Rapture Fever

Dispensationaltim Removes Eatihij Hope 89
early Church, in Dave Hunt’s words, to “watch and wait for His
imminent return,”16 yet Jesus has delayed returning physically
for over 1,950 years. How can we escape the conclusion that the
apostles misinformed the early Church, a clearly heretical notion,
and an argument that liberal theologians have used against
Bible-believing Christians repeatedly in this century? But there
is no way out of this intellectual dilemma if you do not distinguish
between Christ’s coming in judgment against Israel in
A.D. 70 and His physical return in final judgment at the end of
time.
Contrary to Dave Hunt, with respect to the physical return
of Jesus in judgment, the early Church was told just the opposite:
do not stand around watching and waiting. “And while they
looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two
men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men
of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus,
which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like
manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Then returned
they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is
fi-om Jerusalem a sabbath day’s journey” (Acts 1:10-12).
Conclusion
Those who prefer figuratively to stand around looking into
the sky are then tempted to conclude, as Dave Hunt concludes,
that the Church today, by abandoning pre-tribulational dispensationalism
– as if more than a comparative handful of Christians
in the Church’s history had ever believed in the pre-tribulational
Rapture doctrine, invented as recently as 1830 17
- has
“succumbed once again to the unbiblical hope that, by exerting
godly influence upon government, society can be trans-
16. Hunt, Whatevm Happened to Heaven?, p. 55.
17. Dave McPherson, The Unbelwvable Pre-Ttib Origin (Kansas City, Missourk
Heart of America Bible Society, 1973); The Great Raptw-e Hoax (Fletcher, North
Carolina New Puritan Library, 1983).