Is there anything wrong with reading the
Left Behind Series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins?
The question should be better phrased “Is
there anything scripturally benefi-cial in reading those books?” Then the
answer is clearly: “NO”! The Left Behind Series for adults is 8 volumes
(a 9th planned for release in Fall 2001. There are a dozen smaller books
for children with a 13th planned for release in the Spring 2001). Each
400 page book dramatizes Premillennial fantasy adventure for one Captain
Rayford Steele, an airline pilot. After the rapture of saints from off
of the earth, he forms the Tribulation Force to fight evil during the seven
year Tribulation, only to discover their governmental leader, Nicolae Carpathia,
is the Antichrist who is assassinated at the end of book six but resurrected
by book eight. With vivid detail, these volumes depict earth’s struggles
from the Rapture to the Millennial Kingdom.
There are clearly three things that have been
“Left Behind” by that eight book serial: (1) True Bible Teaching; (2) Bible
Faith and (3) Their customers.
(1) True Bible teaching has clearly been Left
Behind for the entire story line is based on the totally anti-Christ doctrine
of “Premillennialism.” According to the Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible
(copyright 2000 by AMG Publishers) [Hereafter referred to by the initials
TLPSI] in order for Premillennialism to occur, it will involve: one land
promise to Israel, which God will force them to accept, two judgments of
Christ, four Jewish temples, five resurrections, five crowns to be awarded,
six covenants with Israel, seven Bible dispensations and “20 Major Prophetic
Events Yet To Be Fulfilled.” LaHaye and his contributors have the audacity
to claim the Bible teaches this confusion , but “God is not the author
of confusion but of peace, as in all churches of the saints” (1 Corinthians
14:33). The Bible must be rightly divided (2 Timothy 2:15), not minced!
While God’s Bible prophecies are like “smart bombs” directly on target
in Christ and His Church, Premillennialists with their charts and diagrams
make God’s plan look more like a “pinball” bouncing every which way, mostly
missing the mark, and occasionally scoring.
LaHaye and Jenkins have said one can identify
false teachers by their teaching about Jesus Christ. “Most false teachers
have a faulty view of Jesus. Some are blatantly false: the more dangerous
ones will accept Him as a god but not God in human flesh. Never trust any
teacher who does not believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, His sinless
life, sacrificial death, bodily resurrection, and His promise to come again
physically to this earth. Always ask, Does the message or teaching glorify
Jesus?” (LaHaye & Jenkins, page 36, Are We Living In the End Times?
Tyndale House publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, copyright 1999 [Hereafter
referred to by the initials AWLITET]. It is dedicated “to the millions
of readers of the Left Behind series...”). Truly one has but to contrast
Premillennialism with Holy Spirit inspired statements in the New Testament
to determine that Premillennialists are false teachers who teach “antichrist”
doctrines (contradicting Jesus and His apostles)!
* Jesus is not coming back to this earth, for the same resurrection sending the righteous to “meet the Lord in the air” and “always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) brings forth the evil doers to their condemnation (John 5:28-29). Premillennialists preach an earthly kingdom for Jesus Christ–the very thing Jesus said He did not have (John 18:36), and without which Left Behind would be “left behind!”
* The sacrifices and temple of the Law of Moses will not be resumed on earth, for then Jesus could not be on His throne. He must “sit and rule” and “be a priest on His throne” (Zechariah 6:12-13), but He cannot be priest if God is honoring the Mosaic priesthood and sacrifices (Hebrews 8:1-6). By renewing Moses’s sacrifices, Premillennialists deny the atoning power of Jesus Christ’s bloody death, although in Left Behind some “lip service” is given to it!
* There is no future millennial kingdom unless one denies that Jesus has His kingdom now. Jesus told the Jews in His day, “the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it” (Matthew 21:43) and told His apostles when He began the Lord’s Supper, “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29). Premillennialism teaches the kingdom is future and therefore there cannot be a Lord’s Supper now! But in their millennial kingdom, Moses’ sacrifices will be rekindled. Premillennialists deny Jesus Christ the Supper that is His memorial of His death for our sin (1 Corinthians 11:23-26), and Left Behind ignores the importance of this remembrance!
* Jesus will not sit on David’s throne at a future time, for that denies His resurrection from the dead! Peter and the apostles preached that David predicted (in Psalm 16:8-11) that God’s oath was to “raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ” (Acts 2:30-31). All Premillennialists who take David’s throne from Jesus Christ today are denying Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, and in Left Behind Jesus has yet to be King!
* Premillennial time charts completely render the “church age” (the Gospel era, from the cross of Jesus Christ till the “End Times”) to be of no benefit, for the ungodly and sinners will be given another chance to convert during the “End Times.” The “church age” is diagrammed as a burp, for which God apologizes, between the prophetic 69 weeks of Daniel 9 and the 1 week remaining (chart, page 911, TLPSB). Jesus Christ called it His church (Matthew 16:18); Paul said it is “purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28); Jesus has no “body” without it (Colossians 1:18, 24); and baptism as the likeness of Christ’s death that puts one into His body (1 Corinthians 12:12-13; Romans 6:3-7) has been robbed of its purpose. Jesus said His believers were to convince the world that God had sent Him (John 17:20-21). Premillennialists steal away the spiritual body of Christ, without which there can be no saved (Acts 2:38, 41, 47), for Left Behind is written for those who need a second chance to be saved!
* Premillennialism teaches the conflict with evil hasn’t yet been resolved and the outcome requires worldwide conflict. But such denies that Jesus came to the earth the first time, for He “was born...[that He] should bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37), He lived “that He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). Premillennialists act as though Jesus Christ had never come to the earth the first time, for Left Behind writes about the battle between good and evil without any assistance from Jesus Christ! If that is not “antichrist” then what would someone have to teach to be “antichrist”?
* They make 100% of Bible prophecies apply to the “End Times.” Jesus Christ said, however, that 100% of Old Testament prophecies discussing Him were fulfilled by the events of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (Luke 24:44). Peter said that 100% of Old Testament prophecies concerning the Lord’s kingdom had been fulfilled by the events from Acts through Revelation (Acts 3:24-26). Paul said that 100% of Old Testament prophecies regarding Israel had been fulfilled by the end of his missions and writings (Acts 13:16-42, 46-49; 26:4-23). Premillennialists pretend Jesus never said the prophets “testify of Me” (John 5:38-40; 6:44-45), for Left Behind makes Jesus have to come back to the earth to accomplish His goals.
* They claim more will be saved because of their
doctrine than Jesus Christ claimed His doctrine would save! Jesus said,
“Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there
are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult
is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew
7:13-14). But LaHaye/Jenkins said, “In fact, we believe that because of
the Millennium, there may be more people in heaven than in hell” (p. 240,
AWLITET?). Premillennialists offer more hope of salvation than Jesus Christ,
thereby limiting Jesus’ work into insignificance, and Left Behind reflects
this falsity.
(2) Faith is surely Left Behind for the LaHaye/Jenkins
“serial” has killed the desire of millions to learn what the Bible actually
says, and robs them of “faith” (Romans 10:17) without which no one is pleasing
to God (Hebrews 11:6). Repentance must come on the basis of “godly sorrow”
(2 Corinthians 7:10) not fright. Though past destruction of the earth by
flood waters and future destruction of the earth by fire sandwich a command
to “Repent” (2 Peter 3:1-13) it hastens the decision to change, but should
not be a substitute for it. People who simply react out of fear of destruction
and not with sorrow for sin still have not obeyed God.
(3) The Left Behind are they who still buy
their books, for if their teaching is true, then either the 2000 or 2001
must have figured prominently into their conceptions, and yet adult book
#9 and children’s book #13 are scheduled for release in 2001. Did anyone
else notice that throughout 1999 most of the public pronouncements by Premillennialists
led millions to think that on Midnight, December 31, 1999, biblical events
would unfold the beginning of the End Times? Interesting, isn’t it, to
notice how many LaHaye/Jenkins books are copyrighted with a date in the
year 2000? Did they believe they would have been raptured and only unbelievers
would be buying their books? If so, then those who buy their books show
themselves to be the unsaved and ungodly! Or did they not believe that
their millennial madness had anything whatever to do with the year 2000?
If this is the case, then their books are useless drivel that help no one
know more about when time shall end after reading them than they knew before.
Left Behind exploits the same insecurity and
ignorance that hundreds of “date-setters” have utilized before, though
claiming to know better. LaHaye/Jenkins say, “while we are not certain
it will occur in our lifetime, we have more reason to believe it might
than any generation in the history of the church...”
“We are surrounded by so many obvious signs
that one would have to be blind not to see them...So many signs exist today
that you could write a book about them. In fact, I did, The Beginning Of
The End, first published in 1972 and then again in 1991. Many changes in
the twenty-seven years since that book’s first publication have only brought
further confirmation that we are indeed living in ‘the times of the signs.’
Never in the history have so many legitimate signs of Christ’s return existed”
(Pages 26-27, AWLITET?). LaHaye’s interpretations failed to correctly point
to the generation that has died since he tried this ruse 27 years ago.
God is his judge, for He taught that if what a prophet said did “not happen
or come to pass” no one should listen to his fear-mongering again (Deuteronomy
18:19-22). LaHaye/Jenkins rightly claim, “Date setters are to be ignored
or, even better, rebuked as false teachers” (page 23, AWLITET). Though
LaHaye can say, “There is little doubt as to when this Tribulation occurs
to how long it will last” (page 1374, TLPSB), and Premillennialists can
prophetically set down the calendar from Rapture to Eternity, none of LaHaye’s
group dares to give any detail or date that shows when the “church age”
will end. One is a false teacher who causes people to wrongly expect God
to do something whether it is by twisting Scriptures to say what they do
not teach (2 Peter 3:14-16) or setting dates outside
the purview of
Scripture
(Matthew 24:36).
Don’t be Left Behind in real Bible study but
avoid “the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely
called knowledge—by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith”
(1 Timothy 6:20-21).—125 The Trace, Dover, TN 37058