Some observations on futurism.

 Some observations regarding futurist teachings, teachers and the history of futurism.

Preterists point out what scripture clearly states, while futurists keep trying to change the subject, make personal attacks to discredit their opponent, bring up off topic subjects to try to turn the debate from the topic under discussion. We see all of these ploys used in political debate and activities. If you can't argue the topic, and win by your logic and proofs, then sway the attention to something else.

Futurists have an idea, foundational includes an idealized physical view of what the Messianic kingdom is to be like. Second is that the return of Christ is to establish his kingdom upon the earth, with a New Jerusalem, royal city, a huge cube of a city, whose sides are 1,500 miles long. From this massive city the Messiah Jesus will rule over the earth, there will be no death, everyone will live for ever, no sickness, no sorrow any where on the whole of the planet earth. There will be no sin, sin causes sorrow, sickness and death after all.

Futurists then look around their modern world and say, "This is not the ideal of the Messianic kingdom that I believe in, therefor Christ has not returned and established his kingdom upon the earth, therefor his return MUST BE YET FUTURE."

Futurists then go back to the scriptures that foretell the return of Messiah to establish his kingdom and work out ways that the events foretold to take place during that time will happen.

This is one of the most dishonest hermeneutic (interpretive models) that any theologian, bible scholar, bible teacher can use. Using this method of interpretation any authority can twist the plain and simple language of the scriptures to mean any thing they want it to and the reason they are supported in this falsehood is that they claim a special authority.

They claim to have a special authority based on a special education, or a special anointing, or a special revelation that gives them the authority to define words, terms and phrases in a way that is not normal and plain English, Greek, or Hebrew. And the people who accept their teaching do so based on their claimed, supposed authority. 


History of the futurist view.
 
The any moment return of Christ and rapture of the church that is believed on in most if not all of Evangelical churches was first taught by John Darby. His influence was the writings of one or two others suggesting a future fulfillment of eschatology, and the special revelation of a prophetess who was very popular in a revival in his life time.

John was one of the founding teachers of the Plymouth Brethren movement in Britain, which also founded chapels in the USA. John traveled and taught in lecture halls throughout Britain, Europe and the USA. His teaching developed a small following of a few thousand people, who formed Brethren chapels to gather in and learn John Darby's teaching.

"John Nelson Darby (18 November 1800 – 29 April 1882) was an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, one of the influential figures among the original Plymouth Brethren and the founder of the Exclusive Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism and Futurism. Pre-tribulation rapture theology was popularized extensively in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren, and further popularized in the United States in the early 20th century by the wide circulation of the Scofield Reference Bible."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nelson_Darby

Any one within the Brethren movement who disagreed with John in teaching or practice,  received a letter of excommunication and all the chapels were notified of John's decree against the errant one. This caused many other Brethren groups to be formed, not directly associated with John Darby's group.

What brought the large acceptance of John Darby's new eschatological teaching was the acceptance of it by Scofield, and his inclusion of them as study notes in his edition of the bible.

"The Scofield Reference Bible is a widely circulated study Bible edited and annotated by the American Bible student Cyrus I. Scofield, which popularized dispensationalism at the beginning of the 20th century. Published by Oxford University Press and containing the entire text of the traditional, Protestant King James Version, it first appeared in 1909 and was revised by the author in 1917. [1] "

"The Scofield Bible was published only a few years before World War I, a war that destroyed the cultural optimism that had viewed the world as entering a new era of peace and prosperity; then the post-World War II era witnessed the creation in Israel of a homeland for the Jews. Thus, Scofield's premillennialism seemed prophetic. "At the popular level, especially, many people came to regard the dispensationalist scheme as completely vindicated."[4] Sales of the Reference Bible exceeded two million copies by the end of World War II.[5] The Scofield Reference Bible promoted dispensationalism, the belief that between creation and the final judgment there would be seven distinct eras of God's dealing with man and that these eras are a framework for synthesizing the message of the Bible.[6] It was largely through the influence of Scofield's notes that dispensationalism grew in influence among fundamentalist Christians in the United States. Scofield's notes on the Book of Revelation are a major source for the various timetables, judgments, and plagues elaborated on by popular religious writers such as Hal Lindsey, Edgar C. Whisenant, and Tim LaHaye;[7] and in part because of the success of the Scofield Reference Bible, twentieth-century American fundamentalists placed greater stress on eschatological speculation. Opponents of biblical fundamentalism have criticized the Scofield Bible for its air of total authority in biblical interpretation, for what they consider its glossing over of biblical contradictions, and for its focus on eschatology.[8]"


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scofield_Reference_Bible

In the early 20th century, Fundamentalism was growing. A great war came, WW1,then WW2, Israel was reestablished as a nation at the end of it, and Scofields King James Bible annotated with Study Notes was wildly popular and because of current events considered to be prophetically accurate.

Popular opinion provided the seed bed for John Darby's special revelation to be accepted in the Fundamentalist and Evangelical movements. From the seed of the Scofield bible, containing the teaching of John Darby, we today have the great tree of dispensationalist and futurist belief widely held among the Fundamentalist and Evangelical churches.