WHICH COMES FIRST: The Rapture or the Iranian-Russian Invasion of Israel in Ezekiel 38-39? Forget the gospel, forget the finished work of Christ, forget the kingdom that’s not of this world, we’ve got temple blueprints, antichrist speculations, and satellite images of the Euphrates drying up! Every war is a countdown to Armageddon, every earthquake fuels their apocalyptic fever, every global crisis a drumroll for the apocalypse, and every catastrophe a confirmation of the system they’ve so artfully constructed and just another reminder that people will believe anything, except the clear testimony of Christ. Matthew 24:36. Don’t you know that we are in the fourth stage of the sixth seal of the third trumpet of the post-pre-mid-tribulation semi-final phase? Who needs the gospel when we’ve got prophetic charts, Middle East battle maps, and suspicious-looking barcodes?
Coincidence? How could it be? And don’t forget the revival of the Roman Empire (which may or may not be the EU, the UN, or the PAPACY, &c.,) which are all surefire signs that the sky is falling, and that the rapture is just around the corner. After all, we don’t want to be “left behind,” stuck in the tribulation with a bunch of unread Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsay books. Meanwhile, Scripture is optional, but current events are compulsory, as nothing says “true spirituality” like eschatological schemes cobbled together from national headlines, half-verses, and leftover temple blueprints. Few things so brazenly contradict the blessed gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, as this prophetic hysteria, self-appointed seers peddling confusion, and a rebuilt sacrificial system that flat-out denies the sufficiency of Christ.
Welcome to the spectacle of dispensationalism, where the gospel has never been central, and salvation is assumed like a backstage pass. It’s a place where Jewish nationalism takes center stage, where Christ is sidelined for a reinstituted temple, and the church is dismissed as a parenthesis in God’s supposed “real plan.” It’s a seven-year script that never ends, and a world of delusion where Christ has never been preached and eternal truth is bartered away for prophetic theories and newspaper eschatology.
A system baptized in fear, held together by end-times hysteria, where Arminianism exalts the illusion of free will, and Dispensationalism fuels the fire with its end-times hysteria. One part makes man’s decision the decisive cause in salvation; the other makes Israel’s prophetic timeline the determining factor in Christ’s return. Both displace Christ from the center of redemptive history and enthrone human constructs in His place, whilst together they form a man-centered gospel where Christ is but a passive participant in their scheme of waiting for man to act and history to align. Grace is reduced to an offer; the cross becomes a conditional footnote; and the church is dismissed as an interruption in God’s supposed real plan with ethnic Israel. This isn’t “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints,” but a carefully staged performance where man is central, and Christ is reduced to a footnote in His own story. In fact, it’s all a stage production, an elaborate fiction cloaked in the language of Scripture, complete with actors, plots, and subplots, where man writes the script, fear drives the plot, (packaged as ‘spiritual’ entertainment,) and where Christ is little more than a supporting actor in their masquerade of the Christian religion.
All true theology culminates in Christ, and eschatology is no exception. Its pulse is the testimony of Jesus Christ. It should evoke worship and be Christ centered like all aspects of theology. It’s not a cryptic timeline to decipher, nor a puzzle to solve, nor a road map to the end, but a falling prostrate before that ONE who already has come, is coming again, and reigns even now in resplendent majesty and glory. “Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Revelation 19:10. From Genesis to Revelation, every prophetic utterance in Scripture ultimately points to him, exalts him, and calls us to fall before him in whom all prophecy finds its consummation. “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last.” Revelation 1:17. True eschatology does not climax in events, but in the person of Christ, where every divine purpose finds its end. “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” Romans 11:36. The end is not chaos, it is Christ! MPJ