Chapter 1: How Did We Get Here?

1. It is important to note that Luther was misusing those titles, which belonged in their first century fulfillment. But also Ribera did not represent the dominant historical view. Whenever doctrine is not formed out of deep study, considerable debate, much prayer, and the leading of the Holy Spirit, it stands suspect. This is especially true when doctrine is thrown together as a reactionary and defensive response. The dominant end-time view before the 1500s was that the majority of prophecies in the New Testament had been fulfilled by the AD 70 destruction. Some modern day teachers try to counter this truth by saying that a Catholic Priest named Luis Del Alcazar was the first one to create this point of view as a reaction to Luther. It is true that Luis wrote a book about AD 70 fulfilling prophecy, but this was simply encapsulating the standard and dominant view into a solid book. This was not written as a new invention, whereas the book that Ribera wrote actually was a new and reactionary writing. See Kelley Varner, Whose Right It Is (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 1995) Chapter 7, A Fresh Historical Look at Dispensationalism.

2. Fr. Stephen Lourie, “Origin of Rapture Idea,” Saint George Orthodox Church (2011); http://stgeorgepa.net/2011/05/origin-of-rapture-idea/ (accessed January 24, 2012). Also see Kelley Varner, Whose Right It Is (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 1995).

3. Kenneth Boa, “Starting Over: Cultic Christianity—Reinventing the Faith,” Bible.org; http://bible.org/seriespage/starting-over-cultic-christianity-reinventing-faith (accessed December 29, 2011).

4. Pamela Starr Dewey, “Edgar Whisenant’s 88 Reasons,” Field Guide to the Wild World of Religon (2011); http://www.isitso.org/guide/whise.html (accessed January 24, 2012).

5. Ibid.

6.  Alan Hajek, “Pascal’s Wager,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2008); http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/ (accessed January 24, 2012).

7. Gary DeMary, “I Can Agree With These Atheists (Up to a Point)” American Vision (May 2, 2011); http://americanvision.org/4414/i-can-agree-with-these-atheists-upto-a-point/ (accessed January 24, 2012).

Chapter 2: The Rapture

1. In this passage, the word translated as “rise” is the same Greek word that is often translated “be resurrected.”

2. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706), 1 Thessalonians 4; http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/matthew-henry-complete/1-thessalonians/4.html?p=4 (accessed January 24, 2012).

3. Adam Clarke, The Adam Clarke Commentary (1832), 1 Thessalonians 4; http://www.studylight.org/com/acc/view.cgi?book=1th&chapter=004 (accessed January 24, 2012).

Chapter 3: The Great Tribulation

1. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, III:7.

2. Eusebius, The History of the Church: From Christ to Constantine (1965), 69.

3. Albert C. Outler, ed., The Works of John Wesley, Volume 2 (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1985); http://www.christnotes.org/commentary.php?b=40&c=24&com=wes (accessed February 4, 2012.

4. Manlio Simonetti, ed., The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Matthew 14-28 (IVP Academic, 2002), 191.

5. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Popular Exposition of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 1979), 211.

6. John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Volume 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1949), 151.

7. George Peter Holford, The Destruction of Jerusalem (1805); http://www.bible.ca/pre-destruction70AD-george-holford-1805AD.htm (accessed December 29, 2011). The Covenant Media Foundation has given the author, Jonathan Welton, permission to print and use this updated version of George Peter Holford’s written work (www.cmfnow.com). For the author’s original footnotes to his booklet, view the online version. I have omitted them here for simplicity and readability.

8. J. Marcellus Kik, Matthew Twenty-Four Exposition (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948), 93.

9. Henry Alford, The New Testament for English Readers (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, n.d.), 163.

10. Edward Hayes Plumptre, “The Gospel According to St. Matthew,” Ellicott’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, ed. Charles John Ellicott, 8 vols. (London: Cassell and Company, 1897), 6:146.

11. Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, translated by Richard M. Gummere, vol. 2 (London: 1920), 437. Quoted in Jonsson and Herbst, The “Sign” of the Last Days-When? (Atlanta, GA: Commentary Press, 1987), 75.

12. David Chilton, The Great Tribulation (Fort Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), 29-31.

13. Gary DeMar, Ten Popular Prophecy Myths Exposed and Answered (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2010) Chapter 8, The Myth that the Gospel Has Yet to be Preached in the “Whole World”.

14. Albert Barnes, Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament (1832), Matthew 24; http://barnes.biblecommenter.com/matthew/24.htm (accessed January 24, 2012).

15. Ibid.

16. John Gill, John Gill’s Exposition on the Entire Bible (1908), Matthew 24; http://gill.biblecommenter.com/matthew/24.htm (accessed January 24, 2012).

17. Harold R. Eberle and Martin Trench, Victorious Eschatology (Yakima, WA: Worldcast Publishing, 2006), 15.

18. Ibid., 60.

19. Chilton, 25.

20. Eberle and Trench, 61-62.

21. Chilton, 15.

Chapter 4: The End of the World

1. David Chilton, The Great Tribulation (Fort Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), 17-18.

Chapter 6: The Antichrist

1. “John is…writing shortly before the Roman attack on Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, sometime in the 60s AD.” [Peter J. Leithhart, The Epistles of John Through New Eyes: From behind the Veil (Athanasius Press, 2009), 9.]

2. “There were three stages of Gnostic development. The pre-Christian drew its inspiration from Greek, Jewish and eastern sources. In the second stage, a still mainly heathen Gnosticism used Christian ideas to fill up gaps—Jesus, for example, appearing as the agent of man’s redemption. The third stage presented Christianity modified by Gnosticism to make it acceptable to religiously-minded, intellectual pagans, and in this form was heretical and a real danger to orthodox Christian belief….This version of Gnosticism was a variety of Docetism (from the Greek Dokeo = I seem) which, arising from the Gnostic dislike of matter and suffering as associated with God, taught that Jesus’s body was not a real one.” [David Christie-Murray, A History of Heresy (Oxford University Press, 1976), 22, 25.]

3. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706), Daniel 9; http://www.studylight.org/com/mhc-com/view.cgi?book=da&chapter=009 (accessed January 24, 2012).

4. Information about John Levi in this section is gathered from The Man of Sin of 2 Thessalonians 2 by John L Bray (Lakeland, FL: John L. Bray Ministry, 1997). For easier reference, all instances of John Levi in Holford’s The Destruction of Jerusalem have been put in boldface.

5. Ibid.

6. Josephus, The Jewish War, 313.

7. “Emperor Nero,” The Preterist Archive; http://preteristarchive.com/Rome/Monarchs/nero.html; accessed January 25, 2012.

8. http://preteristarchive.com/BibleStudies/ApocalypseCommentaries/revelation_13-18.html

Chapter 7: The Israel of God

1. Thomas Ice of the Pre-Trib Research Center and Randall Price have said, “There are no Bible verses that say, ‘there is going to be a third temple.’” Ready to Rebuild: The Imminent Plan to Rebuild the Last Days Temple (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1992), 197-198.

2. Harold R. Eberle and Martin Trench, Victorious Eschatology (Yakima, WA: Worldcast Publishing, 2006), 251.

Chapter 8: The Present Kingdom

1. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706), Daniel 9; http://www.studylight.org/com/mhc-com/view.cgi?book=da&chapter=009 (accessed January 25, 2012).

2. David Chilton, The Great Tribulation (Fort Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), 45-46.

Chapter 9: The Advancing Kingdom

1. Unless otherwise noted, the historical data of this section is paraphrased from Harold R. Eberle, Christianity Unshackled, Are You a Truth Seeker? (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2009), 264-267.

2. The statistical information in this section is paraphrased from James Rutz, Mega Shift, Igniting Spiritual Power (Colorado Springs, Co: Empowerment Press, 2005), 25-27.

3. Ibid.

Chapter 10: What’s Left?

1. David B. Barrett, et al., World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Study of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 236.

Chapter 11: The Big Three

1. “The Nicene Creed”; http://www.creeds.net/ancient/nicene.htm (accessed January 11, 2012).

Appendix 2: The Date of Authorship for the Book of Revelation

1. Gary DeMar and Francis X. Gumerlock, The Early Church and the End of the World (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision Publishers, 2006), 131.

2. Harold R. Eberle and Martin Trench, Victorious Eschatology (Yakima, WA: Worldcast Publishing, 2006), 127.

3. “Herod Antipas,” NNDB Tracker; http://www.nndb.com/people/901/000103592/ (accessed January 25, 2012).

4. DeMar and Gumerlock, 132.

5.  Ibid., 170.