Chapter Three
The Shocking Truth
The common reaction by most pretribbers to the
shocking truth that the theory of pretribulation rapture is a false
doctrine is to become angry and defiant. I have met only a few pretribbers who reacted with curiosity
when told that the PTR was a false doctrine,
and were willing to listen to the evidence. Many of them responded by
trying to defend the Rapture, not the resurrection of the dead or the
coming of Christ, and misquoting scriptures. Recently, some of the
have reacted by presenting extrabiblical arguments originating from
material promoting PTR. This is an indication as to their focus, which, in a way,
is a subliminal smoke screen. They set about to prove that rejection
of the PTR is the same as denying the rapture altogether.
I am not against the rapture—I'm just opposed to the false
timing presented by men who were and are in error. Dr. Tim LaHaye titled
one of his books, Rapture Under Attack, which is a straw man title. Not
one of the men he attacked in his book denies the rapture, but instead
they all deny Dr. LaHaye’s false timing.
Some pretribbers who respond defensively to my statement that PTR
is a false doctrine present arguments that include quotes from
LaHaye/Jenkins fictional books and videos. It is ironic that
LaHaye would repeat the mantra of Dispensationalism, literal
interpretation of the Scriptures, and then engage in creating a deluge
of fiction to support PTR. In any case, the literal Scriptures are
indeed the final authority and the shocking truth is that there is no
pretribulation timing indicated anywhere in them. What is even more
shocking is that several major proponents of PTR agree that there are no
single verses that depict a pretribulation rapture. Instead,
they take a number of verses and misinterpret them to present their
defense.
After the shock that I could be right comes dismay. Then the
PTR defender intensifies the debate with ad hominem. I have received
hate mail filled with derogatory diatribes, which is indicative of the attitudes
of most major PTR proponents. If
all one has to defend PTR doctrine is tradition, denominational decrees,
and fictional props and ad hominem, then it is time for people to
consult the Word of God in depth concerning this doctrine.
I encourage people who really want to know the truth to study the
Bible without the aid of fraudulent commentaries. They should consider
that no pretribulation rapture timing is found in the Scriptures. If one
is going to prove that the pretribulation rapture doctrine is true, one
has to set out to prove its timing exegetically. Quoting 1 Thessalonians
4:11-18 does not prove any timing what so ever. Thus, the fact that Catching
Away (Greek: Harpazo) is found in the Scriptures does not prove that it
occurs pretribulational. "Pre" is an indication of
the timing. The term pretribulation sets a time frame that the
Scripture does not validate and is thus extra biblical.
The term rapture should stand on its own without any definitive
terms attached.
The shocking truth is also that the pretribulation rapture is a
new doctrine. As such, it had no chance to enter the whole of
Christianity without some cataclysmic process to aid its entrance. That
process was the abandonment of historical theology in favor of
revelation and the advent of other new doctrine initiated by unqualified
people. I did not really know what I was getting to when I began
researching for this book. I expected to discover some historical data
that verified PTR as a new doctrine and some useful information about
how it was disseminated into the American church. What I did not expect
was to discover a massive but loose conspiracy carried out by men with
dubious motives.
The method of the conspiracy was to add human opinions to the
Bible so that unknowledgeable readers would be duped into a false
understanding of the Scripture’s. The perpetrators of this conspiracy
begat a new system of hermeneutics that eventually replaced time-honored
historical theology with new theology. No longer would the Bible
speak for itself, but men would speak for it through reference notes
that presented a method of biblical interpretation that in some
instances defied all scriptural and spiritual logic. They all denied
that they added to God’s Word, but were only trying to help people to
comprehend the Bible. They reasoned that by putting their words in a
center column framed by lines, or at the bottom of the page with a line
between their opinions and the Scriptures, it would sufficiently
exonerate them from the charge of adding to the Scripture. However, when
the first reference Bible, compiled by C. I. Scofield, became very
popular, people soon abandoned historical truth in favor of religious
hodgepodge. If the exegesis of the Scripture proves PTR, then why
didn't it surface long ago? Why has this occurred in modern
history, the wholesale departure from historical truth to pursue
doctrines that are almost impossible for one to derive from the
Scriptures on his or her own?
As their popularity grew, these new interpreters began spreading
their propaganda by calling it new or fresh revelation. Knowledge and
truth was at the same time were both castigated and honored. The new
interpreters wanted truth, but only the part of truth that agreed with
their revelation. They wanted knowledge, but only what they discovered
for themselves. Instead of taking the legacy of truth and knowledge from
the last generation and building on it, they purposed to start from
scratch and build an entire new systematic theology that took a drastic
departure from historical theology and in fact, from the Bible itself.
Like Montanus, the charismatic heretic rejected by the early Church,
they put the emphasis on revelation rather than God’s Word. Montanus
sought to add revelation to the Word of God. These new interpreters not
only sought to do so, but they did it.
Benard
Ramm puts it very succinctly with these words:
There
was also an attack on traditional eschatology from within the church.
This attack was mounted in the name of biblical criticism. The denial
of supernatural revelation implied the rejection of historic Christian
eschatology. Not until the end of the nineteenth century was the full
weight of pressure against traditional eschatology felt. ¹
It was not only an attack on traditional eschatology, which is
historic Christian eschatology, but an attack on all historical theology
as well. As the attack intensified, everything associated with
traditional eschatology was rejected. Historic theology was rejected as
well. Eventually it became a sin in some Christian circles to approach
the Bible intelligently. People were told not to trust their minds, but
their hearts. We hear the same mantra today with only a slightly
different flavor as modern versions of the new interpreters cry;
"Don’t trust your mind, just follow the spirit!"
Your eyes may tell you that what is occurring is demonic, but you
are supposed to surrender to the spirit. If one does what they are told
in such situations, it could very well be a demonic deception that they
surrender to.
A concerted effort to reject the corrupt and totalitarian rule of
the Roman Catholic church emerged with the Reformation period.
Protestant leaders found themselves in the dilemma of having to define
doctrine without the creed of Roman Catholicism. Martin Luther,
John Calvin and others were intensely involved in defining doctrines for
the protestant genre that did not depend on Roman Catholicism.
Although I believe that both men failed in their attempts to establish
sound doctrine, their break from Roman Catholicism was final. It
freed people to study the Bible for themselves without the iron clad
fist of Roman Catholicism pounding home its aberrant doctrines.
In this great and unorganized effort, much truth was thrown out
with the falsehoods. The result was a concentrated attack on
traditional and historic Christian eschatology that cut millions of
professing Christians loose from the moorings of the Early Church and
true Christianity. Hybrid forms of Christianity began to spring up.
Today there are thousands of different protestant organizations that
qualify as churches and more are springing up regularly. Most of them
begin with a set of standard doctrines that have flowed down from men
who were originally involved in the effort to distance Protestantism
from Roman Catholicism.
I am not saying that Christians should accept Roman Catholicism
or that Protestantism is wrong, I am simply trying to prove that PTR is
a new doctrine and that it does not have its roots in the Early Church.
In my opinion, Roman Catholicism is a diabolical institution of
man and has little if any resemblance to the Early Church.
The fact is that before Protestantism godly men were forced to
join that ungodly institution or face torture and execution.
Roman Catholicism's long time dominance of true Christians does
not make it true Christianity. Nor
does the fact that there have been men in the Roman Catholic church that
promoted truth make it a valid institution.
It is also important to note that because of the Roman Catholic
church’s persecution of Christianity and domination of literature, it
is impossible to know what Christianity might have been if that pompous
entity had not existed.
However, the redefining of eschatology came centuries after
Martin Luther when John Nelson Darby sculpted a dispensational system
that included the pretribulation rapture. The resulting disunity
of all this redefining and restructuring of theology and eschatology is
that it has debilitated Christianity to the extent that the world cannot
see anything among Christians but confusion and hypocrisy. On the one
hand there is the Roman Catholic church that is riddled with
ghost-worship, false doctrines, homosexuality, and possibly more
scandalous activity than we may ever know. On the other hand there is
the fractured structure of Protestantism and its myriads of diverse
doctrines and practices.
The true Christian has historically been forced into exile as the
world system and false church married, divorced and remarried over the
centuries. Today scriptural
logic has been banished to exile while every truth in God’s Word has
become so attached with human opinion that the Scripture's themselves
appear to be in disrepute. While the Lord Jesus taught with parables,
the false teachers today teach with variables. Peter warned us this
would happen in 1 Peter:
"But
there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be
false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive
heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves
swift destruction. {2} And many will follow their destructive ways,
because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed." (2 Pet 2:1-2
NKJV)
As I alluded to before, I’m not against Protestantism, and
I’m certainly no Roman Catholic, but I am against false teachers no
matter what religious title they cover themselves with.
I do not label myself as either a Roman Catholic or a Protestant,
but simply a Christian. Therefore,
I agree with the truth—not denominations, organizations or other
religious entities that may promote truth to some degree.
The stakes are tremendously high. These false teachers have
arrived in the most intense period of human history which is the last
days. It is a time when all deception comes against all truth in a great
spiritual battle for billions of souls. But the masses do not know how
to study the Bible for themselves and their minds are dulled with the
dregs of new interpretation and the creeping cancer of antinomianism has
seeped in.
The result is the forming of a great apostasy.
When this great apostasy is fully mature, evil will explode on
this planet and proliferate like a deadly, fast-spreading plague until
it saturates almost all of Christianity with error. The entire world
will rock’n’roll in a global spiritual orgy with Satan and
his minions. Professing Christians will be paralyzed as to having any
effect of slowing down the demonic rampage. Multitudes will be
swept up in the mother of all deception that has planted roots in them
through the pretribulation rapture and its companion doctrines.
Concurrently the secular society will grow worse and worse in
their unbridled scramble for immoral pleasure. Are we now in this
great apostasy? It is my opinion that we are and it knows no
denominational boundaries.
Already we see the signs of such a thing being possible. American
politics has taken an unprecedented turn toward the gutter with little
protest from the masses, secular or Christian. This reveals a paradigm
shift in the way the public views morality and truth, justice and
fairness. As I write these words, a wave of shootings is battering the
public school system. Mercifully it is at the end of the school term and
summer vacation is near. Some of the most wicked programming that has
ever been is flooding the abundant channel offerings on cable
television. The Internet is an open sewer in many venues and
children are being preyed upon as fair game for sexual predators.
There is gathering evidence that our society is becoming antinomian at
an alarming rate. We are
paying the price of over-crowded prisons and uncontrollable youth,
militant divisions along racial and cultural lines, rampant
licentiousness, disintegration of the traditional family and much more.
This has not slowed down our hell-bound society as people
continue to rush madly toward every commercial outlet of
self-gratification to satiate their craving for excitement. Even the
professing church is getting in on the action. Super Bowl Sunday has so
dominated the church that many churches set up large video screens in
their sanctuaries or multipurpose buildings on Sunday night so that no
one will have to stay home to watch the Super Bowl. One liberal, and in
my opinion apostate, professing Christian, once wrote a book entitled, The
Church is having a Party. Well, that’s no new thing since the
Children of Israel also danced around the golden calf after God
delivered them from Egypt. Why should anyone think modern apostates will
sit quietly by in this time of abundant evil opportunities to get down
and dirty?
On September 11, 2001 our nation suffered an incredible blow as
terrorism broke into the heart of the American financial nerve center.
After the ashes settled and the body count began, the very first
order of business for hedonistic Americans was to have a series of
ecumenical prayer meetings. Professing
Christians joined with witches, demonic priests and satanic warlocks,
and all manner of false religions, to pray to their own God.
They tried to make God the same for all religions, but that
doesn’t comport with the true Scriptures.
People did not seem to do more than pause and reflect, and then
they got back to the business of living for pleasure.
In fact, our nation is more licentious than ever before.
The resulting war on terrorism united most of the world in a
joint effort to wipe out the enemy.
Laws were passed that may someday be used to control our citizens
and take away their privacy. The
future is filled with ominous signs that life and liberty has changed
forever. We are living in
the last of the last days before the appearing of the Man of Sin and
everything is falling into place. A
global government is forming and God is not being considered for CEO.
He’s not even on the short list for the Head of Religion.
Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world today
and the most apostatized. In my opinion, a new one-world religion will
be formed that will include many highly visible apostate professing
Christians. These apostates will mount an attack on true Christianity
that will be as bloody as their attack on the truth has been insidious.
This period of time is so important that much of the New Testament is
devoted to it including an entire book—the book of Revelation. Jesus
warned us not to be deceived and be caught unprepared when that time
comes. Paul spent a great deal of his writing informing and warning the
Church as to what would occur. It will be a defining moment in history
and many true believers will be faced with a horrifying decision of
renouncing Christ or losing their lives.
Does it really matter what eschatological theory we believe or
postulate in the last days? You'd better believe it matters and greatly!
Since these are the crowning moments of the triumph of truth, there must
be truth to prepare God’s people, to equip them and ready them for the
fight. It will be a Job-like contest (see the book of Job in the Bible)
as Satan does his worst to make the Church stain her garments with
adulterous idolatry and rebellion that overwhelms the society about
them. Jesus declared the deception would be so great that the very elect
would be deceived, if that were possible. The force that shields us from
such a powerful deception is the truth in measure and purity, quantity
and quality—as administered by the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures.
How did it happen that what appeared to be a more solid
foundation, historical theology, was so easily set aside? First of all
there was a fatal flaw in the foundation that few if any recognized.
Maybe it was because of intellectual arrogance or the preoccupation with
the process of gathering and sorting knowledge, but someone forgot to
translate the vast wealth of knowledge into laymen’s terms, making it
available to the masses. It is a laborious task and odious to the high
brow intellectual, but a necessary one. If knowledge is going to
survive, it will be because the common man defends it with their lives
as is always the case in regards to national honor and security during
times of war. Knowledge must be made available and easily assimilated by
the common person. No one
who has ever lived, or who will ever live, can know more than Jesus
Christ. We should all consider where He conducted most of His teaching
ministry and in what vernacular. It is true that knowledge belongs to
the poor, but is too often ends up in the minds of the spiritually
destitute that do nothing more than worship it and themselves for
possessing it.
Theology during the turn of the century flowed mostly out of
Germany, and people in America were getting leery of this. The common
man could not relate to intellectual theologians, such as Karl Barth. As
brilliant as Barth was, he spent his life within a small circle in
relation to the millions who hungered for truth. This may have been one
of the major reasons Lewis Sperry Chafer’s Systematic Theology
eventually became more popular than Karl Barth's works on theology.
Chafer’s work, which was mostly a collection of the studies of other
men, reached the minds of the masses because it presented doctrine in
more simplistic terms. This leads us to the second point.
Secondly, historical Christian eschatology got caught in a
popularity contest and lost. Few could read or even understand Barth,
but everyone understood the country preacher who came from the ranks of
the working man. Everything about the presentation of pretribulation
rapture excited the soul of the common folks who eagerly flocked to
meeting places to hear the "Word of God." Often presented with
allegory and high emotion, not to mention little understanding, theology
went through a transformation from intellectual mind-boggery to
household phrases, such as, "Rapture," "Blessed
Hope," and "Once in Grace, Always in Grace," while words
such as eschatology, exegesis and hermeneutics literally faded into
oblivion.
Even the word’s theology and theologian
themselves became despised and rejected as they still are for the most
part today among the common people. From that point on it was easy to
change the criteria for beauty to make the false seem wonderful and the
truth to appear ugly.
Now good is bad and bad is good. Everything has been turned
upside down so that the trivial has become important and the important
has become trivial. However, the attack on historical Christian
eschatology has driven the truth into dusty old libraries where only an
occasional, wandering soul studying for Divinity school peruses her
pages. With its departure went the long thread of knowledge that
connected true Christianity to the early Church. Men incredibly endowed
with intelligence, that consecrated their entire lives to God’s
service and study of the Scriptures, were rejected and entombed in those
volumes now languishing under the dust of time.
I’m not referring here to the heretical vassals of the Roman
Catholic church, that drunken harlot who waits for her opportunity to
rule again with a bloody sword. I’m
talking about the writers in the early church and the great men whom God
was able to work through in spite of Roman Catholic dominance and also
the men that have been used mightily by God since Luther’s Reformation
to bless the Church with truth. However, even in the Roman Catholic
church there were some men who had a heart and mind for God.
Had there been an alternative to Roman Catholicism, I have no
doubt that many would have taken it.
The only alternative in most centuries was to be tortured and
executed as a heretic by the Roman Catholic church.
Therefore, some of the truth has arrived in this century wrapped
in very suspicious and dirty packaging.
The replacements for the books by great theologians are
equivalent to cheap novels that were written by shallow men who are out
to make a buck. It seems that these people will stop at nothing to
sell their imaginations. One man suggested that part of the reason for
the success of Hal Lindsey’s, The Late Great Planet Earth is that so
many people confuse it with science fiction.² In my opinion it is
a sad indictment of the low degree of spirituality involved in the
making of this book, yet this is the type of literature the Church is
now feeding their minds on. Christian Bookstores are out to make money
rather than spread Christianity. I visit a lot of Christian Bookstores
that are filled with trinkets, clothing, framed prints, jewelry, romance
novels, fiction and plenty of how-to books, all designed to prey on
sentimental and gullible Christians, but there is little offered for the
soul. Even God’s Book, the Bible is merchandised as men stamp their
names on it, add their words to it, or some gimmicky title is added to
give it appeal and the inevitable price increase. If you want a good
book that gives you in-depth knowledge of some great topic of God’s
word or Church history, you might find it in a secular bookstore, but
seldom on the shelves of most Christian bookstores.
Some Christian publishing and recording companies are now
secularly owned. I don't know exactly how I feel about this
"paradox." The
fact is that some of the Christian owned publishing companies refuse to
publish books supporting Posttribulationism.
The authors have to turn to the secular-owned companies to get
their books published. There
was a time when Christian publishers were concerned about truth, now its
sales that motivates their decisions for the most part.
There is also the fact that some books are written simply for
profit., Ghost writers, even
secular one’s, are employed to write books on hot topics. The
manuscript is sent to some highly visible Christian personality and if
he or she likes it, they sign the contract and send it back. Then the
publishing company sends them a check and prints the gospel star’s
name on the book as if they actually wrote themselves. The problem is
that in most cases they did not even receive the book idea from God,
much less write it! Some of these highly popular Christian personalities
have even used a homosexual ghost writer to write their books.
Then there is the problem of modern Christian music which is a
reflection of the bad doctrine that inundates Christianity today. Most
Christian music resembles the foul odorous music of Satan’s kingdom
rather than music from the hearts of true worshipers of God.
Christian music stars prance about, primp in sensual poses for
the cameras, flaunt torrid lifestyles and wear the symbols of satanic
bondage. When these individuals are challenged by the leaders of the
Church, they become arrogant and vicious, even to the point of taunting
people who are sickened by their witness.
I watched a small amount of the last several Dove Awards
ceremonies and had to turn off the television each time. My heart was so
broken for God that I could not stand to watch any more of their rancid
portrayal of Christianity to the world. I posted several articles
concerning these areas of extreme error in professing Christianity on my
web site and received a lot of hate mail for my effort. It seems all the
time-honored Christian truths have been subjected to brutal, verbal
beatings as the modern shrine-makers rise up in rancorous anger upon
being exposed for the flagrant idolaters that they are.
Modern Christian music has been very prevalent in the spread of
PTR. Not only is the
doctrine connected emotionally to the music that helped to promote it,
but it is connected doctrinally as well.
An example is one famous song entitled, John, the Revelator.
Obviously, John was not the Revelator, but Jesus Christ was.
Other popular songs include phrases that come straight out of the
PTR doctrine. The songs in
turn program the minds of people to believe what they have never studied
for themselves—a doctrine that is false and completely without
scriptural merit. To give
the reader some indication of how misinformed and uninformed the masses
are, there have also been highly popular songs that depict a
posttribulation rapture and evangelicals who believe PTR never
recognized the fact. They
sang those songs and never realized that they were singing words that
were opposed to their doctrine of pretribulation rapture.
My intent in these following chapters is to trace the trail of
deception back to its origins and expose the men who deceived a
generation, and who in turn has deceived every generation since into
believing a blatant false doctrine, the doctrine of pretribulation
rapture. I believe the Last Day’s deception began in the nineteenth
century and its fruit is being defended today as truth. Although it
began as an attack on Christian eschatology, it spread out to an attack
on all historical truth. So great is the deception that God has sent a
strong delusion to those who rejected a love for the truth. A delusion
is holding onto a belief in the presence of evidence normally sufficient
to destroy it. This is the case with those who defend the twisted error
of Dispensationalism.
Although the front-line defenders of false doctrine often appear
on the surface as godly people, one must realize that this can be a
facade. All effective error has as its facade some highly visible people
who appear godly. My opinion is that Satan does not afflict these
people, but withdraws his persecuting hand to give them the false
appearance of spiritual prowess and purity. The spirit of deception
comes out in their defense of error which leads me to believe they are
satanically manipulated for this purpose.
The damnable lie of Unconditional Eternal Security has also been
brought in by the abandonment of truth which has opened the door for
more error. Now, because of UES, there are few checks and balances,
little fear of God, and therefore practically no restraints from
committing the worst, despicable evil in the name of Jesus in most
fundamentalist camps. While researching the false Toronto Blessing
Movement, I watched in horror a video of a man who appeared to be drunk
in the pulpit. He began to mock the Word of God, and then he crowed like
a rooster. The congregations of what appeared to be thousands of people
screamed hilariously and began making all sorts of animal noises.
Shrieks of laughter and what appeared to be demonic noise flowed from
the crowd in a frighteningly blasphemous, manner.
How could this be? What caused professing Christianity in this
case to descend to this level? I believe it was the paradigm shift near
the turn of the century when a number of strong personalities in
professing Christianity rejected true Biblical interpretation in favor
of false, revelation knowledge. The result was a do-it-yourself
theological system that has fostered the religious atmosphere we have
today of anything goes. A true student of C. I. Scofield today would
declare that no matter how far the animal noise crowd went, even if they
ended the meeting in a gigantic sexual orgy, if they had once truly
confessed Christ Jesus Lord of their lives, they are still heaven-bound.
We can easily see how one thing has led to another and the resulting
domino effect has brought on the predicament we are observing today. The
only hope is to reverse the process of spiritual degradation by
abandoning the faulty system that caused it and return to the truth.
That’s always been the answer in times of great apostasy, to repent
and return. It will take a mighty revival to cause such a wholesale
return to righteousness and truth.
""When
I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour
the land, or send pestilence among My people, {14} "if My people
who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My
face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and
will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chr 7:13-14 NKJV)
It is time to repent and return before the darkness comes when no
one can work. It is past time for people who are called Christians to
open their hearts and seek God in sincerity and truth. May everyone who
reads this book prayerfully consider what they should do about the
challenge to face the storm of opposition to truth and make a stand.
1.
Benard Ramm, After Fundamentalism, San Francisco: Harper and Rowe, 1963,
pg. 181
2.
Ibid, Benard Ramm quoting James Barr.
 Chapter
Four
|