They claim that their pretrib rapture will occur on Sep. 23, 2017! I wonder if they've forgotten that date-setting necessarily cancels out their foundational principle of any-moment imminence.
To see how the symbolism-crazy pretribs explain their latest date-setting, Google "Sep. 23, 2017 Rapture" and, if you live long enough, check out all of the "4,270,000 results"!
Briefly, their claim rests on Rev. 12 and they focus on the woman "clothed with the sun" and tie her to the zodiac woman known as "Virgo" and also see their pretrib rapture in the symbol of the "man child" that is "caught up unto God" (vs. 5) - an event occurring before the great tribulation which they see in verses 13-16.
My 1998 book "The Three R's" has a chapter revealing early pretrib rapturists who realized that their new fly-away view needed a boost in order to counter opposition coming from many others.The answer that dropped out of the sky was the creation of a "Christian" zodiac which arbitrarily began with Virgo (The Virgin) and ended with Leo (The Lion) - a zodiac covering Christ's life from His birth to His return as the lion-like Judge (Rev. 5:5).
You can't believe which zodiac constellation (appearing shortly before Leo) was the "pretrib rapture" symbol. Keep reading.
The "Christian"zodiac can be traced back to a Miss Frances Rolleston of Keswick in northern England. Key pretrib promoters in this zodiac chain, stretching from Rolleston down to today's soothsayers like Hal Lindsey, include Joseph Seiss (American) who was plagiarized by E. W. Bullinger (British) who was plagiarized by Lindsey (American). The side-by-side quotes in the same book of mine clearly prove all of the plagiarism.
By the way, when Bullinger looked at Ursa Minor (under Cancer), Bullinger could see "pretrib rapture" written all over it! (Now you know.)
The same zodiac arbitrarily tied together Virgo and Leo because, as Bullinger and others asserted, the Great Sphinx in Egypt was the only thing that could bind together "the two ends of this circle of the heavens" - everyone then assuming that the Sphinx has the head of a woman and the body of a lion and also noting the "astrological significance" in the nearby Great Pyramid!
Lindsey plagiarized Bullinger on pp. 123-24 in "The Late Great Planet Earth," evidently unaware that Bullinger's Sphinx research was occultic nonsense, and also unaware that today's encyclopedias state that the famous Sphinx has the head of a man - a pharaoh!
Today's rapture astrologers are not the only ones who've seen a pretrib rapture in Rev. 12:5. Many still don't know that John Darby, the so-called "father" of pretrib dispensationalism, rested his first clear teaching of pretrib on this verse for at least 30 years beginning in 1839. What's shocking is that we have solid evidence that Darby merely plagiarized Edward Irving who'd been using the same Rev. 12 symbol for the same purpose in his journal in 1831 - eight years before Darby quietly copied him - and Darby admitted in print that he had long been a reader of Irving's journal and that he had been in Irving's church to hear him preach. We also know that Darby wasn't first on any crucial aspect of dispensationalism and that Irving and his followers preceded Darby on every detail of that system!
For more on these two preachers Google "Edward Irving vs. John Darby" and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty."
Remember: the entire occultic 2017 "Rapture in Rev. 12" craze is built on the 187-year-old pretrib rapture fantasy which was never part of any Christian theology or organized church before 1830! (Google "Famous Rapture Watchers" to find out which rapture view was the original one.)
True, today's occultic rapturists do love the Bible. They love it so much they want to fulfill the prediction that in the end times many will come in Christ's name and will deceive many!
Very interesting! I happen to own a copy of MacPherson's 1998 book "The Three R's: Pretribulation Rapturism from 1830 to Hal Lindsey." A chapter in it is entitled "Far-Out Proof" which shows the influence that heathen astrology has had on the Christian church.
ReplyDeleteThe earliest zodiac reportedly came from Babylonians as early as 4699 B.C. but it had only six "signs" instead of twelve; the six were Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricornus, and Pisces. MacPherson also reveals that Leo is missing and Virgo back then was seen as only "an ear of corn" and not a woman!
Later on, in Egypt, we see zodiacs with twelve "signs," the number we see Bullinger and Lindsey dealing with in their books.
Bullinger (repeated by Lindsey) has derived a pretrib rapture from Ursa Minor (found in Cancer), but none of this seems to have rubbed off on the vast majority of rapturized astrologers on the net who are merchandising their groundless prediction of a Sep. 23, 2017 pretrib rapture. Although most tie together Virgo and Leo, Ursa Minor is noticeably missing in their date-setting mania!
MacPherson observes that over the centuries there has been much disagreement over the zodiac concerning the number of "signs," the order of the "signs," which "sign" should start the circle, and the Sphinx (whether it has a woman's head or a man's head).
Since the zodiac wasn't originated by any God-fearing folks in history, why have any Christians ever wanted to build on anything that's clearly non-Biblical? Deut. 4:19 condemns those who see "the sun, and the moon, and the stars" and are "driven to worship them" (what ancient heathens have often done - and it's called "astrolatry").
When Sep. 23 comes and goes without a rapture, will the purveyors of preposterous pretribulationism apologize to the duped masses and refund all their ill-gotten gain?
Don't count on it!
They are building their house on the sand Irv. The scriptures themselves do not authenticate a pre-trib rapture, so why should anything else?
ReplyDelete“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Matthew (7:24-27).
God bless
Whatever the case, a lot of MacPherson’s work seems to be based on a false premise. That little girl in Scotland’s apparent prophetic utterance DID actually point more at a post-trib rapture, it’s just they left that bit out when the account was made more widely available, presumably to fit their pre-trib thinking. Also there’s some evidence of a pre-trib view as far back as Irenaeus in the 2nd Century who was apparently converted by one of John’s converts (Polycarp).
ReplyDeleteDave MacPherson does not say that Macdonald included a clear statement of the pretribulational rapture, but that she "separated the Rapture from the the Second Coming before anyone else did." According to Dave MacPherson, Darby pilfered this two-stage teaching from Macdonald and then developed it systematically, skillfully passing it off as the fruit of his personal Bible study.
ReplyDeleteThere are some Google articles on Macdonald's 1830 "revelation" that seem to bring out what she attempted to say. I have in mind "Margaret's Macdonald's Main Point" and "Margaret Macdonald's Rapture Chart." Hal Lindsey's book "The Rapture" (1983) calls her a partial rapturist, and John Walvoord's "The Rapture Question - Revised" (1979) calls partial rapturists "pretribulationists" - pretribs who see only the most "worthy" Christians taken up in the pretrib rapture. One can quickly assume that she was a posttrib when they find her stating "The trial of the Church is from Antichrist." But remember that "Church/Rapture/Church" is what MacPherson calls her chart-of-sorts when he summarizes what she expressed. Only the "worthy" Church members are taken up in the pretrib rapture and "less worthy" Church members are left to face Antichrist. She seems to have been the first one to tie together the "taken" in Matt. 24:40 with the "taken" in II Thess. 2:7 (even though this Thess."taken" isn't a physical removal from earth; the restrainer merely stops restraining!). So in her view the one taken in Matt. is taken before the Antichrist is revealed and the one "left" is left to endure the tribulation - which is exactly what Lindsey, Ice and other pretrib teachers all teach today. Irving and his followers were soon influenced by that 15-year-old Scottish lassie and reflected her. Even Darby and his followers adopted (that is, plagiarized) Macdonald's partial rapturistic form of pretrib during their own earliest development; but by the 1870s Darby was finally saying that all of the church would be in the pretrib rapture and not just some of the church. MacPherson's books have documented all this. Google "Scholars Weigh My Research" to see how scholars evaluate his findings. Admittedly, Macdonald did not have a fully developed seven-year gap between stages, but she set the stage for Irvingism's immediate development and Darby's later on. MacPherson also says in his books that Darby wasn't first or original on any crucial aspect of dispensationalism even though he's been (wrongfully) called the "father" of it!
ReplyDeleteIn response to Chris, MacPherson in his 1983 book "The Great Rapture Hoax" quotes Irenaeus who wrote: "And they [the ten kings who shall arise] shall lay Babylon waste, and burn her with fire, and shall give their kingdom to the beast, and put the church to flight" (Against Heresies, V, 26). The church is on earth here at least until Babylon's destruction (Rev. 18).
ReplyDeleteAnother note to Chris: Re your impression that Macdonald seems to be pointing more to a post-trib rapture, you might like to see MacPherson's article "Pretrib Rapture's Missing Lines" which Treena aired last year on the 26th of July.
ReplyDelete