Compute researchers who have click on the much repeated claim that Morgan Edwards (1722-1795) was a pre-tribulation rapturist probably have been unaware of the incredible cover-up of historical facts!

The trouble began with The Life and Works of Morgan Edwards, a 1980 book by Thomas McKibbens Jr. And Kenneth Smith claiming that Edwards had "a literal interpretation of Scripture."

But unfortunately the authors sidestepped away from equally non-literal statements in Edwards' 1788 book focusing on topics like "millennium" and "Last Novelties." Some Examples:

(1) Rev. 20: 3's "little season" was viewed by Edwards as a "a considerable time"

(2) Rev. 13:11's "beast" with "two horns" was seen as the "Turkish or Ottoman Empire" which began about 1300 A.D. and lasted for centuries. (Did those Turks have even one horn?)

(3) Rev. 14:6's "angel" was interpreted as "The Apostle John," destined also to be one of Rev. 11's "two witnesses."

(4) Concerning these witnesses who prophesy in sackcloth 1260 days (Rev: 11: 13) Edwards announced that "the ministry of the witnesses requires many more years to perform than the time of their wearing sackcloth."

(5) Matthew 24's stars don't really fall; they only "appear to fall," wrote Edwards.

(6) Equally serious was McKibbens' and Smith's failure to show that Edwards' literal statements (such as a literal rapture three and a half literal years before a literal millennium) were actually part of the century-old historicism which could easily interpret a Scriptural "hour" as 15 literal days, a "day" as a literal year, a month as "30 literal years," etc.

Edwards' historicism had him seeing about "208" more years until "the millennium" (including "about 204 years" until the death of the two witnesses------and he expected "their appearance" soon!), and also had him describing "Antichrist" as existing "hitherto" as a succession of persons" ("popery") as well as having a future aspect. (the last pope).

But now enter the real villains:

John Bray asserted in a booklet that Edwards was assuredly a futurist and a prê-trib. Covering up Edward s' rapture, ignoring the fact that it was tied to Rev. 20 and Matthew 24! on pages 21-22 Edwards tied Christ's coming to "change the living" and "catch them up to himself" to Matthew 24, adding that "the trump of God...will darken the sun and moon"-----pure pos-trib!

What Bray termed the "tribulation," following this coming, was only the time of the final death pangs of a stretched-out second advent! On page 30 Edwards saw Ezekiel's Gog and Magog wreaking havoc against the Jews after the Jews' establishment but before the millennium. Manuel Lacunza's Coming (Vol.1, 00. 279f) echoed this several decades later when he wrote that between "the death of Antichrist" and the start of the millennium, Ezekiel Gog (possibly "Antichrist himself" or a prince of his) will come against "the children of Israel." (Like Edwards, Lacunza also tied together the rapture and Matthew 24-------which some have also covered up.)

I should add that Edwards' rapture can easily be base on the three and a half day of Rev. 11 that the witnesses' spirits are with Christ; Le Roy Froom's The Prophetic faith of our Fathers (Vols. II, III) is just one source revealing the historicists before and after Edwards who harvested three and a half years from the very same Rev. 11 days.

After my later book The Rapture Plot published in-depth rebuttals of the claims for Edwards (and also pseudo-Ephraem) , Frank Marotta issued a quickie booklet reminiscent of Bray's cover-ups. But Marotta used a tactic Bray hadn't used. Instead of dealing with the words of Edwards that I had quoted (the "Ottoman Empire" was the Rev. 13. "beast that started out of the earth"-----proof that Edwards couldn't have been pretrib if the tribulation he was writing about in the 1700's had began in 1300 A.D.!) Marotta quoted only about a future aspect of the Turks!

Thomas Ice, a hired gun who's dedicated to shoring up pre-trib rapturism's collapsing "pillar of sand," soon reproduced, in his own publication, Marotta's whitewash of the real Morgan Edwards. But the most important paragraph was edited out: the one in which Marotta briefly discussed the Turks while tap dancing around my main point! Ice evidently thought it too dangerous to even draw attention to Marotta's trivial mention of the Turks!

Let me quickly mention some more cover-ups: (1) Edwards Irving, who translated Lancuza's work from Spanish to English, couldn't find an iota of pre-trib in it, (2) McKibbens and Smith, authoring their books on Edwards, didn't see even a morsel of pre-trib in Edwards book, and (3) Paul Alexander, the expert on Pseudo-Ephraem that Grant Jeffrey, Thomas Ice, and Hal Lindsey deceitfully lean on, has two summaries (textual and outline) of P-E's sequence showing that P-E saw only one (post-trib) coming following the great tribulation-------everything deliberately covered up by these (and by many other) pre-trib leaders! One more cover-up: The other writing (in British libraries) by the King James Bible translators have neither jot nor title of pretrib because in the manuscripts they translated they couldn't find either a lot or a little of pretrib!

In recent years Ice, aware that cults have successfully employed repetition to make even lies seem truthful, has seen to it that the groundless and dishonest claim for Edwards (plus some other "twistorical" data) is firmly entrenched on many pretrib web-sites! But what can he and his friends hope to achieve by trying to find a few before 1830 who seemed to have a hint of a pretrib rapture? What they are really doing is drawing attention to the 99 percent (plus) that even they themselves admit were anything but pretrib rapturists!

(These excerpts are part of MacPherson's forthcoming copyrighted book Rapture Cancer. You are FREE to reproduce and publish them if you include this paragraph. His earlier book the The Rapture Plot, fully exposing the claims for Edwards and Pseudo-Ephraem, can be obtained if you will call (800) 967-7345.)

La Haye's Temperament                                                        by Dave MacPherson          A couple decades ago I learned how serious Tim LaHaye had become when it came to my pre-trib history research----and it wasn't very becoming.      On January 5, 1981 he had sent a letter from the Scott Memorial Baptist Church he then pastored in the San Diego area to an evangelical publisher in another state. In the letter, which later came into my hands, LaHaye bluntly discussed yours truly and told the recipient: "Praise God you're going to answer this turkey----if I didn't already have 89 irons in the fire I'd take it on----some one should!"      Back in those days La Haye was well-known for his best-selling Spirit-Controlled Temperament book (temperaments that fundamentalist and evangelical critics have traced to the world of the occult!). Unfortunately that book didn't reveal the type of temperament La Haye could possess (a LaHaodicean one?) in order to call me a "turkey." Maybe his pretrib "feathers" had been ruffled by the many evangelical leaders who'd "gobbled" up my research and then praised it during the previous decade:      In his 1974 book When Is Jesus Coming Again, J. Barton Payne reflected it when he wrote that "the dispensational position...began only in 1830 with J. N. Darby's acceptance of Margaret Macdonald's revelation in Port Glasgow of a dispensationally divided return."      During the same year Christianity Today called it a "staunch defense" and Moody Monthly (while Jerry Jenkins was a top name there) referred to my "careful, factual sleuthing."      In Canada The Prairie Overcomer at Prairie Bible Institute concluded that "MacPherson's case seems to be watertight" while The Witness (the oldest and largest Darbyist Brethren magazine in England!) declared: "What he [MacPherson] succeeds in establishing is that the view outlined was first stated by a certain Margaret Macdonald...early in 1830." (Who knows the British, and the British ways of speaking, better than the British do?)      Some other comments during that period came from Harold Ockenga's letter ("You have done your research well"), Ian S. Rennie's Dreams, Visions and Oracles ("it is likely that [Margaret's revelation] was grist for Darby's mill"), and J. Gordon Melton in the Encyclopedia of American Religions ("The best scholarship available [views Margaret as the pretrib originator]").      With reactions like these coming from a noticeable percentage of the evangelical literati, you can see why Tim was dispensationally distraught over the possibility that comments from thinking evangelicals might have a dire effect on his ability to keep on making pretrib (la)hay while the sun was shining!      But now let's fast forward until we reach the year 1992 and the arrival of LaHaye's No Fear of the Storm----a book that's had no fear of being exposed as one of the most shabby, slipshod, slovenly (and, yes, even dishonest) prophecy books ever!      While flipping LaHaye's pages in order to spot his comments on the pretrib origin (the way my book The Rapture Plot describes it), I quickly found one sentence on page 180 that has four historical errors.       In it he asserts that 19th century (Plymouth) Brethren scholar S. P. Tregelles claimed in two of his books, spaced 11 years apart, that fellow Brethren member J. N. Darby derived pretrib from the Jews and Margaret Macdonald. Since Margaret wasn't Jewish, LaHaye sees Tregelles naming two different sources and contradicting himself.      If you've been totally immersed in pretrib rapture origin research since 1970 (as I have), you'll soon find (as I did) these four errors:      1. The two Tregelles works were not two books but an article (1855) and a book (1864).      2. They were nine years apart.      3. The article spoke only of "Judaisers" within Christianity. (This was the first time I'd ever found anyone claiming that the Jews  had been blamed for originating pretrib!)      4. The book referred to "an 'utterance' in Mr. Irving's Church." (Margaret never even visited Edward Irving's church!)      LaHaye obviously had been influenced by other writers, including R. A. Huebner and John Walvoord, who had previously aired the supposed Tregelles contradiction. (Elsewhere in the present book I show that Tregelles did not contradict himself.)      After being flabbergasted by this blunder-packed sentence, I decided to check the accuracy of LaHaye's reproduction of Margaret Macdonald's key 1830 revelation. With all 117 lines of her revelation in front of me (as found in my books including The Incredible Cover-up and The Great Rapture Hoax), I began comparing LaHaye's version with it. Everything matched perfectly during the first few lines.      But when I got to lines 10-11, LaHaye's copy spoke of Margaret's "great burst." Was this a reference to the "inbreaking of God...about to burst on this earth" (lines 42-43)? Or perhaps her vision of the final collapse of the pretrib view? Well, neither. Between the words "great" and "burst" LaHaye had omitted "darkness and error about it; but suddenly what it was." This omission can keep his readers in the dark concerning her cultic pride in thinking that only she could really explain "the sign of the Son of man" (Matt. 24:30)!      In addition to a variety of other copying errors, LaHaye also omitted eight words in lines 16-17, a word in line 51, another word in line 58, 11 words in lines 74-75, nine words in lines 76-77, and eight words in lines 111-112----sins of "omission" that can easily result in faulty analyses of Macdonald's prophetic words! (I wrote LaHaye in regard to his many copying errors. He never responded.)      LaHaye's version of Margaret's words is actually found in Robert Norton's Memoirs of James & George Macdonald, of Port-Glasgow (1840). But somehow he had prefaced it as being part of Norton's The Restoration of Apostles and Prophets; In the Catholic Apostolic Church (1861). All I had to do was find someone who had carelessly combined the 1840 text with the 1861 title.      Within minutes, while going through my files, I ran across a 1989 publication that had the same combination. And it had the same copying errors----including the same 48 omitted words----in the same places! The author was Thomas Ice!      (When LaHaye decided to plagiarize Ice's reproduction of Margaret's revelation instead of doing his own research, he didn't realize that Ice's sloppiness would trip up himself as well as Ice. But of course they are still friends and partners----especially in connection with the Pre-Trib Research Center----because they are sloppy and dishonest birds of a feather! Incidentally, Ice never responded after my letter to him asked about his many copying errors.)      In addition to LaHaye's "bumped" words, I tallied 84 other errors he makes when quoting various writers on 27 other pages discussing pretrib beginnings. LaHaye omits 11 words when quoting Walvoord's The Rapture Question: Revised. Walvoord, echoing Huebner, was asserting that my evidence has not proven that Margaret and Irving taught the pretrib view. But readers are kept in the dark about the assertion in the book in question because LaHaye somehow deletes what Walvoord was concluding!      On page 169 LaHaye says that at the Library of Congress he obtained photocopies of Manuel Lacunza's work, the title of which is The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty. Perhaps he can explain why on two pages this title appears as The Coming of Messiah in Power and Glory and is listed on a later page as The Coming of Christ in Power and Great Glory. Equally serious are his book's other copying errors including erroneous sources and page numbering in footnotes as well as inaccurate historical dates in the text.      Something else. If I fail to rectify some notions that LaHaye has repeated, others in the 20th century tradition of copying (and miscopying) may very well repeat and even embellish them.      LaHaye gives the impression that my father, Norman, changed from pretrib to posttrib during his Southern California pastorate from which he was ousted, and that Biola's position on the rapture was the only one ever held by that Los Angeles school. LaHaye even has a chapter about me entitled "MacPherson's Vendetta" and assumes that personal revenge on my part is the reason for my decades-long research on pretrib beginnings.      For the record here are my responses:      1. My father changed from pretrib to posttrib before his 1944 book Triumph Through Tribulation. Through meetings in my parents' living room, the church in question was formed in 1947. Folks knew about his previous change, but he was always a calm and scholarly preacher, almost never brought up posttrib, and never made any rapture view a test of fellowship. Later on, some pretrib outsiders joined, evidently intent on making the church a pretrib church.      I still have the handwritten notes that my mother took at the May 16, 1951 ouster meeting. One of the voiced criticisms of my father that she recorded: "He has no right to interpret prophecy contrary to Scofield." (This critic obviously was influenced only by Scripture and not by human agency in the same way Darby was!)      2. The doctrinal statement in Biola's catalog says merely that the "Lord Jesus is coming again to this earth, personally, bodily, and visibly." The school's founders chose such a broad statement because they wanted persons to have freedom to hold and discuss what were then viewed as non-essentials: for example, differing tribulational and millennial views.      Nowadays the Biola catalog includes this explanatory note (following the doctrinal statement): "The Scriptures are to be interpreted according to dispensational distinctives with the conviction that the return of the Lord for His Church will be premillennial, before the Tribulation, and that the Millennium is to be the last of the dispensations."      When I applied in 1952 for admission to the original Bible Institute of Los Angeles campus in downtown L. A., I was given the original doctrinal statement which allows for non-conflicting non-essentials.      Since my father had been a schoolmate of Biola's president at Princeton Seminary (hardly a pretrib school), I saw no harm in occasionally sharing copies of my father's 1944 book with some student friends and some of my teachers. If the school had told me to stop this, I would have. If I had been a threat all year to Biola's "official" position, why did it wait until just two weeks before the end of the school year to kick me out?      Throughout this century pretrib has changed from being a non-essential to being an expedient essential at Biola and many similar schools, primarily because of its tremendous fund-raising potential.      3. LaHaye concludes wrongfully that my pretrib origin research of a quarter of a century is nothing more than my vengeful reaction to what happened to my family in the 1950's.      If so, it must be one of the slowest reactions ever. I didn't even wonder about the origin until two decades after the California incidents. Long before my research began, numerous tragedies including untimely death had overtaken the ringleaders in the church trouble. During the years between the early 1950's and the early 1970's (when my research began), I was never bitter towards anyone at either the church or Biola----and haven't been down to the present day.      In the same No Fear book of his, LaHaye has an entire chapter discussing my books. The fair and honest thing, when citing books, is to list the books in footnotes or at least in a bibliography----unless a writer has something to hide. The reason LaHaye doesn't list any of my works in this manner is that he is neither fair nor honest!      As if all of the above isn't enough, there's even plagiarism in some of LaHaye's books! I'll give an example by comparing Hal Lindsey's There's A New World Coming (1973) with LaHaye's Understanding the Last Days (1998).      On p. 281 Lindsey wrote: "The New Testament refers to the 'Book of Life' eight times, and although the Old Testament doesn't call it by that name, it refers three times to a book in which names are written. This book contains the name of every person born into the world. If by the time he dies, a person has not received God's provision of sacrifice to remove sin, then his name is blotted out of this 'Book of Life.'"      On pp. 192, 194 LaHaye wrote: "The New Testament refers to the book of life eight different times, and although the Old Testament does not call it by that name, it does allude three times to a book in which names are written...The book of life is that book in which the names of all people ever born into the world are written. If, at the time of a person's death, he has not called upon the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, his name is blotted out of the book of life."      After I told LaHaye in a letter that I had found plagiarism in his books, he sent me the one and only letter I've ever gotten from him, dated March 3, 1999. His first two sentences said: "You are the first person who (to my knowledge) has ever accused me of plagiarizing anything from anyone. And with forty books in print I would think someone would have if it were true." I immediately sent him evidence that he had plagiarized various books by Walvoord and Lindsey. To this day he has never responded in connection with the proof that I sent to him!      My book The Rapture Plot has an appendix exhibiting plagiarism, by means of comparison quotes, in popular pretrib prophecy books. Not only is Tim LaHaye's plagiarism portrayed, but there's proof also of the same literary thievery in writings by Jerry Falwell, Ed Hindson, Ed Dobson, Charles Ryrie,  Paul Tan, and Jack Van Impe, for starters!      If students at Christian Heritage College (LaHaye's former stomping ground) or Falwell's Liberty University were to plagiarize their neighbors' answers during an exam, they'd be in danger of getting an "F" for the exam and maybe for the entire course.      But when pretrib leaders cut corners and cheat in print, which of course allows them to turn out rapture rush jobs much more quickly, they are awarded honorary (if not honorable) degrees----like the Doctor of Literature degree that Falwell's school gave to LaHaye!      LaHaye gives the impression these days that his huge book sales are proof that he's being blessed by the Lord. Well, if financial success is the most important standard (and it seems to be in the eyes of many pretrib authors and publishers), then the Lord must also be blessing the Mafia and Columbian drug lords and even Osama Bin Ladin!      But when does success become greed? LaHaye is currently suing fellow Christians over the Left Behind film rights! His lawsuit even states that he has suffered "emotional and mental stress, including anxiety, worry, mental anguish and sleeplessness"----characteristics, as you can tell, of Spirit-controlled temperament!      Jeremiah 17:11 is a verse that LaHaye has somehow left behind. It says that "he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool."      Finally, here's the big question:      In light of recently uncovered evidence revealing the long-covered-up, sordid history of the pretrib rapture view, and in light of the fact that God's judgment of careless and apostate Christendom is rapidly increasing these days, will Tim LaHaye temper his outlook and change his temperament or will he lose his temper, let his temperature rise, and become temperamental?  

The Best BOOK on the Rapture EVER.

"The Three R's, Rapture, Revisionism, Robbery"

By Historian Dave MacPherson.

Need Shocks?

You will when you're taking a spin through Dave MacPherson's new (1998) book entitled "The Three R's" Its subtitle: "Rapture, Revisionism, Robbery. Pretribulation Rapturism from 1830 to Hal Lindsey"

The "Three R's" answer many questions including this: Are you aware the 168 year old pretribulation rapture view (evangelicalism's greatest money-making belief !) was born in Britain, and that for decades the earliest promoters couldn't decide which "symbol" was the correct one?

How did the Great Pyramid of Egypt conveniently provided extra "proof" during the last century, for the young and struggling pretrib rapture view?

Name the starry-eyed 19th century British plagiarist (plagiarized by Lindsey in the "The Late Great Planet Earth" who claimed to find occultic "PROOF" for pretrib in one of the heavenly constellations.

How did one British group steal pretrib away from another group and cover it up for a century?

How can "orthodox" Lindsey easily blend the Bible with pseudo-scientific, occultic notions such as the "Jupiter Effect" and the zodiacal "Virgo "to Leo theory?

A Dallas SEMINARY professor, a WELL-known Texas Pastor, and a "Christianity Today" consulting editor are among those who've charged Lindsey WITH

PLAGIARISM. Can You identify them?

Who are some other pretrib rapture teachers of today who also have EMBARRASSING "Similarities" in their writings?

Which LARGE Los Angeles Newspaper TIED both Lindsey and Chuck Missler to PLAGIARISM?

Identify the famous evangelical scholar who described Lindsey's book as "religious 'science-fiction' (more fiction than science)."

WHICH recent U.S. Presidents have been influenced by the Lindsey-type rapture?

This hair-raising new book costs $9.95 (plus $2.25 S&H).Call(800) 967-7345

or send $12.20 to: P.O.S.T. Inc., P.O. Box 1903, Simpsonville, SC 29681.

Good discounts on quantities.

We will provide the wild ride in "The Three

R's" if you will provide your own shock absorbers !

The Rapture of the Church, True or False?

Tim LaHaye, John MacArthur, Hank Hannegraff, Dave Hunt, Dr. Charles Halff, Gary Hedrick, Dr. David Jeremiah, and the rest of the evangelical leaders can only defend their doctrines, in their radio programs, or in their books, protected from the scrutiny of a DEBATE. They ALL are afraid to have a debate with 7th Day Adventist (Independent) ministers. Matthew 10: 26 Ltd Ministry is STILL waiting for any of them to respond to our letter calling for a debate.

"But there were false prophets also AMONG THE PEOPLE, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. AND MANY shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through COVETOUSNESS shall they with feigned words MAKE MERCHANDISE of you; whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not" 2 PETER 2: 1-3.

Order the Free video "The Rapture of the Churches, True or False?

Disgrace & Shame

Women Everywhere -----ARISE!