no right to be called an expert, you will still be called an expert. Now go out there and start writing your next book and making your next video or blog post for the world again.

Or, you could avoid all of this and just study the Scripture faithfully and not make predictions about what will happen trusting that God is in control and work on other things that well, they might not seem as important, but they could be. You could work on understanding and living out your faith. You could work on taking care of the needy in your area. You could work on building up your marriage and home life. Of course, most of these won’t lead to the status you’ll get as a prophecy expert, but that’s the price you pay.

If you’re also someone who really doesn’t care about being this prophecy expert, be on the watch for those who do and don’t give them credibility once they’re shown to be wrong over and over again. The Scriptures are too sacred an item to treat so lightly. I look forward to the day when these fad prophecy books are not out on display immediately in Christian bookstores.

In Christ,
Nick Peters