As I look around at all the spiritual deception entering into the church from every side, there is one thing that comforts me in spite of all the darkness: The Blessed Hope!! Knowing that Jesus Christ can return at any time to receive His Bride to Himself gives me a joyous excitement that I can barely contain. Maranatha! Even so Lord, come!

The Blessed Hope carries me through every trial and tribulation this world dishes out. Even as I heed my Lord's admonition to "Watch... Be Alert...Take Heed," forces have arisen to try to rob me of my hope. Even those in the church whose eyes are open to the forming of the Great Apostasy (2 Thes. 2) and who are otherwise diligent in recognizing the signs of the times, have come against me on this issue.

Recently a Christian on a computer list serve I'm on referred to the Pre-Trib rapture as: a "straw man; garbage taught of men; and "false doctrine." It's a mystery to me as to why Post-Trib adherents consistently assault the Pre-Trib position, yet I never see that the other way around, and yet Pre-Tribbers are just as confident in their position as the Post-Tribbers are in theirs.

On the very day that I received that ugly post from the list serve, I turned on my TV to the Inspirational Network and caught the act of a teacher named Doug Batchelor. He was assailing the idea of what he called "a secret rapture" and called it a "doctrine of devils" and then went on to attack the teaching of a literal 7-year Tribulation period and the millennial rule of Christ on earth. I looked up his "Amazing Facts" WebPage and found that he was a 7th Day Adventist. However, his WebPages didn't reveal that, but I did a word search on his name to discover that. In fact, his TV show purposefully tried to hide their Adventist affiliation, no doubt, in order to draw unsuspecting Christians.

So if cultists and professing Christians hate the "Great Hope" so much it must mean that the devil really hates it. Then there's the dominionists and the reconstructionists in the church who ridicule us and say we have an "escapist mentality" and we're accused of being wimps for believing that we will escape the antichrist's persecution.

And if all that wasn't bad enough, now we get categorized with the prophecy teachers on TV who agree with our position on the Blessed Hope, but who are falling headlong into the apostasy in many cases. For instance, there's Jack Van Impe, who points to Pope John Paul II as the one making ready the way for the coming of Christ. In other words, he's pointing to the pope as the fulfillment of the coming of Elijah. Then there's Hal Lindsey, who has a history of teaching sound doctrine, now pointing to the apparitions of Mary as a sign from God of the nearness of the Lord's return. This man used to confront the Word-faith heresies appearing on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), but now enjoys his own show on TBN as his reward for his silence. Others, like Grant Jeffrey, picked up on the Bible Code nonsense and is trying to pass that off on the church as revelation from God. So the truth that they do stand for gets muddled with their errors and we all suffer as a result.

The truth is that the exact timing of the Rapture is clouded in mystery, and I think intentionally by God. We're told in Hebrews 9:28: "To those who eagerly wait for Him, He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation." We Pre-Tribbers are the ones looking for Christ, not the Antichrist. The virgins with the oil in their lamps are the ones ready for the return of the Bridegroom. Oil is needed to light the lamp and apparently we need our lamps lit in order to find Him through this darkness. The virgins with the unlit lamps are the ones not watching for Him in the clouds. And you can read what happens to them in Matthew 25.

Unlike the Post-Tribbers we don't have to live with a bunker mentality, growing in paranoia and stockpiling provisions. We can set about our task to rescue as many people as we can from the coming Great Tribulation. The constant expectancy of the Rapture has a great purifying effect on the virgins with the lit lamps. (See 1 Jn. 3:2-3)

Our pastor, Joe Focht, is always fond of saying to the critics of the Blessed Hope, "As your faith is, so be it done unto you." As pastor of Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, he is being true to the name, for Jesus made this promise to the church of Philadelphia: "I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth" (Rev. 3:10). Notice He said "keep you from" the trial, not "keep you through" the trial, as post-tribbers suppose.

And, if the virgins without their lamps lit do not get to go to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, then they will be left behind and the snatching away of the Bride will not be as large an event as some may suppose. It can easily be explained away by the apostate church as some deceptive trick of the devil to make them think they missed the boat.

So, I won't let the false accusations move me in the slightest because I am "looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13).