Apocalypse by Camille Flammarion

Apocalypse is a  book filled with rich, gorgeous paintings from the last 1000 years of Christian art depicting different scenes from Revelation.  It is filled with the works of medieval artists, a good dose of Albrecht Durer, Peter Bruegel, Heironymous Bosch and William Blake as well as Gustave Dore who illustrated a 19^th century edition of Dante’s Inferno and many others, both known and unknown.

Then there are the words that accompany the paintings.

I can’t say they grace the page.  Darken would be a better description.

The words are from Camille Flammarion’s Le Fin du Monde which is his dissertation on how Christians from the time of Jesus Christ, and including Jesus Christ, got their facts wrong and this, ladies and gentlemen, proves hands down that atheists got it right and Christians are deluded fools.

Flammarion starts with Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:24 where Jesus states: 

I tell you that some of you will not taste death until you see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom.

and:

I tell you the truth, this generation shall not pass away until all these things have happened. (Matthew 24:34)

According to Flammarion, that generation came and went and Jesus didn’t come again so Christians, starting with St. Paul (who Flammarion asserts is the “real” founder of Christianity) had to “reinterpret” scripture and thus set a new date.

The entire book is devoted to naming various religious leaders, popes, apostles, evangelists, and cults that have predicted the date of the end of time for the last two thousand years.  Each and every one of them got it wrong. Case closed. Flammarion ends the book with his coup de grace:

This theological aspect of the last day of the earth has given way to the scientific study of the duration of our solar system....which makes man the centre and end of creation, has gradually transformed and eventually disappeared, for we know that our humble planet is but an island in the infinite, that human history has thus far been founded on pure illusions, and that the dignity of man lies in his intellectual and moral worth.  (pg. 246)

Flammarion’s sole premise is this:  Because Christians are wrong, atheists are right.

My question to the publishers  is this:  Why devote a book filled with fantastic Christian art while listing (carefully selected) people through out the years who practiced the un Biblical teaching of predicting the day and hour when Christ would return?  Why didn’t the publishers (and Flammarion) explain all the reasons atheism is right accompanied by art created by atheists? 

Let me explain what I mean when I say that Flammarion carefully selected his “witnesses” or should I say straw men?

Flammarion quotes part of Christ’s words but stops short.  In the same sermon Jesus goes on to say:

No one knows the date of hour, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son but only the Father.  (Matthew 24:36)

And in Acts 1:7:

 And He said to them:  It is not for you to know the date or the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority.

There are other passages as well but this is enough to show that anyone professing to be a Christian but thinks he knows the date and time of the end of the world (can we say Harold Camping?) are not following the teachings of Christ.

I’m not impressed that Popes and other religious leaders have tried to do so.  They weren’t basing their predictions on Scripture.  Many of these so called religious leaders in the Middle Ages were despots in disguise who used fear and intimidation as a means to maintain control and power.  It’s no surprise that Dante depicted more than a few of them suffering in his “Inferno.” 

Jesus spoke of false teachers and prophets as well: 

Then many false prophets will arise up and deceive many. (Matthew 24:11)

Finally this is my response to Camille Flammarion (were he alive) and to the publishers of Apocalypse:

They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation."

For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,

By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.

By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the Day of Judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives

as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.

But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. 2 Peter 3:4-14)

That’s a lot of scripture but at least it’s all in context which is more than Flammarian was willing to do.

Camille Flammarion was a French 19^th century astronomer. He was the author of many popular books on astronomy, including The Atmosphere (1871), Popular Astronomy (1879), and Astronomy for Amateurs (1904). Flammarion contributed to the study of multiple stars and made careful observations of the solar system. He believed that Mars was inhabited and that there was vegetation on the moon. He also made many balloon ascents, studying the upper regions of the atmosphere. (From the web site, How Stuff Works)

It’s interesting to note that Flammarion was highly interested in the occult and attended séances.  One quote seems to imply that he may have believed in reincarnation.  Strange contradictions in a man professing to rely solely on man’s intellect. I’ve included a web site that has a biography of him that was written in 1894.

In conclusion, Apocalypse is a great book as far as its collection of Apocryphal art.  I would have preferred different written content.

Biography of Camille Flammarion

Other links on End Times:

The Book of Daniel by Clarence Larkin

The Book of Revelation: Four Views

The Second Coming by John MacArthur

The False Prophet by Ellis Skofield

The Harbinger by Johnathon Cahn

The Apocalypse Code by Hank Hanegraaff

The Book of Daniel by Clarence Larkin

Clarence Larkin (1850-1924) is best known for his copious dispensational diagrams and charts on a host of theological subjects. His The Greatest Book on Dispensational Truth in the World sits on bookshelves far and wide. Much truth is contained therein. In the quote below, the "some books that fell into his hands" were books written by the original Plymouth Brethren.  (From the With Christ web site)

    

 This is part of the series of books I’ve been reviewing about end times.  In addition to Revelation, the book of Daniel is one of the most important books of the Bible that prophecy about world events.  Many of the prophecies have already come to pass as history has verified.  Today Christians examine this book to make sense of what is happening in our world today and where it is leading.

     Rev. Larkin takes the reader through each chapter in the book of Daniel and their meaning as it pertains to Daniel's time as well as its relevance to us. His book is divided into ten chapters.  Chapter one describes the beginning of Gentile dominion.  This started when Israel was taken away into captivity into Babylon.  Daniel was one of the young men that was taken away.  He and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego so impressed the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, that they become high officials and advisors to him.

    Chapter 2 records Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and Daniel’s interpretation. For those not familiar with the book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a giant image.  This image was of a man.  The man’s head was made of gold, his breast and arms of silver, his belly and thighs of brass, his legs of iron and his feet were part iron and clay. A stone hits the image and it breaks up into pieces.

 Daniel informs Nebuchadnezzar that this image represented the different powers that were going to succeed each other.   (For those not familiar with the scripture, go here.) Rev. Larkin breaks down each part of the body

Much of the dream has already transpired as historical events show.  Here is the breakdown:

1.  The Head of the Image:  The Babylonian Empire

2.   The Arms and Breast:  The Medo-Persian empire.

3.  The Abdomen:  The Greek empire.

4.  The Legs:  The Roman empire.

5.  The Feet and Toes:  Powers that are still to come.

6.  The Stone:  The Millennial Kingdom of Christ  (And in the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom, which shall never be destroyed:  and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand Forever.  (Daniel 2:44)

Chapter 3 is about the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar erected for everyone to worship.  Daniel’s friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse and are thrown into the fire.  Their response to the king is one of my favorite passages of scripture:

    Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If it be so, Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O King, but even if He does not, be it known unto you, O King, that we will not serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up." (Daniel 3;18)

    And, as we know, God does deliver them and Daniel records:

Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers "Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?" They replied, "Certainly, O king."

He answered and said, "Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like a son of the gods."  Daniel 3:25

  The 4, 5, and 6^th chapters form the rest of the historical part of Daniel and include the Tree Dream, the Fall of Babylon and the Lion’s Den.  The final chapters analyze Daniel’s visions and how they pertain to the future and our modern day.  He explains the meaning of the Four Wild Beasts, the Ram and the He Goat, the Seventy Weeks and the Scripture of Truth.  

    He also includes charts with time lines.  It’s important to note that Rev. Larkin takes a dispensationalist point of view when evaluating these scriptures.  So he interprets the Great Tribulation as a time that is still coming to the earth.  He also believes in a thousand year reign of peace following the return of Jesus Christ.

     He writes about the regathering of Jews to the nation of Israel. He calls this a “National Resurrection”.   He quotes Jeremiah 16:14-15 and Ezekial 37:11,12.  and explains that  the “dry bones” coming back to life are Israel becoming a nation again.  What’s exciting about this is that Larkin wrote his book in 1919.  It hadn’t even happened at the time of his writing.  Little did he know it was just around the corner!

  I found this book to be eloquently written and scripture lucidly explained.  If you weren’t excited about Christ’s coming before, you should be after Rev. Larkin explains the book of Daniel to you.

 

Additional links:

The Second Coming by John Macarthur

The False Prophet by Ellis Skolfield

The Harbinger by Johnathon Cahn

The Apocalypse Code by Hank Hanegraaff

Revelation: Four Views

http://www.gotquestions.org/tribulation.html

More information about Clarence Larkin:

Larkin Bookstore

http://www.biblebelievers.com/larkin/larkin_rightly-dividing.html

 

   

Revelation Four Views A Parallel Commentary ed. by Steve Gregg

Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins by William Blake (1822)

    This is the latest book I’ve finished about the book of Revelation and the end times.  I’ve heard so much about different view points I was glad to come across a book that categorizes and defines each view point.  This book takes the entire book of Revelation and outlines each verse and step by step gives each view’s interpretation of that piece of scripture.

     Before delving into the actual book of Revelation, the editor gives a historical background, the years  people believe  the book was written,  and why John the Apostle is the author.  He also analyzes its structure as to how the different prophecies were grouped and the order in which they were revealed.

   The next section describes each end time interpretation.

       The four viewpoints included  are:  Historicist, Preterist, Futurist, and Spiritual Approach

Historicist View:  Revelation surveys the whole of church history.   It aligns specific historic events with certain details in Revelation.

     Those who teach this approach today are rare but Gregg includes it in this volume because it survives today in most of the classic commentaries of the past centuries.  Historicists of the past include:  John Wycliffe, John Knox, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, John Foxe, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and C.H. Spurgeon.

      Historicists believe that God revealed the entire church age in advance through the symbolic visions of the apocalypse.  For example, the breaking of the seven seals (chap 6-7) is often said to be the barbarian invasions that sacked the Western Roman Empire.  The Scorpion/locusts that come out of the bottomless pit (ch 9) are the Arab hordes attacking the eastern Roman Empire.  “The beast” (ch. 13) represents the Roman papacy.  (From the Introduction.)

Preterist Approach:  fulfillment is in the past, shortly after the time of writing.  There are two types of Preterism.

   The first type of Preterists are also called Contemporary-Historical.  They are also called hyper or full Preterists- and are not Preterists in the evangelical sense.  They believe that contemporary elements of John’s own day can be identified in the symbolic language he uses.  They do not believe in any actual fulfillment in ensuing events of the things prophesied in the Apocalypse.  They believe the date of writing to be during the Roman Emperor Domitian’s reign (A.D. 95-96).

 In contrast, Classical Preterism believes in the infallibility of Scripture and dates the Book of Revelation prior to A.D. 70.  Classical Preterists-also known as partial Preterists- point out many details in Revelation that they believe were fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem, and see in later chapters the prediction of the fall of Rome and beyond to the second coming of Christ. 

   Another point favorable to the early-date Preterist approach is that the prophecies of Revelation exhibit many points of correspondence with the fall of Jerusalem as recorded by the eyewitness historian Flavius Josephus.  Since Josephus was not a Christian and probably never  read the book of Revelation, these correspondences seem to bolster the credibility of this interpretation. 

The Futurist approach:  Everything after chapter three awaits fulfillment in the future.

   The futurist approach is primarily a literal interpretation of Scripture.  Most futurists believe in a dispensationalist point of view.  They believe a world leader will arise, seeming to bring peace but will eventually turn out to be a world oppressor.  He will seem to help the Jews rebuild the temple but will then set himself up as the object of worship (the Abomination of Desolation who sits on the throne).

    He will demand that everyone comply and worship him and carry his mark on his arm or forehead.  Those that don’t won’t be able to keep jobs or buy or sell anything, including food.  There will be a seven years’ tribulation followed by the return of Christ where He will destroy this antichrist Beast and will Himself reign from Jerusalem for one thousand years with all the believers.

    At the end there will be one final battle with the enemies of God before they (the enemies) are completely destroyed and thrown into the lake of fire, along with Hell and death. (Revelation 20:14)

Spiritualist:  No single fulfillment: only transcendent principles and recurrent themes. 

     Spritiual appraoch includes all approaches that do not look for individual fullfillments of the prophecies of Revelation but which believe only that spiritual lessons and principles are depicted sympbolically in the visions.   There are many spiritualists who hold Scripture to be inspired and that John had visions revealed to him exactly as he claims, but who believe that their meaning is to be spiritually understood in a way that would be edifying to believers of any age.

To give one example of the four different approaches I’ll write out one excerpt of Revelation followed by the different viewpoints.  The following are all direct quotes from pg.202-207:

Revelation 10:1-4 

       I saw still another mighty angel coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud.  And a rainbow was on his head; his face was like this sun, and his feet like pillars of fire.  He had a little book open in his hand.  And he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roars.  When he cried out, seven thunders uttered their voices.  Now when the seven thunders uttered their voices, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Seal up he things which the seven thunders uttered, and do not write them.

Historicist:  After Rome fell to the barbarians in 476, as signified in the first four seals, the power of the papacy arose in its place in Western Europe.  The peoples and the system that sustained their authority became incredibly corrupt.  In fact, they became antichrist, the principal opponent of the pure faith of Christ in Europe.

   The rise of the papacy has not been mentioned in Revelation until this point.  The fall of the eastern empire in the sixth trumpet now turns our attention back to developments in the west.  The prophecies of chapters 10 and 11:1-5 are about the Reformation period in the early 16^th century. This follows naturally the identification of the second woe with the fall of the Byzantine (Greek) Empire in 1453. 

Preterist:   This mighty angel is, no doubt, Jesus Himself.  His face shining like the sun is a feature mentioned in the vision of the first chapter.  The rainbow, which is now on his head, was seen around the throne of God in revelation.  The second prophecy, contained in chapters 13-19 concerns the fall of Rome, as the first was concerned with the fall of Jerusalem. The things uttered by the seven thunders could have been too horrible to record or it could have been for John’s ears only.

Futurist: The descending angel is thought to be by some Christ Himself, The little book in the angels hand is interpreted as representing the authority given to the angel to fulfill his mission.   The sealing up of the prophecy illustrates a divine principle that while God has revealed much, there are secrets which God has not seen fit to reveal to man at this time. 

Spiritual:  The mighty angel who appears here is either Christ Himself or a special envoy of Christ bearing a striking resemblance to him.  This angel has a message for the whole world, indicated by his having a foot on the land and a foot on the sea...the seven thunders represents the voice of the Lord.  The sealing of the seven thunders, leaving them unwritten, suggest that the whole counsel of God has not been revealed or that never shall we be able to know and to describe all the factors and agencies that determine the future.

  

I’m someone who likes to be clear on different positions and I found this book fascinating, not the least of which of how I could see the different viewpoints not necessarily contradicting each other but rather complementing different aspects.  I could see how scripture could apply to the people of John’s time period but also how they apply to us today.  I saw how certain things could be taken as meaning certain epochs in history as well as historical figures but also how it could mean actual times in the future as well as spiritual principals that could be applied everyday.

   I don’t know why God wrote Revelation the way He did but one thing I do know:  how we should live our lives and be prepared to watch the signs and times is very clear.  Like the wise virgins, we better have enough oil in our lamps to keep them burning.  (Matthew 25:1-13)

Further links:

The Second Coming by John MacArthur

The False Prophet by Ellis Skofield

The Harbinger by Johnathon Cahn

The Apocalypse Code by Hank Hanegraaff

What is the abomination of desolation

The Second Coming by John MacArthur

Michelangelo's "Last Judgement" Sistine Chapel

 I’ve been reading a number of books about the end times and the second coming of Jesus Christ. For years I’ve heard about futurist, milliniasts, amillianists, post millianists, historicists, spiritualists and lately preterists. A facebook friend has recently informed the rest of us that he is a hyperpreterist which kind of set me off on this journey. This book review is the fourth in a series that I will be posting of the various books I’ve been reading about the Book of Revelation and God’s final judgement on the earth.

While Hanegraaff’s book is mostly from a partial preterist stance, MacArthur seems to take a primarily futurist viewpoint. (I should point out that both Hanegraaff and MacArthur consider full or hyper preterism as heretical.) After debunking hyperpreterism in his chapters, “Why Christ Must Return,” and “Is Christ’s Coming Imminent?” he expounds on Jesus’ Olivet discourse recorded in Matthew 24 and 25 in chapter three, “Christ’s Greatest Prophetic Discourse.” This is a wonderful expository on this very important sermon Jesus gave his followers about the fall of Jerusalem- a prophecy that was fulfilled in 70 A.D.

The next couple of chapters go step by step through the gospels showing what must happen on earth to prepare for Christ’s second coming and a description of the tribulation.

MacAruthur’s next thrust is into the belly of those who believe they can know the day of Christ’s return. In his chapters “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? and “The Danger of Foolish Expectations”, he shows through scripture how it is unbiblical for anyone to assume they can predict the day when Jesus comes again. The final two chapters are about being ready like the wise virgins, not wasting the opportunity we have now to do God’s appointed work and how the final judgement is going to be when Christ separates the sheep (his followers) and the goats (nonbelievers).

The Second Coming is a highly readable, interesting and informative book about a hotly debated topic. I recommend it as an invaluable resource to anybody studying this subject.

I bought this book.




or $8.69 on Kindle

For more information:

Grace to You web site
http://www.macarthurcommentaries.com/
youtube sermon on the second coming by MacArthur

Related Links:
The Apocalypse Code by Hank Hanegraff
The Harbinger by Johnathon Cahn
The False Prophet by Ellis Skofield