Not a Billy Graham Bible Study…

Bamboozled Believers is not your typical Billy Graham Bible study. And for a very good reason: Dr. Graham is wrong on an important, though not essential, point of theology. God has used this beautiful, eloquent, gracious man to present the gospel to millions, but God has allowed him to sing a song that is flawed.

His crusades and books consistently echo the same mantras… “We are living in the last days.” “Jesus’ return is imminent.” He warns about the Antichrist, Armageddon and the tribulation. He tells us that believers could be raptured at any minute and he asks: “If Jesus Christ returned today, are you ready?” He challenges us, asking: “Are you ready to meet your Maker?”

Each of us is only a heartbeat away from eternity so, amen! We should be ready to meet our maker. Amen! Dr. Graham is absolutely correct on the essentials about repentance and salvation; but he is absolutely wrong about Jesus’ imminent return. He’s been singing that song for sixty years and Jesus hasn’t returned. Before Dr. Graham, generations of preachers made that same mistake… they’ve all been wrong for centuries because they use prophecies that were fulfilled almost 2,000 years ago to try to predict our future.

Bamboozled Believers is not your typical Billy Graham Bible study because it highlights some inconvenient Bible facts:

• In a correctly translated Bible, Jesus never predicts the end of the world. He predicted the end of the Old Covenant age. And with the destruction of the temple in AD 70 his prophecy was fulfilled. The age of animal sacrifice at the temple came to an end.

• Six hundred years ago John Wycliffe made a big translation error. He translated the Greek word “aion” as “world” when it should have been “age.” And all of the Bibles that we used until about fifty years ago repeated that same error. Modern translations such as the NKJV, the NIV, the ESV, and the NASB correct the error; but we haven’t corrected our “end times” theology yet. For generations, good men like Dr. Graham have based their eschatology on a translation error. It is time to admit that we have been wrong.

• In at least a dozen places the gospels quote Jesus telling his disciples that he would return before they had all “tasted death” (Matt. 16:27,28) and before their generation had “passed away” (Matt. 24,34). We’ve used clever mental contortions to deny Jesus words; but his disciples knew that he meant what he said. We know this because…

• In John 21:23 we see that Jesus’ disciples expected that John might be one of the disciples who would live to see his return.

• In the last chapter of Revelation Jesus says: “I am coming soon.” “I am coming soon.” “ I am coming soon.” (Rev. 22:7,12 and 20)

• The Book of Revelation emphatically states that it deals with events that were “about to happen” (Rev. 1;1, 3, Rev. 22:6, 10). That was 2,000 years ago.

• That eager expectation of his imminent return permeates the New Testament. For example “Yet a very little while and he who is coming will come and will not delay” (Heb. 10:37).

Jesus said that no man would know the day or the hour of his coming; but thirty years later, just shortly before AD 70, John said that the last hour had arrived (1 Jn. 2:18). Have we been in the last hour for 15,000,000 hours? Jesus said that he would return before all of his disciples had died. If he didn’t, the Bible is nonsense. And if the second coming of Jesus Christ has already happened, then our end times doctrines are nonsense!

Do you know that Muslim, Atheist and Jewish websites mock us about supposedly unfulfilled prophecies? Our leaders have no response except to say that the Bible does not say what it so clearly does say… We are losing the intellectual battle. Bright young people see the contradictions and abandon the faith.

Do you want revival? Then repent! We have embraced a grand delusion and are too proud to admit it! In this little essay you have glimpsed a truth that will make the Bible make sense to you. There is so much more to say and that is the reason that I wrote Bamboozled Believers. It is not your typical Billy Graham Bible study; it is a call for a paradigm shift in our understanding of the Bible.

If you are a Bible-believing Christian, then you know that our Bible studies can be rather superficial. If you would like to get into the “meat” of God’s Word, read Bamboozled Believers and join our Facebook Meat Not Milk Bible study group.

Dr. Graham tells us to study God’s Word. Paul told Timothy: “Study to show yourself approved unto God…” (2 Tim. 2:15) I urge you to make a decision, make a commitment. Start a revival and let the revival start with you.

Are you ready to meet your maker?