tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post2255894708246014983..comments2024-03-11T13:16:19.098-04:00Comments on Ad Orientem: The Rapture – Indisputable Christian HeresyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-68129070454765002122011-11-16T23:02:42.609-05:002011-11-16T23:02:42.609-05:00[Dear Ad: Just found your good blog. Saw this web ...[Dear Ad: Just found your good blog. Saw this web bit recently & would like to share it. Anna]<br /><br />PRETRIB RAPTURE SECRETS<br /><br /> How can the “rapture” be “imminent”? Acts 3:21 says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven (He's now there 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 too-hot-to-handle Acts 3:21!) Since Jesus can’t even leave heaven before the tribulation ends (Acts 2:34,35 echo this), the rapture therefore can't take place before the end of the trib! (The same Acts verses were also too hot for John Darby - the so-called "father of dispensationalism" - to list in the scripture index in his "Letters"!) <br /> 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 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 posttrib end of “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 is Israel's posttrib resurrection!)<br /> Many are unaware 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 a separate coming of Christ. To further strengthen their novel view, which the mass of evangelical scholars 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!).<br /> Here are some Google articles on the 181-year-old pretrib rapture view: "Pretrib Rapture Politics," "Pretrib Rapture Scholar Wannabes," “Famous Rapture Watchers,” "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," “X-Raying Margaret,” "Edward Irving is Unnerving," “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” "Walvoord Melts Ice," “Wily Jeffrey,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “Scholars Weigh My Research,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” "Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy," “Deceiving and Being Deceived,” and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" – all by the author of the extremely accurate and highly endorsed book “The Rapture Plot” (see Armageddon Books).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-79435602978303438432011-05-23T01:33:01.578-04:002011-05-23T01:33:01.578-04:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Widemouthhttp://www.squidoo.com/jim-richardsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-47064667975713141332011-05-22T11:23:56.875-04:002011-05-22T11:23:56.875-04:00As one who has made the progression from cradle Ca...As one who has made the progression from cradle Catholic to teenage atheist, agnostic, deist, not-so-virtuous pagan, twenty-something christian progressing through evangelical, episcopalian, anglican, catholic theologies, and who has spent the last twenty-something years as a Russian Catholic, I've made something of a hobby of apocalyptic.<br /><br />Personally, I've found that if one wants reasoned attempts to unscrew the inscrutable, that Sir Isaac Newton's works on the subject are the most plausible of the bunch. To put his view as simply as I can, Newton thought, back in the 17th century, that The End could not happen <i>any earlier</i> than 2012, but that his pick would be sometime around 2060 A.D.<br /><br />As regards "The Rapture", or at least, one which involves believers being taken away before it all hits the fan, I've never been able to find any warrant in Scripture for this silly view. If one believes the Apostle Paul's words of "the last trumpet", and if one believes that the Apostle John's Revelation speaks of a chronology of seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven vials, then two thirds of the yogurt will have already impacted the air-conditioning unit before the alleged Rapture takes place.<br /><br />As for me, I believe that Revelation speaks of the process that each and every one of us will go through before facing the Four Last Things of Death, Judgment, Heaven, or Hell. I think that rather than worrying about something that will happen to us all, it is better to do all we can, like the Wise Virgins, to obtain the oil of grace before the night comes, so that we might be prepared to greet the Bridegroom.Bernard Brandthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00159541603126407072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-10355303445898462092011-05-21T16:41:11.466-04:002011-05-21T16:41:11.466-04:00I looked up the articles listed by Simon and reali...I looked up the articles listed by Simon and realized they can be found more easily on Yahoo than Google - in case anyone wants to know. God bless. RogerAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-40867526669201957212011-05-21T14:22:24.907-04:002011-05-21T14:22:24.907-04:00The only historian I know of who has focused solel...The only historian I know of who has focused solely on pretribulation rapture history - and issued several books and many articles for several decades now - is Dave MacPherson who is also a journalist. Many scholars have endorsed his findings (Google "Scholars Weigh My Research"). I purchased his bestselling book "The Rapture Plot" (300 pgs., index, bibliog., appendices, heavily footnoted) from Armageddon Books which seems to have the lowest price. His pace-setting web articles include "Famous Rapture Watchers," "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty." No one interested in dispensationalism's history can afford to overlook his material. I for one am glad to see Orthodox leaders and others exposing the same 19th century nonsense!<br /> SimonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-90795527106698454462011-05-20T21:57:25.749-04:002011-05-20T21:57:25.749-04:00My father, a retired Assemblies of God minister, w...My father, a retired Assemblies of God minister, was a strong "Post-tribber" in an ocean of "Pre's." He thought it was a typically American attitude that God would never allow us to suffer for his sake. Thanks to him, I was always a little skeptical of the end-times mania and dropped Dispensationalism altogether when I became Reformed, over a decade before I became Orthodox.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05572831887998922948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-18990254662767021562011-05-20T18:28:27.458-04:002011-05-20T18:28:27.458-04:00Like others, I abandoned belief in a pre-trib rapt...Like others, I abandoned belief in a pre-trib rapture long before I converted to Orthodoxy. And not all "pentecostals" believed it either. I remember hearing Leonard Ravenhill preach against the concept one time. He said he had a conversation with a "secret rapture" believer one time who stated that God would not allow His people to go through tribulation. He said "tell that to the Russian believers", many evangelical of which who had held such a belief had lost their faith because they had been told before the Bolsheviks come God would rapture them. This was long before the fall of communism.<br /><br />For the Fathers and the Church, the thousand years in the Apocalypse is symbolic of the Church age, and specifically where the reign of Christ is experienced in His fullness. Satan is bound now, to a great extent, especially in relation the period prior to Christ's life, death, resurrection, ascension and sending of the Paraclete.Sub Deacon Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05617809523559278200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-28658111017024597542011-05-20T15:31:42.649-04:002011-05-20T15:31:42.649-04:00"the heavenly Jerusalem comes down to earth, ...<i>"the heavenly Jerusalem comes down to earth, apparently a 1500 mile wide and high cube, with storeys that would be billions of square miles... "</i><br /><br />That's one heck of a 'Borg' Cube... Who dreams up this crap anyway?Heracleideshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12893012854933477199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-4103021674743310742011-05-20T14:07:35.728-04:002011-05-20T14:07:35.728-04:00The thousand year rule of Christ on earth, is a mi...The thousand year rule of Christ on earth, is a misnomer. Revelation says that when He comes back, satan will be bound for a thousand years (maybe a bit more?) not crippling bound like now, but so bound that he cannot even whisper telepathically to anyone believer or not. Christ's reign is not limited in time to that thousand years, it is a time when there is no temptation, so when the devil is allowed to be loose and tempting people, there will be no excuse, and those who follow him will go in revolt against Christ, Who continues to reign on earth, and puts down the revolt at Har-Mageddon, binds satan permanently and then does the Last Judgement and then there is the New Heavens and New Earth, and the heavenly Jerusalem comes down to earth, apparently a 1500 mile wide and high cube, with storeys that would be billions of square miles, so obviously there will have been an overhaul of laws of physics as we know them to some extent. Christ continues to reign forever. The thousand years is the initial segment of His forever reign. Not the total length of it.Christine Erikson (aka Justina)https://www.blogger.com/profile/11594093718714798117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25740524.post-81339801812709020002011-05-20T13:41:36.342-04:002011-05-20T13:41:36.342-04:00I abandoned my belief in the Rapture long before I...I abandoned my belief in the Rapture long before I became Orthodox. What convinced me was not scholarly Biblical study, but Corrie Ten Boom's opinion on the matter.<br /><br /><br />As you may or may not know, she was a Dutch Protestant who literally experienced Hell on Earth when Nazis took over. She said that it is contrary to the witness of the Gospel and the example of Christ that the faithful will be whisked away, trouble free, without enduring sorrow and suffering for the sake of Love. I then remembered all but one of Jesus's apostles experienced a martyr's death and many saints since then also did so.<br /><br />Even during my youthful days, my thought was not "What can I do to get Raptured" but "Will I be strong enough to stand for Christ in the Tribulation?" That thought since then has always been on my mind.Ingemarnoreply@blogger.com