# Look at this e-mail I recieved about "The Rapture"



## ReformedWretch (Jan 21, 2005)

FAMOUS RAPTURE WATCHERS !
>
> by Dave MacPherson
>
>(The following quotes----to which a couple more have been
>added----were first circulated in a non-copyrighted paper of mine
>in the 1970's. While noting how Rev. 3:10 has been interpreted by
>the greatest Greek experts----including the ones that Walvoord,
>Lindsey, LaHaye etc. regard as the greatest Greek
>authorities----can you determine the rapture view of each of these
>Christian leaders of the past?)
>
> Barnabas (40-100): "The final stumbling-block (or source of
>danger) approaches...for the whole [past] time of your faith will
>profit you nothing, unless now in this wicked time we also
>withstand coming sources of danger....That the Black One
>[Antichrist] may find no means of entrance..." (Epistle of
>Barnabas, 4).
> Clement of Rome (40-100): "...the Scripture also bears
>witness, saying, 'Speedily will He come, and will not tarry'; and,
>'The Lord shall suddenly come [Matt. 24:30 coming] to His temple,
>even the Holy One, for whom ye look" (I Clement, 23).
> Hermas (40-140): "Those, therefore, who continue steadfast,
>and are put through the fire [of the Great Tribulation that is yet
>to come], will be purified by means of it....Wherefore cease not
>speaking these things into the ears of the saints..." (The Pastor
>of Hermas, Vision 4).
> Polycarp (70-167): "He comes as the Judge of the living and
>the dead" (Epistle to the Philippians, II).
> Justin Martyr (100-168): "The man of apostasy [Antichrist],
>who speaks strange things against the Most High, shall venture to
>do unlawful deeds on the earth against us the Christians..."
>(Dialogue With Trypho, 110).
> Melito (100-170): "For with all his strength did the
>adversary assail us, even then giving a foretaste of his activity
>among us [during the Great Tribulation] which is to be without
>restraint..." (Discourse on the Resurrection, i, 8).
> Irenaeus (140-202): "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).
> Tertullian (150-220): "The souls of the martyrs are taught to
>wait [Rev. 6]...that the beast Antichrist with his false prophet
>may wage war on the Church of God..." (On the Resurrection of the
>Flesh, 25).
> Hippolytus (160-240): "...the one thousand two hundred and
>three score days (the half of the week) during which the tyrant is
>to reign and persecute the Church, which flees from city to city,
>and seeks concealment in the wilderness among the mountains"
>(Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, 61).
> Cyprian (200-258): "The day of affliction has begun to hang
>over our heads, and the end of the world and the time of the
>Antichrist to draw near, so that we must all stand prepared for
>the battle..." (Epistle, 55, 1).
> Victorinus (240-303): "...the times of Antichrist, when all
>shall be injured" (Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed
>John, VI, 5).
> Lactantius (240-330): "And power will be given him
>[Antichrist] to desolate the whole earth for forty-two
>months....When these things shall so happen, then the righteous
>and the followers of truth shall separate themselves from the
>wicked, and flee into solitudes" (Divine Institutes, VII, 17).
> Athanasius (293-373): "...they have not spared Thy servants,
>but are preparing the way for Antichrist" (History of the Arians,
>VIII, 79).
> Ephraem the Syrian (306-373): "Nothing remains then, except
>that the coming of our enemy, Antichrist, appear..." (Sermo
>Asceticus, I).
> Pseudo-Ephraem (4th century?): "...there is not other which
>remains, except the advent of the wicked one [Antichrist]..." (On
>the Last Times, the Antichrist etc., 2).
> Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386): "The Church declares to thee
>the things concerning Antichrist before they arrive...it is well
>that, knowing these things, thou shouldest make thyself ready
>beforehand" (Catechetical Lectures, 15, 9).
> Jerome (340-420): "I told you that Christ would not come
>unless Antichrist had come before" (Epistle 21).
> Chrysostom (345-407): "...the time of Antichrist...will be a
>sign of the coming of Christ..." (Homilies on First Thessalonians,
>9).
> Augustine (354-430): "But he who reads this passage [Dan.
>12], even half asleep, cannot fail to see that the kingdom of
>Antichrist shall fiercely, though for a short time, assail the
>Church..." (The City of God, XX, 23).
> Venerable Bede (673-735): "[The Church's triumph will] follow
>the reign of Antichrist" (The Explanation of the Apocalypse, II,
>8).
> Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153): "There remains only one
>thing----that the demon of noonday [Antichrist] should appear, to
>seduce those who remain still in Christ..." (Sermons on the Song
>of Songs, 33, 16).
> Roger Bacon (1214-1274): "...because of future perils [for
>the Church] in the times of Antichrist..." (Opus Majus, II, p.
>634).
> John Wycliffe (1320-1384): "Wherefore let us pray to God that
>he keep us in the hour of temptation, which is coming upon all the
>world, Rev. iii" (Writings of the Reverend and Learned John
>Wickliff, D.D., p. 155).
> Martin Luther (1483-1546): "[The book of Revelation] is
>intended as a revelation of things that are to happen in the
>future, and especially of tribulations and disasters for the
>Church..." (Works of Martin Luther, VI, p. 481).
> William Tyndale (1492-1536): "...antichrist preacheth not
>Peter's doctrine (which is Christ's gospel)...he compelleth all
>men with violence of sword" (Greenslade's The Work of William
>Tindale, p. 127).
> Menno Simons (1496-1561): "...He will appear as a triumphant
>prince and a victorious king to bring judgment. Then will those
>who persecute us look upon Him..." (Complete Writings..., p. 622).
> John Calvin (1509-1564): "...we ought to follow in our
>inquiries after Antichrist, especially where such pride proceeds
>to a public desolation of the church" (Institutes, Vol. 2, p.
>411).
> John Knox (1515-1572): "...the great love of God towards his
>Church, whom he pleased to forewarn of dangers to come, so many
>years before they come to pass...to wit, The man of sin, The
>Antichrist, The Whore of Babylon" (The History of the
>Reformation..., I, p. 76).
> John Fox (1516-1587): "...that second beast prophesied to
>come in the later time of the Church...to disturb the whole Church
>of Christ..." (Acts and Monuments, I).
> Roger Williams (1603-1683): "Antichrist....hath his prisons,
>to keep Christ Jesus and his members fast..." (The Bloody Tenent,
>of Persecution, p. 153).
> John Bunyan (1628-1688): "He comes in flaming fire [as Judge]
>and...the trump of God sounds in the air, the dead to hear his
>voice..." (The Last Four Things: Of Judgment).
> Daniel Whitby (1638-1726): "...after the Fall of Antichrist,
>there shall be such a glorious State of the Church...so shall this
>be the Church of Martyrs, and of those who had not received the
>Mark of the Beast..." (A Paraphrase and Commentary, p. 696).
> Increase Mather (1639-1723): "That part of the world [Europe]
>was to be principally the Seat of the Church of Christ during the
>Reign of Antichrist" (Ichabod, p. 64).
> Matthew Henry (1662-1714): "Those who keep the gospel in a
>time of peace shall be kept by Christ in an hour of temptation
>[Rev. 3:10]" (Commentary, VI, p. 1134).
> Cotton Mather (1663-1728): "...that NewJerusalem, whereto the
>Church is to be advanced, when the Mystical Babylon shall be
>fallen" (The Wonders of the Invisible World, p. 3).
> Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758): "...continuance of Antichrist's
>reign [when the Church is persecuted] did not commence before the
>year of Christ 479..." (A History of the Work of Redemption, p.
>217).
> John Wesley (1703-1791): "'The stars shall...fall from
>heaven,' Revelation, vi. 13)....And then shall be heard the
>universal shout...followed by the 'voice of the archangel,'...'and
>the trump of God'...(I Thessalonians iv. 16)." (The Works of the
>Rev. John Wesley, A.M., Vol. V, p. 173).
> George Whitefield (1714-1770): "...'while the bridegroom
>tarried,' in the space of time which passeth between our Lord's
>ascension and his coming again to judgment..." (Gillies' Memoirs
>of Rev. George Whitefield, p. 471).
> David Brainerd (1718-1747): "...and I could not but hope,
>that the time was at hand, when Babylon the great would fall and
>rise no more" (Memoirs..., p. 326).
> Morgan Edwards (1722-1795): "[Antichrist] has hitherto
>assumed no higher title than 'the vicar general of Christ on
>earth'..." (Two Academical Exercises etc., p. 20).
> John Newton (1725-1807): "Fear not temptation's fiery day,
>for I will be thy strength and stay. Thou hast my promise, hold it
>fast, the trying hour [Rev. 3:10] will soon be past" (The Works of
>the Rev. John Newton, Vol. II, p. 152).
> Adam Clarke (1762-1832): "We which are alive, and remain...he
>[Paul] is speaking of the genuine Christians which shall be found
>on earth when Christ comes to judgment" (Commentary, Vol. VI, p.
>550).
> Charles G. Finney (1792-1875): "Christ represents it as
>impossible to deceive the elect. Matt. 24:24. We have seen that
>the elect unto salvation includes all true christians." (Lectures
>on Systematic Theology, p. 606).
> Charles Hodge (1797-1878): "...the fate of his Church here on
>earth...is the burden of the Apocalypse" (Systematic Theology,
>Vol. III, p. 827).
> Albert Barnes (1798-1870): "...he will keep them in the
>future trials that shall come upon the world [Rev. 3:10]" (Notes
>on the New Testament, p. 94).
> George Mueller (1805-1898): "The Scripture declares plainly
>that the Lord Jesus will not come until the Apostacy shall have
>taken place, and the man of sin...shall have been revealed..."
>(Mrs. Mueller's Missionary Tours and Labours, p. 148).
> Benjamin W. Newton (1805-1898): "The Secret Rapture was bad
>enough, but this [John Darby's novel idea that the book of Matthew
>is on 'Jewish' ground instead of 'Church' ground] was worse"
>(unpublished Fry MS. and F. Roy Coad's Prophetic Developments, p.
>29).
> R. C. Trench (1807-1886): "...the Philadelphian church...to
>be kept in temptation, not to be exempted from temptation..."
>(Seven Churches of Asia, pp. 183-4).
> Carl F. Keil (1807-1888): "...the persecution of the last
>enemy Antichrist against the church of the Lord..." (Biblical
>Commentary, Vol. XXXIV, p. 503).
> Henry Alford (1810-1871): "Christ is on His way to this earth
>[I Thess. 4:17]..." (The New Testament for English Readers, Vol.
>II, p. 491).
> John Lillie (1812-1867): "In his [Antichrist's] days was to
>be the great----the last----tribulation of the Church" (Second
>Thessalonians, pp. 537-8).
> F. L. Godet (1812-1900): "The gathering of the elect [Matt.
>24:31]...is mentioned by St. Paul, 1 Thess. 4:16, 17, 2 Thess.
>2:1..." Commentary on Luke, p. 452).
> Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-1842): "Christians must have
>'great tribulation'; but they come out of it" (Bonar's Memoirs of
>M'Cheyne, p. 26).
> S. P. Tregelles (1813-1875): "The Scripture teaches the
>Church to wait for the manifestation of Christ. The secret theory
>bids us to expect a coming before any such manifestation" (The
>Hope of Christ's Second Coming, p. 71).
> Franz Delitzsch (1813-1890): "...the approaching day is the
>day of Christ, who comes...for final judgment" (Commentary on
>Hebrews, Vol. II, p. 183).
> C. J. Ellicott (1819-1905): "[I Thess. 4:17] 'to meet the
>Lord,' as He is coming down to earth..." (Commentary on the
>Thessalonian Epistles, p. 66).
> Nathaniel West (1826-1906): "[The Pre-Trib Rapture] is built
>on a postulate, vicious in logic, violent in exegesis, contrary to
>experience, repudiated by the early Church, contradicted by the
>testimony of eighteen hundred years...and condemned by all the
>standard scholars of every age" (The Apostle Paul and the "Any
>Moment" Theory, p. 30).
> Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910): "He will keep us in the midst
>of, and also from, the hour of temptation [Rev. 3:10]" (The
>Epistles of John, Jude and the Book of Revelation, p. 266).
> J. H. Thayer (1828-1901): "To keep [Rev. 3:10]:...by
>guarding, to cause one to escape in safety out of" (A
>Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 622).
> Adolph Saphir (1831-1891): "...the advent of the Messiah...to
>which both the believing synagogue and the church of the Lord
>Jesus Christ are looking..." (The Epistle to the Hebrews, Vol. I,
>p. 96).
> M. R. Vincent (1834-1922): "The preposition ['from'] implies,
>not a keeping from temptation, but a keeping in temptation [Rev.
>3:10]..." (Word Studies..., p. 466).
> William J. Erdman (1834-1923): "...by the 'saints' seen as
>future by Daniel and by John are meant 'the Church'..." (Notes on
>the Book of Revelation, p. 47).
> H. Grattan Guinness (1835-1910): "...the Church is on earth
>during the action of the Apocalypse..." (The Approaching End of
>the Age, p. 136).
> H. B. Swete (1835-1917): "The promise [of Rev. 3:10], as Bede
>says, is 'not indeed of your being immune from adversity, but of
>not being overcome by it" (The Apocalypse of St. John, p. 56).
> William G. Moorehead (1836-1914): "...the last days of the
>Church's deepest humiliation when Antichrist is practicing and
>prospering (Dan. viii:12)..." (Outline Studies in the New
>Testament, p. 123).
> A. H. Strong (1836-1921): "The final coming of Christ is
>referred to in: Mat. 24:30...[and] I Thess. 4:16..." (Systematic
>Theology, p. 567).
> Theodor Zahn (1838-1933): "...He will preserve...at the time
>of the great temptation [Rev. 3:10]..." (Zahn-Kommentar, I, p.
>305).
> I. T. Beckwith (1843-1936): "The Philadelphians...are
>promised that they shall be carried in safety through the great
>trial [Rev. 3:10], they shall not fall" (The Apocalypse of John,
>p. 484).
> Robert Cameron (1845-1922): "The Coming for, and the Coming
>with, the saints, still persists, although it involves a manifest
>contradiction, viz., two Second Comings which is an absurdity"
>(Scriptural Truth About the Lord's Return, p. 16).
> B. B. Warfield (1851-1921): "...He shall come again to
>judgment...to close the dispensation of grace..." (Biblical
>Doctrines, p. 639).
> David Baron (1855-1926): "(Tit. ii. 13), for then the hope as
>regards the church, and Israel, and the world, will be fully
>realised" (Visions of Zechariah, p.323).
> Philip Mauro (1859-1952): "...'dispensational teaching' is
>modernistic in the strictest sense...it first came into existence
>within the memory of persons now living..." (The Gospel of the
>Kingdom, p. 8).
> A. T. Robertson (1863-1934): "In Rev. 3:10...we seem to have
>the picture of general temptation with the preservation of the
>saints" (A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of
>Historical Research, p. 596).
> R. C. H. Lenski (1864-1936): "...it [Philadelphia] shall be
>kept untouched and unharmed by the impending dangers [Rev. 3:10]"
>(The Interpretation of St. John's Revelation, pp. 146-7).
> William E. Biederwolf (1867-1939): "Godet, like most
>pre-millennial expositors, makes no provision for any period
>between the Lord's coming for His saints and His coming with
>them..." (The Second Coming Bible, p. 385).
> Alexander Reese (1881-1969): "...we quite deliberately reject
>the dispensational theories, propounded first about 1830..." (The
>Approaching Advent of Christ, p. 293).
> Norman S. MacPherson (1899-1980): "...the view that the
>Church will not pass into or through the Great Tribulation is
>based largely upon arbitrary interpretations of obscure passages"
>(Triumph Through Tribulation, p. 5).
>
> [Incidentally, I'm part of a long line of pioneering fundamentalists. 
>My grandfather George, long-time director of the famous New York City Tent 
>Evangel featuring many notable speakers including Moody, Torrey, and 
>Scofield, was so Scottish he deleted the "a" in MacPherson and saved ink! 
>But he used floods of ink in his books while exposing radical liberals like 
>Fosdick. After my father Norman pulled his Baptist church (in New York 
>State) out of the old Northern Baptist Convention because of its modernism, 
>many other churches followed his example. In my own pioneering books which 
>have unearthed many long-covered-up facts about the bizarre beginnings of 
>the various rapture views, I use only the KJV.
> Some of my uncovered facts: (1) Pretrib rapture interpretation is 
>strangely nonexistent in the OTHER writings of the scholars who produced 
>the 1611 KJV, (2) For 30 years John Darby, who wasn't original on ANY 
>crucial aspect of dispensationalism, based his pretrib rapture on Rev. 
>12:5's "caught up"; but Edward Irving had been publicly using this verse 
>for the same purpose for eight years before Darby finally adopted pretrib, 
>(3) Almost half of the Scofield Bible's consulting editors were posttribs - 
>and Scofield greatly valued them, (4) Only two - out of 90 - articles in 
>the famous volumes "The Fundamentals" (1917) focused on the second coming; 
>neither article had even a hint of pretrib, (5) Today's fundies are moving 
>back to the more tolerant position of earlier fundies who didn't view any 
>of the various rapture views as "essentials." Bob Jones Sr. regarded Dr. 
>Charles Brokenshire, a posttrib, as his most valuable BJU prof. And 
>McIntire and other leaders have highly regarded and had fellowship with T. 
>T. Shields and Ian Paisley, two more posttribs. Even though Jeffrey, Ice 
>etc. have claimed that several pre-1830 individuals taught a crude form of 
>pretrib, absolutely NO ONE has ever found any Bible-believing GROUP before 
>1830 who taught the pretrib rapture!
> If you would like to get my 300-page book "The Rapture Plot" and my 
>later one entitled "The Three R's" - which, with comparison quotes, expose 
>the incredible plagiarism in writings by Seiss, Bullinger, Unger, Lindsey, 
>Falwell, Van Impe, LaHaye, Missler, Jeremiah, C. C. Carlson etc.! - contact 
>online bookstores such as Armageddon Books. (All of my royalties have 
>always gone to a nonprofit corporation and not to me or anyone else.) To 
>see the reactions of leading Christian scholars to my writings, go to 
>search engines and type in "Scholars Weigh My Research."]


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