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For those of us who may be bedazzled or dazed by the current blizzard of alternate theories, positions, and prophetic perspectives blowing our way, there is a simple test we can use to check for truth. It involves one word: Imminence. What does the purveyor of a new, novel, or absurd approach to end-times events have to say about the imminent return of Christ, which the Scriptures declare to be the watchword of the church? Any proposition that ignores, delays, or mutilates the clear meaning of the word and the way in which the early church understood imminence--the any-moment return of Christ--should be immediately discredited.11
Notes
1 Thomas Ice, and Timothy J. Demy, The Return (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1999).
2 Thomas Ice, and Timothy J. Demy, When the Trumpet Sounds (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1995).
3 Tim LaHaye, The Rapture (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2002).
4 J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1958).
5 Charles C. Ryrie, Come Quickly, Lord Jesus (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1996).
6 Renald E. Showers, Maranatha, Our Lord Come (Bellmawr, NJ: The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, 1995).
7 Gerald B. Stanton, Kept from the Hour, 4th ed. (Miami Springs, FL: Schoettle Publishing, Co., Inc., 1991).
8 John F. Walvoord, The Rapture Question (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979).
9 John A. McClean, "Another Look at Rosenthal's 'Pre-Wrath Rapture'," in Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 148 no. 592 (Dallas, TX: Dallas Theological Seminary, Oct-Dec 1991).
10 Gerald B. Stanton, "A Review of the Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church," in Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 148 no. 589 (Dallas, TX: Dallas Theological Seminary, Jan-Mar 1991).
11 Elwood McQuaid, "Expecting a Call Any Moment," in Elwood McQuaid, ed., Israel My Glory (Westville, NJ: Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, January/February 2005), 10.
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