PRETRIB RAPTURE STEALTH!

by Dave MacPherson

     Many evangelicals believe that Christ will "rapture" them to heaven years before the second coming and (most importantly) well BEFORE Antichrist and his "tribulation."
     But Acts 2:34-35 reveal that Jesus is at the Father's right hand in heaven until He leaves to destroy His earthly foes at the second coming.
     And Acts 3:21 says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven with the Father "until the times of restitution of all things” which includes, says Scofield, “the restoration of the theocracy under David’s Son” which obviously can’t begin before or during Antichrist’s reign.
     ("The Rapture Question," by the long-time No. 1 pretrib authority John Walvoord, didn't dare to even list, in its scripture index, the above verses! They were also too hot for John Darby - the so-called "father of dispensationalism" - to list in the scripture index in his "Letters"!)      
     Paul explains the “times and the seasons” (I Thess. 5:1) of the catching up (I Thess. 4:17) as the “day of the Lord” (5:2) which FOLLOWS the posttrib sun/moon darkening (Matt. 24:29; Acts 2:20)  WHEN “sudden destruction” (5:3) of the wicked occurs!
     The "rest" for "all them that believe" is also tied to such destruction in II Thess. 1:6-10! (If the wicked are destroyed before or during the trib, who'd be left alive to serve the Antichrist?)
     Paul also ties the change-into-immortality “rapture” (I Cor. 15:52) to the end of trib “death” (15:54). (Will death be ended before or during the trib? Of course not! And vs. 54 is also tied to Isa. 25:8 which Scofield views as Israel's posttrib resurrection!)
     It's amazing that the Olivet Discourse contains the "great commission" for the church but not even a hint of a pretrib rapture for the church!
     Many don't know that before 1830 all Christians had always viewed I Thess. 4’s “catching up” as an integral part of the final second coming to earth. In 1830 this "rapture" was stretched forward and turned into an idolized separate coming of Christ.
     To further strengthen their novel view, which evangelical scholars overwhelmingly rejected throughout the 1800s, pretrib teachers in the early 1900s began to stretch forward the “day of the Lord” (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do) and hook it up with their already-stretched-forward “rapture.”
     Many leading evangelical scholars still weren’t convinced of pretrib, so pretrib teachers then began teaching that the “falling away” of II Thess. 2:3 is really a pretrib rapture (the same as saying that the “rapture” in 2:3 must happen before the “rapture” ["gathering"] in 2:1 can happen – the height of desperation!). Google "Walvoord Melts Ice" for more on this.
     My many online articles on various aspects of the 187-year-old pretrib rapture view include “X-Raying Margaret,” "Margaret Macdonald's Rapture Chart," "Pretrib Rapture's Missing Lines," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," "The Unoriginal John Darby," "Edward Irving vs. John Darby," "Catholics Did NOT Invent the Rapture," "The Real Manuel Lacunza," "C. I. Scofield's Hidden Side," "Pretrib Rapture Pride," “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” “Wily Jeffrey,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “Scholars Weigh My Research,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” " "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy," “Deceiving and Being Deceived,” "GFM's DVD Survives Paul Wilkinson's Attack," "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty," and (in response to the outrageous claim that the rapture could occur this coming September!) "Ready for Rapture Astrology?"
      If you would like to find my articles on pretrib rapture history and theology in one location on the net, I would invite you to check out the worldwide British blog "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing" hosted by Treena Gisborn who is an outstanding researcher and authority on Biblical topics including prophecy.

C.I. SCOFIELD'S HIDDEN SIDE

 by Dave MacPherson

     C. I. S. can stand for "Crime Investigation Scene" or C. I. Scofield.

     But I repeat myself. The venerable old C. I. Scofield of Scofield Bible fame was, in a sense, a 19th century "crime scene" that many still don't know about.

     Cyrus Scofield is best known in Christian circles as the greatest promoter of the pretrib rapture during the past century by means of his Scofield Reference Bible which came out in 1909.

     He preferred the pretrib rapture view over other prophetic views and never missed an opportunity to plug that 19th century fantasy and sneak it into his "explanations" which he included alongside Bible verses.

     Maybe we should call his Bible the Scofield "Preference" Bible!

     Some remarkable things happened after his reported conversion to Christ in 1879:

     An article in the "Topeka [Kansas] Daily Capital" on Aug. 27, 1881 began in this manner:

     "Cyrus I. Schofield [sic], formerly of Kansas, late lawyer, politician and shyster generally, has come to the surface again, and promises once more to gather around himself that halo of notoriety that has made him so prominent in the past. The last personal knowledge that Kansans have had of this peer among scalawags, was when about four years ago, after a series of forgeries and confidence games he left the state and a destitute family and took refuge in Canada."

     It continued: "Within the past year [1880]...Cyrus committed a series of St. Louis forgeries" which landed him "in the St. Louis jail for a period of six months." (I obtained a copy of this article at the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka.)
     One of the forgeries was a real estate scam he cooked up during which he robbed his own mother-in-law of her life savings ($1300.00)! (Would most crooks target their own family members?!)
     Scofield deserted his first wife Leontine (and their two girls), she divorced him in 1883, he remarried three months later and also lied to "Who's Who in America" about his criminal past. (To see a copy of C. I. Scofield's divorce decree which I found in the Atchison County Courthouse in Kansas, Google "Scofield: The Man Behind the Myth."  I included highlights of the above in my 1983 book "The Great Rapture Hoax.")
     Leontine died in 1936 fifteen years after Cyrus died. She never remarried and spent many years as the librarian at the Atchison Library. To see where she is buried in a Catholic cemetery, Google "gravestone of Leontine Cerre Scofield."
     Although Scofield never had any theological training, he brazenly added "D.D." after his name in the 1890s even though no institution had conferred that degree on him!

     Those interested in many other shocked aspects of Scofield's hidden (and criminal) side are invited to obtain "The Incredible Scofield and His Book" (1988) by Joseph M. Canfield. Another great book on C. I. S. in "The Praise of Folly" (2009) by David Lutzweiler.

     Somehow the Scofield saga continues. His pretribized Bible is still being merchandised in numerous Christian bookstores and I am forced to conclude that many pretribbers are still Scofieldelirious!

CHRIST'S RETURN IS NOT IMMINENT!

by Dave MacPherson

(Pretrib rapturists claim that Christ's return is imminent, that is, capable of occurring at any moment. My wonderful father and theologian Norman MacPherson, in his excellent book "Triumph Through Tribulation," offers proof that the Bible has never taught an any-moment return of Christ. Here are the points brought out and discussed at length by him:)

     1. Great Commission fulfillment implies a long period of time.
     2. Seed growth in Matthew 13 is a time-consuming process.
     3. Paul expected death, not rapture, in II Timothy 4:6-8.
     4. Jesus predicted Peter's martyrdom in John 21:18-19.
     5. Matthew 24 teaches that signs must come first.
     6. Many passages speak of a large interval between Christ's ascension and return: Jewish dispersion into "all nations" (Luke 21); "man travelling into a far country," "after a long time the lord of those servants cometh" (Matthew 25).
     7. Apostasy of last days takes time to develop.
     8. Bridegroom tarried in parable of virgins.
     9. Pastoral epistles teach Church's continuing ministry, which involves time.
   10. Paul says Christ's coming is not imminent (II Thessalonians 2:1-3), for apostasy and Antichrist must come first.
   11. View of seven phases of church history (seven churches of Revelation) involves big lapse of time and imminence difficulties for pre-tribs; could Christ have come before the last phase?
   12. Exhortations to watch and be ready are tied to what pre-trib teachers regard as the second stage (which is necessarily non-imminent) in Matthew 24 and 25, I Corinthians 1:7, Colossians 3:4, I Thessalonians 3:13, II Thessalonians 1:7-10, I Peter 1:13 and 4:13, and I John 2:28.

(How can an "imminent" return of Christ have a greater practical effect on us than the indwelling of the Holy Spirit already has, or should have, on us?  For more on pretrib beliefs and history, Google "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy," "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty," "Roots of Warlike Christian Zionism," and "Pretrib Rapture Politics.")

PRETRIB RAPTURE'S MISSING LINES

by Dave MacPherson

     R. A. Huebner, fanatical follower of John Darby, noticed that several lines in Margaret Macdonald's 1830 pretrib account (such as "The trial of the Church is from Antichrist") were omitted when Robert Norton reproduced it a second time. In order to keep crediting Darby with pretrib, Huebner asserted that Margaret taught only a posttrib coming, her "Antichrist" statement being proof of it.
     In order to falsely claim this, Huebner ignored her MAIN POINT in lines 58-63: "one taken and the other left" BEFORE the revealing of Antichrist. He also suppressed the truth that she saw a pretrib coming of only PART of the church (partial rapturism) and that leading partial rapturists like Govett and Pember, after seeing a rapture of PART of the church, refer to the other PART left on earth as simply the "church"! (Google "X-Raying Margaret," "Margaret Macdonald's Main Point," and "Margaret Macdonald's Rapture Chart" and see my pioneer work "The Rapture Plot" for a full analysis of her account.)
     Actually, when Norton aired his abridgement of her account later on he kept intact her main point and also the essence of the omitted lines with different wording.
     The only change comes when a few misguided pretribs deviously change factual info about Margaret on Wikipedia - which should be called Wicked-pedia since anyone with any ulterior motive can insert lie after lie therein!
     HERE'S THE BIG POINT BEING MADE HERE: If Margaret did initially teach posttrib in the lines later omitted, then the removal of those partial rapturistic lines (such as "The trial of the Church is from Antichrist") would have her teaching a pretrib rapture of ALL of the church!
     Since many pretrib leaders still falsely assert that Darby couldn't have been influenced by the Irvingites since they held to only "partial rapture" while Darby and his followers held to only "pretrib," here is a portion of my 1983 book "The Great Rapture Hoax":
     Although he doesn't go into much detail, Harold Rowdon's "The Origins of the Brethren" does reveal several early Brethren who, at the first, were under the spell of the partial rapturistic Irvingites; Rowdon includes Bulteel, Douglas, Hall, Groves, Lord Congleton, Wigram, Clarke, Stoney, and Darby himself!
     In a letter dated August 19, 1833 ("Letters," Vol. 1, pp. 22-24) Darby revealed the partial rapturism within his own circle. He discussed a Rev. Hardman who believed that "Philadelphia" would be raptured and "Laodicea" would be left behind. Darby summarized Hardman's view: "And then the church left in its Laodicean state...." (Note that Darby called those left behind the "church" - the term Margaret and other Irvingites used.) Darby added that partial rapturism "is an important consideration in the present state of things. It commends itself morally to one's mind." Near the end of the letter Darby wrote: "He will surely draw substantially His saints together before the end come, though there may be some left in...."
     Since Darby was an avid reader of the Irvingite journal "The Morning Watch," he was well aware that as early as the September 1830 issue the Irvingites were clearly expressing a partial rapture form of the pretrib catching up; it declared that "Philadelphia" would be raptured up to meet the Lord in the air BEFORE the great tribulation and that "Laodicea" would be left behind.
     By drawing attention away from early partial rapturism in Margaret and the Irvingites, Huebner was hoping no one would discover that the same partial rapturism in Darby's earliest development was what he had furtively "lifted" from the Irvingites!
     Incidentally, Darby didn't clearly eliminate all of the partial rapturism from his own system until the 1870s!
     By seeing something sinister in the later missing lines in Margaret's history-making revelation account and talking ignorantly about them on "Wicked-pedia," today's pretrib critics are actually  drawing attention to the innovative Irvingites and their female inspiration as well as to Darby's long hidden plagiarism of them!

PRETRIB RAPTURE SECRECY

by Dave MacPherson

     The word "secrecy" when applied to Christ's return can refer to two different things: time and visibility. Before 1830 the only coming Christians looked for was the "every eye shall see him" second advent to earth - secret only in point of time.
     Enter Margaret Macdonald in 1830. She saw "the one taken and the other left" before "THE WICKED" [Antichrist] will "be revealed" - and added that her pretrib rapture would not be "seen by the natural eye" but only by "those who have the light of God within." Her rapture was doubly secret: at an unknown day and hour and also invisible to "outsiders."
     Desperate to eliminate Margaret as the pretrib originator and the Irvingites as the first public teachers of pretrib, Darby defender Thomas Ice foolishly claims that they taught a secret POSTTRIB coming even though he knows that when Hal Lindsey teaches "one taken" etc. before the Antichrist "is revealed" Lindsey is expressing the kernel of the pretrib view - what MM and the Irvingites clearly taught before Darby did! (Google "Margaret Macdonald's Rapture Chart," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," and "Be careful in polemics - Peripatetic Learning" for proof that Margaret, Irvingites, and Darby all taught a secret rapture that was a PRETRIB one!)
     As early as June 1832, Irving's journal taught that only "to those who are watching and praying...will Christ be manifested...as the morning star. To the rest of the church, and to the world, this first appearance will be...unintelligible." ("Present State of Prophetic Knowledge" etc., p. 374)
     Always trailing and "borrowing" quietly from the Irvingites who in turn had "borrowed" from Margaret, Darby in 1845 finally sounded like them when he wrote that "the bright and morning Star...is the sweet and blessed sign to them that watch...And such is Christ before He appears [at the final advent to earth]. The Sun will arise on the world....The star is before the [Sun], the joy of those who watch. The unwakeful world, who sleep in the night, see it not." ("Thoughts on the Apocalypse," p. 167)
     And Lindsey's "Late Great Planet Earth," p. 143, says that "the second coming is said to be visible to the whole earth (Revelation 1:7). However, in the Rapture. only the Christians see Him - it's a mystery, a secret."  
     My bestselling book "The Rapture Plot" (available at online stores including Armageddon Books) has 300 pages of such documentation and proves that Margaret was the first to "see" a secret, pretrib rapture, that the Irvingites soon echoed her in their journal (which Darby admitted he avidly read), and that Darby was last on all of the crucial aspects of dispensationalism.
     Shockingly, all of the earliest pretrib development rested solely on unclear OT and NT types and symbols and NOT on clear Biblical statements. Margaret's rapture was inspired by Rev. 11's "two witnesses." And her "secret visibility" rested on the "types" of Stephen, Paul, and John - all of whom saw or heard what others couldn't see or hear.
     For 30 years Darby's pretrib basis was the rapture of Rev. 12's "man child" - actually his plagiarism of Irving's usage of this "pretrib" symbol eight years earlier!
     As I said at the start, the "second advent to earth" is secret in point of time with its unknown "day and hour," as Christ stated. Pretribs assert that if Christ returns for the church after the tribulation, we could count down the days and figure out the actual date of His return - which would contradict Christ's words.
     But pretribs deliberately ignore the fact that Christ said that the tribulation days will be shortened - and He didn't reveal the length of the shortening!
     Our opponents also assume that the "watch" verses prove the "any-moment imminence" of Christ's return. But do they? II Peter 3:12 says we are to be "looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God" which all premills claim is at least 1000 years ahead of us and therefore hardly "imminent"! What's the difference between "watching for" and "looking for"?
     Another gimmick has pretribs saying "Would you want Jesus to return at any moment and find out you're sinning?" But Jesus ALREADY knows all about us! And the Holy Spirit, who's also God, is ALREADY here (Rom. 8:27)!
     You have just learned a few of the many secrets that the Secret Rapture Gang has hidden for a long time. Evidently they have forgotten Luke 12:2's warning that "there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed"!
     PS - For the ultimate in uncovered secrets, see engines like Google and type in "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty."
     [The above message was not approved by the I.L.L. (Ice, LaHaye, Lindsey) Consortium of the Rapture Defense League!]

CHARISMATICS & PRETRIB RAPTURE

by Dave MacPherson

    Question: Why on earth would any charismatic believe in a pretrib rapture?
     You may recall my recent article unveiling "Dallas Seminary Secrets." In it I wondered why DTS president John Walvoord, when publicly opposing my pretrib origin research, would lean almost exclusively on a biased, Darby-idolyzing, no-theology-degree-holding fanatic like R. A. Huebner instead of his own seminary profs!
     And here's something else about the late Huebner that will make charismatics cringe.
     The 1973 Huebner booklet that Walvoord leaned on had a chapter titled "The Allegation that the (Truth of the) Pretribulation Rapture Came from a Demon."
     Huebner's goal was to deviously portray Margaret Macdonald and Irvingites (all of whom taught pretrib before Darby did) as "demonic" or under "demon" influence so that no one would believe that Darby (whom Huebner saw as the pretrib originator) would ever have been influenced by Macdonald (whom he visited in mid-1830) or any of Edward Irving's followers!
     My book "The Rapture Plot" quotes several that Huebner quoted who wrote about pretrib beginnings. Here are the quotes. I have added, in parentheses, the way Huebner dishonestly summarized the quotes later on in the same chapter in order to see "demons" where none existed:
     In 1864 S. P. Tregelles wrote: "It came...from that which falsely pretended to be the Spirit of God." (Huebner: "In 1864, he said it came from a demon.")
     In 1903 William Kelly referred to the Irvingite "oracles." (Huebner: Kelly was talking about "Irvingite demon-inspired utterances.")
     In 1956 H. A. Baker said that pretrib came from a "spirit." (Huebner: Baker said it came from a "demon.")
     In 1957 Oswald J. Smith declared that pretrib came from "a vision received by a woman" in Irving's church. (Huebner: Smith said it came from a "demon.")
     In 1962 J. Barton Payne traced pretrib to "a woman...speaking in tongues." (Huebner: Payne traced it to a "demon.")
     [I should add, for the sake of accuracy, that Margaret did not begin to speak in tongues until several months after she had her history-making pretrib rapture revelation in the spring of 1830. Therefore, the pretrib rapture concept did not spring from "tongues," as a few have wrongfully asserted.]
     Note Huebner's gross exaggeration while creating his "demon" straw men. Tregelles mentioned pretense and lack of spirituality, Kelly spoke of human mouthpieces, Baker's "spirit" can mean "force" or "mood," Smith's "vision" can mean "interpretation," and Payne merely credited a woman tongues-speaker!
     My "Plot" book summarized the above by saying:
     "Charismatics will be happy to learn that leading pretrib authority John Walvoord, when opposing my research, leans not on just a non-charismatic like Scofield but on a Huebner who's so violently anti-charismatic he can easily, and glibly, and repeatedly equate charismatic gifts with Satanic demonism!"
     I now go back to my earlier question: Why on earth would any charismatic believe in a pretrib rapture?

CATHOLICS DID NOT INVENT THE RAPTURE

by Dave MacPherson

     Many assert that the "rapture" promoted by evangelicals was first taught, at least seminally, by some Jesuit Catholic priest of the past. They usually name either Francisco Ribera of the 16th century or Manuel Lacunza of the 18th century. First, let's look at Ribera.
     To see what is claimed, Google "Francisco Ribera taught a rapture 45 days before the end of Antichrist's future reign." (Oddly, many claimants are anti-Catholic and merely use Ribera in order to "find" much earlier support for their rapture which actually isn't found in any official Christian theology or organized church before 1830!)
     After seeing this claim repeated endlessly without even one sentence from Ribera offered as proof, I decided to go over every page in Ribera's 640-page commentary on the book of Revelation published in Latin in 1593.
     After laboriously searching for the Latin equivalent of "45 days" ("quadraginta quinque dies"), "rapture" ("raptu," "raptio," "rapiemur," etc.) and other related expressions, I couldn't find anything in Ribera's work even remotely resembling a prior rapture!
     While Ribera can be claimed as the pretrib rapture originator, more pretrib defenders seem to pinpoint Manuel Lacunza and point to his lengthy work "The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty," a work that was translated from Spanish to English under the direction of Edward Irving who, by the way, did not obtain his pretrib view from Lacunza, as has been claimed.
     (The late Southern Baptist evangelist John Bray claimed to find pretrib teaching in Lacunza before he changed his mind and later on gave that "honor" to a Baptist named Morgan Edwards! For the real skinny on Edwards, Google "Morgan Edwards' Rapture View.")
      Does Lacunza teach a rapture 45 days before the coming to earth, as Bray claims? Let's look at Vol. I.
     On p. 83 Lacunza refers to the book of Revelation and says that "the nineteenth chapter speaks of the coming of the Lord in glory and majesty, which Christians with one consent do wait for."
     On pp. 99-100 after quoting I Thess. 4:13-18  Lacunza quotes Matt. 24:30 and then writes: "If you compare this text with that of St. Paul, you shall find no other difference than this, that those who are to arise on the coming of the Lord, the apostle nameth those who are dead in Christ, who sleep in Jesus; and the Lord nameth them his elect."
     Lacunza (p. 113) quotes I Thess. 4 and Matt. 24 in this manner: "...He shall descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive, &c and it appears to me, that 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."
     Lacunza's monumental work, which helped to revive futurism, was distributed widely in manuscript form as early as 1791 - so widely, in fact, that Pope Leo XII later placed it on the official list of prohibited books. (Lacunza says in his first volume, p. 220, the "our priesthood" will eventually become the two-horned beast of Rev. 13!)
     If Lacunza's book contains a pretrib coming, why was such doctrine unknown before 1830? It wasn't that John Darby and Edward Irving were unaware of Lacunza's work, for both discussed it in their pre-1830 writings. And it wasn't that Darby and Irving were opposed to novel ideas, for both began to embrace pretribulationism after it emerged in early 1830!
     Are you curious about the real beginnings of this evangelical belief (a.k.a. the "pre-tribulation rapture") merchandised by Darby, Scofield, Lindsey, Falwell, LaHaye, Ice, Van Impe, Hagee and many others?
     Google "Famous Rapture Watchers," "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty," for starters.
     I will end this by saying it's a distinct honor to have these and other articles of mine on this excellent and much needed blog hosted by my friend and Bible expert Treena Gisborn!

PRETRIB RAPTURE & ED HINDSON

by Dave MacPherson

     [Dr. Ed Hindson's article "What To Do If You're Left Behind" inspired the following. --- D.M.]

     What a wishy-washy ingrate Ed Hindson is!
     He received most of his doctorates from (non-pretrib) schools like Westminster Theological Seminary.
     But Jerry Falwell's deep pockets at close-minded (pretrib) Liberty University bribed Hindson into becoming an alma mater backstabber as well as a slavish pretrib plagiarist.
     I discovered years ago that "The Fundamentalist Phenomenon" (a book dated 1981 and compiled by Jerry Falwell, Ed Dobson, and Ed Hindson) had quietly and monstrously pirated huge portions of Dr. George Dollar's 1973 book "A History of Fundamentalism in America"!

     Let's compare a bit of Dollar's book with the later book by Falwell, Dobson, and Hindson:

          DOLLAR, pp. 93f:

      "Harry Emerson Fosdick...was born near Buffalo, New York, on May 24,  1878...he attended Colgate, where he...revolted against orthodox views....at Colgate...came under the...influence of...William Newton Clarke....transferring to Union Seminary and Columbia University....One major influence on Fosdick at Union was the stress on the social application....He found the social gospel of Rauschenbusch challenging. From 1904 to 1915 he was pastor of the Baptist church at Montclair, New Jersey....His sermons...on problem-solving...drew from...within the Bible and outside....the very beautiful Riverside Church...provided a pulpit for Harry Emerson Fosdick....The National Broadcasting Company...gave him free time on Sunday afternoon for 'National Vespers.' "
          
           FALWELL et al, p. 104:
        "Harry Emerson Fosdick...was born in Buffalo, New York, on May 24, 1878. He attended Colgate...where he revolted against...orthodox teachings....At Colgate he was influenced by William Newton Clarke....transferred to Union Seminary and Colgate University. At Union he was influenced by the importance of a social consciousness....He was challenged by the influence of Rauschenbusch, who was the pioneer champion of the social gospel. From 1904 to 1915 Fosdick was pastor at the Baptist Church at Montclair, New Jersey. His preaching...utilized the Bible and extra-biblical sources in dealing with problems....the Riverside Church...provided the public forum for Harry Emerson Fosdick. His public ministry was so impressive that the National Broadcasting Company allowed him free time on Sunday afternoon for...'National Vespers.' "

     Google "Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal" (which is part of my book "The Rapture Plot") to see all of the pages portraying, with side-by-side quotes, the shocking extent of today's pretrib pilfering which has allowed the best known rapture robbers to live in secret rapture splendor in the mansions they've already been "raptured" to that Jesus most assuredly did not prepare!

     One member of Falwell's writing team - Ed Dobson - told me in a letter that he had apologized, but Hindson and Falwell never apologized for their part in the literary piracy!
     Some Google articles that Hindson wouldn't want anyone to read include "Famous Rapture Watchers," "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy," "Margaret Macdonald's Rapture Chart," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," "Scholars Weigh My Research," "Pretrib Rapture Politics," "Pretrib Rapture Stealth" and (most shocking of all) "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty."
     Maybe Hindson should change his name to Ed Left Behindson!

WALVOORD MELTS ICE (II THESS. 2:3)

by Dave MacPherson 

      Thomas Ice - Protector of the shrinking Principality of Pretribulatia - believes that his "texas receptus" interpretation of II Thess. 2:3 is much better than that of his mentor, the late Dr. John Walvoord!
     Ice impudently states (in his widely noticed web article "The Rapture in 2 Thessalonians 2:3") that "I believe that there is a strong possibility that 2 Thessalonians 2:3 is speaking of the rapture," adding that "The fact that APOSTASIA [caps mine] most likely has the meaning of physical departure is a clear support for pretribulationism."
     In his book "The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation" (p. 125) Walvoord writes:
     "E. Schuyler English and others have suggested that the word [apostasia] means literally 'departure' and refers to the rapture itself. Gundry argues at length against this interpretation, which would explicitly place the rapture before the day of the Lord, and his evidence is quite convincing. English is joined by the Greek scholar Kenneth S. Wuest but their view has not met with general acceptance by either pretribulationists or posttribulationists. A number of pretribulationists have interpreted the apostasy in this way as the departure of the church, but the evidence against this translation is impressive. In that case Gundry, seconded by Ladd, is probably right: the word refers to doctrinal defection of the special character that will be revealed in the day of the Lord [which "day" Walvoord views as "the great tribulation"]."
     So even though Dr. Robert Gundry's evidence "is quite convincing" and Ice's "has not met with general acceptance" and evidence against Ice's assertion "is impressive" and Gundry and Ladd are "probably right," Thomas Ice keeps beating his desperate dispensational drum in the ears of the Walvoord who was the No. 1 pretrib authority for many decades!
     Gundry's uber-great book "The Church and the Tribulation" (pp. 114-118) dismantles, piece by piece, the doctrinal defectors of II Thess. 2:3. For example, Gundry says that "it is from this least important source [classical Greek - in which "simple departure by no means predominates"] that English draws his argument."
     After English (followed by Ice) seeks support from Reformation-era Bible translations, Gundry points out that "the appeal to early English translations unwittingly reveals weakness, because in the era of those versions lexical studies in NT Greek were almost nonexistent and continued to be so for many years. The papyri had not yet been discovered, and the study of the LXX had hardly begun."
     Gundry adds: "In 2:1 Paul mentions 'our gathering' second in order to the Parousia. In light of the immediately preceding description of the posttribulational advent [II Thess. 1:7-10], it seems natural to regard the Parousia as a reference to that event rather than a sudden switch to a pretribulational Parousia unmentioned in the first chapter and unsupported in I Thessalonians. Several verses later (2:8) the Parousia again refers to the posttribulational advent of Christ."
     If the "falling away" (2:3) is the same (pretrib) rapture Ice sees in "gathering" (2:1), why did Paul use totally different Greek words ("episunagoges" and "apostasia") if he was discussing the very same event?
     A Google article ("Pretrib Rapture - Hidden Facts") reveals that pretrib rapturism historically has had more than two stages. Stage 1: In 1830 the "rapture" aspect of the second advent was stretched forward and became a separate coming. Stage 2: In the early 1900s various teachers stretched forward the "day of the Lord" (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do!). Stage 3: In recent times the "fact" involving "apostasia" has created "the-rapture-must-happen-before-the-rapture" fantasy which Ice etc. can hang on to with at least their eyelids!
     For more info about Ice, Google "Pretrib Rapture Pride," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," and "Be Careful in Polemics - Peripatetic Learning."  For 300 pages of uncovered and highly endorsed documentation on pretrib history, see my book "The Rapture Plot" which is available at Armageddon Books etc.
     Remember: Ice-colored statements can be as dangerous as ice-covered pavements!

MORGAN EDWARDS' RAPTURE VIEW

by Dave MacPherson

     In 1995, in a 24-page booklet on 18th century pastor Morgan Edwards, evangelist John Bray claimed that Edwards taught a pretrib rapture in his 1788 book titled "Two Academical Exercises on Subjects Bearing the Following Titles; Millennium, Last-Novelties" which he had composed much earlier when he was a student at Bristol Baptist College in England.
     Those echoing Bray include Thomas Ice who wrote "Morgan Edwards: Another Pre-Darby Rapturist." Edwards' 1788 work can be found on the internet.
     In order to claim that Edwards held to pretrib, candidates for the I-can-find-pretrib-earlier-in-church-history-than-you-can medal - including Bray, Ice, LaHaye, Frank Marotta etc. - have intentionally covered up Edwards' "historicism," his belief that the tribulation had already been going on for hundreds of years.

     (How can anyone in the tribulation go back in time and look for a pretrib rapture?)
     Here's proof of Edwards' historicism and its companion "day-year" theory which can view the 1260 tribulation "days" as "years."
     On p. 14 Edwards described the Ottoman Empire (which was then already 400 years old) as the Rev. 13:11 "beast." On p. 20 he defined "Antichrist" as the already 1000-year-old "popery" and the "succession of persons" known as "Popes" - his other Rev. 13 "beast." He necessarily viewed Rev. 13's 1260-day period as 1260 literal years in order to provide enough time for his two "beasts."
     On p. 19, while discussing "the ministry of the witnesses" of Rev. 11, he allotted "about 204 years" for their "years to perform" - years impossible to fit into a 3.5-year period!
     What about Edwards' rapture? On pp. 21-23 he wrote about "the appearing of the son of man in the clouds, coming to raise the dead saints and change the living, and to catch them up to himself....The signs of Christ's appearing in the clouds will be extraordinary 'wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines,' &. (Matth. xxiv. 6-8.)....The signs of his coming, in the heavens will be 'the trump of God [I Thess. 4:16], vapor and smoke, which will darken the sun and moon [Matt. 24:29],'...and also cause those meteors called 'falling stars'....
     Right after his combined rapture/advent (!), Edwards said: "And therefore, now, Antichrist...will...counterfeit the preceding wonders in heaven...causing 'fire to come down from heaven'....And that godhead he will now assume, after killing the two witnesses....Now the great persecution of the Jews will begin...for time, times, and half a time...."
     Thomas Ice's article on Edwards (listed at start) quoted only the first 27 words in the above quotation which end with "to himself" - and you can see why pretrib defender Ice stopped quoting there! (For an Ice-covered piece, Google "Pretrib Rapture Pride.")
     Not only had most of Edwards' historicist tribulation occurred before his combined rapture/advent, but incredibly his Antichrist kept raging for 3.5 years even after the Matt. 24 signs! No wonder his school tutor advised him to correct his thesis!

     Here is Edwards' "kernel" proving pretrib, according to Thomas Ice and those who mindlessly copy Ice:

     On p. 7 Edwards' stated that "the dead saints will be raised, and the living changed at Christ's 'appearing in the air' (1 Thes.iv,17); and this will be about three years and a half before the millennium...."

      My book "The Rapture Plot" (pp. 267-8) shares some light on all this:

          Edwards' basis for holding to a rapture three and a half years before the second advent (and a future millennium) may well have been the Revelation 11 witnesses on whom he focused. This chapter has a period of three and a half days (verses 9, 11) that historicism can view as three and a half years. Since the spirits of these dead witnesses conceivably go to be with Christ during the same days - days preceding the final advent - historicist Edwards could see in this symbol a rapture three and a half years before the same advent.

          Since Edwards' book was actually written in the 1740's in England, let's see if the historicism of that period could derive years from the same three and a half days. The June, 1830 issue of "The Morning Watch" reprinted a November 29, 1755 letter that John Fletcher sent to a famous preacher, John Wesley. Fletcher said that the "last raging" of the centuries-long Antichrist will last only three and a half literal years, adding: "Those that shall escape, being hidden and saved in a wonderful manner, will be the seed of that harvest, and will remain concealed three years and a half (see Rev.xi. the death and resurrection of the two witnesses)...."

          Whereas Fletcher (while viewing Revelation 11:9, 11) saw church members concealed on earth for three and a half years, Edwards saw church members concealed away from earth via a prior rapture. Edwards' scheme of a rapture three and a half years before the end of a 1260-year tribulation has the same tiny gap a futurist would have if he were to teach a rapture three and a half days before the end of a 1260-day tribulation! Since such a futurist view would be seen as a posttrib view, Edwards (who had the same small percentage) should be classified as a historicist posttrib!

     A footnote explaining the above quote had this to say: "Edwards saw a rapture at the extreme end of the tribulation. The mathematics work out as follows: 3.5 years/1260 years=0.0027, or 0.27% of the tribulation remaining. That means 99.73% of the tribulation was already past before the rapture. Hardly a pretrib rapture!"          
     To read Edwards' complete work, Google "[PDF] Two Academical Exercises...www.breadoflifebiblestudy.com."
     For much more info on Edwards, Google my article "Deceiving and Being Deceived,"  also see my heavily documented book "The Rapture Plot" which is available at online stores like Armageddon Books. ("Plot" happily made Armageddon Books' bestselling list soon after it was published in 1995.)

     Let me conclude by saying that the secret rapture is truly secret - so secret it cannot be found in the Bible. But Texas hired gun and rapture rustler Thomas Ice tries to make up for this by "finding" it in pre-1830 writings where no one during those centuries had ever "found" it!

ROOTS OF WARLIKE CHRISTIAN ZIONISM

by Dave MacPherson

     First, let's get something straight. Many conservative evangelicals in America are not longing for the "world's end" or "judgment day" or a "millennium" or an "antichrist" or even the "second coming."

    Although these phrases are in their theology books, the same books emphasize what they are waiting (and would almost die) for: the "any-moment pretribulation rapture" which is expected several years ahead of the second coming and most assuredly BEFORE a future "great tribulation"!

    Hal Lindsey, the big rapture guru of the late 20th century, ended his bestselling book "The Late Great Planet Earth" with the word "MARANATHA" which pretribulation rapturists know is a code word for their rapture. And the same literal removal from earth at any moment lurks in Lindsey's other writings.

    Tim LaHaye, the rapture tycoon whose "Left Behind" bonanza left even Lindsey behind, knows how to milk the rapturized masses. After his 1992 pro-rapture book "No Fear of the Storm" was published, it was revealed that he had sloppily omitted 48 words when airing a brief 19th century document - hardly good publicity! After sales slowed down, it was re-issued as "Rapture Under Attack" (with the same 48 missing words) and appeared to the public to be a new book. But not even the title change seemed to help things, and merchandiser LaHaye knew it was time to come up with some other titles that could further his rapture obsession.

    And Jerry Falwell never seemed to miss an opportunity, when preaching, to remind his audience that he most certainly believes in the "pretribulational rapture" view.

     I can almost believe that the middle name of many Christian Right leaders is "Rapture"!

    When checking pre-19th century prophetic development, one finds that "dispensational" thinking as well as Christian Zionistic roots had been in existence long before the emergence of pretribulation rapturism. Even the prophetic word "rapture" had been in print well before the 19th century - but always in reference to only an after-the-tribulation coming and never to a pretribulation coming.

    Many are still unaware that the pretrib rapture idea was first publicly aired in the fall of 1830 in "The Morning Watch" (hereafter: TMW), a little-known quarterly journal published by the Irvingites (followers of famed London preacher Edward Irving) from 1829 to 1833 in Britain. Not only was this innovative publication years ahead of John Darby and his Plymouth Brethren colleagues, rapturally speaking, but in it we find shocking militancy that have been observed in Christian Zionist preachers like John Hagee and Jerry Falwell.

    As early as the September 1830 issue of TMW (pp. 510-514) a writer declared that only worthy Christians (which he labeled "Philadelphia") would be raptured before "the great tribulation" and less worthy ones (labeled "Laodicea") would be left on earth.

    The September 1832 issue of the same journal (pp. 6-7) saw "Jews" as well as the less worthy Christians left behind.

    But the March 1833 issue (p. 147) said that only "the Jews" would be excluded from the rapture.

    So within a short period of time the Irvingites, while following the same Scriptures, revealed their innate anti-Jewishness by switching from a "church/church" dichotomy to a "church/Israel" dichotomy after convincing themselves that only "the Jews" would deserve a future tribulation!

    After their adoption of an escapist view that no organized church had ever taught before 1830, the same early pretrib rapturists, feeling superior, began exhibiting some vices that often come to powerless persons who suddenly obtain power - vices like pride, hatred and persecution of others, playing God, and so on.

    Sounding like Hagee and other warlike warmongers, TMW expressed even more delusional, rapture-inspired fantasies:

    The September 1830 issue (p. 514), looking ahead to the hoped for "great escape," declared that the raptured believers would then collectively become "the victorious ministerer of the great tribulation" upon those left behind!

    In March of 1832 the same Irvingite journal (p. 3) taught that the "vials" of wrath in the book of Revelation "shall be poured out by the risen [raptured] saints"!

    And TMW in September 1832 (p. 27) went even further and announced that the collective group of raptured ones will "wield the thunders of its power against the dragon [Satan] and his angels, and cast them down from heaven"!

    Note that these fanatics were more than willing to be the "chosen ones" to pour out tribulation and wrath on those not worthy to be "chosen": the Jews.

    (I'm glad to report that Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina is to my knowledge the only North American institution containing a complete set of every issue of "The Morning Watch," all 3993 pages. I recently gave SEBTS my 35-year collection of rare material including those issues and Robert Norton's valuable 1861 book.)

    We've just had a glimpse of vengeful and power-crazy fanaticism within the very earliest pretrib rapture group. But where in the Bible did those deluded rapturists find support for such "rapture rage"? And where are the followers of Christ commanded to pick up a sword and conquer or convert non-believers with it - or even support such sword-bearers? Why have so many Christian Zionists, who seemingly give more attention to governments than to their Gospel, turned the Great Commission into the Great Commotion?

    Many of the above historical details are in my 300-page book "The Rapture Plot," the most complete and documented history of the 187-year-old pretribulation rapture that we've seen merchandised by Hagee, LaHaye, Falwell, Lindsey, Swaggart, Van Impe etc. for their pet agendas - an escapist view never taught by any church for 1800 years!

    If you don't have time for my book, I invite you to read my internet items including "Greatest Hebrew-Christian Scholars Not Pretrib," "Pretrib Rapture: A Staged Event," "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," "Famous Rapture Watchers," "Pretrib Rapture Pride," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," "Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal," "The Rapture Index (Mad Theology)," and  "Pretrib Hypocrisy."

    All of my royalties, by the way, have always gone to a nonprofit corporation and not to me or anyone else. Interested in obtaining my unique "Plot" book? Just call 800.643.4645 or visit online bookstores. (Type in "Scholars Weigh My Research" on Google etc. to read endorsements of it by leading scholars.)

    Do Hagee and his fellow preachers really love Jewish persons as much as they say they do? Then why do they pervert Scripture to try to get themselves raptured off earth before their future and final "tribulation" instead of wanting to remain on earth during that period to minister love to ALL of earth's citizens including Jewish ones?

    Hagee has stated publicly that "The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West...." Which Bible verse inspired him to utter this - the one that says "Love ye your enemies" or the one saying "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord"?

    It would appear that Hagee, Falwell and other pretrib rapture merchandisers and Christian Zionists have tried hard to identify with the predicted group whose love will "wax cold" (a la Matthew 24:12) during what Hagee etc. see in the future as earth's darkest days!

GREATEST HEBREW-CHRISTIAN SCHOLARS NOT PRETRIB!

by Dave MacPherson

     Jews as well as Christians can cover up facts about the money-making pretrib rapture.
     I have in mind Dr. Michael Rydelnik, a widely heard voice on the Moody Radio Network who calls himself either a Hebrew-Christian or a Jewish-Christian - take your choice.
     Rydelnik just returned from another trip to Israel and couldn't wait to use his melodious radio voice to keep his listeners in their expectant state of rapturous stupor.
     In order to help shore up the worldwide collapsing of the pillar of sand known as pretrib he started off by daring to say that when the tribulation starts, the "day of the Lord" will also be happening!
     Rydelnik thus covered up the fact that neither J. N. Darby nor C. I. Scofield (D. L. Moody's colleague!) dared to stretch forward the posttrib "day of the Lord" and hook it up with their previously-stretched-forward pretrib rapture - evidence that Christian Zionists like Rydelnik can sharply disagree with earlier Zionists!
     Scofield, for example, states in his Rev. 19 notes that the same "day" is preceded by the "cosmical disturbances (Joel 2.1-12; Mt. 24.29; Acts 2.19, 20; Rev. 6.12-17)." (In Rydelnik's case, the future posttrib sun/moon darkening has been preceded by his own scholarship darkening.)
     There are historical persons that Rydelnik and other modern pretrib rapture Zionists love to cover up: eminent Hebrew-Christian scholars of the past, all of whom were NOT pretrib!
     While names like Biesenthal, Caspari, Delitzsch, Neander, Rabinowitz, and Schereschewsky are practically unknown by most Christians, the names of Baron, Edersheim, and Saphir are much more recognizable.
     David Baron ("The Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah," p. 323) wrote that Paul "spoke of 'the blessed hope and the appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ' (Tit. ii.13), for then the hope as regards the church, and Israel, and the world, will be fully realised."
     Alfred Edersheim, who expected only one future coming of Christ for judgment, stated in "The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah," Vol. II, pp. 451-2: "We shall best succeed, not by going out of the world, but by being watchful in it."
     Adolph Saphir ("The Epistle to the Hebrews," pp. 95-6) spoke of "the advent of the Messiah, which is yet in the future, to which both the believing synagogue and the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ are looking, when He is to be manifested in great power, and to be acknowledged as King of the whole earth."
     Nowadays the Mideast is constantly in the news. Some feel that Israel can do no wrong while others are convinced that Israel can do nothing right. There are pretrib teachers who even believe that Israel has a special "covenant" with God apart from the Gospel.
     And Christians are learning at the same time that a person can disagree with Mideast policies without being viewed as anti-Semitic or hateful.
     Finally, Google "Pretrib Rapture: A Staged Event," "Pretrib Rapture Stealth" and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty."

THE MOODY ERWIN LUTZER

 by Dave MacPherson

      Pastor Erwin Lutzer at the famous Moody Church in Chicago is an outstanding preacher. But he can be moody at times - rapture moody.

     Take July 29, 2012 for example. His "Moody Church Hour" sermon that day on "Philadelphia" (one of Revelation's seven churches) included the following:
     "It is His coming, the rapture, that would keep the church from the hour of trial [a.k.a. the great tribulation] that is coming upon the whole earth. And isn't it interesting? He does not say 'I will keep you through the hour of trial but rather I will keep you out of - that's what the text [Rev. 3:10] says - I will keep you out of the hour of trial that is coming upon the whole earth.
     "There is of course a disagreement as to whether or not we will go through the tribulation, or whether or not we will be raptured ahead of time, and we don't know all the details until it happens. But wouldn't it be wonderful if when we are going up in the sky we could look at all of those posttribbers and say with a smile 'I told you it was so'? Wouldn't that be wonderful to be able to do that?"
     The congregation immediately applauded.
     Note that Lutzer twice used the word "wonderful" when asking his audience how wonderful it would be to use spiteful pride against the only "rapture" view found in all theology books and organized churches before the year 1830: the posttribulation view!
     On the "Moody Church Hour" web site the same day (July 29) Lutzer wrote that "great benefit was derived from John Stott's book WHAT CHRIST THINKS OF THE CHURCH when these messages [on Revelation's seven churches] were prepared."
     Incredibly, the Stott that Lutzer leaned on disagrees completely with Lutzer. The same Stott book, p. 104, says this: "He would not spare them from the suffering [Rev. 3:10]; but He would uphold them in it."
     It would be wonderful if Erwin Lutzer would visit Google and type in "Famous Rapture Watchers" and "Famous Rapture Watchers (Addendum)." Not only would he spot the very same Stott quote, but in the same summaries he would also discover that all of the greatest Greek New Testament scholars of all time have uniformly viewed Rev. 3:10 (the most important "proof text" for pretribbers) as teaching "preservation through" and not "escaping beforehand"! ("Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" is another informative Google article.)
     One wonders what will have to happen to change the Moody pastor's mood.

PRETRIB RAPTURE: A STAGED EVENT!

by Dave MacPherson

     Can pretrib rapturists find support for their view in the stages of a Jewish wedding, as some assert?

     Every encyclopedia I checked (including the Jewish Encyclopedia) states that there are two stages in such a wedding: the "kiddushin" (betrothal) and the "nissuin" (marriage).
     Although some pretrib leaders find proof for their rapture view in Jewish wedding stages, there is widespread disagreement among them over how many stages there are.
     In his book "The End Times Passover"Joe Ortiz refers to John Walvoord's book "The Rapture Question" which accepts R. C. H. Lenski's view that a Hebrew marriage has three stages.
     Charles Monk sees 5 "customs" (stages).
     Arnold Fruchtenbaum has found 6 "steps" (stages) that Thomas Ice has appropriated.
     The ReturnToGod.com site observes 12 "steps" (stages).
     Not to be outdone, Renald Showers actually sees 17 "customs" (stages).
     (Think of all the work to boil down 17 or even 5 stages into a two-stage second coming!)
     An internet blog titled "For the Love of Truth" is representative of not a few that reveal that it's dangerous as well as unscriptural to base a pretrib rapture outlook on Jewish traditions. In an article titled "Jewish Wedding and Rapture" the same blog has some startling information:
     It says: "Jewish Wedding traditions being discussed are the rabbinic teachings found within the Talmud and Kabbalah." (Not only are these sources occultic and anti-Biblical but the Talmud is filled with lies and blasphemy about Jesus that are as irrational as they are totally evil!)
     It reveals that certain pretrib leaders "have taken snippets of the various Jewish wedding traditions" and "rearranged and reinvented the content and events and then made the declaration that the Jewish wedding tradition is really the story of Christ and the rapture...."
     It also states that "the seven blessings [during the ceremony] obviously have nothing to do with Jesus Christ or His return," adding that "Nowhere does the Bible tell us to interpret scripture by looking to man's traditions."
     Incidentally, it's well-known that pretrib rapture defenders claim that certain Bible passages are on "church" ground while other passages are on "Jewish" ground and that we should always maintain the Darby-approved "church/Israel separation" principle. However, with impunity they can jettison that principle in the twinkling of an eye if they need support for their 187-year-old novelty from occultic Jewish traditions or from Lev. 23's Jewish feasts!
     Since far too many pretrib leaders seem to be "stagestruck," and since their love affair with stages has rubbed off on me, I hereby share a personal "revelation" I've had lately that I've titled "The Seven-Stage Coming (I Thess. 4)" which proves that pretribs should be looking for a seven-stage coming and not just a measly two-stage coming:
     1 - The Lord descends.
     2 - The shout.
     3 - The archangel's voice.
     4 - The trumpet of God.
     5 - The dead rise.
     6 - The caught up (rapture).
     7 - The meeting in the air.
     Yes, seven stages. And isn't 7 supposed to be a perfect number?
     Something else. Have you noticed the unnatural language pretribs like to use? If a friend visits me, goes away for a month, and then comes back and visits me again, he never says: "I'm back for the SECOND stage of my one visit." But pretribs use wording like this when they place SEVERAL YEARS between their two stages!
     During their short history pretrib promoters have disagreed on many things in addition to the number of stages in a Jewish wedding. They have also disagreed on which Jewish feast is symbolic of a pretrib rapture, and disagreed on which symbol in the book of Revelation is the best "pretrib" symbol.

     (For 30 years Darby's basis for a pretrib rapture was Rev. 12:5's "man child" that is caught up - a verse that is presently being discussed around the world in connection with a hoped-for rapture this coming Sep. 23rd!)
     For 300 pages of the most accurate documentation anywhere on the long covered up but now revealed history of the pretrib rapture view, I invite you to obtain my book "The Rapture Plot" at Armageddon Books and other online stores. Google "Scholars Weigh My Research" to see how eminent scholars have evaluated my discoveries.
     Finally, it's apparent that pretrib teachers are experts in arithmetic - the MULTIPLYING of stages which has caused a lot of DIVIDING among Christians!

JOHN (REFORMEDISPY) MACARTHUR

by Dave MacPherson

      Southern California pastor John MacArthur, head of the "Grace to You" Ministry, lives to jump into theological controversies and prove to his opponents that his "grace" is more biblical than their "grace"!

       For many years he's been involved with the "Lordship Salvation controversy" (see Wikipedia).
      In recent years he's sparred over Revelation's mark of the beast. To see how he's raised many temperatures, look up "John MacArthur OUTRAGE - take Mark of Beast, still be saved..." on YouTube!
      Since last fall MacArthur has inspired articles like "John MacArthur Sends 500,000,000 Charismatics to Hell" which is still all over the web. A forthright article explaining this incendiary headline is titled "John MacArthurs Strange Fire (Calvinists hating on Arminians, again?)" which can be found on Google and which is a response to the "Strange Fire Conference" MacArthur had held earlier at his church which is still causing aftershocks around the world!
      MacArthur's controversies began after he was exposed early in life to 19th century dispensationalism which he constantly (and arrogantly) reflects by sneaking in the "any-moment rapture" into whatever his topic happens to be. At the same time he tries to somehow combine Reformed theology with Deformed Dispensationalism. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the temptation to add the word "Deformed"!)    
      Who knows, maybe John (Reformedispy) MacArthur is right and the greatest Greek scholars (Google "Famous Rapture Watchers"), who uniformly said that Rev. 3:10 means "preservation through" and not "raptured away from" were wrong. But John has a conflict.

      On the one hand, since he knows that all Christian theology and organized churches before 1830 believed the church would be on earth during the tribulation, he would like to be seen as one who stands with the great Reformers. 
      On the other hand, if John has a warehouse of unsold pretrib rapture material, and if he wants to have "security" for his retirement years and hopes that the "big California quake" won't louse up his plans, he has a decided conflict of interest. Maybe the Lord will have to help strip off the layers of his seared conscience which have grown for years in order to please his parents and his supporters - who knows? 
      One thing is for sure: pretrib is truly a house of cards and is so fragile that if a person removes just one card from the TOP of the pile, the whole thing can collapse. Which is why pretrib teachers don't dare to even suggest they could be wrong on even one little subpoint! Don't you feel sorry for the straitjacket they are in?

      While you're mulling all this over, Google "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" for a rare behind-the-scenes look at the same Johnny-come-lately (or better yet, Margaret-come-lately) fantasy.

      I wonder how soon California's famous underground saint (San Andreas, who's hardly faultless) will get a huge statewide kick out of what's been going on over his head!

PAUL WILKINSON: SERIAL REVISIONIST

by Dave MacPherson

Here's a hint or two:

Prov. 14:5 says "A faithful witness will not lie: but a false witness will utter lies." II Tim. 3:13 predicts: "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived."

And now some facts about Dr. Paul Wilkinson who, unlike his American counterpart Thomas Ice, possesses an honorable doctorate from an accredited school, the University of Manchester. My wife and I recall meeting the late great encyclopedia contributor Dr. F. F. Bruce and being invited to have tea with him in his office there. This occurred before I had written my first book, and Bruce was then excited over the long forgotten pretrib rapture history that we had already uncovered in libraries throughout England and Scotland.

Accidental omission when pursuing historical facts is one thing (and I've been guilty of this a few times). But deliberate concealment is something else - and not merely happenstance when it's a sustained pattern and others are aware of it and point it out to the offending person.

Wilkinson authored "For Zion's Sake: Christian Zionism and the Role of John Nelson Darby" published by Paternoster Press in 2007. He included an appendix on "Margaret MacDonald's Utterance" (p. 263).

His idolizing of Darby may have been his main motive for stopping his quotation of Margaret's 117-line pretrib revelation account (1830) at line 58 just before her statement of "the one taken and the other left" BEFORE she writes "Now will THE WICKED [Antichrist] be revealed" - what I have long viewed as her "main point."

Wilkinson had to have been aware that others (Hal Lindsey etc.) have used her phrases in the same way - phrases briefly expressing the essence or "kernel" of the 187-year-old pretrib rapture view (a pretrib rapture before Antichrist's appearance). And since he'd rather credit Darby with pretrib origination, or at least the "revival" of it in the 1830s, he naturally yielded to temptation and quickly took the wind out of her Port Glasgow sails!

Wilkinson must have also remembered that his friend and fellow revisionist "Dr" Thomas Ice, when supposedly quoting Margaret in an unbiased and uncensored way, stopped quoting her at line 55 and resumed quoting her in line 72! (Thomas Ice, "Why the Doctrine of the Pretribulational Rapture Did Not Begin With Margaret McDonald, Bibliotheca Sacra, 1990)

Margaret's "revelation" (which is actually only her interpretation of Scripture) has two parts in what I call her "main point": (1) the rapture ("one taken" etc.) which happens before (2) the Antichrist ("THE WICKED") is revealed.

Some revisionist pretribs omit the first part; others omit the second part. "Dr" Ice played it safe and omitted both parts of her "main point" in his Dallas Sem. journal article (above) so that he could brazenly declare that she did NOT teach a pretrib rapture!

Not long after Joe Schimmel's blockbuster DVD "Left Behind or Led Astray?" came out, Wilkinson, imitating Ice, responded with his "Left Behind or Led Astray? - Exposed." Again he stopped quoting the Scottish lass at line 45!

At about the same time Treena Gisborn (of "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing" blog fame) penned "Left Behind or Led Astray: Paul Wilkinson's Vitriolic Outburst at the Berean Call Conference 2015!!!" - a must-read for all who decry today's increasing revisionism by dishonest pretrib traffickers!

I also added my thoughts in a net piece titled "Margaret Macdonald's Main Point."

The revisionism continued in 2016 with a Pretrib Research Center video titled "Response to Left Behind or Led Astray?" starring Ice as well as Wilkinson. This time I spotted Wilkinson stopping at line 58 while quoting Margaret - his devious way of changing her from pretrib to posttrib. In fact, at the end while summarizing Margaret's main (pretrib) point, Ice said with a smirk "Can anybody find a pretrib rapture in that statement?" And Darby idolizer Wilkinson added: "This is posttrib. This is a posttrib rapture." (!)

"Dr" Ice (whose "Ph.D" was lifted from an unaccredited seminary that was fined by the state of Texas for issuing illegal degrees!) also had the effrontery to declare that Irving and his followers never taught either pretrib or imminence! My book "The Rapture Plot" has a chapter with many quotes from the Irvingite journal "The Morning Watch" expressing any-moment imminence as well as clear pretrib statements (while Darby was still publicly defending posttrib historicism until his first clear pretrib teaching which didn't begin until 1839!).

In Sep. 1830 "The Morning Watch" saw "Philadelphia" raptured before "the great tribulation." In 1832 John Tudor stated that "some of these elect ones shall...be left in the great tribulation...after the translation of the saints." In 1832 another writer spoke of "the translation of the living...of which we may daily expect the accomplishment."

When surfing the net it isn't hard to find those who have interpreted "the one taken and the other left" the way Margaret did when she was expressing pretrib. The word "left" as in the "Left Behind" books etc. is the same as the "left" in her main point and we know that those bestselling books see a pretrib rapture followed by Hollywoodized scenes of a future great tribulation.

John Walvoord's "The Rapture Question" (p. 110) shows that Robert Govett's partial rapturism was similar to Margaret's; Walvoord wrote: "The one left, according to Govett, is left to go through the tribulation."

An interesting net piece titled "A Warning to Those Who Think They Are Saved" was a sermon preached by the well-known Dr. R. L. Hymers Jr. at the Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle in Los Angeles. He quoted Margaret's main point as found in Matt. 24:40-41 and stated: "I have become convinced that many people who believe they are converted are actually lost. I believe that they will be left behind when the rapture occurs...left behind to face the horrors...left behind on the earth to be tormented by the Devil."

David J. Stewart, a well-known guest on TBN who's associated with Jesus-is-savior.com, sees a pretrib rapture in "the one shall be taken, and the other left" (Luke 17:35, 36) in his article "Left Behind at the Rapture" (2005, updated 2012).

Wilkinson, by the way, cited only my 1975 book "The Incredible Cover-up" (instead of my 1995 book "The Rapture Plot" which is more valuable than my other books combined) when supposedly analyzing her in a fair way - and he analyzed her by deliberately omitting all of her main point so that he and Ice could lie together and tell the world that the pretrib originator was really teaching a posttrib rapture!

For more on Margaret and Irving, Google "X-Raying Margaret," "Margaret Macdonald's Rapture Chart," "Pretrib Was New in the 1830s," "Edward Irving vs. John Darby," and "Pretrib Rapture Diehards."

Right now I will yield to temptation and quote Jeremiah 17:11 which says, in part, that "he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool."

PSEUDO-EPHRAEM TAUGHT PRETRIB - NOT!

 by Dave MacPherson

       Evidence abounds that all of dispensationalism's crucial aspects including the pretrib rapture were taught by some of John Darby's less than orthodox contemporaries in the 1830s before Darby taught them.
     Since this explosive discovery, there's been an unholy frenzy to find sources as early as possible in the Church Age which can be "shaded" enough to appear to be authentically pretrib in order to avoid the (well deserved) stigma that pretrib is a "recent theory."
     In the 1990s Canadian prophecy teacher Grant Jeffrey claimed to have found clear pretrib teaching in a 4th century Christian writer known as Pseudo-Ephraem (which I'll abbreviate as P-E).
If anyone wants to find out what P-E really taught, he or she can Google "Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem (Wikipedia)" and click on "Rhoades Translation from a Latin text of Pseudo-Ephraem."
This translation into English affected Grant Jeffrey, and his purposely muddied-up revisionism of P-E has captivated Thomas Ice and other pretrib merchandisers.
     In Section 2 P-E wrote: "We ought to understand thoroughly therefore, my brothers, what is imminent or overhanging." He revealed what was imminent in his next sentence which stated that "there is not other which remains, except the advent of the wicked one [Antichrist]."
     Nevertheless Jeffrey (constantly repeated by Ice) claimed that P-E taught "an imminent pretrib rapture"! (In the twinkling of an eye they fearlessly changed an imminent arrival of Antichrist into an imminent arrival of Christ!)
     Right after this, in Section 2, P-E wrote: "For all the saints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord..." This phrase ("taken to the Lord") is trumpeted by Ice etc. as a clear reference to a pretrib rapture.
     But Dr. Paul Alexander's book "The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition," which inspired Jeffrey to claim he had found evidence of pretrib before 1830, says that this phrase means "participate at least in some measure in beatitude."
     (Encyclopedias dealing with this aspect of Byzantine theology reveal that "beatitude" has to do with doing "acts of virtue" on earth - the opposite of being raptured off earth!)
     Ice etc. even falsely claim that Dr. Alexander concluded that P-E was pretrib. But Alexander's book (pp. 218-19) has two summaries of P-E's beliefs, each one showing that P-E looked for only one future coming of Christ which would FOLLOW the "tribulatio magna lasting three and a half years"!
     My book "The Rapture Plot" (1995) has an appendix analyzing P-E, and Dr. Robert Gundry's (1997) book "First the Antichrist" also demolishes Jeffrey's claim.
     The recent eyes-wide-open revisionism of pretrib history has even been asserting that "many" of the early Church Fathers taught pretrib - daring prevarications that the late Dr. Walvoord would have denounced since he was never able to find any "pretribulationist" before Darby!
     For some excellent details on the current revisionism mania, Google "Pseudo-Pseudo-Ephraem" and "Grant Jeffrey's Apocalypse Debacle" by Florida researcher Tim Warner.
     There's now more deception than what's found in my earlier piece "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty." In fact, the sort of deceitfulness outlined above is now causing the SS Pretrib Rapture to list heavily to port - the port of no return!

DAVID JEREMIAH: PRETRIB PIRATE!

by Dave MacPherson

     Internationally known pretrib teacher David Jeremiah is a pastor in the San Diego, California area. Although to my knowledge he doesn't lift barbells in a gym for his health, he's an expert on lifting other things that have decidedly helped his wealth - wealth that has allowed him to live on nearby Coronado Island in a condo reportedly worth a cool two million dollars.

     Jeremiah has a good number of bestselling - and pretrib selling - books under his belt that almost never seem to go out of print. And that includes his 1990 book "Escape the Coming Night" which he co-authored with C. C. Carlson which is still available on Amazon etc.

     Twenty years ago, in 1997, I discovered that the same Jeremiah book had heavily plagiarized many pages in Hal Lindsey's 1973 book "There's A New World Coming"!  (Evidently none of Jeremiah's many readers during the first seven years of his book had had any inkling of his literary piracy.)

     You may be wondering what first led me to my discovery of the wholesale stealing. It may have been the description of the 144,000 as "Jewish Billy Grahams" - an unforgettable phrase I knew Lindsey had used.

      While comparing the two books in question, I found exactly 47 pages in Jeremiah's book that had massive plagiarism of Lindsey's book. Here is just a tiny portion of Jeremiah's role as pirate - for which he has never, to my knowledge, apologized:

              
     [NOTE: Quotes from Hal Lindsey's 1973 book "There's A New World       Coming" (NW) will be followed by the plagiarism of them in David
 Jeremiah's 1990 book "Escape the Coming Night" (E).]

     (1) NW, p. 66: The symbolic church of "Philadelphia" was from "1750-1925" - the "great missionary era" of "Wesley, Whitefield...Spurgeon, and Moody...."    
          E, p. 54: "The symbolic "Church of Philadelphia" was "from 1750 until around 1925" - "the period of great missionary outreach" of   "John Wesley, George Whitfield, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, D. L. Moody...."

     (2) NW, p. 123: The 144,000 will be "Jewish Billy Grahams."
          E, p. 121: The 144,000 will be "Jewish Billy Grahams."

     (3) NW, p. 144: "Over a century ago, before America groaned under the present crime wave, Joseph Seiss, the author of The Apocalypse, predicted on the basis of Revelation 9:21 that capital punishment would have been largely abolished by the time of the Tribulation!"
          E, p. 132: "Over a century ago, before we groaned under the present crime wave, J. A. Seiss, author of The Apocalypse, predicted, on the basis of Revelation 9:21, that capital punishment would be largely abolished by the time of the Tribulation."

     (4) NW, p. 173: "God...one of Your children down on earth, Hal Lindsey, just blew it in his Christian life....Lucifer...I let My Son...take the penalty for Hal's sins....You haven't got a case against Hal."
          E, p. 155: "God, did you notice David Jeremiah down there in California? He really blew it today in his so-called Christian life....[Satan], I paid the penalty for his sins upon the cross, so drop this case...."

     (5) NW, p. 251: "...the heavenly preparation for Jesus' return...revolves around five thunderous, resounding shouts of 'Praise the Lord!'... which is sung in unison by angels, Old Testament saints, Tribulation saints, and Church saints."

          E, p. 200:"Five shouts of 'Praise the Lord' resound throughout heaven as there is a great preparation for Jesus' return. The angels, the Old Testament saints, the church saints, and the Tribulation saints will raise their voices in a choir which will reverberate louder than thunder."

     After my discovery I alerted Thomas Nelson, the publisher of the Jeremiah/Carlson book, and said I would be glad to send photocopies of all the plagiarism for their inspection.

      What happened after I sent them a huge stack of evidence is absolutely stunning! The head of the legal department wrote me and stated 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."

      But what he said was a huge lie. They never destroyed a single copy of the offending book and have continued to publish it and send royalties to Jeremiah and Carlson since 1990!

      I wrote a separate article about this unbelievable Thomas Nelson scandal and titled it "Thieves' Marketing." And I am grateful that my good friend Treena Gisborn aired it on her excellent "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing" blog several months ago on May 8th.

      I wonder how soon a certain pirate will have to walk the plank!

IS JOHN BRAY A PINO?

 by Dave MacPherson

     Florida evangelist John Bray has long called himself a posttrib. But is he a PINO (a posttrib in name only)?

     I know of no "posttrib" who has done more in recent decades, unwittingly or deliberately, to aid pretrib promoters like Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice who constantly quote Bray against non-pretribs everywhere!

     I first tangled with Bray after he came out in 1982 with a small booklet entitled "The Origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Teaching." In it he claimed that an18th century Jesuit priest named Manuel Lacunza, whose book came out in 1812, was the real pretrib rapture originator and stated that Margaret Macdonald's 1830 account actually taught a posttrib rapture and not a pretrib one!

     His groundless claim forced me to respond with "The Real Manuel Lacunza" and additional pro-Macdonald articles including "Margaret Macdonald's Main Point" and "X-Raying Margaret."

     After many (including even Tim LaHaye) publicly pooh-poohed his Lacunza thesis, Bray then came back later on with a new "discovery" that a Rev. Morgan Edwards was the real originator in 1788. I replied with a piece titled "Morgan Edwards' Rapture View."

     Well, I was recently shocked to find that Bray is still being taken seriously on the net.
     Concerning Margaret MacDonald, if persons type in her name on Google, they can find Wikipedia and be directed to a piece titled "Margaret McDonald (visionary)." Here are two sentences in it that are blatantly false:

     "Also Darby had already written out his pretribulation rapture views in January 1827, 3 years prior to the 1830 events and any MacDonald utterance. When MacDonald's utterance is read closely, her statements show her to hold a posttribulationist position ("being the fiery trial which is to try us..."). The source for both sentences is: "Bray, John L. (1992) [sic - should be 1982]. The origin of the pre-tribulation rapture teaching."

     Since you're aware of my recent items titled "Pretrib Was New in the 1830s," "Edward Irving vs. John Darby" and "Margaret Macdonald's Rapture Chart," allow me to quote a bit of my book "The Rapture Plot" which discussed Bray's 1982 "pretrib origin" booklet:
     "On page three he admitted that his short work was the result of only two days of research on his part at England's Oxford University. [!]

     "I soon noted his flagrant misspelling: Robert Cameron's last name became 'Aameron.' Charles Erdman's last name was spelled 'Eerdman.' Seven times on page 25 the last name of H. A. Ironside appeared incorrectly as 'Ironsides' [like the TV show!]. If readers aren't aware that Bray has misspelled Cameron, Erdman, and Ironside in the same way in more than one of his booklets, an innocent printer can easily be blamed.

     "In his booklet's 34-page discussion of the pretrib origin, I tallied a total of 69 copying errors, as follows: five when quoting Darby, five when quoting Irving, ten when quoting Margaret, 37 when quoting Lacunza (on whom he majored)...he omitted 23 words from two Lacunza quotes, while on page 16 he omitted 15 words from an Irving quote.

     "Huebner (1973, p. 69), in order to assert that Margaret was a posttrib, isolated five phrases beginning in lines 37, 64, 72, 81, and 91 in her major revelation and then quoted them, in this order, in one paragraph. The same Bray booklet, in order to assert that Margaret was a posttrib (and with no reference to this Huebner work), used the same five phrases in two paragraphs on pages 20 and 21 - but in exactly reverse order! [Just one example of Bray's plagiarism!]

     "For quite some time after his booklet was published, and while I was working on my book "The Great Rapture Hoax," Bray regularly swamped me with individual sheets containing his lengthy, typed after-thoughts, each with an instruction as to where in his booklet it should be inserted. At times I was receiving several a week. It was apparent that he had more time to think about his work after its completion than before its completion!

     "John Bray's 1985 booklet 'The Second Coming of Christ and Related Events' included 12 pages focusing on Lacunza and Margaret. He had 17 errors while copying Lacunza including three errors consisting of nine omitted words. In one Lacunza quote he had seven missing words; his 1982 booklet had featured the same quote with the same omitted words. While copying Margaret's key revelation Bray made 11 errors including four word changes."

     As you know, Thomas Ice (who somehow left out a total of 49 words when he reproduced Margaret's short 1830 account - see "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)" on Google) and other pretrib desperados have long quoted Bray's false statements about Margaret, Darby etc. when trying to distort and destroy the real facts about their own 187-year-old pretrib history.

     And Bray doesn't seem to mind working with and giving aid to his pretrib "enemies." Speaking of labels, you might be tempted to say that Bray has finally deserted his POST!