2BC BIBLE STUDY NOTES
Wednesday in the Word
Second Baptist Church
July 23, 2014
Background data countering the false teaching of end times.
Today I want to share some more detailed information concerning things which I alluded to in previous studies. Today I want to give you information on two areas that need to be understood by bible interpreters.
A clear understanding of Old Testament chronology.
The origin of the false rapture teaching.
With regards to Old Testament chronology, let me first offer a timeline of the books of the Old Testament. This helps the bible reader understand that many of the Old Testament prophecies that are often included in the Second Coming of Christ were already fulfilled within the time leading up to Christ not after. As we can see from the chart, the bottom row consists of the first five books which are in order as you see them in your bible now. The second and third rows help you see how the books overlap each other. For Example 2 Samuel, 1st Kings, and 2nd Kings happen at the same time as 1st Chronicles and 2nd Chronicles. These five books cover the same time period. Also during that period you have 12 books of the prophets which are listed in the left column in the Prophetical books box. These books are not in order in your bible by chronology, but by size. As you can see Isaiah, Jeremiah and 10 other prophetic books are written before the Exile of the Jews in 607BC. Ezekiel and Daniel are written during the exile 607-537BC (a 70 year captivity). Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi are written after the exile 520-430BC. The first temple was destroyed in 586 BC and the Second Temple was rebuilt in 516 BC. The Prophetic books are 600 -400 years before Christ. What the bible reader must see is that many if not most of the prophecies given by the prophets (especially the ones concerning the temple) in the Old testament were fulfilled and recorded in scripture prior to Christ, during the life of Christ and soon after his death. For an example see Ezra 1:1 and Jeremiah 29:10-23;33:1-9. Notice that Ezra is listed several books before Jeremiah, but in chronologically comes almost 70 years after Jeremiah is written. Jeremiah prophecies that the city will be rebuilt and it is fulfilled in Ezra. Also see Isaiah 37 and 2 Chronicles chapters 29-32 even though Isaiah and 2nd Chronicles cover the same timeline, their placement with many books between them can cause confusion.
A brief summary of how the false rapture teaching came into existence. In order to really understand how this teaching came into being, we must know about a man named John Nelson Darby from the year 1830. Darby was the first to really talk about the “rapture.” There are no records of this teaching anywhere or any time prior to 1830. That alone should tell you something. In the 1800s John Darby was fascinated with the religious fervor going on in London and came in contact with a woman by the name of Margaret McDonald who had a vision of Christ coming in two parts. John Darby began to circulate this idea it was picked up by a man named C.I. Scofield, who taught the view in the footnotes of his Scofield Reference Bible, which was widely distributed in England and America (early 1900s). It should be noted that Scofield had no formal biblical training. But many assumed he was a scholar, but he had no credentials. Many Protestants who read the Scofield Reference Bible uncritically accepted what its footnotes said and adopted the [rapture doctrine], even though no Christian had heard of it in the previous 1800 years of Church history. Scofield not only printed this theory in the note of his popular selling bible, but also preached and taught it at schools that have since graduated thousands of pastors and teachers namely Moody Bible College, and Dallas theological Seminary. These two seminaries alone are responsible for countless minsters all indoctrinated with a false teaching. Many young preachers came to Moody and Dallas seminaries young and willing to accept anything that was taught to them. These countless preachers have taught this false doctrine with hardly any scripture to support the view. There are absolutely no scriptures that say that Jesus will come twice and that he will take with him some secretly and return a third time. Pretty much most of the bad teaching about revelations can be attributed to many of the notes found in the Scofield Reference Bible. What most people don’t realize is that printing a bible at the time was a very profitable endeavor. The bible is the bestselling book of all time. A popular edition could be extremely profitable. The Dake Study bible did the same thing when it stated that people of different races are forbidden to marry and that all races should be separate especially the black and the white (Dake Bible: Acts 17:26 Notes, “30 reasons for Segregation of the Races”). The Dake Bible was used by people for years to promote racial segregation. I mention this because many people don’t understand how many of these crazy teachings came to be. In reference to Scofield he used the bible to make money and spread many false teachings that plague the church today. These are some to the many popular TV evangelist who promote this false teaching: Binny Hinn; Bill Bright; Billy Graham; Brother Stair; David Lankford; Hal Lindsey (Jew); Jack van Impe; James Robison; James Dobson; Jerry Falwell (A so-called Christian Zionist); Jim Bakker ; Jimmy Swaggart; John Hagee; Joyce Meyers; Kenneth Copelan; Kenny Hagin; Marilyn Hickey; Marlin Maddoux; Mike Evans; Oral Roberts; Pat Robertson; Paul Crouch; Robert Schuler.
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