Did you know that there is an annual Rubik’s Cube world championship? The popular mechanical puzzle, invented in 1974 by an engineer named Erno Rubik, has sold more than 300 million units. At this year’s world championship in Budapest, Hungary, 263 competitors from 33 different countries competed at working the 3x3 cube in world record time, which is currently 9.86 seconds. Competitors also raced to be the fastest at working the cube blindfolded, with only one hand, and even with their feet.

Although Mr. Rubik’s famous cube is a difficult puzzle to work, Bible prophecy is a far more demanding puzzle. Indeed, the puzzle of Bible prophecy is yet to be worked by any man, in spite of the fact that some of history’s most brilliant minds devoted themselves to it. For instance, many people are unaware of the fact that Sir Isaac Newton, whom many consider to be the father of modern science, actually invented calculus in order to calculate computations that he hoped to use to solve the puzzle of Bible prophecy.

I once believed that Bible prophecy was like a jigsaw puzzle. If you got it right, every piece would fall perfectly into place. No piece would have to be forced or pushed into place; no piece would have to be trimmed to fit. Instead, every piece would fall effortlessly, naturally and perfectly into place. When it did, you would know that you had it; that is, you would know that God had given it to you (John 3:27).

My problem through the years with the major schools of eschatology—the study of end times or last things—is that none of them have all of the pieces to the prophetic puzzle in place. All of them are guilty of pushing pieces into place and trimming others to make them fit. Though each school may have some of the pieces, none of them have worked the prophetic puzzle.

Despite this fact, many proponents of today’s major schools of eschatology promote their eschatological views as a true test of orthodoxy. They view any disagreement with their eschatological views as tantamount to denying the truth of Scripture. Apparently, it has never dawned on these eschatological masterminds that it is possible to disagree with their interpretations of apocalyptic texts without denying the truth of the texts themselves.

Although I once believed that Bible prophecy was like a jigsaw puzzle, I now believe it’s more like a Rubik’s Cube. Whereas jigsaw puzzles may be worked from start to finish without ever requiring you to undo what you have already worked out, a Rubik’s Cube demands that you be willing to undo what you’ve already done in order to finally work it. It’s this undoing of what we’ve already worked out—at least what we think we’ve worked out—that prevents so many today from being more successful in the solving of the prophetic puzzle.

Too many Christians today refuse to rethink anything that they’ve painstakingly hammered out on the anvil of their personal study. Thus, whatever they’ve painstakingly hammered out is permanently hammered into them, even if it happens to be wrong.

I’m old enough to remember when the Rubik’s Cube first came out. Some of my smart-alecky friends would take the puzzle into another room and shortly thereafter emerge with it worked. According to them, the reason they insisted upon working the puzzle in private was to keep the secret to solving it concealed from the rest of us. We later learned, however, the real reason why they never worked the puzzle in public. It was to fool us into believing that they had worked the puzzle, when in actuality they had secretly pealed the colored stickers off so as to stick all of them of the same color on the same side.

Many who claim to have worked the prophetic puzzle remind me of my smart-alecky friends. Rather than working the prophetic puzzle, they actually peal Scripture off the sacred page and out if its context so as to stick it wherever it needs to go in order to corroborate their end time hypothesis. Instead of changing their eschatology to fit in with Scripture, they change the Scripture to fit in with their eschatology.

My smart-alecky friends were finally found out when someone carefully examined their handiwork. Upon careful examination, it became apparent that the colored stickers had been pealed off and reapplied where they originally did not belong.

When it comes to today’s major schools of eschatology, each should be carefully examined. Upon close examination, it will become evident to all open-minded examiners that some scriptural texts have been pealed out of their context and misapplied so as to shore up some supposed end time scenario.

While we should never give up on working the puzzle of Bible prophecy, we should stop using our current suppositions as a standard of Christian orthodoxy. Furthermore, we should all acknowledge that none of us have solved the puzzle; therefore, we must be ever ready to redo what we have supposedly already worked out. Otherwise, we’ll never be able to solve the Rubik’s Cube of Bible prophecy.