While cleaning up my office, I came across a cassette tape of a sermon preached by Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel on December 31, 1979. He told his very accepting audience that the rapture would take place in 1981. Russia was about to invade Israel. The former Soviet Republic had gone into Afghanistan. Smith said that it was the prelude to a full-force invasion of the Middle East. Russia is now bogged down in a war with Ukraine. A ragtag army of Afghan soldiers sent the Soviet military back to the motherland. Not to be outdone, the United States got involved in Afghanistan with similar results.
Smith went on to claim that because of ozone depletion, Revelation 16:8 would be fulfilled: “And the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun; and it was given to it to scorch men with fire.” According to Smith, Halley’s Comet would pass near the Earth in 1986 and would wreak atmospheric havoc for those left behind as debris from its million-mile tail pummeled the Earth. Halley’s Comet did appear in 1986 with no damage done to our planet. Halley’s Comet is consistently visible to the naked eye from Earth, appearing every 72-80 years. It has been observed and recorded by astronomers worldwide since at least 240 BC. If Halley’s Comet has any prophetic import, it was in AD 66 when it passed over Jerusalem. The temple was destroyed four years later and turned the redemptive world upside down. And just in case you haven’t noticed, contrary to Smith, the rapture did not take place in 1981 as he and others (e.g., Hal Lindsey) predicted.
The Rapture and the Fig Tree Generation
Since the national reestablishment of Israel in 1948, countless books and pamphlets have been written defending the doctrine assuring readers that it could happen at any moment. Some prophecy writers claimed the “rapture” would take place before 1988. We are far removed from that date. Where are we in God’s prophetic timetable? Here are some relevant questions to ask and are answered in The Rapture and the Fig Tree Generation.
Buy NowWhile Smith stated that he “could be wrong,” he nevertheless expressed his beliefs with certainty: “It’s a deep conviction in my heart, and all my plans are predicated upon that belief.” Smith later wrote: “Date setting is wrong, and I was guilty of coming close to that. I did believe that Hal Lindsey could have been on track when he talked about the forty-year generation, the fig tree budding being the rebirth of Israel, and I was convinced in my own heart.”
A resurfaced 2020 interview with the late author Tom Horn on the Jim Bakker Show is now going viral, sparking conversation about whether the Jewish feast days, the year 2025, and the asteroid Apophis could all be prophetically linked. Horn connected “the asteroid Apophis, set for a close Earth flyby in 2029, with the “Wormwood” prophecy of Revelation 8. He explained, ‘If Apophis is the fulfillment of the Wormwood prophecy in Revelation chapter eight, that would happen in the middle of the great tribulation period.” (Source)
Then there is 3I/Atlas, discovered on July 1, 2025. While some researchers, including Harvard physicist Avi Loeb, have controversially proposed that 3I/ATLAS could be a technological artifact or an alien probe, the scientific consensus strongly supports that it’s of natural origin. Some have nicknamed it Wormwood. Revelation has been a hotbed of prophetic speculation for centuries because the timing has been incorrect, despite Revelation clearly stating that what was revealed to John would happen soon because the time was near (1:1, 3; 22:6, 10) to those who first read or heard its content.
In addition to the timing problem, the asteroid Apophis and 3I/ATLAS are said to be connected to Revelation 8. However, the Earth would have been destroyed in chapter six. “And I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind” (vv. 12-13). If literal stars or even meteorites fell to the earth in chapter 6, how could anything happen after this event? Moreover, how would it be possible to create an electronic tracking system in chapter 13 so no one could buy or sell?
John Owen wrote:
“Not to hold you too long upon what is so plain and evident, you may take it for a rule, that, in the denunciations of the judgments of God, through all the prophets, heaven, sun, moon, stars, and the like appearing beauties and glories of the aspectable [capable of being seen] heavens, are taken for governments, governors, dominions in political states, as Isaiah 14:12–15; Jeremiah 15:9; 51:25. (Isaiah 13:13; Psalm 68:8; Joel 51:10; Revelation 8:12; Matthew 24:29; Luke 21:25; Isaiah 60:20; Obadiah 4; Revelation 8:13; 11:12; 20:11.)[1]
Christians are tempted to read the Bible through the lens of current events. It’s been done before. We witnessed it happen in September of 2025 and 37 years ago in 1988. I have a library of books and articles to support my claim. Use Frank Gumerlock’s book The Day and the Hour to inoculate yourself from the very popular prophecy pundits who have millions of followers. On one side of the cultural coin are the prophecy extremists (one prophecy channel has 545,000 subscribers), and on the other side are those who act on the premise that God has called us to operate in terms of good works because of our new life in Christ. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10, KJV).
The Day and the Hour
In The Day and The Hour, Gumerlock spans two thousand years of conjecture on the last days, disclosing the dreams and delusions of those who believed that their sect was the 144,000 of Revelation 7; that the 1290 days of Daniel 12 had expired in their generation; that the "Man of Sin" of II Thessalonians 2 was reigning in their time; that a Rapture of the saints, a Great Tribulation, a Battle of Armageddon were just around the corner; or that a Millennial Kingdom was about to dawn.
Buy NowCharles H. Spurgeon, the great nineteenth-century Baptist preacher, had this to say in his comments on Psalm 86:9 in his magisterial The Treasury of David:
David was not a believer in the theory that the world will grow worse and worse, and that the dispensations will wind up with general darkness, and idolatry. Earth’s sun is to go down amid tenfold night if some of our prophetic brethren are to be believed. Not so do we expect, but we look for a day when the dwellers in all lands shall learn righteousness, shall trust in the Saviour, shall worship thee alone, O God, and shall glorify thy name. The modern notion has greatly damped the zeal of the church for missions, and the sooner it is shown to be unscriptural the better for the cause of God. It neither consorts with prophecy, honours God, nor inspires the church with ardour. Far hence be it driven.[2]
While it is true there is an attempt by the ungodly to dominate culture, and some are successful for a season, the fact is that over time “they will not make further progress” (2 Tim. 3:9); their fling with ungodliness is only temporary (cf. Rom. 1:18-32). Christians can be optimistic even if the actions of the ungodly increase in their own day. If Christians remain faithful in influencing their world with the gospel and applying a Christian worldview to every area of life the world can and will change. History, the gospel, and God’s sovereign care are on our side.
[1] John Owen, “Ouranōn Ourania: Shaking and Translating of Heaven and Earth” (preached April 19, 1649), Complete Works of John Owen, 16 vols. (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1966), 8:255.
[2] Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Containing the Book of Psalms; A Collection of Illustrative Extracts from the Whole Range of Literature; A Series of Homiletical Hints Upon Almost Every Verse; and Lists of Writers Upon Each Psalm, 7 vols. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co., [1869], 1881), 4:10