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Sergeant Strandberg (of "Rapture Ready"
fame): It has come to my attention here at this Air Force base that
you, as a supply sergeant, have been accepting items of inferior and
even dangerous quality! Now, it's true that your actions are far from
deserving a court-martial. But let me remind you, Sergeant, that your
reputation is in jeopardy, and if you don't improve the quality of
the items you distribute, the Commander-in-Chief who's over both of
us may have some words with you one of these days!
Sergeant, now where in the world did you get some of
those substandard items that are in your "Margaret MacDonald
Who?" article that's in the "Pretribulation Rapture"
section of your "Rapture Ready" website? You maintain that
I "have never been able to prove that Darby ever heard of
MacDonald or her vision." FACTS: In John Darby's book The
Irrationalism of Infidelity (1853), pp. 283-5, he described in great
detail his visit with her in her home in Scotland in mid-1830 and
even talked about her endtime outlook and the Scriptural texts she
used for support! (All this is in my book The Incredible Cover-up.)
Then you claim that Darby's pretrib view was derived
from "the distinction between Israel and the church."
FACTS: Darby's first clear pretrib teaching, in his "Notes on
the Revelation" (1839), p. 206, was based on only the symbol (!)
of the man child "caught up" in Rev. 12:5----and this was
his pretrib basis for 30 years (from the 1830's to the 1860's)!
Interestingly, this symbol was Edward Irving's pretrib basis in his
"Interpretation of the Old-Testament Prophecies quoted in the
New" (The Morning Watch, June, 1831, p. 301)----a full eight
years before Darby "appropriated" Irving's idea!
You then assert that Darby discovered the pretrib
rapture concept in 1827. FACTS: Darby himself wrote in his "Short
but serious Examination of...'Daniel the Prophet'" (1850), p.
67, that he came to "understand" pretrib in 1830 and not
1827----an understanding that came to him only after the Irvingite
journal The Morning Watch (which he regularly read) began to clearly
teach pretrib in its Sep., 1830 issue (which saw
"Philadelphia" raptured, in a partial rapture scheme,
before "the great tribulation," pp. 510, 514!). And you
foolishly declare that Margaret Macdonald (it was spelled this way)
couldn't have been a pretrib because she taught that the
"Church" will be persecuted by the Antichrist.
FACTS: For more than 30 years I've emphasized, in my
books and articles and while guesting on worldwide talk shows, that
the Irvingites, as well as Margaret, taught pretrib before Darby did.
My critics, wishing to divert attention away from unmistakably clear
pretrib teaching by Irvingites, have focused instead on uneducated
Margaret and her brief and somewhat unclear revelation account. They
also know that she held to partial rapturism which sees PART of the
"church" taken in a pretrib rapture and the REST of the
"church" enduring the trib. By covering up her pretrib
rapture ("one taken and the other left" before "THE
WICKED" is "revealed") and emphasizing her
posttrib-flavored statements like "The trial of the Church is
from Antichrist," they can hopefully discredit her as the
originator and give that honor to someone else who seems to have a
better reputation! Incidentally, all partial rapturists including
Pember and Govett have always described the ones "left
behind" as the "Church" (the way Margaret talked) and
even John Walvoord's books classify partial rapturists as "pretribulationists"!
Since some of the emotional and spiritual cripples
(with potty mouths) on your Rapture Ready message board have gotten
the impression from someone with little conscience (I wonder who!)
that I am a heretical (and even Satanic) liar that no one should ever
listen to, I am forced to tell you that since the early 1970's my
books on pretrib history have been publicly endorsed by a galaxy of
leading evangelical theologians as well as church history
experts----scholars from George Ladd, Merrill Tenney, and F. F. Bruce
to Robert Gundry and Walter Martin. I'll even send the sheets
containing the many names and endorsements to anyone sending a SASE
to me at: Box 1226, Monticello, Utah 84535 USA.
Finally, Sergeant, in order to shore up your
collapsing pillar of pretrib sand, you seem to enjoy dropping names
like Thomas Ice, Pseudo-Ephraem, Morgan Edwards, and Manuel Lacunza.
FACTS: Whenever I see a photo of Ice, I'm reminded that your site
considers him the "heavy" artillery who constantly shoots
off his mouth about the "pretrib" outlook of the last three
names. I wonder, Sergeant, what your fans will think when they
discover my "Deceiving and Being Deceived" article (on many
sites) which exposes the plagiarism, document revisionism, phony
"Dr." degrees, cover-up and other pretrib dishonesty, and
which also proves that Pseudo-Ephraem, Edwards, and Lacunza all had
the historical habit of blending together the rapture and the final
advent! Sergeant, since you are dedicated to the Commander-in-Chief
and His love of truth and want His promotion, I expect you to wipe
that grin off your face and clean up your site!
Rapturously, "Colonel" Dave MacPherson
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