21. I never knew (never really thought it through) that if the “New Jerusalem” in the book of Revelation is talking about an ACTUAL city (rather than a metaphor symbolizing the Bride of Christ) that this 1,500 mile CUBED city would (literally) cover the entire Mid East including all of Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, a HUGE section of the Mediterranean Sea, and several parts of other neighboring countries – not to mention extending 1,200 miles BEYOND the International Space Station which is in a 220-mile low orbit.

22. I didn’t KNOW that a third of the stars falling to the earth could never happen – mainly because the smallest star out there is at least a THOUSAND times larger than our entire planet. I didn’t KNOW that.

23. I didn’t know that Hal Lindsey and Jack Van Impe and Tim Lahaye have all made several time predictions and “on-or-around” year projections of the Second Coming over the last 30 years, and yet Pastors all across these fruited plains have their books proudly on display in their office libraries. Hal Lindsey 1982, 1988, 2007, with contingency dates going as far as 2048; Jack Van Impe 1975, 1992, 2000, 2012; Ellen G. White (co-founder-Seventh Day Adventist Church): 1843, 1844, 1850, 1856; Joseph Smith (founder-Mormon church) 1891; Pat Robertson 1982; Lester Sumrall 1985, 1986, 2000; Benny Hinn 1993; Kenneth Hagin 1997 to 2000; Jerry Falwell 2010; John Hinkle (on Trinity Broadcasting Network) 1994; Louis Farrakhan 1991; The Jehovah’s Witnesses 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, and 1984. And rather than these authors being banned from the Christian book stores, the money continues to flow from these same authors even to this day. I was never told these facts in the church… The titles have changed to less accountable declarations such as “Are We In The Last Days?”, just in case we are not – that way they don’t lose face like they did so badly in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s with more daring titles…

Added Note: If your Pastor has ANY of the books by those authors in their office library, “There’s yer sign”…

24. I didn’t know (and never really stopped to think about it) that when Jesus was talking to the Scribes and Pharisees about these things – He was actually talking TO the Scribes and Pharisees, and whenever He was talking to His disciples about these things, He was actually talking TO His disciples (not to you and me in the 21st century).
Thinking about it now… it only makes sense that He was talking to whoever He was talking to… Right?

25. I didn’t know that when Jesus told first-century people that THEY would experience “all these things” He was actually telling THEM about what was going to happen to THEM in THEIR lifetimes (not someone else’s lifetime some 2,000 years later). And I’m being honest when I say I really was unaware of the fact that I had (literally) been taught to mentally REMOVE the real live audience and recipients of those New Testament conversations, and INSERT mySELF in their place (as if Jesus were talking to ME instead of them). Think about how crazy that is, and how our teachers have actually pulled that off!

26. I didn’t know that His disciples THOUGHT Jesus was talking about THEM and what THEY would see in THEIR lifetimes.
How is it that we’ve been taught to “see” (or view) conversations in the New Testament being addressed to US rather than to the (actual) people who were being talked directly to? We “see” them as “object lessons”, not PEOPLE. How did our teachers pull that off?

27. I didn’t know that the Bible says “antichrist” was already IN the first century… I Jn. 2:18; Compare Matt. 24:23-34, and I Jn. 4:3 That would mean that THEY were IN the “last days”, would it not? Oh, and I didn’t know that although there are many references to a rebuilt temple in the Old Testament, and that rebuilding DID happen, there is NO reference to ANOTHER rebuilt temple that will replace the one that was destroyed in 70 A.D., yet in order for the futurist end times doctrines to be true – there has to be one… But from the way the end times “experts” talk, I thought they were getting that from the BIBLE… But now I realize that EVEN IF someone DID build a new temple in Jerusalem and started offering sacrifices – it wouldn’t change anything.

28. I didn’t know that there were “wars and rumors of wars” during the era of “Pax Romana” (Roman Peace). I didn’t know that a large book could be written about this … Josephus writes that “Roman civil wars were so common” in that empire that there was “no need to write about them in great detail”. The Jews were often the target of these wars. At Seleucia “more than 50,000 Jews were killed.” The Annuls of Tacitus (14 A.D. to 68 A.D.) describes the tumult of the period with phrases such as “disturbances in Germany,” “commotions in Africa,” “commotions in Thrace,” “insurrections in Gaul,”, and the list goes on and on… The information is there if you look for it…

I didn’t know anything about that. It’s truly amazing what a little research can pull up, isn’t it?

29. I didn’t know that there were horrendous famines in the land in the first century, and that beginning with the book of Acts, we see famines were prevalent in the period prior to Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 A.D. (Acts 11:27-29). The famine was so great that the church as far away as Corinth participated in relief efforts (1 Cor. 16:1-5; Rom. 15:25-28). Also, well-documented historians of the time, Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonious all wrote of horrific famines during that same time period.

30. I didn’t know that there were catastrophic earthquakes in the first century, nor that Jesus simply said, “in various places there will be famines and earthquakes” (Matt. 24:7). I didn’t know that He never said anything about an increase in their NUMBER. Earthquakes are mentioned prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., one at the crucifixion (Matt. 27:54), at Christ’s resurrection Matt. 28:2), and another in Acts 16:26 that shook the foundations of a prison… Secular historians of that same time period record many earthquakes in Crete, Smyrna, Militus, Chios, Samos, Laodicea, Hierapolis, Calosse, Campania, Rome, and Judea. Josephus describes an earthquake in Judea of such magnitude “that the constitution of the universe was confounded for the destruction of men.”

I didn’t know that what most “end times” preachers are saying is in such a huge contrast from what the Bible is saying.