Editor’s Note: This is a lightly edited transcription of the audio message. Thanks goes to Marilyn Fine for the transcription work.
Passage: I Thessalonians 4
It is great to be back here once again at Word of Life. I have been coming in and out some 30 years and it has been marvelous to see how the Lord has blessed this work and spread it all over the world. I just see a constant miracle here as God leads souls to Christ, provides the financial means, the personnel, and everything else involved. It is a great privilege to have part in this week. I am sure that through the years they have many, many famous and capable, gifted Bible teachers here. For a teacher to come in for a week like this and bring something that is helpful to people is not an easy choice.
But I want to speak on a familiar subject this week on the Rapture of the Church. By the word “Rapture,” I am referring to I Thessalonians 4:17 where it says “we are going to be caught up, or snatched up, to Heaven when the Lord comes for His Church.” We call this the “Rapture.” The Rapture means to snatch up. That is the prospect that is before us.
Now, have you ever met a person who was really excited about the Rapture of the Church? Well, I suppose we have, but they have not been very many. It is amazing to me how people can know this truth and believe it and tuck it away in their doctrinal statement, but it does not really affect what they are doing today. They do not wake up in the morning and say, “perhaps today.” It seems to me that there should be an excitement about this and I would like to give you some reasons for that as we go through this week and, hopefully, also give this doctrine and hope of the Rapture a larger place in your thinking and in your evaluation of your own life.
Now, many of you studied this before, but it is rather amazing how frequently when I speak on this subject someone will come up to me after the service and say, “I never heard this before.” Is that true of you? Well, if you came into Word of Life here you have heard probably it before, but in some churches there simply is no preaching of prophecy.
I ran across a senior citizen one time who told me that she had not heard a sermon on prophecy since she was a teenager, but she had been going to church regularly every Sunday. We are raising a whole generation of people who are just ignorant as to what God has planned for their future. We understand. They are caught up in what is in philosophy called “existentialism.” It is an attempt to evaluate everything in the present tense. They are not interested in history. Young people are often quite impatient with what was done in the past. They want to do now and they are also often quite impatient with the future. They do not want to be bound down to a future program. They want it now. Thus preaching is sometimes limited to the perspective of the problems that are here and now instead of also relating to the broader perspective of the Word of God.
I thought tonight we would simply turn to the Bible and get clearly in mind what we mean by the Rapture. I am surprised that sometimes people have studied this and have not caught on to some of the most obvious facts about this truth about the Word of God. This is found, of course, in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament they had the doctrine of the First and Second Coming of Christ. There are many passages that deal with this, sometimes whole chapters. Some of them like Isaiah 53 talk about the sufferings of Christ and others talk about His glorious reign like Psalm 72, but, you know, throughout the Old Testament and throughout the Gospel period, apart from Christ Himself, nobody understood that there were two comings. They all thought there was one coming, but as Peter tells us in his epistles the Jewish rabbis and scholars puzzled how could the Messiah be a suffering, dying Messiah and at the same time a glorious reigning Messiah. They never solved their problems.
Some thought that perhaps there were two Messiahs – one fulfilled the suffering, the other the glorious reign. But, the tendency was to gloss over the suffering part and to emphasize the glorious Kingdom of Christ when He reigned on earth. And that is why the disciples followed Christ, you see. They did not know He was going to suffer and die. That had never entered their thinking. They thought He was going to gloriously reign. When they recognized that He was indeed their Messiah, they followed Him because they had visions of glory and honor and prominence as Christ delivered Israel from the oppression of the Roman Empire and brought in the fulfillment of these glorious promises. Then, as time went on, three years, three-and-a-half years, they began to wonder. This was not happening. It seems as if Christ was not as popular as He once was. They knew the leaders of Israel hated Him because they did not like the competition. What is going to happen to this glorious Kingdom?
Judas, you remember, finally began to lose faith that this was going to happen so he made a deal with the high priest to identify Christ and betray him, for 30 pieces of silver. Judas argued this way. He said “now if Christ is the Messiah they won’t be able to hurt him, but if he is not the Messiah, 30 pieces of silver.” We can’t lose. This is the same argument we do when we sin against God. We say we are getting something we would otherwise be deprived of. Of course, he lost everything – his life, his soul, his future.
But, the other disciples were equally disturbed. So when Christ assembled the disciples in the upper room on that night before His crucifixion they had an ominous feeling that something was about to happen. Then, Christ told them “one of your number is going to betray me” and they did not have the slightest idea who that was. Then, He said “I am going to leave you and you cannot follow me.” They had been following Christ because they thought He was going to bring a kingdom on earth. How could He leave them? The kingdom was not here.
Peter, you remember, had said, “Lord, well, I will die for you!” And the Lord said, “No, you will not, Peter. You will deny me three times before dawn, before the cock crows.” He did not know Peter very well, did He? Rather, Peter did not know himself!
Then, Christ went on to give us this marvelous 14th chapter of John. If you were going to be with your disciples for the last time in three-and-a-half years as Christ was, what would you tell them? You would tell them important things, wouldn’t you? The whole 14th chapter of John is devoted to having peace in the midst of trouble. How desperately we need that truth in our lives today.
Let not your heart be troubled: You believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you where I am also. (John 14:1-3)
The disciples did not understand at all what He was talking about. Their kingdom was on earth. He was talking about believing in heaven, about coming back to take them to heaven. But they were in no condition to receive a brand new truth that we call “the Rapture of the Church.” Before the end time reaches its climax and before the great tribulation with the Second Coming of Christ, Christ will take His own out of the world. The Church, living and dead, will be transformed and meet Him in the air and go to the Father and Son.
Christ did not bother to explain. How could He explain the Rapture to people who did not understand the difference between the First and Second Coming? I do not think that the disciples ever really caught on that there were two comings until they saw Him ascend into heaven. And then they realized He had come once, He had died, He was resurrected, and now He is gone—so He would be coming a second time.
Now, today we have this same type of confusion between the Rapture and the Second Coming. People try to put it together, but it does not work together any more than the First and Second Comings do. You see, the Rapture is a movement from earth to heaven. The Second Coming is a movement from heaven to earth. It would be hard to imagine two comings of the same person that would be so radically different in purpose, in character, in movement and everything else. The Rapture is a movement from earth to heaven.
Christ did not enlarge on it here. It was not until later when the apostle Paul became a Christian and God gave him a post-graduate course in the doctrine of grace and also in the doctrine of prophesy that this wonderful truth was unfolded. But now, what follows was this. The apostle Paul felt this truth of the Rapture was so important that it was in the cardinal message which he delivered in his evangelist work. He would preach that Christ was the Son of God who died on the cross for our sins and rose again and that salvation comes to those who put their trust in Him. Then, he would also tell them He is coming back and He is going to take us out of the world and take us to heaven. It could happen any day. It is part of his dynamic message.
Well, today there are churches where the gospel is not preached faithfully but in some churches, where it is preached faithfully, they still miss this most important and dynamic fact that Christ is coming back and He could come back any day.
Now, let’s turn to I Thessalonians 4 where the apostle Paul explains the rapture. You see, the Thessalonians accepted this doctrine, and Paul has left them because there was opposition. They were plans to kill him on the part of his enemies. Then a bit later on he sent Timothy back to see how they were getting along. Timothy came back to Paul. He reported they had a problem, a theological problem. You see, the Thessalonians believed that when Christ came He would take all the living to heaven who were saved. But, since the time Paul had left, some of that number who had just gotten saved had died. Now what?
You know, death confronts us with this question of when will we see our loved ones again. They could not answer that question. They asked Timothy about it. He could not answer it. We do not know exactly what they had in mind, but probably they had an inkling that after the Rapture there would be the time of trouble or tribulation and then there would be a Second Coming of Christ to the earth. We do not know just how much they knew because Paul only taught them for a short time. Anyway, they thought it would be sometime later and they were troubled by the fact that if the Lord came for them they would not see their loved ones. In the process of explaining this, Paul wrote this section and set forth in precise details exactly what is going to happen when this so-called Rapture, this coming of Christ for His Church, takes place.
First of all, he reminds them that God has written prophecy with a purpose. One-fourth of the Bible is prophetic when it was written. If you do not speak on prophecy, you cut out one-fourth of your Bible. It is quite apparent that God wanted us to know what He reveals in that one-fourth prophecy of the Bible. Now, He has not revealed everything. There are all sorts of questions and sometimes in question/answer sessions, most of the questions deal with things that God has not told us. But, He told us plenty. He told us all we need to know. That is, the facts.
Now, here he tells them exactly what is going to happen. In verse 13, we read this,
“I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning them which have fallen asleep lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.”
The Christian is set aside from the world as people who have hope, wonderful hope. The hope of the future. The hope of heaven. The hope of the Lord’s return. Then, he goes on to point out that this hope is not insecure, but if they believe, verse 14, that Christ died and rose again, and they did, so then they can also believe that He is coming again, just as certain, even though it is still future. Now, you see from God’s standpoint, all prophecy is certain, just as certain as history. That is why when prophecy is fulfilled it meticulously follows exactly what God predicts. The more I study prophecy, and I have studied now for many years, I am impressed with the relentlessness of the prophetic word to do exactly, when it is fulfilled, what the Bible predicts.
A few years ago, I wrote a book called, “Prophecy.” Now it’s a hand book. And I attempted, because this is what the publisher wanted, a book which would cover every prophecy in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It is an 800-page book. When I got through, I counted up the prophecies and I dealt with 1,000 passages - sometimes verses, sometimes whole chapters, about the future and when it was written. I discovered something I had not fully comprehended before that. Half of these prophecies had been literally fulfilled already. You want proof that the Bible is the Word of God? Is there any other book like this? Obviously, only God knows the future. So there is this relentless accuracy in the Word of God concerning the future that has been demonstrated hundreds of times. Thus we can approach the future ones that are not yet fulfilled with absolute certainty that within God’s time and in God’s ways they will have a literal fulfillment. This idea that prophecy is not fulfilled literally is wrong. It is a false doctrine. Prophecy that is fulfilled is always fulfilled literally. In other words, God’s Word is the same by the facts that come afterward. Now, he tells us here that just as surely as Christ died and rose again, God is going to bring the souls of Christians who have died with Him from heaven to earth, to the air above the earth.
Now, when a Christian dies we call the medical doctor and he can pronounce a person dead. Theologically, a person dies when the soul leaves the body and the Bible indicates in II Corinthians 5, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” One of our comforts in the case of Christians who die is that they go instantly to the presence of God. We leave their body to rest here, but the soul is not there. They are not there. Their soul is in heaven. Now, when the Rapture occurs, Christ is going to bring their souls with Him from heaven back to the sphere of earth. Why? Well, as the verses which follow indicate He is going to resurrect their bodies and the soul is going to re-enter their new bodies permanently.
Notice how He describes this in verse 15,
“For this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we who are alive remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep for the Lord Himself will be sent from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then, we (that is Christians) who are alive and remain shall be caught up (and that is the word Rapture), caught up, snatched up, Raptured together, with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and, thus, we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.”
Now, suppose it happens tonight. It could. First of all, Christ would bodily descend from His place at the right hand of the Father to the air above the earth. He would give a shout which is a shout of command and all over the world Christians who have died will be resurrected and living Christians will be instantly changed in their bodies. According to I Corinthians 15:51-53, these are bodies that are suited for heaven, bodies without sin, bodies without age, and bodies that are immortal. You see, we need a different kind of body.
We are going to rise from earth and meet the Lord in the air. There is going to be the voice of the archangel. Michael, the archangel, has been fighting the forces of the demon world and the devil for these thousands of years and now in spite of all the devil has tried to do against the Church to spoil it, here is the Church triumphant, the body of the saved greeting the Lord in the air. Then, there is the trump of God which is a signaling device, of course, used throughout scripture to signal an event. The trumpet sounds. All over the world this happens instantaneously.
Now, you remember their question was, would they have to wait to see their loved ones who died? And the answer is “no,” because they are going to be caught up first. Just a split second perhaps. The Bible does not explain why. Perhaps it is because we bury them in the ground and they have a little bit farther to go, so they start a little sooner than the rest of us who are on the earth. In any case, we go up together to be forever with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort or encourage or exhort one another by this wonderful fact.
Now, to me this is exciting. It could happen today. As far as scripture is concerned, (and you can read all the passages on the Rapture) not once are we told to look for a preceding event. It is quite different than the Second Coming. The Second Coming has all kinds of major events which precede, but not the Rapture. This is an event which could occur any time and could occur tonight.
Why should we be excited about it? Well, I am sure that all of us have loved ones on the other side. The older you get, the more you have. I suppose I have more friends in heaven than I have on earth. Time marches on and one by one they are taken away from us. Some of them are very precious. I worked with Louis Sperry Chafer who was president of Dallas Seminary for many years before he died. First I had five years under his teaching ministry and then I joined the faculty at his invitation and worked as his associate in theology. He was a beloved character. He loved the Lord. He loved the Lord so dearly. He was a man of prayer and faith and we missed him when he left. I missed him. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to talk to him about the school? He never dreamed that Dallas Seminary would go from the small school he started to a school of 14, 15, 1600 students. He never dreamed of such a thing. I do not know how much he knows in heaven about it. Maybe he knows, but he would be thrilled in what God has accomplished through those who followed Him. What a wonderful thing to be together.
Then, most of us have parents on the other side, some with two at least. There are people who love the Lord and who influenced our lives and ministered to us. Just imagine seeing them and talking and renewing our friendship. And, of course, some of us have those who are very dear there. We have a son who was killed 16 years ago now in an auto accident, two weeks after he graduated from medical school. We still miss him. Then, we have in our home two children who are handicapped mentally. One of them quite severely handicapped, in institutions, but when the Lord comes suddenly they are going to be made whole. This is thrilling!
This is wonderful and it could happen today. Why don’t people get excited about it? I am going to be answering that all week. There are a number of reasons, but, you know, all the reasons I have stated are important but they are not the most important reason. The most important reason is that we love the Lord. Do you ever long to see Him? When you do you are not going to see Him as He was in Galilee, the prophet, the lowly prophet who hid His glory. You are going to see Him as He is in Revelation, chapter 1—the glorious, magnificent King of Kings and Lord of Lords in all His heavenly glory. We are going to realize then as never before that He left it all. He went through all the humiliations of earth and finally the cross itself where He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. We can never understand this completely. He loved us. The love of Christ constrains us. And because He loved us, we love Him. If you love somebody, I think it is perfectly normal to want to see them.
A few years ago when I was in Bible conference ministry, sometimes for a week at a time or more, Geraldine had to stay home. We had children at home who needed care and we would be separated. Whenever we were separated, it does not seem like everything is quite right, you know. I used to try to write her every day and then I discovered the mail was so slow I got home before the letters did. So, then we gradually shifted to the telephone . It is wonderful to talk on the telephone to be brought up to date, you know, and it’s a familiar voice, and you feel like they are almost there. That is not quite like being face to face, is it? You know we can have that same experience with the Lord. I think it is wonderful to have fellowship with the Lord. I think for some Christians it is sort of marginal. It is a wonderful experience to talk to the Lord and have Him talk to you. You know, the Bible tells us we are indwelled by the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. He is as close as our breath, as our life. But, in order to grasp this little bit I like to think, when I am at my desk, for instance, and working on things that He is in a chair right beside me. I have a letter. What should I saw about this problem letter. I can talk to Him about it. He can tell me.
I do not buy this idea that some scholars say that God never gives guidance. I could not have worked a day with God’s guidance. When you are President of a school you are making decisions that determine other people’s lives. The teacher may move to Dallas and bring his family. You have changed their whole course of life by your decision to invite them. His children are going to marry somebody different than if they had stayed where they were. It is a change. I do not like to play God. You have got to be right when you make a decision. Only God can guide you.
As wonderful as that is, it is not the same as seeing Him face to face. I would generally always be asked the question when I left town, “when are you coming back?” She wanted to know exactly the day, the time, the means that she can meet me. Now, there are thousands of people in Dallas who could have cared less when I got back, but she did. Why? Because she loved me. When you love somebody you want to see them. You want to be with them. I cannot imagine anything more exciting than the possibility that tonight, tomorrow, the next day, suddenly that shout from the blue and we are on our way to the most wonderful experience we have ever had of seeing the Savior face to face! That is what is ahead.
When we see Him, the Bible says we are going to be like Him. No more sin. No more impurity. No sin nature. Death, sickness, all these things pass forever. We are going to be perfectly comfortable in the holy presence of our omnipotent Savior. Now, I think that that is what is ahead for us and that is the marvelous truth of the Rapture of the Church.
Now, why aren’t people excited? Well, I think there are a number of reasons and I want to explore some of them. One of them is that they do not think Christ is coming soon. They really do not. I read—now this man was a liberal, he was not a believer in the Bible—but he said that the world had to go on at least another hundred million years for evolution to run its course. Well, that is a little bit long to wait, one hundred million years!
No, even Christians who believe in the Bible and the marvelous pattern of belief do not always believe that Christ is coming soon. You know, I think there is some evidence mounting up in the last few years that point unmistakably to a conclusion, not only that Christ is coming, but He could be coming very soon. Are you prepared for that? You see, prophecy was given to us not to argue about or not to debate and write books about. It is written to prepare us for things to come. The question is are you ready?
You see, there comes a day when it is too late. It is too late. It is too late, but now there is still time. It is too late for some to receive Christ. Oh, I think people will be saved after the Rapture, some will be. But, how much more wonderful it is to be saved when He comes.
Then, there is this whole system of values. What is important in your life? What are you doing with your time and your destiny and your money and your talents, and so on? Are you living for eternity? Eternal values? You see, that is the issue and that is why prophecy was given to us.
Editor’s Note: This is a lightly edited transcription of the audio message. Thanks goes to Marilyn Fine for the transcription work.
Last evening I spoke on the whole matter of being excited about the Lord’s return, the Rapture of the Church, and my concern that many have not heard about it. In fact, one person last night said he had never heard of the Rapture before. There are always some who have not heard. But, for those who have heard, my point was that they ought to be excited about it! And sometimes they are not. So I have asked myself, “why not?”
Well, I think there is another reason. A lot of people do not think the Rapture is going to occur soon. In other words, they have heard for years about all the things that are going to happen and they think the Rapture is going to be at the end of a parade. That is not the way it is. The Rapture begins the parade. While it is possible for us to have a sensitivity that the Rapture could be near, sensitivity is not enough.
You know through the history of the Church, there have been constant efforts to try to pinpoint the time of the coming of the Lord. There have been dates set again and again and again, all to be of no avail. Back in 1988, we had one of the most popular ones. He wrote a book called, “88 Reasons Why the Lord is coming is 88,” and he sold two million copies of his book. But, it didn’t happen because the Bible does not give that information. I cannot set any dates, but I do think today, right in 1995, there is some good, solid reasons for believing the Lord is coming soon. I would like to have you understand it. Now, the background is a little bit complicated but if you stay with me this week I think you will see the reason how it all hangs together.
Now, obviously, the Bible doesn’t give us any signs for the Rapture. You can read all the passages on the Rapture. It never tells you to look for something first. It always implies it could happen today and that is the way Paul presented it to the Thessalonians and they understood it that way. It is an imminent event. It has been that way ever since the first century.
One of my friends said, “Well, you have been saying for years the Lord could come at any time and He has not come. That proves you are wrong, doesn’t it?” No, in the nature of immanency you do not put a date on it; you just say it is possible for the Lord’s coming at any time.
There is a second question, “If it is imminent how do you know it is soon?” During the war with Kuwait in the Gulf, some commentator or reporter in Washington said I was the person to consult. The result was that I got a lot of national attention. About 50 church editors called me and wanted me to explain what I viewed on it. I had interviews with over 100 radio stations plus a whole bunch of television stations. I recall one person from a Florida station. He obviously did not agree with what I was saying. He said, “After all, the Lord has not come for 2000 years. How do you know He is not going to come for another 2000?” Well, that is putting it pretty bluntly, isn’t it? So how do you know? You see with the Lord 1,000 years is a day and a day is 1,000 years. What is seen as soon to the Lord is not necessarily soon to us. So, that is the question.
Now, I believe there are some good, sound reasons for believing the Lord is coming soon. In order to do that, we need to turn once more to the Bible and see what the Bible has to say about this. Did you know the Bible has something to say about this?
In I Thessalonians 4, He presented the truth that the Rapture could occur any time. It is supposed to be a comfort to them in the loss of their loved ones because if the Rapture occurred they would be reunited with their loved ones again forever.
Then in Chapter 5, (and you will understand there were no chapter divisions as Paul wrote this) he said,
“But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you for you, yourselves, know perfectly that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.”
In other words, Paul is picking up this very question of “when.” He says the times—that is the particular time—and the seasons—the general time—he said I have already told you about when I was there. It does not answer the question “when” because this day is going to come like a thief in the night.
Now, obviously, in Dallas there is a lot of daytime robberies these days, but normally in the ancient times it would be at night that they would rob your house. But, they never sent their calling cards to say I am coming. It was always unexpected, there was no warning, no indication it is going to happen. So it is going to be like a thief in the night.
As far as signs are concerned, there are no signs for the Rapture. Well, if that is the case, how can we start talking about signs for the Rapture? Well, the answer is not as complicated as it seems. While the Bible does not give us anything about what is going to happen just before the Rapture as a sign, it tells us in very plain language what is going to happen after the Rapture. It details a series of world-shaking events that ultimately lead up to the Second Coming of Christ.
These events are very noticeable, very obvious. They are not just idle things that you might escape notice of if you were not studying the Bible. But, they are important things. Now, what I am finding today is in the last 50 years since World War II the world stage has changed dramatically. One by one the things you would expect to be there if the Rapture is going to occur any day have come into place.
Now, I want you to see that while this does not date the Rapture it does serve notice to us that God is getting the world ready for the tremendous events that follow the Rapture. If that is the case, then the Rapture could be very near.
I sometimes tell the story, you may have heard me, about the man who bought his Christmas presents early. He was walking down the street in November and one of his friends saw the Christmas present. He said, “My! Thanksgiving must be close.” What is the logic of that? Well, it is very simple, Thanksgiving is a month before Christmas. The person getting ready for Christmas thinks Thanksgiving must be close. If the world is getting ready for the events that follow the Rapture, and the Rapture is first, as I believe the Bible teaches, then the Rapture could be very, very near. So, it is not only “possibly could occur at any time,” but now there gets to be a probability that it is going to happen before long. That is what I want you to see.
Now, first of all in Chapter 5 you will notice it introduces a phrase called “the day of the Lord.” The day of the Lord is a well-worn scriptural term in the Old Testament. It applies to any period of time, not just a single day, but a period of time when God dealt in direct judgment on the world. You see, Israel would stray from God and God would bring in a catastrophe. They would have a drought, they would have a crop failure, they would have an invasion. These were called “The Day of the Lord,” a day when God intervened directly to the world.
Today we do not have a Day of the Lord. We have the day of Grace. God is not dealing with this world according to its sin. He is not trying to straighten out things. You see this world is operating today on the grace of God if He tries to call out from the world, the Church, the body of Christ, to salvation and prepare them for their heaven journey at the Rapture. That is what is going on now.
Once the Rapture, the day of grace ends, the Day of the Lord begins. The Bible is very plain this a time of terrible judgments on a wicked world which rejected Christ and was not ready for His coming when He came for his Church.
Now, “the Day of the Lord” is mentioned here. Well, how is it related to the Rapture? Very simply. When the Rapture occurs, the end of the day of grace and when the Day of the Lord begins, the day of judgment begins at the Rapture. One terminates, just like midnight. It terminates one day and it starts the next day.
The Day of the Lord, then, is something that is in contrast to the day of grace. As you read in this passage in Chapter 5, there is a contrast between the day which applies to the day of grace which believers have. We are in the daytime and the rest of the world in the Day of the Lord is in the night. They are subject to judgment. He contrasts these two time periods. As a matter of fact, we are in the day of grace now and that ends at the Rapture. The day of the terrible judgment, the Day of the Lord, the night, follows. That is what He is trying to teach us here. So, he tells them in Verse 3 “for when they say, ‘Peace and safety’ then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman and they shall not escape.”
We are going to see that one of the elements of the end time is a peace treaty which leads up to the Second Coming. When the peace treaty is signed, they are going to say “peace and safety.” But, suddenly, that period ends and the Great Tribulation begins.
In order to get this before us, I am going to have to sketch what I believe to be the sequence of events and I am not going to try to prove it all this morning, but throughout the week you will see why the Bible teaches this.
If the Rapture occurred today what would happen? One of the first things which would happen if it has not just happened before the Rapture is that the Roman Empire is going to be revived in the form of 10 nations. I am going to get at that a little bit later this morning. Ten nations are going to band together in a political union and Europe was the main country of the old Roman Empire. Of course they also had states in western Asia and Northern Africa. The Bible does not give us the names but presumably it is going to be largely a European alliance of some sort, a political alliance.
When this is formed, there are going to be ten nations, according to scripture. A dictator is going to arise out of one of these countries, apparently, who is going to gain control of three. How, the Bible does not say whether it is by treaty or by influence, but, anyway, they come under his power. Then, from there onward the scriptures regard all ten countries under his power. It does not explain why, but, nevertheless, he becomes the leader of this ten-nation group and, as such, is the most powerful political person in the Europe area.
When he gets to that position of power, he is going to try to attempt to solve the problem of Israel, which is a thorn in the side of the Muslim world. They are at odds with their neighbors and have been ever since Israel was formed in 1948. He is going to impose a seven-year peace treaty on the situation. It is not going to be negotiated like they are trying to negotiate today, and I do not think any of these peace treaties they are working on today are going to work out for very obvious reasons, but he is going to impose this on them for seven years. Israel is going to rely upon his protection and they are going to give up some of their military preparedness, apparently. They are going to depend on him to defend them and care for them. He is going to give them certain things.
I do not know all about it, but I think one of the things he is going to permit is the building of the temple which has not been built. Of course, they want to build it on the mountain, nearby in Jerusalem in the holy place and the Muslims think that it belongs to them and they will not permit it today. They had a riot, you remember, when they even suggested they might start the temple.
They are doing a lot of things on this according to the facts that come to me. They are training hundreds of young Jews to be priests and they are preparing the furniture of the temple, but they have not built it. Apparently, one of the things he is going to permit is for them to build this temple. Orthodox Jews will reactivate the sacrificial system under the Law of Moses. Now, they are not Christians, you understand, but they are going to try to reactivate that system. That is going to go on for three-and-a-half years.
Then, certain dramatic things are going to take place, one of them is a sneak attack upon Israel by six nations that are going to attack Israel from the north. One of them is going to be one of the states of the Soviet Union. We do not have the name of it in Scripture, except that it says it comes from the far north. Of course, Russia is the only country to the far north. Ezekiel 38 and 38 gives a graphic picture of how God intervenes and wipes out the invader and destroys their invasion. That is going to happen at a time of peace.
As he gets to the middle of that seven years, this ruler of the ten nations has become so powerful that overnight he proclaims himself dictator over the whole world. Nobody in the world is strong enough to stand against him. Revelation 13 asks the question “who can make war with the beast?” You see, he is a brilliant man but he is also aided by Satan and, apparently, he is dominated by Satan. So, for the next three-and-a-half years, the second half of that seven-years we have what is called by Daniel and by Christ and by Revelation “a great tribulation,” a time of unprecedented trouble.
This dictator is going to demand that everybody worship him as God. This involves the worship of Satan, as well, and thousands are going to be beheaded, apparently. Then, God begins to pour out the terrible, catastrophic judgments from the book of Revelation which wipe out most of the world’s population in that three-and-a-half years.
Finally, at the end the nations become discontent with the situation. They mass a mighty world war, with Israel as a battlefield, and that war is underway right up to the day of the Second Coming of Christ. In fact, Zechariah 14 says there will be house-to-house fighting in Jerusalem on the very day of Christ’s return. These armies which have come there to fight it out for power, apparently, when they see the glory of Christ in the heaven all unite to fight this army from heaven. That is why Satan has them there. Christ speaks the word and they all are instantly killed. Awful slaughter of millions of men and animals.
Then, he is going to take steps to introduce his millennial kingdom. That is a very dramatic series of events. Well, let me rehearse it. First of all, the Roman Empire revives, 10 nations, then a dictator rises who gets control of three then all ten. Then, a seven-year covenant and the first half of it is a time of peace, although there is an invasion from the north for Israel. The second half is a great tribulation of the world government, the world dictator, the antichrist and now it is going to climax in a world war and the Second Coming of Christ.
Now, our world is all set up for this. That is what I want you to see up until today and in the days which are ahead. It has not been set up before. Now, it could be set up after the Rapture to be sure but now we see this stage and it’s actors already somewhat in place. Chapter 5 goes on and talks about how there is going to be this terrible time of judgment, but he says to those of us who are saved:
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do. 1 Thessalonians 5:5-11
In other words, we face the facts that this Day of the Lord may come at any time the Rapture may occur. While we are waiting, we should be sober and carrying on our Christian life and testimony to the best of our ability and laboring for the Lord until He comes.
So, what is our world situation today? Well, we have been occupied in our 20th Century with two great world wars. The first one, of course, early in the century and the second one in the 40s. In each case, the major nations of Europe fought each other.
As history demonstrates they have been doing it for several hundred years. It seems that every time they had a war that when one side or the other would gain the victory. Then, as soon as the war was over, both sides would start arming for the next war. That went on with World War I. They fought and we helped them win the battle, you know, and they start arming for World War II. World War II came along and they fought it out and, again, with the help of the United States, Great Britain, France, and other nations won the victory and conquered the Germans and all the others who were against them.
Something happened though, since World War II, that had never happened before. Great Britain and France and Germany did not start to re-arm. Why? Well, you see out of World War II came the atomic bomb. It was obvious that if another war broke out that the nations on both sides would have the atomic weapons which would enable them to completely annihilate the other nations. That, of course, would not serve any useful purpose.
So, instead of arming they got together and what we call the Common Market, an economic union where instead of fighting each other they cooperated with each other. This has been a flourishing now with 10 to 12 nations involved. And with some abandoning of man-made borderline restrictions and movement of material and goods and workers we have this so-called Common Market. Now, the Common Market is not what the Bible talks about. In order words, the Bible is talking about a political union which we do not have now. It is rather interesting for many years now the secular press has had articles along the line of a coming United States of Europe. They visualize that sooner or later the nations of Europe will get together and form a united states, something like our states are formed in our own land.
Now, it is very interesting to me that for the first time in history the nations are friendly with each other. There is some war going on internally, some strife, as you know, but not the major nations. They are friendly. That is exactly the soil and the situation you would expect if those nations did suddenly get together voluntarily and form a United States of Europe. Now, there have been some obstacles. They are struggling with the currency problems and they have a common currency, but they have had a number of meetings where they have drawn up tentative plans for the ten-nation group and the ten-nation rules. So, I take it that it is somehow related to this period, but if it does not occur before Rapture I can see how after the Rapture very quickly this United States of Europe will be formed and then the scene will be set for the events that follow. Now, this is not something I have manufactured. This is found in the Old Testament in the prophecies of Daniel.
I would like to take just a moment to go through that because you see the book of Daniel is an amazing book because it does something that no other book in the Bible does. That is, it puts together God’s prophetic program for the nations of the Gentiles, as well as for Israel. Two major areas of prophecy. The third one, of course, is God’s prophecies about the Church since these are not found in the Old Testament but in the New Testament.
In the book of Daniel, Daniel had revealed to him first of all in Chapter 2 Nebuchadnezzar’s dream about the image. He pointed out how that image represented four empires. Then, many years later after Nebuchadnezzar had died and Daniel was left, he had a series of four visions himself. These four visions in Chapter 7 and following we have an amplification of God’s prophetic program for these four empires. Now, you will bear in mind that when Daniel came along, the first three empires had already come and gone. History had accurately, meticulously fulfilled exactly what is anticipated in those three empires. There was first of all, of course, the empire of Babylon and that is what Daniel is living in. Prior to that, there were two empires that could also be named – the empire of Greece and the empire of Assyria. They put it all together the four empires of Daniel and these two, Egypt and Assyria, and add to it the Millennial Kingdom which will come when Christ returns. You have seven major kingdoms revealed in the Old Testament. So, Daniel is in this Babylonian Empire and he predicts this course that will be succeeded by another empire. He lived long enough to see it. He saw the Medes and the Persians come in October 539 B.C. Archeology has pretty well pinpointed the time. Babylon conquered Jerusalem, and did other things in the various parts of the Babylonian Empire but the result was that Medes and Persians took over. For 200 years, they went on their way and fulfilled exactly what Daniel predicted in the book of Daniel. Then, when it had run its course for 200 years, the kingdom of Greece, Alexander the Great, and his lightning conquest came in and conquered the Medes and Persians around the year 230 B.C. and took over. Of course, he died as a young man from debauchery and drinking when he had the malaria and his empire was divided among his four generals. That went on until the Roman Empire came along, the fourth empire, and conquered what was left of the Grecian Empire.
Now, in Chapter 7 in Daniel you have these four empires portrayed as four beasts. Babylon is a lion, Medo-Persia is a bear. You know, some people think it refers to Russia, but it does not. The bear represents Medo-Persia and then the leopard represents the empire that followed that of Alexander the Great and the other things that related to his kingdom. Then, the fourth empire is described in Verse 7 and while it is not given a name, the other three are named so we do not have to guess at it, is the Roman Empire, the greatest empire of all time. This is what he writes down in Daniel 7:7.
“After this, I saw in the night visions and, behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceeding strong. It had huge iron teeth. It was devouring, breaking in pieces and trampling the residue with its teeth and it was different from all the beasts that were before it.”
That is a very accurate description of what happened to the Roman Empire. Daniel is writing this hundreds of years before, but it pictures well the Roman’s disciplined armies that move into a country and conquer it. They would carry off the able-bodied men as slaves. All the work of the Roman Empire was done by slaves. Then, they would leave a detachment of the soldiers to collect the taxes and they would move on to the next country. They literally did what this said. They devoured and broke in pieces and trampled these various countries with their military might.
Now, that is all history. It is very interesting, however, that in the last part of Verse 7 it adds this, “And, this beast had ten horns.” Sometimes prophecy is given in the word of various imagery. What are the ten horns? Well, it is true here as is very often in the Bible in the book of Revelation and the book of Daniel that if you read on you will find an explanation. The book of Daniel in verse 24 tells us that the ten horns are ten kings who shall arise to his kingdom. It then goes on to describe what is going to happen after that.
In other words, there is going to be a ten-nation group. Then, it moves on, of course, to the climax when Christ returns. What have you noticed about that? It just fits the present age. It acts as if the Roman Empire is still in power and, of course, it is not. It is dead today. Why is that? Well, it is a very interesting principle which scholars have been a little bit slow to catch on to. That is, the Old Testament in its fore view of prophecy would take you up in detail to the First Coming of Christ. Then, it would skip what we call the “Church Age” and more on to the events of the tribulation time and the Second Coming of Christ as if there were no gaps. In other words, you have to put the day before Pentecost and the day after Pentecost together and just ignore this present age of the Church age until the Rapture of the Church takes place and you divide it up and just ignore the present age.
So, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, the Roman Empire is going to be in power in the end times. But, here we have the explanation. It is going to be a ten-nation group, something that was never true in the history of the Roman Empire. As I pointed out, in Europe today for the first time we have a situation where such a ten-nation group could be formed voluntarily, not by an outside conqueror but by the consent of the various nations involved. That is exactly what is implied here that it is a self-propelled thing and that they are going to be formed as this political state. Of course, they are exactly in that situation.
When we study the passages of this period leading up to the Second Coming of Christ you will find that when the Rapture of the Church occurs that this ten-nation group would either be already there or is very shortly formed afterward because it is part of the picture. In other words, the fact that Europe today is at peace and ripe for such a situation is exactly what you would expect if the Rapture is going to occur today.
We have never had this before. This is a sign that Rapture could be very, very soon. I cannot predict times as God has a different plan than I do. Of course, He gives us an explanation why there seems to a delay. In II Peter 3 we are told that God is not willing that any should perish. He does not want anybody to die. He wants all to come to repentance and He is waiting for some to hear that have not heard the gospel. He is waiting for some to respond who have heard who have not responded and that is going to be the way it is until the Rapture occurs. Then, suddenly the day of opportunity ends.
I think there is a parallel with the time of Noah. You know Noah was told there is going to be a flood. He was warned over 100 years ahead of time. He was told to build this ark on dry land where there had never been a flood. He built this ark. It took him over 100 years and his neighbors thought he was crazy. He may have hired some of them to be carpenters, I do not know, but they built the ark. Then, finally, the ark was finished. Now, before the ark was finished there was no danger of a flood. They did not have to worry about it. Now, the ark was finished. This totally changed the situation. Then, as they watched they saw a very strange spectacle. They saw animals filing in two by two into the ark in a military precision. Animals do not do that. There they were going into the ark. They wondered what in the world is about to happen. Then, they saw Noah’s three sons go into the ark and their wives. Then, Noah and his wife went into the ark. Then, the door was shut. What happened? It started to rain. You see, it is an illustration of opportunity. Day-to-day, as far as we know, the “ark” is getting pretty close to being finished. God’s plan for this age, for the Church of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ, it may be a lot near completion than we realize. We do not know when it is going to be complete. Sooner or later, there is going to be the last person saved as a member of the Church and I believe the Rapture will take place immediately.
God’s plans for the ark was they would have a flood after it was finished. God’s plans for His Church is going to be complete and then the Rapture is going to take place. So, I believe on the basis of what we are seeing in Europe today, we are seeing a sign that God is about to do something because it is creating exactly the situation that would be true at the time of the Rapture of the Church.
There is one other thing here I would like to have you see in II Thessalonians. You know wherever the truth is taught, there are also errors bringing up and so it was in Thessalonica. After Paul had left the Thessalonians and after he sent them this first epistle, some teachers got in who told them that Paul had sent them another manuscript that taught that they we are already in the Day of the Lord and that their sufferings (they were going through terrible persecutions) were part of the Day of the Lord. They were upset. Why? Because Paul had taught them the Rapture would occur first and that they were already in the Day of the Lord. The implication was they had missed the Rapture.
When Paul heard about that, he was very, very indignant and he wrote II Thessalonians. Particularly in chapter 2 he takes them to task about this. He says beginning in verse 1, “Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him we ask you.” Now, remember what He is appealing to? He is talking about Christ coming to gather His Church. He said, “Do not be soon shaken in mind or trouble, either by spirit or by word of our letter as from us that the day of Christ (it should be the day of the Lord) has come.
You see, they had taught that a spirit had given this. Today we have this Korean, you know who says that a spirit told him that Christ was coming. He received thousands of people over there and it did not happen.
Or the Thessalonians had taught it by a letter. They claimed to have a letter. They did not have a letter from Paul though that taught this! So he said it was not true that the day of the Lord already came. (This was a mistranslation here to put “day of Christ” and the wrong text. It should the day of the Lord has come.) He said, “Let no one deceive you.” Now, why shouldn’t they be deceived? He goes on to tell them what is going to happen.
“That day will not come unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself with all that is called God or worshiped, for he sits as God in the temple of God showing himself that he is God, do you not remember when I was still with you and I told you these things?”
What he is saying is the day of the Lord involves the emergence of the antichrist, the man of sin. He said that has not happened. You do not have any evidence that you are in the day of the Lord because this first major event is that the man of sin is going to be revealed. Now, this gets a little bit complicated but let’s take a look at it.
When is he going to be revealed? Well, you see, according to the sketch that I gave you that last seven years he reveals his true character in the middle of that last seven years when he portrays himself dictator over the whole world and claims to be God. It is very clear, then, that he has manifested at least three-and-a-half years before the Second Coming.
Then, back up a bit. Do you see any evidence earlier? Why, of course! When he conquered three of those ten countries. You might suspect immediately he is the person, or when he gains control of all ten. You see he is pictured that way all through the end times. Certainly, he is the person. Then, the third place he is seen when he makes that seven-year covenant found in Daniel 9:27. Thus it is absolutely certain that he is that person. It says he cannot be revealed to be that person until after the Rapture. The day of the Lord has as its first major feature the emergence of this man. In effect he is saying the Rapture has to occur first before this man can be revealed before the day of the Lord could take place.
Now, there is a second support here. He also says in verse 6 and following,
“Now, you know what is restrained that he may be revealed in his own time for the mystery of lawlessness has already worked. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then, the lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and restore the brightness of His coming.”
Here, He tells us that the one who is restraining sin is going to be taken out of the way. Who is that? I think if you examine it carefully you will find the only one who is merely holding back the flood tides of sin is God Himself. More particularly, the indwelling Holy Spirit in the Church. While we may be a small remnant as far as the world is concerned, the fact that churches here are indwelt by the Holy Spirit has been a deterrent to evil in the world. We have had a tremendous influence on law and order and morals, even though some of that is dissipating in our country now.
In other words, it says he is going to be taken out of the way. Now, you cannot remove God, He is omnipresent. So, what it really means is He is lifting His restraints. You see, today, God is holding down the flood tides of evil to some extent. He is permitting the work of the Church to go on. He is allowing you and I to live and have a testimony for God. If Satan had his way, none of us would be here. He would kill us all. So, God is restraining sin to some extent.
Once this happens, the Rapture of the Church occurs. He has taken the lid off and is letting man be just as wicked as he wants to be and he certainly demonstrates that. The Great Tribulation is a great outcry against God and blasphemy against His name in a way that no preceding generation was able to do.
So, you have these two proofs: first of all, the restrainer has to be taken out of the way and he cannot be taken out of the way as long as the Church is here because He is indwelling the Church. That constitutes the restraints. You cannot change that without taking the Church out of the world until the Rapture has occurred.
The early reason in the chapter was that this man of sin, the antichrist, cannot be revealed until the Rapture takes place and, obviously, then it takes place more than seven years before the Second Coming and solves all this controversy as to when the Rapture is going to take place. So, if you just follow these two scriptures of I Thessalonians 4 and 5 and then II Thessalonians 2, you have God’s answer, you see. The Rapture is the next event and when it happens the other things will fall in good turn.
So, we are living in the very unusual day today. Tomorrow I want to take up another aspect of this. You know I mentioned there are three major areas of prophecy in the Bible: one is concerning the Church. We considered that last evening. The second is that what concerns the nations of the world. The reformation of the Roman Empire, the coming world rulers. That is the Gentile part. Then, there is a third line of prophecy concerning Israel and I want to see where that has brought us to this present hour and what the token and significance of what is happening in Israel is in relationship to the Rapture of the Church.
It seems to me that God is giving us a lot of evidence that He could be coming. Are you ready? Are you ready because you are saved? Are you ready because your life is in line with the Lord’s will for your life? Are you walking in fellowship? These are the critical questions.
That is the important part of prophecy, not the details, but are you ready for the Lord when He comes?
Shall we pray. Our Father, how grateful we are that we are the objects of your wonderful grace, saved by grace and kept by grace and have this marvelous future ahead that God is going to shower His grace upon us, not because we deserve it but because Christ died and paid the price for our blessings. So, help us, Lord, to understand these things. Help us to get alert and excited about the possibility that the Lord may be coming very soon. Then, getting our life in line and our faith and our activities in line. This ought to be true if we believe that Christ is coming soon. So, bless us and dismiss us for this day and guide us in the remaining activities of the day, for we ask in Christ’s name. Amen.
Editor’s Note: This is a lightly edited transcription of the audio message. Thanks goes to Marilyn Fine for the transcription work.
In the sessions that I have been speaking to you, I have been trying to demonstrate that our hope for the Lord’s return is not some distant event, but it could occur very soon. Of course, I have been talking about the Rapture of the Church and our gathering together unto Him. The Rapture, as you know from scripture, is a movement from earth to Heaven. God takes out of the world those who are His and takes them home to Heaven before the tremendous events that follow take place.
In the earlier hour of teaching Dr. VanGorder made very clear that Matthew 13 is talking about the Second Coming of Christ. Matthew never mentions the Rapture and the Second Coming is just the opposite to the rapture. The person who is taken out is taken in judgment and the person who is left is left to enter the Millennial Kingdom. The two situations are exactly the opposite and you cannot put the two together.
Now, I have been trying to point out that while the Rapture has no signs given as preceding it, what we are seeing in the world is preparation for the events that will follow the Rapture. Logically, if the world is getting in order to fulfill the events that follow the Rapture and the Rapture is first, then the Rapture could be very near.
Yesterday, we saw how the changes in Europe that have taken place since World War II are exactly what we would expect if the Roman Empire is going to be revived as Daniel and other passages teach us. A ten-nation group is being formed and today the situation in Europe is exactly ripe for that. If the Rapture occurred, we believe that ten-nation group would be formed almost immediately—because all the end time prophecies that talk about the end time picture, talk about that ten-nation group as being in the center of the activity and their ruler as the ultimate world ruler.
There are a number of prophesy magazines being published and they sort of specialize in having a prophesy answered every week. I think that is a little bit extreme. I prefer to stay with the main line—the major things that cannot be argued about that are obviously true and pointing all in the same direction that the Lord is coming.
Of course, what we saw first was the Rapture of the Church itself. It is always pictured as an imminent event with no preceding signs. Then yesterday we saw the formation in Europe that makes it plain that we are about to see the revival of the Roman Empire and then with that the Rapture of the Church would take place. It is possible to go off on the wrong foot here. I saw a statement to the effect that the vultures were increasing in Israel and that proves that Armageddon was about here. Well, that sounded very interesting. One man who advanced this went all the way to Israel to find out if it were true. Of course, the vultures are increasing in Israel, but the simple reason is that there is a lot more vegetation now than there used to be with all the irrigation that Israel has brought in. They have more to eat so they naturally are increasing. Whether it has prophetic significance I sort of question. In other words, we have to be careful about realizing that every wind that blows does not fulfill prophecy. There are plenty of things which are plain, obvious and clear.
One of these areas is what God is doing with the nation Israel. Every time you see a Jew you are seeing a miracle. Here is a people who were first predicted to Abraham 4,000 years ago. Much of their existence, especially since Christ, they have been scattered all over the world. Any other people would have been absorbed and disappeared. Today, there are still millions of Israelites that know that they are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and that they belong to one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Well, that’s a miracle. You see a Jew? It is a miracle because Jeremiah said that they would continue as a nation as long as the sun and moon endure. When you see the sun, and you see an Israelite, you are seeing fulfilled prophecy.
Now, some strange things have happened to Israel in my lifetime and in the lifetime of many of you and these things are tremendously important from a prophetic standpoint. The subject of Israel and prophesy is not a small subject. One time I spent a whole week just on Israel’s prophesies and spoke twice a day. It’s worthy of a large book. I have a smaller book that is incorporated in the volume The Nations, Israel, and the Church In Prophecy, but there is so much in the Old Testament about Israel. One of the tragic things in the history of the Church is how the Church has just bypassed this and ignored it as if it were not there. They are so interested in the Church that they do not want Israel to have a place. In fact, they try to interpret the scriptures that Israel is all through.
There are many avenues of study on this topic and it is such a temptation for me because there is so much here that you could be burdened with a lot of things that you do not need to really know. However I would like to point out two things that the Bible makes plain about Israel. One is that they are going to inherit the land, the Promised Land, and second that they are going to be restored as a people. Both of these things are contradicted, probably by the majority of the Church today. They say Israel is all through. They will never be an inheritor of the Promised Land and so they try to explain away what the Bible teaches. Let me go through this rather rapidly because that is what we are going to have to do this morning.
In Genesis 12, do you remember God called Abram from the Ur of Chaldees, a place near Babylon, which archeologists have located, and told him to go to a land He would show him? Genesis records how he went somewhat hesitantly, but he finally arrived in the Promised Land. When he got there, we have the record of what God told him in the first few verses of Genesis 12. These are dynamic, important passages. Listen.
“Get out of your country from your family, from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Do you realize that this promise has been largely literally fulfilled? You know this idea that prophecy is interpreted non-literally, or is fulfilled non-literally is wrong. It is just as wrong as it can be. Prophesy is just as factual and just as certain and just as literal as history and the Bible demonstrates that again and again. As I pointed out, hundreds of prophesies have been fulfilled.
It says Abram would be a great man. We are discussing him 4,000 years after he lived. I think I was in Miami someplace and saw a Chevrolet sign on a car, “Abraham’s son, Chevrolet.” Who would have thought that 4,000 years ago. You see, Abram is still a prominent figure not only in Israel and Judaism but all over the Muslim faith he is regarded as a prophet.
Then, he tells him he is going to be a great nation and, of course, Israel has become a great nation. In fact, other nations have descended from Abram, as well.
He said, “I will bless those who bless you and curse who curses you.” History fulfills that to the letter. The nations that have hurt Israel and penalized them and persecuted them have paid an awful price. Just go back in history—Egypt, Assyria, Babylon. Now, Medo-Persia was not too bad and God blessed them. The Grecian Empire and then finally Rome. Now, more recently we have had Spain and Germany and Russia and other nations which have persecuted Israel. They have paid a price for that.
On the other hand, God has blessed the nations which have been kind to Israel. While there are a lot of things wrong in America, generally speaking we have been kind to the Jew. He has had opportunity educationally, in the business world, science and so on, and he has made his contribution to our country. God has blessed America because of it. It is one of the reasons why we are blessed in spite of all our sins.
Then, it says in you, all the families of the earth be blessed. Do you know that you have a blessing which comes all the way from Abram? You are part of that “all the families of the earth” if you are saved. The New Testament in Galatians 3 tells us that we are the spiritual children of Abram, not the literal children, but the spiritual children. Like Abram we believe in God and He counts it to us for righteousness. You have been blessed because of that.
If you look at these promises, you will find they fall into three major divisions: blessings on Abram, blessings on the nation, and blessings on the world. We get in on the world one. But, the Israelites, according to this passage, are going to become a great nation and they are going to inherit what? The land. When we read on here, verse 7, the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants, I will give this land.” What did He mean? You know, people say prophecy is too obscure, so hard to understand. Is that hard to understand? Abram had left the Ur of Chaldees and gone to a land. When he got there, God says I am going to give this land to your descendants forever. Is that plain? Do you know the majority of the Church says it does not mean that? It says the land does not mean literal land. It means Heaven.
We have all sorts of hymns, and I like to sing them, too, about standing on the Jordan River, you know, and looking over into the Promised Land, which they say is Heaven. It is the wrong use of topology. The Jordan River is not a type of the death of a believer. It is the type of the death of Christ. Through the death of Christ we enter into the Promised Land and the Promised Land is not Heaven. Now, for Israel it is a literal land. For us, it is the area of faith and conquest, just as Israel possessed the land by putting their foot on it so you and I have a life of faith. But it is not a perfect life. There is death, there is sin, there are difficulties still in our present existence. We are not in Heaven, but we are in the Promised Land of faith as far as the topology is concerned. So, hymns are wrong. God forgave them when they went to Heaven and they discovered, “there goes the hymns, wrong!” So you just have to cross your fingers if you get to the wrong hymns saying, “Now I know that it is not quite right.” There is not any river that you cross to go to Heaven. There is not any sea that you go across. You go to Heaven directly: “To be absent from the body to be present with the Lord.” So, that is our future.
Now, about the land. Why do they say you can’t take it literally? It is because they do not want to take it literally. They have never offered an argument yet to prove that the land is not the land. I went through the Old Testament and looked up every reference to the word “land.” Every one of them is a literal relationship to land, real estate, not Heaven. When God promised to give them the land forever He meant exactly that.
There is a long history to this, however. You know Abram, first of all, had trouble in not having an heir. There is a long story about that, but finally Isaac was born. God said to Isaac, not to Ishmael (whom he had by Hagar earlier) you are going to inherit the land. In Genesis 26 when Isaac was feeling his oats and he wanted to go down to see Egypt (you know, like young people want to explore the world) God said, “Stay in the land. I am going to give your posterity to the land.”
Later, when Jacob was fleeing Esau for fear he would kill him, (you remember when he would flee into the desert with a stone for a pillow—not exactly a Holiday Inn) God spoke to him in a dream and He said, “Your posterity is going to get this land.” It is Abram, Isaac, Jacob and the 12 sons of Jacob.
Now, the Moslem world rejects that. They say that Ishmael has inherited the land, but there is not a scrap of evidence in any manuscript that says that. After all, Moses wrote the Pentateuch somewhere about 1,500 years before Christ. Mohammed did not come on the scene until 600 years after Christ. 2,000 years later and he comes and says “Now the Bible is wrong. It should have said Ishmael inherits the land.” It is just ridiculous, but that is what they believe because the Koran says it and that is why there is such a tenacious hold on the land.
Nevertheless, the Palestinians, who claim to be descendants of Abram (there is a question whether some of them are) were going to try to hang on to this land. All this peace talk is useless. They are not going to be satisfied until they have the land and Jerusalem and the temple site and the whole business. They are never going to really settle for anything less. Of course, in the Great Tribulation they are going to get it. Israel is going to be run out, once more, and they are going to have the dominant scene until Christ actually comes back.
So, we have this promise about the land. Now, Abram never went out of the land, but under Jacob, you remember, Joseph went down to Egypt first. Then, later the whole family transferred to Egypt in order to get away from the famine. The people of Israel, the people of Jacob’s household, numbered about 70. In several hundred years in Egypt under favorable government and rulers, they prospered and developed into a nation of perhaps two million. Then, there was a change in dynasty and the new dynasty did not like Israel and made them slaves. We have the sad record of how they labored making bricks and so on until God finally redeemed them.
God raised up Moses and led the children out of Egypt to the Promised Land. Now, He had promised Abram that a long time ago. You see, he told Abram in chapter 15 that they were going to a strange land but that they would come back to the Promised Land. So they came back. In other words, there has been the literal transfer: out of Israel to Egypt and then back from Egypt to the Promised Land, exactly as God had predicted in Genesis 15.
Now, if there is any question about what the land is we have that settled in Chapter 15. Chapter 13 first of all when Lot left and do you remember God said to him, look and see what you’ve got here! So it says that God said to Abram in verse 14, “Lift up your eyes now and look from the place where you are – northward, southward, eastward and westward, for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.”
What did He see? He did not see Heaven. Now, it is true that in Hebrews it says he looked for a city whose foundation whose maker was God. That is true. He looked for the eternal state but long before the eternal state and the New Heaven and the New Earth are created, he is going to see the promise of the land fulfilled! The land will be inherited by Israel. So, that is Chapter 13.
Then, in Chapter 15, when Abram was having a problem about this because he did not have any children and he wanted to appoint one of his servant’s children as his own, God said no. Then, He reiterated His promise with a sacred rite of shedding blood. Then, in the last part of Chapter 15, He enumerates what He means by the land. “To your descendants have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.” Then, it mentions the people who live in it—the Kenites, the Kenizzities, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaims, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.
I talked to one of my friend who is an amillennialist (you know, they do not believe that Israel is ever going to inherit the land). I said now, what about this? Well, he said it is just heaven. I said it does not sound like heaven to me. All these tribes, wicked tribes it says are in the land. Well, he said it is just Heaven. You see it is an arbitrary, unsupported statement that is absolutely wrong. Israel is going to inherit the land, before they came back to the land.
Well, when they came back to the land, (remember in Deuteronomy, Moses was given his “second law,” as it were, [that is what Deuteronomy means]) and he warned the children of Israel that if they did not keep the law they would be driven out of the land, the Promised Land. So, we have this sad record here in Deuteronomy, Chapter 28, how the land is going to go to someone else. They are going to be driven out of it.
So, he tells them here in Deuteronomy 28, that “The Lord is going to bring upon you and your descendants (verse 59) extraordinary plagues. He is going to bring you back all the diseases of Egypt (verse 60). Every sickness and every plague is going to be yours. You shall be left few in numbers, whereas you were as the stars of Heaven and all the multitude because you would not obey the voice of the Lord, your God. So, be that just as the Lord rejoiced over you do you good and multiple you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring to nothing. You shall be plucked from off the land where you go to possess it and the Lord will scatter you among all people from one end of the earth to the other and there you shall serve other gods which neither you nor your father’s have known, wood and stone, and among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your feet have a resting place and there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Your life will hang in doubt before you. You shall fear day and night and have no assurance of life. In the morning, you shall say, oh, that it were evening, and evening you shall say, oh, that that it were morning because the fear which terrifies your heart because of the sight which your eyes see.”
In other words, Israel is going to suffer and be driven out of the land. That was tragically fulfilled, of course. First of all, in the year 722 the Assyrian armies came in and carried off the ten tribes. Jerusalem and the two tribes there under Hezekiah were spared. But, then in 605 BC, Babylon came in and they conquered the city of Jerusalem and carried off the able-bodied people as slaves. Again they came, and took many of them to Babylon, especially in the years that followed in 596 and 597. Finally, Jerusalem itself was completely destroyed with its magnificent temple in 586.
So, once again, Israel was driven out of the land. A second time, as it were, they have “gone down to Egypt.” Now, they were driven out a second time and they were suffering. But, in the midst of all that, it is amazing the grace of God. Israel did not deserve this, but God said to them, “After 70 years, you are going to come back to the land.” Now, this is a good illustration of how God, when He says something, means it literally. In other words, He told them it would be 70 years and that is exactly what it was.
Let me read the verse for you in Jeremiah 29. We have the record of what God promised. Jeremiah 29:10,
“For thus saith the Lord, after 70 years are completed in Babylon, I will visit you and perform a good word toward you and cause you to return to this place.”
Now, does God mean what He says? Is it literally true? Of course it is literally true! God does not play games with us. When He promises something, it is going to be fulfilled. You know what happened? Well, Daniel as a lad, a teenager, was carried off to Babylon where he became the right-hand man of Nebuchadnezzar for 40 years during Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. Then, a series of other rulers came and went. Finally, the Meads and the Persians took over in the year 539 BC and conquered Babylon.
About that time, Daniel somehow secured the book of Jeremiah. It must have been the original. They did not have Xerox copies in those days. He read this and he came to Jeremiah 29 and he was excited! You should be excited about prophesy! Daniel saw how God was going restore His city and restore His temple and restore His people. Daniel admitted, as we have it in Daniel 9, how the people did not deserve it. It was of the grace of God that they went back, but God had promised and Daniel claimed the promise for the glory of God.
So, the book of Ezra records the promise. The whole book records the fulfillment. The whole book telling us about how they went back and reclaimed the city and eventually built the temple and the people of Israel restored the city of Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah. Thus when Christ was born, He was born in Bethlehem, not in Babylon, as Micah the prophet had predicted He would be. So, we have the wonderful facts that God keeps His word.
Now, Nehemiah came along, you remember, and he was concerned about the city of Jerusalem. It had been in ruins for 90 years and they said for 90 years we cannot do anything about it. Nehemiah organized them and worked it out so that each family would build a section of the wall. They built the wall. What they said could not be built for 90 years they built in 52 days.
How does the work of the Lord get done? By one person – no! By everyone doing his part. That is the way they built the wall. Then, they passed a law in Israel that one out of every ten had to build a house in Jerusalem. In those days, they did not haul off the debris. They just leveled it off, as Jerusalem had been destroyed so many times, and built on top of it. That is why we sing that song, “I walk today where Jesus walked.” When you get over there, you discover you are about ten feet higher than when Jesus was there because of all the debris. Well, they built the city and the city was a thriving city by the time Christ was born.
Then, Israel began to depart from God. As a nation they rejected Christ—although individuals accepted Him. You remember Christ was predicting His coming and the tragic days ahead. The disciples thought he was a little bit too melancholy and they showed him the beautiful temple, in Matthew 24 The temple had been in rebuilding for 40 years already. It was being replaced. It was a 500-year temple that they had built when the pilgrims went back from Babylon. Now it needed replacements and it was magnificent.
It was being built out of huge stones that were quarried in Jerusalem there— sometimes to ten, 15, 20, even 30 tons, we are told. They would take hundreds of people and put these huge blocks of stone on rollers and roll them up to the temple site. They would built earth ramps and just take it right up and drop it in place. It didn’t need any mortar. It was cut precisely to fit that place. That is the way the temple was being built. I think they had a right somewhat to be proud about it.
You know what Christ said though? “Not one stone will be left upon another.” Now, stones that weigh ten, 15, 20 or 30 tons do not just get up and move off. The great pyramids in Europe, in Egypt rather, were built about 3,000 BC and they are still there. Those stones are mostly around two tons, as I understand it. The big stones that form the structure of it. So, if the temple had not been tampered with, it would still be there, but He said “not one stone will be on another.” Of course, that tragically happened while some of the disciples were still alive.
In 70 AD, the Roman soldiers threw them down in Jerusalem. Because Israel and Jerusalem had a record of rebellion, they broke the walls and came in and slaughtered the people. Some think as many as half a million Jews were packed in the city in the Time of the Feast, and they destroyed the city and burned the temple. They pried the stones out one by one.
Now, they are digging up some of these stones outside Jerusalem that were thrown down the hill at the time the temple was destroyed. Now, there is a wall there and people say well that does not prove Jesus’ prophecy being fulfilled, because that wall is still there. The wall was not part of the temple. It was the retaining wall because the properties are up and down there (hilly) and they built this retaining wall in order to level the surface on the top. So, that wall is still there, but it was not there when Christ was there. It came many years later. So, that Wailing Wall is still there (as a retaining wall underneath the temple walls, which themselves are no longer there).
You see the prophecies were literally fulfilled. After 70 AD, the children of Israel were literally driven out of the land. The Roman soldiers came in. They burned down their houses. They filled their wells with stones. They cut down their trees. They made the land as uninhabitable as they could. They claim only about 15,000 Jews remained. Some were scattered through the land. All the rest were sent all over the world just as Moses predicted 3,500 years ago.
You see, when God says something is going to happen, it is going to happen. That is true about the Rapture; it is true about the Second Coming; it is true about the Millennium; it is true about Heaven; it is true about Hell. God predicts with absolute accuracy in His Word. So, that is where we are now.
Now, at the time of Nehemiah, it was a new beginning with Jerusalem being rebuilt. Daniel had the amazing faculty of summing up two great prophetic programs – one was for the Gentiles. We saw that yesterday: the four great empires that followed Egypt and Assyria and the Babylon Empire, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome were the great empires and then we saw how the Roman Empire is going to be revived at the end times. That is all part of the Gentile scene.
But, Daniel also predicted the future of Israel. In Daniel 9: 24-27, he predicts that it will be covered in a period of 70 weeks. The word “week” is not in the Hebrew; it is the word “seven” and practically all expositors recognize that what it is talking about is 70 times seven, which is 490 years. Now, this is not an easy passage to understand. I remember when I was a seminary student our prof lectured on it for two weeks. When he got through, I did not know any more than when he started. It was pretty difficult for me to understand. But, it does say that there is going to be the beginning with a decree to rebuild Jerusalem.
Now, scholars wrestle with that because there are other dates suggested, but I take it as the year 444-445. They wrangle about that, too, because it is the last day….last month of 445 or the first month of 444. I will let you guess, but from that point on, it is going to be 490 years. Without getting into all the complications of it, first of all there is seven times seven or 49 years in which the city is rebuilt. Of course, that is what happened after the wall was built. That has been fulfilled.
Then, there is 62 times seven, 434 years that immediately followed. That takes us up to Messiah, the Prince, Christ. It says at the end of those 62 sevens times seven more, which 49 or 483 years that the Messiah would be cut off. It says in verse 26 that after the 62 weeks are full, and you add the two together and it becomes the 483 years, “The Messiah shall be cut off and not for Himself. The people of the Prince who has come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary and the end shall be a flood until the end of the war desolations are determined.”
Now, this is something strange. You see, from Nehemiah’s time to Christ, there is a solid 483 years. But, now some things are predicted that could not be fulfilled in those last seven years. Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. When was that? Well, that was more than 35 years after Christ died. So, it could not be in that last seven years. So, what it is telling us is that the last seven years are postponed. That there is a time gap between the 483 years and the last seven years of Israel’s program. We are living in that time gap. That explains a lot of things. I explained earlier in this series the Old Testament vision just jumps to the present age. It views it as it comes to the person and the work of Christ and then right to the end time. That is the way it is pictured.
So, it does not really picture a gap such as we have for now almost 2,000 years. But, that is the way it is. The Bible anticipates that there will be that final period leading up to the Second Coming and as far as Israel is concerned, it is comprised in seven years. That is what it tells us. Verse 27: “He,” (referring to this future world leader—I think it is the antichrist) shall confirm a covenant with many for one week or for one seven and in the middle of the week, he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offerings.”
It goes on to say he is going to bring an abomination. Now what happens? Well, according to Daniel 9:27, when the Roman empire is revived and this ruler conquers three and then all ten countries, his first step in his place of power is to impose the seven-year covenant on Israel. The first half it is going to be observed. That is, it is going to be a time of peace as far as he is concerned, even though there is this invasion from the north from some state of Russia and other countries mentioned in Ezekiel 38 and 39. God is going to interfere and stop it.
When you gets to the middle of the last seven years, suddenly a change takes place. This ruler of the ten countries has received such power politically that he proclaims himself ruler over all the entire earth and, apparently, nobody is strong enough to stand against him. It may be that is because he controls the oil in the Middle East. I do not know. The Bible does not explain it, but the whole world accepts him.
At the same time, he breaks his covenant with Israel and becomes their persecutor. He claims to be God and he aligns himself with Satan and demands that everybody worships him and worships Satan. Those who do not are beheaded. They are put to death. So, it is a terrible time that Christ calls the Great Tribulation. That is what Daniel calls it. Christ said it was so awful that if he did not stop that three-and-a-half-year period by His Second Coming there would not be anybody left alive in the world. Of course, that is not God’s purpose to destroy the human race. He has in mind the Millennial Kingdom to follow. So, that is not His purpose, but it is going to be stopped by Christ’s Second Coming and so this awful period begins.
God is going to pour out the terrible judgment described in the book of Revelation in Chapter 6 through Chapter 18. One devastating judgment after the other that decimates the earth and kills probably 80-90% of the human population and destroys the cities of the world in a great earthquake at the end. So, there is going to be a terrible time of trouble ahead, according to the Bible, in that last three-and-a-half years – the Great Tribulation and the Second Coming of Christ will occur.
Now, where are we in all this? Well, 483 years of Israel’s history have been completed, but we are waiting for that last seven years. That seven-year period is going to be introduced by the antichrist and we learned yesterday that he cannot appear until after the Church is raptured. In other words, the day of the Lord cannot begin until the Church is gone because the day of the Lord is the marking. It is the midnight between the two days. We learned he could not be here yet, so he is going to be identified, I believe, when he conquers three of those ten countries. Then, all ten, if there is any question about it, he is identified seven years before the Second Coming of Christ, you see. Now, if the Rapture has to occur first, where does that put the Rapture? It puts it more than seven years before the Second Coming. It wipes out the so-called “post-Tribulational” view that he is going to come at the Second Coming for which there is not a scrap of scripture proof. Then, some want to put it in the middle of the seven years. That is just as wrong and now here it is demonstrating more than seven years before.
So, where are we? Well, according to God’s Word, we are on the verge of completing that last seven years. What has happened to Israel? You see, they were scattered all over the world and now what does God’s Word say about it? He says they are going to be restored to their land. Here again, let’s turn to a few scriptures. I do not like you to listen to me and just believe what I have to say.
In Jeremiah 23, it describes how they are going to come back to the land. Verses 5 and 6 and the verses that follow, as well, this is what I read,
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, (Jeremiah 23:5) that I will raise to David a branch of righteousness, a king shall reign and prosper and execute judgement and righteousness in the earth.”
Now, who is that? That is Jesus Christ. That is in His Second Coming to the earth; in His days at the Second Coming, Judah will be saved. Israel will dwell safely.
Now, this is His name by which you will be called, the Lord, our righteousness. Therefore, behold the days are coming, says the Lord, that they shall no longer say as the Lord lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt. But, as the Lord lives who brought us and led the descendants of the House of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I have driven them and they shall dwell in their own land.”
Amillennialists, please take note. The Bible says Israel is going to possess the land in the Millennial Kingdom. Well, that is not the only passage. There are many others. It describes in detail. The book of Amos, for instance, talks about how God is going to resume it. I like this one as one of the best passages. It is found in Ezekiel 39. You remember this is a passage that talks about the war that is going to occur in the first half of the seven years. But, now it describes how it is going to climax in the Second Coming. In Ezekiel 39, beginning in verse 25, this is what I read,
“Therefore, thus says the Lord God, I will bring back the captives of Jacob and have mercy upon the whole House is Israel. I will be jealous for my Holy Name after they have borne their shame and all their unfaithfulness in which they have been unfaithful to me. When they shall dwell safely in their own land and no one makes them afraid. When I have brought them back from the peoples, gathered them out of the enemies’ land, I am hallowed in them in the sight of many nations. Then, shall they know that I am the Lord their God who sent them into captivity among the nations but now also brought them back to their land”….listen to this…. “have left none of them captive any longer.”
What does that say? It says that at the Second Coming of Christ, Christ is going to gather all Israel from all over the world and bring them back to the Promised Land.
Now, it also makes clear that rebels are going to be purged out. Only the saved of Israel are going to be brought back, but those that are saved, those that have trusted Christ in that awful time of trouble are going to be brought back to the Promised Land. Ezekiel, as he closes later on, talks about their being apportioned out. He says the land is going to be divided into 12 sections, each section for a tribe of Israel. He names the tribes. They are not lost as far as God is concerned and they are going to inherit that land for the Millennial Kingdom, for the thousand years of Jesus’ reign.
Now, today what has happened? Well, the facts are that Israel has gone through some tremendous changes in the last 50 years, haven’t they? Many of them were killed, of course, in Germany. Then, afterward by acts of the League of Nations they were given a portion of the Promised Land. Later in war, they conquered portions more. Today there are four million Jews already in the Land. That is the biggest movement of Israel since the time of Moses. Do you realize that? That is happening while we are still here. Now, this is not the fulfillment of the promise that He is going to gather them all, but you see it is the forerunner because all the prophesies dealing with the end times picture Israel in the land. That is where they are going to be persecuted. We have Israel in the land today, but the problem is practically all of them are unbelievers as far as Jesus Christ is concerned. The Bible is very clear that only believers in Christ will inherit the land. That is how we understand it will happen because when the Great Tribulation breaks out, as Christ told them in Matthew 25, they are going to have to flee. Leave Jerusalem. Go to the mountains. Get away because they are going to be driven out of their land once again. Then, when Christ comes back the rebels will be purged out to be sure, but the righteous Israel is going to be re-gathered and installed in their Promised Land.
The fact that in our twentieth century after 1,900 years of being scattered all over the world Israel is back in their land. This is another token that we are in the end-times, that Christ could come any day and these great promises should be fulfilled.
So, we look at what the Bible says about the Church. The Rapture is imminent. Look what the Bible says about the nations. Europe is ripe for the renewal of the Roman Empire. You look at Israel. Israel is already in the land ready for its role in the end times. What is God trying to tell us? He is telling us that Christ could come very soon. It is not 2,000 years away. It could be in your lifetime. In fact, it could be today. To me, that is an exciting expectation for which I should prepare by examining my own personal salvation, my commitment to Christ and my living for Him for the things that count for eternity. That is what this conference, as far as I am concerned, is all about.
Now, tomorrow we are going to continue in our study of this. We want to see some of the other questions answered that people raise about this when they question whether Christ is coming. I hope you can leave this conference excited by the fact that Christ is coming and He could be coming soon. There is good, solid biblical facts to support those conclusions.
Shall we pray.
Our Father, once again, we pray for any who may not be saved if there are any here that they may come to know Christ before it is too late and before they are left behind. How wonderful that Christ died for us and by His grace we can be saved by simple faith in Christ. If we are not saved, it is because we have not come because Christ said “he that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.” So, we pray that they will come. Then, Father, most of us here are Christians. The issue is not our personal salvation but our commitment to you and our living for things that count for eternity. So, speak to our hearts and undertake for us, we pray, and bless abundantly as we seek to serve you effectively, for we ask in Christ’s precious name, amen.
Editor’s Note: This is a lightly edited transcription of the audio message. Thanks goes to Marilyn Fine for the transcription work.
We have been having a wonderful time trying to excite you a bit about the Rapture of the Church and give you some of the reasons why I believe it is imminent. First, this is the way it is presented in the Bible in I Thessalonians 4 and other passages. Second, we have the evidence that the Lord is setting the stage for the great events that will follow the Rapture—the reemergence of the Roman Empire, its renewal in the form of ten countries and the leader who is going to come at its head who eventually is going to be a world ruler.
We learned from I Thessalonians 5 and also II Thessalonians 2 that this leader cannot emerge and be recognized until after the Rapture of the Church because the Rapture of the Church begins the Day of the Lord. Remember, that the Day of the Lord is that period of God’s judgment on the world and on the Man of Sin, the lawless one. This ruler of the ten nations and eventually of the whole world has to emerge then in the beginning of the Day of the Lord. Thus we have some good, factual reasons for believing that the Rapture is going to occur more than seven years before the Second Coming of Christ.
Any student of prophecy soon discovers that there is a lot of confusion on prophecy. Rather amazingly, though, the Church has agreed that the Second Coming of Christ is a literal event. It is in their creeds whether Roman Catholic, Protestant or Greek Orthodox and the secular press is very much aware of this. That is why when the Gulf War broke out they had great articles sometimes spread over a whole page. “Is this the Second Coming?” “Is this the final hour?” “Is this Armageddon?” and words to this effect because they saw that the prophecy of the Second Coming of Christ could be fulfilled very soon. Of course, the Gulf War was not the great war that precedes the Second Coming of Christ, described in Revelation 16 and elsewhere, and this sort of dissipated after the Gulf War passed away. But, it illustrates the problem. The problem is that while the Church has taken literally the Second Coming of Christ, they then turn around and say we cannot interpret the prophecies that lead up to it literally, such as the Great Tribulation, and we cannot interpret the prophecies that follow it, the Millennial Kingdom literally. So, there has emerged what we call Amillennialism, which is a denial of the Millennial doctrine and of the fulfillment of these prophecies leading up to the Second Coming and of the prophecies that follow.
Now, out of that has also come what we call post-Tribulationism. I am what we call a pre-Tribulationist. That is, I believe that the tribulation follows the Rapture and the Rapture is first. Thus there is a pre-Tribulation Rapture.
Probably the majority of the Church holds to a so-called post-Tribulational Rapture because all the amillennarians hold that. There are even some pre-millennarians who hold the idea that the Church has to go through the Tribulation. So, when I speak on expectancy, as I have in this conference, people say what do I mean? Don’t you know that the Church has to go through this time of trial and trouble before Christ comes? Of course, they have in mind that there is a post-Tribulation Rapture.
I have been dealing with this subject, of course, for many years and it has been very interesting to see the turnaround in this subject. The post-Tribulational books that came out before World War II, and there were a lot of them, all said in their introductions, without exception, “what do you mean the Church will not go through the Tribulation? We are already in it!” They quoted, of course, Christ, who said “in this world you shall have tribulation.” Now, what is their problem? Their problem is, and it is the characteristic problem of amillennialism, that they do not pay attention to what the Bible says. The Great Tribulation is not what we are in today. The Bible is very explicit in Daniel and Matthew 24 and the Book of Revelation. The Great Tribulation is a specific period of time of 42 months that leads up to the Second Coming. We are not in that period now. The events that are surrounding it back it up to the world ruler in charge and to the world worshipping Satan. This is not true today. We are not in this period. This man has not emerged. Of course, I believe the Rapture has not occurred either. We do not have to wait until the end of the Great Tribulation. You see, what the Bible predicts about tribulation is not what we are encountering today.
In every book I ever picked up on post-Tribulationism from before World War II would say we are in the Tribulation already. Then, suddenly something happened in World War II. I cannot give the full explanation, but the world woke up to the fact that with atomic weapons we could kill millions of people over night. The horror of such a judgment from God or from man began to grip the whole world, including our own country. So, suddenly there was a 180 degree turn in the post-Tribulational books. Instead of saying that they are already through the Tribulation, that it has already passed, and we already experienced it, they changed over to a totally different point of view. That is, that there is a Tribulation ahead. Dr. George Ladd and many others that were popular in their post-Tribulational presentation presented that idea.
Now, they ran into another problem. You see in I Thessalonians 5, as I pointed out the other day, it says we are not appointed to wrath. Now, the problem is that the Great Tribulation is a time of wrath. If we are not appointed to it, how can we go through it? So, they had a problem on their hands. How did they solve it? Well, they solved it in a number of different ways. In fact, it has been very interesting to see how post-Tribulational books have multiplied in recent years. Every one of them seems to assume that the previous books have not proved their case and so they have to prove their case all over again. They have all kinds of different ideas. In fact, it is very difficult to cover the field. I have a course on the Rapture of the Church, which I am going to teach again this fall. It is 30-class hours just on the Rapture. We spend about half of our time going through all the different post-Tribulational books because each one is different. In other words, they try to find an escape hatch for their view, but they do not agree among themselves at all as to how to bring it about. Basically, what they say is we cannot take the tribulation literally. It is a time of trouble, but it is not nearly as bad as you say. So, they go on teaching post-Tribulationism.
Now, you know if a truth is biblical you have to find some biblical evidence. I began to search the scriptures to see if the post-Tribulationalists had any basis in fact. Where are the verses that teach this? You know, there are not any, but they try hard and some of them are godly men. They are scholars. They are reputable people who, in many other respects, we can agree with, but this idea of going through the tribulation has gripped their minds. How do they argue? Well, first of all they ridicule our view, they say “what do you mean? Two comings of Christ ahead? Of course not! There cannot be two comings – just one coming.” Now, wait a minute, what happened in the Old Testament? They said the same thing. Only one coming. Were they right? No, they were not. It did not explain how the same Messiah could be a suffering Messiah who died and a glorious reigning Messiah. They puzzled over that and they never solved it. You see, they were wrong in denying a two-coming view.
In our present day, we have the same problem. The Rapture and the Second Coming are two different events. All you have to do to prove it is to read what it says about them.
What is the Rapture? According to I Thessalonians 4, as we have studied it, it is a catching up of the Church from earth to Heaven. There is no record that Christ’s feet ever touched the earth. There is no record of angels accompanying him. There is no record of judgments on the world. It has one purpose that takes the Church out of the world. You can contrast that to the Second Coming.
What is the Second Coming? The Second Coming is a world-wide event which the whole world will see. The heavens will be aglow with the glory of God. We will be talking about that later this week. It is a tremendous event. Millions of saints and angels will accompany Christ to come to the Mount of Olives from which He ascended. He is going to begin a series of judgments on the world which are preceded by the judgments of the Book of Revelation. Then, He is going to bring in His thousand-year reign on earth literally. You see, that is what the Bible actually teaches. If you take the other view, you have to sort of water this all down so you cannot take it literally.
I decided I had to do something about this. I had written this book on the Rapture question about 30 years ago and I had gone through all the theological arguments that are offered by the various views and tried to prove that the pre-Tribulation Rapture was the right view. But you know, some people do not think theologically. They think more from an expository point of view so I decided to add another 100 pages to the book, which I did. In it I methodically went through every passage that is related to the Rapture, asking the question “Now what does it teach? Does it coincide with a pre-Tribulational Rapture or does it prove a post-Tribulational Rapture?” They used some of these texts in their own proof. So I would like to look at some of them this morning very briefly.
We cannot, obviously, cover all the post-Tribulational books that have ever been written, but they bring up certain proofs. Some of them are found in almost every post-Tribulational book. One of them is the references to the Lord’s coming in Matthew 24.
You remember the background of this. Christ had denounced the Jewish religious leaders and lamented over them. You said you have killed the prophets. You stoned those who come to you and Jerusalem is going to be left desolate until you say blessed is He who cometh in the name of the Lord. The disciples were upset by this. They thought Christ was a little bit too pessimistic. After all, they were building this beautiful temple in Jerusalem. The Jewish religion was in some ways thriving. So, they pointed Christ to the beautiful temple which was being built. They had been rebuilding it for a long time. Apparently, much of it was complete. Christ just mowed them down as I have indicated earlier. He said, “Not one stone will be left upon another.”
Well, this did not fit their theology at all. They were still expecting Christ to bring in His kingdom. They thought He was going to bring in the glorious kingdom that relates to His Second Coming. They did not understand He had to die first. So, they were very upset by that and they came to Christ, four of them-Peter, Andrew, James and John-the famous quartet, according to Mark’s gospel, and asked Him. They asked, when is this all going to happen? When is Jerusalem going to be destroyed? When are you coming into your kingdom?
This really is two major questions. Well, Christ answers the second question in Matthew 24. In other words, what are going to be the signs of His Second Coming? Luke’s gospel deals with the destruction of Jerusalem (first question).
Well, in the process, you remember, He tells them first of all in Matthew 24:1-14 the general things which would be true of the present age. There would be trouble. There would be martyrdom. There would be wars and rumors of wars. There would be famine. There would be pestilence. All these things are going to take place. Then, in verse 15 He turns to the subject of the Great Tribulation. He says,
“Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel, the prophet, standing in the holy place, who shall read and let them understand, then that those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.”
Yesterday we discussed Daniel 9:24-27. Verse 27 says in the last seven years (leading up to the Second Coming in which there would be peace in the first part) that the last part would be a time of desecration and great tribulation. That is what is going to happen in the last three-and-a-half years. He says when you see the temple desolated….and apparently what is going to happen is that Israel is still going to build a temple, orthodox Jews are going to reactivate their Jewish sacrifices, and then at the middle of that last seven years this world ruler is going to take over. He is going to desecrate the temple, drive the Jews out and take it over as a place of worship for himself.
Christ is saying here in Matthew that when you see that, “flee to the mountains.” It is a sign that the Great Tribulation is beginning. So, He goes on to describe how it is going to be a terrible time of suffering for Israel. They are going to be driven out of their homes, away from their food, employment, shelter and they are going to suffer. Many of them, of course, will be killed. Now He says this in verse 20 and following, “Pray that your plight may not be in the winter on the Sabbath.” That is, in the winter it would be cold and on the Sabbath it would be very obvious they were fleeing. “For them, there will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time nor will ever shall be.” This is very plain. It is not the trials we are in now. This is a future time of unprecedented trouble that will last only for those three-and-a-half years.
This is what He says in verse 22, “Unless those days were shortened or cut off, no flesh would be saved but for the elect’s sake those will be shortened.” I think shortened is the wrong translation. It means to snip off like a scissors cuts something. It means to be terminated. Actually, it is going to be the full three-and-a-half years, not less than that as some have taught, but it is going to be suddenly terminated by the Second Coming of Christ. He goes on here to talk about how He is going to appear in glory in the heavens and not quietly or obscurely.
Then, He says in verse 29, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give her light, the stars will fall from Heaven, the powers of Heaven will be shaken. Then, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in Heaven. Then, all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the Son of Man coming on clouds of Heaven with power and great glory.” This is the Second Coming of Christ. This is not the Rapture.
Then, He goes on to say how His angels are going to gather the elect from the four corners of the earth and Heaven both. Then, He adds a parable of a fig tree and I do not want to get into that today. Now, He says in verse 37, “But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” This is the Second Coming of Christ being compared to Noah’s day and the ark and the floods. “Whereas in the days before the flood, they are eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark. So, it shall be and did not know until the flood came and took them all away. So, also, will be at this coming of the Son of Man. Then, two men will be in the field. One will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken and the other left. Watch, therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord will come.”
Almost without exception every post-Tribulational book lands on this verse. One shall be taken – is that not the Rapture? Yes, so they say. Is it not the Second Coming? Yes. Well, does not that prove that the Rapture is the Second Coming? The problem is that the situation is totally different. At the Rapture, the person who is taken is taken out of the world so they will not be in the time of judgment that follows. He takes them to Heaven.
At the Second Coming, the selection is for a different purpose. Here, the issue is “who is worthy to enter the Millennial Kingdom?” The ones who are left are the saved and the ones who are taken are the unsaved. Now you say, can there be proof in the Bible? Yes. It is very interesting to me that those are in the same Bible as I have. Post-Tribulationists never, never, ever look up these verses. In Luke 17:34 we have a parallel passage that adds something. He says right there,
“I tell you in that night there will be two men in one bed, one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding together, one will be taken and the other left. Two men will be in the field, one will be taken and the other left.”
The same thing exactly is found in Matthew 24. But, here is the difference. When they, the disciples, answering said to the Lord, “Where?” In other words, where are these people taken? Taken to Heaven? No. His answer is “wherever the body is, there will be eagles or the vultures to gather together.” What will they do? Well, they are taken to put to death. They are not worthy to enter the Millennial Kingdom. Yes, it is a selection, but this time it is the selection of the unsaved, not of the saved.
In Matthew 24 it is not talking about a rapture. It is talking about the judgment of people who are unworthy to enter Christ’s Millennial Kingdom. This is confirmed, of course, in Matthew 25 and the judgment of the nations which is also a very interesting study. It tells us that sometime after the Second Coming, not on the day of the Second Coming, but sometime after, perhaps just a few days, that Christ assembles the nations before Him, the Gentiles.
It says in verse 32 that all nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. Now, to make a long story short, the sheep and the goats represent the Gentile population of the world. This is two days or more after the Second Coming. The goats represent the unsaved and the sheep represent the saved. What is their situation? They are mingled. That is what it says. He has to separate the sheep from goats because the goats are going to be put to death and the sheep are going to go into the kingdom. They are the redeemed.
Now, you see if the post-Tribulationists are right and there is a rapture at the Second Coming of Christ, this situation would not exist. You see, the sheep would have already been taken out. All you would have left is the unsaved world. You see, there is not any rapture at the Second Coming and there is not any resurrection there either as we are going to see later because the resurrection comes after the Second Coming, not at the time of the Second Coming. On the day of the Second Coming of Christ there is no rapture and there is no resurrection. You see, the two things necessary for the Rapture are the resurrection of the righteous dead and the translation of the righteous who are living, who are given new bodies that are suited for Heaven. Those two things are the Rapture of the Church. Once the Church is raptured there is no more Rapture as far as scripture is concerned. There is resurrection, yes, a series of them but no rapture of the living because at the time of the Second Coming the living are not changed. They are not given an immortal body. They are not delivered from what they were. They move into the Millennial Kingdom still in their natural body where they live natural lives. They build houses, plant crops, bear children, sin and even die. In other words, this is the nature of the believers who enter the Millennial Kingdom. Therefore, there is no rapture at that time. The person who is taken is taken in judgment. Now, as far as I am concerned Matthew never discusses the Rapture of the Church. The Second Coming yes, but not the Rapture.
Now, when is the Rapture introduced? Well, it is very interesting that the post-Tribulationists just assume that the disciples knew all about it. Where is the scripture evidence for it? Zero! The disciples knew nothing about a rapture until the night before His crucifixion. In fact, they did not understand the doctrine of the First and Second Coming. They thought Christ was going to fulfill the glorious promise of the kingdom. They still thought they would sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. They did not understand that that related to His Second Coming. (…..long pause…….) It is interesting that Christ, while He introduces it in John 14, does not explain it. If you remember the background, He had told the disciples that one of them would betray him and this shook them up. They did not know who that was. Then, He said He was going to leave them and they could not follow Him now. Peter said, “Well, I’ll die for you.” Of course, he would not. He was going to deny Him three times and so they all are upset because Christ said He was going to leave them and He had not brought in the kingdom. That is what they have followed Him to do. Here He was not doing it. They could not understand that there was a Second Coming later on in God’s plan.
In John 14, as I pointed out previously, He said, “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.” The wonderful assurance is that God is able to do what He promises. Then, He immediately goes into the doctrine of the Rapture. “In My Father’s house are many mansions, many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” That is in Heaven. “And I go and prepare for you and I will come again and receive you unto Myself that where I am, there you may be also.” What is this? Christ is coming to earth to take His own out of the earth and take them to the Father’s house. There is nothing like that at the Second Coming. At the Second Coming, He comes from Heaven to earth and stays in the earth. There would be no point in taking people back to Heaven at that point.
You see, it is a totally different situation and the disciples just were bewildered. They did not understand it. It was not until later the apostle Paul had the revelation from God concerning the Doctrine of Grace which he did not understand. He was saved and then he had the Doctrine of the Rapture. When he went, he preached that Christ had died and rose again. That was his missionary message. He immediately tells them He is coming again to take us home. That was the two great themes that he had as he preached his missionary message at Thessalonica and elsewhere. So, we find in John 14 this first reference to the Rapture of the Church and, of course, it does not coincide with the post-Tribulational work at all.
Now, as you go through the New Testament, there are references to the Rapture again and again. We have seen some of those already in our study in I Thessalonians 4 and 5 and II Thessalonians 2 and we have seen how in every passage on the Rapture it never mentions a preceding event. They are never told they would have to go through a tribulation first. That simply is not part of the doctrine.
As you read on in the scriptures, you find that the book of Revelation describes this terrible time of trouble. If you are a post-Tribulationist what would you do with this? That is the problem that faces them and they do not agree among themselves as to how to solve the problem. They say you cannot take these prophecies of the Book of Revelation literally. Why not? Well, because they do not believe it. That is not a very good reason, is it? You have to have evidence that there is some reason for not believing it.
So, in Revelation 6, we have the main body of revelation presented to us. I am sure some of you at least have studied the Book of Revelation and understand that first of all we have a parchment with seven seals on it that describes seven different movements of things of judgments of God. Out of the seven seals comes another series of seven called the seven trumpets and the seven trumpets sound and each one of them seems to relate to a third of the earth being judged.
Then, in Chapter 16, you have out of the seven trumpets a third series of seven which are called the Judgment of the Vials or Bowls of the wrath of God. The figure is pouring out a whole bowl on the earth and the cataclysmic judgments end up with the earth almost completely destroyed and most of the people in the world killed. It is a terrible time of judgment. Now, that is how it is if you take the Book of Revelation literally. However, they say you cannot take it literally because it has too many symbols in it. There are symbols in Daniel and Ezekiel and in Revelation that need to be interpreted, but interspersed with them are plain ordinary prophecies that are not hard to understand.
I will not take time to go into all these, but let us suppose you are a post-Tribulationist and you were preaching a sermon on Revelation 6:7-8. Let’s see what it says.
“When he opened the fourth seal, he heard the voice of the fourth living creature say come and see. And I looked and, behold, a pale horse and the name of him who sat on it was Death and Hades followed within and power was given them over a fourth of the earth to kill with a sword, with hunger, with death and by the beasts of the earth.”
Now, there are symbols here to be sure, but what does it say? Killing one-fourth of the world’s population. Just two verses. How are you going to water that down? You cannot. It says a fourth. That is literal. What do they do with it? Mostly ignore it. They just ignore. They do not pay attention to it. A fourth of the world destroyed. If that were true in our present world population, it would be over one billion people, 250 million would be killed. That is a tremendous, tremendous judgment of God.
Then, it goes on to describe the fifth seal and the sixth seal. The fifth seal has to do with martyrs and the sixth seal has to do with the disturbances in the heavens, meteors falling. When the seventh seal is sounded, it opens up this second series of sevens which are trumpets. You can read about that first trumpet beginning in Revelation 8:7 and following.
Each of these is a judgment on a third of the earth. Let’s read verse 7 just to illustrate,
“The first angel sounded and hail and fire mingled with blood and they were thrown to the earth and a third of the trees were burned up and all green grass was burned up.”
How in the world do you get around that? You see, it is very literal. It says something is going to happen. It is going to be a terrible judgment on the third of the earth. So, it goes on to all the other judgments that are mentioned. They form interesting studies if you are studying the Book of Revelation.
Finally, you come to the sixth trumpet, which I think is very, very interesting in Revelation 9:13.
“The sixth angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
Four angels bound? Angels are not bound. These are demons. They are Satan’s emissaries, but they apparently have been rendered inactive until this point. Now, they are released. The four angels that had prepared for the hour and a day and a month and a year. In other words, for this specific time were released to kill a third of mankind. You do not have to be an astute mathematician to realize if you take out 25% of the world’s population in the fourth seal then you come to the sixth seal (ignoring all the bloodshed and destruction in between) and take off a third of the remainder, you are down to 50%, aren’t you? Half the world has been destroyed!
Now, they tell us the Church is going to go through this. Is the Church going to go through it? Well, that is not what the Bible teaches. You see in the first place these judgments are not the kind of judgments that just single out unsaved people—when you have famine, war, pestilence and hear warfare.
He goes on to describe the army of 200 million horsemen, apparently people from the Orient that are going to participate in the Battle of Armageddon, and a third of the world is destroyed. You see how this is not just for unsaved people?
In fact, in the Tribulation time, to be a Christian—and there will be many who do come to Christ—to be a Christian you are more apt to be killed than a non-Christian. You see, in the first place you will be exposed to the great catastrophes that cover most of the unsaved. Now, there are a few cases where the unsaved are singled out for special things, but for the most part these judgments are universal. When war hits, it does not just hit non-Christians, you see. When pestilence hits, it does not just single out the unsaved. There is a difficulty here because they are subject to all the ills of the unsaved. Then, on top of that the world ruler is demanding that they worship him or they would be killed. Apparently, thousands of people will be beheaded. That is what we are told is the method of execution because they will not bow to this world ruler and denounce him as their god.
So, the possibility of a Christian getting through this period instead of being obvious—as it is to be post-Tribulationalists, that somehow God is going to protect us—actually has absolutely no evidence for it. You see, sometimes it is God’s will for people to be protected and sometimes it is not. We have had thousands, multiplied thousands, of Christian martyrs in the 20th century. If truth were known, there are probably more martyrs to the Christian faith in our 20th center than in the 19 centuries that preceded. There has been wholesale destruction.
In North Korea they went down the Church roles and killed all the men they could lay their hands on. The same thing is true in Vietnam and other countries. They just slaughtered the Christian population and this has been the characteristic of our 20th century. Sometimes God protects them and sometimes He does not. We have to face the fact that it does not teach that He protects.
The evidence is found back in Chapter 7 where we have the record of the 144,000 of Israel being redeemed. In the opening verses, verses 1-8, God puts a seal on 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes – 144,000 Israelites. The purpose of the seal is to protect them through the Great Tribulation.
You go on to Chapter 14. There they are intact at the end of the Tribulation. God can preserve if He wants to. Then, here in Revelation 7:9, it goes on and John has a vision of Heaven. And it says,
“After these things I looked and, behold, a great multitude which no one could number of all nations, tribes, people and nations standing before the throne, before the Lamb, clothed with white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne of the Lamb.”
Then, the question is asked, “who are these people?” Verse 13,
“One of the elders answered and said to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes and where did they come from?” I said, “Sir, I do not know. You know.” He said to me, “These are the ones who came out of the Great Tribulation, washed their robes, made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, they are before the throne of our God and serve Him day and night in His temple.”
You see, who are these people? These are people who are unsaved at the time of the Rapture—so they were not raptured. After the Rapture, they came to Christ apparently by the thousands. I believe the Rapture itself is going to result in a lot of people coming to Christ, both Jews and Gentiles. There will be many people saved. Then, when this world ruler takes over and in the judgments that precede it, there are going to be many of these people killed. Here we have the record that the number of these martyred dead in the Great Tribulation is beyond number from every nation, tribe, people and tongue. In other words, does this teach that they are preserved? No, it does not. Probably the majority of those who come to Christ in the time of the end are going to be martyred. This is an awful time of judgment and God permits it.
Let’s get perspective on this. From our point of view, martyrdom is terrible, but you know the people killed go to Heaven. In fact, in Revelation 14, it says, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth.” It is much better to be dead and go to Heaven than to endure the terrible trials and troubles of that tribulation time. So, let’s not worry about it. God is still on the throne, but He takes some of His people home, as He did Paul after a life of faithful service. It was His will for them to be martyred and they were.
This knocks out this whole idea that the Church is going to go through the Tribulation unscathed. It is simply does not teach it. In fact, the word “Church” is never used of those in the Tribulation. They are called “saints” which applies to all the ones saved, regardless of dispensation. It is never a reference to the Church as the body and bride of Christ. They are just not here because they are in Heaven.
When you look for evidence in the Book of Revelation, it is simply not there. You will find that different post-Tribulationists have ideas. Someone they will put it way back in Chapter 6 because it says, “the wrath of God is beginning there” and they are trying to keep them out of the wrath of God.
Some find it in one of the trumpet judgments perhaps, and they say that that is when the Rapture occurs. It is not there. Then, you come to Chapter 16 and here we have a real stumbling block because this is so obviously the wrath of God. The seven vials or bowls of the wrath of God that are poured out in Chapter 16.
One of the recent innovations in prophecy, that I believe is a deviation from the truth, is the so-called Pre-wrath Rapture. In other words, they argue that no, we are not going to go through wrath. We are going to be raptured before the wrath. Of course, I believe that part. Then, they say the wrath of God does not come down until Chapter 16. Wait a minute! What does it say back in Chapter 6? Well, a fourth of the world is destroyed. Doesn’t that sound like the wrath of God? Then, later on in that same chapter, Chapter 6, it says that “the unsaved say to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of His wrath has come and who is able to stand.” You see, that is way back in Chapter 6 where I think the Great Tribulation begins. So, you see it simply is not true that the wrath starts in Chapter 16.
It so happens that the book that extols this that was published recently was sent to me in manuscript form by Thomas Nelson, the publisher, and asked my opinion. I said it was a new view that no one else has offered and I suppose it will have a sale and it would probably be going out of existence like a lot of the other books have. They went ahead and published it and it has helped them because of the wealthy man who happened to share this position bought 25,000 copies to give it away and he gave them away. Of course, this has created a lot of reading of this. They said my, this must be it. This is the Pre-wrath Rapture. It is not what the Book of Revelation or the Bible teaches. You do not have to go through the sixth seal and the seventh seal and the seven trumpets and then be raptured. Obviously, the Rapture does not occur then, well perhaps the world has been destroyed already including half the Church.
The idea that the Church is going to go through unscathed simply is not there. It is very interesting to read this book because he just ignores, absolutely ignores every passage that deals with the wrath before Chapter 16 as if it is not there. That is not the way you prove a doctrine. You have to take the scriptures and examine them.
Now, take a look at these bowl judgments. The difference between this and the trumpets is they are very similar except that the trumpet judgments had to do with one-third of the world. The bowl judgments had to do with the whole world. Our time is about gone here I see, but let’s skip down to what I believe to be the final blow in Revelation 16:17.
The seventh angel pours out his bowl of wrath upon the world. It says in verse 18 that there were noises and thunders and lightnings and there was a great earthquake, so mighty and great an earthquake that has not occurred since men were on earth. The great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the nations fell. What does that say? Well, some think the great city is Jerusalem because it is referred to as the great city. I personally think it is Babylon. It is going to be destroyed as brought out in Chapter 18.
Then the cities of the Gentiles, the nations, fall. Just imagine our great cities with their skyscrapers just leveled by this awful worldwide earthquake. It tells us that every island fled away. The whole world is in convulsions. Mountains were not found. This is pretty drastic, isn’t it? If you were trying to write a secular book, a fiction book, and tried to describe a great disaster you would have trouble beating this!
Finally in verse 21 it says, “A great hail from Heaven fell upon them. Each hailstone about the weight of a talent or a weight of a hundred pounds.” These huge blocks of ice beat up the earth and whatever is left after the earthquake is now reduced to rubble by the this terrible hailstorm. Do you think going through this period and being raptured at the Second Coming of Christ is a blessed hope? I personally do not think so.
If he had written the Thessalonians when they were grieving over their loved ones and wondering when they would see them he would say now, “Cheer up, you are going to be raptured. Now, of course you have to go through the Great Tribulation first. Nine out of ten of you will probably be killed. It is going to be an awful time of trouble and it is down the road about seven years, but cheer up. If you are still alive, you will be raptured.” The blessed hope. Comfort one another with these words. Why it is just ridiculous, isn’t it? Yet, that is what they are trying to teach us. The only way they can get around it is by saying this does not actually happen, or by trying to get the Rapture before Chapter 16.
I will pick it up here again tomorrow because I want to turn to the Second Coming of Christ. Again , I want you to see how it does not teach a post-Tribulational Rapture. My purpose in this is not to be negative, not to argue against people, but I want you to see that the Bible teaches that Christ could come any day and that that is the truth you and I should be excited about it and doing something about. That is my point of view.
Shall we pray.
Our Father, how wonderful to have this prospect before us that Christ is coming. Perhaps today. Lord, as we try to put together the Scriptures that teach us, we believe that You intended us to be looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of Christ as a constant day-by-day expectation. Grant that this may be true of us and we not be deviated from this by false views or wrong views of Scripture that tell us that the Rapture cannot occur this soon, that it has to go down the road somewhere else, but rather (help us understand) that what He taught the Thessalonians is what He is teaching us. It should be a comfort to us, a blessing as our loved ones go to Heaven. Our time of separation may be short and we may find ourselves one of these days, almost before we realize it, on our way up to meet the Savior and to be forever with the Lord.
Lord, if there is one here today who has not taken the initial step of a personal faith in Jesus Christ as the one who died on the cross and rose again, we pray that that one may not leave these grounds without trusting Christ, taking Him as their personal Savior. For that reason, being ready when the Lord comes, to be included in that glad number and will be caught up to Heaven. For we ask in Christ’s name, amen.”
Editor’s Note: This is a lightly edited transcription of the audio message. Thanks goes to Marilyn Fine for the transcription work.
This week, as you know if you have been attending the services, I have been trying to get you excited about the Rapture of the Church. Of course, one of the important elements of that is to persuade you that the Bible teaches that Christ could come very soon. I want to review this just a bit. Then, I want to turn to the Book of Revelation to see what the Rapture has to do with the Second Coming. Finally with the time left we will have some questions and answers.
Now, what have I been teaching you? First of all, I pointed out that the Rapture, wherever it is located in the Bible in the New Testament, always speaks of it as the next event. There is nothing preceding it. This is quite in contrast to the Second Coming of Christ to the earth where there are all kinds of important and world-shaking events that precede. The Rapture – never. It is always presented that we should be “looking for that blessed hope” (according to Titus) not for some preceding event.
Then, we also examined I Thessalonians 4 and 5 and we found that when the Rapture occurs, the Day of the Lord begins and the Day of Grace, such as we have in our present dispensation, ends. People will still get saved, but this is a time of divine judgment on a world that has rejected Christ and eventually recognizes the antichrist as their god and as their savior. God is going to pour out the terrible judgments that the Bible describes.
Then, we saw also how the false teachers came into Thessalonica and taught them that they were already in the Day of the Lord. Paul had said they would never get into the Day of the Lord because the Rapture was first. Thus this new teaching upset them and Paul wrote II Thessalonians.
What did he tell them? He said you are not in the Day of the Lord. Why not? Because the man of sin, the lawless one, the antichrist, has not appeared. You see, the first major event of the Day of the Lord is the emergence of this man of sin. He said you are not in that day because he has not emerged. Of course, he cannot emerge until the Day of the Lord begins. The Day of the Lord cannot begin until the Rapture occurs. So, in effect he is saying that you cannot have this period of trial and trouble following the Rapture until the Rapture itself occurs. Hence we have an order of events that are necessary—the Rapture first, the Day of the Lord beginning next, and then the antichrist appearing.
Now, when will he be recognized? Obviously, as he moves on toward the end time it becomes more and more evident that he is the antichrist. But I think he is recognized first of all when he conquers three of those 10 countries in the revived Roman Empire. This empire is going to emerge about the same time as the Rapture. When he conquers the three countries, then all ten, it is rather obvious that he is that person.
According to Daniel 9:27, when he gets to that position of power he makes a seven-year covenant with Israel. Get the chronology of this. Seven years before the Second Coming, he makes the covenant. Before he makes the covenant, he has to conquer those ten countries. Before he can conquer those ten countries, he has to appear. He cannot appear until the Day of the Lord begins and the Day of the Lord cannot begin until the Rapture occurs. So we have a Rapture that is more than seven years prior to the Second Coming. That wipes out the post-Tribulational view, it wipes out the mid-Tribulational view, and it wipes out the partial-Rapture view. You see the Rapture occurs more than seven years before the Second Coming. That is what II Thessalonians teaches as we put together all the scriptures.
We also went into the Book of Revelation yesterday and looked at this idea that the Church has to go through the Tribulation. While the post-Tribulationists, before World War II, just said it was all past and that there was no tribulation ahead. Now, they say there is tribulation ahead. Now they have to face the facts that the Bible teaches that we are not subject to wrath.
When you get into the Book of Revelation it is very obvious that the wrath is there. Chapter 6 states that the wrath of God is there. The fourth seal in Chapter 6 wipes out a fourth of the world’s population. If that is not the Great Tribulation I do not know what is! Then, when you get down to the trumpet judgments that follow the seal judgments you find a third of the world destroyed in the sixth trumpet. Then, on top of that you come to Chapter 16 and here they pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God on the world and there are devastating world-wide judgments. The last one of which in Chapter 16 is an earthquake that levels the cities of the Gentiles (apparently not Israel). On top of that islands disappear, mountains disappear, the whole world is in convulsions. Can you imagine the loss of life, the destruction of property, the tidal waves, all the catastrophes that add up through this end-time scene? Then, on top of that, we are told that the world is peppered with a hail storm, with the hailstones weighing 100 pounds each. I do not need to tell you that that is absolute destruction. If you go to fictional books you could not imagine a more awful time.
Now, the post-Tribulationalists want us to believe that the Church goes through this unscathed! But, that is exactly what the Book of Revelation contradicts. While the 144,000 are preserved (12,000 from each of the 12 tribes), in Revelation Chapter 7 beginning in verse 9 Scripture pictures the scene in Heaven and John sees a great multitude of people from every nation and kindred and tongue. He asks where did they come from? They came out of the Great Tribulation. These are people who were saved after the Rapture – millions of them, perhaps— but now they are facing the awful judgments of the end time. The world ruler is going to try to kill every one of them. Behead them, according to scripture, because they will not worship him. Then, they are also subject to all the catastrophes that overtake the world in pestilence, famine, war. These do not just single out unsaved people. So, there is going to be a great mass of people who got saved after the Rapture that now seal their testimony with their own blood. It does not sound to me like the Church is going to go through this period unscathed. There will be some who escape, but I take it the percentage is small. The evidence seems to pile up that most of those who come to Christ in the Tribulation time will die a sudden, catastrophic death of one kind or another. So, that is what the Bible teaches. So, there is not any room for a post-Tribulational Rapture.
Now, I want to turn to the Book of Revelation. I want you to see that this is not something I foist on the Book. This is what the Bible teaches. It is all related to the Second Coming of Christ. You see, the traditional post-Tribulationist view says that when Christ comes from Heaven in His Second Coming, that the Church rises up to meet Him and then turns around and comes back to earth with Him. The problem is where is that in the Bible? It simply is not there. I want you to see that.
In Chapter 19, first of all, we are introduced to the great glory of Heaven and the announcement is made in verse 7, “Let us be glad and rejoice and give glory for the marriage [and it should be the marriage feast] of the Lamb has come and his wife hath made herself ready. So, blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”
The Greek word is “gammos” in both cases. They did not have a marriage ceremony in Christ’s day like ours. They had a marriage supper. In understanding the traditions of the times there were three stages to this. There was the first stage where the parents of the bridegroom would pay the parents of the bride a dowry. When that dowry was paid, the young people were legally married. Usually, they did not start living together for at least another year. Then, there came the second phase when the bridegroom, as illustrated in the parable of the ten virgins, would claim his bride. That would be phase 2. The third phase was the wedding feast. What do we have here? The wedding feast.
So, it is very clear from Chapter 19 that the Rapture has already occurred. The bridegroom has already claimed his bride. You see, there is no room for a subsequent event like that when they are celebrating the marriage feast. That, of course, is the point of the ten virgins. The ten virgins, of course, assumed that the bridegroom has paid the dowry. He did that when He died for us on the cross. Then, the bridegroom claims his bride, but that is not the point of the parable. The point of the parable is to tell us who is eligible to attend the wedding feast. That is where the ten virgins come in. Of course, as you know, the five virgins were wise and went into the marriage feast and the others, who were not ready because they did not have oil in their lamp, were shut out.
In other words, the issue and the point of the whole parable was not so much to discuss the dowry or the Rapture of the Church because it does not really detail that. But it does teach the people who are going to face the issue to ask “are we ready for the marriage supper of the Lamb?”
There is a lot of debate as to when that occurs but hereafter more than seven years have gone by and it has not occurred yet. So, apparently, it probably is in connection with the first days of the Millennial Kingdom. That is as near as we can get to an affirmation. Now, you bear in mind and you have all seen this picture of this unending table which goes out into infinity. Are millions and millions of people are going to sit down to a wedding feast? Well, I am a literalist, but I find that a little bit hard to understand. I cannot imagine millions of people sitting down to a supper. So I take it that is what it is talking about is that we are all going to enjoy the blessings of Heaven-the bride and the bridegroom are there, of course. Then, all the others that are not part of the Church are also going to share in the blessings of eternity. They are going to be there and enjoy the Millennial Kingdom. That is why I think it is called a marriage supper. It climaxes Christ coming for His Church and taking her to Himself.
Let’s go on to this because in verse 19 and following we have a picture of Jesus Christ coming back in power and glory. In verse 11 and following, and I want you to listen as I read this—(Bear in mind the contrast between this scene of the Second Coming and the scene of the Rapture in I Thessalonians 4. What happened at the Rapture? Well, Christ appeared, oddly in Heaven. He calls Christians who have died to be resurrected; living Christians to be changed. They meet Him in the air and go to Heaven. He never touches the earth. The earth is not affected at all. In fact, there is no clear evidence that anybody in the world knows what is happening because the Rapture is an instantaneous event. Suddenly, every Christian is gone. It is going to be quite a traumatic experience for a person who is not a Christian to be talking to a Christian who suddenly disappears. I take it that the Rapture is going to really jolt some people into finding out what the truth is. I believe many of them will come to Christ as a result. Millions of people will accept Christ after the Rapture. That seems to be what the Bible teaches. Now, many of them, as I pointed out, will be martyred, but they will be saved and will be with Jesus forever.)—Here is the picture of what He saw in verse 11,
“I saw Heaven open and, behold, a white horse. He who sat on it was called faithful and true and in righteousness He judges and makes war.”
This is not a peaceful venture. The white horse, of course, is symbolic of victory. A Roman general when he won a victory would ride through the streets on a white horse and the prisoners of war would follow them in the streets. It says that he in righteousness judges and makes war. It is a time of judgment.
“His eyes are like a flame of fire. On his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood and His name is called the Word of God. The armies in Heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.”
They are part of the victory, you see.
“Out of His mouth goes a sharp sword goes a sharp sword that with it He should strike the nations and He, Himself, will rule them with a rod of iron. He, Himself, treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of almighty God and He had on His robe and on His thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
This is an awesome, awesome picture and the scriptures tell us that the whole world is going to see it. Millions of saints and angels accompanying Christ from Heaven to the earth to assist in His Millennial Kingdom, His reign on earth. It is going to be a glorious thing and the heavens are going to be ablaze with the glory of God. I take it there may be a processional that will last for 24 hours because the earth turns. It says the whole world is going to see it. Now, it happened in an instant in one place in the Holy Land and the other side of the world could not see it. It says every eye is going to see it. They are going to know what it is. They are going to know it is the Second Coming of Christ and they are going to know that they are not saved. It is too late. There comes a time when it is too late. It is a time when the glory of Christ appears in Heaven. It’s too late to turn to Christ and be saved.
The verses which follow do not describe any rapture. In fact, I do not think there is a scrap of evidence that there is either a rapture or a resurrection on the day of Christ’s Second Coming. It is commonly held that is when it is going to occur. Try to find it in the Bible. It simply is not there. The resurrection comes a few days later, but there is not any rapture at all. You see, at the Rapture of the Church there are two things: there is a rapture of living people whose bodies were instantly changed,(according to I Corinthians 15, and made suitable for Heaven) and also there is a raising of the dead Christians from the dead and their souls reentering their new body. Those are the two things necessary for a rapture.
There is another resurrection but only one rapture in the Bible. So this is what happens at the Rapture of the Church. But there is no rapture here in Revelation 19 and there is no resurrection. We follow here in verse 17 that the “vultures, the birds in the midst of Heaven are invited to come and gather together for the supper of the great God that ye eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men” and so on. In other words, when Christ uses the sword out of His mouth, these armies which have been fighting it out for power and were brought there by Satan have all turned to try to fight the army from Heaven, but it is all absolutely futile. There is no war. Christ just speaks the word and all these millions of men involved in this final struggle and their horses are instantly killed. The judgment of God is not pretty. It is awful! That is one of the awful judgments here. The vultures are invited to feast and have their supper. This is in contrast to the marriage of the Lamb in the early part of the chapter, you remember, where the wedding feast is for the saved. Now, this is the vultures feeding on those who are lost.
It sums it up in verse 20, with the beast (that is the world ruler) and the false prophet (who worked with them and caused the people to worship him) are both captured alive and cast into the lake of fire. At this point, there is nobody in the lake of fire. To this point when unsaved people die they go to what we call “Hades,” a place of the dead. We have this place Hades described in various passages such as Luke 16 where the rich man and the poor man go to glory and they are separated and the poor man is in torment in Hades. Well, that is where they go now, but here is the first one that is cast into the lake of fire. We learn in Matthew 25 that the lake of fire is prepared for the devil and his angels. That is its primary purpose. That is where they are going to end up. But those who reject Christ are going to share that awful fate as the Bible makes very plain.
Certain things follow the Second Coming. It is amazing to me how Bible scholars mess this up. In Chapter 20, verses 1-3, it pictures the binding of Satan. You know what the Amillennialists try to tell us? That Satan was bound at the first coming of Christ. That is not what my Bible teaches. You remember in I Peter it tells us that the “devil is as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour”? If the roaring lion came down that aisle here you would lose interest in my sermon in a hurry, wouldn’t you? A roaring lion is not something you can tamper with. That is what Satan is doing. Do you realize? I do not think many Christians realize it, but if Satan had his way he would kill every Christian. He would ruin every Christian work. He would spoil everything and make it impossible. The only reason why we preachers survive and the only reason why you survive as a Christian with any testimony at all is because God protects you. That has always been true.
Do you remember the Book of Job? He was a godly, righteous man and God called Satan’s attention to him. Satan said, “well, it is because you are so good to him. Let me at him.” You know, God said “all right. You can get at him but you cannot take his life.” The first thing that Satan did was to kill every one of his family and all his herds. They were carried away and he was robbed. He was left with nothing except a wife who told him to curse God and die. The devil left her because he could use her. A sad thing, isn’t it?
Then, Satan said “let me get at HIM” and God said “all right. You can get at his body, but you cannot kill him.” He had terrible sores and we have the long record of how his friends tried to figure out what was happening. Now, this illustrates that Satan can get at us if God permits it. Satan told God “you have built a hedge about him that I cannot get at.” The only reason you have any peace and tranquility at all is because God has marvelously protected you. When you get to Heaven, you are going to discover all sorts of things that were kept out of your life by the power and grace of God that Satan would have loved to have brought in and just wrecked your life in every which way. So, here, we have some cast into the lake of fire where the Devil and his angels are going ultimately.
Now, in Chapter 20 we have Satan bound. I am distinguishing in this passage what John saw and what he heard. He saw an angel come down from heaven with a big chain and He bound Satan and put him in the abyss (that is the home of the demon world) and put a seal on the top and shut him out. That much he could see. What he did not know was the purpose. He heard that. It was revealed to him that what he was seeing is that Satan would be bound for 1,000 years. You cannot “see” those details. That had to be told to him.
Now, I believe that on the one hand we have to interpret what we see, but, on the other hand, when God says “this is what it means” then you are not free to “tamper” with that and say it does not mean what God says it means. The devil was bound here. For the entire 1,000–year reign of Christ, following His Second Coming, Satan and the demon world will be inactive.
People say, “why is there a Millennial Kingdom anyway?” Well, you know God has been trying the human race. He has tried them out in innocency and they sin. He tried them out with conscience—go down through the dispensations, He has tried every means possible! Now, people say, “well, it is the devil that tempted me.” All right. The devil is going to be bound. Are men still wicked? Yes, they are. We read that some, in spite of everything, with Christ visually present in the world, and His glorious nature. Yet they attempt to conquer the city of Jerusalem, the capital city, by force. Of course, there is a tragic end for them because fire comes down from heaven and destroys them. It illustrates that man, even under the best environment, with all the information that he needs to lead a holy life, is still basically wicked. Apart from the grace of God, there will be no salvation, no sanctification, no Heaven, and no grace of God is manifest in their life.
Verses 4 to 6 are especially interesting to me in regard to the Rapture. He said,
“I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness of Jesus and for the Word of God who would not worship the beast or his image, who had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands.”
Now, who are these people? These are people who lived in that last three-and-a-half years prior to the Second Coming of Christ. It says here that when this beast, this world ruler was in power, that they refuse to worship him. The result was they were beheaded. They were killed one, two or three years before the Second Coming of Christ. Now it says that they lived and reigned with Christ 1,000 years. When were they resurrected? After the Second Coming of Christ. They had just been dead a few years. Now they are resurrected and resurrected from the grave. Do you know what the amillenarians do with that? They say this is simply the conversion of the unsaved. Where in the world is that in that passage? I cannot understand how competent scholars, godly men, can come up with such a strange interpretation. This is not the conversion of unsaved people. This is the resurrection of people who are born again and have died as martyrs and now are being restored. For what purpose? To live and reign with Christ for how many years? 1,000 years. You see, I am a pre-millenarian and I believe that Christ comes first and the Millennium follows. The reason I do is because it is taught in this verse. These people are going to reign with Christ for 1,000 years.
Now, it goes on to say this is the first resurrection. Wait a minute! Is this the Rapture? Well, of course not. What does it mean the first resurrection? You know it is amazing to me how post-Tribulational books land on this and they say this must be the Rapture. It has been explained again and again and again in pre-Tribulational books that that is not what it means. I have yet to read a post-Tribulational book that will acknowledge that they know the other answer. See, the word “first” occurs in different ways. It is not number one resurrection, but it means that something is done first. For instance, the housewife will say “I am going downtown to shop but first I am going to put the supper in the oven.” That is not the first time she did it. What does she mean when she says it is done first? Well, it is done before. There are two events here: going downtown is the second event, but the first event is putting the meal into the oven. Now, here are two events, too. Here is the resurrection of the righteous martyrs who died. That is first. The second resurrection is at the end of this chapter where the wicked dead, 1,000 years later, are raised from the dead and cast into the lake of fire. You see, one, two.
One of the strange things that theologians have tried to perpetuate is the idea there is one great final judgment and one great resurrection. The Bible does not teach that. You have just got to ignore what the Bible teaches in order to arrive at such a strange conclusion. You see, there is another resurrection in the Bible. What is the first one? Christ. Was He raised from the dead? Yes. Then, in Matthew 27 it tells us there was a token resurrection where a few were raised. Why? Because when Christ was raised He was the first fruits, plural, and so there are others raised to illustrate this and they were raised in Matthew 27.
Then, we have the Rapture of the Church. That is resurrection number three. Then, in Revelation 11, we have the two witnesses that witnessed for three-and-a-half years and God allows them to be killed. While the world is gloating over their death, they are lying in the streets of Jerusalem, suddenly they rise from the dead and are sent to Heaven. They are resurrected, too.
Here is the resurrection of the martyred dead—still another resurrection. This is resurrection number five if you want to keep track. Then, in Daniel 12 it mentions the Old Testament saints as being raised into the Tribulation. We are not told specifically what day it is, but that is the next one so there are six. The seventh resurrection, of course, is the resurrection of the wicked dead at the end of this chapter.
I want you to notice something, though, here. When does this resurrection take place? It takes place several days, apparently, after the Second Coming. In order words, there is a resurrection here, but there is no translation. You see, the saints that live on the earth at the time of the Second Coming go into the Millennial Kingdom in their natural bodies. They are not raptured. They still are in their natural bodies and the Bible pictures it that way. You read Isaiah 65. They are going to plant crops, they are going to build houses, they are going to bear children, they are going to live, they are going to die, they are going to sin. You see, they are still in their natural bodies and that is the way they are going to enter the Millennial Kingdom. So, there is no Rapture at that time.
If they have all been raptured at the time of the Second Coming there would be nobody left to populate the millennial earth in its natural way. So, there cannot be a Rapture at this time and there is not any. So, the first resurrection is the resurrection that is first in the sense that it is before the resurrection of the wicked at the end of the 1,000 years. It reminds us again they shall reign with Him 1,000 years. Verse 7 also tells us when the 1,000 years are expired Satan will be released from his prison and he will go out, as I have indicated earlier, and cause people who are not saved to rebel against God even in the Millennial Kingdom. And they are destroyed by a fire from heaven. Then follows the great sad, great White Throne Judgment of the wicked. They are cast into the lake of fire because their names are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Now, you see there is just no Rapture here. We saw yesterday how in the judgment of the nations that the Gentiles the sheep are still mixed with the unsaved, the goats, after the Second Coming of Christ. There was no Rapture at the Second Coming. There was no separation, but it did occur later when those that were unsaved were taken out because they were not worthy to enter the Millennial Kingdom. But the righteous stay on earth, just the opposite of the Rapture, the righteous stay in and the wicked are taken out and they go into the Millennial Kingdom.
So, as you examine these scriptures there simply is no Rapture. There just isn’t any. Those who say that there is a Rapture at this point have to create it out of whole cloth. They do not have a single verse of the Bible to support their position.
Now, we are going to have a little question/answer hour, as I promised, and our system is going to be very simple. Raise your hand. and I will ask you to state your question. Then, I will try to repeat it because they are going to try to record this. We will see if we can get a few questions answered this morning. Who will be first? Stand up so I can see you. All right.
Q: The question is where do people go into the Millennial Kingdom?
A: Now, the Bible does not give us much information on this, but it does tell us that when the present earth and Heaven flee away and are destroyed the New Jerusalem descends from God out of Heaven. In contrast to the new heavens and new earth which are said to be created, the New Jerusalem is not said to be created. This has raised the question. Is it in existence during the Millennial Kingdom? It is 1,500 miles square. It obviously would blot out the whole Holy Land if it was on earth. So it cannot be on earth. The theory is that there can be a city like that as a satellite city. The Bible does not tell us this. They are just manufacturing this in trying to figure it out. But there are some that think that resurrection and raptured saints will have their residence in the new Jerusalem.
Just like a person who has his residence in the country and goes into town to his office so we will commute from that to the earth to carry on our functions because we are going to work in the world. There is so little scripture on this that I would rather say I do not know and leave the matter up to God when the time comes.
There is much that God has not seen fit to reveal. Why has He not revealed it? Because we do not need to know. It is amazing how we all want to know the things we do not need to know and the things we ought to know sometimes we neglect. That, unfortunately, is the case in the study of prophecy. There are a lot of things that are not revealed. So, I cannot really answer your question with finality because the Word of God does not answer it. Next question.
Q: The question is, is the Holy Spirit taken out of the world at the Rapture? The resulting question is how can people be born again if the Holy Spirit is taken out?
A: Of course, you cannot take the Holy Spirit out. God is omnipresent. There is no way that that can be changed where He is not present in a part of His universe. So, He is going to be there. According to II Thessalonians 2, they Holy Spirit is going to be taken away in the sense that He removes the restraint. Now, you see in the present age the Church indwelt by the Holy Spirit is God’s principle means of holding down the floodtides of evil. While we are a small minority we, nevertheless, are the fountainhead for morality and rule of life and things that are right and wrong. We still point to the Church. The Church is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Now, if the Holy Spirit’s restraint is removed, the only way this could be accomplished is by the Holy Spirit to be taken out with the Church.
You see, before Pentecost the Holy Spirit did not indwell every Christian – now He does. As far as I can tell from scripture, once the Rapture of the Church occurs, the Holy Spirit does not indwell people in the Tribulation time. When you get to the Millennial Kingdom, then, again, the Holy Spirit indwells. So, we have to be very careful how we observe exactly what the scripture says and exactly what it does not say. You cannot remove the Holy Spirit. The fact is, as I brought out, millions of people will be saved after the Rapture. This cannot be accomplished without the Holy Spirit. Of course, the answer is how? Well, how were they saved before Pentecost? You see, the Holy Spirit was in the world there, but He was not in us. So, what changed is the indwelling of the presence of the Holy Spirit and His restraint upon the world of sin as a whole. That is going to be changed in the Great Tribulation. God is going to allow the human race to manifest how terribly sinful it really is. It will be a time of unprecedented lawlessness summed up, of course, ultimately in the worship of Satan and the world rulers. So, I take it the Holy Spirit is omnipresent, but He does not exercise the qualities He is doing now. Next question.
Q: The question is will the pope be able to bring together the various churches?
A: We have the so-called ecumenical movement that came to a head in 1948 when the World Council of Churches was formed and the purpose of this is to unite all Christians under one gigantic organization where the power will be in a hierarchy at the top. It has not worked out very well because it is largely in the hands of liberals, although there are some evangelical Christians involved in it. The world church movement is not prospering.
I take it when the Rapture of the Church occurs and every true Christian is taken out of the world, including out of the world-Church-movement, all who will be left will be apostate teachers. I take it this fulfills what Revelation 17 described as a harlot astride a scarlet colored beast. This is a world Church movement that is utterly wicked and utterly departing from God. In fact, the woman is described as drunk with the blood of the saints. He is going to put to death those who are actually born again.
So, there is a world Church movement in the world today. It is one of the major things I did not get to this week along with the work in the Church, the true Church, the Rapture of the Church, and then the nations of the world, the changes in Europe and the formation eventually of the Roman Empire. Then, we saw in Israel the fact that Israel is in the land—all these things are important and the world church movement is another aspect of that. So, I take it that that is part of the end-time picture. Now, put this together, if you will. In 1946, the United Nations brings the idea of a world government which, of course, characterizes the end. In 1948, Israel is given their 5,000 square miles. Israel is back in the land. In 1948, the World Council of Churches is formed. Here you have the three major areas of God’s prophecies – the Church, the world, and Israel – all affected in a very short time after World War II. It is just as if God is saying that the stage is getting set and the time is drawing near. It could be that the Rapture of the Church is very, very near.
Now, our time is up and we want to conclude this service. Let us bow in a word of prayer.
Our Father, how grateful we are that while there are many things we only know in part and many questions which cannot be finally answered, the things that are important have been answered. We know how to be saved. We know how to look for the Lord’s coming. We know that when He comes He is going to catch us out of the world and take us to Heaven. We know we are going to be in His presence forever. We are the objects of His love and grace and will illustrate through all eternity what the grace of God is. So, help us, Lord, to get excited about this and be looking for this precious hope and then be living in the way that is well pleasing to the Lord as we face this great future. We ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.