BY MARK A. KELLNER

he announcement flashed across wires in newsrooms across the country: Barnes & Noble.com announced that Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, the last book in the Left Behind series, recently was the number-one fiction bestseller overall at Barnes & Noble.com. Barnes & Noble retail stores and Barnes & Noble.com sold more than 48,000 copies of Glorious Appearing in just the first week of its release on March 30th.

Such news is apparent justification for this claim: "Barnes & Noble expects Glorious Appearing to be among the top ten books of 2004."

In the face of such an onslaught--2 million copies of the last Left Behind book have been printed and already sold, publisher Tyndale House says--it's possible for many to believe that there is just one, and only one, way to look at Bible prophecies, and that is LaHaye and Jenkins' dispensationalist theory that says Christians will vanish from the earth in a "secret rapture" before a multi-year period of tribulation.

However, Steve Wohlberg, an Adventist pastor in Templeton, California, and Destiny Image, a major Christian publisher in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, have teamed up to offer a contrasting view. His book, End-Time Delusions, was released on March 31.

"I've been a Christian for 24 years, and not only am I interested in the first coming of Jesus, which is when He came and died for my sins, but in His second coming, when He will come to take us home," Wohlberg, senior pastor of Templeton Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church, said in a telephone interview.

"I felt compelled by the Lord to write a book that will deal with these issues of the Second Coming, the timing of the Second Coming and misinterpretations about the rapture. I see the release of the last Left Behind book, and the interest being generated right now about this, as an opportunity to speak to this generation about the subject of Bible truth and Bible prophecy at this particular time."

Critical Timing
The much-touted "appearing" of the last Left Behind book hits North American culture at a time when Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" has captivated the general public. Millions have flocked to the motion picture depicting the suffering and death of Jesus; television networks have revived old "mini-series" about Christ's life; and NBC Television is reported to have commissioned "Revelation," a mini-series about focusing on a scientist and a nun each confronting the end of the world.

All this media interest in Christian topics, along with a genuine concern about what the Bible really says about Jesus' return, motivated the new book, Wohlberg said. However, the volume isn't designed merely as a critique of the LaHaye/Jenkins mega-best sellers.

The book "doesn't just point out error, it clarifies truth," Wohlberg said. "It's also a book that is centered in Jesus Christ, so its goal is to bring people to Christ, to reveal God's love, to lift up the Cross and to help people be ready for the Second Coming. One of the big problems with the Left Behind series is that, according to their view, the Second Coming of Jesus is not something that we should be waiting for; we're supposed to wait for the rapture, which gets us out of here. Therefore, the whole message of Revelation concerning the Beast and the Mark of the Beast and the Second Coming, according to Left Behind, does not apply to us."

But Seventh-day Adventists and other Christians who take the historicist view of Bible prophecy know that this message is applicable. End-Time Delusions helps explain these concepts in clear, unambiguous language.

"When compared with solid biblical facts, has truth been 'left behind' as well?" asks Wohlberg. "The entire Left Behind scenario is built upon the concept of a nightmarish 'seven-year tribulation' supposedly predicted to follow a 'secret rapture,' or the vanishing of Christians worldwide. The fact is there is no passage anywhere in the Bible that specifically mentions 'seven years of tribulation.' The entire concept is based on the speculative interpretation of one verse - Daniel 9:27."

A Willing Dissenter
While Wohlberg's book is finding an audience--The Washington Times newspaper quoted him as a dissenter from the LaHaye/Jenkins hypothesis in its front page story on Glorious Appearing--the fact that the last Left Behind book has already sold 2 million copies means that people are looking for something, according to Angel Manuel Rodríguez, director of the Biblical Research Institute, based at the General Conference in Silver Spring, Maryland.

"There's no doubt that there is in Western society serious concern about the future. We enjoy the present but we really are creatures of the future," Rodríguez explained in an interview. However, such an interest "could be exploited and misused," as in the case of the Left Behind books, he added.

"The study of Bible prophecy has shown this to be the case. This dispensationalist view provides hope to many, many people and they find it meaningful. But feelings are not enough to determine a commitment to a particular vision of the future," he said.

Of Left Behind, Rodríguez says, "You have to say it's a distorted vision of what God is going to provide and it distracts [readers] from properly preparing for what is really coming. It's more than a distortion, it's a substitute for the real Christian hope that takes us victoriously through the tribulation."

Author and pastor Steve Wohlberg hopes his book will help Christians rightly understand the future. "In a sense, Left Behind is spiritual fast food," he said. "To build on the rock means to receive Christ and build deeply upon His words rather than simply accepted 'sand' or 'fluff.' When the storm hits, those who are fast food, junk-food Christians will be blown away. Those studying deeply the real word are getting the right diet. They're eating pure truth and building their characters so they'll be able to stand in the crisis and not be blown away."

_________________________
Mark Kellner is the assistant director for news and information of the General Conference Communication Department.