John Cooper (@no_mark_ever)

I'll tell you a little story that went back to my father's younger days. At that time the main man on the world stage was Mussolini. At that time there was a great deal of interest in prophetic matters, as there usually is in interesting times. He remembered sitting in a religious gathering before the War and hearing the preacher thump the pulpit and declare with all conviction that Mussolini was the Beast (the Antichrist). He said that there was no more prophecy to be fulfilled before the Rapture. The End was imminent. My father shook in his shoes. Mussolini ended up on a meat-hook. The prophetic experts lay low for a bit. Then in 1948 the State of Israel was established, and these very same prophetic experts came out and hit the trail again, preaching that with the State of Israel, prophecy was being fulfilled, and that the Lord's Return was nigh. My father remembered them from the time before, and remembered how they had said that there was no more prophecy to be fulfilled before the Rapture, and realised that they didn't know what they were talking about. But most people had forgotten and accepted these men as genuine experts of biblical prophecy. And that was nearly 80 years ago.