Newsweek has a fascinating interview with the author of the best-selling Left Behind series, Tim LaHaye …

NEWSWEEK: How do you interpret what’s happening in the Middle East? Are you seeing signs that these are the end of days?
Tim LaHaye: Biblically speaking, the very nations that are mentioned in prophecy—and have been mentioned for 2,500 years as occupying the focus of the tension of the last days—are the very nations that are involved in the conflict right now. That may be one of the reasons there’s a sudden interest in bible prophecy because all of a sudden they realize end-time events could possibly take place and break forth right now.
NW: But first-century Christians believed that the end of the world could come during their lifetime.
TL: We call it the belief in the imminent return of Christ. It’s a motivational factor to serve the Lord and not let the world be so much with us that we don’t serve the Lord in the spiritual environment.
NW: Couldn’t almost anything then be taken as a clue that any point in history might be the end times?
TL: Down through the years that’s true. But never the accumulation of events as we have today. I have often said that no one knows the day nor the hour that Christ will come, but no generation has had so many signs of the times as our generation. We have more reason to believe that Christ could come in our lifetime than any generation before us.

read more of Brian Braiker’s interview

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