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

On Feb 15, 9:09 pm, antimidas <antimidas...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Gnostic" <bardic26...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
innews: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

Sounds like the Rapture Bus had a flat tire with no spare.