Battle of Armageddon

Armageddon? Is it past or future? Are millions possibly being led astray, again? The front cover of Publishers Weekly, January 13, 2003, featured this headline:

  • ‘ARMAGEDDON
    UNLEASHING EVERYWHERE APRIL 8, 2003’

On the inside cover it continued with this headline: ‘NO ONE WILL ESCAPE ARMAGEDDON.’ Fortunately, this alarming announcement was not about a real and so-called final “battle of Armageddon” at the supposed end of the world. At the time, this article was dramatically announcing the upcoming release of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ tenth blockbuster title in their wildly popular Left Behind series. Provocatively, it was titled Armageddon.

Even though this book was another work of fiction, LaHaye contends that his works of fiction are conduits of “God’s end-times truths” and they contain “prophetic knowledge that God expects His children to have” (Advertisement – “Introducing the LaHaye Prophecy Study Group,” Christianity Today, February 2003, 13).  The Left Behind series has proven to be the best vehicle to achieve his goal. Its reported 65 million copies (to date, 2011) are designed to reach people in a way his “non-fiction” books can not. And they are doing just that—literally influencing and convincing multiple millions toward LaHaye’s view.

Theological Problem:

The Left Behind series’ books are based upon an eschatological view that is not held by all Christians, and for good reasons. A case in point is this Armageddon book. To illustrate just how far off LaHaye and Jenkins are, they claim this battle will be fought in a valley. But as we shall soon see, it was to be fought on a mountain—the exact opposite from a valley.

What Scripture Says:

Below are ten biblical and historical reasons why the theology behind LaHaye and Jenkins’ Armageddon story line is flawed.

Elaborations:

Sources:

  1. The Greater Jesus  by John Noe
  2. The Scene Behind the Seen (future book – est. 2017) by John Noe
  3. “An Exegetical Basis for a Preterist-Idealist Understanding of the Book of Revelation,” article in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Dec. 2006) by John Noe
  4. The Perfect Ending for the World by John Noe
  5. The Last Days According to Jesus by R.C. Sproul
  6. The Days of Vengeance by David Chilton
  7. The Book of Revelation by Foy E. Wallace