Paul Lalonde, writer of the next film in the popular “Left Behind” films, “Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist,” spoke with CBN recently about why he believes people are ignoring the fact that we are in the end days. The film will be a follow-up to 2014’s “Left Behind” and will have a limited release on January 26th as a Fathom Event. It will have a new cast, with “Hercules” actor Kevin Sorbo starring in and directing the film. Lalonde states that the new film will focus on Biblical prophecy, saying, “The vast majority of people still don’t know anything about … prophecy, and that includes the church. People have, as the Bible prophesied they would, turned away from prophecy.” 

Lalonde stated that despite the church’s turn away from Biblical prophecy, prophecy still plays an important role in the Christian life. “The reality is: we do not have the option of just not worrying about it. We are told that prophecy is important. Between a third and a half of the Bible is prophecy,” he said. Lalonde has spent much of his career focusing on end times and Biblical prophecy. He has several titles co-written with his brother Peter that imagine the end of days, including Racing Toward the Mark of the Beast and Apocalypse. He and his brother also had a Biblical series in the 1980s called This Week in Bible Prophecy. 

Lalonde stated that he hoped the film would impress upon pastors and Christians the urgency to “wake up” to the signs of the coming end times. “I think people aren’t seeing that we’re in the very last days because they’re watching for the wrong things. But we live in a world where all of this can happen like that. We’re living in the days of Noah. We have unlimited seats on our ark,” he said. Of course, when exactly the end of the world will be and how to interpret Biblical prophecy are hotly debated amongst Christians. Dr. David Jeremiah, who also discusses prophecy and end times, listed four signs of the end times on his website. He listed signs of deception or an increasing amount of false teachers, disputes among nations, devastations (famines, pestilence, etc.), and increasing hostility towards Christians as hints that the end is near. In a time when churches are splitting over LGBT issues, the war in Ukraine, COVID-19, and organizations like Focus on the Family are being vandalized for their Christian views, it’s easy to see why some Biblical scholars are pointing to end-time prophecy. Other events, such as the arrival of five red heifers to Israel, have also been pointed at as signs of end times prophecy being fulfilled. The Bible states that the end of days will come upon suddenly and unexpectedly to those who have been unprepared, saying in Luke 17:26-30, “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”