Rapture Fever

Fear of Men Produces Paralysis 43
the face of an officially neutral, officially pluralistic humanist
juggernaut. This has been going on for over three centuries.*O
(An Islamic juggernaut may yet provide a. cure.)
Bible Prophecy vs. Eschatology
Dispensationalists concentrate their attention on Bible prophecies
at the expense of biblical eschatology. Bible prophecy is
not usually about eschatology, i.e., the doctrine of last things. A
lot of Christians fhil to understand this important point. They
love to buy Bible prophecy books, yet they are not really interested
in eschatology. They may think they are, but they aren’t.
How can a book be about Bible prophecy but not be about
eschatology? Easy. For example, a book on the subject of Old
Testament prophecies regarding the coming ofJesus the Messiah
can certainly be about prophecy yet not be about eschatology.
“Yes, yes,” you may be thinking, “but what about a book
on New Testament prophecy? Surely it has to be about the
fiture. There was nothing of prophetic significance that took
place in between the New Testament authors and today.” But
there was: the fall ofJerusalem to the Roman army in A.D. 70. That
historic event was clearly prophesied by Jesus (Luke 21 :20-24),
yet it took place long ago. It took place after the New Testament
writings were finished but long before you or I appeared
on the scene.
The fact is, the vast majority of prophecies in the New Testament
refer to this crucial event, the event which publicly identified”
the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant,
and which also marked the triumph of rabbinic Judaism
over priestly Judaism, Pharisee over Sadducee,l 1 and the syna-
10. Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of PluralLwrz (Tyler, Texas Institute
for Christian Economics, 1989), Part 3.
11. The Sadducee sect of Judaism disappeared, since it had been associated with
the priests who officiated at the temple. Herbert Danby whose English translation of
the Mishnah is still considered authoritative by the scholarly world, both Jew and
gentile, commented on the undisputed triumph of the Pharisees after the fall of