Prophecy Q&A with Don Koenig: "Hank Hanegraff thinks premillennialism is a fad that has run its course"

Hank Hanegraff thinks premillennialism is a fad that has run its course

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I received this email about Hank Hanegraff I thought it might be of interest to some.

I first would like to thank you for your very informative and skillfully created website. I find it a very useful tool for defending the faith. I live in Wisconsin in the Milwaukee county area and can listen to Hank Hanegraff radio show on my drive home from work. I find him palatable when he is not talking about the End Times. Unfortunately today (4/17/07) he was promoting another new book on his Preterist views. I was about to change the station when he began telling a story about a man in South Carolina that gave up his faith because he believed Jesus was a false Prophet based on the prophecy that this Generation will not pass away. I believe that Mr. Hanegraff is using this story as a new tactic to help raise doubt in the minds of Rapture believing Christians that our time is running out and we will soon be proven all wrong. He is trying to create a shelf life for believing in the Rapture making it appear as no more than a fad that has run its course. If he is successful in building momentum with the belief that the prophesied Generation has passed away and know Rapture has taken place, could be a major catalyst on the falling away that is to come. I would be very interested Mr. Koenig in what would be the best way to defend against this new tactic since we know the Generation has not yet past away.

Thanks for your very encouraging comments on my website.I am sure Hank Hanegraff thinks people have lost their faith because of his own straw man argument that this generation has passed away. However, he does not really know how that passage should be interpreted because the generation Jesus was talking about may not even begun yet. Even assuming that it started when Israel was born that generation has not died off yet.

Another alternative interpretation of the fig tree parable is from the time Israel captured Jerusalem and made it their capitol but that generation certainly has not passed away either. So if Hanegraff wants to use the argument that some dispensationalists claim that the generation already started he ought to wait at least until the generation actually dies off.

Even if he quotes dispensationalists who use the 1948 date Hanegraff should wait until about 2028 so he can be absolutely sure that the bulk of this generation has passed away before he claims their interpretation of the fig tree parable is wrong.Lets face it the parable of the fig tree interpretation that some dispensationalists use is conjecture anyway because no one knows for sure what the leaves represent on the fig tree. The context of the passage apart from the parable of the fig tree would imply that Jesus was talking about the generation that started seeing the signs that Jesus just spoke about and that this is the generation that would not pass away until all is fulfilled.

So Hanegraff puts up a straw man argument and then knocks the straw man down with fringedispensationalist arguments that most dispensationalists have never dogmatically claimed. He then implies that people are losing their faith in Jesus because they believed a fringe dispensationalist interpretation of the passage that a generation would be 40 or 50 years from the birth of the new state of Israel.

Hanegraff claims a story about a man loosing His faith because apparently he believed the rapture was coming and it did not come within the time that this man allotted. So obviously this man’s faith was never based on belief that Jesus is the Messiah it was based on his assumption that if Jesus was the Messiah He would fulfill his own view of when Jesus would return. The man obviously was not saved, there is no conditional faith in Jesus. Either you believe or you do not. People are saved when they believe in Jesus not when they presume Jesus will return.

In the days when premillennial theology was on its ascendancy and were the majority of his listeners I did not hear Hank Hanegraff taking a preterist stand on eschatology. I believe he generally took the position that he was not convinced on any eschatology. Now that the post modern churches have downplayed Bible prophecy Hank is apparently going with the majority flow and taking a position against premillennial theology. I believe he takes this position because thanks to people like Rick Warren the church is now very much dumbed down on premillennial Bible prophecy doctrine. The majority amillennial denominations combined with the preteristsand the post-millennial are now the vast majority of his audience. Like any opportunist he is giving his audience what they want and he is making profit from it.

The Bible tells us that scoffers would come in the last days mocking those who are teaching the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Hank Hanegraff and many like him are fulfilling this prophecy made to the Church. We should not be surprised that people in the last days will not endure sound doctrine because that also was foretold (2Ti4:3).

Having said all that, I do not think true Christians will fall away from the faith because people like HankHanegraff discount the soon return of Jesus Christ and any literal future fulfillment of prophetic passages.

Some may fall away from Christian identity because they only identified with the concepts but any true believer can not deny the Spirit within. The Holy Spirit Himself witnesses to true Christians that the return of Jesus is very soon. Any astute person in Christ can see that the world can not go on much longer on its present course. We see Sodom and antichrist views rising in the world and we know that judgment must soon come. All signs and world trends now point in that direction.Frankly, most amillennial and post-millennial believers seem much more interested in setting up their own little kingdom right here on earth without Jesus.

The best way we can defend against those who teach against premillennialism is using clear biblical doctrine. Those who have ears to hear will hear. Those who are sleeping or are caught up with the affairs of this world will not know the time of His coming and they will get what they really wanted anyway. That is, they will get more time to live in their flesh on earth.