The Never Ending Last Days?

The Never Ending Last Days?
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THESE ARE THE LAST DAYS, cries a radio preacher who calls himself a prophet of God; so read numerous newsletters and religious publications; so teaches the television evangelist with a book on prophecy for sale; so say and think concerned citizens throughout the land. So has it been said for 2000 years!

As the Scriptures say, there is nothing new under the sun and so it is with men and their last days theology. Gary DeMar in his book “Last Days Madness,” which shows the list of such men is long and dated, going back as early as the second and third centuries. For example, there was Montanus, a self appointed prophet of God predicting the end.

“In the third century, a prophet called Novatian gathered a huge following by crying, ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’ Donatus, a fourth-century prophet, commanded attention when he stressed that only 144,000 people would be chosen by God. He found this magic figure in Revelation 14:1 (a verse which the Jehovah’s Witnesses use to proclaim their own version of his heresy). Both Novatian and Donatus were branded as heretics by the Church.” (The Sky is Falling, in Future, John C. Souter, Wheaton, IL, Tyndale 1984)

Martin Luther wrote in 1532: “The last days is at hand. My calendar has run out. I know nothing more in my Scriptures.” (Misreading the Signs of the Times, Mark Noll; Christianity Today (February 6, 1987), pp. 10-11; Also see Mark U. Edwards, Jr., Apocalyptic Expectations: The Scourge of God, in Luther’s Last Battles: Politics and Polemics, 1531-46 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983) pp. 97-114) As the year 1000 A.D. drew near, the old St. Peter’s basilica was thronged with weeping, trembling masses awaiting the end of the world. Then there was a similar conviction in 1100, 1200 and 1245. “In 1531, Melchior Hofmann announced that the second coming would take place in the year 1533–