Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times - Conscious Evolution TV

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obin-bobin Left Behind’s Vision of the End Times 51and that the year-day system of using scripture to calculate theonset of these end times was appropriate. This system, firstproposed in the early seventeenth century to explain why Christhad not returned centuries earlier, as a literal reading of theBible suggested, substituted a year for every mention of a day incrucial biblical texts. Thus, when the Bible said “day,” it reallymeant “year,” in God’s parlance. This strategy, of course, was adivergence from the conferees’ desire for a fully literal approachto scripture. With regard to the passage of time, they agreed,God’s language needed to be understood metaphorically.Using the year-day system, the Albury Park conferencescalculated that the vials of wrath described in Revelation 16were just then being poured out and that the second advent orreturn of Christ would happen at any minute. They also pointedto the atrocities of the French Revolution and the social disordercaused by the Industrial Revolution as corroborating signs thatChrist soon would reappear.The notion that Christ would soon return was not limited tothe Albury Park conferees, however. About the same time as theconferences, a small group of dissenters in Scotland, who werealso concerned about what seemed like increasing corruption inthe world, became convinced of the imminence of Christ’s returnwhen they began to have amazing, supernatural experiences ofthe Holy Spirit. Filled with the Spirit, James Macdonald ofGlasgow seemed to have the power to heal the ill; his brotherGeorge spoke in tongues. More important for our inquiry, theirsister, Mary Macdonald, had several wondrous visions of Christ.She described one in this way: “the awful state of the land . . .pressed upon me. I saw the blindness and infatuation of thepeople to be very great . . . but suddenly ...I saw...the Lordhimself descending from heaven with a shout.” 18 Mary was convincedby her vision that the Spirit which filled true believers lentthem a “spiritual eye” that would allow them to “see” Christwhen he returned and thus be “caught up to meet him.” Thespiritual eye also would shield them from being deceived bywickedness and the “false Christ.” Filled with the Spirit and thespiritual eye, true Christians would pass through the trials to “becounted worthy to stand before the Son of man.” 19robin-bobin
52robin-bobin Rapture, Revelation, and the End TimesAlthough it is not likely that Macdonald’s mystical vision waswidely known, it did correspond with the perspectives on theend times being proposed at the Albury conferences and beingdiscussed by others in Great Britain. In particular, Macdonald’svision correlated with ideas presented at another series ofprophetic conferences held that same year by a group critical ofthe Church of Ireland. Among those who attended was JohnNelson Darby, a former Church of Ireland priest who had joineda schismatic group called the Brethren, which had proclaimedthe church corrupt and split from it in the late 1820s. Four yearslater Darby himself would become one of several leaders of aschism within the Brethren that would bring about the formationof the Plymouth Brethren, a group that would become widelyassociated with pretribulationist premillennial dispensationalism,the very view that now, over a century and half later,informs the Left Behind series.As with Savonarola and Luther, Darby’s concern about theend times was instigated by perceived corruption in the church.Darby felt that the Church of Ireland (and England) was false inits teachings and that its erroneousness contributed to a widespreadlack of belief in the gospel. Darby, like many before himwho despaired of ongoing cultural, social, and spiritual conditions,postulated that God soon would bring about the culminationof human history. Given the corruption of the church,however, it was not likely, in his opinion, that many of those whoconsidered themselves Christians actually would be numberedamong those to be selected for eternal salvation. Most would bedamned. But, he asked, what would happen to the trueChristians? Did they deserve to endure the punishing and apocalypticevents of the end times?Attempting to answer these questions, Darby asserted that thetrue Christians would be spared the soon-to-commence horrorsof an apocalyptic end times. Like Mary Macdonald, he claimedthey would be lifted, or “caught up,” into heaven, whiskedaway in a moment to dwell with Christ, before the onset of thedreadful events. Unlike Macdonald, who received her understandingthough spiritual revelation in a vision, Darby based hisrobin-bobin
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Page 76 and 77: obin-bobin3What Does the Bible SayA
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198robin-bobinDiscussion Questions2
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200robin-bobinDiscussion QuestionsC
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202robin-bobinGlossarythe end times
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208robin-bobinAnnotated Bibliograph
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214robin-bobinList of Contributorss
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216robin-bobinIndexChristians - con
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218robin-bobinIndexmillennium, 48-9
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Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times - Conscious Evolution TV

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