Same Old Stuff, Different Book

More End Times Speculation by Chuck Smith

Chuck Smith is coming out with yet another end times speculation book, "The Final Act". If only it were true and it was the final act for Smith's end time speculations. According to Amazon, the book is due out Aug 27, 2007.



Apparently Smith's lust for profiting from end times speculation didn't end with his failed predictions when Jesus failed to return in 1981.

A better use of money might be to go to the used bookstore and find used and cheap older books Smith has written on the subject. In "The Soon to be Revealed Antichrist" Smith speculated that Yassir Arafat fit the bill for Anti-Christ. Last time I checked Arafat was still dead. Smith named 1981 as the year of the rapture in at least three books Future Survival (1978), Snatched Away (1978) and End Times (1976 and 1980).





The covers get fancier and the content changes constantly to match the current political situation, but the same errors prevail.

The Examples of Noah/Lot and the Rapture

The examples of Noah and Lot are connected with the Rapture doctrine by Jesus:

Luk 17:26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
Luk 17:27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
Luk 17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
Luk 17:29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
Luk 17:30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
Luk 17:31 In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
Luk 17:32 Remember Lot's wife.

In both passages, Jesus makes the point that the righteous are with the unrighteous right up to the time of judgment. Noah went into the ark because of the flood and Lot went out of the city moments before fire fell from Heaven on Sodom.

How does this relate to the rapture? This text about one in the field being taken is directly connected to this passage:

Luk 17:33 Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
Luk 17:34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
Luk 17:35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
Luk 17:36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Jesus is specifically rejecting the re-tribulational rapture doctrine by the timing of his comments. The church is taken to be with the Lord at the judgment of the Earth. They are not part of the destruction that comes with judgment. There is no 7 year period between the two events.

Dispensational Disasters

I've often been amazed at so-called Dispensational Christianity.

They raise money to relocate Jews from Russia and other countries back to Israel.

They believe that the anti-Christ will kill 1/3 of the Jews in Israel during the tribulation.

If they love Israel as much as they say, why do they want to bring them back to be slaughtered?

Ruptured Rapture

I challenge Dispensational Christians to produce one single verse which unequivocally teaches a Pre-Tribulational Rapture. Just one verse. For Calvary Chapel this is a distinctive. Yet there's no actual Biblical evidence for this teaching. It took me about 3 months as a new Christian reading the Bible to realize this doctrine is false. How do people attend Calvary Chapels for 30 years and not realize it? Is it all about wishful thinking? How can Calvary hold to such a shaky distinctive?

The Promise Jesus Made to Israel

Dispensationalists love to pick and choose from the promises to Israel and look for those which portend a bright future. Often this leaves them picking and choosing which parts of God's Word they want to believe. Nowhere is this more apparent than with what Jesus Himself said about the consequences of Israel's disobedience. Why is it that Dispensational Christians care so little about the words of Jesus?

Mat 23:37-28 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

Another promise to faithless Israel

Lev 26:27 And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;
Lev 26:28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
Lev 26:29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.
Lev 26:30 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.
Lev 26:31 And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors.
Lev 26:32 And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.
Lev 26:33 And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

God's Promises to Israel

I read this on the former Phoenix Preacher's new BLOG and it got me thinking:

As a “dispensational” Christian I believe that God still has a plan for Israel and He will keep His ancient promises to her.

Which promises particularly? How about this promise?

Deu 29:19 And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
Deu 29:20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
Deu 29:21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:
Deu 29:22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;
Deu 29:23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
Deu 29:24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?
Deu 29:25 Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:
Deu 29:26 For they went and served other gods, and worshiped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:
Deu 29:27 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:
Deu 29:28 And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.

As a non-Dispensational Christian, I can say that we've already been there, done that. 70 AD!