WorldNetDaily is running an ad that states the following: “ Readers snatch up end-times books.”
Prophecy-related products continue to be popular among WorldNetDaily readers, with two books on Israel’s involvement in end-times predictions coming in at No. 2 and 3 on ShopNetDaily’s weekly best-seller list—Dave Hunt’s “Judgment Day! Islam, Israel and the Nations” and Greg Laurie’s “Are We Living in the Last Days?”[1]
Why shouldn’t Christians snatch up these end-time books? They’re being told by prophetic writers that this is the generation that will see the rapture. Of course, previous generations of Christians were told the same thing. I predict that the prophetic scenario outlined by the authors of the books that appear on WorldNetDaily’s list will not take place as predicted. And when they don’t, memories will fade, and a new group of authors will join well-established prophecy writers and publish books that will start the cycle all over again that a Middle East Armageddon is inevitable and on the horizon.
Another book promoted by WorldNetDaily is David Dolan’s Israel in Crisis published in 2001. The advertisement for the book states that “Israel in Crisis not only takes a probing look into what’s happening in Israel today, it also gives you a full picture on where the Middle East crisis may be leading and how it is linked to biblical prophecy. Dolan weaves events with Scripture in a fast-paced journalistic style that is sure to inform, entertain, and inspire.”[2]
This book is a perfect example of forcing the Bible to fit an already developed prophetic system. Dolan tries to explain Jesus’ comments in John 21:18–23 in which Jesus says to Peter about John, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me” (21:22). Dolan tries to explain the meaning of this passage by forcing it into his dispensational mold: “In further nonbiblical research, I discovered that many early church authorities believed that John had never died. This was based on the Lord’s mysterious words in John 21 and also on the fact that, unlike the other apostles, no credible account exists about his death. I suspect that may be because John did not die.”[3]
Dolan speculates that John could have been living on a Greek island for two millennia, wandering around the world hiding his true identity disguised, or caught up into heaven like Elijah where he has been supernaturally preserved until he is needed. John 21:23 refutes this notion: “yet Jesus did not say to [Peter] that [John] would not die, but only, ‘If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you.’”
So what is the meaning of Jesus’ words? John Gill offers the best explanation. The “coming” referred to here by Jesus refers, “not till his second coming to judge the quick and the dead at the last day” but the coming “in his power . . . on the Jewish nation, in the destruction of their city and temple by the Romans [in AD 70].” As Gill points out, “till which time John did live, and many years after; and was the only one of the disciples that lived till that time, and who did not die a violent death.”
Endnotes:
[1] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51311
[2] http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=335
[3] David Dolan, Israel in Crisis: What Lies Ahead? (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 2001), 143.