Hope is the certain, expectant longing that the child of God has for the return of Jesus Christ and the renewal of all things in Him. Hope is that aspect of faith that is firmly grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (I Peter 1:3), and therefore cannot be put to shame. Hope is the power of the Christian life that enables the child of God to walk as a pilgrim and stranger in the midst of this present evil world with his eye on the better country, the city which hath foundation.

As we stand at the beginning of a new year and a new decade, it is well that this hope be sharply defined, and that false, illusory hopes be exposed for what they are: deceptive and leading to all kinds of misunderstandings. As true hope can never put to shame, so all false hopes will surely evaporate as the mist and leave a man with nothing. The expectation of the rapture is such a false hope. It is an illusion.

Our purpose in writing is to give instruction to those who are being deceived by the dispensational teaching of a rapture, to warn against even considering the rapture as an aspect of our hope, and to show what believers have in the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.

The rapture is an important event in the system of eschatology known as dispensa-ionalism. Dispensationalism is a radical form of premillennialism. All dispensationalists are premillennialists; but all premillennialists are not dispensationalists. Historic premillennialism does not advocate a rapture. It holds that the second coming of Christ will be followed by a period of peace (an exact one thousand year period) during which the Christ will come to reign in earthly Jerusalem, and that after this period of time Christ will come again to bring an end to this present world and usher in His everlasting kingdom. Historic premillennialism is wrong. Its basic error can be traced to its faulty interpretation of Revelation 20:1-7 where the "thousand years" is given a literal meaning. We hold that the "thousand years" is a figurative expression denoting a long period of time, the time from the day of Pentecost to the time just before the end of the world. We live, therefore, in the very last part of this period. It is the last hour.

Dispensationalism goes far beyond historic premillennialism. It divides the history of mankind into seven distinct periods of dispensations, and teaches that God deals with the children of men during each period according to different principles, innocence, conscience, human government, promise, law, grace, and kingdom. It teaches a basic difference between the kingdom people (the Jews) and the church (the Gentiles). It teaches that part of Holy Scripture (the Old Testament, most of the gospels, and parts of Revelation) are for the Jews, while the epistles and the rest of Revelation are for the Gentiles. It teaches several future comings of Christ: at the rapture, seven years later in the revelation, and then a thousand years later when Christ comes to destroy the present world and to make all things new. For our present purpose we pass by many other elements that belong to the dispensationalist’s view of the last things.

By the rapture is meant the sudden, secret coming of Christ to take unto Himself in the air the living saints and the saints who are resurrected at this time. The wicked dead remain in the grave. They call this rapture the coming of Christ for His saints. This view is based on Matthew 24:40-41, Matthew 25:13, and especially I Thessalonians 4: 13-17. After the rapture comes a seven-year period of great tribulation which the church escapes because she is with her Lord in the air. Then Christ comes again to the earth with His saints. At this time there is a second resurrection of saints who have died during the tribulation. This ushers in the millennium when Christ rules over the Jews from earthly Jerusalem.

This rapture, this sudden, unannounced disappearance of thousands of saints from the earthly scene, can happen during the next decade. It can happen in 1990. It can happen tomorrow. It can happen today! The displensationalists are very dramatic in their descriptions of the rapture. "One of these days, as sure as this is the Word of God, those who have pled with you, who have warned you, who have prayed for you, will be missing. The preacher will be gone, mother will be gone, wife will be gone, and babies’ crib will be found empty. Oh, what an awakening that is going to be! Imagine getting up some morning and your wife is not there, and you call for her, but there is no answer. You go downstairs, but she is not there. You call upstairs to daughter asking where mother is, but no answer from daughter. Daughter too is gone. You ring the police but the line is busy. Hundreds and thousands are calling up, jamming the telephone lines. You rush out of doors and bump into the pal of last night’s wild party. He is white as a sheet. He is out of breath, and he stammers a few words, and bawls out, ‘My wife is gone. My brother is gone, and I don’t know where they are? Down the street runs a woman shrieking at the top of her voice, ‘Someone has kidnapped my baby!’ and in a moment the streets are full of people, weeping, crying and howling over the disappearance of loved ones. What has happened? The Lord has come as a thief in the night. He has quietly stolen away those who trusted him, like Enoch, and no one is left behind to warn you any more, to pray or show you the way" (Rev. R. De Haan, Radio Bible Class, November, 1954). And many of you have seen the bumper sticker, "If you see this car going down the freeway without a driver, I’ve been raptured." Many live in the hope of such a rapture. Be not deceived: It is an illusion.

Let’s turn to I Thessalonians 4:13-17 for a few moments, for on this passage the rapturists pin their hopes. The apostle here is correcting a mistaken view of the resurrection that some Thessalonian saints held, a view that troubled them. How ironic that some use this passage to advance another mistaken view! The Thessalonians were concerned about, even sorrowed over, those who had already died as if they had no hope, as if they could not participate in the resurrection and eternal life. He instructs them that we which are alive when the Lord comes are not going to have an advantage over those who are dead when He comes; we are not going to precede them in any way. And then we come to verses 16 and 17, which some have called the noisiest verses in the entire Bible, in contradistinction from a supposed secret, unannounced rapture. "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." No mention is made of the living or the dead unbeliever; they are not in view at all. That the dead in Christ rise first is not to be contrasted to the dead outside of Christ rising at some later date, but rather to the living who remain when Christ comes. For all of Scripture teaches that there is one resurrection, of them that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and of them that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation (John 5:28-29).

The child of God hopes for one coming of the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of the world. When the disciples of Jesus marveled at the size of the temple, and the size of the stones of the temple, Jesus tells them that the time comes when one stone shall not be left upon another. He speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem as that destruction is a picture of the end of the world. And then with rare insight the disciples ask Him, "When shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" They conceived of the end of the world and the

coming of Jesus as one, simultaneous event. Jesus does not correct them by saying, "No, you misunderstand. The end of the world and my coming are separated by a thousand years. And you must learn to think of three different comings of the Son of man." No such thing. He allows their question to stand for our instruction.

Then Jesus proceeds to lay out the signs of His coming. Our hope for Christ’s return is a hope for His coming in the way that He has prophesied. He prefaces His teachings with the words, "Take heed that no man deceive you," indicating what false prophets will do with the subject of the end of the world. Jesus explains that there will be signs of many different kinds, some in nature, some amongst the nations, and some in the church.’ And He insists that the end cannot come until all these signs have been fulfilled.

As the Church of Jesus Christ awaits the return of her Head, she is not deceived into thinking that she is going to be delivered out of this world before all of these terrible things come to pass. She does not entertain the notion that because of the rapture she will not have to suffer for her faith. "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened" (Matt. 24:21-22). In a final spasm of rage the Devil through his servant the Antichrist will turn on the church to persecute her and deceive her. But Christ, whose servant time is, will preserve His people, and shorten those days lest a single elect be deceived.

That is not illusion; that is reality. The year 1990 and the decade it initiates will bring that tribulation ever closer. Let no man think he can stand in his own strength, lest he fall. Let no man think, or teach his children, that the faithful people of God will be brought to heaven before those days come; the church passes through those perilous days. But let us place our trust and hope in the Lamb that was slain, Who is worthy to open the Book of the Seven Seals to bring about those things which must yet come to pass; Who gathers and defends His church to the uttermost; and Who comes victorious through multitudes of catastrophes!

Of all that the Father hath given Him, He shall lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day. Comfort one another with these words.

Note: This was written in 1990 but is very relevant today in the year 2001
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