CHRISTIAN MEDIA RESEARCH - Exposing apostacy and more within the Christian church

HOME   |   SNAPSHOTS   |   NEWSLETTERS   |   CONTACT US



The Lord's Coming Herald


he Lord's Coming Herald is an Amillennial newsletter coming from the Wesleyan (Methodist) perspective, this letter produced by a small ministry with the unlikely name Rapture Revival Ministries, looks on its surface to be sound theologically. Edited by a man named Gary Cutler, this newsletter pointedly attacks the rapture doctrine.

Like so many other aggressive groups that continue to expose the fallacies of the much larger Rapture Cult, publications like this one can quietly slip into the pack without their true agenda being revealed at the outset. Indeed, just because a prophetic publication seeks to expose the fraud of Darbyism (a term derived from John Darby, the Irish pastor who introduced pre-trib to America in the 19th century), does not mean they are on track scripturally themselves.

 The fact is, the Wesleyan theological worldview is just as spiritually bankrupt as the cult they propose to counter; and it's not always that easy to detect as these folks quote from the Word very effectively - but the hidden perspective eventually emerges.

 I had to read three different editions of this newsletter before these people came out in the open with their doctrine. In the Fall 2004 issue, I finally got the scoop:

"Here are two prominent New Testament end-time prophecies that have been fulfilled through the rise of Darbyism in our modern times. The first is found in Revelation 11:7-10. There we see the two witnesses of God, the truth Church of Jesus Christ, being killed by the Beast in old Jerusalem."

Now we find at least part of what The Lord's Coming Herald is propagating - the idea that the Two Witnesses of Revelation are actually the "church." This particular issue of the Herald didn't explain why the body of Christ is split into two personalities, but I can't help but wonder if it's related to the double-minded men that espouse this nonsense.

The Wesleyan propagandist goes on to tell us that since "Christians are citizens of the new heavenly Jerusalem, they have no business returning to the earthly old one." (LCH, New Testament End-time Prophecies Fulfilled In Modern Times, Fall 2004). This I take to mean that the Methodists don't believe that Christians should be involved in the troubles in Jerusalem.

 Scripture, of course, tells us that we are keep an eye on Jerusalem, for Christ's statements that "when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh." (Luke 21:20) plainly instruct us to maintain an awareness of what is transpiring.

 Although this passage obviously has application to the Roman siege of 66 AD, significant scriptural evidence indicates that another siege of Jerusalem will occur during the finale of human history. Furthermore, the LORD's admonition to "watch  and pray" is hardly license to ignore what occurs for the Psalms also tell us to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem." (Psalms 122:6).

 Just because Remnant Christians like those of us here at Christian Media are not Darbyites and do not believe the faulty 'Jews as the chosen people' myth, does not necessarily mean that we reject the broader prophetic concept of futurism - the doctrine that significant prophecies are yet to be fulfilled in the days ahead. Indeed, this is one of the common perceptions of the rapturists, for they have been programmed to respond to theological opponents as though they are all essentially the same as Catholics with their requisite replacement perspective that the so-called "church" is a separate entity and God is now finished with the construct known as "Israel."

 God can hardly be finished with Israel when He grafted the Gentiles onto the singular entity in combination with the believing Jews to form the solitary body of believers that is known as "the Israel of God." (Galatians 6:16). Conversely, the racist chosen people myth is just as unscriptural as the Methodist non-millennialism (formally known as amillennialism).

The Lord's Coming Herald posits that you and I are living in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. Since Satan is to be bound with a great chain during this period, as one wag put it, if this is the millennium, then the devil's chain is too long. Amillennialists evidently believe the concept of a literal thousand-year reign of Christ requires some sort of reversion to a Jewish worldview, so they instead choose to spiritualize practically everything.

 For instance, in the same edition of the Herald, after citing the passage where Revelation tells us the ten kings that hate the whore of Babylon will burn her with fire, Herald publisher Cutler tells us "The ten horns are nations of the earth, particularly those that derive from the break-up of the ancient Roman Empire." (LCH, ibid.). This reversion to the Rome-centric view of the rapturists demonstrates how the Wesleyans really haven't worked out just how much of the end times passages in Revelation actually are unfolding in our time.

 On the one hand, they slam the faulty Rome centered view of the cult with their ludicrous "revived Roman Empire" clap-trap, then they themselves later revert to the same deficient scenario! In effect, they're saying, 'this is the Millennium, but there may be ten kings; and those kings may have some association with the rapture cult fraud that focuses everything on Rome, but the cult is wrong about everything else.' In other words, this theological system is double-minded to the max.

Cutler's crazy letter then gets positively surrealistic as he writes "The beast is the Devil." Apparently, in his rush to abandon all things futurist, he forgot to examine how the beasts in Daniel's seventh chapter that form the constituent parts of the beast in Revelation are plainly stated to be "kingdoms" (Daniel 7:23). Thus, to simply say the "beast" is the Devil is to grossly oversimplify the basic teaching of a one world evil kingdom in the end times that scripture characterizes as a "beast."

The thinking deteriorates from there. When he treats of the 1,260 days of the Two Witnesses (who he has already stated is somehow equated with the Christian church), he turns the very specific period of time of their ministry into "1,260 day ages" (emphasis mine) into an indeterminate period of time that equals "...as long as the Christian church has maintained her authentic, primitive testimony to the Christ..." (LCH, New Test End-Time Prophecy). In simple-speak, this means 1,260 days somehow equals about 2,000 years.

Then he tells us the witnesses (the church) will "uncharacteristically 'finish their testimony,' and, as a result, they will be overcome (spiritually speaking, of course) by Satan, the unleashed Beast in old Jerusalem..." (ibid). Since Cutler has just said his version of the "church" is to be overcome spiritually, is that not the same thing as the backslidden harlot church? And since that church is to be burned by the ten kings (all from the Roman empire, mind you), how then can this "overcome, two-witness church' be attacked by the "beast" who he's already said is the Devil?

And in the midst of this Babelian hodge-podge, he really confuses things and tells us "there will be a great revival at the very end..." (ibid) Presumably, this "revival" will occur in some incorporated Methodist church - complete with a non-prophet tax permit issued by the beast... er, the Devil, oops, the whore ... well somebody.

Finally, these nice folks living in the millennium have no personal Antichrist at all - and after all, if we're in the millennium now, we can't very well have an Antichrist, can we? The nonsense continues as Cutler writes "The man of lawlessness is not personal Antichrist, friend, it is antinomianism, which means "lawlessness." (ibid.)

So now, the Scripture that plainly speaks of a "he" - the same verses that refer to this Antichrist "non-person" with the personal ignominious title of "the son of perdition" (a title previously applied to a historical person named Judas Iscariot) didn't really mean he is a person - it meant he was bad doctrine!

This perspective is so far off the mark that it's easy to refute - but people have been buying into it for centuries. The short version is, beware the Wesleyan-Methodist church, it's just another manifestation of the corporate whore of Babylon.

See Also

The Remnant Of Israel


Top of Page | Back to Media Figures Index


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2000-2010 CHRISTIAN MEDIA RESEARCH