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What is this?
Signs of the times aren't that different from the past
Published Saturday, July 4, 2009
News flash — famine in Russia kills one third of its population.
War rages in Europe and Asia. The government of Japan is overthrown by a military coup.
Outbreaks of disease plague millions. Immigrants pour into overcrowded boats heading for America. People have abandoned traditional values and are living in decadence.
End time books and tracts appear with titles like, “Babylon is Fallen,” “The Antichrist; Where He is Born, of His Person and Miracles,” “The End of this World and Second Coming of Christ,” and “Exposition in Apocalypse.”
This is not a picture of the near future, but a glimpse back four hundred years to the year 1609!
Many followers of Christ believed world events and Bible prophecy indicated that Jesus was coming soon. They weren’t the first generation to feel that way, nor the last. Obsession with the imminent return of Christ and the end of the world is a recurring experience in the history of the Christian church. Ever since John first penned the New Testament book of Revelation — literally, “The Apocalypse”) twenty centuries ago, Christians have been speculating on the Second Coming.
In a recent Newmax magazine article entitled, “Will He Return?” David Patten takes a look back through church history.
He reminds us that bishops of the Ecumenical Council of 999 declared that the world would come to an end on January 1, 1000.
They based their belief on the fact that one thousand years had passed since Jesus’ birth. Weeping throngs of people gathered at St. Peter’s in Rome on New Year’s Eve, expecting Christ’s return.
During the 1300’s, as many as one-third of Europe’s population died of the Black Plague. Religious leaders were certain that this was an indication of the end of the world and predicted a series of second comings that never arrive.
Christopher Columbus predicts in his 1502 Book of Prophecies that the Judgment Day will take place in 1657.
His prediction was based on St. Augustine’s statement that the world would end in the 7th millennium following creation.
Physicist Isaac Newton predicted Christ’s return in 1715. Newton was a great scientist, but a poor prophet.
Two world wars in the 20th century kept many preoccupied with end times speculation.
The Antichrist was thought to be Stalin, Mussolini, or Hitler. The establishment of the state of Israel in Palestine in 1948 created a huge buzz among prophecy pundits as this was believed to be a sign of the soon Second Coming of Christ.
In 1988, former NASA engineer, Edgar Whisenant, published the book, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture will be in 1988.
When 1988 came and went, he wrote another book predicting 1989 to be the year; then 1993; then 1994. After that, his book sales dropped off.
Remember the Y2K hysteria surrounding the year 2000? Everyone rushed out to buy new computers except some prophecy experts.
They were certain the new millennium would trigger the Rapture of the church and usher in a literal thousand year kingdom of Christ centered in Jerusalem.
Del Loy is the pastor at Crosspoint Church in Natchez. This is a first in a three part series on the signs of the times.
Comments
Posted by nardonri (anonymous) on July 4, 2009 at 12:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Where on earth did you come up with the idea that an Ecumenical Council in the year 999 announced that the world would end in the year 1000 ? In the first place there was no such council. In the second place Pope Sylvester II was working on a long-range plan for reorganizing the Church. And so in the third place there were no weeping crowds at St. Peter's waiting for the world to end. Please post a correction !
Posted by rdbroussard (anonymous) on July 4, 2009 at 2:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Greedings,
In your article you mentioned the Ecumenical Council of 999, in searching the list of the Councils I find no such Council.
In Luke 21:8 Jesus said: He answered, 'See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he,' and 'The time has come.' DO NOT FOLLOW THEM!
Would you please comment on this passage of Luke.
Thanks,
Fr. Richard
Posted by msfixit (anonymous) on July 4, 2009 at 2:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
There was no council held in 999. The closest date to it was the Council of Pavia held in 996, which was not an ecumenical council, but rather a limited one held to determine who was actually pope between two rival claimants for the papacy. A search indicates no statements made about the end times at that Council. Indeed, in popular piety there were many people who believed that the world would end in the year 1000, and there was some of the same mindset evident that we saw more recently in the Y2k frenzy. The church, however, made NO official pronouncement regarding the end times, and as the first poster pointed out, Sylvester II, one of the great reformers of the church, was busy with his plans of reform. This is not the first time that Pastor Loy has made misstatements regarding church history or the teachings and practices of the Catholic Church. I recommend he be a little more careful in his research next time. Perhaps he could get in touch with Father O'Connor to make sure he is not about to publish an error.
Posted by southernbelle (anonymous) on July 6, 2009 at 8:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Still and all,ya'll, history usually does repeat itself.
Posted by msfixit (anonymous) on July 6, 2009 at 10:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I agree, Southernbelle. I am a firm believer in Santayana's statement that "those who do not know the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them." My beef is with people who put erroneous statements in a public forum when a little effort at fact-checking would prevent the error.
Posted by jaayden (anonymous) on July 6, 2009 at 3:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
http://w3.newsmax.com/a/apr09/jesus/
Posted by frogprincenessntz (anonymous) on July 6, 2009 at 5:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Very interesting link, jaayden. Makes for good reading.
Posted by msfixit (anonymous) on July 6, 2009 at 5:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Interesting article, but I notice that the author did not give citation for where he got his historical information. I say again--there was NO Ecumenical Council in 999. I realize that this was not meant to be a scholarly article, but how hard would that piece of information been to check? Now, in fairness there may have been some local council of bishops that made such a statement, but it was not done at a general council of the Church. There have been 21 Ecumenical Coucils http://www.newadvent.org/library/almanac...
None of them were held anywhere in the vicinity of 999.
As I said in my first post, there was some movement in popular piety that said that the end of the world would happen at the end of the first millenium, but I take leave to doubt that "throngs" gathered at St. Peter's. It would take some doing for throngs of any kind to have gathered at Constantine's basilica of St. Peter, which was a pretty tiny place, especially when compared to the Renaissance/baroque St. Peter's which stands now, and was furthermore surrounded by the homes, shops, streets, and alleyways of medieval Rome. There was no great square. Source: Basilica, by R.A. Scott. Not everybody can be a church historian, but it does pay to fact-check.
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