John Hagee, The 7th Day Adventists & False Rapture Predictions

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits Podcast. The title of this episode is John Hagee, the Seventh-day Adventist, and False Rapture Predictions. When are people going to learn?

Why Christians Must Not Set Dates for Christ’s Return

You don't set dates for the return of Christ. And even if you don't set a date, it's wrong to at least heavily imply that it's going to happen tomorrow or it's right here, it's going to take place as in like soon, this week or this year.

It's one thing to say the return of the Lord is imminent and watch and be ready. It's another thing to kind of string people along. And that's what I think John Hagee did. I'm going to show you the clip in a moment.

You remember his four blood red moon prediction? That's actually what got me into discernment because I sort of fell for that back in 2014. And I thought John Hagee was like this Baptist, Bible-believing.

I didn't realize he was a charismatic, word-of-faith televangelist. I mean, I knew he was on TV, but I didn't realize his theology. So I kind of got sucked into that and I learned a valuable lesson.

But you don't set dates. What did Jesus say? Matthew 24, right? His disciples ask him about his return and the end of the age. Jesus said in Matthew 24, 36,. But of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

In several other places, including 1 Thessalonians 5, this is repeated many times that either the return of Christ or the day of the Lord, which I believe the return of Christ triggers the day of the Lord.

It happens like what? A thief in the night. It's going to come as a surprise in the fact that nobody knows when it's going to happen. Jesus said in Luke 13, 39 and 40,. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.

Therefore, you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. I don't fault John Hagee for pointing to things in the Bible and things in the Middle East and calling people to be ready and to watch.

That's not the problem. It's, well, I'm going to show you the clip in a moment, but there's been a lot of people who have set dates for the rapture and the second advent of Christ, and you know, depending on your theology, those are two separate events or the same event.

I'm not going to get into that. But we need to learn a lesson here. So this goes back all the way to the seventh day Adventist, the Jehovah's Witnesses, on and on it goes, and people continue to do things.

Even now, Harold Camping, right? Back a decade ago. Jack Van Impey, he did something like this. Chuck Smith from Calvary Chapel, he set a timeline that was going to happen by the end of 1980, or there's that book about 1988, and just, it never ends.

So I'm going to show you a clip in a moment from the YouTube channel, Revealing Truth, where he talks about John Hagee and his failed blood moons prediction, and how Hagee has recently doubled down by saying that the recent solar eclipse is somehow biblical evidence that the rapture is about to happen.

And to be fair, John Hagee did not set a specific date, but many have. And like I said, Harold Camping and many others, and it really, it just makes, it makes Christians look bad. Not only does it bring accusations against that teacher, I don't know why anyone would want to do this.

You're going to get called a false teacher and a false prophet if you do this. But I guess it, you know, gets a lot of clicks, sells a lot of books, so people continue to.

Do it.

False Predictions in Adventist and Jehovah’s Witness History

And like I said, this is nothing new. This happened even back in Bible times. People did this type of thing. Paul warned Timothy and 2 Timothy 2 about two men, Hymenaeus and Philetus. They were teaching the people that the resurrection had already passed.

So it looks like they were teaching people that Jesus already came back. The resurrection already happened and you missed it. Did Paul discover that it was those two men who wrote to the Thessalonians telling them that they had missed Christ return and that they were living during the day of the Lord or the tribulation based on 2 Thessalonians 2.

It looks like someone forged a letter claiming to be from Paul spreading this false claim. And while people today are not necessarily forging Scripture, you know, setting dates like that, they do twist the Scripture and make it say something that it isn't saying.

So it's the same type of thing. But just jump ahead in history from Hymenaeus and Philetus to how the Seventh-day Adventist church, I mean, that whole movement was started by a famous evangelist named William Miller.

He set a date for Jesus to return in 1843. When it didn't happen, what did he do? He set another date. And when that didn't happen, his followers just couldn't accept the fact that he was.

Wrong.

So they went on to found the Seventh-day Adventist church and they stuck with that 1844 date and they just kind of revised history and said, well, it wasn't the return of Christ, but something did happen.

It was just invisible.

Okay.

A few decades later, there was another offshoot of that movement, a guy named Charles Taze Russell. He started making similar predictions about Jesus's return in the end of the world. And yeah, same old situation.

It didn't happen. So he set another date and another date and that group became known as the Jehovah's Witnesses. Then back in the 1990s, so a little more recent, there is yet another offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventist movement.

So the Seventh-day Adventists really kind of led to the Jehovah's Witnesses. And in the 1990s, there was a Seventh-day Adventist offshoot, a group known as the Branch Davidians. You might recognize the name David Koresh.

In Waco, Texas, he started teaching that he was a prophet sent by God, maybe even the Lamb of God himself. And he predicted an end-of-the-world scenario. And of course, he turned out to be yet another false prophet.

John Hagee’s Blood Moons and Eclipse Claims

Now, again, before I show this clip, in fairness, John Hagee, he is not as extreme as those people I just mentioned. But still, with the four blood moon thing and how he hyped that up, and now he's doing it again with this thing about the eclipse.

Let's just watch the video.

You may remember 10 years ago, he had a book on the four blood moons and taught that the rapture was going to happen somewhere between April 15, 2014 and September 28, 2015. And he had much of the Christian world on board with his predictions.

But they didn't come to pass. And it was yet another false rapture prediction. So in today's recent video, we'll hear him doing this yet again.

And he's sending this solar eclipse on April 8 tomorrow to warn the body of Christ to prepare for the rapture of the church. I wouldn't tell you something that bold if I didn't have a strong Bible foundation for.

It.

And here it is, Luke 21, 25. The Bible says, and there shall be signs in the sun. That's going to be tomorrow. And then there will be signs in the moon. That's the four blood moons that have already happened, about which I wrote this book that sold over a million copies in a very short period of time.

It's mind boggling that he would arrogantly boast about his book sales on a prediction that didn't come true. That's some twisted sense of pride.

The four blood moons and the stars. So the sun, the moon, and the stars are in fact celestial evangelists who are trying to communicate to people who read the Bible. The Bible says, then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

These, now the Bible says, and these things begin to happen. Look up and lift your heads because your redemption draweth nigh. That's what God is saying.

And that's the biblical truth. But it doesn't mean that the rapture was going to happen tomorrow as he was leading people to believe.

Do you have scripture that the heavens are God's billboard? Absolutely. Joel chapter 2 verses 30 and 31 says, I will show you wonders in the heavens and the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

That describes the war that you're seeing on television right now in Israel. Blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

He speaks with such confidence and that's one reason people follow him. But what he's given is simply an opinion. Just like he did with his book on the past four blood moons. He states things as facts when they're just observable possibilities.

And the sun shall be turned into darkness. That's going to happen tomorrow. And the moon to blood, the four blood moons that I've talked about. What? Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.

What is the great and awesome day of the Lord? It's the rapture of the church.

And I agree with him. The only thing is that he's a pre-trib rapture believer. And there's more things still going to happen before this cosmic event happens. And the church is rapture.

Then the scripture is established by two witnesses. Acts 2 19 says, and I will show wonders in the heaven above. Tomorrow is one of those. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood. Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.

Again, that's the rapture. Jesus warns us in Luke 21 25. And there shall be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars. When these things begin to happen. Listen, when they begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads.

Because your redemption draweth nigh. The rapture is on the verge of happening.

But once again, that would mean that the previous five seals in Revelation had already been opened. The Antichrist was ruling and the world was in far more chaos than it is right now. Based on what we read happening after the first five seals are opened.

Now he goes on to speak about Israel and history. But may have some points a bit muddled. Yet sells his reasons with confidence and finishes off saying this.

The date of the rapture of the church has been known in heaven since Genesis one in one. It is true that God does not tell us the day nor the hour. That's a 24 hour period. But we most assuredly can know the season that is going to happen.

Whenever Noah's generation knew there was a flood coming. When that man got the ark built and the animals on and the door was shut. They knew the flood was coming. The same is true with us. The Bible is saying over and over again.

When you see these signs, lift up your heads. Your redemption draweth nigh. When you see this solar eclipse tomorrow, lift up your hands and shout. Even so, come Lord Jesus. We're ready to leave this world.

Hallelujah.

Okay.

Why Hagee’s Claims Don’t Fit His Own Theology

So there is some stuff in there about the mid-trib, pre-trib rapture versus mid-trib and post-trib. The YouTube channel Revealing Truth is not pre-trib. And like I said before, I'm not interested in getting into that debate.

In this video, the bigger point is this. Hagee at best. Okay, at best, John Hagee is stating his opinions and presenting them as like fact. This is just a fact. This is what the Bible teaches. But at worst, John Hagee is making false claims.

Twisting the word of God. And I think that's what he's doing. I don't see any way around it.

Why?

Because John Hagee said that Joel's prophecy is being fulfilled right now. And how is that? Well, that's the war going on right now in Israel. How is that Joel's prophecy being fulfilled? I mean, that's not true.

If that were true, which it's not, it would mean we are living in the tribulation right now. Because that's what Joel is talking about. The tribulation period. And what's even more confusing, that doesn't even fit with John Hagee's own pre-trib theology.

I mean, if you believe in the pre-trib rapture, there are no signs preceding the rapture of the church. There's no signs for the rapture. So it doesn't even fit with Hagee's own beliefs. Now, if you're post-trib, then or mid-trib or post-trib, you're not going to know that you're in the tribulation until the Antichrist goes into the temple and demands to be worshipped as God.

So either way you slice it, what Hagee is saying, it just doesn't add up. So I hope you get the point. This all may sound exciting. It might sell a lot of, I think it tickles ears. Yeah, it sells a lot of books, tickles ears.

It gets a lot of clicks on Facebook and YouTube. But really, this is a total mishandling of the Word of God. So before we end the podcast, let me just say this. As believers, we are told to watch. We are told to be ready.

Could the events going on right now in the Middle East, could it lead to the end times?

Yeah, it could.

Could the rapture be right around the corner? Yes, it could. But we can't be chasing signs, not like this, and making really what are outrageous claims like this, that Joel's prophecy is being fulfilled right now.

It's reckless. It's totally reckless. It's unbiblical. Because let's just say that the Lord tarries for another five years. Jesus doesn't come back for another five or ten years. And let's say the war in Israel ends.

There's been wars in Israel before, and they've ended. Then they start another one. Then that's ended. So if the war in Israel ends, and then you get five years of peace, I mean, that just proves that what John Hagee said is happening, being a fulfillment of Joel's prophecy.

I mean, that just proves that he's wrong. And here's maybe even a bigger issue. It doesn't shake my faith in God's Word, because I realize John Hagee is mishandling.

Scripture.

False Teaching Damages Faith and Makes Christians Look Bad

But John Hagee has probably millions of followers, and they believe what he is saying is true. And when these things don't happen, just like with the Seventh-day Adventists and the whole Adventist movement back in 1843, 1844, a lot of those people, when Jesus didn't come back, they didn't just leave the movement.

They left Christianity because they were under the tutelage of a false prophet or a false teacher. And in their mind, they think they're being taught God's Word, and God let me down. Jesus was supposed to come back.

The Bible said so. You know, all these signs, and it's not true, and it shakes people's faith in God's Word. God never said this to begin with. This is a mishandling of God's Word. So it really does damage people's faith.

It makes Christians look bad. And in conclusion, I just suggest the best thing to do is steer clear of these ministries. As a pastor, my advice to you, steer clear of these ministries who mishandle the Word of God.

Yes, watch for the return of Jesus. Be ready. Even what about keeping an eye on things in the Middle East?

Great.

Sure.

Yeah.

But don't get carried away. And whatever you do, whatever you do, do not set dates or put a timeline on the return of Christ. I'll just close with what Jesus said in Matthew 24. Just as a reminder, Matthew 24, 36, Jesus said, but of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

Thanks for listening. And until next time, may the Lord be with you. Have a great day.