Mark Hitchcock knows a thing or two about the end of the world.
The prolific author is well-versed in eschatology and discussed it at length in his latest book, End Times Survival Guide. And he has a few warnings for those obsessed with the apocalypse:
“I think a lot of people in the area of prophecy get into a lot of speculation about all kinds of things and begin to set dates, which the Bible clearly forbid,” Hitchcock says in an interview with Charisma. “Jesus said, ‘No one knows the day or the hour, ‘ but people try to figure out who the Antichrist is and then name somebody.
“I always tell people that I don’t think the Antichrist is going to appear till after the rapture. So I say, if you ever figure out who the Antichrist is, I got bad news for you, so you don’t want to know who the Antichrist is. But there’s a lot of speculation out there about a lot of things, and we need to just stick with what the Bible says. What the Bible says is really exciting enough, we don’t need to decorate it anymore with a lot of wild speculation, but we need to remember that God gave Bible prophecy to us not to scare us, but to prepare us and not to make us anxious, but to make us aware of what’s happening and to call us to live godly lives in light of that.”
But that’s just the beginning. Listen to the podcast to hear the rest of the fascinating interview.