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LEIGHIST & GRATEFUL PRESSLESS
PRESS
DAVID R. LEIGH
P.O. BOX 268FOX RIVER GROVE, IL 60021-0268
847-571-3011
2011 CopyrightDavid R. Leigh & Gilbert Bilezikian. All Rights
Reserved.
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Dedicated to all who seek the
kingdom of God.
By faith Abraham... was looking forward to the city
with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
- Hebrews 11:8,10
... admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on
earth..., they were longing for a better countrya
heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be
called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
- Hebrews 11:13,16
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Contents
Preface
1. Innocence
2. Conscience
3. Dominion
4. Promise
5. Law
6. Grace
7. Christ's Reign
Epilogue
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Preface to Working Draft
by Dave Leigh
It often happens for me in those twilighthours, in the undefined region between dreaming
and waking.
Call it a flash of insight or divine guidance,
an ah ha! moment, or a suddengestaltof ideasin a dream just before become fully aware of
where I am. It comes to me as a gift of clarity
where suddenly things just fit together.
The first time I can recall experiencing it
was the morning of my grandmother's funeral. Iwas a teenager and my family knew I'd
experienced a spiritual conversion. So they asked
me to prepare a prayer for the graveside. I
wrestled for days not knowing what to say. That
morning as I awoke, I heard someone praying. It
was my own voice, saying the prayer I needed to
share with my family for the sake of their
comfort. I did not need to write it down. It stayed
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with me until the moment arrived.
In my early adult years I served as a pastorin small churches. Often I would wrestle all
week long over my sermon preparation. Like
Jacob I'd refuse to let go of God without his
blessing. This often meant going to bed on a
Saturday night unsure that the sermon I'd
prepared would look the same in the morninglight. And sure enough there would be times
when I'd awake hearing myself giving a
message that trumped the one in my previous
day's notes.
This book project began from a similarexperience. I'd had the privilege of hearing my
friend Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian give a three-part
series of classes at Willow Creek, entitled Israel
101. The material dovetailed wonderfully with
conclusions I too had come to, thanks to hispublished writings and my own biblical studies.
One morning, a few days after attending his class
I found myself awaking from one of those
dreams.
In it, I saw myself working with Gilbert ona book covering the topics of his class, and
incorporating material from his books, like
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Christianity 101, Community 101, and some
unpublished materials he distributed to the class.
The dream was so vivid that I had to send
Gilbert an email. But the idea of working
alongside this scholar and man of God, whom I
so much admired, seemed presumptuous to me.
So, admittedly, I modified my telling of the
dream a bit. I simply told him I'd dreamt it washe who was writing that book, and asked him if it
might be the case or something he'd considered.
His answer astounded me! He emailed that
he had begun such a project but had abandoned it
after just a few pages. I even have a title for it,he wrote: The Rapture Racket. But I don't have
the time. What about you tackling it if you like
to write?
Before I could blink in disbelief, a second
email popped into my inbox with a file attached.
It was the pages he'd written. Gilbert explained
that his age (mid-80s) and the increasing
demands on his time for speaking engagements
and ministry commitments were working against
his availability to write books. Serious, if youwould enjoy putting it all together, all the
materials are yours. If it would help, you could
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even use my name as sponsor, co-author or
something.
It was as though Gilbert had spied on my
dream! The conversations that followed via
email and personal meetings at Gilbert's home
and favorite pubs further yielded a collaboration
that surpassed the vision I'd first been too shy to
admit to him.
The text that follows is that work in
progress. It attempts to present theological
perspectives and truths on a level we can all
relate toby use of story and fictionalized
dialogue.
We offer it here on Scribd.com/dleigh_1 to
elicit your feedback, ideas, and support. If you
have ideas, editorial suggestions, or questions,
please know that you will be helping this project
greatly by letting us know.
Nothing has posed a greater deterrent to
completing this book than the economic
challenges created by the time and commitment
it takes to write without interruption.
If you'd like to share with us your
feedback, ideas, or support, please email me at
[email protected] or send surface
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mail to:
Dave LeighP.O. Box 268
Fox River Grove, IL 60021-0268
We look forward to hearing from you!
- Dave
April 2011
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Chapter 1: Innocence
The heat of the day caused a blurry layerof air to emanate from the land.
Abram sought shade in a grove of trees,known to the locals as the great trees of Mamre
the Amorite, in the Valley of Shaveh (the King's
Valley).
Even from here in the cooler shadows, the
world seemed a haze and the heat daunting tothis sagely nomad. As if it wasn't hard enough
for he and his family to find their way in this
landso unfamiliar and so unlike the distant
country they came from.
Was it the heat of the day that made himdrowsy or was it the wearying after-effects of a
long battle? Who could blame him if he sought a
plush area of sod where he could drift into a nap?
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His old body still ached from the bloody conflict
he'd endured in rescuing his nephew Lot from a
kidnapping band of indigenous war lords andmarauders.
How strange was this place and its peoples
in more ways than geography and miles! And
how wearying it all was!
But Abram was in Yahweh's grip. God had
told him to get up and leave the comfort of his
native soil and go to a place that he would show
Abram. Sure Abram had a choice. But did he
really? After all, this was Yahweh who
commanded him. And so Abram obeyed.
But when will this end? he often asked
himself. When will I reach that place I'll call
home?
Go from your country, your people andyour family's household to the land I will show
you, Yahweh said. I will make you into a great
nation and bless you. I will make your name
great, Abram! Yes, you will be a blessing. In fact,
I will bless those who bless you; anyone who
curses you I will curse. Abram, I will bless all
the peoples on earth throughyou.
That encounter with Yahweh still seemed
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unreal to Abramand yet nothing in his life was
or ever felt more real. So: Here I am, Lord.
At age 75, he obeyed and took his wife
Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions
they owned, left his native soil of Ur and set out
for the unknown land of Canaan.
Here I am, Lord, Abram whispered intothe dense air above him, as he lay in the shaded
sod and looked into the sky that shone through
the motionless branches sheltering him.
But where is here? Abram wondered.
And where will we finally end up?The Canaanites puzzled him. As with all
people, they were a mixture of good and bad.
Some Abram had to fight in bloodied battle, like
the one he'd just finished against the unreasoning
brutes who abducted Lot. Others, he could formalliances with, like those who assisted him in
Lot's rescue. But none of them did he fully trust.
All the while, as Abram traveled this fertile
wilderness and navigated both its physical and
political landscape, he kept hearing Yahweh'swords echo in his head: To your offspring I will
give this land.
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My offspring! Abram thought,I am an old
man. Sarai is an old woman. And it has been
years since Yahweh made those promises. Whatcould God have meant by my offspring?
* * *
Bryce looked nostalgically at the tatteredBible in his hands. His mind went back thirty
years to a day when he was 15 and, oddly
enough, expecting to go roller-skating.Isn't that what you are supposed to do at a
roller rink?
His classmate and friend, Sean, had invited
Bryce to a youth rally at a rink where youth
groups from all over the county would converge.Not being of Sean's faith, nothing could have
prepared Bryce for what happened at that rink
or the events that would unfold because of it.
Oh, there was roller-skating that wintry
night. But it could not have been for more than
45 minutes before the youth leaders called the
students to sit together in a large circle on the
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dusty floor. They introduced a special speaker
they called a youth evangelist and for Bryce
this is when the evening of roller-skating gaveway to one of emotional roller coasters that
would outlast the night.
The room darkened as the evangelist
invited the students to watch a short film clip.
Bryce watched the screen depict a
purportedly future moment in the life of a family
much like his own. Johnny, the teenager in the
family, could have been any one of Bryce's
friends.
SCENE 1: Sunday
Johnny's family, devoutly Christian,
prepares to go to church. But Johnny, the skeptic,
resists.
That place is so bogus, Johnny whines,
referring to the church.
A shouting match ensues and Johnny
prevails. His family piles into the car without
him and drives off in a huff.
SCENE 2: Monday
Johnny gets off the school bus with a
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backpack slung over his shoulder. As he starts
walking up his family's driveway, he looks back
to see the bus he was just on swerve off the roadand crash.
He drops his bag and darts to the crash
where he encounters bloodied classmates
climbing from the wreckage. The bus driver just
disappeared, they cry, and so did half the kidson the bus!
What do you mean disappeared? Johnny
asks.
They just vanishedliterally, comes theanswer amidst sobs and cries of horror.
That's insane! Johnny shouts.
Panicked, Johnny runs back across the
street, past his backpack, to his house to call for
help.
Mom! he yells, as he stomps through the
front door.
He sees her car is in the garage but she and
his siblings are strangely missing.
Where the heck are they?! he mutters.
But there's no time to think about it.
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Frantically, he dials the phone.
A buzzing sound blares from the phoneindicating the lines are jammed.
Air raid sirens moan in the distance.
He runs back outside looking desperately
for any adult who might help.
As he reaches the next-door neighbor's
yard, he sees a jetliner sweep over the rooftops
of his neighborhood. Trees swish its underbelly
and Johnny hears it crash in the distance. Smoke
and flames billow into the sky.
The screen dissolves.
SCENE 3: A series of horrific and
cataclysmic crashes cascade across the screen.
Police cars and emergency vehicles
crisscross at racing speeds with their sirens andlights at full kilt. Trains derail. Traffic jams
sprawl across all the major cities of the world.
Tanks explode and airplanes collide. But all this
is not the result of an alien invasion, Godzilla, or
a terrorist plot, the narrator explains. It is Thelong-awaited rapture of the church.
Bible verses that allege doom for humanity
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now fill the screen with scenes of suffering and
world domination in the backdrop. Passage after
passage, wrested from the original context, isstrung together with the next in such a way as to
predict seven years of horrific and unspeakable
eventsthe onset of the Great Tribulation and
the end of the world.
The screen dims. The evangelist, a gray-haired gentleman with a black Bible in his hand
now stands alone before the darkened screen.
He steps forward and takes up the story.
Two men will be walking up a hill, hesays, waving the old leather book. One will be
taken and the other will be left behind. A man
and wife will be sleeping in the same bed; she'll
hear a noise The evangelist drops the Bible
so that it slaps the floor and makes an echo
throughout the quieted rink of mesmerized
teenagers. She'll turn her head, he says in a
hushed tone, andhe's gone!
But don't fear for the missing, he warns.
They've been snatched up to meet the Lord Jesus
in the air! Fear rather for those who have been
left behind!
And fear is exactly what Bryce did! He
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listened in horror as the evangelist described the
rise of the Beast, also called the Antichrist,
along with the Great Tribulation and bloodypersecution for those who would not take 666 as
an emblem on their hands or foreheads. Bryce's
young heart shook as the old evangelist
described in his alarming manner yet another
return of Christ at the end of the seven years oftribulation.
Jesus will come in the sky for a bloody
coup that will topple the Antichrist and set up his
reign on earth for one thousand years, he
explained. In this Millennial Kingdom theliving, the raptured, and the resurrected dead will
live side by side, offering sacrifices in the rebuilt
Jerusalem Temple.
A look of wonder filled the old evangelist's
face as he described yet another return, a sinisterreturnnot of Christ but of the Devil afterthe
thousand-year reign of Christ.
Satan will be re-released by God himself
from the Abyss of Hell, he shouted. And what
does Satan do? He deceives and seduces largenumbers of these paradise dwellers at the end of
the Millennium, convincing them to rebel against
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their Lord and Savior, the Millennial King Jesus,
who has ruled them with grace and truth and
mercy for ten centuries!
Bryce's heart and mind reeled with an
admixture of terror and excitement as the speaker
went on to explain there will be yet more
resurrections, The Great White Throne
Judgment, souls thrown into The Lake ofFire, and finally a new heaven and new earth!
Although Bryce's parents raised him to
respect the Bible, he had no idea it might contain
such things. And it was out of his respect for the
Bible that fear gripped him that night. He felt acold sweat lick his back as the evangelist put out
his plea, punctuating it at every turning point
with: Don't be left behind! Don't be left behind!
Don't be left behind!
Bryce didn't remember standing up from
the dusty floor that night. But he remembers
finding himself walking forward with a mass of
other teenagers at the evangelist's exhortation.
That night Bryce did not fall in love with
Jesus Christ and choose to take up his cross to
follow him. He did not give away his life to
Christ. He stepped forward at the evangelist's
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altar call tosave his life, escape the Great
Tribulation, and not be left behind.
In the days and months that followed
Bryce's decision, Bryce became involved in
Sean's youth group and church, attended Bible
studies with Sean, and became so enthusiastic
about his new-found faith that Bryce's zeal even
made Sean uncomfortable at times. Bryce readbooks like the The Late Great Planet Earth and
attended End Times Prophecy seminars every
chance he could.
The people in Sean's church came to
admire Bryce. And Bryce loved them. They weregood people, devout and zealous. It's fair to say
they filled Bryce's high school years with a form
of camaraderie and community that was rich
with Christian values, fellowship, and friendship.
When it came time for college, their youth
pastor urged Bryce and Sean to enroll in a solid,
fundamental, dispensationalist Bible college.
But as zealous as Bryce had been, he'd not
managed to persuade his parents of his faith or
its implication for their souls when the rapturecomes. If anything, truth be told, they were
quite put off by what they hoped would be a
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passing fanaticism.
We'll support you if you go to a secularliberal arts college or university, they informed
him. But we will not hear of spending a penny
on a Bible college or any school associated with
thatchurch.
Bryce had no choice. He left for the stateuniversity.
His church friends encouraged him to make
the best of it and become involved in a campus
fellowship, which he didat first. Then came
the loaded schedule of classes, deadlines, and,well, other great things to do at school.
As his church friends feared might happen,
Bryce driftedjust a little, at first. Then, a little
more. Then, the time came when he had little
time for church even when he was home onbreak. To his parent's satisfaction, he had passed
through the phase they so wearily endured.
As graduation neared, Bryce met Kirsten, a
lovely English major, and they fell in love. They
married just weeks after graduating. But twodecades and a couple of kids later, that
relationship unraveled into an ugly divorce. Now
Bryce found himself alone, unpacking boxes,
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and searching within himself for answers.
Attempts at visiting churches over the yearshad left Bryce feeling out of place. Yet he felt the
need to have spiritual substance in his life. It had
been years since he'd picked up a Bible. In fact,
it dawned on him that he'd never really read it all
the way, straight through, even during his days of
zealotry.
In the quiet loneliness of his tiny
apartment, he'd plundered through the boxed-up
wreckage of his life and found this old leather-
bound book he used to tote around in his
backpack. It was the Bible Sean gave him whenit was crisp and new, shortly after that night at
the rink.
Now as Bryce sat here, it was a tattered
volume in his hands.
Where do I start? Bryce asked himself.
How about at the beginning? he thought
with a grin.
And so it was that he embarked on a
commitment to himself to read the Bible from
cover to ragged cover, not skipping around as he
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did in his church days under the tutelage of
eloquent and sensational teachers; not stringing
passages together from verses far and wide; butjust plodding through, page after page.
As Bryce did this, a strange world opened
up to him. Not the world he had expected. No, he
had expected to see the dispensations and
dispensational truths of that old evangelist laidout in all their splendor.
To the contrary. Everything looked
different now in its original context.
The more he read, the more disorientedBryce felt.
Maybe it's just that I haven't looked at this
stuff in so long, he told himself.It will get
clearer when I get to the New Testament.
But by the time he finished the Gospels,
Bryce found himself looking at Christ, and the
Kingdom that Christ proclaimed and taught
about, in ways he'd never considered before.
He read through the book of Acts and
listened to sermon after sermon by the
apostles, preaching to Jews and Gentiles alike
that all the promises of the Law and Prophets had
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been fulfilled in their day in the coming of Jesus
the Messiah. To Bryce's surprise, not once did
Peter or Paul or anyone in Acts warn people toaccept Christ in order to avoid being left
behind or to escape the Great Tribulation. In
fact, he couldn't find a single clear reference to a
seven-year period of persecution in any of Jesus
or the apostles' teachings. He found references topersecution and tribulation, yes.
But that was all to stuff going on back
then! And it never seemed to stop.
What's happened? he asked himself. He
looked at the cover and assured himself it wasthe same Bible he'd used in his youth. Where are
the seven dispensations I was taught? Where
are the frightening scenarios my pastors drilled
into my head week after week?
With the exception of Christ's Olivet
Discourse, little of it sounded familiar so far.
Yet, even that section didn't line up with his
recollection of how he was taught, when he took
it in its entirety and compared the parallel
accounts in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.From what Bryce recalled from his college
history classes, most of the predictions in that
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discourse could be identified with first-century
events.
Perhaps I should have bought the Bible
with the footnotes that some of my high school
friends had, he thought, with a puzzled look.No.
I want the straight scoop, he told himself,
without using someone else's lens.
Pressing on, Bryce pushed through the
epistles and letters. He found they connected
with the Old Testament story in ways he never
saw before. Occasionally, he did come across
statements and phrases reminiscent of the end-
times scenarios he recalled. But something aboutreading them now in context made them seem
oddly different.
Bryce grew confused. He looked at the box
of books that he'd left half-unpacked in the
corner upon fishing out this Bible.
Maybe I should just put this thing back in
that box and forget about it, he mumbled to
himself audibly, in frustration. But something
inside him kept drawing him on.I've come this
far. I can't quit now.
Then it hit him: Surely the book of
Revelation is all about the end times. It will have
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to fill it all in for me!
But by the time Bryce reached Revelation,he had a new perspective on the Bible's message
that would inform his reading of that book so as
to illuminate its every pageand fill him with
yet more questions.
You might think all this would energize andexcite Bryce. But in reality, it only served to
further disorient and disturb him. He needed to
talk to someone about it all, but he didn't know
where to turn.
One day would change all that.
He was at his office and noticed during his
lunch hour that Margaret, who worked in a
cubicle not far from his, was reading a Bible
while eating a sandwich.
Deep stuff, he said to her, breaking the
ice.
Margaret looked at him with brown soulful
eyes and paused as she pushed her long auburnhair behind her ears.
It doesn't get any deeper, she responded
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with a smile.
They began talking and he felt an instantconnection to Margaret.
In the days that followed, Bryce and
Margaret found themselves having lunches
together on a regular basis. And the Bible
became the theme of all their lunchtimeconversations.
Eventually, Bryce decided to confide in
Margaret about his background, the church he
experienced as a teenager, and the frustrations
and doubts caused by his reading project, as hecalled it.
She listened attentively and seemed to
understand exactly where Bryce was coming
from.
Sure, he told her, there are ways in
which parts of the Bible and Revelation sound
like some of the things I was taught. I certainly
came across words like 'tribulation,' a thousand-
year reign, and images of angels harvesting the
earth. Jesus definitely predicted his own returnand the destruction of Jerusalem. But as I read
each passage in its own contextand the book
of Revelation in the broader context of the rest of
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You need to talk to Professor Garabet,
she finally said, matter-of-factually.
* * *
Lizzette was not Jewish. But she'd alwayswanted to go to Israel someday.
When other children were dreaming about
the lands in story books of once-upon-a- time,
Lizzette yearned for a land she knew was real.
It's not that she didn't enjoy thinking about placeswith unicorns and My Little Ponies from time
to time, like other kids her age. But Lizzette was
always captivated by the stories she heard in
Sunday school and around the family table.
Little did young Lizzette realize that theinnocent mind between her pigtails was actually
romanticizing what that Holy Land would be
likeas much, if not more, than her playmates
had fantasized about their never-never-lands of
fairy tales and nursery rhymes.
Not until she was a teenager did she begin
to catch the hints that something was awry with
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her longed-for Promised Land.
This is how it happened:Lizzette loved Scripture. She particularly
loved the teachings of Jesus. And thanks to those
teachings, Lizzette found herself driven by a
compassionate heart for people. During her high
school days this translated into an academic trackthat she hoped would take her to college to
become a social worker.
But like many teenagers in her school and
church, she was more likely, on a Sunday
afternoon, to pick up the funny pages than thefront page of a newspaper or the world news
section of the Times. And, if the nightly news
was on the TV, it was certainly because one of
her parents had turned it on.
It was on one of those evenings that eventhe American-focused newscasters her parents
watched gave a report on events in the Middle
East.
Scud missiles pointed at Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem have local residents here scramblingfor gas masks and bomb shelters, the
newscaster reported, standing in front of a Patriot
anti-ballistic missile launcher.
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Jerusalem? she exclaimed.
Her ears caught that word and yanked herattention to TV screen.
She watched the footage of families
huddling in shelters and of soldiers distributing
food packs and equipment to the frightened
civilians.At a truck distributing gas masks, an unruly
crowd gathers and turns into a mob, as men with
long beards and wide brimmed hats snatch
hooded gas masks from the hands of anxious
pleading mothers before others could grab them.What are they doing? Lizzette asked.
The newscaster's voice-over narrated the
scene: Because hooded masks enable orthodox
men to avoid shaving their faces, these lifesaving
devices are at a premium. But they are also
desperately needed by families with small
children, whose heads are too small for the
standard-issue face masks made for soldiers!
What are they saying? young Lizzette
asked her father, with a look of shock.
Well, her father explained, These highly
religious men must choose between keeping their
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beards or taking a device that could save the life
of a child. They're trying to save their beards
instead.
Lizzette let out an aghast What! How can
they do that!!!
And so it began. It was the First Persian
Gulf War. As the world watched OperationDesert Shield give way to Operation Desert
Storm and campaigns of shock and awe,
Lizzette's shock and awe grew over the years.
How can this be happening in the Holy
Land? she wondered.In the following decades, Lizzette
marveled each time her ears caught the name of a
biblical town or location in the news. She'd
always loved thinking about going to Jerusalem,
Bethlehem, the Sea of Galilee. But while thatdesire never left her, now she had to think of
visiting these places amidst tanks, bombs and
Israelis with machine guns, while rioting
residents and settlers threw rocks (or worse
things) at each other.
I find this so disturbing, she told her
parents one day at the dinner table during the 6
o'clock news.
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Look! she exclaimed, gesturing at the TV
set. That's Bethlehem! That's Jerusalem! Those
are Bible places and those people are buildingwalls and fences to keep each other out of entire
sections of town! Why, it's like Berlin all over
again!
Lizzette! her mother tsked.
Well it IS! Lizzette blurted out.
It's all just so disturbing! Lizzette said,
raising her hand as if it was about to fly off her
wrist, only to have it come slapping down on her
knee.Disturbing. This was a word she would
use often whenever she talked about the Middle
East.
There's just no better word for it! She
insisted.
These are supposed to be holy places
not the sites of bombings, Scud Missiles, or
skirmishes between Israelis and Palestinians!
In her younger days, she would try to makesense of all this by dismissing these reports as
bad people doing mean things in a foreign
land. Her parents sometimes spoke of these news
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stories as signs of the end times. So Lizzette
came to figure that this might even just be stuff
the Bible predicted would happen before Jesusreturned. These ugly events were exceptions, in
her mind, to what the Promised Land was all
about. The Holy Land she would visitif she
ever didwould be that land flowing with milk
and honey she learned about in her childhood.One day her high school Social Studies
class talked about current events in the Persian
Gulf.
Despite the daily barrage of catastrophic
news coverage there, Lizzette told the class, Istill want to visit Israel. I just don't think I want
to visit the one on the news!
Her classmates laughed and her teacher
gave her a knowing smile.
That's how it was. But since something
inside her told her it might be a long time before
Jesus really does return, she dared to hope that
maybe the political situation would change in her
lifetime.
Maybe the 'bad people' will just go away
or stop hurting each other for a while, she
thought.
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sinners Jesus died for us. And the God I love is
the God who would defend the widow and
orphan, the stranger, the foreigner, and thesojourner, against oppression and violence.
One question especially started to nag
Lizzette: What am I to make of violent acts that
seem terribly unjust but which are apparently
being committed by the government and militaryauthorities of God's beloved chosen people?
That questionthat very disturbing and
nagging questionbecame deeply rooted in her
conscience during her college years.
And it would not go away.
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Chapter 2: Conscience
Buzzing.
Flies buzzing.
Horse flies, buzzing.
Buzzards.
Buzzards swarming, circling.
Buzzards swooping.
Abram chased them all.
What a sight I must be! he thought.A crazy
old man waving his arms to play the scarecrow
to these ravenous bugs and birds. What an ironicand appropriate end to a tiresome day!
Yahweh had issued the order: Bring me a
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heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old,
along with a dove and a young pigeon. He
meant these for sacrifices. So Abram brought allthese and cut each offering in two, arranging the
halves opposite each other, as God had specified.
The birds, however, God did not want cut. (Who
can understand such things! Abram groused.)So
Abram left them intact.Abram could not help but wonder if the
comic aspects of this hectic day weren't in some
part due to God's famous sense of humor. After
all, the day began with Abram being so
presumptuous as to dare even argue withYahweh, the Most High!
Yahweh had blessed him with a vision,
perhaps the first vision from Yahweh any living
human ever had. And Yahweh had greeted
Abram with the sweetest of words: Don't beafraid, Abram. I am your shield and your greatest
of rewards.
How did Abram respond? By arguing!
Sovereign Yahweh, he heard himself saying,
what can you give me since I remain childlessand my only possible heir is Eliezer of
Damascus?
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Did I really say thatto Yahweh Most
High!? Abram asked himself. He felt a shiver
just to recall it. Oh, but I didn't stop there, did I?I outright accused him: You've given me no
children; so a servant in my household will
inherit all I have!
Yes, perhaps this day has been divine
justice, he thought, as he grabbed his staff andchased off three more very determined vultures.
But then he also recalled God's gracious
reply to his impudence: The slave will not be
your heir, Yahweh assured him in that precious
vision. A son who will come from your ownbody will be your heir. And then, as the vision
continued, the day turned to night, the sky filled
with stars, and Abram found himself standing in
a place that took his breath away. He was peering
into our Milky Way Galaxy.
Look up at the heavens, Yahweh
whispered, and count the starsif indeed you
can count them. Abram shuttered as Yahweh
added: So shall your seed be.
In that moment, Abram believed Yahweh
and for this reason Yahweh regarded him as
righteous.
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As if that was not enough, God added:
Abram, I am Yahweh. I brought you out of Ur
of the Chaldeans to give you this land you arestanding in. Together we will take possession of
it.
And that's where I figure I crossed the line,
Abram admitted.Had I stopped there, this day
could have been so different! But, no! I could notlet it rest. I had to keep my kvetching.
Sovereign Yahweh, I had to say, how can I
know that I will gain possession of it? Ugh!
How can I know! Really?! I had to ask that?!
Abram quieted his heart. He was, after all,truly grateful.I mean, Yahweh could have
squashed me like a bug, right there. But how
gracious he is! And how wonderful are his
plans!
Well, here you are Yahweh! I have done as
you've asked. I've done it with a glad and
grateful heartI mean I really am grateful! And
I've done it all exactly as you've asked. Now here
I am. I amhere, Lord. But so are these pesky
insects and troublesome birds!
Abram pushed aside his annoyance at the
persistent invaders. He dare not let them interfere
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with the attitude of his heart or his love for the
one who just moments ago saw his faith and
reckoned it as his righteousness.
He bowed in worship. Quieting his soul, he
called upon the Name of Yahweh. In that
stillness, an Edenic contentment came over him.
As the sun set, Abram fell into the deepest, most
divine, slumber ever to come on a human sincethe day God drew Eve from Adam's side,
indicating that something significant was about
to happena new beginning with Abram as the
fountainhead of a new humanity.
But first, as Abram slept, a thick andterrifying darkness came over him and he heard
Yahweh saying horrible things that shot chills
through his soul:
Know most certainly that for four hundred
years your seed will be a foreigner in a land not
theirs. They will be slaves and terribly abused
there. But I will punish that nation where this
happens. After their slavery they will leave with
great plunder. Yet you, Abram, will go to your
ancestors in peace, buried at a good old age. Itwill be four generations before your seed returns
here. I will endure the Amorites until their sin
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reaches its full measure before I evict them.
Abram wondered at this. He tried to speakbut could not. He saw the sun was setting and
darkness was just now falling.Am I awake or
asleep? he asked himself. He could not tell.
Just then, a smoking firepot and blazing
torch appeared, moving between the splitcarcasses he'd prepared.
What does this mean, Lord? he heard
himself ask.
It means that on this day I've made my
covenant with you, Yahweh answered. To yourseed I've reserved this land, from the Wadi of
Egypt to the great river Euphrates. Currently this
area has been occupied by rebellious and sinful
peoples. But once they demonstrate their total
depravity and unwillingness to repent, I will givethis land to your seed.
Buzzing.
A fly buzzing.
Circling Abram's sleeping eyelids and
landing on his nose.
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Abram awoke to swipe the vexation from
his face.
My seed? he wondered.As numerous as
the stars? How will so many fill this land? he
mused. My slave will not be my heir. He sighed
with relief and then caught his breath:But my
heirs will be slaves?
And if God plans to judge and evict the
current occupants of this land, how much better
will my own offspring fare as tenants? What will
they have to do and be in order to stand before
Yahweh and keep hold of this holy place that
seems to be filled with visions, grace, and divinejudgment?
* * *
The lecture hall bustled at capacity andbuzzed with anticipation.
Bryce and Margaret sat as close as they
could to front and center, but so many had
arrived before them, to hear Dr. Garabet speak.
His topic: The Rapture Racket.
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Margaret intended a less formal setting for
introducing Bryce and Sarki (as Dr. Garabet
preferred his friends call him). But when shephoned to set up a meeting, she learned he would
be speaking that very evening on the same
subject troubling her new friend.
How amazing is that! she exclaimed.
Bryce agreed and was happy to see the man inaction whom Margaret so much admired.
I promise you, Sarki told her, your
friend will not be disappointed. And I will be
happy to meet with you both later.
Bryce came prepared with notepad and
pen. Margaret bristled with excitement over the
timing of it alland couldn't wait for her friends
to connect afterward.
The audience lights dimmed as the podiumarea brightened.
A tall, elegant woman takes the podium,
dressed in the kind of dark pants suit one might
expect of an attorney or banker.
Welcome to the third annual meeting of
Evangelicals United for Biblical Faith and
Compassion, she says. I have the privilege of
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introducing our evening speaker, and the first of
what promises to be an exciting line-up of
speakers this weekendalthough Dr. Sarkis J.Garabet needs little introduction for most of
you. (The audience applauds.)
Dr. Garabet is a distinguished Bible
scholar and the author of many books. Although
in recent years he has taken to calling hisactivities 'retirement,' I have it on good authority
that his speaking and writing demands keep him
busier than ever. (More applause and some
laughter.)
Although many of you will know him forhis significant contributions to a variety of
biblical and theological fields of study, in recent
yearshis, ahem, 'retirement' yearshe has
become quite prolific and focused on issues of
justice and compassion. In particular, he hasdeveloped a burden for how Evangelicals relate
to issues in the Middle East, and how popular
end-times theories, that he considers spurious,
have created trends he regards as disturbing.
The room quiets.
Well, to go on might turn into a lecture of
its own. And you did not come to hear me
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speak! (Laughter.) So without another moment
of delay, please join me in welcoming our
speaker, Dr. Sarkis Garabet!
The room bursts into applause as a trim,
gentle-mannered man in a tweed sports-jacket
takes the platform, carrying a notepad and a
Bible. He has a kind but rugged face, with a full
head of gray hair. His gray eyes seem to sparkleas he looks out over his reading glasses at the
welcoming audience.
Thank you for your gracious introduction,
Dr. Ouimet, he says, arranging his notes on the
podium, And thank you members of EUBFC,for inviting me here tonight. E-U-B-F-C, wow!
That's a mouthful! he quips. (Gentle laughter
and applause.)
Having spent a little time with Dr. Ouimet
today, I must say it might be nice to hear that
lecture. (Laughter.) But as you have, for
whatever reason, asked me to be this evening's
speaker, instead of our lovely host, let us begin.
Taking off his glasses and holding them in
his right hand, he looks into the audience as if to
evaluate every listener.
To be 'left behind,' he says, is hell, his
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face pained yet stone-like.
All Christians believe that those whoentrust their destiny to God in this life will be
with him for eternity. This is the meaning of
'heaven.' It is the good side of what will happen
at the end of history. But most Christians also
believe that there is a flip side to it: a tragic side
to the final outcome of history. This the Biblecalls 'hell.'
The somberness of this opening grabbed
Bryce's attention instantly, as it did the whole
room.
Margaret, who worried that Bryce might
not be accustomed to such theological and
abstract content, glanced at Bryce with relief, to
find him frantically filling his notepad with every
thought he could capture as the lecture
progressed.
The Bible teaches the simple truth that,
when it is all over, when history comes to an end,
there will be one big final event called the 'last
judgment.' As a result of that judgment, the
redeemed will be gathered to be with God for
eternity. The ones left behind will be abandoned
to life without Godwhich is hell. The Bible
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also teaches that these two outcomes will signal
decisively the end of the world. They will
happen together as the one terminal event ofhistory and will demarcate the transition from
history to eternity.
Could it be that simple? Bryce asked
himself.Because that's the way it seemed to me.
Only, I was afraid to think it!
Another important teaching of the Bible
that piggy-backs on this main teaching is that no
one but God can know the timing of the end. No
human being has the insight or the capacity to
announce the time when the end of the worldwill occur. It is a decision that pertains
exclusively to Gods own sovereign will.
Humans are to be ready for it to happen at any
moment without engaging in guess work that
attempts to predict the time of its occurrence.
Again! Bryce thought, This is exactly what
I've been feeling. How can this man be putting
into words the conclusions emerging from all my
Bible reading?!
The Bible bears witness to the fact that the
writers of the New Testament expected that the
end might happen during their lifetime, right
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then, during the first century AD! They were not
predicting that it was going to happen then for
sure. But they were calling all Christians to beready for it, should the end have occurred within
their lifetime. In so doing, they defined the
proper attitude of every Christian, in every
generation, to be always ready for the possibility
of the end happening at any moment withoutever speculating about its timing. They taught us
that the end is always near but never
predictable.
Margaret could see, even in Bryce's harried
note taking, that Bryce had found a kindred spiritin his Bible quest. Dr. Garabet's words seemed to
flow through Bryce's pen and simultaneously
into Bryce's inner being as Bryce's face
displayed agreement, connection, and what can
only be called a look of illumination.
Although you would never guess it from
recent trends among Evangelicals, Garabet
continued, this attitude of expectation has been
the posture generally adopted by most Christians
through the centuries of church history.Garabet adopted a momentarily sad
demeanor: Unfortunately, some have
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occasionally strayed from this pattern. In their
eagerness to see God put an end to the horrors of
history, they have tried to second-guess him forhis secret timing concerning the end. They have
pulled verses out of the Bible and tried to apply
them to contemporary events in order to predict
the time of the end. But, without fail, they have
been proven wrong every time. This crystal-ball,'Nostradamus approach' to the interpretation of
the Bible does not honor Gods truth. To the
contraryit often sorely misleads his people.
This thought seemed to disturb Bryce.
Margaret knew she would have to ask him aboutit later. On the ride home that evening, Bryce
marveled at her perceptiveness and sensitivity.
As ready as I am to believe my old friends were
misled, he explained, it's not a good feeling to
think of them as misleading others.
Dr. Garabet likewise seemed to want to
find a reason for people's gullibility in such
important matters: The desire to predict the end
rises to a fever pitch especially in times of
turmoil and stress. Our time, as we have enteredthe twenty-first century, is no exception, of
course. In fact, many groups of Christians are
even now trying to decipher the meaning of
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current upheavals in the light of biblical
teachings. Over half a century of continuous
conflict in the Middle East, a century ofunprecedented worldwide atrocities like
generalized wars, genocides and ethnic
cleansings, the creation of a state of Israel in the
middle of the previous century, the universal
threat of terrorism, the instant media release ofinformation and images depicting fatal
catastrophic famines, epidemics, floods, fires and
earthquakesall of this rightly motivates
believers to gaze heavenward for deliverance.
Allowing such events to prompt believersto look to their Deliverer for his help and to long
for his appearing is perfectly legitimate. It
becomes unbiblical, however, when these
circumstances are used to predict what Jesus
Christ called 'the times or dates the Father has set
by his own authority.' For he clearly stated that
these are not for us to know. Despite such
biblical prohibitions, many popular so-called
Bible teachers, who often attract huge audiences
and may even find their way onto television and
radio programs, have sadly yielded to the thetemptation to throw caution to the wind and have
engaged in unceasingoften conflicting
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speculations regarding the events of the end.
Bryce put down his pen to take in the bigpicture, which was becoming acutely clear:
These kinds of end-times predictions are
frivolous. They misrepresent the Bible's intended
teaching and pose an embarrassment to serious-
minded Bible lovers.
Innumerable books and articles, television
and radio programs, church sermons and
prophecy conferences, Garabet continued, are
devoted to describing various scenarios of events
they allege will usher in the end of time. The
Christian publics eagerness to find biblicalcomfort in times of confusion makes it possible
and profitable to create huge industries for the
promotion of such views through novels and
even movies. Often, however, these scenarios
ironically tend to spread paranoia and panic,rather than comfort. Yet there are no other
Christian publishing ventures as financially
profitable as the ones devoted to predicting the
end times.
Promotional material for one of thosemega-corporations makes the claim that its
books are 'the all-time best-selling and fastest-
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selling Christian fiction series ever. There are
more than 60 million copies in print.' The
aggressive promotion of such enterprises givesthe impression that biblical truth is being
exploited for financial gain and that 'teaching' the
Bible has been turned into a racket.
At the word racket, the room seemed to
catch its breath. Bryce could see several peopleshifting in their seats indicating discomfort.
Others nodded in hearty agreement.
Well, how did this come about? Garabet
asked, taking off his spectacles and looking into
the audience. Sadly, so much of the confusiontoday on these matters can be traced to a
theology first espoused in the middle of the 19th
century by John Nelson Darby, a dissident
Anglican priest turned evangelist who joined
and was influential among the original PlymouthBrethren in England and Ireland. His theology,
called 'dispensationalism,' we should note, was
unlike anything any prominent theologian
articulated in the past. In fact, we can go so far as
to say that nothing ever taught by the greatchurch thinkers of the east or westincluding
the Apostolic Fathers, Chrysostom, Augustine,
Aquinas, neither Luther nor Calvin, nor
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Arminius, nor Wesleyeven remotely
resembled the theological or eschatological
claims of Darby and his followers.
Yet dispensationalism, a strange late-
comer to the field of Christian belief systems,
rapidly came to permeate the landscape of
western Evangelicalism within just a few
decades of its inception. For much of this we cansay thanks largely to the 1908 publication of the
incredibly popularScofield Reference Study
Bible.
Now I remember! Bryce thought to himself.
That was the Bible my friends all had with thefootnotes!
Fundamentalists and Evangelicals quickly
and inexplicably embraced the Scofield Bible
with little scrutiny as to its reliability or the
source of its notes. Recent scholarship has even
raised a number of troubling questions about the
integrity not only of this work but of its editor
including the possibility that Mr. Scofield may
have faked his Doctor of Divinity degree along
with giving conflicting accounts of his ownconversion.
And yet, rather than 'testing and
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approving' this self-appointedpossibly self-
credentialedBible annotator, the
Fundamentalists and Evangelicals of the mid-1900s readily come to treat the Scofield
footnotes on each page with almost the same
reverence and trust they gave the 'holy' King
James Version referenced above those notes. In
fact, some still do today!Bryce recalled several times when he heard
preachers and teachers of his childhood railing
against modern translations. It had not occurred
to him that the archaic Elizabethan English of his
boyhood Bible might be just one of many waysto translate the ancient biblical languages. But
that thought hit him now as he listened to Dr.
Garabet explain that the early dispensationalists'
stubborn King-James-Only mentality also
posed obstacles to understanding the Bible
clearly, as the changing meanings of outdated
English words and terms in the KJV often
obscured the original clarity of the ancient texts.
This often made it difficult for the average
Bible reader to grasp the meaning of evensimplest of passages. Preachers, instead of
exegeting from the Hebrew and Greek, indulged
their congregations in expositions of what the
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ages. But if Darby and Scofields version of end-
time prophecies were really the intended
meanings of the Old and New Testaments, onehas to wonder how and why the early church
leaders, along with Paul and the Apostles, make
no mention of them and rather expected Christ to
return at any moment during their lifetime to set
up his eternal kingdom. Yet this is exactly whatthey were waiting for! They spoke of an longed
for this to be an eternal kingdomthat is a
'kingdom without end,' not one that lasted a mere
one thousand years. And how silly would it have
been for them to wait for this if they truly
thought all the things that dispensationalists rail
about would have to happenthings that would
require centuries to pass before they could be
accomplishedand some of which still have not
happened!
Bryce glanced at Margaret with a sigh of
relief but he doubted she even noticed. She
seems as engrossed in this lecture as I am, he
thought. Part of him also felt sadness over having
his suspicions initially confirmed like this. But
something else inside him led him to think hewas about to embark on an adventure that would
be neither sad nor disappointing.
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The influence of these dispensationalists
on American Evangelicalism, Garabet
continued, was slightly revised decades laterwith the publication of theRyrie Study Bible,
which offered a slightly tempered form of
dispensationalism without wavering in any
significant way on end-times matters. Their
eschatology has also been bolstered in recentyears with the publication of theLeft Behind
series, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, and
other publications like it. This series, whose
accounts are as fictional and far-fetched as the
theology they're founded upon, envisions the
kinds of events that dispensationalists imagine
will happen to the world as history progresses
toward 'the rapture.' And as if selling literally
tens of millions of these publications were not
enough, yet more spinoff books and series are
passing through the bowels of Christianpublishing houses while we speak.
Garabet paused, almost as if he hoped this
would pause the printing presses he spoke of. Or
perhaps it was to enable he and his audience to
hear those presses in the distance.
Bryce could feel that Garabet had
something huge to say, something he might be
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struggling to put into words.
All this, he said, might seem harmlessenough. I mean, after all, it's all just speculation,
isn't it? What could it possibly hurt? It's just talk
about the future, right? And if it never happens,
who will ever know or care?
Well ... if only it were that simple,Garabet conceded wistfully. Allow me to note
but a few of the key ways this misguided belief
system has damaged the church, her witness, and
her mission. And I stress, given the limits of our
time together, I can but point to the tip of the
iceberg.
First, the unfortunate and disheartening
truth is that this divisive theological system,
while audaciously claiming to 'rightly divide the
Word of Truth,' has not only schismatically
severed into pieces churches, families, and
friends, but it may well have encouraged or
contributed to some of the most disturbing
human rights violations of our generation.
Bryce wondered what Dr. Garabet could be
referring to. He'd never seen anyone from his old
church violate anyone's human rights. Could
there really be this kind of problem?
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For, this doctrinal system, Garabet
continued, in departing from the New
Testament's definitions of Israel, the church, andfrom its teaching about the natural versus the
spiritual children of Abraham, has fueled
activities on the part of dispensationalist
Christians and their political allies in the Middle
East that have resulted in crimes not only againstentire ethnic groups, like the Palestinians and
Arabs, but even against Christians in those ethnic
groups.
You see, how one understands the past
and the future affects how we behave in thepresent. How we define each other changes how
we treat each other. And dispensationalists get
this wrong on all counts. As a result, many
American Christians have blindly supported
(directly or indirectly) policies and acts of
aggression in the Middle East that have
victimized many innocent people, simply
because of the ethnic or racial groups those
Middle East people were born into. This has
understandably angered large segments of
Middle East populations and fueled hostilitiesbetween Christians and non-Christians, Jews and
non-Jews, and certainly between the United
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States and much of the world.
Bryce had not considered that there mightbe political ramifications to his Bible quest. This
started to make him uncomfortable and he could
see others in the audience displaying similar
reactions.
The fact is that Christians are dividedabout the issue of the legitimacy of Jewish
claims to the land of Palestine. At one extreme,
there are dispensationalists who even go so far as
to call themselves 'Christian Zionists.' This is an
appropriate title for them, and may well be
deservingly applied to others who don't evenrealize this is where their dispensationalist views
have taken them. Those in this camp base many
of their arguments mostly on texts from the Old
Testament and insist the land was irrevocably
promised to Abraham and his descendants. Theycite numerous prophecies that anticipate utopian
conditions under which Jews from later
generations and from around the world would be
gathered in the Promised Land and enjoy the
favor of God. Without necessarily endorsing themethods used to secure the land, these Christians
view the creation of modern-day Israel in 1948
as the fulfillment of divine entitlement accorded
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to Israel to enter into its possession. They even
go so far as to suggest it is a fulfillment of end-
times prophecies.
Other Christians question such claims to
divine rights and God-ordained entitlements, also
on Scriptural grounds. Since they regard the new
covenant as the fulfillment of the old covenant,
they focus on the texts of the New Testament asthe finality of divine revelation. They point out
that the promise made to Abraham was a
spiritual promise, since it was made to all his
descendants described as a multitude of nations
and not just to one people racially defined. Theycite statements of the New Testament that
describe the true descendants of Abraham as
those who have the same faith in God as
Abraham, both Jews and Gentiles. They explain
that God has only one people, known as Israel
and the church, and that this singular people is
comprised of both Jewish believers and Gentile
believers, because God does not deal with
humans on the basis of race, but rather by grace
through faith in the finished work of Jesus
Christ. They view the church as the newcovenant Israel of God in which are fulfilled all
the ancient promises of God, including those
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pertaining to the landwhich becomes a
prophetic icon that prefigures, as stated in the
Epistles to Hebrews and Revelation, the newJerusalem, divinely constituted from heaven and
identified as the Bride of Christ, the eternal
community of redemption.
Whatever view is taken on this subject,
the danger of appealing to divinely-grantedentitlements in order to secure exceptional
privileges is evident. Both the testimony of
scripture and of history is that when humans
equate their own political agendas with 'Gods
will' in order to fulfill it through ungodly means,this consistently results in violations of Gods
will.
Even thoughtful non-Zionist Jews living
in Israel, who have joined the debate, have
commented that the post-World War II creationof the Jewish state to shelter survivors of the
Holocaust, right at the heart of the Muslim
world, where it is surrounded three layers deep
with hostile nations and a billion radicalized
Muslims all over the planet, was the greatestgeopolitical mistake made in the last century.
And they take no comfort in Israel having a
stockpile of nuclear warheads since Muslim
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nations also have access to them. They deplore
the fact that the State of Israel has been at war
since its inception, with no foreseeable end to itspredicament except for another disaster of
unprecedented magnitude.
This is, as I stated earlier, but a glimpse of
the problems that arise with dispensationalist and
Christian Zionist thinking.
Right thinking produces right action,
Garabet asserted. And misguided thinking can
produce tragic resultsas we are witnessing yet
again in the world arena.
Bryce sat there feeling stunned. He had
long since stopped taking notes, having become
so swept up in the issues cascading upon him.
How little I realized what I was getting into
when I decided to read the Bible and reevaluate
the things I'd been taught about it, he thought.
The time has come, Garabet stated, as if
he were an attorney making his summation to the
jury, to pause and to ask ourselves what truly is
the biblical perspective on such campaigns.
Christians must not accept uncritically every
wind of teaching that gratifies their curiosity. The
folly of that is now clearas is the danger of it.
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While we must certainly admit that even wild
and lurid reminders of the possible imminence of
the end can sometimes (paradoxically) havebeneficial effects that can be used to turn people
to God (just as a medical misdiagnosis might
prompt someone to change their life), yet it is
equally clear how important it is for Christians
not to fall into a frenzy of disappointingexpectations that causes them to lose sight of the
real purpose for the return of Christ. The Bible
exhorts us to exercise good judgment in order to
not be 'unsettled or alarmed' in regard to such
matters.
It is time for people who believe the
Scriptures to be Gods wordbut who suspect
that biblical end-times truth is quite different
from the strange scenarios with which they've
been bombardedto find each other and work
together to reconstruct the biblical case for the
truth. Together we can paint the accurate picture
of God's love and of the blessings he promised to
all generations and to all peoples through
Abraham.
This raises the question: How does the
Bible speak today? How do we get at its true
message? First of all, the canonical Scriptures
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come to us with a consistent message that is
readily discoverable when we endeavor to
ascertain what each authors intent was when heor she wrote. Authorial intent can be determined
by the content of the passage under
consideration, its literary and thematic context
within the book, and from the larger socio-
historical situation surrounding the text. Once weprehend the authorial intent of a text, only then
are we in a position to draw principles from the
document that apply to future or present life
situations. This alone is a tremendous safeguard
that can help us from falling into the outlandish
propositions of those who take biblical
statements out of context in order to predict
events that never could have entered the biblical
authors' minds.
So many Christians today are starting to
feel uneasy about the 'prophetic' systems
rampantly proposed by televangelists and self-
styled eschatologistssystems that must be
revised with every new crisis in the Middle East.
These serious-minded Christians are starting to
wake up and look for teaching about end-timeissues that is biblical and, therefore, permanent
and timeless.
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This is what the world so desperately
needs as well!
Here the audience let out an brief applause.
Garabet paused. And then proceeded:
Sensible voices are sorely needed.
Concerned Christians need to examine the
biblical data regarding the end times with anattitude of serenity and on the basis of sound
principles for biblical interpretation derived from
the Bible itself. Too often, the Bible has been
treated as a hunting ground for verses that are
squeezed together to justify the creation of
predetermined systems. Each time you take averse out of context, you strip away its identity.
In this manner, with a little dose of ingenuity,
any set of odd ideas can appear to be 'proven' to
come from the Bible. This is the fallacious and
precarious nature of building a belief system onproof texting. However, every Christian is
accountable to protect ones thinking from such
abuse. The first step to take in order to conduct
properly a truly biblical study venture is to draw
from the Bible itself the ground-rules for its owninterpretation. This involves taking a thematic
approach to each book of the Bible and reading
all passages in their literary, historical and
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cultural context.
I applaud the EUBFC for recognizing thisneed and for making this the foundation for
addressing its missional direction.
At this, the audience erupted into a
standing applause. Dr. Garabet humbly picked up
his notes and descended the platform, bringingon yet more applause.
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Chapter 3: Dominion
Run!
Run!Run! RUN!!!!
The rabbi was not accustomed to running.
He was used to chasing.
But only one word filled his mind and
drove him on with a fear hotter than the desertsand kicking up behind his heels, hotter than any
zeal he'd ever known:
Runnnnn!
Where can I go? Where?All he knew was that he wanted to put
Damascus as far behind him as possible.
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Arabia, came the Whisper inside him.
Arabia! I must hide in Arabia!The landthrough which Moses fled. The land through
which the Israelites fled. Perhaps I will go all
the way to Sinai! he thought.
And so he made his exodus into the
wilderness.You might think that after the vision he'd
seen, and events that followed on its heels, the
rabbi from Tarsus would be filled with
contentmentor that all the zeal he used to
expend on capturing and executing theNazarene's followers would now be redirected
into a new mission on their behalf. After all, he'd
seen the resurrected Jesus in person and found
mercy from him. The physical blindness he
experienced as a result of the vision gave way to
a miraculous recovery as something resembling
scales fell from his eyes when one of Jesus'
appointed followers laid hands on him and
prayed.
And the vision's mandate was clear: I
appoint you to be my servant and my witness of
what you've seenand will see of me! I will
rescue you from your own people and from the
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Gentiles. Go to them to open their eyes. Turn
them from darkness to light and from the power
of Satan to God, so that they can receivecomplete forgiveness of sins and a place among
all who are sanctified by faith in me.
But the sum of all this meant the Rav's
world turned upside-down.
He needed to run.
It was more than the hunter now being
counted among the huntedthough he knew
well enough the terrifying consequences he
would experience if he were caught by hisformer co-inquisitors who were already
mobilizing.
It was more than the disorientation that
comes with a change of worldviews.
It was all that and more.
Who am I? Saul wondered. What has
happened to my worldto the world? What is to
become of my life? Who do I trust? Where will I
be safe? How do I make sense of all this?
Run!
His sight had been restored. But like the
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blind man Jesus healed who first saw people
walking as trees, Saul needed perspective.1
And so he fled. He fled for safety. He fled
for sanity. He fled to find himself and make
sense of everything happening to him. This was
Saul's crisis of faithan identity crisis, a career
crisis, a crisis that, unbeknownst to him, was
about the very future of humanity.
So like Elijah, who fled after defeating the
prophets of Baal, the newly baptized Saul fled to
the most deserted place he could think of, to the
place of divine exodus and self-imposed exiles,
the place through which Moses took flight uponkilling the Egyptian slave driver, the place where
the children of Israel escaped from Pharaoh, the
land where they wandered, where they
encountered God in the most miraculous of
ways, where they even received The Lawthewilderness. Arabia.
* * *
1 Mark 8:24
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He sat alone with his scrolls in a cave he
happened upon just days into his journey.Having managed to buy supplies along the
way, and scraps of food from some Bedouin
nomads passing by, he thanked Yahweh for his
safety.
A cave is a funny place for a tentmaker, hemused.
He needed the daylight to read. His eyes,
though healed, still ached. Study only seemed to
strain them. The candlelight did not serve him
well.
I need to make sense of all this, he
repeated, half to himself, half in prayer. Forgive
me Yahweh, for taking flight like this. But I need
your help. Please guide me. Lord Jesus, please
He had to stop himself there. It still
sounded strange. Lord Jesus.
Yes, LORD Jesus, please guide me. You
have saved me and shown yourself to me. Pleasedon't let it stop there. I need you, Lord. I need
you so desperately to show me the way.
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Where do I begin? he asked himself.
B'reshit, came the Whisper in Hebrew(in the beginning).
Yes, where else can I begin but at the
beginning? he mused.
He opened the scroll of B'reshit (Genesis),
began to read and pray, pray and read.
He pored over scriptures he thought he'd
known since childhood; now they all seemed
new. This rabbi and scholar, this disciple of the
great sage Gamaliel, this zealous heretic hunter
who just weeks prior busily accused Jesus'followers in order to beat and execute them, now
sat before the Lord Jesus to be tutored as a newly
baptized child of God.
Come Holy Spirit, he cried, and keep
your promise to lead me into all truth.
Read!
Read, read!
READ!
He read concerning the patriarch Abraham:
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When Abram was ninety-nine years old,
Yahweh appeared to him saying, I am El-
Shaddai; live before me faithfully and with awhole heart. Then I will make my covenant
between me and you and will greatly increase
you exceedingly-exceedingly!
Yes, Yahweh, God of Abraham and my
God, Saul prayed, show me, I plead, how I toomay serve you faithfully with all my heart. 'El-
ShaddaiO Mighty Breast,' nurse me with your
Word as pure mother's milk. Show me, I beg
you, how to serve you and your purposes now
that you have come and the Messianic Kingdomwe've waited for is coming upon us.
Abram fell prostrate. God said to him,
As for me, this is my covenant with you: You
will be the father of many nations. No longer
call yourself Abram (Exalted Father). Yourname is to be Abraham (Father of
Multitudes), for I have made you a father of
many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I
will make nations of you, and kings will come
from you.Nations! Saul noted the word was plural
and Goy'm! Abraham was to be the father of
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He knew the word could be taken as both
singular and plural, and that with reference to the
seed, it speaks in the plural of being their God.But he quickly referred back to God's initial
vision to Abraham. He referenced forward to
God's later promise following Abraham's near
sacrifice of Isaac. There it was again: God had
given the promises and the land to Abraham'sseedand in that seedwould all the nations
(goy'm) of the earth be blessed.
Lord Jesus! Saul prayed. We have
always pridefully assumed we Israelites are the
exclusive seed. After all, we are the ones whowent through the four-hundred years of slavery
in Egypt. But this passage is talking about
nations, Gentile nations, being blessed in
Abraham's seed and coming from that seed. Lord
Jesus, can it be that we have failed to live up to
what it means to be that seed? Could it be that
you, Lord Jesus, who are his Seed, have come to
take possession of all those promises as their
rightful heir?
All his life, Saul assumed that any other
nations that came from Abraham derived from
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would look upon Ishmael that he might live
before you!
And God said, Regardless, your wife
Sarah will bear you a son and you will call him
Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him
and his seed after him forever.
As for Ishmael, I have heard yourrequest. I bless him. He will be fruitful and I
will increase him exceedingly-exceedingly.
From him twelve rulers will come, and I will
give him to be a great nation. But my covenant
will be with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you
by this time next year. When God finished
speaking with Abraham, God went up from
him.
So even Hagar's offspring are blessed forAbraham's sake? And this covenant that would
yield nationsit's to come through Sarah? They
would come through Isaac, the child of promise!
As Saul pondered all this, and wondered at
the implications, evening crept in. He built asmall fire near the entrance of the cave, faced
Jerusalem, and offered his evening prayers.
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Then, curling up by the fire, Saul drifted
into a sleep unlike any he'd ever experienced. He
later wondered if anyone had ever slept as deeplyas this since the day God caused sleep to come
on Adam in order to draw Eve from his side.
Darkness descended and Saul dreamed he
stood under a sky full of brilliant stars too vast to
count. He was on a sandy beach that stretchedout under the starlight as far as the human eye
could see. On his left and right two trees towered
beside him. One was a cultivated olive tree; the
other a wild olive tree.
The cultivated tree was tall and ancientwith a fat trunk obviously thousands of years
old; its scraggly branches bore little fruit.
The wild tree was plush but strangely
twisted and also fruitless.
Suddenly a man appeared before Saul in
radiant robes and carrying a large pruning shear
in his hands. The man looked at the ancient tree,
looked at Saul, and said: This tree has stopped
bearing the olives I desire and is about to die of
its own stubbornness. What shall I do to save this
tree?
To Saul's amazement, the man attacked the
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ancient tree and began lobbing off huge branches
and limbs from its aged trunk. Saul could see
how barren these limbs were as they fell to theground. The man then dragged them way,
scattering them far and wide, even to the four
corners of the earth.
The man then stood back and looked at the
tree as only a few of the original branches nowremained. Saul wanted to speak but could not.
Am I awake or asleep? he wondered.
Then the man with the shears looked at
Saul, then turned to the wild olive tree. With
speed and determination he violently clippedbranches from the wild tree.
Saul thought, Surely these fruitless
branches will also be spread abroad.
Instead, the man in radiant robes skillfullywent about grafting these wild branches onto the
ancient trunk, where the cultured limbs had been
taken out.
When he was done, the man turned to look
at Saul. As their eyes met, something beautifuland amazing happened. The ancient tree, now
full of newly ingrafted branches, suddenly filled
with blossoms. Even the natural branches that
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remain were full of blossoms. Then suddenly, all
the blossoms exploded into to a colorful array of
plump, ripe olives. And the olives came rainingdown like an avalanche at Saul's feet, covering
the ground and filling the shoreline of the beach
where they stood with a harvest unlike anyone
had ever seen.
In this way, the man said, shall allnations be blessed in Abraham and the seed of
Abraham be complete. Every knee shall bow and
every tonguefrom every nation and tribe
shall confess allegiance to the Name of Yahweh.
And every natural branch that acquires faith willbe re-grafted into its original place on the
cultivated tree.
In this way shall the seed of promise,
which is the seed of faith, bear the fruit I've
longed for and require.
In this way shall Israel, the ancient olive
tree, be saved and the glory of Israel restored.
* * *
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Buzzing.
Tickly buzzing.
Saul awoke to a mosquito flitting about his
ear.
It is time, Saul, came the Whisper.
Return now to Damascus. You are mychosen instrument to proclaim my Name to the
Gentiles, to their kings, and to the people of
Israel. Testify to all people about everything I've
shown and told you.Go now. It's time for you to
begin suffering for my Name.
* * *
Icannot believe I'm sitting at the sametable as Dr. Garabet and Dr. Ouimet, Bryce
thought.
He looked at Margaret and the twoprofessors, whom he first saw on the conference
speakers' platform just a few nights ago.
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He wasn't sure what to do or say. So he
watched Margaret for cues.
She was obviously enjoying herself and
excited about this visit, although she also
appeared far more comfortable with the situation,
being already acquainted with Dr. Garabet.
It was a beautiful spring day and the four ofthem sat having tea around a ceramic-tiled table
in Dr. Garabet's sunroom.
The good doctor had invited Bryce and
Margaret to come by to get acquainted. And
since Dr. Ouimet, the chair of the local EUBFCchapter, had been visiting earlier that afternoon
on chapter business, he invited her to stay as
well.
What did you two think of the
conference? Dr. Ouimet asked, smilinginquisitively at Bryce and Margaret.
Well, we weren't able to attend the whole
weekend, Margaret clarified, shooting a friendly
glance at Bryce.
We were only able to take in Dr. Garabet's
lecture on Friday evening, Bryce explained,
apologetically, I had weekend commitments
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with my kids. But we really wished we could
have come for the whole program.
I see, Dr. Ouimet responded.
And before we continue, Garabet
interjected, I do have a request of you, Bryce.
Yes, of course, Bryce stammered, what
is it?
As the ladies here already know, I do not
like to stand on formality; I prefer my friends
call me Sarki, he explained with a smile.
At this Dr. Ouimet brightened and chimedin, And please, you must call me by my first
name as well; it's Lizzette.
Of course, Bryce replied. You are both
most gracious.
Lizzette, are you also a biblical scholar?Margaret asked.
No, Lizzette answered. My degrees are
in the area of social work and psychology. But I
have always held a deep interest in biblical
studies and social justice issues related to the
Middle East. I actually took the opportunity to
study there as an undergrad, for a year at a
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Christian university near Tel Aviv. It didn't really
fit with my major at the time. But it was
something I'd always wanted to do, and I've goneback now many times since, on humanitarian
trips. Dr. Garabetuh, Sarkiwas one of my
Bible and Theology professors. That's how we
met. And it was he who introduced me to the
EUBFC and their efforts at promotingcompassion, peace and justice in the Middle
East.
But that's not why you're here Lizzette
cut in on herself.
No, Sarki broke in. You're here to talkabout dispensationalist end-times teaching and
why you can't find it your Bible, eh? He
chuckled and added, That's a subject that
Lizzette also has some interest in.
I see that Margaret has filled you in,
Bryce conceded with a grin.
Margaret's smiling face beamed back at
him.
But your lecture answered so many of myquestions the other day, I guess I'd have to say
I've progressed to a new set of questions.
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Well do let us have them! Sarki exhorted,
But first.... He poured a refresher into each of
their tea cups.
Well, I guess some of them, at least, may
indeed have something to do with compassion,
peace and justice in the Middle East, after all.
Now I really am glad I stayed, Lizzettequipped, looking intrigued.
As I've been reading the Bible, and as I
listened to your lecture, Bryce continued, I've
been getting the sense that God's real desire is to
bring all of humanity together under the reign ofJesus Christ, and that this is what he calls his
kingdom, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom
of Heaven.
We're with you so far, Sarki assured him.
And I see that while this is to have its
ultimate fulfillment in the return of Jesus Christ,
it also seems like we're supposed to be doing
things now to make that kingdom a present
reality today, first by spreading the gospel of
salvation, but also by spreading compassion andworking for his rule in society with regards to
justice for the oppressed and promoting peace
between individuals, races, and nations.