Rapture Fever
by Gary North
by Gary North
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30 RAPTURE FEVER .<br />
State of Israel? Arab nations, perhaps, but do they constitute<br />
the long-predicted unified army of invasion? Arabs? Unified?<br />
Will they launch a massive attack without meeting nuclear<br />
resistance from the Israelis? Without the resistance of the industrialized<br />
West? Does anyone seriously believe that the combined<br />
military forces of the United States and the State of Israel<br />
will be helpless to defeat a military alliance of Arabs anytime<br />
soon?21 Any dispensensationalist who offers this scenario will<br />
have a lot of trouble persuading his followers. Conclusion:<br />
<strong>Rapture</strong> postponed indefinitely.<br />
Of course, there is always the “New Europe.” This seems to<br />
be an obvious initial choice. But there are problems with this<br />
thesis. First, there are more than ten nations in the New Europe,<br />
but there were presumably only ten toes on the Nebuchadnezzar’s<br />
dream image (Dan. 2:34).22 Second, the New<br />
Europe is as yet only a humanistic dream, not a political reality.<br />
In any case, the New Europe would have to employ NATO<br />
troops against the State of Israel, and the United States is a<br />
member of NATO. This raises a major question: Are American<br />
writers of sensational dispensational prophecy books prepared<br />
to identi~ the United States of America as the prophesied copersecutor<br />
of tiny Israel? Are they going to say, as Pogo Possum<br />
said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us”? This is pop-dispensationalism’s<br />
dilemma today. Such a view of prophecy<br />
would force upon all morally responsible dispensationalists a<br />
new and uncomfortable political assignment: civil disobedience.<br />
It would challenge the legitimacy of any pro-American patriotism<br />
among dispensationalists. (Can you imagine the church<br />
21. George Otis, Jr., The Lust of the Giants (Old Tappan, New Jersey Revell,<br />
1991) makes the case that the USSR will break up, and Islam will become the major<br />
force in the region. He has abandoned the traditional “the North vs. Israel” scenario.<br />
The thesis makes more sense than any standard pop-dispensational theory, but the<br />
question now is timing: When will the Arabs be able to destroy the State of Israel?<br />
When will they be able to assemble the long-predicted army of millions of invaders?<br />
22. The marginal note in the Scojieki Refmeme ~ibk (p. 901) refers us to Daniel<br />
7:24 ten horns and ten kings.
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