'The Hal Lindsey Report'

I first began studying Bible prophecy in 1955, shortly after becoming a Christian. In 1956, I attended a lecture at Rice University in Houston. Colonel Robert B. Thieme spoke for more than two hours showing how the Suez Crisis of 1956 fit into the predicted scenario of end-time events. 

He said that Russia would back Egypt and the Muslims in their struggle against England, France, Israel, and much of the west. He also detailed how Russia would later become the driving force of a Muslim coalition that would eventually attack Israel and start the first phase of the war of Armageddon. 

Needless to say, I was hooked. As all of this played out on the world stage, it gave me an assurance that the Bible had to be the Word of God. For nothing man created could be that accurate about specific events that would happen hundreds and, sometimes, thousands of years later. 

In 1969, when I wrote The Late Great Planet Earth, the Soviet Union was approaching its zenith as the world's other superpower. But, according to Bible prophecy, Gog is to be a strong regional power, not a world conqueror. That meant that God had to stop the Soviet Union before it became a world-dominating power which wouldn't fit into prophecy. 

He did.