End Times are not what you think

We were all Dispensational Premillennialists at one time.  We all believed the same thing.  We were all in unity on the basics,  Some pre trib, some post trib, some no trib and some no rapture till a second coming.  BUT all pretty much on the same page with a countdown to the rapture based on the headlines.  Are you rapture ready??  There are many people making us suspect of the teachings of John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), a Calvinist theologian who first came up with much of this.  In his thirties he propagated what became canon in theology. 

It made it easy to be an evangelist.  Do you want to miss the rapture?  Are you going to end up in the tribulation? Will you lose your head?  The antichrist going to come out of _________ (You fill in the blank).  With absolute certitude TV evangelist and preacher scared people into repentance by showing us headlines of today's news and saying it was a clear sign of the impending rapture.  Jack Van Impe is still at it.  And a few others. 

Scaring people out of hell is good evangelism, it just doesn't make good disciples.  The old Chick Tracts of a few decades ago were enough to curl your hair.  They made most of us tentative, and frankly a bit frightened.  PEACE IN GOD wasn't part of premillenial teaching. 

Finding very old documents from before the turn of the LAST century (1890s) that proved with absolute confidence demonstrate that the rapture will happen any second sounded suspiciously like the stuff I was hearing from Irwin Baxter.  

I confess I have not discarded every detail of the premillenial construct.  There are some that just don't hold water any more.  Rapture.  The Millennial reign.  I write this because I want to encourage you to examine very carefully what you were taught thirty years ago.  Much of it is just not so. 

Here's the rub, being full on Dispensational Premillennialist will fill your church and your offering plate.  It's a powerful draw.  Just ask John Hagee.  The problem is, it's not true.  A growing number of modern day charismatics are in the camp of rejecting much of the teachings Darby propagated.    We owe it to ourselves to consider what we believe in this area...even if the truth makes the collection plate a bit lighter.  What price truth?