Pretrib Hypocrisy

Great Calamity Is Near—Many Lives Will Be Swept Away!

Easter Sunday, 2010

I speak unto thee I say that it is true that there is great calamity nigh at hand. I say there is great calamity nigh at hand and men shall be taken in utter dismay, surprise, not knowing what to do. I say that lives will be swept away, devoured and destroyed by the calamity that comes. I say do not fret neither be afraid but trust in me. I say that it is me the Living God who will make use of the same, even though many will lose their lives, others will be redeemed. I say you will see that it does kindle the harvest that is at hand. You will see that it does kindle the urgency with which you labor. Therefore I say do not live in fear and dread, but live in faith in me. I say that it is me the Living God who has spoken it and it shall be, for I have ordained it. I say thank me, thank me, and praise me. I say do not be in trembling and fear but be walking in the fear of me. For it is me the Living God who is well-able to keep my own. I say thank me that it is me that you serve. Thank me that it is me that you follow after.

I speak unto thee I say be ever uplifted, guided, directed and instructed by me, for I am thy mainstay. I say if it is me the Living God that you will keep your focus, your vision upon, if it is me that you will obey, seek to please and follow after, you will see that yes, I always make the way. I say that my people are not meant to be living in fear, that is the fear of what is coming upon the land. But I say that my people are meant to be confident ever confident in me. I say this day let it be me that you will continue to look to, to believe, to trust and obey. I say you are meant to come forth in the truth, the light, the strength of who I am. I say you are meant to be receiving of the blessedness that is found in me. I say in a wayward, a perverse, a twisted generation, give me thanks, give me praise that it is me who does direct thy paths, that you do not need to be in fear, that you do not need to be in tribulation of mind but you can be steady in me. I say thank me and praise me.

HAVE YOU BEEN SAVED? JESUS IS REAL!! PRAY LIKE THIS.

Dear Jesus, I come to you with all the sins I've committed and I beg you to forgive me. Rescue me from eternal damnation in Hellfire. I confess that I am a sinner and that I cannot save myself. Don't let me die in my sins. Please cleanse my body, soul and spirit with your precious blood. I need your help and I ask you to come and live in my heart. I want to serve you, obey your commands and do what is right. I want to live for you everyday and receive everlasting life. Please lead and guide me by your Spirit into righteousness. Help me live a clean and holy life that is pleasing unto God. Thank you Jesus for hearing and answering my prayer. Amen! Read the BIBLE!

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INTRODUCTION

To Articles by Dave MacPherson, Pretrib Rapture Expert

WE HAVE PERSONALLY KNOWN Bro. Dave and his wife Wanda MacPherson since the mid-1990's. We first met at our southern NM Mission (bordering Texas) where we spent the day together, did a radio broadcast and had good Christian fellowship. We met again in 2002 at his home in Utah where we visited all day and talked “pretrib rapture” talk. We have corresponded thru the years off and on.

Dave spent over 25 years (up to the time of his book The Rapture Plot) in intensive research in the source documents and on-site investigation of early 19th century dispensationalism. He is considered by other Bible scholars to be the world’s leading scholar on the origin of the pretrib rapture along with its history of development. After reading all his books, the last published in 1998 called The Three R’s—Rapture, Revisionism, Robbery, I can say I find his work to be quite meticulous and unquestionably accurate...and no one of the pretrib camp has proven him WRONG!

Dave spend 26 years as a newsman. This naturally brought him in contact with world dignitaries, presidents and notable persons/events. He is not merely a novice researcher/author. And we can say surely that God helped him on the rapture issue.

In Dave’s 1975 The Incredible Cover-Up—Exposing the Origins of Rapture Theories (which combines two previously published books), he examines the origin and effects of this “loved” pretrib rapture theory. The Rapture Plot covers more ground, and I guarantee you, you will be “caught-up” in intrigue as well as disgust by what he uncovers—the dirty tricks that famous named preachers/teachers/authors/movie-makers pull off to promote their “PET” and “cherished” doctrine.

With this said and done, we present several articles of interest (you had better be interested if you believe in a pretrib “rapture”!), some of which reveal how today’s leading pretrib teachers/authors tamper with Margaret Macdonald’s original (handwritten) account of her (rapture) “revelation” of 1830—the very “revelation” which spawned this whole “Pretrib Rapturemania.

Deceiving and Being Deceived

by Dave MacPherson (emphasis added)

YOU'VE PROBABLY HEARD that the pretribulation rapture view was published by a Rev. Morgan Edwards in 1788 and also by a Medieval writer called Pseudo-Ephraem 1000 years earlier. The Edwards claim (promoted by John Bray and copied by Frank Marotta, Thomas Ice, Tim LaHaye etc.) is based on a 1980 book by Thomas McKibbens and Kenneth Smith, while the claim for Pseudo-Ephraem (promoted by Grant Jeffrey and copied by Thomas Ice, J. R. Church, Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, Chuck Missler, Dave Hunt, Hal Lindsey etc.) rests on a 1985 book by Paul Alexander.

Not only have these promoters covered up and twisted what McKibbens/Smith and Alexander have written, but they’ve also concealed and perverted Morgan Edwards’ and Pseudo-Ephraem’s own words! Let’s focus first on Morgan Edwards (hereafter: M.E.). Promoters see a pretrib rapture in the following words by M.E.: “...the dead saints will be raised, and the living changed at Christ’s ‘appearing in the air’ (I Thes. iv, 17); and this will be about three years and a half before the millennium....”

If promoters had been sure of their pretrib claim, they never would have had to collusively cover up the following M.E. statements that contradict their claim: On p. 14 M.E. described the “Turkish or Ottoman empire” (which began around 1300 A.D.) as the “beast that started out of the earth” (Rev. 13's second beast). (Since Bray etc. repeatedly claim that M.E. had only a “futurist” outlook, without which M.E. couldn’t have logically expected a pretrib rapture, Bray deliberately skips over the historicism in M.E.’s “Ottoman” remark—historicism being the belief that the tribulation, covering many centuries, began at some point in the distant past.)

On p. 20 M.E. wrote that the “wicked one” (II Thess. 2:8) has “hitherto assumed no higher title than ‘the vicar general of Christ on earth’” and described “Antichrist” as “popery” and a “succession of persons.” (Promoters emphasize M.E.’s comments about the “last” Pope and ignore M.E.’s view that “popery” had “hitherto” (for many centuries) been playing the role of II Thess. 2:8's “wicked one” while wearing a “mask” (as he put it)—a first beast that historicism could easily see during the second beast’s reign! Since historicism—and not preterism or futurism—is the only one of these three schools which often thinks “years” when reading “days” in the Bible, it isn’t surprising to find such year/day historicism in M.E. On p. 19, for example, while discussing Rev. 11‘s two witnesses, M.E. says “there are no more than about 204 years between now and their death: I should therefore expect that their appearance is not far off.” (Bray quotes M.E.’s very next sentence, on another matter, but ignores this one! Could a futurist ever apply a couple of centuries—instead of only 1260 days—to those witnesses?) Something else. The authoritative 1980 book about M.E. that inspired the claim promoted by Bray, Ice, LaHaye etc. never classified M.E.’s view as “pretrib,” or even remotely resembling it, and the book’s authorship had the same conclusion when later interviewed by both phone and correspondence!

And when Thomas Ice’s “Pre-Trib Perspectives” newsletter (Sep./Oct., 1995) ran his own article promoting Edwards as a teacher of “pretribulationism“ he couldn’t find any of the heavyweight authorities on Edwards, that he listed and quoted, evaluating that 18th century pastor as a pretrib! In light of the fact that Edwards embraced historicism (which can see some future things yet to be fulfilled) and not pure futurism (which sees no past tribulational fulfillment), it’s easy to believe that Edwards, like some other historicists of that period, saw a three-and-a-half-year period at the end of a 1260-year tribulation—the same percentage a futurist would have if he were to see a period of three and a half days at the end of a 1260-day tribulation; such a percentage would of course be a posttrib view!

At least I don’t have to juggle or cover up historical data to come to such a conclusion!

But now it’s time to analyze Pseudo-Ephraem (hereafter: P-E), the name attached by scholars to manuscripts that were possibly, but not provably, written by the well-known Ephraim the Syrian who lived from 306-373 A.D.

And what’s the discovery in P-E’s early Medieval sermon on the end of the world that’s led pretrib promoters to see pretrib in it? It’s basically these words: “For all the saints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins.” A pretrib rapture is seen by promoters in the phrase “taken to the Lord.” It needs to be emphasized that pretrib in P-E has been palmed off on unsuspecting Christians by promoters seeing rapture aspects in P-E’s sermon where none exist and by covering up such aspects where they do exist in his 10-section sermon! In Section 2, P-E says that the only event that’s “imminent” is “the advent of the wicked one” (that is, Antichrist).

Nevertheless, Grant Jeffrey in his 1995 book, FINAL WARNING, had the audacity to claim that P-E “began with the Rapture using the word ‘imminent’” and added in the next sentence that “Ephraem used the word ‘imminent’ to describe the Rapture.” (If he and other P-E promoters can look at a coming of Antichrist and see a coming of “Christ,” is it any wonder that in his endtime view folks will look at Antichrist and see “Christ”? Ephraim the Syrian, reportedly P-E’s inspiration, said the same thing (SERMO ASCETICUS, I): “Nothing remains then, except that the coming of our enemy, Antichrist, appear....” (Nobody’s ever found even a trace of pretrib in this earlier work!)

In the before-the-tribulation sections, P-E mentions neither a descent of Christ, nor a shout, nor an angelic voice, nor a trumpet of God, nor a resurrection, nor the dead in Christ, nor a rapture, nor meeting Christ. So where does P-E place the rapture? The answer is found in his last section (10) where he writes that after “the sign of the Son of Man” when “the Lord shall appear with great power,” the “angelic trumpet precedes him, which shall sound and declare: Arise, O sleeping ones, arise, meet Christ, because the hour of judgment has come!” (Like Morgan Edwards and Manuel Lacunza, Pseudo-Ephraem has the nasty, non-pretrib habit of blending the rapture with the final advent!) In the July/Sep., 1995 BIBLIOTHECA SACRA, Dallas Seminary’s journal, Thomas Ice and his co-author Timothy Demy pulled off one of the worst revisionisms of P-E ever: when summarizing Section 10 they carefully deleted what P-E included between “trumpet” and “judgment” (deleted the distinctive I Thess. 4 aspects in that posttrib setting), giving unsuspecting readers this utterly misleading condensation: “A trumpet will sound, calling forth the dead to judgment.” But P-E says much more, as can be seen; he places the resurrection of those who sleep in Jesus and the rapture of those who meet Jesus (details found only in I Thess. 4) at the Matt. 24 coming!

A moment ago I said that Edwards and Lacunza had the same rapture/advent blending. Here’s evidence. Edwards in his 1788 work (pp. 21-22) speaks of “the son of man in the clouds, coming to raise the dead saints and change the living....The signs of his coming, in the heavens, will be ‘the trump of God [I Thess. 4:16], vapour and smoke, which will darken the sun and moon [Acts 2:19-20]....’” Lacunza’s 1812 work THE COMING OF MESSIAH IN GLORY AND MAJESTY (Vol. I, p. 113) declares: “...you will find St. Paul and the Gospel speaking one and the same thing: He shall send his angels and they shall gather his elect from the four winds; who can be no other than those very ones who are in Christ, who sleep in Jesus.” (A few have assumed that there’s pretrib in an earlier Catholic, Franciscus Ribera, but in his 16th century Revelation commentary he viewed Rev. 12's “woman” in the tribulation as the Christian Church!)

But let’s go back to Pseudo-Ephraem. Dr. Paul Alexander, the leading authority whose book inspired the P-E claim, is portrayed in Jeffrey’s book, FINAL WARNING, as “perhaps the most authoritative scholar on the writings of the early Byzantine Church.” But this misleading statement, designed to make readers think that Professor Alexander supports the P-E claim, covers up the fact that this world famous scholar sees not even a smidgen of pretrib in the same Medieval writer!

In fact, Alexander writes that the phrase “taken to the Lord” (which has become a bonanza for pretrib history revisionists) means “participate at least in some measure in beatitude.” While Jeffrey and Ice do include this “beatitude” phrase, all P-E promoters carefully avoid revealing that the Catholic doctrine of “beatitude,” according to the NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, has to do with “the highest acts of virtue that can be performed in this life”—works on earth and NOT being raptured off earth! (Elsewhere in his sermon P-E repeats the importance of doing “penance,” because of “our sins,” so that church members will be “sustained” during the tribulation!)

In fact (again), Alexander has two summaries (textual and outline), in chronological order, of P-E’s endtime events. And guess what. Alexander demonstrates both times that P-E saw only one future coming (“Second Coming of Christ” for the “punishment of the Antichrist”) which follows (!) the great tribulation (“tribulation magna lasting three and a half years”)—claim-smashing summaries that self-serving promoters, with malice aforethought, have jointly swept under their “secret rapture” rug!

Since “Dr.” Thomas Ice is the most rabid pretrib defender who’s long promoted the (false) claims for John Darby and, more recently, Edwards and Pseudo-Ephraem, and at the same time covered up or twisted the (true) claims for Margaret Macdonald and the Irvingites, it’s fitting to quote the first sentence of a recent news item: “WorldNetDaily reported on March 7 that a Texas district court has ordered the Tyndale Theological Seminary to pay fines totaling $170,000 for issuing 34 theological degrees without receiving approval from the state education agency.”

This is the Fort Worth seminary that gave the title of “Dr.” to Ice—which is at least an improvement over “Dr.” C. I. Scofield who, in the 1890's, began deceitfully adding “Dr.” to his name instead of waiting for some institution to confer it upon him!

Well, I didn’t mean to write a book here; I merely wanted to share some long covered up facts about pretrib dispensationalism. My 300-page book THE RAPTURE PLOT (with footnotes, index, bibliography, appendices, plus great commendations from leaders...) has the sort of info I’ve just outlined plus much, much more. If you decide to get a copy of my PLOT book, I won’t have to tell you about the rest of the bizarre history of the 171-year-old, British-born pretrib rapture view.

I won’t tell you that the same promoters have used the same unscrupulous, “twistorical” methods to try to discredit Margaret Macdonald, the real pretrib originator in early 1830, and cover up the fact that other partial rapturists who followed her and taught the same thing have all been classified as pretribs!

I won’t tell you that promoters who claim that John Darby was pretrib as early as 1827 won’t admit that he then had only his “heavenly church” theme, that he was still clearly posttrib as late as a Dec., 1830 article (he was waiting “to meet Him in the air in order to His judging of the nations”), that he wasn’t clearly pretrib before 1839, that in 1839 Darby’s only pretrib basis was Rev. 12's “man child” symbol (which symbol had been Edward Irving’s pretrib basis since 1831!), that in his 1991 book (p. 100) R. A. Huebner admitted that his source for his 1827 claim for Darby could just as easily refer to something completely un-rapturesque, and that Ice since 1991 has covered this up and continues to declare, while searing his conscience, that Huebner “documents” his belief that Darby was pretrib in 1827!

I won’t tell you that all of Darby’s so-called “thoughts” which promoters for generations have claimed led him to pretrib (thoughts like the “Gentile parenthesis,” “Church/Israel dichotomy,” and the “literal method”) were taught by others much earlier and that he subtly plagiarized them! (Dispensationalist scholars must have known that airing even a tiny fraction of this would have been a deathblow to their system!)

I won’t tell you that throughout most of the 1800's the leading church historians—whether Irvingite or (Plymouth) Brethren—overwhelmingly credited the Macdonald/Irvingite orbit with pretrib; none credited Darby!

I won’t tell you that in 1880, a year after his Christian conversion, C. I. Scofield was in jail in St. Louis for forgery (he’d stolen his mother-in-law’s life savings by means of a real estate scam; would most non-Christian crooks do this?), that after he deserted his wife and children she divorced him in 1883 and he remarried three months later and covered everything up, and that as late as 1899 he still owed thousands of dollars he’d stolen 20 years earlier and had been writing phony lOU’s to keep from paying back the money!

I won’t tell you that after Darby’s death in 1882, the editor of his many books, William Kelly, plotted to steal credit for pretrib away from the Macdonald/Irvingite connection and give it posthumously to Darby, that he achieved this between 1889 and 1903 by changing and covering up portions of early Irvingite and Brethren documents, and that 20th century British and American publishers have conspired to continue this historical revisionism in order to enjoy phenomenal sales of pretrib rapture material!

And I won’t tell you that during the past century and a half, some of the most influential pretrib rapture books, by British as well as American authors, have been filled with sloppy scholarship and, what’s worse, breathtaking amounts of plagiarism and even occultic teachings mixed in with evangelical theology!

Or that my PLOT book and my later book THE THREE R’S reveal, with comparison quotes and in more or less chronological order, embarrassing plagiarism in writings by John Darby, Joseph Seiss, E. W. Bullinger, Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, Merrill Unger, Jerry Falwell, Ed Dobson, Ed Hindson, Charles Ryrie, David Jeremiah, C. C. Carlson, Paul Tan, Chuck Missler, and Jack Van Impe, for starters!

Finally, let me say that although I’ve been researching rapture roots more than 30 years now, I’ve been into computers only a relatively short time. The discovery of the extent to which misinformation about the pretrib origin has been circling the earth at computer speed still boggles my mind! But authors are only part of the problem. After all, if an author gets royalties of, say, 10 percent, the other 90 percent goes to the publisher—which means that publishers can have much more incentive to keep churning out bestselling books that are filled with historical error and even deliberate deception simply because they receive far more money than the authors!

Which leads me to give you some of my reactions to publishers that are less than pleasant. After I gave proof to a well-known publisher in the Chicago area that one of its authors had plagiarized one of my books, I received a sympathetic letter from the publisher expressing concern; but no changes to my knowledge were made in the dishonest book which was kept in print, and neither my publisher nor I was ever financially reimbursed. I know a pretrib book publisher in California that was caught publishing a pretrib book that was a huge plagiarism of a book that had come out several years earlier. After being confronted by the other publisher, the offending publisher promised to withdraw the book, which it did for a while. But sometime later the offending book was quietly reissued—with the same old plagiarism but with a new book title to avoid detection!

In recent years Hal Lindsey has learned what publishers have always known, that there’s far more money if you can be your own publisher or at least control the publishing of your own books. If a person looks closely at his 1999 book, VANISHED INTO THIN AIR (published by the same Western Front Ltd. which was, oddly enough, his “neighbor” when his home was in Palos Verdes, California), he discovers that more than 200 pages (out of 396 pages) are virtually carbon copies of corresponding pages in his 1983 book THE RAPTURE—with no “updated” or “revised” notice included!

This is robbery on a grand scale for unsuspecting buyers who’ve been assured that VANISHED is a “new” book! Hal has done the same nervy thing with several of his books, something that’s allowed him to live in million-dollar-plus homes and drive cars like Ferraris!

And what about Lindsey’s THERE’S A NEW WORLD COMING which Harvest House Publishers has owned and been republishing for years? During the same time Lindsey has been peddling his reportedly “new” APOCALYPSE CODE, much of which is word-for-word the same as the Harvest House book! And there’s no notice of “simultaneous publishing” in either book! Think of the feelings of customers who buy Lindsey’s version only to find out that it’s largely a mirror image of the other publisher’s version which they had bought previously! Talk about greed!

And then there’s Tim LaHaye. His 1992 book NO FEAR OF THE STORM, published by Multnomah Press Books, has an entire chapter entitled “MacPherson’s Vendetta.” Relying on miscopied secondhand sources that in turn miscopied still earlier sources, he gives the impression that my decades of rapture roots research is my revenge for the troubles pretrib caused my family in the 1950's including my expulsion from Biola in downtown Los Angeles. (My mother went to be with the Lord not long after I was “raptured away” from L.A.) But LaHaye’s “crystal ball” is cracked because I didn’t even wonder about the pretrib origin, or start any research on it, until two decades later—long after the chief troublemakers had been off the scene and forgotten! Since my origin research has never had any reason to hide or twist any historical facts, my practice in my eight book titles has always been to give proper credit and list sources when quoting or discussing others including pretrib critics. In light of LaHaye’s chapter about me, maybe he (or Multnomah) can explain why he doesn’t list any of my books in his footnotes or even his bibliography!

But his bibliography does list John Bray’s 1982 pretrib origin booklet, containing only 34 pages of “origin” text, even though LaHaye has denounced Bray’s claim that Lacunza taught pretrib (the same Lacunza that Bray has long since de-emphasized!) and even though Bray’s little booklet is packed with miscopying errors, misspelled names, and even two instances of his plagiarism! How fair is it for LaHaye to discuss me at length without listing my books and publishers so that readers can learn what I’ve actually written?

The same LaHaye book (reprinted in 1998 as RAPTURE UNDER ATTACK) is filled with mountains of copying errors and missing footnotes, and his inclusion of Margaret Macdonald’s short 1830 revelation account has 48 missing words—the same 48 words that Thomas Ice somehow left out (which changed the meaning) when he reproduced it three years earlier!

Why is it that Multnomah and other pretrib publishers almost never make any changes whenever errors and dishonesty in their books are pointed out to them? Don’t they have time or money for necessary proofreading? Don’t they have any self-respect? Don’t they fear God?

One happy exception to publishing dishonesty is Thomas Nelson Publishers. After I convinced that company, with a stack of photocopies of marked pages, that David Jeremiah’s and C. C. Carlson’s ESCAPE THE COMING NIGHT (1990) is a massive plagiarism of Lindsey’s THERE’S A NEW WORLD COMING, a top TNP official sent me a letter, part of which revealed that “we at Thomas Nelson are very concerned about this matter. Accordingly, we are destroying all our current inventory of this title and will not reprint the book. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.”

...But as I’ve shown, many pretrib publishers are a far cry from Thomas Nelson. Their bottom line consists of three things: money, money, and money! They don’t care that pretrib is less than 200 years old and that it didn’t take over American evangelicalism much before “Doctor” Scofield’s Bible in 1909! They don’t care that the late Corrie ten Boom stated in a published article that pretrib leaders are “the false teachers Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days” and that pretrib caused the deaths of “millions” of Chinese Christians when the Communists took over China!

And they don’t care that the dishonest pretrib theory they peddle for money in fact makes them accessories to the past, present, and future mass-murder of fellow believers!

Since the same evanjellyfish publishers don’t care, I intend from now on to focus as much on their business practices and personal lives as I have on past and present pretrib authors. If anyone can send me documented evidence in this regard, I’ll be happy to share it on the Internet and in other ways.

But I really must stop. If this article has whetted your curiosity...get my book THE RAPTURE PLOT, the most detailed and documented book on the pretrib rapture’s astonishing and long hidden history. [Go to, e.g., armageddonbooks.com.]

As a historian I confess that I am no expert on where the different kinds of “wrath” (e.g. Satan’s wrath and God’s wrath) should be placed on prophecy charts. To me, a really important “wrath” question is whether or not the rapture will happen before the coming of pretrib wrath against those who expose pretrib dishonesty!

Edward Irving is Unnerving

by Dave MacPherson (emphasis added)

ALL OF MY BOOKS since 1973 have stated that Rev. Edward Irving and his followers (Irvingites)—as well as Margaret Macdonald—taught a pretribulation rapture before John Darby did.

Margaret’s 117-line pretrib “revelation” account (which, by the way, contains 59 Bible verses or parts of verses—about one in every other line) was admittedly not as detailed as the many articles in “The Morning Watch” (Irvingite journal) which from 1829 to 1833 clearly and extensively portrayed a pretrib rapture. Naturally my Darby-exalting critics gang up on Margaret so that they won’t have to face up to overwhelming evidence that the Irvingites did in fact precede Darby!

(While I’m at it—I wish now that I had never used terms like Margaret’s “revelation” or “vision” even though others have. I should have referred only to her “view” or “Scriptural interpretation.” If I had done so, my opponents wouldn’t have had an excuse to associate “occult” or “witch” or “demon” with her totally Biblical discussion while playing the current rapture debate “game of gossip”!)

Scofield and Ironside are among the Darby defenders who have boldly concluded, minus evidence, that pretrib rapturism never existed in Irvingite circles.

Even Ernest Sandeen’s “The Roots of Fundamentalism” (p. 64f) asserted that Irving and his followers didn’t teach anything resembling a Darbyesque secret, pretrib rapture. (His conclusion was based on only two unrelated (!) prophetic utterances which were spoken many months after pretrib was first clearly taught in Irving’s journal in Sep. 1830!) J. Barton Payne responded to Sandeen by writing that “MacPherson has once and for all overthrown Ernest Sandeen’s assertions that the Irvingites never ‘advocated any doctrine resembling the secret rapture’ and that to connect J. N. Darby and early dispensationalism with Irving’s church is ‘a groundless and pernicious charge’....For serious students of the history of dispensationalism the study of MacPherson’s discoveries has become a must.” (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Winter, 1974)

R. A. Huebner, a militant member of the Darbyist Plymouth Brethren, added his own name to the Irvingism-bashing list and even talked Walvoord, Ryrie, LaHaye and some other pretrib leaders into joining it. In his 1973 book Huebner actually stated: “The Irvingites (1828-1834) never held the pretribulation rapture or any ‘any-moment’ views.” His 1991 book repeated this by declaring that “the Irvingite system was a complex” that can be found “in posttribulational writers.”

But the champion Irvingism-basher, who isn’t bashful, is Thomas Ice whose Darby-shielding darts are multiplied and repeated on the Internet, world without end. He makes sure that readers of his “When Did J. N. Darby Discover the Rapture?” piece will discover his repetition that “Irving never held to pretribulationism.” In his “Myths of the Origin of Pretribulationism - Part II” he states that “One of Dave McPherson’s strangest claims is that Edward Irving and the Irvingites taught a pre-trib rapture.” And he even speaks disparagingly of “two British theologians” (Mark Patterson and Andrew Walker) who have written that “it is incontrovertible that Irving held to a pretribulation doctrine in a form that is developed and remarkably similar to contemporary dispensational views.” (!)

My book “The Rapture Plot” (available online) includes many quotes from Irvingites proving that they taught a pretrib rapture as well as pretribulationally-correct imminence. Here are just a few examples from several issues of “The Morning Watch”:

“Philadelphia” is described as worthy Christians who will be raptured before “the great tribulation” (TMW, Sep. 1830, p. 510)

“...the great tribulation from which those dead in Christ, and those who shall then be alive and looking for him, shall be exempted, by being caught up to meet the Lord in the air....” (TMW, June 1831, p. 284)

Walvoord’s, LaHaye’s, and Ice’s “any-momentness” is clearly seen in this Irvingite journal which stated: “...we miss the true object of faith and hope in the coming of the Lord, not only when we overleap it altogether, but when we interpose any screen whatever; when we look for any event of persecution or tribulation, for any combination of kings, any gathering of people, any manifestation of Antichrist.” (TMW, Dec. 1831, p. 253)

One writer spoke of “the translation for the living...of which we may daily expect the accomplishment....” He added: “During this most horrible time of the reign of the last Antichrist, the risen and translated saints shall be with Christ....” (TMW, Mar. 1832, pp. 12-14)

John Tudor, TMW editor, said that “some of these elect ones shall...be left in the great tribulation...after the translation of the saints....” He added that there is “nothing further to expect before the actual coming....” (TMW, Sep. 1832, pp. 11-12)

“the literal time of 1260 days...does not commence till the moment of the translation of the saints....” (TMW, Sep. 1832, p. 48)

It should be pointed out that during pretrib dispensationalism’s earliest development, there were those who quickly changed from the prevailing posttrib historicism to pretrib futurism, some who changed later on, and some who never changed. Naturally Darby-guardsmen such as Huebner and Ice have selectively focused on historicist Irvingites and purposely covered up pretrib futurists among the same British group to make it appear to their trusting readers that the Irvingites were totally pretrib-deficient!

My first paper on Biblical prophecy was written in 1968. If I could have known beforehand that Darby protectors would either ignore, smear, or pseudo-scholarly skip over Margaret’s main point (a rapture before Antichrist’s revealing) and deviously quote lines only before and after it (what Ice does repeatedly), I would have focused on the incredible quality and quantity of the output of the innovative Irvingites—and brought in Margaret only as the one they claimed as their inspiration.

Even William Kelly, Darby’s editor, knew that for 60 years evangelicalism had credited Irvingism, and not Darbyism, with pretribism. Which is why Kelly (while noting “the early prophesyings and tongues in Scotland” but adding that “we may pass these over”) focused on Irvingite writings, and not Margaret’s, in a lengthy series (1889-1890) in his own journal. Readers of “The Rapture Plot” know that Kelly, in Ice-like fashion, made so many dishonest changes while analyzing Irvingism in a supposedly fair and balanced way that evangelicalism, unable to examine hard-to-locate Irvingite writings, eventually accepted Kelly’s revisionism, the goal of which was to project Darby as the pretrib rapture originator as well as the “father of dispensationalism”—and we know how well Kelly was successful!

I have focused on pretrib rapture beginnings for 40 years and have offered $1000 if anyone can show where I have ever dishonestly concealed or changed anything in any important rapture-related document. Unlike my opponents, my book royalties have always gone not to any individual but to a nonprofit corporation which has never paid any salary to anyone. While you’re wondering if you should obtain my 300-page book “The Rapture Plot,” I invite you to read my many Internet articles including “Famous Rapture Watchers,” “Pretrib Rapture Diehards,” “Humbug Huebner,” “Thomas Ice (Bloopers)” and “Thomas Ice - Hired Gun,” “X-Raying Margaret,” “Deceiving and Being Deceived,” and “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty.”


“Turned from Truth to RAPTUREMANIA”

by General James Green



YES!—THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAS and is happening NOW! Our dear brother in the faith, Timothy, had this type of deception in mind when he penned 2 Timothy 4:3-4—“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (KJV). The Amplified reads, “For the time is coming when [people] will not tolerate (endure) sound and wholesome instruction, but having ears itching [for something pleasing and gratifying], they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold, and will turn aside from hearing the truth and wander off into myths and man-made fictions.” And there are PLENTY of silly “Christians” out there with the “EAR ITCH”! The “ear problem” comes from our lusting for our own interests, desiring what we want to hear instead of what we ought to hear (like the Spirit of God!).



Itch Remedy

AGAIN, THERE is every kind of “itch remedy” out there—as many as there are itching ears. Silly churchfolks have itching lust for “fantastic” teachers (like the fools people watch on TV and hear on the radio and read about on the printed page/internet/etc.) who give out “fantastic revelations” and bizarre beliefs, who literally make a KILLING off their fables...and the Church, like a full sewer overflowing, “spills up and over onto the world’s market” with, as one author plainly puts it, “folks who’d rather have their itch scratched by a popular fictitious novel like Don Brown’s The DaVinci Code” BULL or one of Hal Lindsey’s fables or rapturous religious tales about the “Last Days” (like Jenkins’ and LaHaye’s “Left Behind” books/movies). But SOUND DOCTRINE? Get serious, this does not sell nor scratch the itching ears.

Go to any “Christian” bookstore and see for yourself—tons of books with concocted itch remedies...piles and piles of fantastic fables just for you poor sickos who have the “itch.” But to find good Biblical-based books is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

One author who also noticed all the silly “pandering to the religious sickos with the ‘itch’” said he had an appetite for a book or books that not only were Biblically-based but that tended to even “badger (relentlessly) the spiritually slothful and the perniciously popularizing [shysters] in the marketplace of ‘Biblical’ and ‘end-time’ prophecy.”



End of the World?

HEY! YOUR world could come to an end at any time—was Michael Jackson ready to die (being a Jehovah’s Witness)?

All this “ET” hype and futuristic imaginations are truly sickening. What about the “present time”? What about serving Jesus now?

“A play does not begin until the stage is fully set—the END will come in its time.” Why look for the “sweet by-n-by” and avoid the “nasty now-n-now”? The Church has literally become OBSESSED with exaggerated fantasy-futurism and stuff like “ET mania,” which are prevalent as a direct result of being the host of demonic parasites that are eating and devouring the little-remaining Godliness the Church has left.

Yes, we must be eagerly awaiting the true Second Coming of the Lord; and knowing certain things about what is coming in the future can be beneficial to the present; but many, too many of the overly anxious “end-timers” (like Pre-trib Rapturists, etc.) “expect the final act before the play has ever begun.” Events will, dear ones, all play out—“act by act.”



No New Thing

HISTORY PROVES that the Church has always refused to love sound doctrine. Where did the Roman Catholic Church come from? From Christians turning “their ears from truth, and unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:4). You see, LUST for other interests (v. 3) turns men’s hearts away from God—men therefore become adulterers/idolaters! As the “end” does now draw near, the backsliding grows worse (see 3:1-5; 1 Tim. 4:1).

Many claim to be “Christian” today, yet they WILL NOT TOLERATE NEW TESTAMENT ORIGINAL APOSTOLIC FAITH (see 2 Tim. 3:5 cf. Rom. 1:16), like separation from the world.



Turning Pink!

OH YES—pink, pink, you really stink! The Homosexual Movement (HM) has literally ended up inside today’s contemporary Church...and the stinking, sinking saints (?) are “tickled pink” about it!!

The admonition to REPENT of committed sins goes unheeded today—just bring out the noisy Rock/Rap bands to drown out one’s conscience.

The admonition to be holy has turned into false “holy laughter.” The doctrine and reality of damnation is scorned, trashed like rotting garbage: “Quick, out of the Church and into the garbage pile...hurry! HURRY!!”



Seeking Seedy and Sleazy Shepherds

THIS IS one of today’s earmarks: hired shepherds—bastards with no relation to Christ AT ALL !! Enter the Church brats...give them what they want...plenty of Rock-n-Roll music along with comedy shows, hamburgers, fries, and sweet cokes to wash it all down. Drown the sound of the dying, the perishing, the hurting: do the “Church thing.”



Illuminated!

A PLETHORA of modern-day teachings by the “experts” of Bible understanding often include this text: “God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thes. 5:9). The “experts,” when quoting this Scripture, tell us that one reason why the “blessed hope” of Christ’s return (in the “PRE-TRIB RAPTURE”!) is such a comfort to believers is because God raptures us out of this world just before the terrible wrath/judgment of God, the “Great Tribulation.” But we’ve got a problem with their proof text above: “I pray NOT that thou shouldest take them (believers) OUT OF THE WORLD, but that thou shouldest KEEP THEM from the evil”—Jesus, John 17:15.

Years ago, while living in California, I spent a fair share of time teaching on the “FALSE HOPE” of the Church, that is, the “Pre-trib Rapture Theory” (you may want to write for some of these archive teachings: we now have them on CD, and we also have more teachings, a NEW "Pretrib Rapture Series," available on CD and DVD—all FREE).

The whole “Pre-tribulation Rapture” teaching—“escaping this world”—is a fanciful and intriguing theory, and only a theory. Still, millions believe it to be absolutely TRUE! Devotees and disciples of this theory overlook a tremendous amount of Scriptures refuting it.

Date-setters for the end are the worst. Haven’t we all heard of date-setters who were proven wrong every time over the years?...and now they tell us that the “Rapture” will surely take place in 2010 or 2012! AND THE FALSE TEACHERS/PROPHETS STILL MAKE MILLIONS ($$!!) WITH THIS “HOPEFUL” BUT FALSE TEACHING!

In this article, I do not intend to prove one way or another about the “Pre-trib Rapture”—just want you readers to THINK a little. We’re all familiar with the “Left Behind” books/movies that have been out for some time. The influences of these mediums have once again struck up a “false hope” in “escaping the Tribulation.” Some poor souls, as the teaching goes, will have to go thru that very nasty Trib period of 3½ years; the “good” believers will be taken “up and away” unto the “Marriage Supper of God and the Lamb”...WITH ALL THEIR SINS, OF COURSE!—since confessing repentance from sins is rarely taught, believed, or done in churches today!



Flight from Fight!

SINCE MOST churches no longer teach “overcoming,” what naturally follows is flight—“Rapture reverie.” They tell us that “God hath not appointed us to wrath,” and quote Jesus as saying, “I...will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev. 3:10). This text, they say, speaks of the Great Tribulation.



Ranks of the Fearful

AT THE heart of this “Pre-trib Rapture” belief is the element of fear—fear of the future and also fear of the Lord (wrongfully). By this latter fear I mean that most professing Christians fear that they will have to give up something dear to them (like the “self-life”) unto God, so they fear drawing close to the Lord Jesus. They would rather believe that they can have their cake and eat it too!

There is no doubt that most who really believe in the “Pre-trib Rapture” live distant from the Lord (Master). Most churchfolks in this hour and in this generation live uncommitted lives, heaping unto themselves teachers with itching ears who love to deceive all their dupes by telling them, “The wrath/tribulation will not befall you.” These flaky, compromising teachers and students really DON’T want to know the truth. They are too preoccupied with their “escape” theory to learn how to overcome in this life. They love their false eschatologies about “the end of the world,” all their “fly away in the sky” hype and their “Wrath is not a part of the destiny of the saints” lie.



Sinning Saints?

FOR THE record, please show me where in Scripture the “sinning saints” are either raptured or go to Heaven at His Second Coming? (The Pre-trib Rapturists believe that the Rapture is not the Second Coming fully (one event), but it is only a “secret” coming, only the “Second Coming Part A.” How stupid indeed!! And then there will be a second Second Coming (Part B)!)

Living for the flesh, as most “Christians” certainly do, these “sinning saints” overlook the fact that the Bible only recognizes “overcomers” as Heavenbound. All this “easy believism” junk, lip-service-only mentality is TANTAMOUNT in the idolizing and adulterizing Church. Better do some better research on the word “saint”!



Wrath or Tribulation?

WHILE IT is true that believers are certainly not appointed to “wrath,” there is no proof to be found where God’s people miss “tribulations”—NONE! It is true that God is able to keep His true ones during tribulation—“The Great” or otherwise.

Why do the Rapturists deliberately ignore the difference between “wrath” for the sinful, and “tribulation” for the believers? To them, both words mean the same. Get serious! In fact, both “wrath” and “tribulation” are HATED by these Church funsters. They leave both of them on our doorstep and run away.

In their sloppy studies and teaching, both “wrath” and “tribulation” are interchangeable. The truth, to put it simply, is this: wrath is for the ungodly (and covenant-breakers could be in this number too); tribulation is (applicable and can even be helpful) for the Christian.

John 16:33 tells us this: “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me (Jesus) ye might have peace. IN the world YE SHALL HAVE TRIBULATION...” And 2 Timothy 3:12 reads, “Yea, and ALL that will live godly in Christ Jesus SHALL SUFFER PERSECUTION” (persecution and tribulation can be the same). So frightening are these Scriptures to them, the funsters frantically grab anything—even totally out of context—to avoid the plain truth: TRIBULATION IS APPOINTED TO THE BELIEVERS.



Pre-trib “Rapturemania”

THIS SILLY and untrue teaching has been around for only a short time, relatively speaking. [In other writings (and in the articles by Dave MacPherson), I cover the recent time in which this false teaching was hatched!] The “snatching away” lie has given birth to intense “Pre-trib Rapturemania.”

“Catching up” is another way of rendering “rapture.” The Greek uses harpa’zo, which does convey something like “snatching up or away; seizing; plucking.” But does it really mean “taking one to Heaven” prior to the worldwide Trial? Is this promise that we will be kept from the hour of temptation by “escaping the earth” real? Well, I’m telling you, these bad theologians mistakenly allege that this promise of being “kept” means “raptured away (OFF the earth).” We need to read Revelation 3:10 again.

“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev. 3:10, KJV). They tell us that Christ’s promise to deliver the faithful from the hour of trial is identical to Paul’s “promise verse” in 1 Thessalonians 1:10, that is, the one supposedly promising that we will be delivered from any “wrath to come.” They tell us that this promise extends all the way thru all generations...but Paul himself was not delivered—he was martyred (beheaded, according to Christian tradition) along with most of the New Testament apostles.

There is no doubt that the appointed “wrath” will come on “all the world” in the end-time, but “tribulation” has and always will be part of the Christian’s walk. We can be kept during our tests/trails, even during the “Great Tribulation,” but God’s “wrath” is strictly for the ungodly. Unfortunately, many footnotes in our various translations of the Bible make NO distinction between “tribulation” and “wrath.” To many who’ve never studied the issue, these two terms are one-and-the-same.



“Kept”—Rev. 3:10

PLEASE TAKE note: These false teachers have erringly neglected to realize that the word “keep” (tereo, Rev. 3:10) denotes, “to guard by keeping an eye on, watch over, take care of, preserve, attend to carefully.” Where in the world do we get the idea of “removal” or “raptured (away)”?

Did you know that the same Greek word (tereo) appears earlier in the very same verse to declare Christ’s rationale for “keeping” these true ones from the worldwide hour of temptation? The people had “kept” (guarded) God’s Word, and therefore Jesus would “keep” (guard) them from the hour of temptation. The meaning is perfectly clear—read Revelation 3:7-13. Christ promises to reward the “overcomers,” not to exempt any of them from trial/tribulation which is to come upon ALL the world.

Take note: The words “try” (peira’zo) and “temptation” (peirasmos) are from earlier manuscripts. The word “try” means “to put to the test or trial, to examine, scrutinize”; and “temptation” means “a putting to the proof, especially by adversity, affliction, or trouble.”

NOW...to remove any believer from the worldwide Trial would make it IMPOSSIBLE, dear ones, for them (us) to “overcome.” Remember John 17:15?

Here again, in John 17:15, the Greek tereo is translated as “keep” to signify “preservation.” Hey scholars, in the Greek here too, “keep” most obviously suggests NO “Pre-trib Rapture,” NO “sparing from tribulation,” NO “escape,” but “PRESERVATION IN THE MIDST OF GOD’S JUDGMENTS.”



For the Record

JUST FOR the record, I’ll repeat myself: “hour of temptation (TRIBULATION)” and “WRATH (indignation)” mean two different things, although they appear to mean one-and-the-same thing by a surface reading of the text.

You might want to look up the following Scriptures for what is really PROMISED to the true people of God: John 15:20, 16:33; Matthew 5:10, 13:20-21; Mark 13:13; James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3; 1 Thes. 3:4; Acts 14:22; 2 Thes. 1:4-5.



Tribulation

THE GREEK word thlipsis (in English, “tribulation”) means “pressure, literally or figuratively.” Related to this word is “afflicted, affliction, anguish, burdened, persecution, trouble.” We can find around 60 references to “tribulation” in the Bible.



Indignation

THE ENGLISH defines this word as “anger aroused by something unjust, unworthy or mean.” We can also interpose the word “wrath” or “vengeance” in place of “anger” (see O.T. Zeph. 1:14-18, 3:8; Isa. 34:1-2, 8).

Without any more ado, I suggest you write for our FREE selection of aggressive teachings on this subject of “Pre-trib Rapturemania” (CDs, DVDs, and booklets).


Pretrib Hypocrisy!

by Dave MacPherson

YES, HYPOCRISY! Hypocrisy tied to pretrib rapture leaders as well as to the pretrib rapture view. (You can’t believe how many “pretribbers” have told me over the years that they either have doubts about pretrib or don’t even believe it—but they promote it anyway!)

Pretrib icon C. I. Scofield could be hypocritically double-minded. In a 1921 letter to his daughter Abigail, who had a financial need while then living in San Luis Obispo, California, he advised her to pray to a Catholic saint: “...why don’t you seek the special intercession of the San Luis in whose name-town you live?” (This entire letter is in Joseph Canfield’s classic work The Incredible Scofield and His Book published by Ross House Books.)

But a dozen years earlier in his Scofield Bible (p. 1346) he had begun predicting a future reign of “apostate Christendom, headed up under the Papacy”!

Many evangelicals are still unaware that during the 1980's Hal Lindsey proudly announced that two of his daughters, Robin and Jenny, were then enrolled at Gonzaga University, a Jesuit Catholic school. (The Jesuits were originally Catholicism’s arm to terroristically infiltrate and destroy the growing Protestant Reformation.)

But years earlier Lindsey’s There’s A New World Coming (pp. 58, 103) stated, and continues to state, that the “dominant church” of the “Middle Ages” which “bound the people to image-worship, superstition, and priestcraft” is the “prostituted form of Christianity” that will eventually become “the Antichrist of Rome”!

I still have a letter I received dated Nov. 14,1971 and signed by a William T. Brunei. Here’s the eye-catching part:

“I was brought up to be a strong Pre-Tribulationist. In fact I never even thought that the other view was worth inquiring into. When Dr. Bob Jones called me to teach in the Bob Jones College one of the first questions he asked me was, whether I held to this view, and of course I said Yes. But while I was professor of Greek New Testament at the Bob Jones University, 1949-1955, one of my colleagues, Robert Besancon, happened to ask me if I had ever read anything on the Post-Trib side. I had to confess that I never had. He recommended two little books by Horner. I read them and was truly astonished to find that the Post-Trib view is the simpler, more Scriptural, and more reasonable of the two. So I am now a Post-Tribulationist. Very interestingly, though, there was at that time on the BJU faculty a great scholar, Dr. Charles Brokenshire, who could teach 25 languages and every subject in the School of Religion. But he was a Post-Tribulationist. Dr. Jones considered him worth more than any other faculty member, perhaps worth more than all of us put together. During the school year 1954-55 Dr. Brokenshire died. After he died Dr. Jones went before his faculty meeting and announced that from that time on he would be true to his old-time promise to the Christians of America that he would strongly emphasize the Pre-Tribulation doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ and that he wanted all his teachers in the School of Religion to stand in favor of that doctrine!”

Well, it’s apparent that the first Dr. Bob had been playing the role of hypocrite! (Dr. Roland Rasmussen, pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Canoga Park, California, can verify the late Dr. Bruner’s letter. As a BJU prof then, Rasmussen was at the same faculty meeting.)

Several years ago my wife and I found ourselves chatting on the BJU campus with one of its best-known profs. We were astounded when he admitted that even though that school publicly promotes pretrib, professors can privately hold to differing rapture views as long as they retain at least a premill outlook!

The year 1973 found me handing out posttrib literature on a Kansas City sidewalk to delegates going into the annual conference of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches. It was easy for them to react by saying bluntly “We’re pretrib!” and just as easy for me to say just as bluntly “Not only is pretrib not in the Bible, but it isn’t in even your GARBC statement of faith!”

After I widely aired their hypocrisy, they added pretrib wording to their official statement during a following conference so that their ~ doctrine could finally begin practicing what the GARBC “doctors” had long been preaching!

A Dec. 31,1983 letter written on Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God stationery by one of their profs, J. Bashford Bishop, contained these shocks:

“Thanks for the book. [I had given him my 1983 book The Great Rapture Hoax.] I’ll do what I can to circulate your book through our Assemblies of God [who], as you know, are opposed to Post-tribism. Make a point of getting acquainted with Joseph Flower, our General Secy, at headquarters in Springfield. He and I were schoolmates and both of us were Post-trib then and ever since. He would be glad to discuss with you the subject—a real man of God.”

We’d been doing research there in Springfield, Missouri that winter and soon enjoyed two hour-long chats with Flower, the No. 2 AG leader. Secretaries outside his open office door could easily hear everything discussed. I asked how he could hold to a non-approved rapture view. He replied that AG ministers are required to uphold pretrib but privately can believe any other rapture view. When I remarked that such a rule encourages hypocrisy, Flower sheepishly agreed. Incidentally, those chats took place several years before any of the hypocrisy-filled scandals having to do with Baker and Swaggart, two AG ministers!


The Rapture Index

(Mad Theology!)

by Dave MacPherson (emphasis added)

FIRST, LET’S EXPLAIN “rapture” and then “index.”

Many Christian Right members in America believe in an imminent “rapture” (a coming of Christ that reportedly happens SEVEN YEARS BEFORE the famous Second Coming to earth).

The “great tribulation” in the Bible is said to occur during those seven years. Therefore the rapture is viewed as a “pre-tribulation” event and reportedly gives believers the hope of being taken to Heaven, without dying, and thus escaping the traumatic seven-year period on earth.

The “index” (as in Todd Strandberg’s “Rapture Index”) lists 45 “precursors” (events on earth reportedly acting as signposts pointing to the rapture, and showing how close the rapture is).

And here’s where the mad theology comes in. The Rapture Index “precursors” (including “Antichrist”) are on earth even AFTER the point in time for a “pretrib” rapture, are fulfilled DURING the seven-year tribulation period, and actually point to ONLY the (post-tribulation) Second Coming to earth and not to any sort of “pre-tribulation” coming—a concept that NO church before 1830 ever taught!

Promoters and merchandisers of pretrib rapture theology have claimed in recent years to have found a few individuals before 1830 who supposedly taught a “pretrib” rapture or coming [and their findings have been thoroughly refuted!]—but none of those promoters has ever found any ORGANIZED CHURCH teaching or even hinting at such a doctrine before that date. If you will go to Google or other search engines and type in “Deceiving and Being Deceived” (one of my earliest internet articles), you will see how groundless the claims are for certain pre-1830 individuals that have been dredged up. Even if a few pre-1830 persons DID seem to teach a pretrib rapture, why would pretrib promoters want to side with them instead of siding with the 99 percent who obviously DID NOT embrace a pretrib rapture view?

If you’re interested in this subject, you can visit engines like Google, Yahoo, or MSN and type in “Pretrib Rapture Diehards” (the long-covered-up history of “pretrib” teaching), “Famous Rapture Watchers” (the only “rapture” view held by all churches before 1830), “Thomas Ice (Bloopers)” (the level of scholarship often seen in “pretrib” circles!), “Open Letter to Todd Strandberg,” and “Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal” (scandalous plagiarism in writings by Falwell, Dobson, Hindson, LaHaye, Ryrie etc.; such thievery has long characterized pretrib rapturists beginning with Darby (and his contemporaries), Seiss, and Bullinger in the 1800's and continuing with later members of the Christian Rewrite such as Lindsey, Unger, Jeremiah, Carlson, Tan, Missler, and Van Impe!).

If you’d like to go even further in your research, you can obtain my 300-page book “The Rapture Plot” (my greatest collection of documentation on pretrib rapturism’s bizarre 19th century development) by calling 800.643.4645.



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—Generals James and Deborah Green, 2010

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