Rapture Fever

Introduction 3
alcoholics and other addicts, a lot of well-meaning dispensationalkts
swear off the addictive prophetic substance, only to return
to it again as soon as the next pusher shows up with a paperback
book with a gleaming, multi-color cover. “Only $9.95. Be
the first in your church to know the inside dope!” Everyone
wants the inside dope; again and again, millions of them become
the inside dopes.
Hal Lindsey is the most successful pusher in dispensationalism’s
comparatively bi-ief history. He made a fortune and a
reputation by selling inside dope. As part of his “prophecy
poppers,” Lindsey has written about the terminal generation.
That is also an underlying theme in Rapture Freer. We are now
witnessing the birth of dispensationalkm’s terminal generation.
The torch being passed to it is burning very low. Over its tombstone
should be placed these words: “Overdosed on Sensationalism.”
A Brief History of Dispensationalism’s Brief History
Dispensationalkrn was invented around 1830, either by 20year-old
Margaret Macdonald, who received a vision regarding
the pre-tribulation Rapture while in a trance: or by John Nelson
Darby.8 It escalated in popularity in the United States after
the Civil War (1861-65), especially when William E. Blackstone
(W. E. B.) wrote Jesus 1s Coming in 1878. Prophecy conferences
became the order of the day. Then came C. 1. Scofield’s immensely
successful Scojiekl Reference Bible (1909). After the widely
publicized embarrassment of the Scopes’ “Monkey Trial” of
1925, Protestant evangelical retreated into a kind of cultural
shell. Dispensational theology was used to justifj this withdrawal.
The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 seemed to prove
that the prophetic message of dispensationalism was on track:
2. Dave McPherson, The Unbelievable Pre-Ttib Origin (Kansas C@ Missouri:
Heart of Arneria Bible Society, 1973).
3. This is the conventional view.