Editor's note: Here is one of many attacks on the pre-trib
Rapture. What is totally absent from these attacks is Scripture
references. People who believe in the pre-tribulation Rapture
are automatically put under one blanket with plagiarists or plagiarists
who omitted a few words here and there.
In my case, I had never heard of most of the people mentioned
until I was made aware of them with constant emails that I should
drop my position on the Pre-Tribulation Rapture.
In careful study of the Scriptures, with the help of the
Holy Spirit, we have no doubt that the Lord's Body, His
Church, will be removed before the Antichrist is revealed because
it will be the darkest day in human history. People will
be running to and fro looking for the Word of God and won't be
able to find it.
Israel's Doom
Is Near
"Hear this,
O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the
land fail, Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may
sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making
the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the
balances by deceit?
(Enron?) That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy
for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of that wheat?
"The Lord
hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never
forget any of their works. Shall not the land tremble for
this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall
rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and
drowned, as by the flood of Egypt. (Amos 8:4-8) The Scriptures
often point to a flood when addressing the tribulation to remind
believers of Noah who kept on building his ark against all odds
and ridicule. He and his family were saved as the flood ensued,
not in the middle or in the end but in the beginning.
Hebrews 11:6,7:
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that
cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder
of them that diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being warned
of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared
an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned
the world, and became heir of the rightousness which is by
faith.
"And Jesus
said unto the centurian, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be
it done unto thee. And
his servant was healed in the selfsame hour." (Matthew 8:13)
Amos 11:9- 11
"And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God,
that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken
the earth in the clear day: And I will turn your feasts into
mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring
up sackcloth upon all lions, and baldness upon every head; and
I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof
as a bitter day.
"Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a
famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord."
This undoubtedly
points to the fact that Bible believers are gone.
In the parable
of the wheat and tares Jesus states the following when tares
(heathens) were found among the wheat (believers): ".. An enemy hath done
this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and
gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the
tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together
until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say
to the reapers, Gather ye first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; (the actual burning is
a future event and binding them in bundles is the unifying of
all denominations because they do not behold the truth) but
gather the wheat into my barn." (Matthew 12:28-30)
It is very obvious
that we are in the times of the Harvest since the separation
is under way. The ecumencial church has been in full swing since
the year 2000 when President Bush declared tolerance of all religions
and that all roads lead to God. It doens't matter what you believe.
In the meantime
believers are expecting Jesus to fulfill His teaching that the
wheat will be placed into His barn.
There is much
more and we challenge you to take the following Scriptures seriously:
"study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase more
ungodliness." ( 2 Timothy 2:15,16)
___________________________oOo____________________________
You should feel sorry for Dallas Theological Seminary
(in Dallas, Texas, USA) and other American schools that promote
the "any-moment, pre-tribulation rapture."
Since the early 1970s Dave MacPherson and other writers have
shamelessly claimed that young
Margaret Macdonald of Scotland was the REAL originator of this
rapture view in 1830! In 1973
R. A. Huebner, a fervent member of the (Darbyist) Plymouth Brethren,
issued a booklet
condemning MacPherson.
Three years later Dr. John Walvoord, DTS president, became
another critic. Even though Huebner's booklet unfortunately had
numerous copying errors when quoting others, and even though
Huebner offered no proof that early Brethren leader John Darby
taught pre-trib before Margaret did, nevertheless Walvoord's
"The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation" leaned exclusively
on Huebner while likewise maintaining that Darby was the first
to teach this doctrine. But even Walvoord's endorsement of Darby
couldn't stop evangelical scholars from continuing to credit
Margaret throughout the 1980s.
During those days, evangelical leaders such as Gary North
were publicly challenging the dispensationalist intelligentsia,
including DTS church history expert John Hannah, to respond to
MacPherson's research. For reasons unknown the call was ignored.
But not all was lost. At just the right moment, a most unlikely
pre-trib rapture defender was found: Rev. Thomas Ice, whose tiny
Bible church in the Austin, Texas area had been sharing its building
with a saloon! (Don't saloons - smile, smile - usually need ice?)
In early 1989 Ice devoted two issues of his "Biblical
Perspectives" paper to pre-trib history. Those of us who
value accuracy in historical writing were disturbed upon realizing
that Ice had somehow left out 48 words (which changed meanings)
when reproducing Margaret's brief 1830 revelation - an average
of about one missing word in every third line! And even though
he said he would show that "Darby himself said he had come
up with his view by 1827," not once did Ice quote any of
Darby's own words but instead quoted second-hand opinions of
others which proved nothing!
At least MacPherson has extensively analyzed Darby's earliest
works and shown that Darby didn't have even an intimation of
pre-trib before the early 1830s (or understandable pre-trib teaching
before 1839). Ice's fantastic shortcomings (48 missing words
and failure to provide promised proof) didn't discourage Dallas
Seminary one little bit.
The next year (1990) an article of his, attempting to eliminate
Margaret and elevate Darby as the pre-trib originator, appeared
in "Bibliotheca Sacra," Dallas Seminary's journal.
Although Ice was well aware that Margaret's main point is found
in lines 58-63 in her account ("THE WICKED... revealed"
following "the one taken and the other left"), in his
extensive quotation of her he quoted up to line 55, ignored lines
58-63, and began quoting again in line 72! In 1991 in another
work, Huebner claimed to have found an obscure quote in which
Darby reportedly said (as late as 1879) that he'd believed in
pre-trib (as early as 1827). On p. 100 in the same book Huebner
did a u-turn, admitting that the quote could refer to something
quite UN-RAPTURESQUE!
But this hasn't stopped Ice from publicly declaring since
then that Huebner "has positive evidence" that Darby
was pre-trib in 1827 -- declaring this long after Ice admitted
in a letter that he'd known that Huebner had exploded his own
thesis! (John Bray and Frank Marotta are among the American dilettantes
repeating the 1827itis that Darby himself would have disowned,
especially since Darby revealed in an 1850 work that it wasn't
until 1830 that he began to "understand" the rapture
idea!)
As stated at the start, good (and honest) defenders of pre-trib
are still needed! And then there's Tim LaHaye, an American who
has such an ob(noxious)session with quickly mass-producing new-
titled, money-making revisions of his repetition that neither
he nor his publishers can afford to
waste time (and money) with silly chores like proofreading manuscripts.
In his 1992 book "No Fear of the Storm" (lately
revised as "Rapture Under Attack"), Manuel Lacunza's
1812 work "The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty"
is revised as "The Coming of Messiah in Power and Glory"
(p. 168) and "The Coming of Christ in Power and Great Glory"
(p. 207)!
And when LaHaye reproduced Margaret Macdonald's revelation,
his version had the same 48 missing words that we've noted in
Thomas Ice's version three years earlier! Which isn't surprising
since both work together at the Pre-Trib Research Center which
truthfully should be called the Pre-Trib Revenue Center. (To
satisfy yourself in regard to the missing portions, key in "Margaret
Macdonald's revelation" on the Internet and compare those
versions with LaHaye's----and
Ice's---- small economy size version of Margaret's words.)
This is the same Tim LaHaye who recently boasted that he has
already made over ten million dollars with his current best-
selling "Left Behind" book series that has had worldwide
publicity. (Shades of Revelation 3: 17!) But wait. There's more.
As if unscholarly scholarship and rapture date-setting failures
galore weren't enough, it now turns out that for a century and
a half, on both sides of the Atlantic, pre-trib promoters have
not only been PLAGIARIZING other books but even sneaking OCCULT
notions into their "evangelical" writings!
Remember the best -selling book "Escape the Coming Night"
by David Jeremiah and C. C. Carlson? Thomas Nelson Publishers
stopped production and destroyed all unsold copies of it after
that title was shown to be a monstrous plagiarism of one of Hal
Lindsey's books! Embarrassing plagiarism has also been uncovered
lately in writings by J. A. Seiss, E. W. Bullinger, Merrill Unger,
Charles Ryrie, Paul Tan, Hal Lindsey, Chuck Missler, Jack Van
Impe, Jerry Falwell, Ed Dobson, Ed Hindson, and even multimillionaire
Tim LaHaye (or LaHaodicean)!!
Yes, honest defenders of the pre-trib rapture are still needed!
Is there anyone on earth who's willing to expose those who've
been attacking the pre-trib blessed hope? If so, he or she needs
to analyze certain websites. For example: http://www.raptureanswers.com
and click on "Truth Revealed" and then "1830";
http://www.lasttrumpet.com and learn about rapture robberies
and scandals in the "History of Pre-Trib Development";
and http://home.beseen.com/belief/jamesers and click on
"Dispensationalists caught plagiarizing."
Those willing to expose anti-pre-tribs need to obtain a copy
of Dave MacPherson's "The Rapture Plot" which drowns
us with documentation on pre-trib history. Call (800) 967-7345
in South Carolina or contact online bookstores like armageddonbooks.com
and then type in MacPherson's name. The millions of dollars we
Americans have spent on prophetic speculation should have been
spent on foreign missions, evangelism, and feeding and helping
the hungry and persecuted around the world! (Even though I am
an American, I can almost believe that America is destined to
become the "Babylon" in the book of Revelation!) A
Sister in the Lord, Lou Source: Prophecy Q&A February 24,
2001 by emailer L.M. |