Tucker Carlson and John Rich Tackle the Pre-Trib Rapture! (youtube.com)
Olivier Melnick and Andy Woods have attempted but ultimately failed to prop up the "Holy Grail" of pretribulationalism during their "correction" of John Rich following his recent interview with Tucker Carlson: John Rich: Donald Trump, the Darkness of Eminem’s New Album, and the Song Inspired by God (youtube.com)Brethren leaders George Müller, Anthony Groves, and Benjamin Newton suffered intensely at the hands of Darby, who would broker no opposition to his sectarian views. Darby would not even tolerate anyone who wished to remain neutral. Darby's response to ANY opposition was to simply annihilate it. Those who disagreed with him were excommunicated. Why? - Because according to Darby, the Lord had personally revealed dispensational hermeneutics to him directly. In his own eyes, this made him 'right' and gave him liberty to butcher the body of Christ. It is difficult to argue against anyone with such obvious forcefulness, intelligence and powers of intimidation.5
Charles Spurgeon: "Mr. Darby is, to all intents and purposes a thorough Pope, though under a Protestant name. He will never admit that he is in error; and therefore very naturally declines to argue with those who controvert the soundness of his views. How, indeed, could it be otherwise? If Mr. Darby holds, which he does, with a firm grasp, the principle that whatever conclusions he and those acting in conjunction with him may come to, express beyond all question the mind of the Spirit; and if those Darbyites who gather together in London, can go so far as to exclude all other denominations, even the most godly among them, 'believing themselves to be the one or only, assembly of God in London,' how need we feel surprised that Mr. Darby, as the 'prophet, priest, and king' of the party, should exercise a perfect despotism within the domains of Darbyism?"6
George Müller: "Scripture declares plainly that the Lord Jesus will not come until the Apostasy shall have taken place, and the man of sin shall have been revealed..."7
Borivali Assembly: "He (Anthony Groves) became increasingly concerned with the drift of the Plymouth Brethren towards sectarianism under the leadership of Darby and aligned himself with George Müller when the brethren split in 1848 to form the Open Brethren and Exclusive Brethren."8
Woods further "correction" of Rich for using the term "secret rapture" is illegitimate.
Woods: "When someone uses the expression 'secret rapture' it shows me that they are really not doing original research. They are just sort of reading what someone else said. I think that's what Mr Rich did in that video. I think he has hooked into certain.. anti-dispensational authors. Because when you take the Bible at face value there is nothing secretive about it.." (22:00 mark)
The expression "secret rapture" was employed by Darby and was a common expression within the "Left Behind" (Tim LaHaye) pretrib camp. It is only relatively recently that the pretrib camp have backtracked and no longer use this expression for the obvious reason that it is false. It is illegitimate to accuse Rich of doing poor research or using anti-dispensational material for his information as Woods suggested.
To quote one of Woods heroes Thomas Ice: "Darby introduced the concept of a secret rapture to take place ‘at any moment’, a belief which subsequently became one of the chief hallmarks of Brethren eschatology.. Ernest Sandeen tells us: Darby’s view of the premillennial advent contrasted with that held by the historicist millenarian school in two ways. First, Darby taught that the second advent would be secret, an event sensible only to those who participated in it. . . . There were, in effect, two 'second comings' in Darby’s eschatology. The church is first taken from the earth secretly and then, at a later time, Christ returns in a public second advent as described in Matthew 24.9
Alan Kurschner: An older expression in pretribulational literature—and can still be used occasionally today—is secret coming or secret rapture. From my exposure to older pretrib and non-pretrib literature, it seemed to be used synonymous with the expressions signless coming or signless rapture, in contrast to an announced coming or announced rapture."10
Woods: "This idea that the word 'rapture' is not in the Bible. I mean that's just so silly; I can't believe people even use that argument anymore."
It is important to note that Rich described the prewrath rapture of the church, he did not deny the rapture. Rich did his best to articulate the difficult subject of eschatology to a mixed audience, including those who were perhaps unfamiliar with the term "rapture". Woods seemed to make the assumption that everyone in Carlson's audience was familiar with Christianese.
Rich: "..the word 'rapture' is nowhere in the Bible. It talks about us being caught up with him and pulled out of here, and then the ultimate wrath is poured out on this planet. That's what we call the rapture, but that's not in debate. The question is what happens leading up to that? It's a good question to ask right? For some reason nobody ever preaches that. They don't want to talk about what happens prior to it.. "11
For the umpteenth time, there are no early sources prior to 1830 that articulate a pretrib rapture. Pseudo Ephraem has been repeatedly debunked as a pretrib document by reliable Bible scholars. The author of Pseudo Ephraem placed the rapture event after the Antichrist's arrival. I have added some links that demonstrate this at the end of the post. When you are dealing with dishonest scholarship there is no hope of meaningful discussion.
The rapture doctrine is found in the Bible; the pretrib rapture doctrine is not found in the Bible!
2. Tucker Carlson, John Rich, and the Rapture (youtube.com)
3. What is the Scofield Reference Bible? | GotQuestions.org
4. Scofield Reference Bible - Wikipedia
5. WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING: FALSE PROPHETS AND BIBLE TEACHERS IN THE LAST DAYS: berean call conference 2015: paul wilkinson's divisive pre-tribulation delusion!!! (bewareofthewolves.blogspot.com)
6. http://spurgeon.org/s_and_t/dbreth.htm
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M%C3%BCller
8. Anthony Norris Groves - Borivali Assembly
9. Ice-2-PTRC 2011 (pre-trib.org)
10. The Meaning of 'Secret' in the Pretribulational Rapture Expression 'the Secret Coming of Christ' | ESCHATOS MINISTRIES (alankurschner.com)
11. John Rich: Donald Trump, the Darkness of Eminem’s New Album, and the Song Inspired by God (youtube.com)
13. C. I. Scofield - Wikipedia
14. Scofield, Cyrus Ingerson (tshaonline.org)
15. Joseph Goebbels On the “Big Lie” (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)
Pseudo-Ephraem Is NOT a Pretribulation Document | ESCHATOS MINISTRIES (alankurschner.com)
Pseudo-Ephraem.pdf (alankurschner.com)
WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING: FALSE PROPHETS AND BIBLE TEACHERS IN THE LAST DAYS: PSEUDO-EPHRAEM TAUGHT PRETRIB - NOT! BY DAVE MACPHERSON (bewareofthewolves.blogspot.com)
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