Dec 12
The 2005 Pre-Trib Study Group
Last week the Pre-Trib Study Group (PTSG) took place at the Harvey Hotel
Irving, Texas. The study group is an organization dedicated to defending and
promoting the pretribulation rapture doctrine. Because the subject matter at
the PTSG is very academic, we normally don't encourage the general public to
attend the lectures. Here are a few highlights from the meeting.
While at the PTSG, Terry and I were visited by a film crew working
on a project for the BBC. They were traveling the U.S. conducting interviews
for a two-hour documentary that will air in England sometime this coming
March.
In a testimony to the site's visibility, we were actually contacted twice by
this same production company. Because it's a large operation, more
than one team is doing the filming. In addition to the one in Texas, the team
working in the New York area also asked if they could speak to us.
For the past couple of years I've been very eager to speak to Tim LaHaye about
the internet. I've been very disappointed at how the "Left Behind" series is
being represented on the web. The only thing under the "Left Behind" name is a
website controlled by Tyndale - the publisher of his books. Tyndale, being
an average book company, has turned the site into a commercial venture.
I told Tim that if the rapture were to happen to today, hundreds of millions of
people will turn to the internet for information. At best, his book series
has reached only about 30 million. I tried to argue that he was missing a huge
opportunity to impact the lives in an audience 10 times greater than the readership of "Left
Behind" books.
After talking with LaHaye over lunch about the subject, I realize why he has
neglected to build a strong web presence. He confessed to being totally
inept when it comes technology related to cyberspace. He never uses email or
a web browser to get information. LaHaye said, "When my daughter showed me
how to use email, two days later, I had forgotten everything she told me."
I don't fault him one bit for not having an understanding of the internet.
Because I lack the gift of gab, you will never see me behind the pulpit. God
gives everyone unique gifts for his or her particular calling.
Dave Hunt addressed the PTSG about the subject of apostasy in the Church.
Being one of the most well-known apologists in the country, Dave usually
covers this subject in some way at every meeting.
I noticed something rather interesting about the references he used in his
presentation. The dates for most of his quotes were about 10 years old.
Because people change their views, a decade is a long time to be citing
people's views.
The problem was not shoddy research on Hunt's part. He did have some recent
information on the Purpose-Driven Life and the DaVinci Code. The problem was a decline in activity in apologetics and research. I've looked at several apologetic sites, and I find nearly all them have quotes dated
around 1996.
The collapse of apologetics is the reason the quotes are old. Because
few people care about the growing apostasy, no one bothers to document the
statements being made by the people working to corrupt the gospel message.
Hunt's lack of material is a strong indication of where we are in the end
times.
Chuck Missler brought up an interesting point in his lecture on current
events.
He talked about America's vulnerability to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP)
attack.
To give you an understanding what EMP implies, here is a story by Senator
Jon Kyl, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and
Homeland Security. His comments come from the April 15 edition of the
Washington Post:
"An electromagnetic pulse attack on the American homeland is one of only a
few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies - terrorist
or otherwise. And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud missile,
carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate altitude,
would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic
pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light. Depending on the
location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock out already
stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or even all of
the continental United States, for months if not years.
Few if any people would die right away. But the loss of power would have a
cascading effect on all aspects of US society. Communication would be
largely impossible. Lack of refrigeration would leave food rotting in
warehouses, exacerbated by a lack of transportation as those vehicles still
working simply ran out of gas (which is pumped with electricity). The
inability to sanitize and distribute water would quickly threaten public
health, not to mention the safety of anyone in the path of the inevitable
fires, which would rage unchecked. And as we have seen in areas of natural
and other disasters, such circumstances often result in a fairly rapid
breakdown of social order..."
Missler said that Iran may be working on an EMP device. A few years back,
Iran test-fired two new Shehab-3 missiles, both of which seemed to have misfired. Although the Shehab-3 has a range of almost a thousand miles, in both tests, the missiles exploded about 180 miles from their launch-site.
Missler pointed out that the point where the missile detonated was the
target range for an EMP device.
It's often reported that al-Qaeda groups have purchased companies that
operate shipping freighters. Missler openly wondered if Al-qaeda was
planning on launching a missile from the deck of one of the decks of these
freighters. If Iran supplied a missile tipped with an EMP nuclear device,
America could be knocked out in one blow.
Like we do during all of our travels, we've created a detailed photo log of the three day event. You can find all the pictures with caption below on our Photorama page: Pre-Trib Study Group 2005.
--- Todd
Is Prophecy Being Fulfilled At This Time?
This year’s Pre-Trib Research Center meetings at Dallas got off to a somewhat contentious start. The very first speaker –a scholarly-type–that is, an academician used to lecturing in seminaries, presented a paper that put forth --as he always does—that the things many of us view as issues and events at least somewhat meeting requirements to be endtime prophetic signs are little more than coincidence.
The record-breaking hurricanes and weird weather patterns, the tsunami stemming from the great Indian Ocean quake, the many earthquakes, should not –he informed—be considered any more than cyclical weather patterns and normal seismic activity. His is a view that adheres to the stamped-in-gold-leaf declaration that there is no prophecy that God’s Word says must precede the rapture; therefore, there will be no prophetic signal(s) that will precede that great, imminent event.
But, he had to concede, the nation Israel being back in its homeland –the land whose heart is Jerusalem—is perhaps the one exception to the hard and fast rule that no prophecy will precede the rapture.
No people in history other than Israel have had their nation disbanded, and the people scattered, then been regathered in their native land, their ancient national language restored. This miracle of God took place in contemporary times –the process completed May 14, 1948.
Those scholars who hold that no prophecy is being currently fulfilled most often say that Israel’s coming back as a nation can, or even likely will be again, put out of the land.The Jews, in other words, are not back in their God-given homeland for the final time, as delineated in Bible prophecy yet future. The Jews will again likely be scattered into the nations of the world.
Even my favorite teacher, the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, believed for all but the last few years of his life that this would likely be modern Israel’s fate. The Jews would be again scattered, because they were back in the land God gave them in unbelief.
Dr. David Hocking told the Pre-Trib gathering last year that Dr. McGee changed his thinking on this matter not long before he died in 1988. The great Thru The Bible radio teacher at last concluded that God was again beginning to return the Jews for the wrap-up of human history.
So, if the Jews coming back to the land and again living within a nation named Israel, with Jerusalem at the center of their daily life–the Temple Mount at the center of the longing of at least the religious Jews--it is logical to conclude we are seeing prophecy in the process of fulfillment. We can see the predicted beginning of this process, and its fulfillment in the following verse.
“And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country” (Eze. 34:13).
The Jews began coming back into the land from all over the world in the 1800s. The migration continued and accelerated until the modern Jewish state was born in 1948. The greatest migration has occurred since, and is prophesied to grow mightily. But, they inhabit only a tiny fraction of the land God gave them. The completion of the latter part of the above Scripture awaits fulfillment in Christ’s millennial kingdom.
This generation has watched the beginning of fulfillment of prophecy with Israel’s return as a nation, just as God promised. This being the case, how can the long-held line that there is no prophecy that precedes the rapture still be held?
To make the point of the importance of Israel’s being back in its own land as prophesied in the Bible, with its ancient language –Hebrew—we should look at one of my favorite verses: “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Lk. 21:28).
If Israel’s being back in the land God gave them is a prophecy that is even a degree of fulfillment, then Luke 21:28 is in play in this generation. ”These things” have already begun to “come to pass.” Therefore, the signals we are seeing like, the EU being the precursor of the revived roman Empire, Russia being in position as the leader of the coming Gog-Magog invasion of Ezekiel 38-39, the record-breaking hurricanes, earthquakes, and the great Indonesian tsunami are all significant as prophecy in the process of fulfillment. They are indeed “stage setting,” but they must also be strongly considered as prophecy in the process of fulfillment.
What this all means, of course, is that we have been seeing these things for some time. Jesus said that when they begin to happen we –Christians—are to look up and look for His coming for us. He didn’t say that when all of these things have “come to pass,” but He said “when they “begin to come to pass,” we are to lift our heads, because His coming for us is near, even at the door.
--Terry
