Hal Lindsey

Harold Lee "Hal" Lindsey (born November 23, 1929) is an American evangelist and Christian writer. He is a Christian Zionist and dispensationalist author. He currently resides in Texas.

Biography

He was born on November 23, 1929 to Percy Lacy Lindsey and Daisy Lee Freeman in Houston, Texas. Lindsey suspended his course of study at the University of Houston to serve in the Korean War, then worked as a Mississippi River tugboat captain.

He entered Dallas Theological Seminary in 1958 (with the help of Lt. Col. Robert Thieme, pastor of Berachah Church in Houston, which Lindsey had attended) where he studied with John F. Walvoord, author of the 1974 best-seller Armageddon, Oil, and the Middle East Crisis. He graduated from Dallas with a Master of Theology, majoring in the New Testament and early Greek literature.^[1] With Jan, his second wife, he worked with Campus Crusade for Christ and continued with them until 1969. He then helped a mission in Southern California which continued until 1976. He was also a frequent speaker and Sunday School teacher at Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim, California. In 1969, he wrote his first, and best-known book, The Late, Great Planet Earth.

Published in 1970 by Zondervan, The Late, Great Planet Earth became a bestseller. Coming on the heels of the Six-Day War, the book fueled the popularity of dispensationalism and its support of ethnic Jews as the "chosen people of God". Many of Lindsey's later writings are sequels or revisions and extensions of his first book. In 1994, he earned his Doctorate of Theology from California School of Theology.^[2]

Lindsey hosted International Intelligence Briefing on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and serves on the executive board of Christian Voice.^[3]

International Intelligence Briefing was removed from the air on TBN for the entire month of December 2005. Lindsey claimed that this was because "some at the network apparently feel that [his] message is too pro-Israel and too anti-Muslim."^[4] TBN owner Paul Crouch, however, contended that "TBN has never been and is not now against Israel and the Jewish people."^[5] Crouch said that Lindsey's show was pre-empted for Christmas programming. Lindsey countered that this was the first time his show had been preempted for the entire month of December. TBN later admitted that a secondary reason for pre-empting the show was that it "placed Arabs in a negative light."^[6]

Lindsey resigned from TBN on January 1, 2006, and indicated that he would pursue another television ministry. His new program, The Hal Lindsey Report, is focused on Biblical prophecy and current events, and is carried on the Angel One and DayStar networks. In January 2007, Lindsey announced that he would be returning to the TBN network. The Hal Lindsey Report airs on TBN under his own financing.^[7]

He wrote in an essay on WorldNetDaily that Barack Obama was paving the way for, and demonstrating the world's readiness for, the antichrist, "Obama is correct in saying that the world is ready for someone like him – a messiah-like figure, charismatic and glib ... The Bible calls that leader the Antichrist. And it seems apparent that the world is now ready to make his acquaintance."^[8]

Biblical interpretations

The core of Lindsey's teachings is a dispensationalist interpretation of the implications of Jesus Christ as presented in the four gospels of the New Testament as the divine Son of God and the Jewish Messiah.^[9] He teaches from the Bible that Jesus Christ will return from heaven to earth someday and establish eternal peace, happiness, prosperity, and harmony among all people.^[10]

Lindsey states that the Bible contains numerous prophecies that foretell of certain conditions and events that will occur in the world prior to Christ's return. He states that, as these things occur, they are to serve as signs and reminders that we are in the era that the Bible calls the end times or last days.^[11] Lindsey teaches that the prophetic event that officially begins the end times is the regathering of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland to form an independent nation after a prolonged worldwide dispersion.^[12] He states that the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948 is the fulfillment of this major prophecy. He also states that the last seven years of the end times is a period known as the Tribulation; which is described in the gospel of Matthew and the book of Revelation.

In the The Late Great Planet Earth, Lindsey wrote that the biblical prophets identified certain nations that would ally with other countries to form "four major spheres of political power" during the same time era that Israel would be reestablished as a nation.^[13] Lindsey wrote that these nations and their allies can be identified as: (1) Russia with its allies, (2) China with other nations of the Orient, (3) Egypt with other Middle East countries, and (4) an alliance of Western European nations.^[14]

According to Lindsey, the alliance of Western European nations is a revived form of the ancient Roman Empire; predicted in the books of Daniel and Revelation symbolically as ten horns and ten kings.^[15] In The Late Great Planet Earth, Lindsey quotes from a 1969 Time Magazine that the goal of the European Economic Community, which preceded the European Union, was to establish a ten-nation economic community.^[16] Lindsey concludes, based on this and other sources, that this alliance will lead to the fulfillment of this prophecy and will ultimately be ruled by the Antichrist.^[17] The European Union currently has 28 members.

Lindsey noted that the prophets did not directly or indirectly refer to the United States of America. He concluded that this an indication that the U.S. will no longer be a leader on the world geo-political stage by the time the Tribulation of the end times arrived.^[18]

In a later book, titled, The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon,^[19] he indicated that he believed it was possible that the battle of Armageddon could take place in the not too distant future, stating, "the decade of the 1980s could very well be the last decade of history as we know it.".^[20] He noted again that there is no reference to the U.S. in Bible prophecy. He listed a few scenarios that seemed plausible to him at the time: (1) A takeover by communists, (2) destruction by a surprise Soviet nuclear attack, or (3) becoming a dependent of the 10-nation European community.^[21] The book was on the NY Times bestseller list for over 20 weeks.

Planet Earth – 2000 A.D., published in the early 1990s, states that Christians should not plan to still be on earth by the year 2000.

Lindsey's earlier predictions all assumed that the Cold War would continue indefinitely, and had eschatological significance; he explicitly identified Russia with the apocalyptic figure of Gog. He also assumed that the 1960s counterculture would eventually become the dominant culture, and become the source of prophesied "immorality" that would lead to the establishment of a false religion.

Bibliography

• The Late, Great Planet Earth
• Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth
• The Liberation of Planet Earth
• There's a New World Coming
• The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon
• The Final Battle
• The Terminal Generation
• Planet Earth: The Final Chapter
• Rapture
• Planet Earth – 2000 A.D.
• Apocalypse Code
• Blood Moon
• Vanished into Thin Air: The Hope of Every Believer
• The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad
• Lindsey, Hal (1989-06-01). The Road to Holocaust. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-05724-9. 

See also

• Christian eschatology
• Summary of Christian eschatological differences
• Christian Voice (USA)

References

External links

• Hal Lindsey's web site
• Hal Lindsey commentaries on WorldNetDaily
• The Hal Lindsey Report at Daystar Television Network
• The Hal Lindsey Report at Trinity Broadcasting Network
• Hal Lindsey at Rapture Ready
• Hal Lindsey at the Internet Movie Database
• International Intelligence Briefing at the Internet Movie Database