The prevailing assessment of Bible prophecy in many churches today is that it’s of too little significance to teach from the pulpit. Pastors avoid preaching about the Rapture and Jesus’ thousand-year rule lest it offend people and they stop attending. Some claim that beliefs about things to come are “tertiary,” which online dictionaries define as “of third rank importance or value.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The dearth of sound biblical teaching on Bible prophecy has created a void that false teachers have filled with a wide assortment of wayward beliefs regarding the church, Jesus’ appearing, the Second Coming, and Israel. As a result, the prevailing false view in the Christian community is that the church will someday prevail over the ills and evils of our world and inaugurate millennial conditions throughout the world before Jesus returns to the earth.
Lest anyone think that such teaching, known as Dominion Theology, is of little or no consequence for our day, one of its chief proponents now has an office inside the White House.
Paula White’s Rise to Prominence
Televangelist Paula White’s rise to power resulted from the widespread shortage of sound biblical teaching on future things.
White amassed a personal fortune, estimated in excess of five million dollars, by promising her television audience health and prosperity if they contributed to her ministry. The response to such promises has not only made her wealthy but also has given her a platform that caught the attention of President Donald Trump, who selected her as an advisor. He has placed White in charge of his newly created White House Faith Office.
Sadly, White’s unbiblical beliefs, listed below, taint the advice she gives to the President:
- Jerusalem and the Land of Israel no longer belong exclusively to the descendants of Jacob via God’s unconditional covenants with His people.
- The Jewish people don’t have a place in God’s prophetic program for the future.
- The world is not racing toward the seven-year Tribulation judgments, as described in Revelation chapters 6-18, but is rather on a course leading to a time of worldwide prosperity, peace, and security administered by the church.
Sadly, her counsel to the President stems from these errant beliefs. Is it possible that, at a minimum, her beliefs regarding the church’s rule over the earth validate Trump’s belief that great prosperity lies ahead for America under his leadership?
What About Israel?
However, there’s another area where our President needs much better counsel than what White gives to him.
I don’t know for sure if Paula White’s errant views concerning Israel have influenced President Trump’s policies in any way. One has to wonder, however, about the influence of a White House faith advisor who rejects what the Bible says about the future of the Jewish people, the Land that God gave to them, and Jerusalem.
Trump has a proven record of supporting Israel, but will his desire to be a peacemaker cloud his judgment? Will he treat Israel as just another nation and thus fail to recognize its God-given right to the Land?
Bible Prophecy Matters
Paula White’s rise to power demonstrates the necessity of sound biblical teaching on Bible prophecy. Those who say it’s tertiary make a serious error in judgment, to say the least.
Pastors who minimize its importance allow false teaching to flourish in the Christian community. A scripturally valid view of future things is essential for believers to discern truth from error. The inability of Christians to do so has made multi-millionaires of charlatans such as White and others. Even worse, it has given their followers a false hope for the future and, in far too many cases, kept them from recognizing the necessity of trusting Jesus alone for the forgiveness of their sins and eternal life.
I’m convinced that any and all decisions that result from Trump’s jaunt to the Middle East will facilitate the Lord’s plan for the end times and bring us even closer to meeting our Savior in the air. We need not worry about the errant counsel the President receives from Paula White; the Lord long ago already factored that into His sovereign plans to rescue Israel during the upcoming seven-year Tribulation and establish His kingdom on the earth.
This does not excuse, however, the dearth of sound biblical teaching on Bible prophecy that exists today in our churches. It has created a void that has allowed false teachers such as Paula White to flourish and, in her case, rise to prominence in Washington, DC.
