My interests in Israel and Bible prophecy began in 1967 at summer camp just days after the June Arab-Israeli six-day war. Camper competitions required that we write a team theme song and my group came up with a lyric about Israel put to the secular top-40 tune G-L-O-R-I-A, substituting the suggestive nature with words of victory and celebration as we spelled out I-S-R-A-E-L. But, as an uninformed teenager I had little-to-no understanding of the prophetic significance of Israel turning back their attackers and taking Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
As an early-70’s SoCal college student many of my contemporaries attended Hal Lindsey’s Jesus Christ Light and Power Company on the campus of UCLA. We became familiar with Lindsey’s bestseller The Late Great Planet Earth and my eschatological interests were piqued, but not enough to make me want to really dig into the deep study of the prophets and latter-day things.
Through the next 30 years I had an off and on interest in things prophetic. I knew the reestablishment of Israel in our time was a big deal, but the scope of the whole story pretty much escaped me. My four years at one of the nation’s leading Christian colleges gave me very little help in the understanding of Biblical prophecy, and my education in my home church was non-existent.
In the little I did study on the subject I began to develop a personal philosophy about end-times things that could pretty much be expressed this way: “There are many opinions about what the Bible says prophetically. I believe this; Jesus came the first time in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, and he said he’s coming again, so I choose to believe him. But, Jesus also said that no man knows the day or the hour of his return.” I interpreted Matthew 24:36 to mean that there’s really no need to study the Bible’s prophetic passages, outside of their spiritual applications for the church today. To take prophecy literally was hardly possible. So I developed the attitude of many, “Some people are premillennial, some amillennial, and some or postmillennial. I’m panmillennial. I believe it’s all going to ‘pan out’ in the end.” Cute.
I became a Christian musician, a youth pastor, a Christian high school teacher, a music pastor, an associate and senior pastor, a church planter, a church leadership consultant and a denominational leader in the conservative evangelical movement, all while holding this somewhat glib opinion of Biblical prophecy.
Even the casual spiritually-sensitive observer would have to admit that in the latter half of the 20th century a “prophetic community” of voices have emerged. With the expansion of Christian TV as well as the accessibility of the internet, these theologians have established a platform where a growing number have found those who teach on the subject, people like Zola Levitt, Hal Lindsey (yep, he’s still going), J.R. Church of Prophecy in the News and David Reagan of Lion and Lamb Ministries among many others. Add to this he growing number of authors who are encouraging believers to accept the fact that one quarter of the Bible is prophetic and to ignore the prophetic nature of the Bible is like deliberately ripping out huge portions of the Bible.
My prophetic adventure eventually lead me to Israel, a place I had long wanted to visit. This experience changed my life. I have done my lion’s share of international travel, but Israel offered a spiritual component to my travel explorations like I have never known. I toured with a group of church leaders, but my experience was intensely personal. I have plans to go back, I want to go back, many times. At the end of our pilgrimage I had a chance to share what the trip meant to me. I broke down with emotion as I expressed the experience of going up to Jerusalem toward the end of our trip. I realized I was going to the city of the Lord, the city of great meaning to the Jew (and the Muslim) but for me, a Christian gentile.
I won’t get preachy here, but there was a lot in Israel for me, and I have learned that there is hardly a person who has gone to Israel who doesn’t share a similar experience.
I came home and began to immerse myself in Bible study about Israel, the Bible prophets, and the eschatological world events that I see every day in the news. I began to share my studies with my wife, my family, friends at church, in the Bible classes that I teach and in restaurants over my taco. Israel and Bible prophecy has become central to my entire worldview as never before.
Many have encouraged me start a blog where I can teach and share my stuff. The problem is that I have found a lot of teachers out there who know a lot more than me who’s calling it is to be “watchmen on the wall.” So I have decided that I would share primarily what I am learning from others along with an occasional word from my own heart.
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