This brief survey  by Robert B. Yerby

1976 is out of print and public domain.

Republished here - 15 Sep 09.

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The Once And  Future Israel

 by Robert B. Yerby is a companion prequel.

CONTENTS

  Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 1

  Faith of Our Fathers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chapter 2 

 A Night With the Family. . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Chapter 3

 Seeking God's Perspective. . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 4

Up, Up, and Away. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 5

Aftermath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   Chapter 6

Weighed and Found Wanting. . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 7

His Banner Over Who?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chapter 8

The Great Reign Robbery . . . . . . . . . . . .  . Chapter 9

Great Tribulation When? . . . . . . . . . . . . .  .Chapter 10

The Olivet Prophecy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chapter 11

Millennial Musings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 12

O Zion, Haste. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chapter 13

INTRODUCTION

Change is the order of the day in our present world.

    Some of it is good - but when it comes to Holy Scripture much is merely the reckless discarding of tested, tried and true beliefs in favor of radical, new and unproven ideas. And change can be particularly dangerous if it tampers unwisely with civil government, the family and the church, which are the basic institutions that have been ordained by our God. In the area of human government, for example, we are told that if we will just forget our past ideas about freedom and the rights and dignity of the individual we can move on to a new world of justice, equality and fraternity. If we will merely yield up our personal liberties, rights and property to the authoritarian central planners they will re-distribute them In a more satisfactory and productive manner, reserving to themselves, of course, the power to enforce that re-distribution through whatever means are necessary.

    Now many of us [hopefully most of us] oppose that kind of tyrannical short-cut to the ideal society, and we bristle if legislators, educators, the news media, radical activists or others sneer at and suppress the old ways, the traditional and orthodox beliefs, and arrogantly exalt the brilliance of their newly discovered social panaceas. Likewise, we are incensed by those who ridicule and attempt to destroy the traditional family unit that has been honored by God as a mainstay of our great nation and who instead flaunt the libertine philosophies of their "new morality." Clearly, government and the family have been under heavy attack by such revisionists, but what about the church? Has it been immune from the recent tendency to discard the old ways and substitute new Ideas, or has the same phenomenon occurred there? The author believes, and this book will attempt to prove, that the church has been similarly victimized, and that there has been a concerted effort to suppress certain historical and traditional beliefs and to replace them with speculative theories of recent origin that deny Christians their present inheritance as the children of God.

    Through a device that can only be described as fraud by fable, believers have been systematically robbed of the truth of the present reign and kingdom of Jesus Christ, and of the companion truth of their present reign with Him. They have been tricked into swapping present reality for future fantasy. They have given up legacies for legends. You have been a victim of what may be called the great reign robbery if you have been taught, and have accepted, the recent system of Bible interpretation that says no crown or throne, no kingdom or reign, no power or glory, were given to Christ at His first advent. You have been defrauded by fable if you have been taught that those honors will be bestowed upon the Lord only in a future 1,000-year earthly kingdom during which the governing code will be the ancient laws and ordinances given to Moses at Mount Sinai. You have lost a fortune in spiritual riches if you are unaware that you are now, today, in this life, reigning with the reigning Christ and that you, and not some unbeliever, are "the apple of His eye."

Today we see all around us a torrent of end-time literature glorifying and propagating certain recently contrived tales of tomorrow, but barely a trickle of words in behalf of the truths traditionally taught by the church until the fable tellers sprang up in the last century. This book is an attempt to offer the current generation of believers some orthodox and historical alternatives to the speculative end-time theories that currently dominate the Christian bookshelf. In particular, I hope that the love of truth manifested by the multitudes of young believers today will prompt them to weigh carefully the doctrinal alternatives explored in this book before casting their lot with the futurists. But I also believe that the shortcomings and, yes, dangers of the highly touted fables are serious enough to make believers of all ages want to reconsider some of the beliefs they may long have held in unquestioning esteem. We are not out to mine any new ore of truth but only to glean for nuggets of prior truth that may have been lost or misplaced. Unlike the fable spinners, we claim no new revelation. Like Nehemiah, all we desire to do is discover the sound building stones under the rubbish [Neh 4:2] and help put them back in their proper places.

I have attempted this book only because in this present day we are seeing a blurring of the once sharp division between the so-called clergy and the laity, and it has become permissible for a businessman, and former newspaper reporter, to turn his hand to writing on theological topics.

This is by no means an exhaustive, weighty and scholarly treatise, but merely a brief survey of alternative end-time beliefs designed to stimulate interested readers to undertake further study on their own. The reader will quickly perceive that mine is a poor, unimaginative effort compared with the dramatic flash and thunder of those skilled narrators of popular views. But at least no one will be able to say of me: "Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord" [Ezek. 13:5]. The reader will also note that I  nowhere criticize or attempt to analyze the motives of the proponents of the recent speculative theories. There I follow A. B. Simpson's simple rule: We are allowed to judge the actions of others, but not their motives. I hope to be judged in the same light by my readers.

Chapter 1

FAITH OF OUR FATHERS? 

The doctrinal truths that God has been restoring to the church are, and should be, nothing more nor less than first-century, apostolic, New Testament teachings, designed to bring blessing, unity and maturity to the church and to make it a blessing to the world. But while it is eagerly gathering the good currency of restored first-century truth, the church must also be wary of taking in any counterfeit teachings that lack the apostolic stamp of authority. Believers have every reason to doubt, and every right to question, the truth and authenticity of any doctrine actively propagated in the church in our day, but not taught in the New Testament church of the first century. But, amazingly enough, one of the most actively propagated and publicized systems of belief of our day not only was not accepted and taught in the early church, but also is diametrically opposed to much apostolic teaching. Further, many of the proponents of these new beliefs bluntly admit the novelty and recent origin of their theories, but attempt to justify them on the grounds that their 19th and 20th century revelations have equal standing with the apostolic teachings.

The apostle Paul, the unchallenged authority on New Testament revelation, clearly foresaw this danger more than 1,900 years ago when he warned that "the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but. . . . they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" [2 Tim. 4:3,4]. The dictionary defines fables as "myths, legends, untruths, falsehoods, stories not founded on fact." Was Paul right? Is it possible that in some sphere of our Christian beliefs we have, knowingly or unknowingly, thrown out orthodox teachings that were faithfully adhered to up until modern times, and in their place substituted fables of recent origin? More specifically, is it possible that many of the things you and I have been taught about the unfolding events at the end of time are completely at variance with the teachings of the New Testament, and with the beliefs of Calvin, Knox, Luther, Zwingli and other great leaders of the Protestant Reformation, and with 18 centuries of many great Bible expositors and commentators?

For example, if you and I believe a system of Bible interpretation that teaches that God today is pursuing two different programs with two different people, and Paul contended vigorously that God has only one people, who is most likely wrong, the Apostle Paul or us? If you and I believe in a future 1,000-year reign of Jesus Christ from a throne in Jerusalem, and Martin Luther did not, who's wrong, Luther or us? If you and I believe that the church will be taken away from the earth for seven years, and that during its absence the world will be evangelized by 144,000 Jewish converts far more effectively than it has ever been evangelized by the church, and 18 centuries of great Bible expositors disagree with us, who's wrong? If you and I believe that the resurrection of the saved is separated by a thousand years or more from the resurrection of the unsaved, and 18 centuries of commentators disagree, who's wrong? And not only that, but why this difference in belief? Shouldn't we want to investigate and find out? Shouldn't we have enough curiosity and concern to try to figure out where Paul and Luther and the great reformers and expositors - or you and I - went wrong?

Orthodox Christianity historically has taught that God has always had one people that He has called out from the world and in whom His purposes for all eternity are being worked out.  Initially His people were the God-fearing Israelites [a natural people under Old Testament law knowing only repeated animal sacrifices for sin], but later, after Christ's death and resurrection, they were succeeded by the church [a spiritual people under New Testament grace knowing the one perfect sacrifice of God's Son].

In the last century and a half a contradictory teaching has emerged which insists that God has two people, and that although He began His dealings with His natural people, the Israelites of old, and is presently dealing with His spiritual people, the church, He will nevertheless one day [in the next and final "dispensation" of world history] resume His dealings with His natural people.

This idea violates at least two well-known scriptural principles. [1]. The Apostle Paul's teaching of "first the natural, then the spiritual" [1 Cor. 15:46] would have to be amended to read "first the natural, then the spiritual, then again the natural." [2]. The Old Testament says Israel was the wife of God [Jer. 3:14; 31:32], and the New Testament says the church is the bride of Christ [Rev.19:7]. Since our God is one God, is it reasonable to suppose that He is married to two different women?

The 19th century was a strange breeding ground for religious doctrines. In the decades before the Civil War the northeastern United States became the birthplace of the founders of three of the four major cults of modern times, Charles Russell of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Joseph Smith Jr. of the Mormons, and Mary Baker Eddy of Christian Science. During that same period, members of the fourth major cult banded together for the first time, in the same part of the United States, to form the American Unitarian Association. [We define a cult as any group of people with religious leanings who deny the deity of Christ, salvation by grace through faith in Christ, and the sole inerrant authority of the Bible.] What compelling force led to the creation and nurturing of those groups at that time is hard to explain.

Why the dark spiritual forces that energized their leaders chose one century in one nation to unveil those heresies we may never know, this side of eternity. We do know, however, that this same strange 19^th century environment formed the soil in which the new Dispensationalist theories took root, and from which they sprang into bloom. The seeds were planted around 1830 by J. N. Darby and the young plants were carefully tended and nurtured by C. I. Scofield, the latter producing a manual of instructions which, in an unprecedented move, he printed right in the Bible. Scofield said "a dispensation is a period of time during which man is tested in respect to his obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God." [This is an assumption without Biblical proof and a definition without dictionary support.] His dispensations are the so-called ages of innocence, conscience, human government, promise, law, church, and kingdom. Bible expositors before Scofield saw no such fragmentation in God's creative work, but only a simple and beautiful unfolding of His divine purposes, first through Israel and since Pentecost through the church. Our God would appear to be, at the least, vacillating and uncertain if He had manifested His dealings in man's affairs in the changing and narrow ways envisioned by Scofield.

The truth is that the Old Testament man looked forward by 'faith' to the coming of Christ, and the New Testament man looks back by 'faith' to the same event. The gospel that was preached to Abraham [Gal. 3:8] is still preached in the 20^th century. The 'seven-testings-of-man concept' is designed to lend at least an appearance of theological weight and authority to this system, but the dispensationalist seems to have little real interest in the first three periods. He is really after the final four periods because they give him a framework within which to pursue his theme. He feels they provide the justification he needs to pull apart the scriptures and decide how much [or rather how little he is willing] to allow the church to have as its own. In his determined effort to prove that God today is pursuing two distinct and different programs, one with earthly people in a system called Judaism, and another with heavenly people in another system called Christianity, the dispensationalist chops, twists, wrests and distorts the scriptures in order to keep the two groups separate. His "teaching" for the church today consists of a leap-frogging odyssey through the Bible, heavily laced with alibis, explanations, excuses, post-ponements, gaps and parentheses. He has nothing to contribute to our spiritual growth, not a bite of meat, and even the milk he wants us to sip is curdled and sour. Christianity has always taught that the whole Bible is yours, Christian, and that includes not only the front with Genesis, and back of the book called Revelation, but also the entire middle as well. [Both Jesus and the Apostles relied entirely on the Old Testament scriptures, the New Testament was written well after the ascension of Jesus Christ, some possibly after A. D. 70.] 

     The dispensationalist says so much of the Bible is yet in the future that you wonder after a while whether anything much really happened in the past. For example, he says Christ came to offer an earthly kingdom to the Jews, but that they surprised God and thwarted His plans by refusing the offer, thereby forcing God to postpone His plans and agree to a new arrangement which resulted in the death of His Son. But, we are told, that original idea is still running around in God's mind, and one day in the future He's finally going to manage it. Oh, sure, for a couple of thousand years during this parenthesis" known as the church age or the age of grace God is passing the time with another group of people. But one day He will take them away and get back to dealing with His first love, "the apple of His eye." Then finally the world will see evangelism on a meaningful scale as "converted Jews of the Tribulation era" show how the church should have been doing it all along. Then finally Christ will have a kingdom and finally He will reign. To "prove" his theories the dispensationalist denies the prior fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies regarding the return of the Jews to the land, the re-building of the temple and the restoration of the law and its ritual sacrifices. These were fulfilled hundreds of years before Christ during and after the return from the Babylonian captivity, but in the dispensationalist's scheme this is ignored in favor of an imagined future fulfillment. Dispensationalists typically claim that they are the only ones who know and understand and appreciate Bible prophecy while in fact they exhibit a tragic lack of belief in prophetic fulfillment.

    As will be shown in this book, Christianity has taught that the crucifixion was God's plan from before the beginning of the world. It was not an afterthought. Christianity has taught that the establishment of Christ's kingdom is a past, not a future, event. There is a final consummation of this kingdom still to come, but the kingdom itself was manifested at Calvary and the King has been reigning ever since. Christianity has taught that you, Christian, not some unbeliever, are 'the apple of God's eye' and that you are reigning now with Christ.

    Temperatures rise and blood pressures boil when dispensationalist theories are criticized and attacked. Many voices urge silence in order to build and preserve unity. Well, I agree with the need for unity, but there is also a need for honesty and truth. We will have no true spiritual unity where false concepts are harbored which deprecate the accomplishments of Christ at His first advent, which belittle the church and its mission, and which stunt the growth of the individual believer.

    If the Darby-Scofield beliefs now held by so many Christians are true and scriptural, surely they can stand the spotlight of investigation. There should be no doubt at all, however, about the fact of their recent origin, and this we can hear directly from some of the pioneers of that school of thought. In his excellent book, Biblical Studies in Final Things [Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co., Nutley, N.J.] William E. Cox quotes some of the movement's early leaders. Let me hit you first with one of the real shockers, confirming what I said above, as Cox [page 181] quotes dispensationalist S.D. Gordon from his 1906 book, Quiet Talks About Jesus: "It can be said at once that His [Jesus Christ] dying was not God's own plan. It was conceived somewhere else and yielded to by God. God has a plan of atonement by which men who were willing could be saved from sin and its effect. That plan is given in the Old Hebrew code. . . . a man could bring some animal which he owned." How can such a statement be reconciled with the New Testament teachings that Jesus' crucifixion was "Him, [Jesus Christ] being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:" [Acts 2:23],  and that "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" [Heb. 10:4]? Scofield's interpretation of the last nine chapters of Ezekiel requires the restoration in a future Millennial Kingdom of the temple, animal sacrifices, the Levitical priesthood, the Sabbath, the Passover, circumcision, and all the laws and ordinances given to Moses at Mount Sinai.

    Why, since Christ already has "offered one sacrifice for sins for ever" [Heb. 10:12], would the dispensationalist want to return to animal sacrifices in his proposed seventh and final age after the second coming of Christ? Such a program would be apostasy today, but we are told it is supposed to be prophetic fulfillment in the future. Cox [page 217] quotes Harry A. Ironside from his 1908 book, The Mysteries of God, as admitting that historically it was always believed that the church is prophesied in the Old Testament. The belief that the church is not foretold in the Old Testament was unknown "until brought to the fore through the writings and preaching of a distinguished ex-clergyman, Mr. J. N. Darby." [It is important to this school of thought to keep any hint of the church out of the Old Testament in order that key prophecies there can all be made to apply to national Israel.] Cox [page 196] quotes Scofield himself as making a similar admission in writing the introduction to Lewis S. Chafer's 1915 book, The Kingdom in History and Prophecy. He quotes Scofield as saying: "Protestant theology has very generally taught that all the kingdom promises, and even the great Davidic covenant itself, are to be fulfilled through the church." [The Davidic covenant will be discussed in a later chapter.] Cox [page 195] quotes Dr. John Walvoord of the Dallas Theological Seminary from an article in Bibliotheca Sacra [Jan.-Mar., 1951] as admitting that the belief in a 1,000-year reign of Christ from David's throne in Jerusalem strays far from the beliefs of the great Protestant Reformers such as Calvin, Luther, Zwingli and Knox. He quotes him thus: "Most if not all the leaders of the Protestant Reformation were Amillennial in their eschatology, following the teachings of Augustine." [Eschatology is the study of final things. Amillennial means Revelation 20 is speaking figuratively, not literally, when it refers to 1,000 years.] Although, as will be shown in this book, the Scofield fables are as foolish, false and damaging as they are unorthodox, they are propagated with an energy bordering on frenzy. Preying on the natural desire of Christians and others to know the future, they present with unblinking hesitation their incredibly detailed visions of the exact course of future events affecting the whole world. [Now a little curiosity is okay, Christian, but did the Lord tell you to snoop and pry or to watch and pray?] Through a flood of books and pamphlets their authors dominate the shelves of gospel book stores and with a tirade of words their narrators dominate the teaching on gospel radio stations. But where are the opposing voices? Where are those who should be standing for orthodoxy? Where are the alternatives to Darby-Scofield?

   Well, mostly they are in the form of thick, hard-to-read books in dusty libraries or, even worse, in the form of unwritten books in somebody's head. But, with a few exceptions, they're not easily accessible in paperback form on the shelf of the average Christian book store. I ran across one of the exceptions recently, and I'm happy to say that, although its aim and purposes were different from those if this book, it was excellently done. I refer to Wilfred C. Meloon's book, We've Been Robbed [Logos International, Plainfield, N.J.]. Meloon wrote his book after 25 years as an Independent Baptist evangelist, pastor and missionary. A staunch opponent of "formalism, inclusivism, unholy alliances, modernism, liberalism and ecumenicity," Meloon was stirred to write his attack on Dispensationalism because, in keeping with its tendency to compartmentalize everything, it teaches that the church is now in its seventh and last stage, the Laodicean or "lukewarm" period [Rev. 3:14-22]. As a result the church is seen to be in its dotage and decline, and therefore it cannot be expected to be empowered and vitalized as was the church in the first century.

"After years of being a fundamentalist preacher," Meloon says [page 7], "I have arrived at the conclusion that the intricate system contrived about 150 years ago, popularized by John Darby's commentaries and the Scofield Reference Bible and perpetrated by a large number of "fundamentalists," has consistently robbed the church of much needed power, and has been used to justify the absence of the supernatural in our ministries." Meloon makes a number of observations that are pertinent to what I've been saying here. For example, he offers this on [page 19] from dispensationalist Charles Ryrie's 1965 book, Dispensationalism Today: "It is granted that as a system of theology Dispensationalism is recent in origin." Ryrie justifies this, in his own mind at least, by adding: "The fact that the church taught something in the first century does not make it true. And likewise, if the church did not teach something until the twentieth century it is not necessarily false." Meloon's rebuttal is as follows: "Think that one through, fundamentalists. . . . If we accept Ryrie's statement, then Dispensationalism is a far more effective tool for robbing the church than the modernist who conveniently clips passages out of the canon with his liberal scissors. The liberal is obvious; the dispensationalist is devious."

 My inclination is to go with  the Apostles: Peter, Paul, James and John and their first-century teachings rather than with those who claim it is justifiable to replace first-century beliefs with contrary opinions that are recent in origin. Meloon also quotes [page 17] the great missionary, George Mueller: "My brother, I am a constant reader of my Bible, and I soon found out that what I was taught to believe did not always agree with what my Bible said. I came to see that I must either part company from John Darby, or from my precious Bible, and I chose to cling to my Bible and part from Mr. Darby." Books like Meloon's are encouraging, but they are altogether too rare in the great flood of current Christian literature. This lack has caused me to discard one of my life­long tenets, namely, that discretion is the better part of valor, and thrust this little volume into the perceived literary vacuum.

     This book is an attempt to show some of the surprising ways in which the new and unorthodox doctrines based on dispensationalist theory deviate from historical Christian teachings and to prove that these recent theories and the futurist speculations they incorporate are both false and damaging. It is important to prove both charges for if these teachings are merely wrong, but do no harm, then perhaps our time is better devoted to other matters. If, however, these beliefs are false and also harmful, their error should be exposed, in view of their widespread and frequently unquestioning acceptance among Christians, particularly in America. Proving the falsity of these theories will take some little while, but summarizing their damaging nature and destructive implications can be accomplished in just three sentences:

1. They belittle the first coming of Christ and imply that in certain respects He failed and that, therefore, the Father's supreme will was not accomplished.

2. They imply that God has two different people and that one, the church, was an afterthought and is a net failure, and that the other, national Israel, will have a glorious ministry after the church is removed.

3. They pre-condition individual Christians to 'immaturity through a false promise of escape from tribulation, and to defeatism through the false claim that only at some future time will they and Christ finally have power and finally reign'.

At the same time that the proponents of these theories downgrade the first advent of Christ, the mission of the church, and the present victory of the believer, they simultaneously envision the exaltation of the 'dead fig tree of Old Testament Judaism' to a future role of glory and of national supremacy.

Let me impose on you and ask you a few questions.  How long were you a Christian before someone recommended to you a Scofield Reference Edition, or the latest paperback guide to an instant understanding of the book of Revelation? How long after that before you proudly did the same for another new Christian, or hoped-for Christian? Having initially grasped those beliefs, can you discuss them calmly with other believers who disagree with you? In the time you have been a Christian have you [like George Mueller] ever made any changes or adjustments in your end-time beliefs, or did you receive such perfect truth at the first moment that no revision has ever seemed necessary? Have you ever suspected the existence of other end-time beliefs? Do you believe other ideas on that subject could be even partially right and yours partially wrong? Do you feel your beliefs could be contrary to historical Christian teaching?

If your spiritual temperature rose more than 10 degrees during that grilling, you're in no condition to continue. Take two chapters of Proverbs and call me in the morning. Or at least lay this book down, read the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, and come back when you can love me again.

Chapter 2

A NIGHT WITH THE FAMILY

And now, if we're all together again in some semblance of one accord, I want to tell a little story, in which I [the author plays the fool], for the purpose of illustrating some of the alternatives to the speculative theories of Scofield and his current adherents. The account of my efforts to straighten out my family regarding events at the end of time is very interesting. It all happened one evening when we were sitting around the living room, my wife, my four children and I. For some time I had been concerned about their unwillingness to devote the majority of their time to a study of end-time doctrines. - So I said:

"What do you think is going to happen at the end of time?" I casually asked one of my daughters.

"I think the Lord is coming back to earth to judge the quick and the dead, Daddy," she replied, barely looking up from her activities.

"Yes, yes," I replied impatiently, "but what about the details?"

"Well, the angels said Jesus would come again in the same manner in which He left, and since He went from earth to heaven at that time, I believe He's coming from heaven to earth this time."

"Oh, now I see where you're confused," I said, with a sigh of relief. "That's at His second coming. I'm referring to His 1 ½ coming."

"His what?" asked my wife!

"You know," I said, with a touch of irritation. "When He comes at the Secret Rapture. This book I'm reading says only the Christians know about that coming of the Lord. It's all in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and 17."

"That 16th verse says He will come with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God," my wife said with a yawn. "How could an event that noisy be kept a secret?"

"It's because it all happens so fast," I protested. "This book quotes 1 Corinthians 15:52 which says it happens in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

After that there's a seven-year period called the Great Tribulation when the people who are left on the earth have to go through all those horrible things in Revelation 6 through 19."

"I thought you said all those horrible things happen after the last trumpet, Daddy," my second daughter said. "That's right, that's right," I said excitedly.

"But seven more trumpets sound during those chapters in Revelation that you say take place after the last trumpet," she replied with a puzzled look.

"Okay," I said, "let's forget about the trumpets and whether it's a secret or not. That's probably too deep for you. Let me show you how the Rapture works. There are going to be two in a bed, or grinding together, or in the field, and the one will be taken and the other will be left. The one that's taken goes to be with the Lord and the other is left to go through the seven years."

 "I read about that in Luke 17:34 through 36," my wife said, "but a few verses before that it said it would be the same as when Noah entered the ark, and when Lot left Sodom."

 "That's it," I said. "Noah and Lot were taken out and the others remained."

"Yes, dear," she replied, "but if it's going to be like it was then, Luke says those that remained were all destroyed, not consigned to seven years of hardship"

"You have the same problem with 1 Thessalonians 4, Daddy," my third daughter said. "You said the taking away of the church is described in verses 16 and 17 but, as I recall, just a few verses later it says sudden destruction comes upon those who are left. And sudden destruction sounds a lot different to me than seven years of just suffering."

"I never could see where it says in which direction the believers go with the Lord after meeting Him in the air," my wife said. "To me it's always been the same as if an important person were coming to visit our city and the mayor and other officials met him at the airport to escort him downtown. It looks to me as if the Christians are meeting the Lord to escort Him back to earth."

A few moments of silence passed while I  re-grouped. Then I returned to the attack.

 "What about the four resurrections that are coming?" I said with a confident smile.

The five members of my family exchanged anxious glances at each other.

"Now get this," I said, leaning forward in my chair! "This is a very important doctrine. You've got to be right on the resurrections or you're nowhere. Now here's the way it's going to be, right out of the books I've read. First, when Christ comes for the church there is the resurrection of all the believers of history - right?"

They nodded in tentative agreement.

"Then, seven years later there's the resurrection of those new believers, who were somehow converted after the church and the Holy Spirit were gone, and who were killed during the Great Tribulation. You've got to get them out of the ground to enjoy the Millennium that follows - right?"

This time there were no nods of agreement, and I realized with some disappointment that it was getting too deep again for their shallow spiritual understanding. But I plunged on; they had to learn sound doctrine.

"Next is the third resurrection, this time of those mortals, believers, who die on earth during the Millennium. You've got to get them out of the ground to enjoy eternity, right?"

Again, only hopeless confusion was on their faces.

"And finally," I said in triumph, "the fourth resurrection is necessary to resurrect all the wicked of all time for their condemnation.."

I sat back to relish their enlightenment. I knew I had stuck to just what the books said, and that it would bear fruit.

"I think there are only two resurrections, Daddy," one of my daughters said cautiously. "First, the spiritual resurrection or new birth that makes us alive in Christ after being dead in sin, like it says in Romans 6:13 and the first five verses of Ephesians 2, and second, the general resurrection at the end of time when all the saved and unsaved who ever lived will be raised together at the same time."

"That's true, dear," my wife added. "John 5:24 through 29 speaks of one resurrection which even 1,900 years ago was a present one, when some of those who are spiritually dead hear the voice of the Son of God and receive eternal life, and then of another resurrection, sometime in the future, when all shall hear His voice and come forth, some to life and some to condemnation”

"Yes, Daddy," another irritating voice said. "In John 11:24 Martha told Jesus she knew her brother would rise in the resurrection at the last day, but you said he would rise at the Rapture which you said takes place 1,007 years before the last day."

"I knew you people wouldn't be able to understand these things!" I said with great agitation. "How can you refute the clear statements of all the books and commentaries I have read? Listen, when I became a Christian I believed what people told me and the books they gave me, and I wasn't argumentative like you are."

There was silence about the space of half a minute. Then my little boy apprehensively raised his hand and I graciously encouraged him to speak.

"Did you say there were mortals living on earth during the Millennium, sir?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yes, my boy," I said tenderly. "Let me tell you what the books say. At the start of the 1,000 years the unbelievers who survive the Great Tribulation are cast off the earth and the surviving believers inherit the Millennial Kingdom, and they live and prosper on a peaceful earth."

"And are they mortal people just like us, sir?"

"Yes, my boy," I said warmly, "just like us."

"But, Mom," he said, "didn't you tell me flesh and blood can't inherit the kingdom of God?"

"Yes, dear," she replied. "I Corinthians 15:50."

I gnashed my teeth, ignoring repeated warnings from my dentist, and resolved to start again from the beginning.

"Look," I said, after my breathing returned to normal, "let's get down to basics. You've got to understand that God has two people and you've got to keep them apart. That's why the church goes up in the Rapture, so that those scriptures that apply only to the Jews, like almost all of Revelation after Chapter 5, can work themselves out. God started out working with the Jews and His Son came to sit on old King David's throne in Jerusalem, but when the Jews surprised God by rejecting Jesus, God had to change His plans and allow Jesus to be crucified. Then God set up the church to fill in the gap between the first and second coming of Christ. At the second coming, Christ will finally sit on David’s throne.”

"I don't understand about God having two different people," one of my stubborn daughters said. "There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, it says in Romans 10:12."

Another said, "There is no respect of persons with God, Romans 2:11."

The third added, "There is neither Jew nor Greek. . . . for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.". Galatians 3:28."

When no similar insolence was forthcoming from my son I turned my gaze on him. He had been thinking hard, and finally he turned to his mother and asked, "Mom, what was that about the wall being broken down?"

"That's Ephesians 2:14 through 16, dear," she said, smiling sweetly at him. "It tells how the Lord at Calvary broke down the former wall of partition between the Jew and the Gentile and made of the two one new man, one body."

"Well, isn't Dad wrong then?" my only son asked. "Well, he has studied a lot of books and charts, dear," she said. "The girls and I are only going by the Bible."

"Look," I said impatiently, "if you don't understand that, do you at least see that the Jews are God's special people, a peculiar treasure to Him?"

 "I know that in Exodus 19:5 and 6 the Lord told the Israelites that if they obeyed and kept His covenant they would be a peculiar treasure to Him, and a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation," my wife said.

"Yes, yes," I cut in, "that's it!"

"But I haven't finished, dear," she said. "I think they must have disobeyed and then God found a new people to replace them because Peter uses those same verses to describe everyone who has been converted to Christ."

"I never saw that," I snarled.

"It's in 1 Peter 2:9, dear," she said.

I gnashed my teeth some more, audibly this time. When the noise died down, one of my daughters said she thought the church had succeeded to the promises originally made to the Jews.

"Listen, kid," I snapped, "those promises were made to Abraham and his descendants through his son Isaac and through Isaac's son Israel."

"That's clear from Genesis 12:7 and 22:18, Daddy, but viewed in the light of the New Testament it seems that we-all who are Christ's through the new birth, are in fact the descendants of Abraham."

Thinking that I was rising from my chair to strike the child, my wife threw herself between us. When she saw that I only intended to pace the floor, she sat down again and asked her daughter to continue.

"Well, Mom, as you pointed out to us long ago, the third chapter of Galatians makes it all very clear. Verse 7 says they which are of faith are the children of Abraham.  Verse 16 explains that the seed of Abraham to whom the promises were made was Christ. Verse 27 says we who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And therefore verse 29 says that if we are Christ's then we are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise."

"I can quote scripture, too!" I shouted. "How about, children, provoke not thy father to wrath! That's in there some place, too, you know!"

"That's Ephesians 6:4, dear," my wife said gently, "but you've got it backwards. It says, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath."

"Well, how can I help it?" I exploded. "She takes one isolated passage of scripture and uses it to tell me I'm an Israelite!"

"A spiritual Israelite, dear," my wife said, watching with compassion my spastic reactions across the living room floor. "But she didn't really take an isolated passage. That one was about Abraham, but you also mentioned Isaac and Israel. Well, Galatians 4:28 and 29 says that we who are born after the Spirit are, as Isaac was, the children of promise.

And Romans 9:6-8 makes the same point, saying they are Israel which are of Israel."

"Any more?"  I asked sarcastically.

"Well, yes," she replied. "Romans 2:28 and 29 says that a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit. Oh, and Philippians 3:3 says we, that is, all the saints in Christ Jesus, are the circumcision, who worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh."

"Well, if you're going to favor all those New Testament scriptures above the Old Testament you certainly won't reach the conclusions my books reach," I said, again striving for sarcasm. Somehow my remark didn't seem to make the point I intended so I hurried on.

"Can you at least see that Jesus came to set up a restored Jewish Kingdom, but that His rejection by the Jews made it necessary to postpone His kingdom for a couple thousand years?"

One of my daughters immediately said that John 6:15 shows that when Jesus saw that the people wanted to make Him a natural king He departed from them and went off to be alone in the mountains. Another said that if Jesus had sought such an earthly kingdom in Israel He would have been technically guilty of the accusation brought against Him by the high priest and rulers of the Jews, and His crucifixion would have been justified by law. The third added that Jesus Himself said, "My kingdom is not of this world" John 18:36.

My wife said my statement implied that Christ didn't complete the task that was given Him at His first coming while in fact John 4:34 and 17:4 quoted Jesus as saying that He came to do His Father's will and did it. "And Luke 24:25 through 27 says that the risen Lord told His disciples that the Old Testament prophets clearly foretold His suffering and crucifixion."

"Maybe," I said, "but what about His kingdom? At some point that has got to be set up and I don't see it yet."

"Oh, Daddy," one of my daughters said, "you know Luke 17:20 and 21 says the kingdom of God doesn't come with observation, or visual evidence, but the kingdom of God is within you. It's the Lord's rule in the hearts of His people."

"You can't see or enter it except by the new birth, it says in the third chapter of John," then another said.

"Yes, Daddy, we've already been translated or transferred into the kingdom of God's dear Son, according to Colossians 1:13," then the third added.

"And Romans 14:17 says the kingdom of God isn't physical things like meat and drink, but is actually righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost," my wife said "

A man's enemies are those of his own house!" I shouted, and then a brilliant thought occurred to me. "Look," I said, thumbing eagerly to Revelation 12:10, "here it shows exactly when the kingdom of God is going to be set up. Isn't that something that's going to happen at the start of the Millennium? See, it's in the next chapter after the seventh trumpet sounds."

My wife turned to my proof text and smiled as she read it to herself. Then she read it aloud: "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down."

A chorus of giggles and shrieks came from the children.

My wife shook her head at them tolerantly, and said, "What they're trying to say is that all of those things took place at Calvary more than 1,900 years ago. In John 12:31 Jesus predicted that at His crucifixion Satan would be cast out, and in Colossians 2:15 Paul confirms that through the cross Christ triumphed over all His enemies and made a show of them openly."

"Why wouldn't you think salvation and strength and the power of Christ came long ago, Daddy?" one of my youthful tormentors asked me. "We all know when salvation came, and we know where our strength comes from, and in Matthew 28:18 Jesus said all power, or authority, in heaven and earth had already been given to Him."

My young son twisted the knife. "If the other three have come, then I guess the kingdom has come, too, Dad."

"The kingdom couldn't have come yet," I raged, "because when it does come then finally we're going to reign with Christ."

Again the children laughed. "Daddy, we're already reigning with Him," one of them said. "Romans 5:17 says that we who have received abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ."

"That's true, dear," my wife said. "If you read Peter's speech on the day of Pentecost, particularly Acts 2:30 through 33, it seems clear that Peter felt that Christ's resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God fulfilled the promise that a descendant of David would occupy His throne."

"Let me see that," I grumbled, picking up my Scofield Edition. "God had sworn. . . . of the fruit of His loins. . . . would raise up Christ to sit on His throne. . . . He, seeing this before, spoke of the resurrection of Christ. . . . this Jesus hath God raised up . . . . by the right hand of God exalted. . ". As I scratched my head over those verses, my wife added: "And, of course, Ephesians 2:6 says God has already raised us up to sit with Christ in the heavenlies. So we're already reigning or should be over every difficult problem or situation or circumstance."

"You'd better talk to him about 1 Corinthians 15, too, Mom," one of the kids said.

"What!" I exclaimed, mopping my brow. "I've already covered that. I told you that verse 52 says all the dead believers will be resurrected to meet Christ in the air along with all the living believers."

"Yes, dear, we know," my wife said, "but the point is that verse 54 says that the resurrection described in verse 52 fulfills the saying of Isaiah 25:8 that death is swallowed up in victory."

"So what?" I thundered.

"Well, don't you see, dear? Verses 25 and 26 of chapter 15 say that Christ's present reign must continue until He has put all His enemies under His feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed will be death. So, since verse 54 says His last enemy will be destroyed when the saints are resurrected, that means His reign ends then. At that time He delivers the kingdom up to the Father [verse 24] and the Son Himself becomes subject unto God in order that God may be all in all [verse 28]. So if you're going to reign with Christ, you've got to reign with Him now."

"But if His reign ends at the time He comes for the church that would mean there would be no 1,000-year reign later on the earth," I said, with exasperation.

"That's true, dear," she replied.

 I excused myself from my oppressors and, determined to rebuke and admonish them scripturally. I took my Scofield Edition with its concordance into the next room. I found that Proverbs 19:13 took care of both my wife and my son ["A foolish son is the calamity of his father, and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping"], but the only verse I could find about daughters was Proverbs 31 :29 ["Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all"]. Obviously that wouldn't do so, disappointed, I postponed my thoughts of revenge and returned to the living room.

"Look," I said as calmly as I could, "I believe most of your confusion occurred right at the beginning of our discussion. After explaining the Secret Rapture I should have told you about the Antichrist because during the seven years after the Rapture he's going to do some incredible things."

"No, he's not, dear," my wife said quietly.

"What do you mean?" I sputtered. "My books spell it all out. He will be a beast, and put marks on people, and they will have to worship him, and he'll execute people, and. . . . and . . . . and. ."  "Now just relax, dear," my wife said soothingly. "Some of the other ladies and I have looked into that situation and found out that the Antichrist won't be around to do anything after Christ comes for His church."

"You can't prove that!" I yelled, ---- but I feared she could.

"Well, dear," she said calmly, "one of the ladies had her new Interlinear Greek-English New Testament that shows each of the original Greek words and the English equivalent. The Greek word for the coming of the Lord for His church is “parousia” and that's the word used in 1 Thessalonians 4:15. Then in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 this same word is used for the coming of the Lord, and in that verse it says the Lord will destroy the Antichrist with the brightness of His “parousia”. So when the Lord comes for the church, He simultaneously destroys the Antichrist."

"That's ridiculous," I said, but I was perspiring freely now. "Listen, if you don't believe anything I'm telling you, I suppose you tell me what you do believe. "We believe that Jesus Christ is coming again, all the way to earth," my wife said, "and that when He comes all the dead will be resurrected, and they and the living will be judged worthy either of an eternity in the presence of the Lord, or an eternity of punishment. Satan will be eternally punished. The kingdom will be turned over by Christ to God the Father, and there will be a new, or probably renewed, heaven and earth. Every person will be as close to the Lord throughout eternity as he or she is in this life."

"You mean that is it?" I said. --- "That's the whole thing?" "Basically, yes," she said.

"But if that's all there is to it," I said, "people wouldn't need all those books and charts to figure it out. Why, it's so simple that even a child could understand it."

"Precisely," said my wife.

"Exactly," chorused my daughters.

"I understand it," said my son.

 Later, our neighbors said the smoke from the pile of books and charts I burned in the back yard could be seen three blocks away.

 Chapter 3

SEEKING GOD'S PERSPECTIVE

 The previous chapter illustrates the staggering scope and complexity of the task we assume when we attempt to investigate and understand events flowing forth from the eternal counsels of God. We find ourselves confused and in disagreement with one another regarding such subjects as the Secret Rapture, the Great Tribulation, the Millennium, the promises to Abraham and his descendants, the throne of David, the mystery of the Antichrist, and all the rest. Our problem is that in our eagerness to put these individual elements under our microscopes to dissect them, we fail to first get out our telescopes, and attempt to view the total panorama from God's perspective. You can take a single piece from a large jigsaw puzzle, and analyze it and ponder it the rest of your life without ever being able to describe from that piece alone what the entire puzzle looks like. So first we should try to understand what the completed picture looks like, and only then should we begin to study the individual pieces. And the completed picture is simply that of a cross, reflecting the eternal plan of God to send His Son to die for sinful man, to give His life that man might regain all that Adam lost, and more. For God the Father has eternally so loved His Son, and so loved His fellowship with His Son, that He has desired many more like them, all those "whom He did foreknow. . . to be conformed to the image of His Son" [Rom. 8:29]. It has also been eternally the Father's expectation "in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings" [Heb. 2:10]. Thus, the next thing on God's program after Jesus' earthly ministry of approximately three and a half years was His death, burial and resurrection, as the risen Christ Himself explained to His disciples [Luke. 24:25-27 and 44-48] and as Peter said on the day of Pentecost [Acts 2:23]. This is true notwithstanding the Scofield Reference Edition's claim in its note to Matthew 4:17 that "when Christ appeared to the Jewish people, the next thing, in the order of revelation as it then stood, should have been the setting up of the Davidic kingdom." Christ did, in fact, manifest His eternal kingdom more than 1,900 years ago, and if you don't believe it you probably have some difficulty explaining what kingdom you entered when you were born again [John. 3:5].

If we had the impossible task of trying to summarize God's eternal purposes, as far as the human race is concerned, we might come up with something like this: God has always desired a people who would be a special treasure to Him, a people with whom He could have the kind of relationship and fellowship that He enjoyed with His eternal Son before the foundations of the world, a people who, in their daily lives, would reflect the life that is in God and display God to those around them. Initially, His dealings toward that end were centered in the nation of Israel, but the prophets time and again thundered that if Israel did not obey, God would switch His dealings and purposes to another people. They didn't obey, so He did send His Son to purchase a new people.

A faithful remnant of the old nation of Israel remained true to God, but it is not far-fetched to say that at Calvary God's dealings were concentrated entirely on a remnant of one, the Lord Jesus [John. 16:32 and Mt. 26:31]. In Jesus the world for the first time had been able to see God in the flesh; people could look at that one man and say, "That is what God is like." And when Jesus was buried and rose again, it was the same as when a kernel of corn is planted and springs forth into new life, multiplying itself many times over. Through the death of one, many spring forth as the sons of God, and in them, in the corporate body composed of all born-again believers, in that "one new man" [Eph. 2:15] the people of the world again are supposed to see God and be blessed. People should look at us, as a corporate body, and be able to say what they said of Christ in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, "That is what God is like!"

    That, as some of us see it, is the challenge and the opportunity for the church today: to stand, steady in this mad, sin-sick world as everything around us is shaken, and to stand with confidence since we know that it's the Lord who is doing the shaking [Heb. 12:26,27]. As the violent, final events of history come to pass, as men's hearts fail them for fear, we should be looking up and lifting up our heads, for our redemption is drawing nigh [Luke. 21 :26-28]. And the people of the world should be looking at the church and saying, "That's what God is like!"

Now that is one vision of the church, and I will admit it thrills me. That's God's masterpiece, "the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places" [Eph. 3:9,10]. That is the church of Jesus Christ, "His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all," [Eph. 1 :23] standing strong in the Lord, in the power of His might, and in the whole armor of God, and confounding to the end the expectations of "the rulers of the darkness of this world and the spiritual wickedness in high places" [Eph. 6:10-13]. That is a vision of the church you can do some shouting about, and I believe that is the historical, orthodox vision. But some see another vision of the church, a shallow, shame-faced, apologetic vision; not a vision of the church militant arrayed in battle against her foes, but a vision of a fragmented, rag-tag band of losers, so pale, anemic and demoralized that they have to be evacuated before the battle is finished. Actually, we should not call it a vision at all. We should call it what it really is, a re-vision. No glory and might, no triumph or splendor attach to the church in this view; those attributes are all reserved to be lavished later upon national Israel, according to the futurist! Now everyone's entitled to choose his own vision, but I don't see how any Christian could hesitate even a moment before casting his vote for the former, that glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish [Eph. 5:27].

But if you choose that vision please choose the whole vision and stick with it. Don't gradually remove one glorious distinction after another from the church which is the spiritual habitation of God [Eph. 2:22] and bestow those distinctions on a small spot in the Middle East which is the physical habitation of a nation with a bad record of unbelief in our Lord Jesus Christ. If we can agree that the bright vision I've described at least approximates God's perspective, then we have our view through the telescope. Now we can get out our microscopes to analyze some of the parts that make up the whole. We want to study each individual piece of the puzzle to make sure that it fits, to make sure that it came out of the box labeled ‘The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints’ and not out of the box labeled 'Fables and Revisions'. Make no mistake about it, the pieces of the Scofield puzzle don't form a glorious church; they just form a glorious national Israel. They don't form a cross; they just form a star of David.

    As we examine these pieces we want to remember that we're dealing with some of the most controversial doctrinal building blocks that we have each put in place over the course of our Christian experience. If we argue over them on an emotional level, we will reap only bitterness. To study them objectively, we need a system of guidelines. One of the most obvious tests, of course, of any doctrine is its record of acceptability in the church down through the centuries. That is important, especially if our witnesses for or against a doctrine are the early church fathers, the Protestant Reformers and the great Bible expositors. But these are only men, some will argue, and so their witness is not the final and persuasive proof. We need further guidelines to corroborate the evidence of historical teaching. To meet that need, it is suggested that we study the major pieces of the puzzle to determine whether they meet the following criteria:

 1. Do they glorify Christ and credit Him with fully accomplishing His Father's eternal will during His first advent?

     2. Do they honor the church, "which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all" [Eph. 1 :23]?

     3. Do they contribute to the spiritual growth of the many individual believers and help us to conform to the image of Christ?

       If you agree that these are fair and useful tests, then I would go so far as to submit that any belief we may have that fails to measure up to them might be a candidate for the garbage can. If we have believed something that misplaces the glory that should go to Christ, something that dilutes the vision of the church and its mission, something that stunts the growth of the individual believer, we should seriously consider discarding that belief and replacing it with something that meets the above standards. Let's apply these three tests initially to what has come to be called the Rapture of the church, the meeting in the air of Christ and the believers. That event does not at all constitute the important doctrinal issue in our study. The key issue, the question of whether God has two separate people, will be studied in a later chapter, but the Rapture, or Secret Rapture as some prefer to call it, is for the dispensationalist the signal that God's clock is ready to start working again after nearly 2,000 years, and that it then will tick off the final seven, or 1,007 years of world history. Because that event is for that school of thought an important beginning, we are satisfied to start our study at that point.

 Chapter 4

UP, UP, AND AWAY

The return of the Lord Jesus Christ has always been the blessed hope of Christians and as an event in history it stands second only to His first coming. We know that after the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, God highly exalted Him and gave Him a name which is above every name [Phil. 2:9] and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places [Eph. 1:20] where He will remain until a day known only to God. The problem before us here is this: Will Christ leave heaven twice? Will He leave heaven one time to meet somewhere in earth's atmosphere, all the believers who ever lived and take them back to heaven with Him, and then seven years later leave heaven a second time to come all the way to earth? Or, instead of having two stages divided by seven years, is His coming a single event, non-stop from heaven to earth? If it is the former, if He comes to meet the Christians to take them all to heaven, it would be more appropriate for 1 Thessalonians 4:17 to say that the Lord meets the believers in the air (on their way to heaven) rather than saying that the believers meet the Lord. On the other hand, if the Lord leaves heaven but once and comes all the way to earth, then it makes sense to expect the eager saints of all ages to meet Him and escort Him the rest of the way. This was the customary courtesy paid to visiting dignitaries in Biblical times and is still our custom today the lesser go forth eagerly to meet and greet the greater. In exactly this manner the people of Jerusalem went out to meet Jesus and escort Him into the city before the last Passover [John. 12:12,13].

We want to apply our three tests to the two-stage concept of the Lord's return but first we want to tell another story. We think it's only fair to do this since the proponents of the futurist theories seem to have chosen the narrative or story-telling format as the preferred means of describing the things they say are going to happen in the future. We want to elaborate a bit on one of their favorite themes because we feel that they fail to carry their reasoning to a logical conclusion; they set an imaginary chain of events in motion, but then go off to pursue other matters without allowing those events to work themselves out. Let's assume for a moment that it has really happened and that all the Christians have disappeared. How many people would that be? Let's be conservative and say only one per cent of the nearly four billion people in the world.

That would be forty million missing Christians. If that's too many for you (0 ye of little faith!) take one-half of one per cent of the world's population, or twenty million. If you think that's still too high, take one-fourth of one per cent, or ten million. No matter which of these numbers we use, we're talking about a huge number of saved men, women and children. Somewhere between ten million and forty million people suddenly missing without a trace. People from every walk of life, from the greatest and most prominent to the least, most obscure: perhaps some presidents, prime ministers and royalty; some congressmen and members of the world's parliaments; some generals and admirals; famous movie stars and athletes; heads of giant corporations; some pastors of churches of every denomination; doctors, lawyers, judges, journalists, scientists, housewives, policemen, firemen, farmers, bankers, accountants, stockbrokers, insurance agents, realtors, authors, artists, teachers, factory workers and white collar workers, and children from every kind of school and college. The phenomenon would be worldwide, from Greenland's icy mountain to India's coral strand. People of every nation tongue, tribe and color would be missing. Of course, all those cars would have gone out of control on the highways as Christian drivers suddenly vanished. All those patients on the operating table would have died as Christian doctors and anesthetist that suddenly disappear. And many a Communist official would have a lot of explaining to do about the sudden "escape" of all those Christians from their cells, asylums and labor camps. In short, the mass disappearance of all born-again believers would assume such global proportions that it would be the major news event of modern history. Today large black headlines are generated by a fatal fire, airplane crash, hurricane, earthquake or other catastrophe that claims human lives. Newspapers around the world chronicle the death, or kidnapping, or disappearance of a single prominent person. Extra editions are rushed out to proclaim each new political uprising, revolution, hi-jacking or terrorist attack. These occurrences, shocking as they are, involve anywhere from one to perhaps tens of thousands of persons. But the story we're talking about here would involve the disappearance of many millions of people plus all the related damage.

The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima snuffed out more than 70,000 lives. Like the event we're looking at here, it happened in a fleeting moment of time. At one moment thousands of people were walking about, leading normal lives, doing ordinary things, and in the next instant they were destroyed. The headlines were black with the shock of it. But we're talking about a situation that would dwarf Hiroshima-more than 100 times as many people would be missing. This sudden evacuation of millions of people would cause a chain reaction of terror, lost lives and property that would affect countless numbers of the people remaining behind. How many unsaved relatives and friends of Christians would be left behind in a speeding car, plane, boat, train or subway? How many unsaved children would be safely at home but nevertheless orphaned; how many aging but unsaved parents would be left destitute? How much property damage would be done by all those out-of-control vehicles on land and sea and in the air? How about that charging bulldozer whose operator had suddenly disappeared? How about the giant ladles of molten steel with no one there any longer to control them, or that speeding ambulance or fire truck? What other damage would result from key people suddenly disappearing from jobs of a hundred different descriptions? Just a few elementary questions like the above serve as a way to emphasize the tremendous worldwide impact resulting from the disappearance of millions of Christians.

It is hard to imagine a single Christian whose disappearance wouldn't affect, in some way, his or her relatives and friends, or even total strangers. No single event in modern world history could compare with the disappearance in a moment's time of millions of people and the loss of life, property and security that would necessarily follow in its wake. Now we've said all that to say this: Those modern-day prophets who are predicting that all true Christians will suddenly leave the earth in this manner for a period of seven years almost without exception fail to follow to a logical conclusion the course of events that they are predicting. We have given a few of the logical consequences of such an evacuation in the paragraphs above, and we will pursue this logic to its inevitable end below. But what do the proponents of this theory tell us of the immediate aftermath of this mass evacuation? Only that those remaining on earth are puzzled by the disappearances and the resulting loss of lives and property, and that they try in vain to explain what has happened. Having said that, they leap ahead to describe various spectacular events that are supposed to occur later in the seven-year period that follows. But we want to explore right now in a little more detail the course of events that logically should follow in the minutes, days and weeks immediately after the strange disappearance of millions of people from the face of the earth.

From some point in the future we look back on what appeared at first to have been a very ordinary day in the affairs of men. Ted Book and his wife Alice were driving down the expressway when Ted, who was at the wheel, suddenly saw the car in front of them veer off the road. Incredibly, it seemed to Ted that no one, neither driver nor passengers, had been in the car as it left the highway. He turned to Alice to ask if she had seen anyone, but Alice was gone! A very shaken Ted Book pulled his car over to the side of the road. Gone? How could she be gone? He had just picked her up at work. He looked in the back seat but she wasn't there either. The doors of the car were still locked. Her seat belt was still buckled. Stunned and confused, he opened his door and stepped cautiously out of the car. Behind him he saw the wreckage of the car that had veered off the road. It had hit a tree. Far away he heard the faint sound of sirens. Ted scratched his head in confusion, walked around his car several times, looked under it, looked inside again, and then started to walk back up the highway in the direction from which they had just come. He reached the spot where the car had crashed, and saw that several other motorists had stopped to lend a hand. The car was demolished but no one could find the driver. Relieved that there were no injuries, Ted walked on. After going perhaps half a mile from his car, peering in all directions as he went, he stopped and began to re-trace his steps. By the time he arrived at the car he had begun to think that perhaps Alice had not been with him after all. Had he perhaps forgotten to pick her up? He was almost beginning to believe it when his eye caught sight of the bags of groceries that Alice had bought at the convenience store just before they got on the expressway. Frightened now, fighting back panic, Ted leaned heavily against the door of his car. A man stepped out of a car parked nearby and walked over to him. "Everything okay?" he asked. "I don't know. Nobody's been hurt. I mean we didn't have an accident or anything. But my wife's gone. She just disappeared out of the car while we were driving along. I've looked for her but I can't find her." "Yeah, there is something funny going on," the man said. "I just heard on the radio that weird things like that have suddenly happened everywhere. People missing. Cars crashing. It's crazy. I think you'd better report it to the police. Maybe they can help." Ted thought about it a moment, then decided he had no alternative. He thanked the man, got back in his car, started the engine and shakily steered back into the line of now slowly moving traffic. Further down the highway, just beyond an interchange, lights from a police car were flashing at a multiple-car accident. Ted could see that it was bad, involving cars in two of the three lanes, and he decided to get off at the interchange and telephone the police rather than interrupt the officer at the accident scene. At a pay phone nearby he attempted to dial the police. The line was busy. He dialed the operator. All police and emergency lines were swamped with calls, she told him; something strange was going on. Not knowing what else to do, Ted climbed back in his car and drove slowly home, taking the twisting country roads and avoiding the expressway. But even on that route strange things were happening. A crowd of people surrounded a truck that had climbed the front steps of a home and stopped on the porch. Further along, another group clustered around a car that had plunged down an embankment. Here he saw a stretcher being lifted into an ambulance. Arriving at his home, he rushed in and searched every room, hoping but not really believing that somehow Alice would be there waiting for him. The house was empty. He tried the police and other emergency numbers again but they were still busy. Briefly he turned on the television set but the outpouring of news about missing persons and accidents only depressed him more.

Desperate to talk to someone he finally thought of the pastor of the little church where Alice attended regularly but where Ted himself went only reluctantly and on rare occasions. The man bored Ted, but now he had no one else to turn to. He found the number next to the phone and dialed it. There was no answer. Then he thought of the pastor at the large church they used to attend before Alice changed to her smaller church. He dialed that number and almost immediately a woman answered. "No, Dr. Allison is not here now," she said. "This is Mrs. Allison. My husband just stepped out a moment ago. One of the members of our congregation was involved in an accident, the strangest thing you ever heard of, a car with no driver struck his car, and my husband has gone to the hospital to visit him. No, neither he nor I have any idea of what's been going on." Ted thanked her and hung up. For a while he paced the floor, then he slumped dejectedly into a chair; On, the table next to him he saw an open book, his wife’s Bible, with some verses underlined in red. They were in I Thessalonians, chapter 4, and they said, "For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Suddenly he remembered how often Alice had told him that one day she was going to be "raptured away from the earth in the twinkling of an eye." "Ah, come on," he said to himself. "It can't be". But the more he thought about it, the more he began to believe that it could be. On the table where the Bible had been he saw the assortment of paperbacks and commentaries his wife had been constantly studying. He picked one up and began to page through it.

 Chapter 5

  AFTERMATH

    At the moment in which Alice had disappeared Chad Nesser was sitting at his desk at the Clarion Newspapers, preparing for a long, dull evening typing up some routine news stories for the morning edition. As one of the younger reporters on the paper he had little access to the big stories, the ones the police reporter and the court reporter worked on. Chad did mainly boring updates of stories that had run in the afternoon edition and maybe, with luck, there would be some new angle to report on one of those stories. Today the afternoon paper had little news to update and Chad figured he would be very bored indeed until this night was over. He was wrong.  About that time the phones began to ring, and they rang until the switchboard was jammed with calls. People were telephoning from everywhere; it seemed, to report accidents and missing persons. The calls were routed to anyone who could take down the details, including the boy who usually just carried copy and went for coffee. And the situation wasn't helped any by the disappearance of one of their veteran reporters, a great guy that you could always depend on. The man had been sitting at his desk just a few minutes earlier, but he was gone now and an unfinished story was still in his typewriter. Some of the reports were bizarre. A local mortician that was an old friend of one reporter called to say that a corps' had disappeared from the funeral home, "like It had Just flown away." The Ferris wheel operator at a downtown amusement park had also disappeared and no one else knew how to get the people down from the wheel.

    Chad took a call from someone at City Hospital who said he'd heard about an incredible thing that had just happened during an emergency appendectomy. "Let me guess," Chad said dryly. "The doctor disappeared."  "No, the patient disappeared," the caller said. But the news coming in from the around the world by teletype soon made most of the local news pale into insignificance. The world seemed to be spinning out of control. The number of people missing was mounting into the millions. Incredible accidents had taken thousands of lives. Many famous people had simply vanished. And on and on it went. From every part of the world the reports came, staggering in their variety and violence, and each one seeming more unbelievable than the one before. Chad wearily hung up on one caller and waited for the inevitable ring of the next call. It came immediately, and it was his Uncle Ted. "Chad, your Aunt Alice has disappeared!" Oh, boy, Chad thought, another one, and this one in the family. He'd have to try to comfort his uncle.  "That's terrible, Ted," he said, "I'm really shocked. listen, if there's anything I can do . . . ." "No, no, Chad," his uncle said, "I'm not so sure that it is so terrible. Alice might have been one of the lucky ones. I think she's gone to be with the Lord."  Wow, thought Chad, he's really taking it well. "That's a great way to look at it, Uncle Ted. We all have to die sometime."  "No, you don't understand, Chad. I don't think she died. I think she went to be with the Lord without dying. I think she met Him in the air with all those other people who are missing and they all went up to heaven together without ever dying." By then Chad was sure his uncle had cracked under the strain. Poor man! He knew Ted and Alice had had their problems but he also knew that Ted had loved his wife. "Tell me one thing, Chad," his uncle was saying. "Does anyone have an explanation for all the crazy things that have been happening?"   "I haven't heard any yet, Ted, but there's got to be an answer.” "So what could it be, Chad? These things have been happening in every nation in the world, haven't they? Do you think a group of people caused them? Some kind of worldwide terrorist attack or something?" "Well, I don't know." "Well, I do, boy, and if you'll pay attention I'll give you the biggest story any reporter ever had. You'll have to work fast though because eventually a lot of other people are going to figure it out, too. And don't worry about Aunt Alice. She's in good hands." And then for nearly 15 minutes Ted talked and Chad took notes. Ted told him what he'd learned from Alice's books and charts, that explained what had happen. Ted do all the people who had disappeared and how their sudden departure had caused all the accidents and bizarre happenings. He backed it up with scriptures from Alice's Bible, and Chad carefully took them down. "What a story, Uncle Ted!" he said excitedly. "I might be the only reporter in the world at this moment who knows about this. We won't state it as fact, just as a very likely theory. I've got to get this typed up right away." "Now hang on a minute, Chad," his uncle said. "I've only given you half the story, the part that's in the past. The other half, maybe a lot more than half, in fact, has to do with the future." "What do you mean, the future?" "I mean exactly that. I can tell you when Christ is coming to earth, and some if the major events that are going to happen during the years until he does, and all about what it will be like in the next 1,000 years after that." "You're crazy, Ted! Nobody knows that." "I do. And you can, too. The whole world can. It's right there in those books. You can buy them in lots of bookstores. The whole thing's laid out in complete detail. Now do you want to hear it or do you want to wait till some other reporter finds out about this?" "I want to hear it, Ted," Chad said lamely, "but listen, I . . . " "No, you listen, Chad, while I talk. And, oh, yes, one other thing, for your own good. You remember how your Aunt Alice was always after me about repenting and giving  my heart to the Lord?" "I know," said Chad, "she went after me a few times, too." "Well, now that we know that it's all true, since the church really was taken away just like she said, I think we ought to take advantage of this second chance for salvation. I mean since we know it's real now, instead of having to take it on faith like Alice did, I think we ought to take advantage of it." "Boy, you're right, Ted, and I'm going to get right at it as soon as you finish telling me the rest of what those books say. We've got that much time yet, don't we?" "Oh, sure, Chad, there's really no hurry yet. We've still got seven years left, but the thing is, you want to get the matter settled in case you die or get killed before the next seven years pass." "Okay, Ted. What do you do? Repent and. . . . and. . . . things like that?" "Yeah, that's it. We say we're sorry for the bad things that we've done, believe the gospel, you know, and then we're in. Maybe just saying it like I am here is enough. It probably is." "Okay, Ted, now give me the rest of the information." "I'll do better than that," Ted said. "I'll bring all these paperbacks down to your office so you get it right."    

    Chad Nesser and the Clarion Newspapers didn't quite scoop the world because a lot of other people made the same discovery and phoned the radio and television networks before   the morning edition hit the streets. Still, Ted's timely tip gave Chad's paper the chance to present one of the most complete and detailed explanations of the big story. These were some of the Clarion's front page headlines:

ALL CHRISTIANS ARE TAKEN A

Mass Vanishing Startles World.

   SCRIPTURES DECLARED TRUE; CHRIST COMING IN 7 YEARS.

     Theologians Alter Stance; Recommend Accepting the Lord as Savior.

GREAT TRIBULATION IS NEXT EVENT TO UNFOLD

Rule of Roman Prince, False Prophet Coming

TIME AND PLACE OF WORLD WAR III

DISCLOSED; OUTCOME REVEALED

Roman Empire and the Antichrist To Lose Despite U.S. Assistance

    The stories detailed the events of the following seven years, explaining how the Roman Empire was going to be revived as a 10-nation confederacy and how it and the Roman prince that would be its leader would take over the world. An effort to assassinate him would fail and, recovering miraculously from a fatal head wound, he would go on not only to rule but also to be worshipped. At first everyone would be impressed with this leader, especially the Jews because he would settle the Mid-East threat of war with a brilliant solution and make a covenant with them that would re-establish their Old Testament institutions, which presumably they were all eagerly seeking. The temple would be quickly re-built and they would then be able to start offering animal sacrifices again. Meanwhile, 144,000 Jewish evangelists would have appeared and gone forth to convince many that Jesus was the Messiah. These new believers would criticize the doings of the Roman prince and he, assisted by the False Prophet, would see to it that they couldn't buy or sell or get jobs. Only those who accepted his mark of 666 could prosper. Suddenly the prince would show his true colors as the Antichrist, establish his throne in the temple, cause the sacrifices to cease, and start to persecute everybody, especially the growing number of once-unbelieving Jews who would come to accept their Messiah during the seven years. Finally, the world would see that the Antichrist's promises of peace were no good, and all-out war would follow.

    The Antichrist and his followers would totally annihilate the Russians but then an army of 200 million Chinese would march on Israel. Those kings of the east would battle the Antichrist, with his allies of Western Europe and the Americas, including the United States, and they would be in the process of totally annihilating each other with thermonuclear weapons in the battle of Armageddon when Christ would return. Half the world would have been killed during the seven years. The surviving unbelievers would be judged then and cast off the earth, and the surviving believers would enter the Millennial Kingdom as mortals to repopulate the earth. The Antichrist and the False Prophet would be cast into the lake of fire and Satan would be bound for 1,000 years. Christ would then rule from David's throne, and there would be total peace and prosperity. Everyone in the world would crowd into Jerusalem once a year to worship. At the end of the 1,000 years, Satan would be released to test everybody on earth and those that rebelled and followed him would be judged and cast off the earth. Satan would then go into the lake of fire, and eternity would begin.

    Chad hoped he had gotten the facts rights but some of the books Ted had given him were confusing and very complicated. The whole sequence of events sounded crazy to him but he figured that was because he had never been religious enough. The Clarion's interview with the Rev. L. Louis Allison made the front page. Dr. Allison's reputation as a lecturer and teacher was widespread. He was the author of an extremely scholarly book aimed at proving that the date of the writing of the book of Daniel was much later than commonly believed, his philosophical articles had appeared in many important publications, and he had been awarded many honorary degrees. Dr. Allison told the reporter who contacted him that he had figured out what had happened as he drove to the hospital. He had, of course, heard all about the Secret Rapture at seminary but he had never had much interest in such things. Actually it was quite unfair that he and his wife had been left behind, he said. After all, both he and Mrs. Allison had been baptized as infants and had attended catechetical classes and formally joined the church many years ago. Besides, he had all those degrees.

    "Is it too late for us then, Dr. Allison?" the reporter asked nervously.  "Late? Why, no, it's not too late," the good reverend replied with a new note of cheer in his voice. "It's not too late at all. We can still make the team. Oh, we might have to go through a difficult seven years but the important thing is eternity. Now that we know it's all true we have a second chance for salvation. Why, I might even write a book about it". "Thanks, Dr. Allison," the newsman said as he hung up. "I feel better about it already." Yes, yes, Dr. Allison thought to himself as he put down the phone. We're going to be all right. This has been a great faith-builder.

    The day after the disappearance of the Christians there was a massive worldwide rush to the Christian bookstores. Many of them had not opened for business that day; their owners couldn't be found. But the mobs of people seeking copies of the books referred to in the newspapers weren't deterred. They smashed doors and windows in the stores that were closed, elbowed some clerks aside in the stores that were open, grabbed any book within reach, and fought frantically for those whose titles they recognized from the news reports. Other crowds swarmed through libraries, seminaries and churches, and many people were known to have looted the homes of departed Christians, seeking not their money or valuables but their collections of Bibles, books and charts. Copying machines around the world churned out reproductions of key pages and chapters, and a black market quickly developed for the books themselves, sending their prices skyrocketing until the delighted publishers were able to print and rush to market millions of new volumes in dozens of languages. Hollywood titans bid astronomical prices for the movie rights to the books, and newspapers around the world ran daily feature articles that carefully presented the step-by-step development of the events scheduled to happen over the next seven years.

    In the first frantic hours after the news media broke the story, governments around the world acted with dispatch. Swiftly their operatives obtained copies of the necessary books, and the keenest eyes and cleverest minds of their intelligence agents analyzed them. It was quickly apparent to each major nation where it was supposed to fit into the unfolding order of events. "So be it then," some of their leaders muttered. "So be it." But others weren't so sure. Since they knew in advance everything that was supposed to happen over the next seven years, they were pretty sure they could take the necessary steps to prevent at least some of those things from happening. Russian military experts, for instance, assured their masters in the Kremlin that they had no intention of conducting the kind of Middle East military campaign that was charted and outlined in the books, in which they were totally annihilated by the Roman prince. "Let's get him before he gets us," they said. "As soon as he appears, we shoot him." One of their leaders smiled, his face twisting with infinite cunning, "We will shoot him twice," he said. "I read the books; he recovers from the first wound."

    In Red China they didn't take kindly to the expense of marching 200 million soldiers all the way across India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. "On my map that looks like about a 4,000-mile march just to get into a big fight we can't win," one of their leaders said to his chief intelligence agent. "What are we supposed to be after over there?" The agent shook his head. "I don't know," he replied. "It can't be real estate. We've got so much already, and the whole nation of Israel is only about the size of the state of Maryland in the United States." "Well, let's just hope the Russians shoot him twice as soon as he appears," his master replied, "and if they don't, let's try to use an H-bomb by way of an ICBM and keep our boys at home."

    In the United States, the halls of Congress rang with heated debate as senators and representatives angrily warned the president against sending any troops to fight, either for or against the Antichrist. "This will be worse than Vietnam!" they cried angrily. The Senate passed a bill condemning the use of U.S. troops at Armageddon. The vote was 95 in favor, 5 had been raptured. And so the world waited. In every nation a majority of the people had all the details of the next seven years committed were nearly over since the books showed that the Antichrist would persecute and kill many believers. All eyes were on Europe, watching for the appearance of the dreaded leader. They knew he would be an Italian or some kind of Roman prince, and they waited anxiously for him to start taking over a 10-nation European confederacy. And somewhere the Antichrist, too, undoubtedly waited anxiously, all too aware that the whole world was watching for his every move. Deep in the blackness of his heart he probably cursed the books and charts that had given him away. There was only one thing he could do. He'd have to go to the False Prophet, much as he hated to interrupt the work that the Prophet was doing in preparation for stamping the number 666 on everyone, and ask him what he should do. The F.P. [False Prophet] was clever, devilishly clever; surely he would be able to conjure up a way out of this impossible mess. .

Chapter 6

WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING

I am not wholly unrepentant for having penned the preceding chapter but on the other hand sometimes it's necessary to fight foolishness with foolishness. Fables should always be spun out to their full length. If you are still with me at this point, and if you have in times past accepted with no questions or with few questions the fable of the Secret Rapture of the Christians, perhaps by now you are having some second thoughts about either [1] some of the scriptural and theological difficulties the concept presents, or [2] some of the violations of good old-fashioned common sense that it embodies. The extreme means employed by the previous chapter were, of course, utilized to point up exactly these difficulties and absurdities. My pursuit of the events following the Secret Rapture to their logical and inevitable conclusion was perhaps ruthless but it was by no means exhaustive. [For example, you yourself probably came up with the idea of the funeral of a Christian where the pallbearers suddenly were stunned to have their burden lightened by maybe 180 pounds, or many more.] We could go on and on, piling the ridiculous on top of the absurd, but I think that we have already adequately proved these important points:

    1. The Secret Rapture and the chain-reaction of events following it would constitute a highly visible phenomenon unparalleled in modern world history.

2. The massive body of literature produced in recent years by adherents of this 'fable' would ensure that the world would quickly know and understand what had taken place. [So - to the best of my knowledge, the tattle-tale books and charts are not taken out of the world along with the believers. Why not?]

3. With the theoretical scheme of future events fully exposed in all its detail to the people and governments of the world it seems highly unlikely that those events would then be allowed to occur in the precise order in which they are predicted. [Thus the futurists' own literature would be the best guarantee that the events they predict would not come to pass.]

4. If nevertheless these events were to unfold exactly as predicted, many basic, fundamental, totally orthodox Christian doctrines 'would have to be violated or set aside'. A few of the most important are:

    A. The belief that no one except God knows the time of the second coming of Christ. In the futurists' scenario the world would know that His next coming would be exactly seven years later.

    B. The belief that no one will get a second chance for salvation after the evidence is in. In this scenario, however, faith is no longer necessary; the Tribulation "converts" can walk by sight, not by faith.

    C. The belief that we become God's children only through a spiritual re-birth made possible through the ministry of both the Word and the Holy Spirit. In this scenario, however, we are asked to believe that millions will be converted after the Holy Spirit, who is resident in the church, is taken away with the church.

    D. The belief that the thing nearest and dearest to the heart of God, after Christ Himself, is the church, His creative masterpiece for all eternity. In this scenario, however, the church is merely a temporary instrument whose ministry later will be overshadowed by the spectacular results to be achieved by the Jews in a period of just a few years. Besides their recklessness in abrogating basic Christian doctrines, the futurists clearly violate the limits of common sense with their 'farcical fables'.

Do you really believe that Red China could march, or would march, an army of 200 million across the five sovereign nations that lie between China and Israel without in the process provoking World War III long before they reached Israel? How long would such a march take? Who could control an army of that size? How would you feed them? And can you imagine how crowded it would be when [if] they reached their destination? The combined total of the Chinese and their opponents would create a far worse situation than you'd have if you tried to jam every American citizen into Maryland at the same time. In addition, we have previously pointed out how foolish it is to suggest that the Rapture could be kept a secret considering the fact that it is heralded by the shout of the Lord [can you imagine how loud that must be, to be heard around the world?] and the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God. We also mention briefly again that since things at the time of the coming of the Lord for His church are to be as they were in the days of Noah and of Lot, then destruction and not seven years of fabled events awaits those who are not the Lord's are ["punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" is the way 2 Thessalonians 1 :9 puts it]. In their desperate effort to find scriptural backing for the idea of the church going up into heaven for seven years, the dispensationalists have seized upon Revelation 4:1, where a voice from heaven tells John to "come up hither," as "a symbolic representation of the translation of the Church as occurring before the events of the tribulation described in chapters 6-19" [New Scofield Reference Edition note to Rev. 4:1].

Was John in that context really symbolic of the worldwide church of Christ of today, or was he representative of just one man receiving a great revelation while "in the Spirit" [Rev. 1 :10] in the same way that Paul wrote of being "caught up to the third heaven" and "caught up into paradise" where he "heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter" [2 Cor. 12:2-4]? Nevertheless, if John were symbolically representative of the entire church, then a consistent application of that theory would require that the church would come back down to earth before the seven years and the Great Tribulation were completed. Why? Because in Revelation chapter 10, John is told to go back down from heaven, to "go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth" [Rev. 10:8] and to "prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings" [Rev. 10:11]. Thus the church, if that is what John symbolizes, would have missed only chapters 6 through 9 of Scofield's tribulation period but would be back on earth to go through all those horrors of chapters 11 through 19. 

Perhaps you have also noticed the dilemma the futurist gets himself into with Gog and Magog. He tells us Gog and Magog represent the Russians and their allies who are completely annihilated and destroyed by the Antichrist and his armies late in the seven-year period and before the Millennium. And yet, after the Millennium, there are old Gog and Magog, still as numerous "as the sand of the sea" and ready for another battle [Rev. 20:8]. Many more examples of common-sense violations could be given, but if the point has not already been made my ruthless pursuit of it will not compensate for lack of insight. Accordingly, we will lay aside the issues we have been discussing and proceed to the more important task of applying our three tests to this first piece of the futurist's puzzle, the two-stage concept of Christ's return.

During Jesus' last supper with His disciples, before His betrayal in the garden, the Master lifted up His eyes to heaven and prayed the eloquent prayer for his disciples that we today identify as the 17th chapter of the gospel of John. That the prayer was not only for the 11 apostles, but also for us is clear from John 17:20: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word." Jesus said that while He was in the world He had kept His followers in the Father's name [John 17:12] but now, with His departure being imminent, He prayed: "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are" [17:11]. And then He said: "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil" [17:15]. Despite that, we have multitudes of Christians today who are praying, "Father, take us out of this world." Now as a minimum requirement, it seems to me that our daily prayers ought to harmonize with our Lord's prayer. 'Can two walk together, except they be agreed?' Are we entitled to harbor a concept different from Christ's regarding our place and expectations in this world? 

Before that memorable prayer, the Lord had told His followers many other important things. One of them was this, "The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you," [John 15:20]. The implication is plain-we walk in the Lord's footsteps, share in His sufferings, take up our cross daily, and endure to the end. Jesus is our pattern, because He was obedient unto death, God highly exalted Him. He could have called 12 legions of angels to destroy all about Him and set Him free, but instead "for the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" [Heb. 12:2]. Are we not called to do the same? Are we not to welcome the testings and trials that may come, and "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." [Jas. 1 :2-4 ]? Are not those the things that are designed to change us "from glory to glory" into the image of the Lord? [2 Cor. 3:18]. Are we not told in Hebrews 12:1-13 to cheer up, and to accept the chastening we receive, knowing that it comes from a loving Father and is intended for our own good, and that while grievous for the moment "nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness" [Heb. 12:11]?

The sum of these things is this:

1. It pleased the Father "in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings" [Heb. 2:10].

2. "The servant is not greater than his Lord" [John 15:20].

The message is plain. God the Father ordained sufferings for His Son to perfect Him, and for us to perfect us. He puts us in the fire to purge the dross and cause the pure gold to shine forth. He disciplines us and gives us the things we need, the circumstances we need, the problems we need, the adversaries we need, in order to change us into the kind of people He desires. In the light of that, let us apply our three tests to the idea that Christ's second coming is a two-stage event, the first part of which involves a trip to earth's atmosphere, but not to earth's surface, for the purpose of taking the then current generation of believers out of the world.

First, does it glorify Christ? It hardly seems to. In our vision of the church that Christ came to manifest, we saw a people who were called out of darkness, fear and confusion, and were trained, strengthened and equipped to stand steady, as a shining example of God's wisdom and might, in the midst of a world where everything was being shaken. If we now say that these people are to be whisked away from the world before the violent, turbulent end of this age, we introduce confusion, and we know our God is not the author of confusion. We raise questions like these: Was Christ's redemptive work so imperfect that this special people cannot demonstrate God's wisdom to principalities and powers? Was this army so ill-equipped, was God's "Whole Armour" so faulty, that His people cannot stand as an example to men and women in a world gone mad? If not, if in fact they have become the crack troops they are supposed to be, why evacuate them just before the battle? Has Jesus' prayer changed, so that now He will request the Father to take one generation of believers out of the world, or would that violate the rule that "there is no respect of persons with God" [Rom. 2:1])? Is this one generation of servants to be greater than their Lord, to follow a pattern different from the one followed by believers for more than 1,900 years?

How is Christ glorified? We know that after His death, burial and resurrection His Father glorified Him because, though He had been in human flesh just as we are, and "was in all points tempted like as we are" [Heb. 4:15], nevertheless He was obedient to His Father's will, even to the death. So likewise Christ is glorified when His victorious life is lived out in the weak human vessels through whom He has chosen to manifest that glory. For that reason the Lord told Paul: "My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness" [2 Cor. 12:9]. And for that reason Paul could say: "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake" [2 Cor. 12:10].Christ is glorified by taking His people through difficult situations not around them. How would He have received the greater glory-by rupturing the three Hebrew children or by allowing them to be cast into the fiery furnace and then standing there with them? By rapturing Daniel or by allowing him to be cast into the lions den and then shutting the mouths of the lions? Or consider the vast numbers who are today martyrs for Christ in cruel Communist and Islamic prisons, those men and women who, like centuries of martyrs before them, are "tortured, not accepting deliverance" and have "trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment" [Heb. 11 :35,36]. Is Christ glorified more by their patient exercise of faith in the face of torture and death than He would be if He had just raptured them away? If you've read any of their stories, and wept as Christ strengthened their frail bodies and embraced them in His arms, and you cried, "Glory to God!" through your tears, you know the answer. Does the idea of having your bags packed for that quick trip into the sky still seem so scriptural to you? It seems obvious that it fails the test of glorifying Christ.

How about the second test? Does this doctrine honor the church? I believe we've pretty much answered that in what we've said above. If it doesn't glorify Christ who is the Head, it's hard to see how it can glorify the church which is His Body. Beyond that we can add that it is undoubtedly true that an "escape" story like this can sound exciting, and can be made to sound like a victory. But it is the world's way of dealing with a problem, the flesh's way of dealing with a problem, and that way should not be the church's way. The world says, "Run." The church should say, "Stand."  The flesh says, "Stay out of the land, there are giants there." The church should say, "Enter in, they're bread for us." But the greatest dishonor done to the church through the proposed sudden flight from this earth, is the implication that {[1] the church has failed in its mission and [2] another group of people will do the job of evangelism that the church failed to do.

The fable tellers ask us to believe that after the taking away of the church and the Holy Spirit [who is resident in the church] there then appears a red-hot band of Jewish converts which in turn converts millions and millions of people. Now most Christians believe that we are born again through the dual ministry of both Word and Spirit, and that without the Holy Spirit there could be no convicting, no convincing, no conversion. We also believe that "we walk by faith, not by sight" [2 Cor. 5:7] and that "without faith it is impossible to please God" [Heb. 11 :6] and that "a man is justified by faith" [Rom. 3:28]. However, these so-called Tribulation converts would be walking by sight, with no need of faith. Without the Spirit to convert and empower, without the necessity for faith, the supposed acceptance of their Messiah by the Jewish evangelists would have to be only a mental assent, not a spiritual re-birth, and their supposed ministry to the world would be just the first-century Pharisees again compassing sea and land to make proselytes, and not the true followers of the Lord carrying out the Great Commission. To say that the church, empowered by the Holy Spirit and built up on faith, is a failure in its mission and that later a group of men with only a mental belief will do the church's job for it, is an affront to God's creative masterpiece, "His Body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all" [Eph. 1:23].

Having now failed two tests, the Secret Rapture faces the third: Does it contribute to the spiritual growth of individual believers and help conform them to the image of Christ? [Eph 2:10] "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." By now you probably suspect what my answer to that will be, and you're right. It's my opinion that this belief robs the believer and contributes only to immaturity and defeatism, which are certainly not part of the image of Christ. Why immaturity? Well, look at it this way. Why bother to train for a battle that I'm not going to be in? If I'm going to be snatched away when the going gets tough, why should I get in shape for a fight? Why study the Word; why let the Potter spin me on His wheel, and twist and shape me, and bake me in His furnace; why let the Lord deal with all those un-Christ-like qualities in my life? If I can assume I'm simply going to be taken away one day, and changed in a moment into His image, I will continue to be a spiritual baby until that day. And if that day doesn't come in my lifetime, as has been true for 19 centuries of believers, than I'll still be a baby the day I die.

Why defeatism? Because the Secret Rapture is supposedly the signal for God's clock to start ticking off the last seven years of world history, after which Christ is finally to become King and finally have His kingdom. Only at that time, we are told, are we going to be able to reign with Him. That's futurism of the worst sort, as we will show in a later chapter. For now it's sufficient to say that Christ is already reigning "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named" [Eph.1:21]. And we are seated there with Him [Eph. 2:6] and are members of His royal household [Eph. 2:19] and His royal priesthood [1 Pet. 2:9]. He "hath made us" [past tense, it's already done] kings and priests unto God [Rev. 1:6] and through His grace and righteousness we reign in life [Rom. 5:17].     The recently contrived doctrine of the Secret Rapture must be judged to have been weighed and found wanting. It fails completely our three tests and deserves the shredding machine. The true Rapture of the church will come when the saints of all ages go up, up and away to meet their returning Lord in the air, to escort Him to earth in rapturous triumph for the final consummation of the glorious kingdom He manifested here 19 centuries ago.

Chapter 7

HIS BANNER OVER WHO?

Wilfred C. Meloon's book. We've Been Robbed [see chapter 1] is the perfect counterpoint to what we've been saying in this book. The two studies taken together make embarrassingly clear the dispensationalist's opinion of the church: In the past the church had one great century of ministry before its supernatural powers were divinely removed, in the present it's not doing so well because it's gasping through its final lukewarm Laodicean period, and in the future a glorious ministry will be given to the nation of Israel. We are told there's to be no power in the church's ministry today and, since God is planning to resume soon His dealings with His natural people, there's to be no ministry at all for the church tomorrow. God will consummate His eternal purposes with the church on the sidelines. Don't you believe it! In chapter 1 we mentioned how foolish it is to teach a return to the former natural people in view of its violation of the rule of "first the natural, then the spiritual." We also mentioned the companion foolishness of implying that our one God would simultaneously be married to both the nation of Israel [Jer. 3:14 and 31:32] and the church of the New Testament [Rev. 19:7; Rom. 7:4 and 2 Cor. 11:2].

 Listen. God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost now and forever have one true love and the church is it. You're the bride, believers; His banner over you is love [Song 2:4] and, unlike some natural brides, you don't have to worry about your bridegroom seeing other women. He's not going to call you to a marriage feast in the sky and then while you're distracted with that start going around with some former friend for the next 1,007 years. The New Testament teaches one man and one wife, the two to be as one flesh, and because God would not prescribe that for man and something else for Himself, His Word makes it plain that the same arrangement is eternally true for Christ and the church [Eph. 5:31,32]. Since there is no way for "another woman" to fit into the picture, it is obvious that anyone, Jew or Gentile, who seeks any future in God has to become a member of the bride which is the church [and the only way to do that is through repentance and belief in Christ in this present age].

The Israel God was married to was the faithful remnant, not the idolaters and sinners, and to that has been added today all those, whether Jew or Gentile, who like Abraham are justified by faith. The principle is the same as the olive tree of Romans 11:16-24, the church was built on the faithful remnant of Israel and the Gentiles were added to it, to the same olive tree. Individual Jews, "if they abide not still in unbelief" [Rom. 11 :23] will be added to this same tree. The dispensationalist apparently has this terrible feeling that the national Israelites didn't get a fair shake during those Old Testament days when God was dealing with them. He will tell you heatedly that God "unconditionally" promised them certain things, regardless of how they behaved, and that they haven't yet received those promises. The Millennium is to be the payoff. Now there are three things wrong with that proposition. First, a careful reading of the Scriptures shows the promises were conditional; they had some strings attached. Second, despite that, they already have been fulfilled. Third, the New Testament position is that believers in Christ, not national Israel, are the true descendants of Abraham and thus heirs to the promises. The dispensationalist's views typically echo Jewish fables of a bygone era and this is nowhere better demonstrated than in the question of the conditional nature of the promises. The Jewish leaders in the days of John the Baptist took pride in their blood lines, their natural descent, and assumed that these were worth something because the promises made way back in their family tree were "unconditional" John knew better and warned them the promises they were depending on were conditional, and the condition was that they "bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance" [Mt. 3:8].

We all have heard the conditions laid down by God to Israel but we intend to forget them as we come under the hypnotic spell of the 'fable spinners'. They were conditions like those of Exodus 19:5, "'if you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant. . ." Or like Deuteronomy 28:1, "if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His commandments. . ." God said if you do all the things I ask then I'll do all the things I promised. We know Israel's sorry record in that regard. The four major promises made to Abraham were the promise of Messiah, the promise to make the descendants of Abraham into a generation, the promise of a great posterity, and the promise that Abraham's descendants would inherit the land of Canaan. There is no question about the fulfillment of the first of these, but how about the other three? The promise to make the descendants of Abraham into a great nation is contained in Genesis 12:2 with no time given for its fulfillment. Two generations later, however, Israel [formerly Jacob] was told by the Lord to "go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation" [Gen. 46:3]. This was fulfilled under the leadership of Moses, as confirmed by Deuteronomy 4:6,7. The promise of a great posterity is contained in Genesis 13:16 where it was promised that Abraham's seed would be as numerous as the dust of the earth and in Genesis 15:5 where their number was promised to be as the stars of heaven. Fulfillment according to the former description is confirmed in 2 Chronicles 1:9 where Solomon said, "Thou hast made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude." Fulfillment according to the latter description is in Deuteronomy 1:10 where Moses told the people, "Ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude." The promise that Abraham's descendants would inherit the land of Canaan is contained in Genesis 12:7; 13:14,15. Its fulfillment is contained in Joshua 21:43: "And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which He swore to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein." Now that seems plain enough. The Jewish people received the natural fulfillment of natural promises. Can a fair reading of the scriptures above lead to any other conclusion? Is it reasonable to say that they weren't fulfilled and that instead their fulfillment will take place in some future 1,000-year period?

But even if someone insists that we haven't seen a complete fulfillment, me for instance, because I see spiritual fulfillments still to be realized in every generation of Christians, then the New Testament will still very effectively deny that any future fulfillment is for national Israel. In his valuable book, A New Heaven and A New Earth (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Nutley, N.J.) Archibald Hughes quotes [page 123] Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, who, until his death 30 years ago, was known as The Prince of Expositors: "I am quite convinced that all the promises made to Israel have found, are finding, and will find their perfect fulfillment in the church. It is true that in the past, in my expositions, I gave a definite place to Israel in the purposes of God. I have now come to the conviction, as I have just said, that it is the new and spiritual Israel that is intended." The what? The new and spiritual Israel! The church! Let's back that up with scripture.

Have you ever noticed how much time Paul spent refuting Jewish customs, fables and expectations? He himself was "circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee" [Phil. 3:5] but he spent his mature life teaching, among other things, that ancestry, law and circumcision did not make him a descendant of Abraham! To the Jew who rested on those credentials as a guarantee of any kind of standing with God, Paul would respond, as he did in his brilliant and devastating letter to the Galatians, "They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7). Paul made it clear beyond argument that Abraham was justified by faith ["Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness" [Gal. 3:6] but despite that obvious fact, the dispensationalist says God will require future natural descendants of Abraham to keep the old Mosaic law, which came more than 400 years after God's dealings with Abraham, and to offer animal sacrifices in a restored temple in Israel. Paul summarizes very neatly the question of the promises we have been discussing. "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. [God] saith not, And to thy seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy Seed, which is Christ" [Gal. 3:16]. And thus, the great apostle to the Gentiles told his Greek readers in Galatia, "if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" [Gal. 3:29. Paul clearly taught that all present and future fulfillments of the promises made to Abraham are for believers, because being Christ's makes us Abraham's seed and heirs to the promises. It is not the natural Jews or natural Israelites who are the heirs, according to Paul, but the spiritual descendants of Abraham, those who are his seed because they belong to Christ, who are the heirs. As believers we are spiritual Jews or spiritual Israelites. [If that goes down hard, remember that in chapter 1 we quoted Scofield himself as admitting that Protestant theology has very generally taught that all the kingdom promises are to be fulfilled through the church.] In case the Galatians didn't quite get the point, Paul went on to say that there were two Jerusalems, the physical city, the bondwoman, which is the mother of the children of the flesh, and Jerusalem which is above, which is free, and which is the mother of the believers [Gal. 4:23-26]. Then Paul said that believers, "as Isaac was, are the children of promise" [Gal. 4:28] but that with respect to the children after the flesh the scriptures said, "cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman" [Gal. 4:30]. Today there are still two Jerusalems but Paul's teachings regarding them have not changed. The children of the flesh still "shall not be heir" with the children of promise who make up the church. Paul's words in Galatians 4:30 echo Christ's words to the chief priests and Pharisees: "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" [Mt. 21:43]. The nation bringing forth fruit is, of course, the church, the "holy nation" referred to in 1 Peter 2:9. Paul also made it clear in his letter to the believers at Rome that the Jews had no future hope in God except through the gospel and a spiritual birth into the church in this present age. It was the Jews' futile expectation of salvation through race and natural descent that caused him such "great heaviness and continual sorrow" [Rom. 9:2]. Today, however, instead of sorrowing as Paul did over such false hopes, Christians sometimes wrongfully encourage Jewish people in those hopes. Because of a natural sympathy and compassion for the Jew, many believers attempt to draw comfort from vague assumptions that the Jew is somehow assured of salvation by their ancestry. We delude both them and ourselves in this false hope. Rather than falling prey to what is only a first-century Jewish fable perpetuated by nineteenth-century dispensationalist theo­rizing, the Christian should recognize that, now and forever, the gospel is the only hope of the Jew, as it is of the Gentile. Paul sorrowed because he saw that only a remnant of the Jews would be saved [Rom. 9:27,29; 11 :5] and he urgently desired that his ministry might "save some of them" [Rom. 11:14]. In making the same point that he had to the Galatians, Paul in Romans used the example of all three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Israel: "For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed" [Rom. 9:6-8]. Again we have to ask ourselves if anything could be plainer? In the face of Paul's blunt statement that the children of the flesh are not the children of God, how can we argue that they are the children of God? Oh, yes, Paul says some of them are God's children. But only those who become believers in this age, only those who are in Christ and who thus are Abraham's descendants. Paul also told the Romans there was a serious misunderstanding about who is a Jew and who isn't a Jew: "He is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit" [Rom. 2:28,29]. And to the Philippian believers Paul wrote: "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" [Phil. 3:].

The fact is that believers are the "Israel of God" [Gal. 6:16] and the heirs to all the promises has long been celebrated by the great hymn writers of the church. John Newton, for example, some 200 years ago wrote a famous hymn whose first line came from Psalm 87:3: "Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God; He whose word cannot be broken, Formed thee for His own abode." In verse three, Newton said he was a member of Zion's city through grace. He wrote another hymn about that called 'Amazing Grace' so we may safely assume he was saying that the church, not the physical city of Jerusalem, is the glorious Zion and the eternal abode of God. In another old hymn, "I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord", the second verse says the church is "dear as the apple of Thine eye, and graven on Thy hand." These two phrases, quoted from Zechariah 2:8 and Isaiah 49:16, once referred to natural Israel but now apply instead to spiritual Israel, the church. If the church as spiritual Israel had not replaced the nation of Israel in God's plan and purposes, believers today could lay no real claim to the Old Testament. Fortunately, however, it is all ours, as Newton clearly perceived. We are Zion, the habitation of God [Ps. 22:3; 132:13,14] and we may with confidence claim as our own the Old Testament and all of its spiritual blessings. When we read, for example, God's promise that He would bless those who bless Abraham's descendants and curse those who curse his descendants [Gen. 12:3] we may be confident, in the light of the New Testament's teaching that only believers in Christ are Abraham's descendants, that this promise, which once referred to natural Israel, has since Calvary referred only to spiritual Israel. Paul taught that since Calvary there is no difference between Jew and Gentile in God's eyes [Rom. 2:1 and 10:12; Gal. 3:28]. Nor does he hint that there will be any difference between them at some future time. Chapters 9-11 of his letter to the Romans show that Israel had initial advantages but stumbled and fell because they sought not Christ, but righteousness through their own works. At Calvary the way was opened for all believing Gentiles to share in the same salvation offered to all believing Jews, thus fulfilling various Old Testament prophecies such as Hosea 1:10 and 2:23, and breaking down the former wall of division between Gentile and Jew to make of the two the one new man of Ephesians 2:15.

It boggles the mind to see the disagreement between the New Testament and the dispensationalists regarding the fulfillment of some of the Old Testament scriptures. For example, in Romans 9:24-26 Paul said that the fact that God "hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles," fulfilled Hosea 1:10 which says, "It shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not My people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God." The New Scofield Reference Edition's note to Hosea 1:10 says, however, that it "yet awaits fulfillment." [Similar blindness is displayed toward the New Covenant prophesied in Jeremiah 31 :31-34. Throughout the Christian era, prior to Darby-Scofield, believers understood that this was fulfilled at the first coming of Christ. Chapters 7-12 of Hebrews comment at length on this fulfillment, and Hebrews 8:6 clearly says that this better covenant already "was established" in the first century. The New Scofield Reference Edition's note to Jeremiah 31:31 says, however, that it "remains to be realized for Israel."]

In Romans 11:26 Paul speaks of the only way in which salvation has been, or ever will be, made available to the  Israelites, namely, through the Deliverer who came out of Zion more than 1,900 years ago. To harmonize with Paul's clear teaching elsewhere, the controversial statement, "and so all Israel shall be saved," must be interpreted, "and in this manner all those of Israel elected for salvation shall be saved, by the Deliverer who came out of Zion, as prophesied." The dispensationalist makes the verse refer to the time rather than the means of salvation and thus makes it read, "and at that time all Israel shall be saved by a future Deliverer." Unfortunately for the dispensationalist, his "at that time" is not one of the dictionary's definitions of "so." The dictionary carries only two definitions that are pertinent here. One is the "in that manner or fashion" that we suggested is preferable. [In the present context I particularly like the 13th definition given by the American College Dictionary, which is "in the way that follows."] The other is "consequently" or "therefore," which usage would deprive the dispensationalist of his future time frame and require him to say that all the Jews who ever lived will be saved. By using the dictionary to take away the dispensationalist's claim that the salvation described in verse 26 occurs at some future date, we have also denied him his use of the words "all Israel" to describe those who are saved. "All Israel" does not refer to the salvation of every living Israelite at any given time any more than John 1:7 ["that all men through Him might believe"] or John 3:17 ["that the world through Him might be saved"] or John 4:42 ["the Saviour of the world"] would refer to the salvation of every person in the world. Paul has already told us that "they are not all Israel which are of Israel" [Rom. 9:6], so clearly he is confirming in Romans 11:26 what he has said elsewhere in his letters, namely, that a remnant of national Israel in every generation will be saved through the Deliverer who came out of Zion as prophesied. The possibility remains that there will be a great turning by the Jews to Christ before He comes for His church - but not afterward.

Scholars down through the centuries have been aware that the Old Testament prophecies of the Jews' return to the land, the re-building of the temple and city, and the restoration of Mosaic law and ritual, referred to events that occurred after the captivity in Babylon, and thus were fulfilled long before the first advent of Christ. The prophecies were all given by the prophets before. the return and re-building, and after there fulfillment more than 2,400 years ago there were no further prophecies of an additional return and rebuilding. For some reason, however, many believers today choose to ignore the historical fulfillment of such Old Testament prophecies as well as the clear revelation of the New Testament that the church eternally replaced Israel in the first century.

Paul was severely persecuted by the Jews of his day for declaring that the church had forever succeeded the nation of Israel as the focal point of God's purposes and dealings. But the dispensationalists who today perpetuate first-century Jewish yearnings for national supremacy through a restored Jewish monarchy, rather than being persecuted, would have been welcomed with open arms by the Jews who attacked Paul. They are teaching just what the Jews of Paul's day wanted to hear. Believers should not allow themselves to be confused by the fact that there are two Israels today. There were also two Israels in the first century but Paul, as we have shown, clearly taught that only the spiritual Israel, the church, has a special place in the purposes of God. The physical, political state of Israel established under United Nations auspices in 1948 is not the "holy nation" of Exodus 19:6 that God established for Himself. The "holy nation" of God is the church, as shown in I Peter 2:9. The New Testament teaching that there is no difference in God's eyes between Jews and other people is also good advice for believers to keep in mind when making assessments of political matters in which natural Israel is involved. In the present smoldering Mid-East conflict, for example, we should pray for equal justice and mercy for all parties and we should try to judge the cases of each on their merits, without weighting the scales with doctrinal convictions based on futurist fables. In God's sight none of the parties to the conflict is any better or worse than the other; there is no difference between them "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" [Rom. 3:23]. None of the nations involved is God's special instrument for working out His purposes on the earth, the church alone fills that role, and the only outcome to be desired is an immediate end to all bloodshed and a fair and equitable peace. To avoid confusion, it is important to recognize that the final rejection of the nation of Israel as God's special treasure did not eliminate the Jews as a people any more than God's earlier rejection of Ishmael in favor of Isaac eliminated Ishmael's descendants as a people. It is simply a  question of identifying what God says is the focus of His activities from the first advent on through eternity, and that is now and forever only the church.

The Jews' former relationship to God as His holy nation [and God's former focus on that nation as the instrument to fulfill His purposes] came to a final end in the first century, but we should not confuse that spiritual relationship, that special heavenly bond they once enjoyed with God, with their physical existence as natural human beings. Their survival as a people is no more remarkable than the survival of the Arabs who are Ishmael's descendants, and their desire to settle in the Middle Eastern land of their ancestors is no more remarkable than the desire of the Arabs to do the same, or of the Irish to want to live in Ireland. The attachment of all of Abraham's natural descendants to the land of their forefathers, the urge to live among people sharing common customs, traditions and beliefs, reflects the same natural urge felt by other races and nationalities, and particularly minorities. But we should not confuse the merely human motivating factors that stimulate such a desire; whether religious tradition, patriotism, nostalgia, common interests or the instinct for survival, with the sovereign will and on-going purpose of God. That purpose, as revealed to Paul [Eph. 3:3-5], is that all believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, as one body [Eph. 3:6], as the spiritual habitation of God [Eph. 2:22] are to demonstrate, now, to the whole universe the manifold wisdom of God [Eph. 3:10]. And Paul says this is not just God's temporary purpose during this "age" but His eternal purpose [Eph. 3:1]).

But what do the dispensationalists say? Cox demonstrates what he calls their "haughty attitude" and "utter disdain for those who hold to the historic Christian faith" when he quotes Oswald J. Smith from his book, When The King Comes Back. Cox [page 217] says that Smith, in commenting on the historic Christian belief in the past fulfillment of Isaiah 12 [the last verse of which is: "Cry out and shout thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the holy One of Israel in the midst of thee"] remarks that none of that scripture "was fulfilled at the first advent, and none of it can be spiritualized, for it has no fulfillment in the church, In spite of what the great commentators say. God did not see fit to enlighten them."

Does the theory that God is pursuing two different purposes with two different people pass our tests for acceptability? Does this major piece of the dispensationalist's puzzle give glory to Christ, or does it imply that our God who is one God, and not the author of confusion, is somehow still married to the Israel of the Old Testament while at the same time being the bridegroom of the church of the New Testament? Does it honor the church which is the body of Christ, or does it twist and wrest the scriptures to undo all of Paul's teaching that the church has eternally replaced Israel and is now heir to the promises?  

   Does it help to mature and edify the individual Christian, or does it attempt to snatch away truths that belong to the believer and reserve them for unbelievers? The answers to these questions are too obvious to require further comment. The belief that God has two different people would fail any test devised by reasonable men,  it fails the three tests above, it fails the test of Christian orthodoxy, and it fails the test of a fair reading of the scriptures.

Chapter 8

THE GREAT REIGN ROBBERY

IF you want to make the same mistake that the Jewish leaders of the first century made, the right way to do it is to believe that Christ came to sit on the throne of a man. The scribes and Pharisees looked for a physical kingdom to be established. But Christ and the New Testament say: The kingdom doesn't come with observation, but is within you. [Luke 17:20, 21]. It isn't physical things like meat and drink, but spiritual things like righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost [Rom. 14:17]. You can't see or enter it except by the new birth [John 3:3-5]. The Lord Jesus is already reigning "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named" [Eph. 1:21]. The Christian has already been translated into the kingdom [Col. 1:13] and is already reigning with Christ [Eph. 2:6; Rom. 5:17].

Despite the absolute clarity of this New Testament teaching, the dispensationalist is hanging on as hard as he can to the so-called Davidic Covenant, which to him means that Christ came to establish a human, natural, political kingdom in Israel. The confusion the dispensationalist exhibits in this area at least equals, and perhaps exceeds, his confusion regarding the promises to Abraham and his seed. The great reign robbery of the Darby-Scofield teaching is theft on a grand scale. It steals from us the precious and vital truth that Christ's kingdom is a present reality and that He is presently reigning in glory and power, and that the believers of this age reign with Him, and instead tends to pass off the counterfeit belief that Christ's reign will be references to His present glory.

     The dispensationalist says Christ's future glory and power will be the boast of the Jews in the future restoration of a physical kingdom but the New Testament, knowing nothing of that idea, says Christ's present glory is shared with believers in this age, the Lord now is "bringing many sons unto glory" [Heb. 2:10] and likewise His present power "worketh in us" [Eph. 3:20]. Scofield said that the Davidic Covenant, upon which the future kingdom of Christ is to be founded, was an unconditional promise to David of a house, a throne and a kingdom, all of which "shall be established forever." He insisted that the disobedience of the kings that followed David would result in chastisement, but not in annulment of the covenant. For some strange reason, however, the Scofield footnotes and marginal references do not refer to 1 Kings 9:4-9 where the Lord told Solomon that "if thou wilt walk before Me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep My statutes and My judgments: then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel. But if ye shall at all turn from following Me, ye or your children. . . . then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them, and this house which I have hallowed for My name, will I cast out of My sight."

    We know the failures, the loss of reign and the captivity that followed the disobedience of Solomon and succeeding kings but the dispensationalists don't see any of that. Instead they jump thousands of years from the last of the kings prior to the captivity to a time somewhere in the future when they believe Christ finally will be enthroned.

   One of the major pieces of evidence they offer to "prove" there will be that future kingdom is the account in Acts 15 of the meeting in Jerusalem of the early church leaders where it was ruled that new Gentile converts did not have to keep the Mosaic law. The dispensationalist says that the prophecy of Amos 9:11,12 quoted by James at the meeting proves there will be a future "re-establishment of Davidic rule over Israel.” The facts fall far short of proving that, as we will see. Regarding the conversion of Gentiles, James said, "To this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom My name is called, saith the Lord, Who doeth all these things" [Acts 15:15-17]. Thus James was saying the fulfillment of the prophecy was future from Amos' time [having been fulfilled in the first century by the Gentile conversions] and not future from the time when James spoke. Further, even if the dispensationalist could claim a future re-building of the tabernacle or tent of David, it would afford him no proof of his desired revival of Mosaic law in an imagined future kingdom. Why? Because the tabernacle had nothing whatsoever to do with Mosaic ritual and the limited priesthood of the temple! According to 1 Chronicles 15:25-16:3, when David brought the ark [which symbolized the presence of God] to the tabernacle there was a time of rejoicing, dancing, shouting and music, and when the ark was set up in the tabernacle all the men and women of Israel were right there to be blessed and fed. It did not at all resemble the solemn temple rites and, in fact, signified the future separation of the presence of God from the Mosaic ritual. At the time Amos gave his prophecy, the temple built by Solomon was in full operation. However, God did not choose to say that in the future the temple would be re-built, implying a restoration of ritual and law, but rather that the tabernacle or tent would be re-built, implying the free and open access of all believers to the presence of God. Despite that, the dispensationalist attempts to twist this fulfilled prophecy to fit his needs.

    There are many distasteful aspects about the concept of Christ inheriting the mere physical throne of a human being. The throne was not exactly occupied with honor by all of its previous holders. David had some bad moments, Solomon's wives and their strange gods turned his heart away from the Lord, and the successor kings as a whole were pretty bad. It was the throne of a local kingdom that came, prospered briefly, disobeyed, and faded into history. And we must remember that God never desired the Israelites to have a human king at all but that they sought one in order to be like the other nations. God told Samuel to let them have their way since they had rejected God, that He should not reign over them [1 Sam. 8:7].

    But the major problem with the concept is the simple fact that Christ is already King and already occupies His promised throne. Take all the glories and potential of the natural throne of Israel at its very best and multiply them 10,000 times and you still can't begin to approximate the greater glory and splendor of the exalted Christ on the throne of His eternal kingdom. That is the glorious kingdom and rule that He desires to establish and manifest "within you" [Luke 17:21]. Long after the time of David and Solomon, during the Babylonian captivity, God made known when in history His kingdom would be manifested, through a dream of five kingdoms He gave to Nebuchadnezzar, as told in the second chapter of Daniel. In interpreting the dream, Daniel told the king that only four physical empires would ever exercise world dominion, namely, Babylon [of which Nebuchadnezzar was then king], Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. The image the king saw in his dream showed the first of these kingdoms as a head of gold, the second as breast and arms of silver, the third as belly and thighs of brass, and the fourth as legs of iron, feet partly of iron and clay. Clearly this speaks of the historical deterioration of world power, and made the point that after the Roman Empire crumbled no single power would ever again rule the whole world [including the Nazis, the Communists, and the Roman prince of futurist fable]. The fifth kingdom in the dream was different from the other four. It was to be set up by God, not by men. It was to grow, not deteriorate. It was to be eternal, not temporal. As for the time of its establishment, Daniel said it would be set up in the days of the other four kingdoms [Dan. 2:44]. Of necessity, therefore, the kingdom of God had to be, and was, manifested prior to the fall of Rome in A.D. 476, and not at some imagined date that is yet in the future.

    The dispensationalist tells us Christ came to offer an earthly kingdom to the Jews. Did He? Or did He resist their efforts to make Him a natural king [John. 6:15]? Did He come merely to offer the kind of fair and just reign that any well-meaning ruler would desire for his subjects? Hughes in his book, A New Heaven and A New Earth, says: "Christ came not as a social reformer, but as a true redeemer; not merely to improve the earthly conditions of men, but to so reconcile man to God, that through a spiritual birth from above he would be able to 'see' and 'enter' the kingdom of God, the true eternal sphere of every blessing" [page 89]. Christ said to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world" [John 18:36] but the dispensationalist insists that it is and that it has just been postponed all these years. Isn't there something wrong with that kind of reasoning? Peter on the day of Pentecost told a vast audience of Jews that when God promised David that "He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne," he "spake of the resurrection of Christ" and "this Jesus hath God raised up" [Acts 2:30-32]. Peter convinced 3,000 Jews that day but he appears to have had considerably less success with the dispensationalists of recent history. To believe that Jesus came to be the physical king of Israel but failed to accomplish His purpose is to believe that the supreme, eternal purposes of God can be defied and altered by the stubborn will of man. We reduce God to the level of mere humans if we say that Christ's death "was not God's own plan" but that it was instead "conceived somewhere else and yielded to by God." Christ's own words deny this. He told His followers that Moses and all the prophets had foretold His crucifixion from the beginning     [Luke. 24:25-27]. 

    Further, we know that Christ, who was without sin, was unjustly tried and condemned. Pilate found no guilt in Him and tried to release Him. "But the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh Himself a king speaketh against Caesar" [John 19:12]. Now if the Jews had been right, if Christ really had sought an earthly kingdom, He would have been guilty of rebellion and sedition, and would have been justly sentenced to die under Roman law. The serious implications of the idea that Christ came to be a natural king are vividly summarized in A New Heaven and A New Earth [page 201] in a quotation from Philip Mauro: ". . . the very radical doctrine that the Kingdom of God, proclaimed by Christ and His disciples, was of earthly character. . . is subversive in such degree as to call urgently for exposure by God's faithful pastors and teachers. . . if the said new doctrine were true, it would necessarily follow that Jesus of Nazareth was technically guilty of the 'accusation' brought against Him by the high priest and rulers of the Jews, and therefore, by the law of the land, was justly condemned to die on the cross. . . any reasons or supposed proofs that may be adduced in support of this new doctrine would serve equally to support the accusation brought against our Lord, upon which He was subjected to trial, sentence and execution." In those last few lines Mauro is saying that those who try to prove that Jesus came to be a natural king merely support the claim that He was justly condemned. Why anyone would want to carry that burden with him to the judgment seat of Christ is difficult to imagine. We are not inquiring into the motives of those who teach and disseminate these beliefs, but we feel that individual believers should understand all of their implications. In the light of Mauro's comments above, for example, it would appear that the new believer or the unquestioning older believer who casually accepts the idea of an earthly 1,000-year reign of Christ is through ignorance agreeing that Christ came to perform a seditious act for which He was justly condemned and executed. We must separate the fact that Christ came to change men through a spiritual rebirth from the fiction that He came to reform society through enforced rules. He came to extend the eternal kingdom of His Father into our lives, to set up His rule in our hearts, to establish His Lordship within us, and not to set up a temporary political kingdom.        

    God's kingdom doesn't turn on and off like a neon sign over the years. It towers over time and spans eternity. “Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations" [Ps. 145:13]. And in that kingdom the Lord reigneth [Ps. 93:1, 97:1, 99:1] Whether or not men see and acknowledge that He reigns now is immaterial. He reigns! After His resurrection Christ described in one word how much power, or authority, had been given to Him. "All," He said. Where? Just in heaven? No. "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth" [Mt. 28:18]. And as some have pointed out, when you've got it all, you've got it all. You've got all that there is to get. In the light of that, it's inconsistent to teach that Christ doesn't reign today. If He has all power, He's in complete control now. Undeterred by the futurist's plans to inaugurate His rule only at some date a couple thousand years or more after His resurrection, He goes right on ruling now. He reigns! The futurist's insistence that the kingdom age starts after this present church age ends not only postpones the rule of Christ, however, it also postpones the rule of the individual Christian. But Romans 5:17 says "they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ," and Revelation 5:9,10 says Christ has made of His followers "a kingdom and priests, and they reign on the earth" [The Emphasized Bible]. In his letter to the Christians at Ephesus Paul described in glowing, positive terms the present rule of Christ and those who are His. There is the Lord, far above all principality and power, and there is the believer, seated right there with Christ [Eph. 1 :21,2:6]. But the futurist doesn't care for any of this business of the present reign of Christ and His people. He has prepared many strange and exotic defenses against such beliefs, among them the quaint and long-discredited argument that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven are two different things. [To prove they are identical, compare Matthew 13:31 and Mark 4:30,31, both of which say the kingdom is like a mustard seed; Matthew 19:14 and Mark 10:14, both of which say suffer the little children to come, for of such is the kingdom; Matthew 19:23 and Luke 18:24, both of which say it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom; Matthew 11:12 and Luke 16:16, both of which say men of violence enter the kingdom by force; Matthew 4:17 and Mark 1 :14,15, both of which say it was preached that the kingdom was at hand, and other scriptures such as Matthew 5:3-Luke 6:20 and Matthew 1 0:7- Luke 9:2. Clearly, as Cox teaches, the terms are used interchangeably to refer to the one kingdom, Gk. "basileia" meaning the "reign" or "authority" of the Lord.] The futurist looks forward to a natural, materialistic rule when He plans to wield a rod of iron, but that is a reign contrary to the lessons of the cross. The Christian's reign is spiritual and comes through grace and the righteousness that is in Jesus [Rom. 5:17]. Christ told His followers that "they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your servant" [Mk. 10:42,43]. After making that same point, the account in Matthew adds, "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in" [Mt. 23:13]. Teaching that Christ and His followers will have their reign sometime in the future in a kingdom of earthly splendor does the same thing the scribes and Pharisees did. It shuts up the kingdom of heaven against those who should be entering in now. Again, it clearly fails our three tests. It does not glorify Christ. It does not honor the church. It does not mature the believer.

Chapter 9

GREAT TRIBULATION WHEN?

The setting for the spectacular events that highlight the futurist's incredible fable is the seven-year period [or three and a half-year period] that he calls the Great Tribulation. With his imagination aflame from a natural interpretation of the imagery of the books of Daniel and the Revelation, he envisions a rapid sequence of social, political, economic, ecclesiastical and military upheavals that culminate in the destruction of half the world. We have previously demonstrated the false, foolish and frequently damaging nature of some of the other pet concepts of the dispensationalists. Now we propose to do the same for his future seven-year period. We hope to demonstrate the dispensationalists' misuse of certain key prophetic scriptures, and to show that no seven-year extension of human history is possible after Christ comes for the church, and also that the proposed chief actor of that period, the Antichrist, will be unavailable for any performances at that time. It is impossible to present the views of the great  commentators prior to the 19th century regarding the action-packed seven year Great Tribulation, of the dispensationalists because, they never heard of it. Oh, they heard of the great tribulation suffered by the Jews in A.D. 70 when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. And they knew that "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God" [Acts 14:22] and that "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" [2 Tim. 3:12]. And they probably would have agreed that in these last days the church faces a period of increasing tribulation and suffering, an intensification and broadening of the humiliation, torture and death currently being visited upon believers in Communist and Islamic countries, etc.

But they didn't know about that specific time and all those specific details that the futurist has discovered. Obviously, God didn't choose to enlighten them in the ways He has enlightened the dispensationalists. And in particular God didn't explain to them as He has to the futurists how the last seven years of Daniel's 490 year prophecy would be separated by more than 19 centuries from the first 483 years.  The historic Christian belief has been that the great prophecy recorded in the ninth chapter of Daniel was completely fulfilled by the end of the first century. Dispensationalists, however, postpone the final period of seven years to an indeterminate time yet in the future [although some recklessly predict that the events they assign to that period must all occur within 40 years, the length of one generation, from the return of the Jews to Israel in 1948]. Daniel received the prophecy during the Babylonian captivity. Aware through his studies of the approaching end of the 70 years of desolations for Jerusalem that had been foretold by Jeremiah [Dan. 9:2] he fasted and prayed, confessing the sins of himself and his people and making supplication that God would turn away His anger and fury from Jerusalem [Dan. 9:16]. The vision was brought to Daniel by the angel Gabriel who seemed to have a special ministry of declaring the first advent of Christ. [It was Gabriel who appeared to Mary in Luke. 1 :26 to tell her she would give birth to Jesus.] Besides the tremendous revelation of the time of the appearing of the Messiah, Gabriel also had some bad news for Daniel, namely, that his people would commit an even worse sin in the future [killing Christ] and as their final punishment the city of Jerusalem, and the temple would be destroyed. The prophecy is one of 70 weeks, which Bible scholars agree means 490 years [seven times 70]. There are three time periods given: one of seven weeks or 49 years, a second of 62 weeks or 434 years, and a third of one week or seven years. In the first period, the return from captivity and the re-building of the temple and city were to be accomplished. Then would follow the long second period of 434 years [primarily the four centuries between the Old and New Testaments] lasting "unto the Messiah the Prince." After that would come the third period of seven years which orthodoxy has always held followed the second period in the same way that the second period followed the first.

Gabriel told Daniel that "seventy weeks are determined upon Thy people and upon Thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy" [Dan. 9:24] and anyone who has never read the dispensationalists' literature would know right away that all those things [and thus the entire 70-week prophecy] were completely fulfilled at the first advent of Christ. The Jews of Jesus' day finished the transgression of their fathers, who had killed the prophets, by themselves killing the Messiah [Mt. 23:31,3]; and Christ's death, resurrection and ascension into heaven fulfilled the balance of the prophecy.

The specific details of the events of the 70th week of the prophecy are given in verse 27: "And He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations He shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate." The New Testament clearly testifies to the fulfillment of the three major parts of verse 27:1. The fulfillment of the words, "And He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week," was testified to by Christ Himself when He said, "For this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." [Mt. 26:28]. 2. The fulfillment of the words, "And in the midst of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease," is proved by the fact that in the middle of the final week of seven years, that is, after Christ's three and a half-year ministry, He ended any further need for the repeated temple sacrifices and oblations by offering Himself as "one sacrifice for sins for ever" [Heb. 10:12]. The plain teaching of Hebrews 10:1-18 is that the animal sacrifices were a mere shadow [10:1], that they could not take away sin [10:4], that God had no pleasure in them [10:6,8, and that through Christ's one, perfect, eternal sacrifice of Himself [10:12,14] the new covenant replaced the old [10:9,16] and thereby the believer's sins are remembered no more by God [10:17]. Therefore, since Calvary, there is no more offering for sin [10:18]. 3. The final words of the verse, "And for the overspreading of abominations He shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate," meant that for the final and greatest transgression by the Jews, the killing of their Messiah, God would make their nation desolate, and it would remain desolate until its final destruction. Christ Himself pronounced that final sentence on the Jews of that generation when He said to them, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" [Mt. 23:38]. Berry's Greek-English New Testament Lexicon defines the word desolate as "deserted". Thus, when Christ departed from the temple for the last time [Mt. 24:1] He said their house [no longer God's house, but theirs] was left unto them deserted [Mt. 23:38], meaning that the presence of God no longer dwelt there. The Jews' rejection of Christ was the final act in their centuries-long rejection of the reign and authority of God [see 1 Sam. 8:7] and Christ's departure from the temple in turn represented God's final rejection of His once-holy nation. The actions of the first-century Jews in crucifying their Messiah and in persecuting and killing the leaders of the early church were symptomatic of the desolate spiritual condition of their generation. The subsequent destruction of the city and temple are prophesied in Daniel 9:26, but the time of their predicted destruction is not given. It is important to note that although the six events of verse 24 were to happen within the seventy weeks and the three events of verse 27 were to happen in the final week of that period, the prediction of the destruction of the city and temple is not included among the things which were to occur within the seventy weeks. That destruction of course occurred 40 years later, in A.D. 70, when a flood of Roman soldiers under Titus destroyed the city and temple, and slaughtered, captured and dispersed the Jews. [It is interesting to note that the nation of Israel began its existence with 40 years in a physical wilderness and ended its existence with 40 years in a spiritual wilderness. At the beginning of the nation the Jews suffered 40 years of punishment until, in mercy, they were allowed to enter the land. At the end of the nation, they were granted 40 years of mercy during which the gospel was preached to them, until, in punishment, they were driven from the land.]

The above interpretation of Daniel's prophecy appears both logical and scriptural. It has the great advantage of flowing in a smooth sequence from start to finish, encompassing all 70 weeks in one connected series of events, and crediting the prophecy with an amazing fulfillment that is a matter of historical record. Having been completely fulfilled 19 centuries ago, it obviously is not descriptive of events that are yet to unfold. However, the dispensationalist's needs are not satisfied by anything as simple as this orthodox interpretation. He must have that final week in the future, so he denies its prior fulfillment, cuts it loose from the rest of the prophecy, and says [without proof] that while the first 483 years have been fulfilled, there is a "gap" of more than 19 centuries prior to the fulfillment of the last seven years. It is clear from the scriptures, however, that the cutting off of Messiah [Dan. 9:26] was to come after the first 69 weeks of the prophecy and thus had to occur in the 70th week that followed. The futurist also creates an artificial separation within the words "the the people of the prince that shall come [Dan. 9:26] to permit his interpretation [again with no proof] that the coming of the people [the Romans] took place in A.D. 70 while the coming of the prince [the Antichrist] lies in the future.  

Although the vision brought by Gabriel clearly concerned the most important event in all history, the first advent of Christ  dispensationalist casually twist it to make much of it apply instead to the Antichrist. In particular, he gives him the entire 27th verse, where the pronoun "he" is assumed [of course, without proof or reason] to refer to the Antichrist who is said to confirm a future covenant with national Israel which will be broken after three and a half years when the Antichrist halts the sacrifices that presumably then are being offered in the re-built temple. At that point Israel will turn to Jehovah, the futurist says, and in retaliation the Antichrist will bring on the Great Tribulation that will threaten to destroy the whole world. The title for this imagined future worldwide period of devastation comes from the Lord's prediction on the mount of Olives of the events surrounding the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70: "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be" [Mt. 24:21]. In the context in which Christ spoke, it is clear that the tribulation he prophesied was to come upon the nation of Israel in the first century and not upon the whole world at some future date. Christ warned both the nation of Israel and His own disciples that judgment and disaster lay ahead for Jerusalem. In the latter  part of Matthew 23 He told all who would listen that the evil behavior of the Jews of that day in filling up the measure of their fathers [Mt. 23:32] would bring upon them all the righteous blood shed upon the earth since Abel [Mt. 23:35].

And in Matthew 24:1-28, He gave His disciples specific details of that vengeance, describing for them the great tribulation that would be visited upon Jerusalem for her sins. He clearly warned both audiences that the punishment He referred to would come upon the generation then alive [Mt. 23:36; 24:34] and history records that it did, in fact, occur 40 years later. In addition, the apostle Paul, writing about 20 years before the destruction of Jerusalem, said that the Jews had killed Christ and their own prophets and the leaders of the early church "to fill up their sins" and that, therefore, "the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost" [1 Thess. 2:15,16]. Since God's wrath had come upon the Jews to the uttermost in the first century, reaching its consummation [Dan. 9:27] in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, it appears contrary to the New Testament to teach that God's wrath is still reserved against the natural Jews for a future outpouring under the Antichrist. Confusion sometimes arises because the great tribulation prophesied in Matthew 24:21 was described as "such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." It is often, and accurately, argued, for example, that Nazi Germany killed more Jews than the approximately 1,100,000 who died in the siege of Jerusalem. But the "such as" in the description does not refer to the size or magnitude of the tribulation as measured by the number slain, but rather to the king of tribulation. The description refers to the quality of the suffering and affliction, not to the quantity or number of those who suffered. It is simply not possible for a future tribulation to exceed in magnitude any that has been experienced "since the beginning of the world" since that would require the survival of fewer people than the eight survivors of the flood of Noah's day, and even the dispensationalist stops short of predicting that.

The tribulation in A.D. 70 was very special kind for at least three good reasons. First it involved the final destruction of what once had been God's holy nation, an event that had never happened before and one that can never be repeated since the church is now God's holy nation [1 Pet. 2:9] and it will never be destroyed.  Second the position of the Jews trapped in Jerusalem was unique in all history. Desolated by the withdrawal of God's presence, knowing only His uttermost wrath, and thus abandoned to their own evil, the residents of the doomed city turned on one another in hatred and panic, and inflicted upon themselves even more suffering than they received at the hands of the Romans. [The reader desiring more details of that tribulation is referred to Philip Mauro's book, The Seventy Weeks and The Great Tribulation [Reiner Publications, Swengel, Pa.] and to the writings of the first-century historian, Josephus.]

And finally it was a tribulation suffered by the Jews who had rejected Christ. Those who availed themselves of the hope of Israel, the gospel, during the nation's final probation period of 40 years were saved from the disaster of A.D. 70. History records that all believers fled to safety before Jerusalem was surrounded, having been warned years in advance by Christ's prophecy on the Mount of Olives.

We will discuss the Olivet prophecy [Mt. 24; Mk. 13; Lk.21] in more detail in the next chapter, but now we want to show why there cannot be a seven-year period or any other. We noted previously that Peter on the day of Pentecost declared that Christ already had ascended to His throne. We can read in Acts 2:34, 35 that the Father said to Christ: "Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy foes Thy footstool" Paul picks up this same theme in 1 Corinthians 15:25,26 where he says: "For He!" must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

Thus we know that Christ is reigning now and will reign until His last enemy is under His feet, and we know that the last enemy is death. When that victory is achieved, Paul says, "then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom unto God, even the Father" [1 Cor. 15:24]. The question then is, when is death defeated? The answer is in the same chapter. Paul tells us it is when Christ comes for His church [1 Cor. 15:51-54]. At that moment the dead saints are to be raised with incorruptible bodies and the living saints are to be changed to also have incorruptible bodies [15:52] and that event, according to Paul, will bring to pass the saying that is written in Isaiah 25:8: "Death is swallowed up in victory" [15:54].Thus Christ's coming for His church and the defeat of death are simultaneous events, and at that point Christ's victory over the last enemy signals "the end", the end of time, the end of history, the moment when Christ turns over the kingdom to God the Father, "that God may be all in all" [1 Cor. 15:28]. Now the end is the end, and after the end there's not another seven years left in which the imaginary Great Tribulation could occur. There is, however, the eternity of the new heavens and the new earth [Rev. 21 and 22].

[Scofield's disagreement with Paul in the above matter is striking, and typically Scofield. The resurrection of the dead believers and the fact that the living generation of believers will pass into immortality without ever seeing death might have been enough to convince Paul that the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that "He will swallow up death in victory" [Isaiah 25:8] occurs when Christ comes for His church; but Scofield 1ooks 1,007 years beyond that event for the imagined fulfillment of that prophecy. The New Scofield Reference Edition's margin notes at Isaiah 25:8 cross-reference that verse to Revelation 20:14, which is after the 1,000 years have expired, and to Revelation 21:4, which is in the eternity of the new heaven and new earth.] The fact that time and history end when Christ comes for His church precludes the possibility of the Antichrist having any time left in which to perform his deceitful and vengeful deeds after that event. But it is also possible to demonstrate that even if he had any time left he simply wouldn't be around anymore after the meeting of Christ and His saints. Although there are several different Greek words used in the New Testament to describe the second coming of the Lord, the one that is specifically used in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, the famous passages used by the dispensationalists to try to prove the Secret Rapture, is "parousia": "We which are alive and remain unto the parousia of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven. . ." [Parousia is also the word used in 1 Corinthians 15:23 to describe the event we discussed above.] Now another place where we can find the same word is in the second chapter of the second epistle to the Thessalonians where we read about the individual generally considered to be the Antichrist. Paul says this is the "man of sin" or the "son of perdition" [2 Thess. 2:3], "whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His parousia" [2 Thess. 2:8]. Now clearly if the Antichrist is destroyed at the same time that Christ comes for His church, he obviously won't be around to cause all that tribulation afterward. And, furthermore, if he is the one who causes the final outpouring of tribulation in the end times, then clearly that tribulation will have to occur before Christ comes for His church, and the church obviously will have to go through that period.

We have previously said that tribulation, persecution, testings and trials are to be expected, and in fact welcomed, by the individual believers as a means by which God matures and perfects His people. Tribulation, wrath and judgment also come upon the people and nations of the world, and the book of Revelation tells how those acts of God are visited upon the earth throughout that long period of time between the first and second coming of Christ. But the final tribulation that yet lies ahead appears to await the church at the close of this present age. Revelation 20:9 speaks in symbolic language of the church ["the camp of the saints" and "the beloved city"] surrounded and massively outnumbered by her foes but saved by fire coming down out of heaven. That passage refers, of course, to the return of Christ when He is "revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel" [2 Thess. 1:7,8]. As for the Antichrist, despite many mistaken identities with notorious figures in prior times, we probably have yet to see in what form that ultimate manifestation of lawlessness will appear, and I'm open to all kinds of speculative theories as long as it's agreed that whatever deeds the Antichrist is going to do will be done before Christ comes for the church.

The weakest argument many Christians use in discussing tribulation is their claim that God is going to take them out of the world before the dispensationalist's Great Tribulation occurs, because, as they say, "a loving Father wouldn't make His children go through that." That's an American doctrine. Try telling that to the Christian martyrs in the Communist and Islamic countries and elsewhere! Their daily lot is to be humiliated, beaten, tortured, starved and killed. Could any worse physical suffering occur to them during the imagined Great Tribulation? Wouldn't instant thermonuclear annihilation be preferable to the daily horrors, repeated year after year, that the martyrs must endure? Perhaps, in addition to praying more for our brothers and sisters who are now suffering great tribulation, we should give some serious thought to the possibility that at some future time we could be suffering in the same way.

What if those really are nothing but fables that the dispensationalist has been spinning for us? What if we, and he, have to go through that final period of persecution? Will we have been built up, strengthened and matured by the diet He has urged upon us, or will we be disappointed, milk-fed babes?

If we believe God's Word, we'll prepare now [just in case the Lord would make even American Christians go through such times]. Let's start reigning with Him today. Let's believe Him when He says we are seated now with Him above all principalities and powers, from which position nothing can separate us, not "tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword. . . neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. . . . in all these things we are more than conquerors" [(Rom. 8:35-39].

Chapter 10

THE OLIVET PROPHECY

The great prophecy that Christ gave His disciples on the Mount of Olives shortly before His crucifixion, as told in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21, is a favorite tool of the futurist. In the futurist typical fashion he largely ignores past fulfillments and sets his sights with single-minded determination on using as much of it as he can in the future.

The great commentators of the past, however, taught that Christ was warning His disciples of the signs that would accompany the coming destruction of Jerusalem and impressing upon them that those signs did not signal the end of the world, and-or His own second coming. It should be a source of wonder to us that although the Scriptures teach throughout that no one can know the date of the second coming of Christ, we nevertheless are constantly told of this or that sign proving that His return is imminent. Down through the centuries such signs have been sought and "found", and they always have proved erroneous because the Lord said there are to be no such signs. Christ said, "Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is" [Mk. 13:33]. Peter and Paul taught that His coming will be unexpected, sudden, as a thief in the night [2 Pet. 3:10; 1 Thess. 5:4], and surely a thief gives no sign before coming in the night. The futurist thinks it will be at a time seven years after the church is taken away but the Word says it will be "in such an hour as ye think not" [Mt.24:44 and Lk. 12:40]. The context of the prophecy is important. Upon viewing the great stones of the temple, Christ told His disciples the stones would be completely thrown down. Later, according to Mark 13:4 and Luke 21:7, His disciples asked when that disaster would be and what would be the sign of it. That is all they asked and that is the question Christ answered. However, since He knew the disciples would in their own minds connect such a startling, catastrophic event with His own second coming, He also added a few comments on that subject as well, to assure them that His coming wouldn't coincide with the temple's destruction. Matthew recognizes this in his account [Mt. 24:3] by expanding the question to include the second advent, but it is important to see that in Mark and Luke that question was not asked, and that the Lord's answer referred almost entirely to the events that took place in A.D. 70.

Christ's prophecy breaks down neatly into four separate parts, and the King James version has gone to the trouble of marking these off for us in Mark 13. Matthew 24 is not similarly marked, but can be easily divided into the same four sections. In the first part [Mk. 13:5-8, Mt. 24:4-8] Christ told His disciples that wars, earthquakes, famines and troubles "must needs be" but they are not the sign of the end. Despite this warning, however, every major catastrophe of that nature down through history has been taken as a sign of the end. In the second part [Mk. 13:9-13, Mt. 24:9-14] Christ warned His disciples against specific dangers and hardships they would have to face, the beatings in the synagogues, their testimony before kings, the false prophets, and the betrayals. We are particularly reminded here of Paul's experiences. The third part [Mk. 13:14-23, Mt. 24:15-28] is the specific answer to the disciples' question about the time and sign of the destruction of the temple. Christ's answer was that the time and sign would be "when 'ye shall see' the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing where it ought not" [Mk. 13:14].

Now there's no great mystery about the abomination of desolation. Luke, who wrote in clear terms for Gentile converts unfamiliar with Old Testament prophecies, tells us in the plainest language possible: "When 'ye shall see' Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh" [Lk. 21 :20]. Christ simply was warning His followers to flee Jerusalem when they saw the Roman armies approach. They were not to believe anyone who said God would deliver the city from the Romans; they were to get out immediately because its destruction would be complete, as predicted in Daniel 9:26, and the city's inhabitants would suffer terribly. Because the believers in A.D. 70 remembered and acted on Christ's warning, they fled in time to escape the great tribulation that fell on those who remained behind in the doomed city. Christ told them not to be deceived by false Christs [Mt. 24:24] nor to believe that He was hiding in the desert or in secret chambers [Mt. 24:26] because when He really came later it would not be a secret, but would be like the lightning coming out of the east and shining unto the west [Mt. 24:27]. And He said they should pray that they wouldn't have to flee on the Sabbath [when the old Rabbinical laws, were still in effect in that day, would have impeded their flight].

Mark referred to the punishment to be visited upon Jerusalem at that time as "affliction" or "tribulation" and Matthew elaborated a bit to describe it as "great tribulation." Luke, with his tendency to clarify, said simply, "These be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled" [Lk. 21 :22].

My grandfather's old Bible published in 1867 cross-references all three of those descriptions to Daniel 9:26,27 in keeping with the historical interpretation that the vengeance visited upon the Jews 1,900 years ago for their final sin of killing the Messiah fulfilled Daniel's prophecy. God's wrath against Israel had been reserved for the time when that generation would "fill up the measure of their fathers" who had killed the prophets [Mt. 23:31,32] by killing the Messiah, which thus would "finish the transgression" [Dan. 9:24].

The most important point in all this, besides the obvious fact that it refers to a past, not a future event, lies in Luke's statement that the events in A.D. 70 fulfilled all things that were written about the vengeance to be visited upon the Jews. With that generation having been punished in A.D. 70 in the terrible way prophesied for Israel's terrible final sin against God! What future sin could the Jews commit to warrant the even worse future punishment that the Dispensationalist envisions under the cruel hand of the Antichrist? Obviously none, and thus it appears the Jews are not singled out as the target for any future "great tribulation." There is now no difference between the Jew and the Gentile [Rom. 10:12] and all are offered the same opportunity to save themselves from God's wrath through the gospel. Christ's words summing up the first three parts of the prophecy are contained in Mark 13:23: "Behold, I have foretold you all things." Clearly, He gave His followers all the signs and explicit details they would need to escape the specific horrors that were to be visited upon that generation of Jews. But, as for His second coming, Christ nowhere said that He would foretell all things. Instead, He said, "Of that day, and that hour, knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is" [Mk. 13:32,33]. And again, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power" [Acts 1:7].

It is worth mentioning here that since the Lord said wars must needs be but are not the sign of the end  [Mk. 13:7] we have no basis for saying that His coming will be at the height of World War III, as many futurists contend, since such a war would serve as the very sign He said we would not have. Instead, we are told He will return suddenly, unexpectedly, when the world says "peace and safety" [1 Thess. 5:3. His coming will be at a time when life is proceeding at a normal pace, when people are eating, drinking, marrying, buying, selling, planting and building, just as they were in the days of Noah and Lot [Lk. 17:26-30].

The fourth segment [Mk. 13:24-27, Mt. 24:29-31] refers to the long period of time from A.D. 70 until the second coming of the Lord. Since He has already told us there are to be no specific signs of that event, Christ speaks here only in veiled terms about general circumstances that will prevail throughout that long period. "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then shall He send His angels, and shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven" [Mk.13:24-27].

Matthew's account of those events uses the same veiled terminology, reflecting the Lord's use of figurative speech to describe that long period of time leading up to the dramatic moment of His second coming, an event which He told His disciples was to take place at a time unknown to Him and to the angels, and known only to God the Father. Since He said no signs would accompany that event, and since He is talking here of something occurring throughout that long period, we may be reasonably certain He is speaking figuratively in His reference to celestial phenomena.

Luke again comes to our assistance. To his description of the changes in the sun, moon and stars He adds: "and upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring" [Lk. 21 :25]. In Bible terminology the sun, moon and stars frequently refer to various levels of power and authority. In Joseph's dream [Gen. 37:9,10] they stood for the higher authority of his father, the lesser authority of his mother, and the still lesser authority of his brothers, as those individuals clearly perceived when he told them his dream. Likewise, "the sea and the waves roaring" may be explained by the statement in Revelation 17:15 that "the waters. . . . are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues." And Mark's statement that "the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken" probably signifies the same continuing and intensifying process mentioned in Hebrews 12:26,27. Thus we may be reasonably sure that Christ was referring to certain broad, general characteristics of human history from A.D. 70 until His second advent, namely, the same continuing deterioration in governmental power and authority as that described in Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream. We have seen throughout the centuries the progressive decline of royalty, and in our own day we see the increasing inability of world governments to control their own destinies, or even their own subjects. Respect for authority is rapidly declining, and anarchy is growing; the nations are perplexed and the sea and the waves of humanity are roaring.

While Christ had told His disciples that specific signs would accompany the localized, single event of the destruction of the nation of Israel, the implication is clear that no such signs were to accompany the continuing decline over the centuries of the powers of the other nations of the world. Rather, that would be an ongoing, steadily intensifying process until His coming. The accelerating lack of respect for authority obviously will contribute to the growing persecution of the church.                

[Although the Dispensationalist says the end of the Great Tribulation and the return of Christ will occur simultaneously, since to him the tribulation period will be cut short by the Lord's sudden return, a careful reading of Mark 13:24-26 shows that between the end of the tribulation and the second coming of Christ there are "those days" during which the phenomena discussed above occur. There is no problem, however, when we understand the occurrence of "that tribulation" to have been in A.D. 70, and the second coming of Christ yet future, and the events described by Mark as occurring between those two dates.]

Chapter 11

MILLENNIAL MUSINGS

Although three long, parallel accounts of the Olivet prophecy are given in Matthew, Mark and Luke, it is not included in John. Many commentators believe the reason is simply the fact that the gospel of John was written well after the prophecy's fulfillment in A.D. 70 and there was thus no longer any need to warn the believers.

For many twentieth century Christians the Great Tribulation and the Millennium are two periods of time to look forward to with eager anticipation. During the Great Tribulation they foresee an appropriate degree of physical punishment for those hard-hearted people who won't receive the Christian witness today [as if separation from God in time and eternity isn't punishment enough]. And during the Millennium they visualize themselves ruling in a way that is somehow more satisfying than "just" ruling spiritually, namely, by wielding a rod of iron and a measure of physical authority [despite the fact that Christ said only the Gentiles exercise lordship in that manner, Mk. 10:42,43].

One of my hopes in writing this book has been that the Lord will revise expectations such as these so that we can see and appreciate the present kingdom and reign of Christ and our present reign with Him. It is important to understand that God already "hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" [Eph. 1:3] and to stop yearning for more present or future natural and materialistic blessings [on which it is easy to overdose.]

New Covenant Christianity is a foretaste of eternity. We have been given God's Word, His Son and His Spirit. For eternity He will also give us an immortal, incorruptible body and we will be with Him in the new heavens and new earth, but otherwise He has already given us everything. In the final chapter of this book we want to discuss the superiority of the spiritual sphere in which we live and move over the natural sphere of the Old Testament saints, but for the moment suffice it to say that they had the shadow while we have the substance. But despite all this, many believers want to give up the new Cadillac of their present inheritance and go back to driving a pre-war Ford. The natural reign they look forward to in the Millennium is an inferior product not worthy to be compared with their present legacy as heirs, priests and kings. And besides that, it's unscriptural.

I'm far from being an expert but I've heard that it is a 'cardinal rule to compare scripture with scripture'. 'In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word should be established'. In that respect, the problem with "the so-called "Millennium" is that it is not mentioned in all of scripture",  The word "Millennium", of course, is never used in the Bible, but is merely a term that has come to be applied to the 1,000 years mentioned in Revelation 20 in several verses, and what is without doubt the most symbolic and figurative book in the whole Bible.

In chapter 1 we showed that the Dispensationalist admits that the idea of a future 1,000 year reign of Christ on the earth is a departure from the beliefs of the Protestant Reformers such as Calvin, Luther, Knox and Zwingli. Those men and the great Bible commentators historically have rejected that idea. In Biblical Studies in Final Things [page 196] Cox quotes Luther's views on the subject: "A millennial reign of Christ, characterized by a pre-eminent knowledge of the mysteries of God, by a holy life and an earthly prosperity for those involved, is not to be expected by God's children in this world. “More recently, however, largely through the agency of the notes Scofield inserted among the pages of the Bible, the belief in a natural, physical reign of exactly 1,000 years duration has increasingly crept into the beliefs of many individuals.

In chapter 8, drawing on Philip Mauro's warning, we pointed but the danger of agreeing that Christ came to establish an earthly reign, without investigating or understanding the implications of such a belief. If we accept the Dispensationalist's proposed Millennium in its standard form, that is, as the postponement of the earthly reign Christ supposedly came to establish, we then stand in embarrassed agreement that Christ was guilty of the 'accusation of sedition', and therefore was justly crucified. We agree with Mauro that it is time for God's faithful pastors and teachers to urgently warn believers about this danger. Christ came to manifest 'a kingdom that is not of this world', not physical or natural or political or earthly, and He did it with a thoroughness that all the purveyors of gaps and postponements can never undo. Pilate rightly saw that Christ was innocent of any threat to Caesar's physical reign; and He was crucified unjustly.

In this chapter we will also discuss the subject of resurrections, having reserved it for this space because of the Dispensationalist's exotic belief that the Millennium is bracketed by two separate bodily resurrections, that of the saved before the 1,000 years and that of the unsaved after the 1,000 years. Various commentators have recommended that we just read a passage of scripture and let it speak for itself, without bringing to it any preconceived ideas of what we want it to say, and this is especially good advice in the case of the book of Revelation.

This last book of the Bible tells us a great deal about itself, if we will let it, in the first verse of the first chapter where it is announced as "the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him to shew unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass: and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John." From this, two points are obvious. First, the things described in this book were to 'start happening immediately after they were revealed'. Second, they were given in the form of signs, or symbols.

The Emphasized Bible makes these points even clearer, calling the foretold events "the things which must needs come to pass with speed" and saying that "He shewed them by signs." Thus in our approach to the Revelation, or parts thereof, it is necessary [1] to accept the fact that the immediate audience for its message was the churches of that generation and that it has had applicability and value for every generation of Christians since the first century, and [2] to accept the fact that it is written in the vivid, symbolic, figurative style known as apocalyptic literature. It is also necessary [3] to accept the fact that the whole book, not just the first few chapters was written to the churches, and [4] to accept the fact that John was "in the spirit" [Rev. 1:10] and not "in the flesh" when he received the Revelation.

It is beyond the scope of this volume to attempt an exposition of the book of Revelation, but it is necessary to at least remark that the book makes little sense if it is tackled as an ongoing sequence of events from front to back. If the book is read as a chronological account it is hard to explain the location of the story of the birth of Christ way back in chapter 12. There we read of the repeated efforts of Satan to destroy the Saviour, of Christ's victory at Calvary when salvation, strength, the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ came and when the accuser of the brethren was cast down [12:10] and finally of how Satan, having failed against Christ, attempts instead to take out his wrath on God's people.

It is more reasonable and useful to recognize that the Revelation tells and re-tells the story of the events between the first and second coming of Christ, in each case using different imagery and symbols to describe the triumph of Christ and the church over their various enemies. The unifying theme of the book is the throne in heaven, where the Son is exalted with the Father, and the certain victory over all foes.

The controversial 20th chapter can properly be viewed as one of the separate accounts of the events transpiring between the first and second coming of Christ. It is a concise [15 verses] record of the period from Calvary to the end of time. Its explanation can be made so simple and uncomplicated that a child can understand it, and for that reason it will perhaps appear inadequate at first to the reader accustomed to the intricacies of Dispensationalist fare.

Revelation 20 says that Christ [the messenger, Gk. 'angelos' of verse 1] came to earth more than 1,900 years ago and laid hold of Satan and bound him for a long period of time so that Satan could no longer deceive the nations of the world by keeping them ignorant of salvation through the gospel. During this long period of time, many people are raised from spiritual death through the new birth [the first resurrection] and they reign with Christ and are priests of God and of Christ. Those who have a part in that spiritual resurrection are blessed and holy, and on them the second death has no power; all the others will know only the bodily resurrection at the end of time.

At the end of the long period of time, Satan will be released to again deceive the nations and keep them from the truth of the gospel, and to incite them to persecute and attempt to annihilate the believers. Though surrounded and desperately outnumbered by their enemies, the believers will be saved by the second coming of Christ. Satan, the Antichrist and the False prophet will be eternally punished. All who ever lived will be resurrected and stand before the great white throne to be judged worthy either of life eternal or of everlasting fire.

This simple, uncluttered interpretation harmonizes with the scriptures as a whole and needs no fine-print footnotes to explain inconsistencies. The Dispensationalists, of course, will complain that we are "spiritualizing" the scriptures while they interpret them "literally" but we are reminded here of Paul's warning that "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" [2 Cor. 3:6]. In fact, the Dispensationalists themselves are quick to apply figurative or symbolic meanings to passages in this book whenever it serves their purposes. We mentioned in chapter 6 their far-fetched interpretation of John as a symbolic representation of the entire church of modern times [Rev. 4:1]. Further, they will surely agree that John is speaking figuratively in describing Christ as a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes [Rev. 5:6]. And if that is true, how much more of the Revelation should be interpreted similarly?

In the chapter we are studying, the first two verses say Satan was bound with "a great chain." Are we to take this literally or figuratively? Would it really be possible to bind Satan, who is a spirit, with an iron chain? Obviously not. And if that is true, if the writer is speaking in figurative terms in the first two verses of the chapter, is it too great a step of faith to believe that he is also speaking figuratively in the third verse, where the 1000-year reign appears for the first time in the Bible? Interpreting the 1,000 years in a figurative or symbolic manner does not put one in the embarrassing position of having to explain why. There. is no mention elsewhere of this 1,000-year period, either in the words of Christ or in all the other chapters of the Bible. Further, to interpret the 1,000 years as symbolic of the long period of time between the first and second coming of Christ is to use the term "thousand" in a way in which it is used frequently in the Bible, namely, as a descriptive term for "as many as there are" or "all." Thus, "the cattle on a thousand hills are mine" (Ps. 50:10) means the Lord claims title to the cattle on as many hills as there are, not just to those on the first thousand hills. "A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday" (Ps, 90:4) means all the years of history are but as yesterday to God as viewed from His perspective in eternity.

[The reader need not be concerned over the identification of the "angel" as Christ; Scofield makes exactly the same interpretation for the "angel" in Revelation 8:3-5, as shown in his note to Hebrews 1:4.] It may be objected that the interpretation that holds that Satan was bound at Calvary, rather than at some time in the future, ignores the fact that Satan has been doing quite a lot of damage in all the centuries since the crucifixion. The point being made, however, is that Satan was bound, not destroyed; his power was limited, not eliminated. If you have a dangerous, biting dog and you put a great chain on him, he's bound but he can still bite anyone who gets within the length of his chain. Satan is bound in the same way.

Christ said He would first bind the strong man [Satan] and then spoil his house [the world], according to Matthew 12:29, and because He did just that it has since been true for those who follow in His Name that "whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" [Mt. 16:19; 18:18]. At Calvary, Christ cast out Satan [John 12:31,32] and made a show of him openly [Col. 2:15].

Beyond these truths, however, lies the further observation that Revelation 20 speaks of binding Satan that is, limiting his power, in a very special way, namely, "that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled." This clearly refers to the fact that until Calvary only the nation of Israel, of all the nations in the world, knew the salvation of God. The rest of the world lay captive to Satan, "being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" [Eph. 2:12]. After Calvary and Pentecost, however, the gospel went forth to all the world and Satan was powerless to stop it.

It is indeed ominous that Revelation 20 speaks of Satan being loosed again for "a little season" at the end of the long period of time to deceive the nations one final time. As Satan originally opposed the nation of Israel, unto which at first "were committed the oracles of God" [Rom. 3:2], so at his loosing he will unleash his final, violent opposition of those who today possess and preach the truth of the salvation of God. That is, of course, the church [the "saints" and the "beloved city" referred to in verse 9]. That the final onslaught against the church will be massive and intense is clear from verse 8 where her enemies are said to be as numerous as the sand of the sea.

That final period of persecution is not a pretty one to contemplate, It apparently will be worldwide ["the nations that are in the four quarters of the earth"] rather than being largely limited to the Communist and Islamic countries as at present. The nations of the four quarters of the earth are called Gog and Magog, and, of course, the futurist always identifies Gog and Magog as fighting in the big battle before the Millennium. It is obvious from verses 7 and 8, however, that Gog and Magog, the nations, fight in the battle against the church after the Millennium, during the "little season."

Are we already in this little season? The reader must judge that for himself. But whether we are or soon will be, one fact is clear. Though we may be troubled by the times that lie ahead, the Revelation of Jesus Christ says that when the final persecution reaches its peak, fire will come down from God out of heaven and devour the enemies of the church [verse 9], Paul describes that event in these terms: "To you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God , and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power" [2 Thess. 1 :7-9].

For those believers who have a pleasant materialistic vision of the Millennium as just some future extension of the Great American Dream, it should be pointed out, that the Scofield version of the Millennium is somewhat different. Life styles would be strictly circumscribed by the old Jewish laws, despite the fact that those were weak, unprofitable and made nothing perfect [Heb. 7:18,19] and were faulty [Heb. 8:7,8] and old and decayed way back in the first century [Heb. 8:13].

The New Scofield Reference Edition says [page 997] that the Mosaic law will be "the governing code" in the Millennial Kingdom, which is strange indeed since that kingdom is supposed to start up with only believers in it and "the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane" and for the other unrighteous persons listed in 1 Timothy 1 :9,10.

In addition to obeying the sacrificial laws and keeping the feasts there will be some other required changes in behavior at that time. As far as the dress code, there will be little restrictions such as the one against wearing a garment made of two different kinds of material [Lev. 19:19]. Dietary regulations will require the elimination of pork chops, pork hot dogs and ham from some existing diets [Lev. 11 :7] but, on the other hand, it wiII be all right to add locusts, crickets and grasshoppers to the menu [Lev. 11 :22]. As for the Sabbath, the penalty for doing any work on that seventh day will, of course, be death [Ex. 31 :15]. "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses" [Heb. 10:28] and that includes little things like gathering sticks, for which the specific penalty is death by stoning [Num. 15:32-36].

Before moving on to a discussion of resurrections we would like to remind the reader that although the interpretation of Revelation 20 given above differs sharply from the views propagated so urgently by the futurists in their books and charts, it is nevertheless akin to that of the Protestant Reformers and the great Bible expositors of the past [prior to the Darby-Scofield outbreak] in its denial of an earthly 1,000-year reign of Christ, in its recognition that the first resurrection is the new birth, and in its interpretation of the "saints" and "the beloved city” [verse 9] as the church.

The first resurrection, the new birth, is a spiritual resurrection and is never shared in by any except believers. The only other resurrection, the one that will come when the Lord returns at the last trumpet, will be physical and general, that is, shared in by everyone who has ever lived and died. As a Christian you have already been resurrected. You have been made alive in Christ [Col. 2:13], you have been made alive from the dead [Rom. 6:13], you who were dead in sins have been quickened and raised up with Christ [Eph.2:5,6]. The only thing you do not have is that immortal, incorruptible body that will be received at the general resurrection at the end of time [1 Cor. 15:52-54]. Of course, there also will be a generation of believers alive when Christ returns whose mortal bodies will be changed to resurrection bodies without ever having known death.

It is generally accepted that the same John who received the Revelation also wrote the gospel of John, and there we read a parallel description of the two resurrections. In John 5:24-27 we read of the spiritual resurrection, the new birth experienced by believers during the centuries between the first and second coming of Christ. Jesus says in verse 24 that he who "heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life. . . . is passed from death unto life." In verse 25 He says that in the present time [the hour that now is] those who are spiritually dead who hear His voice shall gain spiritual life. In verses 28 and 29 Jesus says that at another time, a future time [the hour that is coming] "all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." Surely that hour when all shall hear His voice is at the last trumpet when "the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout" [1 Thess. 4:16].

The general resurrection that occurs at the second coming of Christ involves all who have ever lived and died. This is clear from Revelation 1:7 [which the dispensationalist agrees refers to the second advent]: "Behold He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see, Him, and they also which pierced Him." I believe "every eye" can be taken to mean the eyes of everyone who has ever lived, but it's not necessary to press that point to disprove the dispensationalist's idea that the physical resurrection of the saved is separated by 1,000 years from the physical  resurrection of the wicked. To show the error of believing in two physical resurrections with a 1000 year gap between them it is only necessary to recognize that when Christ comes "they also which pierced Him" shall see Him. You can take that to mean either the Romans or the Jews of Christ's day, but either way they're in the category of the "wicked." As such, Scofield says they shouldn't be resurrected until a thousand years later, and yet there they are, raised from the dead to see Christ return in flaming vengeance. At this point the hard-pressed dispensationalist will take the position that the above passage refers to the future descendants of those who pierced Him, but the scriptures relentlessly close every loophole. We can prove the reference is to the resurrection of those who pierced Him at Calvary by turning to Matthew's account of Christ's appearance before Caiaphas, the high priest. In this passage, Christ specifically says Caiaphas himself would be there to see the Lord "coming in the clouds of heaven" [Mt. 26:64]. The margin note in the New Scofield Reference Edition admits this refers to the second advent of Christ, and although the notes are careful not to cross-reference that verse to Revelation 1:7, which Scofield also identifies as the second advent, the implications are obvious. When Christ "cometh with clouds" [Rev. 1:7 the resurrected Caiaphas will be there to see the event, although as one of the wicked he would have to be resurrected 1,000 years later under the Scofield scheme. Conversely, although the dispensationalist says the resurrection of the saved is at the Secret Rapture, Martha told Jesus she knew her brother Lazarus would rise "in the resurrection at the last day" [John. 11:24]. Obviously the day of the Secret Rapture as described by the dispensationalist is not the last day. It is followed by all the days of his seven-year period and then by all the days of his 1,000-year period.  

In chapter 2, we pointed out the dispensationalist's need for four future resurrections, including three for the saints of all the ages [one at the Secret Rapture, one at the end of the Great Tribulation and one at the end of the Millennium] and one for the wicked [at the end of the Millennium]. Compassion and mercy require that we make no further comment on that theory.

Chapter 12

O ZION  HASTE

One of the ways in which the first-century scribes and Pharisees "shut up the kingdom of heaven against men" [Mt. 23:13] was through their compulsory habit of offering natural solutions to spiritual problems. The showers of blessing, the spiritual food, the sunshine of love that God desired to pour out from His heaven never reached the starved and thirsting souls below. The scribes and Pharisees saw to that. Their shallow, natural interpretation of the Old Testament scriptures gave them a moldy and impenetrable canvas of tradition, ritual and law with which to shield the people from God's spiritual provision.

In due time, however, God sent His own Son to change all that. And suddenly the Bread of Life, the Living Water, the Love of God stood in the midst of the world between His people and those who had robbed them, and with hard words He rebuked them. He called them serpents, vipers, hypocrites, thieves and robbers, and when they protested that they were the descendants of Abraham He denied it and said, "Ye are of your father, the devil!"

When they stood on their ritual and law and circumcision, He said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing!" When they pointed with pride to the traditions of their elders, He said, "Why do you transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" If they looked to the glory of Solomon's day, He said, "A greater than Solomon is here!"  If they looked ahead to a future kingdom, He said, "The kingdom shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof!"

Time and again He showed how their carnal, natural interpretation of the scriptures led to error. When the scribes insisted that Elijah must return before the coming of the kingdom and the Messiah, He said bluntly they would have to "spiritualize" the passage in Malachi making that prediction [Mal. 4:5].

"Elijah is come already," He said, referring to John the Baptist, "and they knew him not. "He came preaching that the kingdom had "come nigh" and was "at hand" and "is come upon you," but they looked around and said, "We don't see it. The Romans are still running things. When the kingdom comes, we'll be ruling like David ruled. And so they missed it. Christ manifested His eternal kingdom right in their midst, but their natural  expectations blinded them to its spiritual reality. There were others, however, who saw and entered His kingdom through a new and spiritual birth, and to these He threw open a realm of blessing and provision, the promised land of the perfect goodness of God. Compared with the spiritual riches of that kingdom, all of their previous hopes of material blessing and prosperity were but wood, hay and stubble.

The first-century scribes and Pharisees directed their converts' gaze to the power and glory of the past and of the future, and gave them nothing but the dry dust of men' traditions in the present. The futurist today does the same He looks backward with longing to the temporal splendor of the Davidic kingdom and he looks forward with even greater longing to an imagined day when that kingdom will be restored.

Meanwhile, he is forced to tolerate this present age, this "parenthesis" in which he feels God is dealing temporarily with another people on this earth. Like the Pharisees shields the people from their present, spiritual blessing 'Without a vision, they perish'. They cry out from spiritual; wounds and he offers them fables of the future. Their eyes plead for healing balm and he gives them prophetic chart They seek deliverance and guidance; he promises them the Secret Rapture and the Millennium. They want the miracles of Jesus; he's busy with the exploits of the Antichrist. 

There are two ways you can try to discourage a bride about her relationship with her bridegroom. First, you Can tell her she doesn't have what it takes anymore; she's getting old; she's lost the excitement, the allure and the glamour of their courting days. If that doesn't work, if she finds out she's still got it, then you start telling her it doesn't matter anyhow because the bridegroom is interested in another woman.

That is what Dispensationalism has tried to do to the church. First, it said the church just didn't have the stuff it had in the first century, no more supernatural power for tired old Mrs. Laodicea. [We cited Wilfred Meloon's rebuttal to that argument in chapter 1]. To make sure that effort to discourage the church failed, God sent a renewed spiritual outpouring in this present century and the bride suddenly started to like what she saw in the mirror.

Having failed there, Dispensationalism has redoubled its efforts on the second front. The bride has needed all of her new-found strength and pride to withstand that onslaught. If they couldn't belittle what she is today, at least they could work overtime trying to prove that someone else was going to replace her tomorrow. So like backyard gossips they spread the rumor that the bridegroom had eyes for someone else. At first it was just a whisper behind her back, but gradually it became louder and louder until today they shamelessly taunt her to her face. But just as surely as she hasn't lost her first-century power, so also she hasn't lost the sole, eternal love of the bridegroom. She is His forever, and no other will ever take her place.

Relying largely on a natural interpretation of the Old Testament and the book of Revelation, and generally ignoring both the past fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies and the superior teachings of the New Testament, the dispensationalist tells us tales of a future age of blessing and national supremacy for restored Israel. But the Old Testament prophets did not speak of blessings that are to come upon a people other than the church in an age that was still in the future. Peter said the prophets' ministry was to believers in this age [1 Pet. 1:10-12]. And their message was not the future restoration of the monarchy of a small nation, but the coming of Christ ["the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy "Rev. 19:10] as the Saviour and Lord, the Redeemer and King, who would manifest, at His first advent, a worldwide golden age of blessing and triumph.

In describing the blessings of the new age that was to dawn at Calvary, the prophets were inspired to speak in natural terms that could be understood by the people of their day. If, for example, they prophesied about the peaceable nature of the kingdom of God, both in its present form in this age and in its final form in the new heavens and new earth, they might speak in prophetic terms of the wolf lying down with the Iamb, as in Isaiah 11:6. As Hughes says in A New Heaven and A New Earth [page 160]:

"The Old Testament prophecies abound with such expressions as "The house of the Lord," "mountains", "Zion", "eating abundantly", "drinking choice wines", "resting under trees", and general pictures of scenes of earthly prosperity and that for ever. The very fact that "the blessings" are said to be "forever" precludes the thought of any limited period of a millennium. But the New Testament reveals the true interpretation. The natural of the old is but a symbol, or type, of the spiritual of the new era. At present, spiritual blessings are enjoyed by faith without sight, but in the New Heavens and New Earth all will be visible, but that which will be seen will not be that of the past old order but the transformed glorified creation, a truly literal spiritual creation."

In our preoccupation with Christ's second coming we all too often fail to appreciate the tremendous changes wrought by His first coming. We forget that the gospel not only results in the salvation of individual souls, but also that through it the world was turned upside down [Acts 17:6]. Nothing was ever quite the same again after the Deliverer came out of Zion as prophesied. Darkness and captivity fled before that Light and those nations and people who welcomed His illumination prospered beyond measure.

Those who instead chose false religions and gods who were no gods remained locked in the ignorance, bondage and poverty which they still attempt to export today through their "gurus" and "spiritual leaders." In this present age, as the world we live in becomes increasingly lawless, clamorous and complex, it is natural for humanity to yearn for an escape to a better place or for a total change in our present society. In the people of the world this yearning may find its outlet in dreamy speculations of a new and simpler life in a tropical paradise or in fantasies of utopian changes in the existing social order. Believers who cannot resist this all too human desire find the dispensationalist ready to cater to them with similar speculations built around his promise of an escape to a better place in the sky and later the supposedly ideal society of the Millennium.

The undisciplined and unenlightened worldling, of course, is unaware of any better hope and has nothing and no one to check his flights of fancy; but the believer, buoyed by the New Testament truth of his present inheritance and the unfailing hope of the eternal new heavens and new earth, appears to have no license to indulge in similar imaginative excesses.

But the dispensationalist's fables involve us in more than just speculative flights of fancy. They belittle the first coming of Christ and claim that He failed to gain a natural, political throne and kingdom that His Father had willed Him to have. They teach that the stubborn will of man forced God to change His plans and to allow His Son to be crucified against His will. They imply that Christ came to perform a seditious act as a political revolutionary and that His crucifixion was therefore justified by law. They deny the present reign of Christ and the present co-reign of the believers. They imply that the church is a failure and that the mission it could not accomplish will later be accomplished by the present political state of Israel.

With his fables the dispensationalist pre-conditions individual believers to immaturity through false promises of escape from tribulation, and with the same fables he lures the believer into a prolonged and fruitless study of books, charts and invasion maps of Palestine, a futile activity that keeps the believer so preoccupied that he has no time to seek the will and purpose of the Lord in his life, and no time to grow and mature and be conformed to the image of Christ.

The same fables wrongfully threaten the Jewish people with dread future punishment under the cruel hand of the Antichrist while the New Testament, in fact, teaches that God's vengeance against the Jews reached its consummation with the destruction of the city and temple, and the slaughter, capture and dispersal of the Jews in A.D. 70.

The same fables obscure Paul's teaching that there is no longer any difference between Jews and Gentiles in God's sight, and they encourage Jewish people in the false hope that their ancestry somehow guarantees their future salvation, thereby creating further obstacles to their understanding that the only hope for them, as well as for Gentiles, is their acceptance of Christ as Saviour in this present age.

In his classic book, The Screwtape Letters [Geoffrey Bles: The Centenary Press, London] Christian author C. S. Lewis has the experienced demon Screwtape correspond with his nephew Wormwood about the advantages of keeping believers occupied with the future rather than the present. [In the demon's letter the Enemy, of course, is God.] His letter [pages 76,77] says in part: "The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to Eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience comparable  to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity [which means being concerned with Him] or with the Present. . . .    "Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human [say a widow or a scholar] to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the Past and it has a determinate nature, and to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make. them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it, we make to them  think. of unrealities. In a word, the Future IS, of all things, the thing least like eternity."

If the present alone offers us freedom and actuality, and if the future is the thing least like eternity and makes us think of unrealities, why then do we display such a lack of appreciation for the present realities of the kingdom of God, and such a preoccupation and fascination with some imagined physical kingdom of the future?

We know the heathen are obsessed with a desire to know the future, but shouldn't God's children be satisfied and secure in the knowledge that the times and seasons are in His own power? Christ said, "Take no thought for the morrow. . . Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" [Mt. 6:34], and James said, "Ye know not what shall be on the morrow" [Jas. 4:14. But despite that inspired advice many believers have become almost obsessed with the future.

They rightly deplore the world's reliance on horoscopes, tea leaves and Ouija boards to foretell future events, but then they themselves seek after signs in the futurist's polished crystal ball.

They reason that all the events of Daniel's 70th week of seven years must occur within 40 years [one generation] after the establishment of the modern, political state of Israel in 1948. That, of course, would set 1988 as the outer limit of their time frame, and since their Secret Rapture is to occur before the seven-year period they obviously are predicting 1981 as the latest possible date for the Rapture. Despite His own unparalleled knowledge and understanding of the scriptures, Christ told His disciples that neither He nor the angels knew the time of His second coming. Some of the dispensationalists, however, claim superior understanding and tell us His coming will be by 1988 at the latest. [However, please note that it is now Sep 2009 at the amending of this work].

Nowhere do the scriptures tell us to yearn for such knowledge of the future. Instead, they teach us to live one day at a time in the present reality of the kingdom of God, a kingdom that is right here and now, a kingdom in which we reign over every difficult problem and circumstance because of the victory Christ won at Calvary.

But the futurist says, forget the here and now and let me tell you about the by and by. And then he tricks us into selling the birthright of our present inheritance for a future mess of pottage. [Esau at least took delivery of his pottage on the spot, but we are supposed to agree to delivery at an indeterminate future date.]

What a difference between our New-Birth-right and the pottage the futurist offers. One is a sumptuous spiritual feast and new wine spread right now in the New Covenant Banqueting House; the other is a rain check for stale bread, lentils and sour grapes to be served up at some uncertain date in an old, abandoned building. The covenant under which God's people live, now and forever, is grace, not law; the blood of the Lamb, not animal sacrifices; the eternal priesthood of Melchisedec, not the earthly order of Levi; the temple of believers which is the spiritual habitation of God, not a stone building made with hands; Jerusalem above which is free, not Jerusalem on earth in bondage; spiritual Israel, not natural Israel, and the present eternal King in his glorious, present, eternal kingdom and not the imaginary revival of a faded human monarchy. As believers we are seated now with Christ in heavenly places [Eph. 2:6] where we are already blessed with all spiritual blessings [Eph. 1:3. We now are heirs to the promises made to Abraham [Gal. 3:29] and heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ [Rom. 8:17]. We now are members of the household of God [Eph. 2:19] and a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and God's special people [1 Pet. 2:9]. We have already been translated into the kingdom of God [Col. 1 13 and we are now kings and priests unto God (Rev. 1 :6) and reigning in this life [Rom. 5:17].

Despite the fact that we are now enjoying blessings that the Old Testament merely foreshadowed [Heb.8:5; CoI.2:17] the futurist yearns to return to the old ways, to the bondage of the "weak and beggarly elements" [Gal. 4:9]. In his hopeless effort to prove the truth of his nineteenth-century theories he twists the scriptures recklessly, blatantly disregarding orthodox beliefs, and claims his '150-year-old fables' have equal standing with the inspired revelations given to the church in the first century.

Fortunately, however, the rushing mighty wind of the Spirit is blowing through the church today to sweep away the musty odor of myth and fable and to restore the fresh, sweet smell of truth and reality. God is telling His people to seek no more after Mount Sinai [Gal. 4:24-31; Heb. 12:18-21], but to realize instead that they have come to mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem [Heb. 12:22]. The church is the Zion that God has chosen for His eternal habitation. It is of the church that He speaks when He says, "This is My rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy" [Ps. 132:13-16]. In their joy the saints are shouting, "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness" [Ps. 48:1]. They're shouting, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the Great King" [Ps. 48:2]. And they're shouting, "Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following" [Ps. 48:12,13]. Let's tell that next generation facts, and not fables. AMEN!

The Once And  Future Israel

by Robert B. Yerby is a companion prequel.

This is another true and scriptural blessing.

This document has been amended.

All pronouns referring to deity have been capitalized

for clarity, and easier reading - with greater understanding.