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Periodically taking a look at the developing big picture, in snapshot fashion, is efficacious to best serving as watchmen of the prophetic clock. With this in mind, let’s–in general terms–examine several current matters of interest so far as might concern Bible prophecy.

Pressures are mounting that indicate increasingly swift movement toward accomplishment of the globalist agenda, in my view. This isn’t shocking, considering all of the other end-of-the-age signals we consistently observe in these columns. The unusual thing I find that activates the sirens of alert is that, other than Israel at the epicenter of global wars and rumors of war, there is no one attention-grabbing issue or event that stands out while looking upon the march of eschatological possibilities. All are profound when viewed in prophetic light, yet they meet in confluence and flow through our daily news without raising much of an alarm, even among those of us who make observing these matters our primary area of work.

We are witnessing a flood of such issues and events. It is, at the moment, a controlled flood, but a flood nonetheless. I’m convinced it is the beginnings of a torrent that will gush ungoverned once Christ says “come up here” to the Church.

Daniel framed the warning of that flood for the generation that would be living witness to the end of the age: “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined” (Dan 9:26).

Daniel was told further: “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Dan. 12:4a).

The flood that the prophet was told would come at the end will be a war that will reach its terminus only after desolation is accomplished–i.e., it will end only with Christ’s catastrophic intervention into the murderous affairs of mankind at the end of Armageddon (Rev. 19:11).

We hear these days, even from secular pundits, that we are already in World War Three but just don’t realize it yet. For my part, I can’t shake the impression that the attacks on America on September 11, 2001 might have been the first of the major salvos from satanic forces opening up the spigots of the end-times flood given Daniel to prophesy to this present generation.

With that as framework, let’s look briefly at the pressures building for bringing in that flood about which Daniel the prophet was given forewarning.

The Babylonian system is with this generation; it has been present within every generation. The system of moving back toward Babel, that is, toward one-world government, socio-economics, and religion has never been as evident as today.

The system of humanistic government, represented in prophetic Scripture by the metallic image of Daniel, chapter 2, the weird beast of Daniel, chapter 7, the strange creature upon which the harlot rides in Revelation, chapter 12, and the beast that comes out of the sea in Revelation, chapter 13, is on the rise while the pressures of ancient Luciferian ambitions force end-times prophetic manifestations to the surface of our headlines.

All of it is wrapped in globalist thinking. We are marching back toward the one-world attempts in Genesis, chapter 11, that brought God’s direct intervention those many millennia ago.

Attempts at establishing one-world government proceed full steam ahead. One-world economy is the driving force behind the attempts to recapture the spirit of Babel. Both global government and economy are intertwined with a religious fervor for saving the planet from ecological disaster. The world’s most powerful governmental collective –the global economic powers that be– are doing their utmost to force their will on the main actors in the Middle East. They strive to construct a peace that will never eventuate, in the true sense. Their purpose is to govern the flow of oil and to prevent Armageddon from igniting.

Global economic control is the power that can bring all into compliance –the ability to bring the burgeoning world population into subjugation through the stranglehold of buying and selling. Environmentalism is the religion that continues to look to be the catalyst for attempting to win the hearts and minds of the peoples of the world. Earth Day seems to be the holiday the globalists have chosen as the sacrosanct day of worship at the altar of the developing Mother Earth goddess.

Regardless of the political, cultural, and societal differences, most all religious systems seem to embrace the call to come together for the unified purpose of making life on this sphere equally livable through sustainable development. Even some so-called Christian evangelicals have their own social order plans to achieve heaven on earth.

But all the pressures being brought upon this world to comply with the globalists’ movement toward one world will produce not peace but fulfilled prophecy. God will again intervene to put an end to the neo-Babel builders.

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure” (Psalms 2:1-5).

While we Watch the humanistic/satanic pressures mount in an attempt to bring about the Antichrist regime, we listen again to Jesus’ Words of great comfort.

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15; emphasis added).

As a younger Christian, I can still vividly remember being deeply convicted by those words you just read. One of my favorite Bible teachers, Ken Ham, regularly incorporates 1 Peter 3:15 into his books, and I believe the Lord used his resources to motivate me to look for answers to the commonly asked questions of our day. One of those commonly asked questions goes something like this: “Isn’t pretribulationism a modern invention? Didn’t John Darby come up with it?” Sometimes you’ll even hear well-intentioned Christians say that pretribulationism (i.e., the belief that the Rapture will occur before the End Times) comes from the Left Behind book series or that it is a belief held by groups on the fringes of mainstream Christianity.

The point of this article is to equip you, the reader, with a quick and easy answer to the titular question. After all, the return of Christ is the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) of believers; therefore, we ought to be prepared to answer questions pertaining to that hope which dwells within our hearts. The short answer is no, pretribulationism is not a new doctrine. It was clearly taught by the Lord Jesus (Luke 21:34-36; Revelation 3:10) and later elaborated on by the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4).

Furthermore, John Darby did not invent the concept (albeit he can be rightly credited with popularizing it). The following passage is attributed to a fourth-century hymnist known as Ephraim, although it may have been written by a later pre-Darby author and then ascribed to the real Ephraim. Nevertheless, here is the text in question:

“We ought to understand thoroughly therefore, my brothers, what is imminent or overhanging. Already there have been hunger and plagues, violent movements of nations and signs, which have been predicted by the Lord, they have already been fulfilled (consummated), and there is not other which remains, except the advent of the wicked one in the completion of the Roman kingdom…. Why therefore do we not reject every care of earthly actions and prepare ourselves for the meeting of the Lord Christ, so that he may draw us from the confusion, which overwhelms all the world? …. For all the saints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins.”¹

Note how Ephraim specifically said that all of God’s people would be gathered before the Tribulation period began. This makes it clear that Ephraim was not talking about believers simply dying and thus being spared from what was to come. He said that all the saints would be drawn from the confusion that will eventually come upon the whole world. His words square well with what we find in Scripture, too:

“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Revelation 3:10).

The Lord Jesus spoke these words to the faithful church at Philadelphia. They, like us, didn’t know exactly when He would return (Matthew 24:36). What they did know, however, was that they would be kept from the dreadful, worldwide “hour of temptation.” Lee Brainard discovered several more references to pretribulationism from Ephraim’s body of work, including this one right here:

“Let us pray the Lord in great humility that he would take us out (remove us) from the coming fear, and count us worthy of that rapture (snatching away) when the righteous are raptured (snatched) in the clouds to the air to meet the king of glory.”²

In closing, this is why we need to be equipped with biblically based answers! We shouldn’t want anyone to “miss the boat” and not be taken out of the way before God’s judgment is poured out on an unrepentant world. It’s evident that Ephraim held to the belief that believers would be taken away before a time of great judgment and difficulty, and he urged his listeners to ready themselves to meet Jesus. In view of these statements, pretribulationism is not a recent invention. In fact, John Darby was born at the turn of the 19^th century – approximately 1,300 years after Ephraim! More importantly, however, we can say that because pretribulationism is biblical, the doctrine precedes Darby by a whopping 1,800 years!

Sources:

Big Picture of Mounting Prophecy Pressures :: By Terry James

Is Pretribulationism a New Doctrine? :: By Angel Torres