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Spirituality
Title: END TIMES FICTION Author: Gary DeMar Rating:  Excellent!
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Web Page: http://www.thomasnelson.com Reviewed by: Maurice A. Williams |
 
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Biblical Revelation fascinates people. The vivid scenes prophets see can almost be seen by us. No wonder new commentaries appear so frequently. Some commentators build far-fetched predictions based on Revelation. Gary DeMar labels this "End Times Fiction." He believes the future rapture, tribulation, and thousand year kingdom popularized by Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye is more fiction than fact. Conceding that biblical fiction is effective in capturing attention, DeMar argues that what is not factual is counter-productive. It encourages people to expect what they will later realize did not happen. Fiction should be portrayed as fiction, fact as fact. Hal Lindsey, for example, wrote that Revelation predicts the Soviet Union, led by Russia, attacking Israel to inaugurate the War of Armageddon. The Soviet Union has fallen apart. I have read authors who, writing before World War II, predicted that Mussolini revived the Roman Empire as predicted in Revelation. The Allies defeated Mussolini. Later, it was the European Economic Union when it has ten members. It now has more that ten. Today, as DeMar points out, Tim LaHaye's popular "Left Behind" series predicts, once again, Russia, but this time the Muslim southern republics united with Middle East Muslims attacking Israel. How disillusioned people will be if this prediction fails also. So many failed predictions might cause people not to believe anything in Scripture.
This is DeMar's concern. He explains that many visions apply more directly to first century events than to events twenty centuries later. He outlines how the "fiction" develops as overzealous authors add predictions that are not supported by a careful reading of Scripture. Gary DeMar's "End Times Fiction" is well written and interesting. It is an antidote for anybody worried about friends and relatives who might be "left behind."
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