Left Behind or Led Astray? - Exposed

A new DVD documentary has been released by Good Fight Ministries entitled, Left Behind or Led Astray? Examining the Origins of the Secret Pre-Tribulation Rapture. Good Fight Ministries is run by post-tribulationist Joe Schimmel, the senior pastor at Blessed Hope Chapel in Simi Valley, California. Schimmel’s documentary is endorsed by evangelist Ray Comfort* and by Kirk Cameron, star of the original Left Behind movies. The following write-up appears on the back cover: “Take a fascinating journey with us as we examine the shocking origins of the secret, pre-tribulation rapture doctrine…. Featuring expert commentary from David M. Bennett, Dr. Mark Patterson, Jacob Prasch, Joel Richardson, and Dave MacPherson.”

The truth of the matter is that the four and one-half-hour film seriously distorts the historical evidence and is full of false accusations, unsubstantiated myths, and lies. These include the following:

1. That a pre-tribulational Rapture cannot be proved from the Bible.
2. That pastors who are preparing their flock to meet Jesus Christ, rather than the Antichrist, are “failing in their role as a shepherd and a pastor” and leading millions of believers into apostasy.
3. That if the Apostles had taught a pre-trib Rapture, “we would see it in the writings of the early Church writers,” i.e., those commonly referred to as the Church Fathers, who were prominent theologians and bishops in the Church after the Apostles.
4. That the history of belief in the pre-trib Rapture is “sordid” and “scandalous.”
5. That the origins of the doctrine of the pre-trib Rapture are “occultic” and “demonic,” having been inspired by “the spirit of Antichrist”.
6. That the doctrine of an any-moment, pre-trib Rapture can be traced back, in some form, to the Jesuits, notably to a “deceitful Jesuit” by the name of Manuel Lacunza.
7. That Scottish Presbyterian minister Edward Irving and his circle, known as “the Irvingites,” are the real progenitors of the pre-trib Rapture, having been fully persuaded by Lacunza’s writings, and that they were “prone to dabble a little bit with the occult” and were “notorious for their channelling of lying spirits.”
8. That the founder of the Plymouth Brethren, John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), who is widely credited with having revived and popularised the doctrine of the pre-trib Rapture in the nineteenth century, was “an opportunist” who effectively stole and developed the notion of a secret pre-trib Rapture after hearing a fifteen-year-old Scottish girl called Margaret MacDonald give a “prophetic utterance” in Scotland in 1830. The documentary further claims that MacDonald “engaged in occult activity.”
9. That Darby and many of the Brethren were greatly influenced by Irving and the Irvingites, borrowing from and proliferating their pre-trib teaching.
10. That Darby taught “another Gospel and two ways of salvation.”
11. That “John Nelson Darby was…a confused extremist...a cult leader…a dangerous despot…a crazy man who hurt people.”

Chapter 9 of the documentary is entitled “Demon Deception” and Chapter 11, “Pre-Trib, the Occult, and the 20^th–21^st Centuries.” The accusation is made that Darby “espoused a socially cultic mentality that was similar to that of Charles Taze Russell, who founded the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Joseph Smith, the prophet of Mormonism in the same century.” To give weight to the lie, Darby’s photograph is positioned between those of Russell and Smith. Schimmel cites Dave Hunt, the late founder of The Berean Call ministry, who, he states, “has done a great job exposing cults and aberrations within the church through the years, [but] missed the occult history of the secret Rapture that he himself vigorously promoted.”

*Editor's note: Although the inclusion of the quote by Ray Comfort in the trailer promoting the post-trib documentary Left Behind or Led Astray? left viewers with the distinct impression that Ray was endorsing the movie, Living Waters Ministry responded to our inquiry by stating that "the impression received from the trailer is understandable in context, however, Ray was only endorsing Joe's ministry in general. He has not seen the video and did not give any endorsement of it."