11. I didn’t know that most of today’s “end times” preachers ARE actually saying that Jesus was running around in the first century telling those people that something was going to happen to them (in their lifetimes) that DIDN’T happen to them and WOULDN’T happen to them.

12. I didn’t know that “end times” preachers are also, in effect, basically saying that Peter and Paul were also lying or were themselves misled about the same subject and thus giving out inaccurate information about the “end of the age” to the people THEY were talking to… (Rom. 13:11-12; 1 Cor. 7:29-31; 1 Cor. 10: 11; 2 Thess. 2: 6, 7; Phil. 4:5; James 5: 7-9; 1 Pet. 1: 20; 1 Pet. 4: 7; 1 John. 2:18; Acts 2:16,17; Heb. 10: 25 and 10:37)

13. I didn’t know that the “seven churches” in the book of Revelation (who the book was literally addressed to) were actually real first-century churches full of (real) harshly persecuted Christians, nor that the order in which they were listed in Revelation were in the same order of a known (first century) Roman postal route, nor that you can actually see the mainland where these cities are – from the island of Patmos (which is now a big tropical tourist spot where cruise ships come in).

I didn’t know that.

I had never even stopped for a minute to examine (for myself) the very THEME of this letter called “Revelation”. For instance, in the very first verse of the first chapter John plainly states who his actual audience IS (his bondservants), and then proceeds to tell them that his letter is about things “which must shortly take place” for THEM. In 1:3 we see John unmistakably saying to the people in those seven churches that the VERY REASON they are to “heed the things which are written in it” is because “the time is near”. Why would John boldly say that the very PURPOSE of his letter was about things that are very near, if they absolutely were not near? I had never been challenged by the church to even ask that question

14. I didn’t know that John’s letter to those (real) people in those (real) churches was sent to minister to them by John, a “fellow partaker in the tribulation”, to give them spiritual instruction, encouragement, and HOPE…John is writing to seven actual churches in DIRE circumstances. He intends on them to understand what is being written, revealed, and shown… They are to HEAR and to HEED, which would require that they understand… John’s letter is about things “which must shortly take place” (temporal nearness)… It was a letter of instruction, encouragement, and HOPE… And THIS is a BIG PART of what he told THOSE REAL PEOPLE…

Revelation 1:1 – “…things which must shortly take place”

Revelation 3:11 – “Behold, I come quickly!”

Revelation 22:6 – “…things which must shortly take place.”

Revelation 22:7 – “Behold, I am coming quickly!”

Revelation 22:10 – “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.”

Revelation 22:12 – “Behold, I am coming quickly.”

Revelation 22:20 – “Surely I am coming quickly.” εγγυς, engus means “at hand, near”

Revelation 1:3 – “The time is near.”

Revelation 22:10 – “The time is at hand.” μελλει, mello, mellei means “about to, on the point or verge of”

Revelation 1:19 – “Write … the things that are about to take place.”

Revelation 3:10 – “… the hour of trial … is about to come upon the whole world.”

15. I didn’t know that those people in those seven churches THOUGHT all those verses were TRUE for THEM, nor that it would give them the BELIEF that all those things would happen in THEIR lifetime, but it did. Surely John is not telling these poor persecuted saints that the “time is near and you must heed that which I’m writing, and God is concerned with your persecution – BUT the things I am telling you that are near to you and shortly to come are (actually) NOT really near to you and (actually) NOT shortly to come but are (really and actually) not going to take place until 2,000-some years from now” ! “But hey, thanks for letting us USE your DESPERATE HOPE and your DIRE SITUATION as a STORY-TELLING PROP for the REAL people (2,000 years from now) that this letter is (actually) really written for.”?

Huh?????

Can you imagine that?

Does that make ANY sense at all?

How can that POSSIBLY be what happened there?!!

16. I didn’t know that the words “one will be taken and one will be left” in Matthew 24:37-39 which is to mirror the days of Noah – is ACTUALLY saying that the one LEFT is the one SPARED… otherwise it would NOT be “as it was in the days of Noah” – because the flood came, and ‘TOOK’ them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.’ But it doesn’t end there… “And they answered and said unto Him, WHERE, Lord? And He (Jesus) said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.” Where? Where the carcass is! Where the dead body is! Where the place of death is! Destruction, that’s where.

The idea that Matthew 24 is talking about taking away the saints in a rapture is not true at all. The biblical pattern is that the saints are left behind after destruction TAKES the wicked out. Where? In Jerusalem…When? In 70 A.D., at the destruction and desolation of the temple. The Romans were like an eagle, and the ensign of their armies WAS an eagle. The term “carcass” well represents the utterly corrupted Jewish state in the first generation; the “eagles” is a fit symbol of the Roman army, every legion of which bore the eagle as its standard.” The term “Carcass” is explained in Robertson’s Word Pictures as follows: “As in Matthew 14:12, the corpse. Originally a fallen body from Greek term meaning, to fall, like Latin cadaver from cado, to fall.

I didn’t know that. I never really read those verses outside of how I was TOLD to “see” them…

17. I didn’t know that there is no known writing or any kind of reference by ANY writer about a pre-tribulation rapture prior to 1830. I didn’t know that it is an historical fact that this teaching did not exist among the early Christians or Church fathers or ANY Christians throughout history until 1830…

Did you know that? I didn’t…

18. I didn’t know that the origin of this belief actually began with a fifteen-year-old girl named Margaret MacDonald in the town of Port Glasgow, Scotland. In 1830 she had a dream or vision that Christians were raptured just prior to the “Great Tribulation” talked about in Matthew chapter 24. Around 1832 a Presbyterian pastor in London, England named Edward Irving heard about this dream or vision that Miss MacDonald had and started teaching it to his congregation.

19. I didn’t know that it is a well-documented fact that John Nelson Darby, the founder of a group known as the Plymouth Brethren, who after visiting Miss MacDonald also began teaching this new theory. Later, by 1917, C. I. Scofield had published his “improved edition” of the Scofield Reference Bible (which contained the dispensational pre-tribulation teachings of Darby and others). Soon many Bible Colleges such as Moody Bible Institute and seminaries such as Dallas Theological Seminary became staunch promoters of theology that included the doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture.

I honestly didn’t know that.

In 1970 Hal Lindsey, who attended Dallas Theological Seminary, popularized this teaching with his book entitled The Late Great Planet Earth. Millions of copies have been sold and a movie by the same title was made. Other people wrote MORE books, and started teaching this VERY YOUNG philosophy as “Biblical Truth”…Everyone on the planet is now familiar with Tim LaHaye’s “left behind” books and movies…

20. I had NO IDEA that reading the actual historical records of the destruction of Jerusalem was as easy as cutting and pasting a link …

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/jewishtemple.htm

Reading that history lesson made ME want to cry.

Why has no Pastor ever told me that story???