RENOWN DEBUNKER OF RAPTURE MYTHOLOGY PROVIDES UPDATED REVIEW OF ORTIZ BOOKDave MacPherson, world famous author of the history of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture, today provided an updated review on Joe Ortiz' book, The End Times Passover. MacPherson wrote to Ortiz and told him he had reread Joe's book again and stated he was moved by some of the illuminating and profound information contained in the book that he may have glossed over the first time he read it. Following is the updated review, which MacPherson also posted on eBay.com:
"Over the years I've had shelves of Bible prophecy books in my library. But there's a current prophecy book I obtained that's a far cry from the usual dime-a-dozen pop prophecy rewrites designed only to produce goose bumps in prophecy-oriented groupies who are often found on internet message boards and chat rooms.
The author of the unusual prophetic production, Joe Ortiz, chose "The End Times Passover" as the title of his monumental work dealing with Christian theology and especially various millennial and "rapture" doctrines. The word "passover" in his title is explained in the last sentence of the following paragraph on p. 117:
"Even more disconcerting is the pervasive and incessant promulgation of these left behind mythologies that permeate the Christian publishing and video markets of today, which are deluding millions of Christians into a false sense of security, motivated more so by profit and temporal fame. The author makes no apologies to these writers and preachers in regards to this matter. While there exists much love by the author for all those who claim to speak God's gospel truth about who is taken and who is left, claiming that those taken are Christians and those left behind are the heathen, it is inexcusable to persist in this folly when the word of God clearly states His children of promise are left (Gr. aphiemi, forgiven) alone, passed over, when He returns with great wrath!"
When one goes through Ortiz' scholarly masterpiece, he marvels at his tenacious task of taking original Greek NT words and translating them into English. If the reader wants light on the various "rapture" and millennial views, heaven, hell, Middle East, Israel, church, and almost every other topic bearing on the author's focus, "The End Times Passover" is the one book no one can afford to pass over!
Because of recently uncovered data that had been forgotten or covered up for more than a century, the Christian public now knows that the famous (or infamous) pretribulation rapturescape is actually only 178 years old, that John Darby (long credited wrongfully with either pretrib rapture origination or its basic development) wasn't original on any aspect of pretrib dispensationalism, and that pretrib rapturism since its birth in 1830 has been utterly riddled with dishonesty (rampant plagiarism, the subtle changing of primary documents, the deliberate cover-up of contexts in Biblical passages, the flaunting of non-existent or non-accredited academic degrees, etc.)!
While Ortiz' focus is only on the theology (and not history) of end time views, he does lament on p. 194 that "This great secret pre-tribulation "Rapture" scheme has gone on long enough. The development of theories to fit the needs of those who have yet to develop complete and total trust in God's promises is not only destructive to the growth and maturity of the Christian Church, it impedes the Spirit of God from working in and through his called out ones, the ecclesia of God, which needs to be used by God to bring as many more sinners to Jesus before greater tribulation than in past times comes upon mankind."
If readers are exhausted by all of the speculative sensationalism that characterizes today's rapture hysteria, then they are ready for Joe Ortiz' unique resource entitled "The End Times Passover" which is a one-volume library all by itself that no home should be without!"
(Dave MacPherson, January 1, 2009)
Dave MacPherson is the author of
The Rapture Plot, The Incredible Cover Up,
The Great Rapture Hoax, Unbelievable
Pre-Trib Origin, and Late Great Pre-Trib Rapture.