Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Is America in Bible Prophecy?
Beliefnet talks to the evangelist whose new book has zoomed up the best-seller lists in its first two weeks.
...So extrapolating from the scenarios of the Bible, what do you believe is our nation’s future, based on prophecy?
The story of prophecy that has to do with the Jews goes all the way through to the end of the Book of Revelation. Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24. The disciples said, “What shall be the signs of the coming of the ends of the age?” And he said, “The first sign would be deception.” Now, there’s never been greater deception then what happened on September 11, 2001. In the 1990s, New Age relativism redefined a terrorist as just an “extremist.” Bill Clinton and his moral relativism wanted [a Middle East peace agreement] because he was trying to get a postage stamp of himself over Monica’s face. By doing that, he sent a signal to the Islamic fundamentalist world that was already in a rage, that America would embrace terrorism.
In the 1990s, Jews were being blown up almost weekly, and we would not acknowledge it as terror. We called it a “cycle of violence.” We would not define morality, and we allowed the disintegration of our moral values to affect not only the private life of a president, but also the domestic policy in America and also our foreign policy.
What does your theory mean for the coming presidential election?
Number one, we’re in a horrendous battle between darkness and light. We began with a distraction of our moral principles We saw it through the 1960s and the 1970s. We saw it through abortion and prayer in school and all these other issues. We saw it in the White House through Clinton. Then we saw that it translated into our foreign policy--not just our domestic policy. It spread like the Ebola virus.
And now we realize that the holy grail of understanding is that 9/11 was the most apocalyptic day in American history. And we woke up from our innocence to realize that we cannot put our heads in the sand any longer. We’ve got to stand up to the New Agers who believe that a terrorist is not a terrorist. ...