A lot of Christian ministries that propose to teach “biblical worldview” disregard what we know as the Old Testament, at least in the context of the story of the Jewish people and Bible prophecy.

In many circles today within Christendom, the study of Bible prophecy is not only lightly regarded—it is marginalized. Many pastors claim that it is “controversial” (what is the Gospel, then?). I suspect they are more embarrassed than anything else. For quite some time, seminary professors and highly visible Christian leaders in America have at least insinuated that “careful thinkers” have moved beyond a “literal, wooden” interpretation of Scripture.

What they really mean is that they want to take personal Bible study out of the hands of the common man and create a sort of evangelical papacy, in which scholars and high-profile teachers can tell us what it means.

In reality, such teachers reject the Bible’s predictive prophecy because they do not like the reality of a sovereign God. Rather than interpret prophecy as history written in advance, they consider it merely history.

Although we constantly hear propaganda to the contrary, the Bible is really not that hard to understand.

For example, a ubiquitous theme through the Hebrew Scriptures is the return of the Jews to their ancestral land, after a long period of exile. Although many scholars attribute these passages to the return from the Babylonian exile in the sixth century B.C., too many details simply don’t fit that scenario. They do fit an end-times scenario. In Isaiah 11:11 (attributed to the Babylonian exile, but notice the phrase “the second time.”) we read:

“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.”

If this return refers to the Babylonian exile, the pagan country due east of Israel, why do we see that the Jews are returning not only from what we know today as the Mediterranean Basin, but from “the islands of the sea”? Does this not fit the modern historical record with remarkable exactness? The Babylonian exile was the return from exile in Babylon, period.

Today, millions of Jews from virtually every country in the world have come back to their ancestral land.

The critics of Bible prophecy are attempting to create an alternate reality. They want to live in one devoid of a God who tells us the end from the beginning.

Do yourself a favor: read the Old Testament with these ideas in mind. What do you come away with?