In my studies in recent years of church history and the words or sayings of Jesus, I have begun to sincerely ponder my Bible school teaching and the interpretations that have been applied to some of them. In our travels for fifteen years, handling the book and tape tables for many kinds of conventions, including thirteen years for the Full Gospel Businessmen, it has been our privilege to visit with ministers of most every Christian denomination. In many of these men, God has begun to reveal truths that are sometimes almost opposite to their denominational teachings. Water baptism, healing, the infilling of the Holy Ghost, deliverance from demon powers, the work of angels on behalf of His children, the appearing of the Lord Jesus, and many other principles of the Scriptures which they did not learn in Bible school.

We were brought face to face one day a few years ago with one of these very controversial subjects on the floor of our living room, while still living in the San Fernando Valley. Erma was reading Matthew 24 out loud to me while I was working on tapes. She said, "Did you hear that?" I answered, "What?" So she read it over again. Verse 22, "And accept those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake, those days shall be shortened." The last part of this verse says, "for the elect’s sake." Well, I always understood the elect were gone in the rapture, yet according to verse 3, this is Jesus’ description of His return and the end of the age.

Verse 30 says, "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven."

Verse 31 says, "And He shall send His Angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect."

We thought this to be strange since we had always been taught we were the elect, and we were gone before the tribulation, yet Jesus’ own words here are that the elect will be gathered after the tribulation. Something is wrong.

Verse 40 says, "Then shall be two in the field, the one taken and the other left."

Verse 41 says, "Two grinding at the mill, the one taken, and the other left."

Immediately the thought, "Which one was taken?" "Which one was left?" Instantly, the parable of the tares was brought to mind. What does it say?  So to Matthew 13 we went and verse 30 has the answer, in Jesus’ own words. "Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares". "FIRST THE TARES?" "First the tares?" But that is not what we have been taught, yet there is Jesus’ own words, "first the tares."

Well, to say the least, this was really earth shaking and our first encounter with this understanding. We pondered it and decided not to mention this to anyone.

Through our fellowship with the Full Gospel Business Men, we had already come through a few shocking things. First, that a denominational saint could receive the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues; that Catholics could even be saved and receive the Holy Spirit; then the awful shock that Christians can even have demons and that WE HAD SOME!

This was quite a subject to ponder. Immediately, I asked Erma, "What translation are you reading that from?’ It was her Scofield King James Bible. I got my Bible to check against hers. I had a Scofield. The farther I dug, the more I found. I became brave enough to ask some questions of different ones that we would meet. To my amazement, the Lord was showing this to many ministers and laymen.

Someone gave us a tract written by Oswald J. Smith, pastor of the great missionary church in Toronto. It was on the rapture. Then someone gave us a like article by Bill Britton from Springfield, MO. I began to inquire and study to find the answer to why I had been taught the rapture in Bible School and by my Pentecostal denomination. To my amazement, I found probably the greatest factor in the deception was the use of the Scofield Bible, and his taking it upon himself to contradict Jesus in his notes. Jesus said, "First the tares are taken out." Scofield’s notes says, ‘First the wheat is gathered," contradicting Jesus. See Note 1, Page 1016, Scofield Bible.

I also found that the Armenians and the Russians whom God had brought out of Armenia via the prophecies of an eleven-year old illiterate boy, had also never heard of the rapture until they became associated with the Azusa Street Group. Members of the Armenian church have personally told me the story of how the bearded ones, as they call them, or prophets, have always warned them about the Great Tribulation, and how God was going to watch over them through it. We then became acquainted with Jim Buckcroft, the great-great-grandson of the eleven year old Russian boy. He used to come and stay at our house in California and tell us about the prophecies in the Russian Church, by the bearded prophets and the Holy Jumpers, as the Holy Spirit fell upon them. They were always told that they must prepare for the tribulation.

Well, where did this rapture teaching come from? In my searching, I found the answer. In March of 1830, a Scottish lass by the name of Margaret MacDonald went into a trance and described a vision in which she saw the saints leave the earth at the return of the Lord and that this was before the tribulation (contrary to Jesus’ own words). Some books say that she practiced Mesmerism, which means to hold under a spell, to hold hypnotic appeal, to be irresistible and fascinating.

This took place in Glasgow, Scotland. Her "revelation" was picked up by one R.N. Norton, and printed in a book in London in 1861. It had earlier been picked up by Edward Irving, whose views influenced John Nelson Darby and C.H. Mackintosh. Mr. B.W. Newton said the pre-tribulation rapture teaching was nonsense and heresy, as did George Muller, William Booth, Charles Spurgeon, and others. But, C.I. Scofield picked it up and incorporated it into his notes of the now-famous Scofield Bible, and today, without even knowing why, we accept it as truth.

Many laymen and ministers today are questioning the rapture theory, and many no longer believe in it, but they are afraid of the faces of men and seem to consider their denominational prestige above the Word of God.

The Scripture tells us in James 4:17, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." God expects the shepherds to search and study His Word. The Lord tells us in Ezekiel 34:9-10 that He requires His flock at the Shepherd’s hand.

Jesus' first coming was contrary to the traditions of men. I am standing on tip-toe awaiting to see in what manner He shall appear the second time. Are you striving to be without spot and wrinkle, waiting for the appearing of the Lord Jesus?

So come quickly Lord Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Amen

(Reprinted from July 1979 edition, Voices From His Excellent Glory)

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