Armageddon Now! The Premillenarian Response to Russia and Israel Since 1917 DWIGHT WILSON Institute for Christian Economics Tyler, Texas copyright @ 1991 Dwight Wilson Printed in the United States of America Published by Institute for Christian Economics P.O. Box 8000 Tyler, Texas 75711 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wilson, Dwight. Armageddon now! : the premillenarian response to Russia and Israel since 1917 / Dwight Wilson. O~g@~mpublished: Grand Rapids, Mich.. : Baker Book House, 1977. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-930464-58-3 (hard : alk. paper) : $25.00. -ISBN 0-930464-57-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) :$9.95 1. Millennialism – Controversial literature. 2. Bible–Prophecies- Soviet Union– History. 3. Bible–Prophecies –Israel-History. I. Title. [BT891.W54 1991] 236’.9–dc2O 91-39999 Acknowledgments No matter how independently conceived or carried out, every historical study is the product of a community of scholars. That fact is particularly true of this study. Special thanks are due to Page Smith for graciously guiding this disciple at the University of California, Santa Crux, where the studies resulting in this book were pursued, and also to John Dizikes of UCSC for fortifying my ambition to chase my own peculiar interests. I would be remiss if I were not to formally acknowledge my obvious in- tellectual debt to Ernest R. Sandeen and Samuel S. Hill, Jr. Librarians are either the most helpful people in the world, or perhaps simply the people whom I most ask for help. Whatever the case, the UCSC Interlibrary Loan Librarian, Joan Hodgson, has given efficient, courteous service to a multitude of requests. The staff of the Biola Library, including Arnold D. Ehlert, Jan Mayer, Gerald Gooden, and Robert Bamattre, rendered not only competent service but red-carpet treatment. Each of the following librarians provided service far beyond expectations: Walter Osborn, Moody Bible Institute; Jewell Carter, Golden Gate Baptist The- ological Seminary; and Stuart Compton, Simpson College. My thanks also to the library staffs of the Pacific School of Religion, the Graduate Theological Union, San Francisco Theological Semi- nary, Central Bible College, Bethany Bible College, the University of Utah, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley. Without the encouragement of my wife, Kathryn, these studies would never have begun. She has graciously shouldered some of my responsibilities without complaint, proofread the early drafts, and provided beautiful companionship. The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf A mischievous lad, who was set to mind some sheep, used, in jest, to cry “Wolf! Wolf?’ When the people at work in the neighboring fields came running to the spot he would laugh at them for their pains. One day the wolf came in reality, and the boy this time called “Wolf! Wolf!” in earnest; but the men, having been so often deceived, disregarded his cries, and the sheep were left at the mercy of the wolf. —Aesop Contents Publisher's Preface by Gary North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Foreword (1991 Printing). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2. Before Balfour and Bolsheviks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3. Armageddon-Almost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 4. The Twenties Roar Faintly-Bear, Beast, and Young Lions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 5. Balfour Betrayed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 6. Mobilizing for Armageddon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 7. The Century's Greatest Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 8. From Sinful Alliance to Christian Realism . . . . . . . . . . . 144 9. The Certainty of Survival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 10. Jerusalem! What Now?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 11. Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Selected Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Scripture Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Publisher’s Preface by Gary North This work on the whole will be more a tool in the hands of antipremillenarians then a help to premillenarians, but premillenarians willing to be self-critical will find his presentation is at least partially justified. Students of proph- ecy will do well to study this volume carefully for its com- prehensive view of premillennial interpretation over the last sixty years and to learn from it many important lessons ap- plicable to interpretation today. -John F. Walvoord, 19801 Dr. Walvoord’s prediction that Dwight Wilson’s Armageddon Now! would become a tool for anti-premillenarians is perhaps the most accurate prediction he made during his long career. It was an easy prediction to make. That a postmillennial publisher has now republished Dr. Wilson’s book is no more remarkable than the fact that a mainly amillennial publishing firm, Baker Book House, published it in the first place. The manuscript was seen as a hot potato by dispensational publishing houses back in the mid-1970’s. The book still is. Unfortunately for his disciples but fortunately for his bank account, Dr. Walvoord did not take seriously the “many im- 1. J. F. Walvoord, “Review of Armageddon Now!,” Bibliotheca Sacra (April/ June 1980), pp. 177-78. ix x Armageddon Now! portant lessons applicable to interpretation today” that Dr. Wilson had offered in 1977. In late 1990, Walvoord revised his 1974 book, Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis, and it sold over a million and a half copies — a million by February, 1991.2 It did so by rejecting Dr. Wilson’s warning: do not use sensational interpretations of Bible prophecy in order to sell books. If you do, you will look like a charlatan in retrospect, and you will also injure the reputation of Christ and His Church. But the lure of sensationalism was apparently too great. The latest dispensational feeding frenzy for prophecy books was in full force as the United States moved toward war in the Middle East in January, 1991. It was at that point that Walvoord publicly rejected. his earlier belief in the “any-moment Rapture” doctrine. This was proof that he had abandoned tra- ditional scholarly dispensationalism and had adopted the pop- dispensationalism of Hal Lindsey, Dave Hunt, and Constance Cumbey-what I like to call dispensensationalism. (His col- leagues at Dallas Theological Seminary remained, as always, dis- creetly silent. They know exactly how their bread is buttered: by donations from laymen who thoroughly enjoy an occasional feeding frenzy.) The leaders of American dispensationalism have not resisted the lure of huge book royalties and a few moments in the public spotlight which the doctrine of “today’s ticking clock of proph- ecy” offers to them. In an interview in the national newspaper, USA Today (Jan. 19, 1991), three days after the U.S. attacked Iraq, a theologically well-informed reporter asked Dr. Walvoord: “So the prophetic clock is ticking?” Walvoord answered emphati- cally, “Yes.””He had begun the interview with this assertion: “Bible prophecy is being fulfilled every day.” This was an about-face of astounding proportions on his part. He threw out a lifetime of scholarship for a moment of fame. He sold his theological birthright for a pot of message-a sensational message that sells newspapers and paperback books. He sold out ortho- dox dispensationalism in general and what little remains of or- thodox dispensationalism at Dallas Theological Seminary.3 2. Time (Feb. 11, 1991). 3. The revised curriculum at Dallas, introduced in the fall of 1991, indicates how little of that tradition remains. Publisher’s Preface xi Dispensationalism’s Clock of Prophecy The doctrine of the clock of prophecy is central to dispensa- tional theology. But what no paperback dispensationalist proph- ecy book of the This Time, Armageddon Really Is Near! variety ever discusses is that orthodox dispensationalism officially affirms a non-ticking clock in this, the so-called Church Age. If the clock of Old Testament prophecy begins ticking again in the Church Age (pre-Rapture), then there is judicial continuity be- tween Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church. Specific judgments of God in history, announced by the proph- ets of Israel, would be fulfilled in the era of the Church. Such a view of fulfilled prophecy undermines the theology of dispen- sationalism, which stresses the Church as a “Great Parenthesis” which was neither known nor prophesied about in the Old Tes- tament. The New Testament Church (pre-Rapture) supposedly has no connection whatsoever with the dispensation of the Mosaic law. Therefore, if the prophecies of the Old Testament apply to the Church in any sense rather than exclusively to na- tional Israel, the entire dispensational system collapses. C. I. Scofield understood this clearly. Dispensationally speak- ing, there can be no biblically prophesied event in between the founding of the Church and the Rapture. Citing Matthew 4:17b, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," Scofield wrote: “‘At hand’ is never a positive affirmation that the person or thing said to be ‘at hand’ will immediately appear, but only that no known or predicted event must intervene.”4 Therefore, the Rapture can take place at any moment. But if this is true, then its corollary is also necessarily true: the Rapture cannot be said to be imminent for our generation. It may be, but it may not be. An orthodox dispensationalist cannot legitimately say when it will be, one way or the other. The Rapture cannot le- gitimately be said to be almost inevitable tomorrow, next month, or next year. Edgar Whisenant’s 88 reasons for the Rapture in September, 1988, were wrong-all 88 of them.5 So 4. Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1909), p. 998, note 3. 5. Edgar C. Whisenant, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. It was also published as The Rosh Hash Ana 1988 and 88 Reasons Why (1988). The name is pronounced “WHIZnant.” xii Armageddon Now! were his (revised) 89 reasons for 1989.6 (As Stayskill put in a cartoon, how many reasons will they offer for the Rapture in the year 2000?) Walvoord’s Warning in 1979 It was this traditional dispensational doctrine of no interven- ing prophesied events that John Walvoord emphatically taught his students in the 1970’s.7 In Walvoord’s academic book, The Rapture Question (1979), he openly rejected the “ticking today” interpretation of Bible prophecy, and for a very good theological reason: it denies the traditional dispensational doctrine of the any-moment Rapture. If any prophecies are being fulfilled today, he wrote, this would mean that there are events in the Church Age that must come true prior to the Rapture. Therefore, the Rapture could not come at any moment prior to the fulfillment of these prophecies. Such a view of “signs being fulfilled in our day” denies the doctrine of the any-moment Rapture. Walvoord saw clearly in 1979 that the doctrine of inter- mediate prophetic events leads to mid-tribulationalism or post- tribulationism, or even worse, to postmillennialism. In a subsection, “No Intervening Events,“ in a chapter called “The Imminency of the Rapture,” Walvoord wrote: “The hope of the return of Christ to take the saints to heaven is presented in John 14 as an imminent hope. There is no teaching of any intervening event. The prospect of being taken to heaven at the coming of Christ is not qualified by description of any signs or pre- requisite events.”8 This is the heart of the formal theology of pre-tribulational, premillennial dispensationalism. Nevertheless, there is a major problem with the doctrine of the any-moment Rapture: it reduces sales of books that pro- mote the idea that Bible prophecy is being fulfilled today. These “hot news” paperback prophecy books sell well, some- 6. A 1989 Associated Press story reported on Whisenant’s revised predictions. The Rapture was due in September, 1989. He published The Final Shout: Rap- ture Report- 1989. ‘The time is short,” he said. “Everything points to it. All the evidence has piled up.” TyIer Morning Telegraph (Aug. 25, 1989). Some- thing had surely piled up, but it was not evidence. 7. I was told this by a DTS graduate, Rev. Ray R. Sutton. 8. John F. Walvoord, The Rapture Question, revised and enlarged edition (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1979), p. 73. Publisher’s Preface xiii times very well. No dispensational author who writes one of these popular books –and these days, most of the movement’s leaders write them–is ever willing to devote the Introduction or the first chapter of his book to a theological discussion of why the events of his day cannot possibly be fulfillments of Bible prophecy if the orthodox dispensational eschatology is correct. Such a discussion would kill the excitement of the reader in hearing “the latest word” about fulfilled prophecy. Unexciting Bible prophecy books do not become best-sellers. Oswald T. Allis, a postmillennial critic of dispensationalism, commented in 1945 on this schizophrenic aspect of dispensa- tional authors: “One of the clearest indications that Dispensa- tionalists do not believe that the rapture is really ‘without a sign, without a time note, and unrelated to other prophetic events’ [he cited Scofield, What Do the Prophets Say?, p. 97] is the fact that they cannot write a book on prophecy without devoting a considerable amount of space to ‘signs’ that this event must be very near at hand. . . . This is of course quite incompatible with their any moment doctrine.”9 In late 1990 and early 1991, a huge increase in the sales of “ticking clock” dispensational prophecy books once again proved him correct on this point.10 A Publishing Coup in the First Half of 1991 In 1974, the year following the beginning of the oil crisis, Dr. Walvoord wrote one of these paperback potboilers, Arma- geddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis. Eventually, it went out of print. In late 1990, it was resurrected from the dead.11 The headlines about the imminent war in Kuwait were too powerful a temptation. They offered him a unique opportunity to revive his career at age 80. Since the first version of the book had 9. Oswald T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church (Philadelphia Presbyterian & Reformed, 1945), pp. 174, 175. 10. Scott Baradell, “Prophets of Doom: We’re a leg up on Armageddon,” Dallas Times Herald (Sept. 8, 1990); Edwin McDowell, “World Is Shaken, and Some Booksellers Rejoice,” New York Times (Oct. 22, 1990); “Prophecy Books Become Big Sellers” Christianity Today (March 11, 1991); Nancy Kruh, “The End,” Dallas Morning News (Feb. 17, 1991). 11. I like to think of this as Dr. Walvoord’s “Lazarus” book. Paraphrasing Martha’s comment to Jesus: “But after 15 years in the tomb, it stinketh!”