29 October 2022
In 1970, Hal Lindsey published his most famous work, Late Great Planet Earth. It wasn't anything new; dispensational theology had been around for a long time already. However, his book managed to sensationalize that heresy to a new generation and End Times fever swept through evangelical America, and out into the general audience. Just the paperback version alone sold something like 28 million copies by 1990. When I went to college, it was still a big thing. All the preacher boys were talking about getting their education and hitting the streets. Their vision was to convert as many as possible before Christ returned all too soon.
I recall several very popular speakers at various conferences who seemed pretty much on the same page, using an interpretive system that pegged the Second Coming somewhere around 1988. Of course, that didn't happen, and a few years later another dispensational fire swept the nation in the Left Behind series.
In both of these "revivals" there was a host of older supporting literature that got heavy replay. That literature was dominated by the Jack T. Chick tracts and booklets, a sort of comic book version of the same nonsense doctrine about the End Times (along with other fundamentalist stuff, including a heavy dose of KJV-onlyism). Chick's publishing house made a ton of money from evangelical churches ordering boxes and boxes of his stuff to be passed out among their members as "witnessing tools". Indeed, everyone involved in this business made a lot of money.
On the one hand, you can't fault the feverish zeal of the folks in the pews. If this stuff was true, then their reactions and efforts were justified. You would think we were overdue for another plague of this stuff, but the younger generations just don't seem that interested. Thus, we have a lot of Boomer evangelicals still hanging on, trying to keep the fire going past their retirement age. The heresy itself seems to have become deeply institutionalized. The fervor is much hotter among the older folks, while the kids just take it for granted.
We are now up against a very real threat that the world will end, as it were. The accelerating movement of Earth's magnetic poles, and the decline in our geomagnetic shield, is by itself enough to warn of catastrophic changes coming. You can get that much information from all kinds of sources on the Net, including several government agencies, never mind whether you accept the story told by Suspicious Observers.
I'll grant you I am put off by the End Times kind of fervor still exhibited by too many people adhering to the Suspicious Observers movement. Sometimes it feels like the same kind of abusive manipulation I went through in my youth. And I really dislike some of the quasi-pagan religious nonsense spouted by the leader, Ben Davidson. I'm not going to join their club, but I will try to ensure I understand the science. Fortunately, the information is not locked behind a paywall. Davidson has been quite open with the data and his explanations are borne out by independent sources, if you are up to reading the technical research literature.
It's quite possible that what's coming at us is some manifestation of the End Times apocalypse. This could be it, though I doubt it. There's too much missing from the picture. The single biggest issue is the absence of faith martyrs. The Book of Revelation clearly expects a level of persecution that eclipses that of Rome in the first two centuries after Christ. John's prophecy warns of a general ill-will against faith itself as the single factor that unites mankind under a one-world government. It should be obvious that the only way that will happen is if a very large number of people embrace the Covenant of Christ, and truly adopt an otherworldly outlook.
I don't see that happening around me. Do you? So, I rather expect that what's coming at us is not the End Times, but another reset, somewhat like the days of Noah. The human population will be drastically reduced and will start anew in a world quite different from what we have now. While the infrastructure of modern technology will become useless until some kind of rebuilding investment that restores it, that recovery will remain possible because the survivors will not simply forget the knowledge of how that technology works. They will carry the lingering memories of it through several generations, and the same human intelligence and curiosity that brought about in the first place will find a way to bring it back with improvements.
There is already a large cadre of elites preparing to survive the solar catastrophes. It doesn't matter how they understand the threat; the bunkers exist and many more are being built right now. There is a substantial community of more common folks who also know about it. Those who lack the access to the extravagant funding of the elites are doing what they can to prepare less fancy accommodations. Further, there will always be the fortunate few who survive simply because the Creator is indulgent with some. Either way, a decent population will survive this catastrophe.
What's really going to be messy is the events leading up to that magnetic pole shift and micro-nova. The same thing that provokes those two events is going to provoke lesser catastrophes along the path. We will surely see some flares and CMEs that challenge our life support infrastructure. The two main weaknesses are the electrical grid and the Internet. Neither of them is shielded against the threat of major CMEs. And a really big flare is likely to overload everything electronic. Over the next couple of years the sun will be at one of its cyclical peaks of sunspot activity, so between even moderate flare/CME activity, and our weakening geomagnetic shield, everything from the satellites in the sky to networking cables in the bottom of the oceans will likely fail at some point.
That evangelical fever from the last two End Times revivals was misplaced. They both consistently and vehemently missed the point. Getting people to change their beliefs will not compel God to somehow include them in His eternal household. Eternal spiritual birth is not a change of mind; it's something God alone understands and the New Testament does not teach a sales pitch evangelism. What it teaches is embracing the Covenant regardless of consequences, temporal or eternal. Your duty to God starts right here, and it demands your whole heart in faith and conviction, embracing Christ as your feudal master. Despite the rhetoric, that wasn't really part of the End Times revival zeal.
A heart given to Covenant and conviction has always been God's demand, from as far back as the days when Israel camped around Mount Sinai. Christ renewed and clarified that same call. There were yet thousands of years before the crises now before us, and yet the call from Heaven was the same. It hasn't changed. It's quite possible God could relent and none of the solar catastrophes strike us; God can adjust His own Creation on-the-fly to suit His purpose. It could all fizzle. It doesn't change the call from Heaven.
All it does is reveal to us who will see these things something of His glory that has not been seen before. Whether it be massive beyond comprehension or just a minor shake-up here and there, it will give us a testimony to share if we should survive. And if He intends to take you Home, none of your preparations will do you an good.
Go ahead and prepare according to your convictions. Study the Covenant and apply it. The key is not the outcomes, but your obedience. Keep your eye on the mission.
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