Dear friends:Yesterday’s message spoke of 1948 as a prophetic, landmark year, showing that Israel’s rebirth triggered other end-time events and movements.
First, a correction. I said Bill Bright began Campus Crusade for Christ in 1961. Actually, it was in 1951, only two years after Billy Graham’s ministry was launched in Los Angeles and three years after Israel’s rebirth.
But here are some added items:
THE DEVIL IS BUSY. The apostate World Council of Churches began -- can you believe it? --also in 1948 (August 23)!
The apostate National Council of Churches began shortly thereafter in 1950.
Many mainline denominational churches became increasingly apostate, as liberal seminaries began filling pulpits with unbelieving pastors. National surveys revealed that a huge percentage of pastors did not even believe in the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, or an afterlife. You wonder why those guys didn't get an honest job.
Even the staunchly biblical Southern Baptists were struggling with the liberal takeover of seminaries and pulpits until the true believers rose up and took back control, through brave people such as the late Dr. Adrian Rogers.
But the devil only plays into the hands of God, who had a better plan, as always.
GOD IS BUSIER. While the devil was taking over the mainline churches, God was reaching people in other innovative ways, “outside the box.”
Many independent, Bible-believing churches popped up, drawing people truly hungry for God. Some were charismatic and some were not, but all were Bible-centered.
God anointed truly biblical churches such as the Assemblies of God, causing their worldwide growth like wildfire. Miracles and healings, rarely seen in mainline churches, became commonplace, as God confirmed His Word with signs following, and still is, just as the Bible says. God has always responded to faith.
Para-church evangelistic leaders and ministries began to explode on the scene. Among them:
1. I already mentioned Billy Graham, Rex Humbard, and Bill Bright. There have since been scores of other major evangelists who have impacted the world scene, in the U.S. and elsewhere, such as Reinhard Bonnke of Germany and his Christ for All Nations.
2. Although originating earlier, Youth For Christ began their weekly special youth meetings in the late 1940s.
3. While The Navigators ministry was begun in 1933 by Dawson Trotman, it was in 1948 that the first Navigator missionary was sent overseas, to China. Others soon followed to Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Today, tens of thousands of individuals worldwide are being reached for Christ through The Navigators.
4. Gordon Lindsey and Christ for the Nations. It was in 1948 that The Voice of Healing was formed by Gordon Lindsay and Jack Moore, traveling with William Branham and later T. L. Osborn, Jack Coe, Richard Vineyard, Vclmer Garner, F. F. Bosworth, Kenneth Hagin, Gayle Jackson, Raymond T. Richie, W. V. Grant, Louise Nankeville and others. So powerful was this healing revival that soon approximately 100 evangelists formed a fellowship electing Gordon as president. (According to Freda Lindsay, Chairman of the Board Emeritus CFNI.)
5. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes began in 1954.
6. Through Loren Cunningham, Youth With a Mission began in 1960.
7. The Christian Military Fellowship began in 1968.
8. While there have been Messianic Jews since the time of Christ (when most believers were Jews), an Internet source says the modern-day Messianic movement “was born out of a great spiritual awakening in the late 60s and early 70s.” This coincides with other works of the Holy Spirit during this same time period. Many great Messianic ministries arose, such as Sid Roth’s Messianic Vision. Where in 1948 there were only a handful of Messianic synagogues and congregations, now there are now hundreds worldwide, and many in Israel itself.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is a loose association of many Bible-believing evangelical ministries, mostly para-church. Somewhere I have a copy of their directory, the National Evangel. The NAE does not include all such ministries, but shockingly their directory shows over 2,000 members, from every area of activity, including all kinds of media, pro-life groups, art, financial, music, prison, educational, counseling, and on and on. I suspect probably 98 percent or more of them began after the landmark, prophetic year of 1948!
The evidence seems clear: God began a major worldwide move of the Holy Spirit, outside the walls of the traditional institutional church (and sometimes within), in about the year 1948, the year when Israel was reborn, an event that was a major marker of the end of the age.
One reader reminded me of Isaiah’s prophecy about Israel being born “in a day,” May 14, 1948: “Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day” (Isaiah 66:8, NIV).
From 536 B.C., the end of the 70 years of Israel's Babylonian exile, count 7 times 360 years, or 2,520 years, convert to 2483.85 Jewish (360-day) years, and miraculously you arrive at May 14, 1948, to the very day some claim!
What a literally earth-changing, prophetic day that was!
Jim