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APPENDIX M
FALSE PREDICTIONS OF THE
CULTS
William Miller
(1782-1849)
He studied the Bible from 1816 to 1818 before he came to the
conclusion that Jesus Christ would return to Earth “about the year 1843.” He
kept his discovery secret until 1831.
His prediction of the Second Coming was based on the passage in
Daniel that says there are 2300 days from the time the sanctuary is defiled to when it is
cleansed (Daniel 8.13-14). He chose 457 BC (decree to rebuild Jerusalem by Artaxerxes I)
as the date of the defiling, and then 1843 as the date of the cleansing. One day was
symbolic of one year in his thinking.
In 1840 he gained a following, and when his prediction of the
Second Coming failed in 1843, he reset the date to 1844. When that date failed, most of
his followers gave up their faith. Miller continued to believe that Christ would return at
any moment, until his death in 1849.
Miller died a false prophet, but some of his disciples held to
his beliefs and formed the Seventh Day Adventist denomination.
Joseph Smith, Jr.
(1805-1844)
I prophecy, in the name of the Lord God, that the commencement of
the difficulties which will cause much bloodshed previous to the coming of the Son of Man
will be in South Carolina. It may probably arise through the slave question. This a voice
declared to me, while I was praying earnestly on the subject, December 25th, 1832. I was
once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard
a voice repeat the following: “Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art
eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this
suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter.” I was left thus, without being able
to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some
previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face. I believe the coming of
the Son of Man will not be any sooner than that time. (Section 130.12-17) [Ed. Note: Joseph Smith was born in 1805. That means
the Second Coming should have taken place in 1890. It did not. He was correct about a war
breaking out in South Carolina.]
In a prophecy made on December 27, 1832, Smith declared that
great calamities would befall the world:
I prophesy that the earth will tremble and the sun be hidden in
“not many days”: “For not many days hence and the earth shall tremble and
reel to and fro as a drunken man; and the sun shall hide his face, and shall refuse to
give light; and the moon shall be bathed in blood; and the stars shall become exceedingly
angry, and shall cast themselves down as a fig that falleth from off a fig-tree.” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:87) [Ed. Note: This prophecy has yet to be fulfilled.]
He also made a prophecy that Isaiah 11 was about to be fulfilled:
In addition to these, he quoted the eleventh chapter of Isaiah,
saying that it was about to be fulfilled. He quoted also the third chapter of Acts,
twenty-second and twenty-third verses, precisely as they stand in our New Testament. He
said that that prophet was Christ; but the day had not yet come when “they who would
not hear his voice should be cut off from among the people,” but soon would come. (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith, History, verse
40)
Isaiah 11:6-9 says:
The wolf
shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and
the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow
and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat
straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned
child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all
my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters
cover the sea. [Ed. Note: This prophecy
has yet to be fulfilled.]
In 1832 Smith predicted the New Jerusalem would be built in his
generation:
A city shall be built, New Jerusalem [State of
Missouri], in which a temple shall be reared in this generation. (Doctrine and Covenants 84:3-5 – September 22
& 23, 1832) [Ed. Note: This prophecy has yet to be fulfilled.]
In 1843, Smith predicted the Holy Spirit would be
withdrawn from the planet, among other things:
“I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of
Israel, anguish and wrath and tribulation and the withdrawing of the Spirit of God from
the earth await this generation, until they are visited with utter desolation... I
prophesy they never will have power to kill me till my work is accomplished, and I am
ready to die.” (History of the Church, vol.
6, p. 58 – October 15, 1843)5 [Ed. Note: The Holy Spirit has not been withdrawn
from the world. “Utter desolation” was not visited upon the world. Joseph
Smith’s work was not finished, and he was not ready to die when he was shot
attempting to escape from jail in 1844. No one can possibly think Smith was ready to die, and that he thought his work was
done in 1844.]
Of all
Smith’s predictions, only part of one was correct. He died a false prophet.
Ellen G. White
(1827-1915)
Ellen Gould White was an avid disciple of William Miller. She
took over the Adventist movement when Miller retired due to his false predictions. She
founded the Seventh Day Adventist Church with help from her husband James
White, and another Sabbatarian Adventist leader, Joseph Bates. She made many false predictions herself, and taught some unusual doctrines.
She even claimed to write what God told her to:
“God was speaking through clay.
In these letters which I write, in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that
which the Lord has presented to me. I do not write one article in the paper expressing
merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision – the precious
rays of light shining from the throne.” (Visions of Mrs. E. G. White, Testimony 31, p. 63)6
This is what she had to say concerning Miller’s prediction
that Jesus would return in 1843:
I have seen that the 1843 chart (Wm. Miller’s) was directed
by the hand of the Lord and that it should not be altered that the figures were as he
wanted them. (Early Writings, p. 64, edition
1882)6
White prophesied the world would end in 1843, 1844, 1845 &
1851:
Now time is almost finished, (1851) and what we have been 6 years
in learning they will have to learn in months. (Early
Writings, p. 57)6
For a time after the disappointment in 1844, I did hold, in
common with the advent body, that the door of mercy was then forever closed to the
world… I was shown in vision, and I still believe, that there was a shut door in
1844. (Selected Messages, 1 p. 63)6
White was wrong in all of her predictions concerning
the Second Coming, the Civil War and other things. She did not know the specific warning signs that have to be fulfilled before the
Rapture. Much of her writings were based on works of others that she plagiarized, and she
died a false prophet.
Charles Taze Russell
(1852-1916)
Charles Taze Russell was a Protestant evangelist who established
Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society in 1881. W. H. Conley was president, and Russell served as secretary and treasurer.
The members of the society are called Jehovah’s Witnesses.
In 1870, Russell began his study of the Bible in earnest with
George Storrs and George Stetson, who followed the teaching of William Miller. In 1876, he
gave Nelson H. Barbour a great deal of money to publish his writings. Russell and Barbour
picked 1877 as their date for the return of the Lord, but He did not return that year.
Then in 1878 Russell personally told every Christian leader in Pittsburgh that Christ
would return in April 1878. This false prediction led Russell and Barbour to separate in
1879. Russell went on to make more false predictions. Here are his more infamous false
predictions:
1877 – The End Of This World; that is the end of the gospel
and the beginning of the millennial age is nearer than most men suppose; indeed we have
already entered the transition period, which is to be a time of trouble, such as never was
since there was a nation (Dan. 12:3). (Three Worlds,
and the Harvest of This World, N.H. Barbour and C.T. Russell, p. 17)7
1899 – ...the “battle of the great day of God
Almighty” (Revelation 16:14), which will end in A.D. 1914 with the complete overthrow
of earth’s present rulership, is already commenced. (The Time Is at Hand, page 101, 1908 edition)8
1904 – According to our expectations the stress of the great
time of trouble will be on us soon, somewhere between 1910 and 1912, culminating with the
end of the “Times of the Gentiles,” October, 1914. (The New Creation, Studies in the Scriptures, vol.
6, p. 579)7
1908 – In view of this strong Bible evidence concerning the
Times of the Gentiles, we consider it an established truth that the final end of the
kingdoms of this world, and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God, will be
accomplished at the end of A.D. 1914. (The Time Is
At Hand; 1889; 1908 ed.; p. 99)9
1916 – The Bible chronology herein presented shows that the
six great 1000 year days beginning with Adam are ended, and that the great 7th Day, the
1000 years of Christ’s Reign, began in 1873. (The
Time Is At Hand, page 2, forward)9
1917 – The Spring of 1918 will bring upon Christendom a
spasm of anguish greater even than that experienced in the Fall of 1914... The travail
that is coming is to be upon nominal Zion – “Christendom”
“Babylon”; and it will be a great and sore affliction – "A Time of
Trouble such as was not since there was a nation." (The Finished Mystery p. 62 [stated to be the Posthumous Work of Pastor Russell on p. 2])7
1917 – No doubt Satan believed the Millennial Kingdom was
due to be set-up in 1915... Be that as it may, there is evidence that the establishment of
the Kingdom in Palestine will probably be in 1925, ten years later than we once
calculated. (Studies In The Scriptures, vol. 7, The Finished Mystery, p. 128)7
1917 – Also, in the year 1918, when God destroys the
churches wholesale and the church members by million, it shall be that any that escape
shall come to the works of Pastor Russell to learn the meaning of the downfall of
Christianity. (The Finished Mystery, 1917
edition, p. 485)7
None of the prophecies of Russell concerning the Second Coming of
Jesus Christ came true. He died a false prophet as those before him did.
Joseph Franklin
Rutherford
(1869-1942)
Joseph Franklin Rutherford was elected president of the Watch
Tower Bible and Tract Society in 1917, succeeding its founder, Charles Taze Russell. It
was under Rutherford’s leadership that members of the Watch Tower Society adopted the
name Jehovah’s Witnesses. Here are a few of his predictions:
1938 – ...mark the words of Jesus, which definitely seem to
discourage the bearing of children immediately before or during Armageddon... It would
therefore appear that there is no reasonable or scriptural injunction to bring children
into the world immediately before Armageddon, where we now are. (Watchtower, Nov. 1, 1938, p. 324)7
1939 – The abundance of Scriptural evidence, together with
the physical facts that have come to pass showing the fulfillment of prophecy,
conclusively proves that the time for the battle of the great day of God Almighty is very
near and that in that battle all of God’s enemies shall be destroyed and the earth
cleared of wickedness. Likewise today, all the nations and peoples of earth are face to
face with the greatest emergency. They are being warned as God commands, that the disaster
of Armageddon is just ahead. (Salvation, J. F.
Rutherford, 1939, pp. 310, 361)7
1940 – The year 1940 is certain to be the most important
year yet because Armageddon is very near. It behooves all who love righteousness to put
forth every effort to advertise The Theocracy while the privileges are still open. (Informant, April, 1940, p. 1)7
1940 – The Kingdom is here, the King is enthroned.
Armageddon is just ahead. The glorious reign of Christ that shall bring blessings to the
world will immediately follow. Therefore the great climax has been reached. Tribulation
has fallen upon those who stand by the Lord. (The
Messenger, Sept. 1940, p. 6)7
1940 – The prophecies of Almighty God, the fulfillment of
which now clearly appears from the physical facts, show that the end of religion has come
and with its end the complete downfall of Satan’s entire organization. (Religion, J. F. Rutherford, p. 336, 1940)7
None of Rutherford’s predictions have come to pass. He died
a false prophet.
Jehovah’s
Witnesses
Zion’s Watch
Tower Tract Society
changed its name in 1931 to Jehovah’s Witnesses. It has made many false predictions about the Second Coming. Its
co-founder, Charles Taze Russell, chose 1877 as the date of the Second Coming, and his
successor, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, picked a few dates. The Jehovah’s Witnesses
continued to make predictions about Christ’s return:
1942 – Now, with Armageddon immediately before us, it is a
matter of life or destruction. Those who would be of the Lord’s other sheep that
shall compose the great multitude of Armageddon survivors and live joyfully on earth
forever must find the answer to a very personal question, and very important. (Watchtower, April 1, 1942, p. 139)7
1966 – According to this trustworthy Bible chronology six
thousand years from man’s creation will end in 1975, and the seventh period of a
thousand years of human history will begin in the fall of 1975 C.E. Six thousand years of
man’s existence on earth will soon be up, yea within this generation. (Life Everlasting in Freedom of the Sons of God,
1966, p. 29-30)7
1968 – Eight years from the Autumn of 1967 would bring us to
the Autumn of 1975, fully 6,000 years into God’s seventh day, his rest day. (Watchtower, May 1, 1968 p. 271)7
Herbert
W. Armstrong
(1892-1986)
Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, was
born into a Quaker family and attended Sunday school at the First Friends Church in
Des Moines, Iowa. He married Loma Dillon in 1917. She became friends with a couple who
were lay pastors of a Seventh Day Adventist church that did not submit to the authority of
the Seventh Day Adventist Church established by Ellen G. White. In 1931, he became an
ordained minister of the Oregon Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day). He
eventually broke with the denomination. He was convinced that God was calling him to lead
a revival and restore the true Church. In 1933, he began his radio ministry, which
continued after his death in 1986. He also founded Ambassador College in Pasadena,
California, in 1947.
Armstrong told members of his Worldwide Church of God that the Rapture
would take place in 1936, saying that only members of his church would be saved. After the
prophecy failed, he changed the date three more times. His next dates were 1943 and 1972,
and his fourth prediction for the end of the world was 1975 (Shaw, Eva, Eve of Destruction, p. 99).
He believed that Mussolini was the Antichrist and made a prophecy
concerning him in 1939, in his monthly magazine:
“Undoubtedly, then, the “Beast” who
will capture half the city of Jerusalem, fighting at Armageddon against Christ at his
Second Coming, is MUSSOLINI, with ten European Dictators, and their armies! It is coming
in This Generation!” (The Plain Truth, January 1939, p. 4)
Four years later he decided that Hitler was the
Antichrist:
“And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth,
and their armies, gathered together to make war against - against whom? Not Britain and
America! Not Israel - against Him that sat on the horse and His army (Rev. 19:19.) It is
Christ and the Angels that Hitler will fight.” (The Plain Truth, March/ April
1943, p. 6)
In 1956 Armstrong prophesied what would happen to the
United States in 1975:
But all these things, as Jesus explained, are to be
only the BEGINNING of our time of national trouble.
Once we are weakened by starvation, disease and the
resulting calamitous economic depression, the Ten-Nation European Colossus will suddenly
STRIKE with hydrogen bombs that shall DESTROY OUR CITIES and our centers of industrial and
military production! (1975 in Prophecy, p. 13)
If the European Union does not attack the United States with
nuclear weapons before Christ returns it will mean that all of Armstrong’s
predictions were wrong.
In the February 1968 issue of the Plain Truth magazine he
predicted on page 47, “The ‘Day of the Eternal’” will “strike
between five and ten years from now!” He went on to say, I am not writing foolishly,
but very soberly, on the authority of the living Christ.” (Abanes, Richard, End-Time Visions, p. 340)
In the June 1968 issue of his Plain truth magazine, he declared
that universal peace would be “coming in our Time – and not later than the
decade of the 1970s.” He went on to say, “To save human life from annihilation
Jesus Christ will come again, this time to set up the very kingdom of God on earth, and to
establish the wonderful world of Utopia tomorrow” (p. 23).
He died a false prophet just as everyone has who based their
predictions on the work of William Miller.
Jim
Jones
(1931-1978)
James
Warren Jones,
founder of the Peoples Temple, enticed over 900 members of his cult to commit
suicide on November 18, 1978, in Jonestown, Guyana. He convinced them they had to die after his security guards
murdered nine people at a nearby airstrip, including reporters, cameramen and Congressman
Leo Ryan. Jones was later killed by his security
guards. He had visions at a young age that a nuclear holocaust would take place in 1967
(Weber, Eugene, Apocalypses, p. 214).
David Koresh
(1959-1993)
Vernon Wayne Howell (a.k.a. David
Koresh) was disfellowshipped (excommunicated) from the Seventh Day Adventist church in
Tyler, Texas, for moral reasons. Shortly afterward he claimed he had a new message for the
church, but it was rejected by the church. He remained in Tyler trying to get followers.
He gained the trust of Lois Roden, of the Branch Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist
Association, by fixing cars and other mechanical problems members of the church had. She
allowed him to teach in the Mt. Carmel Center, and in 1984 he gained a small following.
George Roden, son of Lois, forced Koresh and his followers out and they moved to
Palestine, Texas. In 1987, after Lois Roden had passed away, Koresh and 7 of his heavily
armed followers made an assault on the Mt. Carmel Center. They were arrested for he
attempted murder of George Roden, but were acquitted.
In 1989 Roden murdered Wayman Dale
Adair with an axe blow to the skull after Adair stated his belief that he (Adair) was the
true Messiah. Roden was convicted of murder, and imprisoned in a mental hospital at
Vernon, Texas. Roden owed thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes for the Mount Carmel
property. Koresh and his followers raised the money and purchased the property, which he
subsequently renamed “Ranch Apocalypse.”
Koresh believed the place of his
martyrdom might be in Israel, but by 1991 he was convinced that his martyrdom would be in
the United States. He said the prophecies of Daniel would be fulfilled in Waco and that
the Mount Carmel center was the Davidic kingdom.
Koresh predicted the world would
end in 1995. In 1993 the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms raided the Mt. Carmel
Center in an attempt to arrest Koresh for child endangerment. It resulted in a 51 day
standoff. Instead the standoff ended when the FBI rammed the center with tanks. It caught
fire killing Koresh and about 80 of his followers. (Stuart O’Brien, “Armageddon…
Again,” News Online, BBC News, 7.29.1999)
Marshall Applewhite
(1931-1997)
Marshall Applewhite
(1931–1997) founded the Human Individual Metamorphosis cult (Heaven’s Gate) with
Bonnie Nettles (1928-1985). According to Jacques Vallée, the group began in the early
1970s when Marshall Applewhite was recovering from a heart attack during which he claimed
to have had a near-death experience. He came to believe that he and
his nurse, Bonnie Nettles, were “the Two,” (the two witnesses spoken of in Book of
Revelation 11:3). Vallee cited an announcement by H.I.M. in 1977 that said:
In a period of months these two people, through some circumstance
that they do not even know, will come to be killed.
Three and a half days later, after having been officially declared dead by those who want
to verify the fact, their bodies will then come back to life again to show you and I that
when you have gone through this process you have actually overcome death. (Vallee,
Jacques, Messengers of Deception, pp. 74-75,
emphasis Vallee)
Two years later in 1979, when Vallee published his book,
“the Two” had not died, been resurrected and taken away by a UFO. Nettles died
of liver cancer in 1985 in Dallas, Texas. Applewhite continued to preach his gospel of
salvation through death. He renamed his cult Heaven’s Gate, and moved to Rancho Santa Fe, California.
On March 19, 1997, Applewhite
taped himself speaking of mass suicide and asserted “it was the only way to evacuate
this Earth.” He claimed that Earth was about to be recycled (wiped clean, renewed,
refurbished and rejuvenated), and that the only chance to survive was to leave it
immediately. The Heaven’s Gate group was against suicide, but they believed
they had to leave Earth as quickly as possible. He convinced 38 followers to commit
suicide so that their souls
could board a UFO that was following the Hale-Bopp comet. Applewhite believed that after
their deaths, a UFO would take
their souls to another “level of existence above human,” which he described as
being both physical and spiritual.
Thirty-eight members of
Heaven’s Gate, including Applewhite, were found dead in their rented mansion on March
26, 1997. Autopsies of the bodies revealed that they had poisoned themselves with cyanide and arsenic.
Sun
Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon is the Korean founder and
leader of the Unification Church, which operates or subsidizes many organizations and
projects involved in political, cultural, mass-media, educational, and other activities.
His largest newspaper is the Washington Times. He is also well-known for holding large blessing
ceremonies (mass weddings). He predicted that 1967
would be the year that the Kingdom of Heaven would be established on Earth. He later chose
1981 (Kyle, Richard, The Last Days are Here Again,
p. 148).
Elizabeth Claire
Prophet
Elizabeth Clare Prophet came out of the Christian Science cult that
was founded by Mary Baker Eddy. She was the head of the Summit Lighthouse organization,
which controls the Church Universal and Triumphant, Summit University, Summit University
Press and Montessori International. She became head of Summit after her husband, Mark L.
Prophet, died in 1973, and stepped down from her
leadership position due to Alzheimer’s disease in 1999.
Prophet taught that ascended masters, such as St. Germain, could
speak through select people. (This idea could have been adopted from the teachings of H.P.
Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical society. Prophet publicly identified with the
society.) Prophet “foresaw” nuclear devastation, and claimed that the end of
most of the human race would take place on April 23, 1990. She convinced her followers to
sell their property and move with her to a ranch in Montana. She also predicted the end
would come in 2002, following a 12-year period of devastation and nuclear war. (The Last Days are Here Again, p. 156, and Grosso,
Michael, Millennium
Myth: Love and Death at the End of Time, p. 7).
David Icke
Self-professed Son of God, former television sports
announcer and conspiracy theorist David Icke predicted the world would end in 1997,
following the usual earthquakes and floods. (“Armageddon… Again” News Online, Stuart O’Brien, BBC News, 7.29.1999)
What God says concerning
false prophets
When a
prophet speaketh in the name of Jehovah, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that
is the thing which Jehovah hath not spoken: the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously,
thou shalt not be afraid of him. (Deuteronomy 18.22)
Conclusion
People who believe Christ can return at any moment are the only ones who make false
predictions. Those who understand that specific signs
must be fulfilled before the Rapture never make predictions. They “wait” and
“watch” for those prophecies to be fulfilled, just as Jesus commanded His
disciples to do (Matthew 24.42).
All Christians who are obedient to Jesus Christ study the
Scriptures daily to know the What (the warning signs of the return of Christ). They also
diligently “watch” for those prophecies of the Rapture/Tribulation to be
fulfilled so they can know how close the When (time
of the Rapture) is.
It is the most thorough book ever written on the Rapture. It reveals Bible secrets concerning the Rapture that have never been put in print.