At least, that was the message of Hal Lindsey's book, The Late Great Planet Earth (1970). Lindsey tried to match up the Book of St. John - as well as other End Time stuff from the Bible - to current events. The message: the anti-Christ was on his way and Hell followed with him. The book sold a ton of copies and spawned a "documentary" in 1979. The film is noteworthy for being narrated by Orson Wells who served as narrator for a number of films like this (e.g., The Man Who Saw Tomorrow(1981)); hey, as long as the paycheck clears, right?
Other than that...well, it has a weird charm. Hal Lindsey is the main speaker, although there are also snippets of interviews with other people (scientists, politicians, theologians) who talk about how the world is sliding into chaos, that we'd be fighting water and oil wars by the 1990s, that there would be mass starvation in the US, etc. This would culminate in a massive war in the Middle East. Before you say "hey, that sounds kinda plausible" in order to make the "prophesies" work, the Chinese would have to send a 200 million man army into Iraq. I don't see that happening any time soon. Of course, the point was never plausibility. The point was to play into the fears and hopes of people. Humanity has a fascination with the end of the world. Guys like Lindsey coupled that to the fervent hope for renewal (in this case, Armageddon leading to a new age of peace under Christ) and made a ton of money.
The film is an interesting artifact of the time. I won't say it is worth watching for everyone. However, if you have an interest in obscure Seventies cinema, find apocalyptic pop-theology interesting or want to see some of the fears that people had in the Seventies, then check it out.
Here's the full movie via YouTube.
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