Generation of Hope

By Paul Brownback

Jesus asserted that no one knows the day and hour of the Rapture. He did, however, leave us with pertinent information regarding the timeframe in which the Rapture will occur. We find that information in the Olivet Discourse, which is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

This book identifies that window of time. It concludes that we are living in the generation that will experience the Rapture. Accurate understanding this issue requires careful examination of the Olivet Discourse and related Scriptures. It especially demands extensive scrutiny of the Parable of the Fig Tree, which is embedded in the Olivet Discourse. It also requires consideration of related historical events. This book provides that analysis.

In addition, scriptural teaching related to the Rapture suggests some surprising and hopeful developments in our current national and global political scene as we approach the Rapture. Those issues are also examined. We live in days when hope seemed to be in short supply. This study identifies reasons to be hopeful.

I trust that this book will not only inform you but also encourage you in your walk with the Lord as you embrace that blessed hope and look for the glorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Brownback
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201921361

Book preview

Generation

of Hope

"From the fig tree

learn its lesson"

Jesus Christ

Generation

of Hope

Hope for the Rapture within Your Lifetime

Hope for Peace and Security until Then

––––––––

Paul Brownback, PhD

© 2021 by Paul Brownback 

Generation of Hope:: Hope for the Rapture within Your Lifetime; Hope for Peace and  Security until Then

By Paul Brownback

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Unless otherwise stipulated, all Scripture quotations in this book are from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, and 1977 by The Lockman Foundation, and are used by permission.

Dedication

To those faithful and courageous Bible scholars

who taught and preached the biblical truth

of the Premillennial, Pretribulation position

even before Israel became a nation in 1948

Table of Contents

Section 1 Foundational Considerations

Chapter 1 What We Can’t and Can Know

Chapter 2 The Importance of Being Raptured

Chapter 3 The Framework of History Future

Section 2 The Olivet Discourse

Chapter 4 Setting of the Olivet Discourse During Holy Week

Chapter 5 Identifying the Sections of the Olivet Discourse

Chapter 6 Contrasting the Two Primary Periods in the Discourse

Chapter 7  The Danger Lurking at the  End of the Church Age

Section 3 The Sign

Chapter 8 The Questions

Chapter 9 The Parable of the Fig Tree

Chapter 10  The Fig Tree

Chapter 11  The Sign of His Coming

Chapter 12 The Terminal Point and Nature of the Window

Section 4 Life Before the Rapture

Chapter 13 The Good News and Bad News

Chapter 14 Hope for the United States

Chapter 15 Hope for China

Chapter 16 What Should Our Response Be?

End Notes

Section 1

Foundational Considerations

Hopeless

Hopelessness seems to be the term best describing the times in which we live. And for good reason. The United States appears to be disintegrating into a banana republic. It is now controlled by a president who rules like a dictator by employing executive mandates. The situation is especially dangerous because his decisions reflect that he is either incapacitated or controlled by forces bent on destroying America. For example, his promotion of illegal immigration is inflicting untold damage on our nation on many counts. Congress spends money as if there were no tomorrow and on projects destructive to our nation. The deep state, controlled by left-wing forces, exercises vast powers out of reach of the electoral process. At a societal level, we have hit a moral rock-bottom, with promiscuity of all sorts not only escalating but celebrated. Not only has lying become a standard political tactic, but we have even rejected the existence of truth. Our educational institutions teach our young people to hate our nation and the Judeo-Christian foundation on which it was built. This list barely scratches the surface of the self-destructive maladies plaguing America. To make matters worse, it appears that the vote, the one weapon Americans possess to remedy the situation, has now been stolen from us by use of mail-in ballots, vote harvesting, and rigged voting machines.

Globally the picture looks equally as bleak if not worse. At this writing, Pres. Biden has just abdicated in Afghanistan, leaving behind Americans and friends to be slaughtered by the Taliban and a vast cache of weapons for their use. This display of weakness and cluelessness signals to the world that this administration lacks the resolve necessary to deal with our present global dangers. It conveys that our allies can no longer depend on America. Likewise, the European Union imposes destructive policies on its members, punishing those who do not cooperate with their suicidal tendencies. Britain appears to be in total chaos, dominated by a Muslim minority and those using Covid as an excuse for societal control. Western weakness is emboldening the Chinese, Russians, Iran, and other of our enemies. It appears that nothing or no one can stop China’s aggressive behavior.

Hope

This book makes two hopeful claims based on a careful analysis of Scripture: It asserts that the Rapture will occur within this generation.

For the believer, that is really good news. What a great blessing to have confidence based on Scripture that Jesus will return for us in the foreseeable future and take us to heaven. For the unbeliever this reality extends the hope of being included among those raptured by receiving Christ. The indicators in this book that God’s word is true provides them with good reason to embrace that option.

This book also makes the case that good times will precede the Rapture. It dispels the error commonly held by many Christians that Christ will return during times of crisis.

If Christ will return during times of peace and security, this means that our current national and global hopeless situation must sometime in the near future make a drastic turn for the better. This book provides a scriptural basis for embracing that conclusion. It also describes the societal and political developments related to this transition. It specifically addresses the prospects for the United States and China.

These hopeful developments find their scriptural source predominantly in the Parable of the Fig Tree, its context in the Olivet Discourse, and in related passages. The primary focus of these passages resides in the days before the Rapture–the days in which we live.

The first three sections of the book deal with the occurrence of the Rapture during this generation. Section 4 explains the prospects for significant improvement in our national and global situation in the near future. The chapter ahead identifies what we can and can’t know about the timing of the Rapture.

Chapter 1

What We Can’t and Can Know

Confusion

No, I am not setting a day and hour for the time of the Rapture. However, this book does examine passages that give us a timeframe within which the Rapture will occur. It specifically focuses on what the Parable of the Fig Tree has to tell us about the timing of the Rapture.

Whenever I discuss the timing of the Rapture, I find myself inundated by a chorus of voices reciting to me the passages asserting that no one can know the day or the hour. Armed with this Scripture, they lump me in with the rogues gallery of date-setters of history past, confident that I will lead a group of scripturally illiterate Jim Jones Kool-Aid drinkers out onto some mountaintop in white robes, holding torches, and waiting for the Rapture—just another misguided preacher bringing disrepute on the name of Christ and abject embarrassment to His people.

I believe it was back in the 1980s. I was pastoring at the time. A self-proclaimed prophecy scholar had calculated, based on some Old Testament passage, that the Rapture would occur that weekend. For some reason, this proclamation gained traction, even getting coverage in the secular media. Consequently, this issue became a widespread topic of conversation among the general public. I recall a woman, confident that she would be raptured, tearfully stressing over what would become of her dog.

On the church marquee, I announced as my sermon topic for that Sunday: Jesus Is Not Coming Back This Weekend. The church was packed with people eager to hear my explanation. Actually, Jesus could have come back that weekend, but I figured that He would not do so and give credibility to this date-setting prophecy scholar. As it turned out, I was right.

What We Can’t Know

This confusion leads us to ask what we can’t and can know about the timing of the Rapture. When Dan Rather was anchor for CBS news, he had occasion to report on various crises. At such times many rumors circulate resulting in great confusion. He attempted to cut through the chaos by identifying specifically what we did know and what we didn’t know regarding the situation. This approach enabled him to separate rumor from fact, bringing a semblance of clarity to our understanding.

Scripture enables us to apply a similar template regarding the Rapture. In Matthew 24:36 Jesus explicitly tells us that we don’t and can’t know the precise time of His return. He asserts,  But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. He also makes the same assertion in Mark 13:32, using the terms day or hour. Based on this teaching, the day and hour of the Rapture constitutes the best-kept secret in all history.

From all indication, Jesus intended that we take the expression day and hour at face value. Consequently, He is specifically asserting that we cannot know the actual day and hour when the Rapture will occur. He could have stated that no one has any idea as to the time of His return, but He did not say that. Rather, He expressly emphasized that it is the day and hour, the precise time, that no one knows. This leaves open the possibility of knowing the general time of His return, of identifying a window during which this will occur. 

In fact, asserting that we can know nothing at all about the timing of the Rapture turns out to be a major mistake. This assertion contradicts the teachings of Christ, who provides us with a significant body of information regarding the general time of His return. Putting that information off limits prevents God’s people from gleaning helpful biblical input that apparently Christ intended us to know. Since all Scripture is profitable, ignoring passages that teach us about the return of Christ deprives us of some scriptural profit.

Perhaps a larger lesson here resides in the truth that Scripture must be interpreted with precision. When Jesus explicitly uses terms such as day and hour, it is misleading to make this teaching say more than that, and doing so prevents us from learning from the information Jesus gives related to the timing of His return for His church..

What We Can Know

It is interesting that the passage of Scripture telling us what we can’t know about the Rapture, the day and hour, is also the one telling us what