Christians who study Bible Prophecy are nuts?

I have found the following article at http://www.omegaletter.com/articles/articles.asp?ArticleID=6269 – and after having experienced a situation recently where I had returned to a local church after a long absence of regular church attendance and fellowship, I found myself in a very similar situation to the one described below, now read on…

Quote: If you are a Christian, and you believe that Bible prophecy is being fulfilled in this generation, then you are probably the oddball in your church.In fact, scratch 'probably'. It is pretty much a dead-bang certainty that you are. It is fascinating to me that a person can be pro-choice, anti-Israel, pro-gay marriage, and be labelled a 'Christian progressive'. But if you believe that God not only knows the future, but recorded it for us in advance, well, then you're a nut. Most Christians are ok with the idea that God created the universe. Whether or not they accept it as a literal 'creation' or some kind of modified evolutionary scheme notwithstanding, few Christians would argue that creation is beyond God's power? For reasons nobody has ever been able to logically articulate to me, Christians have no problem agreeing that the First Advent of Jesus Christ was prophesied. But prophecies pointing to His Second Advent are merely symbolic and not to be taken literally. If YOU do, then you are a nut. There are some churches, on the other hand, that are wholly given over to the study of Bible prophecy for the last days. If you are a member of a church like that, not only are YOU a nut, but you probably belong to a cult. If you wanted to draw a cartoon in which you wanted one of the characters to be instantly recognized as being a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic, the most recognizable way would be to draw a guy with a long beard wearing a burnoose and brandishing a sign saying, "Repent! The end is near!" And that's just the way the subject is treated by other Christians. To the world, if you study Bible prophecy, you are probably not just crazy, but dangerous. If you believe Nostradamus knew the future, you're a harmless eccentric, if you believe the Mayans calculated The End of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI) you are an historian. If you believe St Malachy, you are a Catholic theologian. But if you believe that the God of the Universe has a Divine Plan that culminates with the judgment of mankind during the Tribulation Period, based entirely on a literal reading of His Word, then there's something wrong with you. The Mayan Indians, whose culture died out 1400 years ago, developed a complex calendar system that continues to fascinate scientists to this day. The Mayan Calendar divides the history of man into five distinct 'ages' and this present age is scheduled to end exactly at 11:11 am (Greenwich Mean Time), on 24 December, 2012. The Mayans believed that on that date and time, the world as we know it will end with the final destruction of mankind on the earth. Nostradamus is credited with having predicted the 9/11 attacks as kicking off the end of days. According to one celebrated 'quatrain' a King of Terror wearing a blue turban will attack 'the "Great City", etc., etc. Although his most famous quatrain makes reference to the 'King of Terror' "in the seventh month of 1999" and the 9/11 attacks took place in the 9th month of 2000, for Nostradamus fans, that was close enough. An 12th-century Irish priest recorded a prophecy in which he allegedly named the rest of the Popes in human history, from Celestine II (1143-1144) to the last pope at the end of the world. According to St. Malachy, there would be exactly 112 Popes. Malachy predicted the second last Pope would be called 'a Benedictine.' I wrote about St Malachy's 'Benedictine prophecy' in April, 2005, as the new Pope was being selected. Cardinal Ratzinger chose, as his papal name, "Pope Benedict the XVI". According to St Malachy, the Benedictine's reign will be short, (Ratzinger is in his 80's) and he will be succeeded by the last Pope, "Peter the Great." The various adherents of the Mayans, Nostradamus, St Malachy (and there are others) all share the same basic worldview that could be paraphrased thusly: let every man be true and God a liar. All the various secular 'prophets' prove is that Satan knows his time is short. There is a singular difference between secular prophecies and Bible prophecy that reveals the source of the information. Secular prophecies can only 'predict' events, not outcomes. Bible prophecy tells how they turn out. "I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done." (Isaiah 46:9b-10a) Satan is the universe's master deceiver. His ultimate goal is to be received as God. Only God is capable of prophecy. But Satan has a counterfeit plan of his own, and he has had six thousand years to develop it. Since he knows what he has planned, it is no trick to reveal the plan to some secular 'prophet'. Satan doesn't know how his plan will turn out, any more than any other created being, but he does know what he has in mind. From our dimension of time, it seems like prophecy. Remove the element of time, and what seem now to be prophecy would no more than the outline of a plan. Extra-Biblical prophecies, are part of that overall plan to counterfeit the miracles of God, so that, one day, " he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." (2nd Thessalonians 2:4) If one examines the extra-Biblical prophecies for the truth they contain, rather than looking for the sensational, what what learns is that it isn't just prophecy nuts who believe in Bible prophecy. Satan believes it, too, or he wouldn't be trying to counterfeit it. What it does establish is that even Satan has an idea of the time of the end -- and Satan thinks it will be sometime around 2012. We know that, of the day and hour, no man knoweth, but we are told we will know that it is 'near, even at the doors.' And from that time, Jesus tells us, "Verily I say unto thee, this generation shall not pass, until all these things be fulfilled." (Matthew 24:34) TEOTWAWKI on December 24, 2012? I don't think so. But soon? No doubt about it. End of Quote