Rapture Fever

Endless Unfu@lled Prophecies Produce Paralysis 31
splits that this would cause?) At the very least, this interpretation
of prophecy would force American dispensationalists to
demand our abandonment of NATO and the creation of a new,
anti-European U.S. foreign policy. Is this likely? Hardly. Conclusion:
Rapture postponed indefinite~.
Wanted: New Scenarios
Perhaps we will see a dispensational scenario like this one.
There will be a civil war in Russia. Or maybe there won’t be.
The “New Russia” will join the “New Europe.” Or maybe it
won’t. But the important thing is that the Rapture will take
place in the year 2000. Then the surviving Russians will join
with the U.S. and the U.N. to invade the nation of Israel. The
Great Tribulation will begin. This is all inevitable - either one
scenario or another. There is nothing a Christian can do to stop
it. There is nothing a Christian should do to stop it. If the technological
or geopolitical possibility of the invasion of national
Israel is postponed indefinitely, then the Rapture is also postponed
indefinitely, and nothing must be allowed to postpone the
Rapture indefinitely especially current events. Nothing - not failed
prophecies, not implausible scenarios, not the defeat of Iraq,
not the failed coup in Russia, and surely not the necessary rejection
of orthodox dispensational theology - will be tolerated if it
postpones the Rapture. The clock of prophecy must be allowed to
keep ticking. Signs must testifj to the imminent Rapture. Sensationalism
must be sustained. Christians’ present-day cultural
irresponsibility must be defended. There is just too little time
remaining to change anything for the better. In short, Rapture
fever is goodfor the soul! (It is great for book royalties, too.)
How could such scenarios as these be rewritten and widely
sold? Is it psychologically acceptable to millions of dispensationalists
to abandon, almost overnight, over 75 years of supposedly
certain interpretations of prophecy that have identified Russia
as the invader of the State of Israel? If so, then how seriously
should anyone take any future “certain” identifications? More