Breaking the Cycle of Pop-Prophecy
By Robert E. Cruickshank, Jr. (March 7, 2026)
Edited by Daniel E. Harden, Reviewed by Brett Prieto
[10-Minute Read Time]
According to new research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, “One third of Americans answer yes” to the question: “Do you believe the world will come to an end within your lifetime?” Commenting on the findings, Mimi Ko Cruz, University of California, Irvine, writes:
“Belief in the end of the world is surprisingly common across America, and it’s significantly influencing how people interpret and respond to the most pressing threats facing humanity,” says Matthew I. Billet, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Irvine Department of Psychology and the study’s lead author.
“We are living in a culture awash in apocalyptic imagery,” he says. “What we found is that apocalyptic thinking isn’t reserved for radical or fringe movements. These beliefs are held widely across diverse populations, and they have real consequences for how we confront global risks.”[1]
In my article From Pop-Prophecy to Pop-Culture, I discuss how the apocalyptic mindset is indeed the biggest crossover hit, so to speak, that the Church has ever released. Consider, for example, the use of the term Armageddon in political culture over the last 100+ years in comparison to its use in the book of Revelation.
Armageddon Appetite[2]
As Ian Paul points out ,
“‘Armageddon’ is mentioned once, in one verse of the Book of Revelation—which is in itself remarkable. The idea has a grip on both the popular imagination, and in certain Christian circles, out of all proportion to its presence in Scripture. This illustrates the remarkable power and influence that the Book of Revelation has had both within the church and in the wider world—which is why we actually need to engage with it.”[3]
This one (and only) mention in the book of Revelation is truly disproportionate to the attention it receives outside of the book of Revelation.
For example, to bolster support for his progressive Bull Moose Party in 1912, Teddy Roosevelt declared, “We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.”[4] Speaking to Alex Haley in May 1963, Malcolm X claimed, “The war of Armageddon has already started.”[5] On the PTL Club in 1980, Ronald Reagan told viewers: “We may be the generation that sees Armageddon.”[6] Well, they weren’t. And, in a somewhat disappointed tone, John McCain is quoted as saying, “We will have to wait a little longer to see if Armageddon has arrived.”[7]
Where did Teddy Roosevelt, Malcolm X, Ronald Reagan, and John McCain get their concept of Armageddon? They got it from religion, from the Church, from God’s own people. This is the message the Church was sending, and the culture got the message. These prominent political figures were just the background vocals for the song that so many of the Christian leaders were singing.
And the cultural reference was clear – the word Armageddon had become the name of the final cataclysmic war that would bring human history to a close.
As it turns out, 1912, 1963, and 1980 came and went without an apocalyptic trace. Teddy Roosevelt, Malcolm X, and Ronald Reagan were all wrong about our date with destiny. On that note, and to his credit, John McCain was the only one who seemed to realize that Armageddon had a problem actually showing up for a date.
To be more precise, it was the prophecy pundit’s version of Armageddon that was a no-show.
The Biblical Armageddon, on the other hand – the real battle of Armageddon – did in fact arrive on schedule. Knowing the context and the general use of the term Armageddon at the time that the New Testament was written makes all the difference. It paints a different picture than the one suggested by the brushstrokes on the canvas of pop-prophecy’s rendering.
The Battle That Already Happened
As Douglas Wilson points out, by the time of the New Testament, the term Armageddon had become “the symbolic name for the ultimate defeat of the enemies of God. Many commentators have pointed out that this word served the same way that the battle of Waterloo serves us. It refers indirectly to a location, but in general application it means catastrophic defeat.”[8] In the context of Revelation 16:16, “the grim reality represented by this convulsive battle,” writes Wilson, is best “understood as the demolition of Jerusalem”[9] which took place in AD 70.
So, the problem isn’t with God not keeping His schedule. The problem is with modern interpreters trying to reschedule what God has already brought to pass. The problem is with the prophecy pundits ignoring God’s agenda and interpreting fulfilled prophecy as unfulfilled. The problem is with them asking their hearers to save the date for the continually revised and rescheduled event.
In light of the Biblical version of Armageddon in comparison with the pop-prophecy version, Gary DeMar puts it well: Can We Stop All the Armageddon Talk?
Perpetuating Pop-Prophecy
While no one alive today was here in Teddy Roosevelt’s day, Boomers still remember Malcolm X, and Boomers and Gen-Xers still remember Ronald Reagan. Those same Boomers and Gen-Xers also remember Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth and Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series. After all, who could forget such blockbusters and best sellers? But the Boomers and Gen-Xers seem to have forgotten that the expectations of pop-prophecy sensation never materialized into realization.
Again, those decades rolled by, the countdowns expired, the deadlines lapsed, and the world didn’t end. 1988 came and went without the fulfillment of their anticipations. So did 1995, 2000, and many other dates that were set by those supposed “experts”[10] in prophecy.
We’re still here, so what now?
Rather than learning from past pop-prophecy mistakes, many Christian parents keep looking for the signs, trying to make Hal Lindsey’s late great flawed theology great again. Even though they got left behind in the aftermath of the successful sales of the date setters’ unsuccessful predictions, they continue to double down on the theology of the prophecy pundits’ erroneous eschatology.
As the Billet study revealed, among the one-third of Americans holding this view, “end-of-world beliefs generally declined with age, except among evangelical Protestants and Muslims, where they remained stable or even increased.”[11]
To the Third on Forth Generations
King Solomon famously said, “A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever” (Eccl. 1:4). This perfectly describes the results of the Billet study noted above. A generation of believers waiting for the end goes. They raise up a new generation of believers waiting for the end. Meanwhile, the earth remains. Jesus doesn’t come and blow it up, the pop-prophecy version of Armageddon never arrives, and a whole new generation wastes their lives believing the lies.
Ironically, while modern prophecy teachers keep resetting the timeline with every new generation, Jesus had already fixed the timeline within the first-century generation.
Jesus told His first-century audience that all the things He spoke of in the Olivet Discourse would come to pass before their generation passed away (Matt. 24:34). Today, parents of previous generations are propagating the errors of their own generation on the children of the next generation, unwitting causing their children to waste their childhoods away –waiting for the same misplaced prophetic events their parents did.
The pattern keeps repeating itself with no end in sight, as duped believers try to keep nothing but “the end” in their sights.
Their children suffer the consequences and pay the price.
The High Cost of Countdown Christianity
For example, Millennials and Gen-Zers, who grew up during LaHaye’s heyday, were traumatized by their parents’ misguided ways. One such person puts it bluntly:
“That’s stuck with me my whole life. I’m like, what did my parents do to me? What kind of trauma did they cause? And just looking back, after being more optimistic, that did affect me a lot. It really did. When I had that mindset of, you know, every day I’m thinking you know Jesus is coming back. If my parents left their room for too long, I’d think the Rapture happened and I’m left behind. I did something wrong. I didn’t get chosen.”[12]
The sad thing is that the parents of these children should have known better. Again, they had lived through so many failed prophetic predictions at this point. All the while, the incompetent failures who were making these failed predictions were rattling off Bible passages at a rapid-fire rate. So, they knew a lot of verses, but they didn’t actually know much about those verses.
They are the epitome of those who are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7).
The real issue was not a lack of verses, but a failure to recognize that many of those verses came stamped with their own expiration date.
The Bible’s Built-In Time Limits
One thing all of that learning, and all of those verses, should have taught them was that there was a time limit on so many of the Bible’s prophecies, and that time was up long ago.
According to the Billet study, one of the “key dimensions” influencing “how people think and act” in this area is “perceived closeness (how soon the end will arrive).”[13] In this regard, the Bible offers no shortage of passages showing certain events were going to be fulfilled within the lifetime of the original audience.
For example, Jesus says that He is “coming soon” four times in the book of Revelation (Rev. 3:11; 22:7, 12, 20).
Today, when people say that Jesus is “coming soon,” they mean that His coming is right around the corner, and could happen any day now. As the Forrest Frank song Jesus is Coming Back Soon puts it:
Jesus is coming back soon
Jesus is coming back soon
I can feel it in my bones
The day is coming close
Tell the world that they gotta know
Jesus is coming back soon[14]
The problem is that John could feel it in His bones 2000 years ago, and the day was coming close then – not now. Forrest Frank is a talented young musician, and musically the song is as good as anything else out there today, but like so many others, he’s waiting for something that’s already happened. In short, Jesus’s coming couldn’t have been “soon” 2000 years ago while also being “soon” today.
But for some reason, for the supposed “experts” that believe that Christ is about to return any day, “soon” supposedly didn’t mean the same thing when Christ spoke those words as it means now.
Putting the Ice on Biblical Imminency
According to Thomas Ice, passages like Revelation 3:11, 22:7, 12 and 22 “are more properly interpreted as qualitative indicators (not chronological indicators) describing how Christ will return. How will He return? It will be ‘quickly’ or ‘suddenly.’”[15] So, it’s not the when of the action that’s in view here, but the how of the action, according to Ice.
In other words, whenever Jesus finally does decide to come, He’s going to move really really really really really really really FAST! That, according to Ice, is supposedly what “soon” really means – despite the fact that John opens the book of Revelation by stating that Christ was showing the things “that must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1) and that “the time is near” (Rev. 1:3).
Perhaps Mr. Ice should get the memo out to Forrest Frank, because that’s clearly not how “soon” is meant to be understood in his song! Nor is it how most modern Christians take it. Nor should they. The word interpreted as “soon” is those words is tachu, and even Thayer’s makes a point of saying that it means “quickly, speedily (without delay)”.[16] The word does not carry such “qualitative indicators” in any exclusive sense, without “chronological indicators”. It’s simply a word that Christ uses to reiterate what was said at the beginning – that the events were on the verse of occurring.
And this is precisely the problem. For the prophecy pundits, “soon” means one thing today (i.e., coming close) but an entirely different thing in the Bible (i.e., suddenly or quickly). As it turns out, “soon” meant the same thing then as it means today – it meant without delay.
For example, consider Paul’s use of “soon” with regard to his hopes of coming to visit Timothy:
“I hope to come[17] to you soon,[18] but I am writing these things to you so that, if I’m delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:14).
We’ll never know if Paul made it “soon,” or if his coming to Timothy was “delayed.” But we do know that Jesus’s judgment-coming in the first century was on time. In order to see how and when these things were fulfilled, we need to be familiar with our Bible, and we need to be familiar with history.
There are many helpful resources that delve into the actual details of the many passages rattled off by the prophecy pundits, and how they were fulfilled in real time, in the first-century audience’s own time.
The Revelation commentary referenced above by Douglas Wilson, When the Man Comes Around, is a great place to start. For a more detailed treatment, David Chilton’s The Days of Vengeance is a timeless classic. For an academic-level, technical study of the relevant exegetical and historical issues, Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.’s two-volume set, The Divorce of Israel, is an invaluable resource that stands in a class of its own.
Finally, the commentaries by Ian Paul and Ian Boxall are extremely helpful. Ian Paul’s Revelation: An Introduction And Commentary is a wonderful commentary that blends historic insights, rigorous exegesis, and practical applications of the principles laid out in the book of Revelation. Ian Boxall’s A Commentary on the Revelation of St John is an excellent resource to help today’s believers inform their thinking rather than deform their thinking.
Parents would do well to put the pop-prophecy paperbacks down, replace them with books such as these that illuminate Scripture rather than distort it, and stop passing the recycled end-times hype on to the next generation.
Rebuilding Rather than Recycling
The bankrupt inheritance of pop-prophecy’s exegetical negligence has damaged the credibility of the Bible, the effectiveness of the Church’s witness in the world, and the minds of young believers for far too long.
It’s time for a change, and it’s time for God’s people to make that change.[19]
As a conservationist, I’m a huge fan of recycling, but some things are definitely not worth recycling. The perpetuation of pop-prophecy sensation is one of them. Rather than recycling the same junk eschatology, it’s time to act responsibly. It’s time to finally break the cycle. It’s time to rebuild on a better foundation than the fallen ruins that the prophecy pundits have left behind.
This will create a much better “environment” for today’s Christian children to grow up in. Let’s “conserve” the Biblical teaching on these matters and take out the trash of garbage theology.
Don’t be a part of the one-third of Americans in the Billet study, waiting for the world to end in your lifetime. Instead, spend your lifetime diligently studying God’s word (2 Tim. 2:15) and end the cycle of handing off pop-prophecy’s failed legacy to the next generation. That will haunt them for a lifetime if we don’t.
They deserve better.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[1] Mimi Ko Cruz, Study reveals how end-of-world beliefs shape Americans’ response to global threats | PHYS.ORG https://bit.ly/3Pfzuou
[2] From the Song “Armageddon Appetite,” by The Resurrection Band https://bit.ly/4sqBCrQ
[3] Ian Paul, Is the war in Iran the start of Armageddon? | Psephizo https://bit.ly/3PlcWTl
[4] By the People 13. June 24-Nov. 17,1912 https://bit.ly/4qxrY6I
[5] Alex Haley Interviews Malcolm X (May 1963) | ICIT Digital Library https://bit.ly/4ntKWZi
[6] REAGAN RECANTS : His Path From Armageddon to Detente – Los Angeles Times https://lat.ms/3Litp8U
[7] John McCain quote: We will have to wait a little longer to see… https://bit.ly/49z1ATM
[8] Douglas Wilson, When the Man Comes Around: A Commentary on the Book of Revelation ( Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2019), 190.
[9] Wilson, When the Man Comes Around, 191.
[10] As I write, CBN just published an article literally calling Jack Hibbs a “prophecy expert” (Bible Prophecy Expert Points to Scriptures About Iran and ‘the Captives of Elam’ in the Last Days | CBN News https://bit.ly/3ORHcVV). Apparently, failed predictions make you a “prophecy expert” these days. See my article here on Hibbs’s failed predictions.
[11] Q: Cruz, Study reveals
[12] The Madness Of 90’s Rapture Culture: Left Behind, Judgment Houses, and Tribulation Force | Eschatology Matters (YouTube), 2:44 – 3:10 https://bit.ly/4ltGc6J
[13] Q: Cruz, Study reveals
[14] Forrest Frank, Jesus is Coming Back Soon (Lyrics) | Lyric Genius https://bit.ly/47erQ3X ; Forrest Frank & Josiah Queen – JESUS IS COMING BACK SOON (Lyrics) | YouTube https://bit.ly/4lk9ioP
[15] Thomas Ice, Has Bible Prophecy Already Been Fulfilled? | Rapture Ready https://bit.ly/4aPagG6
[16] See also how the word ταχύ (tachu) is used in Rev. 11:14 – “The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come.” The idea that it means “without delay” or “in a short period of time” is entirely consistent with all of the other times it is used in the New Testament: Matt. 5:25; 28:7; 28:8; Mark 9:39; Luke 15:22; John 11:29; Rev. 2:16.
[17] In Revelation 3:11, 22:7, 12 and 22, the word is erchomai. In 1 Tim. 3:14, the word is elthein, which is actually an aorist infinitive form of the word erchomai. Paul uses erchomai to refer to his coming in 1 Timothy 4:13 – showing the synonymous nature of the world forms.
[18] In Revelation 3:11, 22:7, 12 and 22, the word is tachy. In 1 Tim. 3:14, the word is tachei. Tachy is the adverbial form of the word tachos, whereas tachei is the noun form in the dative neuter singular.
[19] From Michael Jackson, Man in the Mirror https://bit.ly/4b85ja6
