Thousands expect Israel to play a major role in God's future plan for earth. Many people today consider the restoration of the Jewish nation in Palestine to be a direct and dramatic fulfilment of Bible prophecy. During this great tribulation the focus will be on God's dealings with the Jews, who are again given the responsibility for the evangelization of the world. When mankind teeters on the brink of incinerating the world, Jesus will return gloriously and save man from self-extinction. Most evangelical periodicals and pulpits teach this view today, and to those who do not know better, it might appear that this prophetic scenario, known as pretribulationism, has been the traditional teaching of the Christian church since New Testament days.
Nothing is further from the truth.
The First Mistake - Dispensationalism Four mistakes in Biblical interpretation united in the nineteenth century to produce the pretribulationist argument. The first, called dispensationalism, was developed by J. N. Darby of the Plymouth Brethren in England around 1825. Originally formed as a protest against the spiritual weakness of the Church of England, the Plymouth Brethren eventually rejected the whole concept of church organisation and the ordained ministry. The grace period is the time of the Christian church from Pentecost to the moment when the last person is added to the spiritual church. The Second Mistake - Secret Rapture.