That's the billion dollar question, isn't it?
Ah, the man has his head screwed on straight! <grin> Thirty years ago, I wrote my first book about the West's coming conflict with Islam. I was laughed out of town as a heretic. Everyone just "knew" the USSR was the final enemy of the Church, and Gorbachev had to be the Antichrist. What's more, the Seven-year tribulation is going to start any day now . . . we can PROVE all this from the Bible, ROTFLOL . . . makes me sick!
Those same false prophets are still hawking those fables today and most people still follow them like a flock of blind geese.
Over the following years, it became obvious that Bible prophecy had been sovereignly sealed by the Lord until the new nation of Israel was established (1948) and Jerusalem was freed of Gentile control (1967) Those two events exposed all earlier prophetic views as false doctrines, but let’s march in lockstep and not look at the possibility that our traditional views might have been sovereignly updated by the Lord God almighty.
Now retired pastors here and there say they owe me an apology . . . but they're saying it way too late because by their earlier lethargy, Islam has gotten a foothold in federal and local governments that will be unbelievably difficult to dislodge.
Fortunately for those with ears to hear, all of Revelation that needed to be fulfilled before the Lord's return has already been fulfilled and we await the imminent collapse of our civilization followed by the return of the Lord, but few can hear it. They would rather debate ridiculous eschatological minutia, most of which can now be proven wrong. Reading Revelation now is like reading a newspaper if one can break away from his Preterist or Dispensational traditions, both of which are now destined for the ash heap.
. . . and there is my $.99 answer. Love you in the Lord, brother. <smile>