Inside the Mind of Tim LaHaye, the Preacher Who Reinvigorated the End Times Debate
Billy: When it comes to Daniel 9 and the Antichrist, and that parallel between Revelation and Daniel, some critics would say it was a prophecy about Antiochus and nothing more. How do you view Daniel 9 and the discussion of the Antichrist and who is being spoken about there?
Tim: Antiochus Epiphanes, he was the worst, most evil king that ever existed. He did unmistakable evils to human beings and persecuting them, blinding people, just deliberately torture their lives and so on, and he's finally murdered by his own family, he was so evil. Anyway, he is a type of the anti-Christ in the Tribulation period. [The Antichrist is] going to come on the scene with a glib voice and talking wonderful and his butter would melt in his mouth. You know the type — and he's brilliant and attractive, and he cons his way in to leadership and he controls the whole world and then he is killed by the uprising when Christ comes.
He's a symbol of evil. That's what he is and then he actually desecrated a temple but he also demanded that people worship him as a god. When you do that, you cross the Rubicon with God and you're going to be destroyed but the Antichrist is going to do the same thing. He's going to offer world government and leadership and peace in our time and then he's going to get buffed up and the false prophet comes along and makes an idol for him and then they demand the same thing that they demanded in the Old Testament of Daniel, that he worship the king. Now the king there didn't want to be worshiped. They tricked him into it but Daniel was the type there of what Satan is going to do in the Tribulation period and he'll demand that people worship him. Of course, that's untenable for Christians.
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Billy: Do you think Daniel was able to see a projection beyond Antiochus Epiphanes, one that looked into the future at the final Antichrist?
Tim: Remember, he only saw visions that came from God and I don't think he understood some of the nuances for the end times that we're living in. He was more interested in the times in which he lived and then getting the children of Israel right with God and get back to rebuilding our temple and so on and reestablishing their mandate with God, but then he also wrote down what his vision was but I don't think he understood the end time parts the way we do.
Billy: Now, let me ask you about the modern state of Israel. How do you view Israel today? Is it prophetic? How do you respond to those who would say that there's no future fulfillment of prophecy involving Israel?
Tim: I think that's a lie of the devil. The church is not Israel and Israel is not the church. … Israel is fulfilling prophecy and it helps us to understand that God keeps His word by the way which He's kept Israel alive, when you think the children of Israel have been persecuted more than any nation in the history of the world.
They're [thousands of] years old and they still exist. Where are all the Hittites, and all the Amorites, and all the many people referred to in the Bible? In fact, some of the skeptics used to ridicule the Bible, because it mentioned so many nations that couldn't be proven until the archaeologists spades got to digging around and some of the antiquities and they found references to coins that have the Hittite names on them and so on. We have all kinds of evidence.
In Matthew 24, which is repeated in Mark and Luke, the Olivet Discourse, is the most important prophecy passage in the whole Bible. Jesus sums it up by saying in verse 32, and now behold the fig tree, which is symbolized by Israel, through three Old Testament prophets, in my book Target Israel I list the three prophets that predicted that Israel would be drawn back into the land. And, here they are in our lifetime brought back into the land, and they're still alive and well.
