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There are books you read, and then there are books that read you — books that find you at just the right moment, in just the right season, and change the entire trajectory of your spiritual life. For me, that book wasn’t handed to me by a pastor or recommended in a Sunday school class. It was sitting on my father’s bookshelf in the middle of the night, waiting on a teenager who couldn’t sleep and had no idea that God was about to light a fire inside of him that would never go out. That book was The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. And today, I want to tell you my story — and why I believe this book is more relevant right now than at any other moment in modern history.
My Personal Introduction to Bible Prophecy as a Teenager
My introduction to Bible prophecy was when I was probably about 14 or 15 years old. One night, I was asleep in my bedroom and woke up in the middle of the night—it had to be about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning—and I couldn’t sleep. My dad had this big bookshelf. Okay, let me take you back a little bit: as young as I can remember we used to go to church in Portsmouth, Virginia. I have so many great memories from that church. My dad was a Sunday school teacher there, and we were in church all the time. My family stopped going to church when I was probably around 7 or 8 years old maybe. I remember the 1984 Super Bowl; we watched part of the game and then went to church.
So, around age eight, we stopped going to church. At 8 or 9 years old, I remember going to my mother. I was upstairs reading the encyclopedia—just reading a lot of different stuff—and I came downstairs. I remember my mother was in the kitchen, probably washing dishes. I remember coming to her and asking when we were going back to church. God placed this memory in my heart because it was a significant moment for our lives and everyone’s lives. I remember my mother saying, “Well, we don’t have—I don’t have clothes to wear to go to church.” That’s what my mom told me. Thinking about this now really breaks my heart; it’s never hit me like this before, though I’ve thought about it a couple of times.
The Importance of Church for Children and Families
But the reason it breaks my heart is because my son loves going to church. As a parent I never want to crush my children’s desires; if my children want to be in church I want to ensure they can go. Even today, to be honest with you I have some issues with the church world as we’ll discuss here on this website but I make sure that we go to church so that my son can have a church experience and get the spiritual growth that he wants. I’m not angry at my parents but that little boy who wanted to go to church should have been in church. The Holy Spirit was using me even as a little boy to get my family back into church because my family badly needed to be there.
As an older man, I can tell you that little boy needed to be in church. Many things I went through as an adult could have been overcome if I had been in church. This is a prophetic moment; God wants to speak to you right now. He wants to encourage you to go to church and as an adult, he wants you to be in church. Also, make sure your children are in church. Don’t just send your children to church but if nothing else, ensure your children are in church, even if you don’t go yourself.
A Teenage Boys Unexpected Encounter with God through Bible Prophecy
But when I got older that’s when I was in my room about 14 or 15 years old. I was in high school and that morning early in the morning I couldn’t sleep—about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning—and I woke up, and there’s a book on a bookshelf and it catches my eye because I’m into science fiction. I love Star Trek. I was a Trekkie. Star Trek: The Next Generation was my thing, Jean-Luc Picard, and so I really love that show. And again, I love science fiction, so I thought it was a science fiction book, The Late Great Planet Earth. I had no idea that it was a book about Bible prophecy but God put that book there right where it was. My parents—my father probably put that book on the bookshelf. They probably never touched those books. It was right there at the foot of my bed so that I could see it that night. I’m just putting all this together right now and I never thought about it this deeply and it’s touching me right now. I’m fighting back tears right now and I love it because this is food for my soul.
Here I am I’m almost 50 years old and this is awesome. I’m glad I’m sharing this with you today.
Bible Prophecy Will Engage Young People with a Powerful and Exciting GOD
And so I grabbed that book and I started reading it. I took that book to school; that book is mine now. This book is not my father’s book anymore. The book was written back in the ’70s and my father—I don’t know when he purchased the book but I just know—oh, excuse me I think the book was first written in the ’70s. I’ll have to check that out but if I recall correctly that is when it was first published. Well, at lunchtime, I didn’t eat lunch. I ate lunch for most of my time in high school but during this particular year I didn’t eat much. I used to go in the auditorium and just chill and just relax. Well, I started going into the auditorium and reading this book. I wasn’t a Bible reader; that was the thing. I haven’t read the Bible but I started reading this book about Bible prophecy and it was so interesting. It grabbed my spirit and got me excited.
And because I love family and children, I’m going to share something with you that I haven’t shared with many people: I was abused as a kid and maybe that’s one of the reasons why I love children so much.
But the best thing you can do is introduce your children to exciting things in the Bible. Bible prophecy is an exciting topic that the church rarely teaches. In all my years as a Christian, we have seldomly touched upon Bible prophecy. Consequently, this area is often misused. Some people feel that because Bible prophecy isn’t taught in churches, it is seen as fringe or spooky.
The Elijah the Prophet Comes to Restore the Light in Last Day Darkness
And the problem with that is that we are living in the last days my friend; we’re living in the last days. When you look at the morality of what is going on in our world when you talk about the spirit of Elijah the prophet we’re talking about that last-day spirit—the spirit of Jezebel the woman, the queen of Israel that was basically the head of a fake false church. Elijah fought this woman; he went up against this this woman because his job as a prophet was to correct the incorrect worship of God.
And to restore the true worship of God in Israel but first he had to fight the entrenched evil within God’s house. He had to turn it around through the power of God and we are seeing this today in our society—even in our churches in our culture and our homes. It is a battle for supremacy: Will it be God’s way or will it be Satan’s way? Thus, the spirit of Elijah is fighting the spirit of Jezebel even today.
When you read the story of Elijah the prophet. We need that masculine spirit especially for our young boys and for our young men who are leaving the church. Even older men are struggling; I’m trying to find a church myself where men are—where it’s not just a country club. Men don’t want to go to a country club until they reach a certain point in life when they are much older. Men want to hang out and do guy things. Men want to be challenged. That’s what I was trying to say; cut out the part about the church being a casual country club. You can find a country club in the unsaved world. You can find clubs and bars in the unsaved world.
Where can men go to pray, fast, and fight in the spirit? Where can men go to crucify their flesh, serve God, and serve others?
The Days of Elijah are Exciting and Full of Challenge and Warfare
Men want adventure and when you read the story of Elijah you see so much adventure. You see challenge; there’s a bad guy, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. You have the good guys and the bad guys, darkness and light, adversity and challenge, and the supernatural. When Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal, fire comes down on those logs when God answers his prayers.
And then he takes his sword and slays the prophet of Baal. What? We haven’t made a movie about this yet and put it in the theaters for young boys to see? The prophet Elijah slew Jezebel, and then we can tell the story of how great the prophet Elijah or the prophet David was. What are we doing here in the church my friends?
And you wonder why boys and young men don’t want to go to church? They’d rather be at home playing video games. We don’t even challenge them in the church; we want them playing video games at church instead of challenging and pushing them. Is it because when we become mature Christians, all we want to do is hear a sermon ourselves? That’s all we want: go, sing a few songs on a Sunday morning clap our hands get a little happy maybe we’ll say Amen a couple times during the sermon. We may or may not go; we just want to go up, say a prayer and leave the church. Many of us don’t even talk to anyone else; we just leave until next Sunday. We gave God our couple hours there. There is a poll out there that says 70% of Christians don’t read their Bible during the week other than Sunday service.
Only 5% of Americans attend church every Sunday.
The Power of Bible Prophecy to Ignite a Revival in America
So, perhaps if we as Christians thought more about Bible prophecy—if people knew more about Bible prophecy, Isaiah, and the book of Joel—all the miracles the prophets performed would be clearer. When you discuss the prophets, you discuss miracles. Miracles are throughout the Bible but the prophets frankly have the best stories: Moses, Elijah, and Elisha. Therefore, I encourage you, as the church, to teach your children about prophecy.
The prophets are the ones who see the miracles. The prophets are the ones who are not afraid to speak to the King. And the King listens to and respects the prophets. Prophets are those willing to stand alone against everyone if necessary. We need that in this day and age. Christians who are willing to stand alone and to speak to their family, communities, church, nation and world. Or at least to stand on God ‘s world and go against a Godless and increasingly antichrist culture.
And the beautiful thing is how relevant prophecy is today. One of the biggest reasons we want to teach our children about prophecy is because it is one of the ways to prove that God is real, as no one could have predicted the things in the Bible.
The Late Great Plane Earth Teaches About Bible Prophecy
In the book The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. You will find out more about the One World government, the rapture, and other important Bible prophecy themes , information and scripture.
The Bible predicted amazing things that we can see coming into view today. If you told someone we are approaching a One World Government, they would say you’re crazy. As close as I think we are to it they would say there’s no way everyone can come together; that would never happen. But yes, I can tell you there will be one world government.
If you told someone there would be a rapture, an antichrist or people worshipping a man, they’d say you’re crazy.
But but people on Earth will see these things and we pray that we won’t see any of them. Once we’re raptured up people will be talking about the Antichrist and the one-world government. We hope and pray that we don’t have to see any of that.
God is Real and Jumps Out Boldly with Bible Prophecy
And so my friends, the prophecy in the Book of Daniel—those awesome stories of Daniel's prophecy—is one way we can connect with our children and show them how cool God is because God is totally cool. I talk to him all the time but I specifically spoke with him face-to-face in 2024, and it was an awesome time.One of my takeaways is that God was so cool; it was awesome and refreshing to talk to him.
I think we are so boring as Christians that we don’t engage our children with the cool aspects of the Bible because we don’t know it well enough. We are too engaged with social media to be engaged with the Bible.
We’re too distracted by the NFL, the NBA, reality shows like ‘The Housewives,’ and other things we frankly shouldn’t focus on.
And that’s why our children aren’t passionate about Christ, because frankly, we aren’t passionate about Christ.
Our children are missing out because there’s no intent. If we aren’t raising our children with intentionality, and if our passion for Christ is only surface-deep, then our children will also be surface-level. When they go to church, they won’t know how to be led by the Spirit.
The Power of Biblical Foundations at Home to Change Life Tracjectory
They’re not going to read their Bible at home if you don’t read your Bible at home. Why would your children read their Bible at home if you don’t pray at home? Why would your children pray at home when they get older if you don’t lead your family into a prayer time at home and lead your family into reading the Bible at home? Why would your children lead their children and their families into reading the Bible at home? Oh no, we do that at church; that’s what we do at church not at home.
Train up a child in the way that they will go!
And the Bible says those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled. This day and age, society needs God so much, yet we are spending less time in the Bible. The thing is, we suffer so much from anxiety and depression because we fill ourselves with the world instead of seeking God. It’s time for that to change my friends.
God used the Late Great Planet Earth to Cement My Young Christian Teen Foundation
I took that book to school and was so into it but I didn’t read the whole thing; some of it was kind of boring as a fourteen-year-old without much knowledge or experience in geopolitics. I didn’t really understand what I was reading, so I purchased the book again so my son and I could read it now. He is about the same age I was when I first read it. My son has been raised in church, like I was, up until his current age. He has read much more of the Bible than I had as a kid (ages 0–14). Because my family stopped attending church. I read the Bible and pray with my son, wanting to show him how exciting the Bible is. This book is one way to do that.
As Christians, it’s important to have a diverse perspective on our lives because so many things are coming at us in these last days. You want to ensure you have as many tools in your toolkit and as many weapons in your arsenal as possible.
So so I started reading the Bible after I read the late great planet Earth and that’s when I started reading the Bible and that was my foundation that was on top of my foundation of the Christian because my foundation started when I was about 5 or 6 years old going to Sunday school and my dad leading me to Christ on the way home from church one day that was my foundation in God and I built on that foundation when I was in high school and so all I needed was an adult to take me to church and I didn’t have that so what happened was that I came to Christ later on when I went into the military that’s when I say that I really came to Christ that I really knew what I was doing and I really committed my life to God and so but God was always there thank you Jesus he was always there guiding me and calling me back to him he never forgot about me and no matter what you have been doing your life God never forgot about you either.
The name of the book is the late great planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. He went to be with the Lord years ago, so I want to thank Mr. Hal Lindsey and his family. I can’t wait to see you in heaven. And that’s my story.
Late Great Planet Earth Book Summary
The Late Great Planet Earth, first published in 1970 by Hal Lindsey and co-written with Carole C. Carlson, didn’t just sell books — it shook a generation awake. The New York Times called it the number one non-fiction bestseller of the decade, and by 1999 it had sold an estimated 35 million copies, translated into more than 50 languages. National Endowment for the Humanities Lindsey’s work paved the way for a generation of prophecy writers, including Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, and Joel Rosenberg, and brought once-obscure theology — the Rapture, the Antichrist, the mark of the beast — into the mainstream conversation. Christianity Today The book walks readers through the major prophetic themes of Scripture: the Rapture, the rise of the Antichrist, the One World Government, the mark of the beast, and the return of Jesus Christ — connecting ancient biblical prophecy to the headlines of the modern world. And here is what is staggering: when Lindsey first wrote this book, many of these things sounded like distant, impossible scenarios. Today, they are unfolding in real time. Jesus himself warned us in Matthew 24:6-7, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars… Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” Look around. Russia and Ukraine. Israel and Iran. Tensions between India and Pakistan now drawing in American concern. The Middle East on the edge of full regional war. The push toward global governance accelerating. What once seemed like fringe speculation now reads like tomorrow’s news. Lindsey himself, until just months before his passing in November 2024 at the age of 95, was still connecting current events to biblical prophecy — speaking about the 2024 election and Israel’s war with Hamas, reminding believers: “Remember that all this was foretold by the prophets, and it leads to something wonderful — the return of Jesus.” Christianity Today The man was faithful to the message until his final days. And the message has never been more urgent.
Bible Reading Challenge
Here is where I have to be honest with you, and the numbers back me up. According to the American Bible Society’s State of the Bible report, only about 24% of Americans — roughly 63 million people — personally engage with Scripture at least weekly, outside of a church service. Lifeway Research A separate study found that only 25% of the population reads the Bible on their own, apart from a church service — and more than half of Americans said they wished they used the Bible more. Christian Standard Think about that. The majority of Christians in this country are relying solely on Sunday morning to feed their spirit for an entire week. And when it comes to Bible prophecy specifically — the roughly 27% of Scripture that is prophetic in nature — most believers couldn’t tell you the difference between Daniel and Revelation, let alone explain why the news headlines connect directly to both. We cannot be ready for what is coming, and we cannot help others get ready, if we don’t know what God already told us was coming. That is the gap this book fills.
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