CAUTION DANGEROUS ICE!

 by Dave MacPherson

"Dangerous Ice" (better known as "Dr. Thomas Ice") has been shamelessly using every imaginable artifice when trying to desperately resuscitate the dying, 186-year-old pretribulation rapture theory.

You may be thinking: "Dave, you claim that Ice somehow omitted a total of 49 words when he reproduced in 1989 Margaret Macdonald's handwritten account of her discovery of pretrib in the Bible. Can you reveal the actual words stated by Margaret that Ice left out?"

If you've been thinking this way, I'll think back to you like this: "As I've claimed, 'Dr.' Ice left behind an awesome amount of Margaret's words. Right now, for the record, I'd like to show what Ice failed to include in his published reproduction in 1989 - the very same words that his partner Tim LaHaye omitted from the same parts of her account when he reproduced everything three years later in his 1992 book 'No Fear of the Storm.' " (!)

Here are the omissions by Ice (and copycat LaHaye who would rather repeat what Ice wrote than do original research on pretrib rapture beginnings):

Line 11: "darkness and error about it; but suddenly what it was"
Line 17: "eye; but 'tis spiritual discernment that is needed,'
Lines 74, 75: "attempt of the enemy to deceive--for it is with all"
Lines 76, 77: "for every part of God's truth, and an imitation"
Lines 111, 112: "his holy holy image seen in his people--"

Ice etc. also omitted single words in lines 51, 58, 78. In addition there were numerous errors involving misspelled words, punctuation, and the boldfacing of words.

As if this weren't enough, Ice added these 12 words in line 98: "All power that comes not the Spirit of God flows to us." Trouble is, this sentence is found nowhere in Margaret's account!

And Ice (copied by LaHaye) mistakenly listed Robert Norton's 1861 book "The Restoration of Apostles and Prophets; In the Catholic Apostolic Church" as the source of Margaret's account instead of correctly listing Norton's 1840 book "Memoirs of James & George Macdonald, of Port-Glasgow."

Thomas Ice is best known for making outrageous claims, many of which have been exposed in my various articles that my good friend Joe Ortiz has aired online on his worldwide blogs (see "Joe Ortiz Associates" and especially Joe's blog "Why Christians Will Suffer 'Great Tribulation' "). My Google articles include "Pretrib Rapture Pride," "Thomas Ice (Hired Gun)," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," "Pretrib Expert John Walvoord Melts Ice," "Be careful in polemics - Peripatetic Learning," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty."

According to World Net Daily "Dr." Ice obtained his "doctorate" from Tyndale Seminary in Texas - a tiny non-accredited school that was fined by the State of Texas for illegally issuing degrees!

Remember: Jesus warned that before His return as Judge, many would come in His name and deceive many. Can you think of a more delicious deception than the 186-year-old pretrib rapture getaway? 

http://son-of-encouragement.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/caution-dangerous-ice-by-dave-macpherson.html

THE GREAT CLIMATE CHANGE COVER UP!

by Dave MacPherson 

I agree with Obama, Gore and many others that climate change is very real.
But the climate change COVER-UP - something that Obama, Gore etc. don't talk about - is real too!
Here are some climate-related disasters that world leaders and the media have swept under the rug:
(1) The volcano that polluted so much of the oceans that a huge percentage of sea creatures died.
(2) Something like an asteroid polluted some major river systems, causing the deaths of many who tried to drink the water.
(3) A plague of scorpion-like creatures coming mysteriously out of the earth that attacked and poisoned vast numbers of persons - and no known treatment or medicine was able to stop the disaster.
(4) The sudden, record-breaking solar flare that horribly scorched many globally that's never been reported in the mainstream media!
(5) The unexplainable evaporation of all of the water in one of the greatest rivers on earth.
(6) A hailstorm with hail the largest in recorded history (when compared with hailstorms before and after it).
By the way, all of the above disasters were actually predicted, but Obama and other world leaders and activists have decided that total silence is the way to deal with such horrendous events.
There's a reason for their silence and cover-up and here it is:
They've been silent because all six disasters discussed above haven't happened yet and are still future! I decided to use my writer's imagination and imagined I was living in the last part of the book of Revelation and, as a survivor, was looking back at colossal events I had just somehow survived!
Yes, the same climate events are real and really ahead of us - and climate activists should focus on that future time which could be just around the corner. During that relatively short period of time, at least one-half of the world's population will die, as predicted in that same book!
One final thought: if any person wants to be a personal friend with the Author of that awesome book (a rewarding connection that millions have discovered is absolutely free and easy to make), the same person's own end will never be a never-ending dark night!

DR WATSON'S PRETRIB NON DISCOVERY

by Dave MacPherson

     Dr. William Watson, history prof at Colorado Christian University, has penned a 55-page paper declaring that he has found examples of pretribulation rapture teaching considerably earlier than the claims that such teaching was "begun by Darby in the late nineteenth century." (Somehow he wrote "late" instead of "early.")

     Those interested in his paper can Google "Pretribulational Rapture in 17th and 18th Century England (pdf)." It features the highlights of his book "Dispensationalism Before Darby" (Lampion Press, 2015) which has been lauded by LaHaye, Ice, Reagan and other pretrib diehards.

     Right off the bat I noticed his misspelling of well-known prophecy writers. Lindsey became "Lindsay," Benware became "Benaware," Jeffrey became "Jeffery," and Scofield became "Schofield."

     I soon noticed, when going over Watson's attempt to prove the existence of pretrib rapture belief in his 17th and 18th century sources, that what he quoted was anything but pretribism. Many times those writers of yesteryear would merely be talking about "preservation" (or synonymous terms). Just before the quotes, Watson in short prefaces psyched up readers with a liberal usage of "Pretribulation" (or pretrib) and he seemed to use the word "rapture" endlessly (his way of putting "rapture" glasses on readers!). Oddly, I found only one mention of "dispensationalism" in one of the featured quotes even though it is in Watson's book title!

     What would be announced as pretrib rapture doctrine would be nothing more than a rapture before the final "conflagration," or before "Israel's resurrection," or before the final days of the Beast's power, or before Babylon's destruction, or before the "great destruction" at Armageddon, or before the Beast's zenith of "power," or before the Beast and false prophet are "cast into the lake of fire."

     Watson at times would say that some ancient writer taught two future comings, but upon checking it was found that the writer was merely talking about a coming before, and another coming after, a future millennium - certainly nothing about a pretrib coming! He admitted that a good number of the writers he researched were actually posttribulational in outlook, but by including them wasn't he undercutting his main purpose of claiming discovery of pretribulationism in writers centuries before Darby?

     On the first page of his paper, Watson mentioned a debate he had in 2007 with a fellow CCU prof who stated that dispensationalism and related ideas "began only 150 years ago in the mind of Darby."

     Watson revealed that the same debate was what inspired him to search for pretrib teaching in old books in British libraries. Since no posttrib or prewrath profs that I know would have an incentive to purposely look for pretribulationism before Darby's time, it's apparent to me that Watson, well versed on the current international "rapture" debate, had already been favoring the pretrib view which in recent years has seen pretrib merchandisers like Thomas Ice claiming evidence of pretrib in pre-1830 writers like Pseudo-Ephraem. In fact, Watson's paper cited Ice far more than any other prophecy writer of today!

     And when analyzing 18th century preacher Morgan Edwards, Watson echoed Ice and selectively quoted Edwards in the manner Ice had done! For an accurate assessment of Edwards, Google "Morgan Edwards' Rapture View" which shows that Edwards tied his "rapture" to the cosmic signs in Matt. 24! For more on Ice, pretribism's bulldog, Google "Pretrib Rapture Pride," "Walvoord Melts Ice," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," and "Be careful in polemics - Peripatetic Learning" (the latter written by a doctoral student in England).

     At the end of his paper Watson listed four of the writers he analyzed, said that none of them were pretrib but that they did mention "others who were" pretrib. I checked the quotes from all four (Thomas Collier, 1674; Praisegod Barebones (sic), 1675; Thomas Burnett, 1681; and Pierre Jurieu, 1687) - and none of the four mentioned anyone they knew of who was pretrib! And after all the pretrib "hype" in his title and throughout his prefaces before the quotes he offers, Watson has no category of "Pretribulation" in his chart at the back but has other categories showing what his authors saw in the way of "two comings," "resurrection," etc. and of course those who used "rapture" (but not after the word "pretrib")!

     Watson does mention Edward Irving on p. 32, and says that Irving and Darby "had begun teaching a pre-tribulation rapture" by "1831." My research shows that Irving and his Irvingites (who, BTW, credited a Miss Margaret Macdonald in Scotland as being the very first person to "discover" a pretrib rapture in the Bible) publicly taught pretrib in Sep. of 1830 in their journal "The Morning Watch." Darby, on the other hand, was still defending posttrib historicism in Dec. 1830 in the "Christian Herald," saw in 1837 the church "going in with Him to the marriage, to wit, with Jerusalem and the Jews," and didn't clearly teach pretrib until 1839 ("Notes on the Revelation"); his pretrib rapture was then based on the man child "caught up" in Rev. 12:5 (but Irving had used the same symbol for the same purpose back in 1831 and Darby, an avid reader of Irving's journal, "borrowed" Irving's thought without giving him credit!).

     If anyone before 1830 had taught a pretrib rapture, I'm sure that Darby would have heard about it. He was well read, knew several modern languages and even some ancient ones. The earliest pretrib teachers (in the 1830s) all stated that the pretrib rapture concept was a brand-new idea. In an 1834 letter Darby, while discussing the novel pretrib coming, wrote that "the thoughts are new," adding that "it would not be well to have it so clear, as it frightens people. We must pursue it steadily; it works like leaven...."

     Finally, I've long known that writers who bring up the origin of the pretrib view usually pad their books by quoting writers living centuries before and after the real originator and fail to use a microscope or magnifying glass like Sherlock Holmes and really focus on "who done it." It's almost as if certain writers are using a telescope to find the pretrib origin while looking out the window of an airplane circling the earth!

     I can imagine Dr. Watson contacting me and saying "Are you accusing me of using a telescope?"

     With apologies to Arthur Conan Doyle and P. G. Wodehouse, I could reply: "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary!"

PRETRIB RAPTURE: HOW WHAT BECOMES WHEN

by Dave MacPherson

Certain rapture verses in the Bible are a WHATers paradise!
WHATers can dazzle their audience with a lot of WHAT WHAT WHAT between Gen. 1:1 and Rev. 22:21 and, while you're not noticing, quickly sneak in their own WHEN of the rapture and ignore the Bible's WHEN!
WHATers read all of the WHAT details in I Thess. 4:13-18, emphasize the "comfort one another" at the end, and say something like "What a comforting thought that the rapture can happen at any moment BEFORE the tribulation!"
They often add: "It wouldn't be comforting if we had to face the Antichrist." (Maybe they believe a lighthouse wouldn't be comforting to sailors on a dark, stormy night but only when the sun is shining!)
WHATers avoid the next chapter (I Thess. 5) which says that the rapture's "times and seasons" happen WHEN "sudden destruction" (the "destruction" part of the "day of the Lord") happens.
(How can the wicked be destroyed before, or during, the time of their tribulational "reign"? Even their leader, the Antichrist, isn't destroyed until the trib's end!)
Now look at I Cor. 15:51-54. WHATers have a blast with the first half. They dwell on "mystery," read "in a moment" as if it really means "AT ANY MOMENT," spend an inordinate amount of time explaining how fast the "twinkling of an eye" is, and try to prove that "last" (in "the last trump") doesn't really mean "last"!
Seldom do WHATers dare to reveal WHEN we are changed into immortal bodies - but verse 54 dares to when it says our rapturous change occurs WHEN WHEN WHEN "Death is swallowed up" (same as "ended").
Obviously the trib's time of death can't be ended before, or even during, the trib!
And WHATers don't want you to realize that the "Death" quote is a paraphrase of Isa. 25:8 which even Scofield etc. agree is in a posttrib setting!
II Thess. 1:6-10 is further proof that our rapture ("rest" in vs. 7) happens WHEN the wicked are destroyed - and not several years ahead of time!
And Acts 2:34-35 and Acts 3:21 declare that Christ must stay in heaven UNTIL He comes down to earth to destroy the wicked (make them His "footstool") and restore "all things" - so how can He leave heaven ahead of time for a pretrib rapture?
II Tim. 3:14 says we should "vet" our teachers ("knowing of whom thou hast learned them"). You can do this if you Google or Yahoo "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty."
What I'm wondering is this: WHEN will everyone wake up and realize that a lot of WHAT will never take the place of WHEN?

THE MALE-DOMINATED PRETRIB RAPTURE

by Dave MacPherson

      By now most everyone knows that the famous pretribulation rapture can be traced back to1830 and to a young woman in Scotland named Margaret Macdonald. But how many are aware that this end time belief has been dominated by males during the 187 years of its existence?
     My book "The Rapture Plot" (available online) lists several reasons why the male-dominated theological world of 1830 gave her no public credit for her novel prophetic invention:
     She was a female.
     She was young.
     She was uneducated.
     And she had been a Christian only a year.
     A few months after her history making revelation, a journal published by Rev. Edward Irving known as "The Morning Watch" (which had sent writers to interview Margaret in mid-1830) repeated the essence of her new view in its Sep. 1830 issue but gave her no credit - the first instance I've found of plagiarism in pretribulationism's history which has long been riddled with dishonesty!
     Credit for Margaret was still lacking two years later when the same journal talked about recent advancements in theology. It didn't mention her but undoubtedly had her in mind when it stated:
     "The Spirit of God has caused several young women, in different parts of Great Britain, to condense into a few broken sentences more and deeper theology than ever Vaughan, Chalmers, or Irving uttered in their longest sermons; and therefore more than all the rest of the Evangelical pulpits ever put forth in the whole course of their existence."
     In 1833, after he had joined Irving's church in London and then had become disillusioned with the new pretrib rapture that Irving had accepted, British lawyer Robert Baxter left that assembly and wrote a book exposing the same rapture notion, referring to it as "the delusion" that had "first appeared in Scotland" - but again Margaret's name was missing.
     Margaret's pretrib revelation was included in a book in 1840 by Robert Norton M.D. who, by the way, had married her in 1835 and who later became a leading historian in the Irvingite church founded by Irving. Although he didn't reveal Margaret as the pretrib rapture originator in 1840 (since it wasn't customary then to identify the authors of personal revelations while they were living), after Margaret died in 1841 he finally named her as the theory's originator in an 1861 book of his.
     Meanwhile John Darby of the Plymouth Brethren knew that the Irvingites had been teaching the new pretrib doctrine while he had still been clinging to the historical posttribulation view. He also knew that the secretive and non-missionary-minded Irvingites had never wanted to share the new escapist doctrine with outsiders in a big way.
     In an 1834 letter while talking about the new pretrib view that Irving's journal had been teaching, Darby told fellow Brethren that "the thoughts are new," adding that during any teaching of it "it would not be well to have it so clear." In fact he gloated about this in an 1843 letter while telling about hearers who had been accepting the new fly-away belief "without knowing whence it came or how it sprung up all of a sudden"!
     Not one to let a good thing go to waste, Darby decided that he could capitalize on it if the Irvingites weren't going to. So between 1862 and 1877 opportunist Darby spread the "borrowed" pretrib escapism while planting new Brethren assemblies in countries around the world including the US.
     The highlight of my "Rapture Plot" book was my accidental discovery of a well engineered plot in the late 1800s to wrongfully credit John Darby of the Plymouth Brethren as the pretrib rapture originator. This was accomplished after his death by one of his followers who secretly and maliciously made many quiet revisions in early Irvingite and Brethren documents and skillfully covered everything up - a plot that has long been unknown by church historians everywhere!
     We now fast forward to Kansas and a simple gravestone in Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Atchison which is etched with "Leontine Cerre Scofield (1848  1936)." Leontine should have been one of the most famous women of all time. But she's still unknown because her husband never referred to her publicly after he became famous.
     He was obsessed with making money, legally and illegally. He stole thousands of dollars from friends and deserted Leontine and his children for several years. His desertion forced her to work for the family's support.
     He claimed he was converted to Christ in 1879. But a year later he was in a St. Louis jail for six months on a forgery conviction. He had stolen his mother-in-law's last $1300 in a real estate scam. On Dec. 8, 1883 Leontine divorced him for deserting her and their two daughters - and he remarried three months later!
     As late as 1899, when he preached D. L. Moody's funeral sermon, he was still issuing IOU's to keep  from paying back the thousands of dollars he'd stolen!
     In 1909 he pulled off the biggest coup of his money-obsessed career. He became the biggest trafficker of the pretrib rapture which he featured in the margins of a book. The published work that made him wealthy is still a big seller today and is known as the Scofield Reference Bible which states on the title page "Edited by Rev. C. I. Scofield, D.D." (but it doesn't reveal that he added the D.D. himself instead of letting some institution confer it!).
     Although many in recent days have been abandoning the same 187-year-old fly-away fantasy after finding out the facts about its dishonesty-riddled history (as outlined in web articles like "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty," "Pretrib Rapture Stealth" and "Pretrib Hypocrisy), males still seem to be dominating as writers, publishers, and promoters of it, and there seems to be no end of pretrib rapture books, videos, movies and internet articles.
     If women had had the same opportunities as men after 1830 (when a young lassie came up with the now-famous pretrib interpretation), their basically discerning and honest nature would have exploded this male-dominated theological hoax long before now!

GOOD FIGHT MINISTRIES DVD SURVIVES PAUL WILKINSON'S ATTACK!

by Dave MacPherson

John Darby defender Dr. Paul Wilkinson dropped some names when beginning his rebuttal of the electrifying "Left Behind or Led Astray?" DVD produced by Joe Schimmel's Good Fight Ministries. And Wilkinson concluded, even before offering any evidence, that the DVD is full of "myths" and "lies"!
So I'll start my response to him with the following conclusions, even before offering any evidence, that have come my way:
My first book "The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin" (1973) received undeserved kudos from "The Witness" (the oldest and largest Darbyist Brethren magazine in England) in April 1974: "What [MacPherson] succeeds in establishing is that the [pretrib] view outlined was first stated by a certain Margaret Macdonald...early in 1830."
Later on world-class Australian scholar Dr. F. Nigel Lee (with nine earned doctorates) stated: "Dave MacPherson, in his various books, has made a major contribution toward vindicating Historic Christian Eschatology. The 1830 innovations of the disturbed Margaret Macdonald documented by MacPherson - in part or in whole - immediately spread to Edward Irving and his followers, then to J. N. Darby and Plymouth Brethrenism, and were later popularized by the dispensationalistic Scofield Reference Bible, by Classic Pentecostalism, and by latter-day pretribulationists like J. F. Walvoord and Hal Lindsey."
And I haven't even thought of calling anyone a liar yet!
While feeling unqualified to respond to some of Wilkinson's points, I will give the following facts:
When Hal Lindsey's books see "the one taken and the other left" before the "man of sin" is revealed, we all know he's expressing the "kernel" of the pretrib view.
But when Darby defenders read Margaret Macdonald's 1830 pretrib rapture account (where on lines 58-63 we see what I've long said is her main point: "the one taken and the other left" before "THE WICKED" is "revealed"), they sound like Wilkinson who, in his rebuttal, dares to declare that "her utterance bears no resemblance whatsoever to a pre-trib Rapture."
Guess how he gets away with this. He stops quoting her at line 45 of her 117-line account and resumes quoting at line 60 and thus can omit quoting the rapture part ("the one taken") of her "kernel."
Thomas Ice, Wilkinson's American counterpart, does the same nervy thing. When quoting her account in his 1990 BibSac article about her, he stopped quoting her at line 58 (just before "the one taken" etc.) and resumed at line 72 - and thus censored ALL of her "kernel"! For insights into Ice, Wilkinson should Google "Pretrib Rapture Pride," "Walvoord Melts Ice," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," and (by a British Ph.D) "Be careful in polemics - Peripatetic Learning."
Wilkinson even calls Margaret a posttrib and somehow doesn't know that phrases like "The trial of the Church is from Antichrist" (lines 85-86) express her partial rapture view, that all partial rapturists (like Pember and Govett) talk the same way, and that even Walvoord's books describe partial rapturists as "pretribulationists"! (I also urge him to Google "X-Raying Margaret," "Margaret Macdonald's Rapture Chart," and "Pretrib Rapture's Missing Lines." And no one should confuse Margaret with Mary Campbell who was involved with telepathy and automatic writing.)
When many including Darby visited Margaret in mid-1830, all (except Darby) concluded she was teaching a partial rapture form of pretrib. John Cardale visited the prayer meetings held in the Macdonald home and described them in his Dec. 1830 article in Irving's journal "The Morning Watch" (hereafter: TMW). Cardale listed 17 details about the speakers and what they taught.
Amazingly, Darby's 1853 book described his visit to those meetings and listed practically word-for-word all of Cardale's details except one. Although Darby mentioned Margaret's "texts on overcoming" (the "tribulation" part of her "kernel"), he omitted the first half of her pretrib partial rapture "kernel" - what she taught about "the coming of the Lord" (rapture) as the church's "deliverance" before the "judgments coming on the earth" (which all, except Darby, understood as a pretrib separation!).
Irving reflected her novel view in TMW in June 1831 when he saw a pretrib rapture in Rev. 12:5's "man child" who's caught up, and described the scene as the "two-fold company - the one gathered before , and the other after the travailing woman is cast out into the wilderness...."
Is Wilkinson aware that TMW (Sep. 1830) was the first publication to publicly air pretrib? It saw "Philadelphia" raptured before "the great tribulation" and "Laodicea" left on earth. Meanwhile Darby was still defending posttrib in Dec. 1830 in the "Christian Herald."
Darby idolizer Wilkinson was not happy when he heard Joe Schimmel saying that "the evidence is quite clear that Darby and his followers were late-comers to pre-tribulationism and that Darby was quite familiar with pre-trib teaching among the Irvingites before he accepted and then proliferated the doctrine...." Dr. Mark Patterson also states on the DVD that Darby learned the pre-trib rapture from Irving.
Here's Wilkinson's knee jerk reaction to Schimmel and Patterson: "The evidence is not only unclear, it is non-existent!"
And here's my knee jerk reaction to Wilkinson: My Google piece "Edward Irving is Unnerving" - which mentions Patterson and Walker - proves that the evidence for Irving is existent!
Right now let's look briefly at the earliest "rapture" development of the Irvingites and the Darbyist Brethren during the contested period stretching from 1827 to 1839:
1827: A few, including John Bray, have claimed that Darby believed in pretrib this early. But Darby's first two papers (1827 and 1828) discussed only the "heavenly church" and the "church's unity" - and Darby then looked for only the posttrib "restitution" and "refreshing" in Acts 3. (I invite all to Google "Is John Bray a PINO?")
1829: Darby's first paper on prophecy. He expected only the Rev. 19 coming. And he showed Irvingite influence. He mentioned "Mr. Irving" five times, "Ben-Ezra" (Lacunza) once, and "Morning Watch" twice. Darby said he was an avid reader of Irving's works and journal and heard Irving preach. (My "Rapture Plot" discusses Darby on 145 pages.)
1830: Margaret had her pretrib revelation in the spring. TMW (Sep.) reflected her pretrib partial rapturism (church/church dichotomy) and saw worthy "Philadelphia" raptured before "the great tribulation" and less worthy "Laodicea" left behind. Darby was still defending posttrib historicism in Dec. in the "Christian Herald" and waiting for only Matt. 25's "judging of the nations." (Darby discusses TMW four times in his 1830 paper and five times in an 1831 letter. Let me add that from 1830 to 1833 TMW repeatedly taught pretrib and any-moment imminence while Darby was still defending the posttrib view, as my "Plot" portrays.)
1832: Darby still doesn't believe in a future Antichrist but only in "present antichristian principles."
1834: We find Darby and the Jews waiting for the same day (Heb. 10:37).
1837: Darby saw the church "going in with Him to the marriage [Rev. 19], to wit, with Jerusalem and the Jews"!
1839: Darby's first clear pretrib teaching. His pretrib basis then (and many more years) was Rev. 12:5's "man child" caught up before a 3.5-year tribulation - but Irving had been the first one to use this Rev. symbol for the same purpose in TMW in 1831! True, one can find a few minor errors in the "Left Behind or Led Astray?" DVD being discussed because no one is perfect including me. But I believe that as the world gets even more scary and dangerous, more and more pretribbers will overlook any blemishes in the same DVD and will congratulate Joe Schimmel and his group for their foresight and love for God's everlasting truth.

PRETRIB WAS NEW IN THE 1830s!

by Dave MacPherson

Those desiring evidence for this are invited to read the following:

     Spring of 1830: Margaret Macdonald's private handwritten account stated "I felt this [pre-Antichrist rapture] needed to be revealed."

     Fall of 1830: Rev. Edward Irving's journal was the first publication to publicly teach the new pretrib rapture idea.

     1833: British lawyer Robert Baxter revealed that "the [pretrib] delusion first appeared in Scotland" and was soon "adopted and upheld by Mr. Irving."

     1834: After seeing pretrib introduced in Irving's journal, a letter Plymouth Brethren leader John Darby wrote described the new escapist doctrine by stating that "the thoughts are new." He also advocated the subtle sneaking in of the new view into other (Brethren) groups when he wrote "ordinarily, it would not be well to have it so clear, as it frightens people [who have] been trained in most opposite habits."

     1842: Darby wrote that "There is much blessing in Switzerland, but a little commotion, because of the new [pretrib] wine, which does not suit well with the old bottles...."

     1843: In a letter Darby gloated that the Swiss Christians were rapidly accepting the pretrib rapture "without knowing whence it came or how it sprung up all of a sudden" - that is, not knowing how he had quietly stolen the idea from Irving and his followers!

     1861: Dr. Robert Norton (who had married Margaret in 1835) described her history-making 1830 pretrib revelation by writing "here we first see the distinction between that final stage of the Lord's coming, when every eye shall see Him, and His prior appearing in glory [before Antichrist's arrival] to them that look for Him."

     1864: British scholar S. P. Tregelles wrote that pretrib was "first brought forward...about the year 1832."

     1872: Thomas Croskery wrote that pretrib "was never heard of till it was proclaimed...in 1832."

     1918: E. P. Cachemaille traced the pretrib origin to someone in Irving's circle in the early 1830s, adding that "there has since been much scheming to give the doctrine a reputable origin, scheming by those who did not know the original facts"!

     1922: Canadian theologian Robert Cameron wrote that "the whole body of Christians, prior to the days of Edward Irving, were a unit in believing that the Church would not escape the Tribulation."

     1927: Philip Mauro wrote: "...'dispensational teaching' is modernistic in the strictest sense...it first came into existence within the memory of persons now living..."

     1936: Darby defender Napoleon Noel wrote that Darby "was first and foremost in teaching...the Rapture...."

     1937: Alexander Reese wrote that the " 'any-moment' view of Christ's return only originated about 1830."

     1957: In his book "The Rapture Question" (p. 162), top Darby defender John Walvoord, unable to find any pretrib teacher before the 1830s, described Darby as one of the "early pretribulationists"!

     When I began my pretrib origin research more than 45 years ago, historians had long traced pretrib back to John Darby and the 1830s. It wasn't until my research uncovered long forgotten evidence in libraries in Britain etc. (that Darby had been preceded by the Irvingites as well as Margaret) that pretrib protectors began desperately to claim they'd found pretrib earlier in the writings of Morgan Edwards (1788) and Pseudo-Ephraem (7th cent.?).

     Online articles condemning these and other claims for pretrib include "Morgan Edwards' Rapture View," "Pseudo-Ephraem Taught Pretrib - Not," and "Grant Jeffrey's Apocalypse Debacle." What you've just read is a tiny part of my most comprehensive 300-page book on pretrib rapture history titled "The Rapture Plot" - available online.

     I should add that it isn't hard to find persons attempting to write about the past - especially if they adopt the hysterical method more than the historical method!