Over thirty years ago I got off track! How so you might ask. Well as a newly minted Christian I had a fascination with the “last days” and anything that had to do with the “end times”. One of the first books that I purchased, besides the Bible, was Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth. That book had a profound effect on the way that I interpreted Bible passages that I assumed dealt with the “end time”. The book was published in 1970 by Zondervan Publishing House. I picked up my copy in 1983, thirteen years after its original publication date. 28 million copies had sold by 1990. Did I bother to check the claims made in this book against the scriptures? Nope! Sure didn’t. That is until a few short years ago!
Although Lindsey did not claim to know the dates of future events with any certainty, he suggested that Matthew 24:32-34 indicated that Jesus’ return might be within “one generation” of the rebirth of the state of Israel, and the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple. Lindsey asserted that “in the Bible” one generation is forty years. (...)