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naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the
Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” (Revelation 16:13-16)
“For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden But ye, brethren, are not in
darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. destruction cometh upon them, as
travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape … Therefore let us not sleep,
as do others; but let us watch and be sober.” (1 Thessalonians 5:2-6)
These passages indicate that the Antichrist and False Prophet are preparing for Armageddon,
which will be the “great day of God Almighty.” Jesus will come as a “thief,” a term used to
indicate the Rapture, and the admonition of ‘watching’ and ‘keeping your garments,’ is a
warning to keep your heart right, and not be a part of the “falling away.”
There has been some much-criticized research by Dave MacPherson to indicate that the Pre-
Tribulation Rapture may be a fairly recent creation. Great men of God like John Wesley, Charles
Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, Matthew Henry, John Knox, John Calvin, Isaac Newton, George
Whitfield, John Newton, Jonathan Edwards and John Wycliffe never talked about a Pre-Trib
Rapture, because the concept literally did not exist. In 1993, after years of investigation, in a
well-researched, well-articulated manner, MacPherson was able to put the whole story together
about the actual origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture teaching.
A gentleman by the name of John Nelson Darby (1800-82), a founding father of the
Plymouth Brethren Church in England, is the guy who has received the most attention for
teaching the Pre-Trib theory. Some researchers maintain that he was expressing this view as
early as 1827, yet it was an article he wrote in 1850 which squarely places him in the Pre-Trib
corner:
“It is this passage (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2) which, twenty years ago, made me understand
the rapture of the saints before– perhaps a considerable time before– the day of the Lord
(that is, before the judgment of the living.)”
By his own admission, he claims 1830 as the year he gained this revelation. It is therefore
believed that Darby heard it from Edward Irving (1792-1834), of the Apostolic Catholic Church;
and Irving actually found out about it from Margaret Macdonald (c. 1815-40), a 15-year old,
chronically sick girl from Port Glasgow, Scotland, a member of his church (along with her sister
and brothers) who apparently manifested the charismatic gifts of prophecy, speaking in tongues,
and visions. After being sick for a year and a half, and a Christian for only a year, in the spring of
1830 she had a vision, which she gave copies of to various clerical leaders, including Irving.
The most unique part of her long, scripture-laden message, was the earliest known
documentation of the Pre-Tribulation theory: “Only those who have the light of God within them
will see the sign of his appearance. No need to follow them who say, see here, or see there, for
his day shall be as the lightning to those in whom the living Christ is. ‘Tis Christ in us that will
lift us up– he is the light– ‘tis only those that are alive in him that will be caught up to meet him
in the air.”
Macdonald’s vision was first published in 1840 by Dr. Robert Norton (who heard and