Re: Poll - How many Anonymous members are Rapture Ready?

"Gnostic" <bardic26657@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:13rb7up9to7m510@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 

> Rapture Ready - your prophecy resource for the end times
> 
> The rapture of the Church will kick-off the tribulation. Make sure you
> are rapture ready.
> 

Show me any biblical passages mentioning rapture.

The Newness of the Doctrine
It may come as a surprise to many Christians, but the doctrine of the 
Rapture is not mentioned in any Christian writings, of which we have 
knowledge, until after the year 1830 A.D. Whether the early writers were 
Greek or Latin, Armenian or Coptic, Syrian or Ethiopian, English or 
German, orthodox or heretic, no one mentioned a syllable about it. Of 
course, those who feel the origin of the teaching is in the Bible would 
say that it only ceased being taught (for some unknown reason) at the 
close of the apostolic age only to reappear in 1830 A.D. But if the 
doctrine were so clearly stated in Scripture, it seems incredible that no 
one should have referred to it before the 19th century. This does not 
necessarily show that the teaching is wrong, but it does mean that 
thousands of eminent scholars who lived over a span of seventeen 
centuries (including some of the most astute of the "Christian Fathers" 
and those of the Reformation and post-Reformation periods) must be 
considered as prophetic dunces for not having understood so fundamental a 
teaching. We are not denigrating the doctrine in mentioning these 
historical facts. That is not our intention. But we do feel that the 
Foundation should show the historical problems associated with the 
teaching. This lapse of seventeen centuries when no one mentioned 
anything about it must be a serious obstacle to its reliability.

Its Beginning
The result of a careful investigation into the origin of the Rapture has 
been recently published. The book is an excellent one which deserves to 
be read by all people interested in the subject. Its title: "The 
Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin" by Dave MacPherson. He catalogs a great 
deal of historical material which answers the doctrine's mysterious 
derivation. We wish to review the results of his research. In the middle 
1820's a religious environment began to be established among a few 
Christians in London. England which proved to be the catalyst around 
which the doctrine of the Rapture emerged. Expectations of the soon 
coming of our Lord were being voiced, This was no new thing, but what, 
was unusual was the teaching by a Presbyterian minister named Edward 
Irving that there had to be a restoration of the spiritual gifts 
mentioned in I Corinthians 12-14 just before Christ's second coming. To 
Irving, the time had come for those spiritual manifestations to occur. 
Among the expected gifts was the renewal of speaking in tongues and of 
spirit-motivated prophetic utterances. Irving began to propagate his 
beliefs. His oratorical skills and enthusiasm caused his congregation in 
London to grow. Then a number of people began to experience the "gifts." 
Once this happened opposition from the organized churches set in. It 
resulted in Irving's dismissal from the Presbyterian church in 1832. His 
group then established themselves as the Catholic Apostolic Church and 
continued the teachings of Irving.

These events were the beginnings of what some call present day 
Pentecostalism. Indeed Irving has been called by some church historians 
"the father of modern Pentecostalism." What does all this have to do with 
the origin of the Rapture doctrine? Very much indeed. Let us look at what 
happened in the year 1830 -- two years before Irving's dismissal from the 
Presbyterian church. In that year a revival of the "gifts" began to be 
manifested among a few people living in the lowlands of Scotland. They 
experienced what they called the outpouring of the Spirit. It was 
accompanied with speaking in "tongues" and other charismatic phenomena. 
Irving had been preaching these things must occur, and now they were.

On one particular evening. the power of the Holy Spirit was said to have 
rested on a Miss Margaret .Macdonald while she was in a state of illness 
at home. She was dangerously sick and thought she was dying. In spite of 
this (or perhaps because she is supposed to have come under "power" of 
the spirit for several successive hours during which she experienced the 
manifestations of "mingled prophecy and vision." The message she received 
during this prophetic vision convinced her that Christ was going to 
appear in two stages at His second coming -- and not one! The emanation 
revealed that Christ would first come in glory to them that look for Him 
and again in a final stage when every eye would see Him. It was this 
visionary experience of Miss Macdonald which represents the prime source 
of the modern Rapture doctrine as the historical evidence compiled by Mr. 
MacPherson abundantly shows.

http://www.askelm.com/doctrine/d760201.htm