What I have been inspired to present here will not be popular. The majority of evangelical Christians in America and the western nations believe in a pre-tribulation “rapture” of the church, though they may or may not believe in the entirety of dispensational theology, without which a pre-tribulation “rapture” is not possible.

            Why would I, then, sound the alarm with friends and family when I know that some will reject both the message and the messenger?

            Those who know me know that my motivation for sounding the alarm has nothing to do with me personally. I am compelled to deliver the message, and, whether I have earned the right to speak into your life or not, I am merely the messenger here, not the source of the message.

 

            At the church where I served as a deacon, a Bible teacher and home group leader, a female teacher, who was a personal friend, led a popular Thursday morning women’s Bible study. She was deeply interested in the symbolism of the Lord’s feast days, and when she heard that Edgar Whisenant, a former NASA engineer and author of 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 was coming to San Angelo to speak at the Civic Auditorium, she enthusiastically recommended class members to attend.

            “The Feast of Trumpets makes sense to me,” she said. “I don’t have any reason to think it will be 1988, but the Feast of Trumpets is the most likely time for the rapture to occur.”

            When my own class members, some of whom were in her Thursday morning Bible study, asked me if I was going to hear this self-proclaimed prophet prove from the Bible that the rapture would take place during Rosh Hashana in1988 (only a few months away), I said, “I don’t have any intention of going, because whatever he says is going to be wrong.”

            Afterwards, because of the stir in my own class, I asked my pastor if I could address this issue in the general assembly on the following Sunday, and he agreed. What I told the fellowship was that Mr. Whisenant was one of many false prophets who were unknowing collaborators with the Great Deceiver, the Father of Lies, and that this Rosh Hashana would come and pass like the ones before it, proving that he was a false prophet.

            Later, on the Sunday following Mr. Whisenant’s presentation at the Civic Auditorium I heard from those in my own class who had attended, and they quoted Mr. Whisenant as saying, “I will stake my life on the fact that the rapture will occur on Rosh Hashana this year.”

            Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), who was completely sucked in by Mr. Whisenant’s book and prediction, as well as Hal Lindsey’s similar prediction, held regular broadcasts on how to prepare for the rapture.

            Whisenant also stated that if it did not occur, then he was a false prophet and should be stoned to death.

            When the rapture did not take place during Rosh Hashana 1988 he did not return to San Angelo to be stoned as a false prophet. Instead, he did what all date setters and false prophets do. He re-calculated several times with predictions for various dates in 1989, 1993, and 1994 before everyone simply lost interest. In the meantime, he sold 4.5 million copies of his book to gullible Christians.

            Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet Earth, also predicted that the rapture would occur on May 14,1988. He sold 15 million copies of his book, and, remarkably, this erroneous teacher of prophecy still has a popular “prophecy” show on television.

 

            Being saved into a denomination where the Scofield and Ryrie Study Bibles were widely recommended and used and Clarence Larkin’s charts on Dispensational Truth reflected and illustrated popular teaching concerning dispensationalism and a pre-tribulation “rapture”, I naturally adopted that theological position until a brother I was in correspondence with challenged me to be a noble Berean (exactly as I always challenge others) in regard to a pre-tribulation “rapture” and the dispensational doctrine in general.

 

            The popular acceptance of dispensational theology and a pre-tribulation “rapture” theory among a large number of evanagelicals in America had overwhelmed me, and I was guilty of assuming the correctness of the doctrine without a thorough, Spirit-guided exegesis of the scriptures where that doctrine is concerned. After all, it was being taught in semenaries wasn’t it?

 

            The teaching of a pre-tribulation “rapture” theory and dispensational doctrine, in general, did not appear in any writings of the church until the 1830’s (about the time the Philadelphian type of church began to decline and the Laodicean and Sardis types of church gained momentum), and the source of that doctrine, once known, should cause any pastor or Bible teacher who has a strong assumptive belief or a strong deductively reinforced belief in both to either harden their hearts in anger (because he/she has too much invested in them), or retch and fall to his/her knees in repentance once the truth is known.

            Each generation of the church tends to believe that the theories and scriptural interpretations popular in their day are the same as they always have been. A study of church history reveals a vastly different scenario, and the fact that some form of the pre-tribulation “rapture” theory did not appear in any church writings prior to 1830, including the prolific writings of the early church fathers during the first three hundred years of church history, should be a concern to any believer who wants to know the truth.

            There is one obscure sermon reference by an early church father being used as a support reference by dispensationalists, but, as will be demonstrated, that reference not only doesn’t mean what dispensationalists want it to mean, but that is the only scrap of early church “evidence” that they have been able to come up with.

           

            Historic Premillennialism was the predominant view of the early church fathers (i.e. the return of the Lord prior to His millennial reign and a single resurrection of both living and dead saints prior to His physical return to Mount Olivet at the end of the age, and it teaches that Christ will return after the Great Tribulation and establish a 1000 year reign on earth (the millennium) prior to the final battle with Satan at the end of the millennium, which issues in a final judgment and a new earth. This continues to be the predominant view of true conservative theologians today. (But not the predominant view of western evangelical Christianity)

            Dispensationalism is an offshoot of Historic Premillennialism with numerous and constantly changing variations, but it can generally be described by the following distinctives:

 

1)      A dichotomy between the church and Israel. A literal Israel will inherit the covenant promises of God on the day of the Lord. The church (made up of both Gentiles and Jews) is spiritually ingrafted into Israel and benefits from the covenant promises made to Israel.

 

2)      There are two comings of Christ in the second advent (with the first advent being His birth, life, death, and resurrection). The first appearance of Christ during the second advent is a hidden, secret spiritual (but imminent) event with Christ meeting both the dead in Christ (church only) and the living (church only) saints in the air prior to the tribulation (i.e. pre-tribulation “rapture”). The Lord retreats to heaven with his church (where He is presumably consummates a “marriage” with church-only saints) and then returns seven years later to resurrect the Old testament saints and tribulation saints on the last day immediately before the day of the Lord).

 

3)      History is divided into specific dispensations where God deals with men through different covenants in different ways. Each of these periods (dispensations) end in failure and judgment. (Evaluated only briefly here, but more thoroughly in “The Blood Covenant”).

 

            Before we dig deeper into the various “proof texts” for dispensationalism and a pre-tribulation “rapture” I will provide the reader with information about the origin of the dispensational doctrine, without which a pre-tribulation “rapture” could not have been imagined.

            What I am reaching for here is merely a temporary suspension of belief, a trial move whereby we take the puzzle pieces that were forced into a position where they did not belong and test them in more appropriate places on our puzzle board. Then the reader can make his/her own decision about whether the the square pegs should be forced back into the round holes again or not.

            (If the reader has not made it even this far, then the stronghold of Phariseeical conformance to the religious fads of western evangelical Christianity has blinded the eyes of their hearts completely.) You, though, are about to “see” Truth (deliberate capital “T”) that will seriously impact your relationship with the Lord in a positive way, though it may shock you a little in the beginning.

 

            The fact that some form of the pre-tribulation rapture theory did not appear in any writings prior to 1830 is not proof that the theory is wrong, but it should raise a spiritual red flag in spite of the current popularity of that theory among American evangelicals today, including popular prophecy “experts”, Dr. Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsey.

 

 

            Error is error, though, no matter who has repeated it or over how long a period of time.

 

            A great deal of information is available on the internet and in books, and I will report only the highlights. The interested disciple should do his/her own research once the red flag has been raised in his/her spirit, and a search for “origins of dispensationalism” will get the reader started.

 

The origins of dispensational theology

 

            John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), the primary founder of the Plymouth Brethren, is considered to be the father of dispensationalism because it is he who developed dispensationalism into a theology, including a “secret rapture”, which he first revealed at the Powerscourt Conference (prophecy conference) in 1832.          

            At least one early church father, Ephraem of Nisbilis (306-374) supposedly presented the concept of a pre-tribulation “rapture” of all the saints, but, as we shall see, he did not present the view of a split resurrection with the church being raptured first and then seven years later the tribulation saints being resurrected. And nothing that we have of Ephraem of Nisbilis’s writings is tainted with the other distinctives of dispensational theology.

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            A translated excerpt from Ephraem of Nisbilis’s sermon text is presented here:

 

            "For all the saints and Elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins."

 

            I am presenting this excerpt from a sermon by an early church father, because this is the only reference in the prolific writings of an early church father that suggests a pre-tribulation resurrection-“rapture”. And, as far as we know, Ephraem of Nisbilis did not teach any other distinctives of dispensationalism, including a split resurrection with the Old Testament and tribulation saints being resurrected after the tribulation.

            One excerpt from a sermon is not proof, though, and, if presented as “proof”, needs to weighed against the prolific amount of early church writings supporting a post tribulation last day resurrection-“rapture”. (Perhaps a 1000 to 1 ratio or greater)

            Dr. Ice of the Pre-Trib Research Center, a group organized by Dr. Tim LaHaye and Dr. Ice to defend the rapidly growing criticisms of dispensational theology and the pre-tribulation “rapture” theory, states that Darby’s own writings show that Darby, whose basic theology was sound, came up with the pre-tribulation theory during a convalescene period of deep meditation (i.e. a special revelation from “God”). Neither Darby nor his biographer ever reported Darby’s study of Ephraem of Nisbilis’s indeterminate sermon.

            A biographer and contemporary of Darby’s, Max Weremchuk, reported further, that Darby found Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, and Revelation to be problematical and confusing in regard to his developing dispensational theology and pre-trib rapture theory, and Werenchuk stated, “I still feel his final Church/Israel distinction and pre-trib rapture views were a reaction, a sought for alternative, almost as if he tried to be ‘original’."      

            The true origins of the dispensational school of thought, though, can be traced back to a Jesuit priest, Francisco Ribera (1537-1591),  and later to Manuel Lacunza (1731–1801), a Jesuit whose writings were intended to counteract the Protestant reform movement’s interpretation of the Book of Revelation, which identified the Pope as the Antichrist and the Roman Catholic Church as the whore of Babylon. 

                Lacunza’s works were translated into English by Edward Irving (1792–1834) in 1827, but Irving was duped by Lacunza, a Roman Catholic and a Jesuit, who fraudlently published his works under the name Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra, a supposed converted Jewish rabbi.

            Irving’s erroneous teachings concerning the person of Jesus Christ and his interpretation of the Book of Revelation (based on Lacunza’s fraudulent writings), eventually led to his conviction by the Church of Scotland for heresy. And it was Irving’s heretical works that influenced John N. Darby as his dispensational theology and a pre-tribulation rapture theory took shape.

            Dr. Ice claims that Irving’s works only added to and complimented Darby’s own developing theological conclusions, but it was at the Powerscourt Conference in 1832, five years after Irving’s works were published, that Darby publicly revealed his pre-tribulation rapture theory, and by that time he was definitely influenced by Irving’s writings.

            The modern adoption of dispensational theology has been strongly influenced by Cyrus Scofield, a dubious theologian with no formal training, through his Scofield Study Bible,

Charles Ryrie and his Ryrie Study Bible, and, more recently, by J. Dwight Pentecost, Professor Emeritus at Dallas Theological Seminary, and a longtime member of the Plymouth Brethren (founded by John N. Darby), who espouses the dispensational theology in its entirety, including a pre-tribulation “rapture” theory.  J. Dwight Pentecost’s famous book on eschatology, Things to Come, which teaches the dispensational view, is still being used by Dallas Theological Seminary and many others.

            Things to Come also influenced my early views on biblical eschatology, but he, like many others, could only assign a general meaning to the detailed and very specific parable of the ten virgins, and, like Darby, Pentecost wasn’t sure what to make of Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13, but suggested that this prophetic passage given to His disciples priimarily concerned their immediate future and the future of Jewish believers during the tribulation.

            It does seem strange, though, that the Lord would respond to the disciples’ question concerning the signs of the time and the end of the age with a multitude of details and, yet, forget to mention the secret “rapture” of those who would come after them.

            These influences and others have now effected numerous evangelical denominations and fellowships from Southern Baptist to Charismatic, though not all within these denominations and fellowships adhere to dispensational theology or a pre-tribulation “rapture” theory. Some even accept the pre-tribulation “rapture” theory without accepting the other dispensational distinctives, but a pre-tribulation “rapture” cannot take place unless all the distinctives of dispensational theology are correct.

            The “middle ground” (of appeasement and religious political expediency) that some have taken in order to avoid the controversy and division is to discount scriptural prophecy entirely and emphasize only that we ought always to be ready.

            It is true that we ought always to be ready, but to ignore the, as yet, unfulfilled biblical prophecies related to the church age is contrary to the Lord’s own instruction to His disciples in Matthew 24 and 25, Luke 21, and Mark 13.        

 

            See I have warned you beforehand, Matthew 24:25

 

            So also when you see these signs all taken together coming to pass, you may know of a surety that He is near, at the very doors. Matthew 24: 33 Amplified

 

            We are warned, therefore, to be aware of the signs of the times, even though we do not know the day or the hour. But the signs of the times are a specific warning to the saints of those times. Are we, then, going to ignore the warning signs He gave us because we are afraid to enter into controversy?

            And, if the truth is available with clarity, do we not want to know it?