What If?

 

 

 

What if the theory of a Great Tribulation had not been hatched in 1830? Do you suppose that anyone else down through the years, since 1830, would have come up with the same interpretation of Daniel 9? Probably not. No one else had come up with that theory from the time of Daniel all the way until John Darby got his brainstorm. Not even Jesus. The prevailing consensus for over 2000 years was that the “seventy weeks” prophecy was for the Jews in captivity. It was all about Messiah and the holy city, Jerusalem.

What if Darby’s Tribulation hoax had not caught on like wildfire? If Darby had not been such a dominating preacher and self-promoter, perhaps his theory would have never caught on at the Niagara Bible Conferences, or been endorsed by Scofield in his ubiquitous Bible study notes, or propagated by Moody Bible Institute and Dallas Seminary, and eventually popularized by the “Left Behind” series. False teachings are generally like that – they spread fast, because they are so attractive. Like the false prophets of old, they rule the day. Truth becomes obscure once falsehoods get established.

What if the Tribulation hoax had not been hatched, would we have come up with the theory of a rapture occurring seven years before the second coming? Nonsense – if there’s no Tribulation then there cannot be a pre-tribulation rapture. Besides, a two-part version of Christ’s return is not even hinted at anywhere in the New Testament – not by Jesus himself, or by Paul, or in Revelation.

What if the Tribulation hoax did not hold sway in America? Would Bible teachers interpret the end times differently, inductively, rather than buying into the hoax “hook, line, and sinker”? Would anyone wake up and realize that the seven trumpets are warnings that are already sounding, not judgments relegated to the seven-year period of the Tribulation? Might it be easier to see that America is the seventh head of the Revelation 13 beast? And that America will be destroyed by the eighth beast? Could we let go of Antichrist being a world leader during the Tribulation? Would the man of lawlessness take on more relevance, the Arab leader who will lead a ten-nation alliance against Israel in the battle of Armageddon?

What if we did not believe the hoax that the rapture is the next thing on God’s prophetic calendar? What, then, would be the dominant message of “end times” teaching? Would we see the urgent need to prepare for sword, famine, and plague? Would we prepare to endure suffering as God’s means of purifying the bride of Christ? Would we perceive the rapture to be a blessed hope of redemption from cataclysmic turmoil, rather than a blissful escape beforehand?

And there you have it. What if the Tribulation hoax had never been hatched?