Reasons for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture – 2

Transcript

GR 1998
03/26/2017
Reasons for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture – 2
Revelation; Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

In our regular study on Sunday mornings we are in the book of Revelation and we have moved through the first three chapters. And there is a major break in the book of Revelation after chapter 3. When we move to chapter 4 we will move into a picture of heaven. That will be in chapters 4-5. And then in chapter 6 we are brought back down to earth and we'll move into events associated with the 70th week of Daniel, sometimes called the tribulation, the Day of the Lord which encompasses that and other things. And what we are doing is talking about God's overall plan and how the church fits into this. And we've done several things that we won't be able to review, but I just remind you of.

The framework for what God is doing with the nation Israel is found in Daniel 9. And we have a chart, “The 70 Weeks of Daniel.” We won't go back there but if you'd put that up on the big screen, Steve. You can see here we have broken it down. In Daniel 9 Daniel is told that there are seventy weeks determining God's program for Israel, which will accomplish six things that are mentioned in those opening verses of Daniel 9, which will bring us into the kingdom that God has promised and prophesied to Israel. What is not revealed in the Old Testament, and really through the Gospels as well, is that there is a break. And this break here in the church age, that tan area is the church age. So as you will note we had 483 years, that is 69 weeks that were fulfilled up until the crucifixion of Christ. And just about when they came to a completion, we are just saying about a week before the death of Christ and His subsequent resurrection. These are weeks of years so total of 490 years—70 x 7. Sixty-nine of those weeks brought us up until the time we are told in Daniel 9 that after the 69th week the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing. You have the crucifixion of Christ, and you don't have the establishing of the kingdom.

Then Daniel 9 tells us that there is coming a prince who will sign an agreement with Israel for one seven-year period. That's what we have back here, called the 70th week of Daniel, that last seven-year period. Now what is not revealed until we get into the New Testament epistles, begins in the Acts 2, is what is called the church age, this brown period colored brown here. After Christ ascends to heaven in Acts 1, the Holy Spirit comes as Christ said He would in Acts 2. And the church begins. Now I believe the Scripture indicates that at the end of the church age we will have what is called the rapture of the church and the church will be called from earth to meet Christ in the air and we will be taken to heaven, the place He has prepared.

He had told the disciples of this event but they didn't understand it, because He hadn't told them anything that was really understandable about what is called the church age. But in John 14, Jesus said to the disciples on that last night before His crucifixion, “In My Father's house are many dwelling places, 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 I will get you so that you can be with Me in My Father's house.” Well that's different, He didn't tell them I will come back to earth and establish the kingdom and you can be with Me in the kingdom. He said, I will prepare a place for you in heaven in My Father's house. Then I will come and get you and take you back to the place in My Father's house I have prepared. There is an indication and a promise that has to do with what we call the rapture of the church, the removal of the church. There are other passages—1 Corinthians 15:51-58 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Philippians 3, we have talked about. So these kinds of passages are dealing with this rapture, after the church age.

How do we know the church will be removed in the rapture at the end of the church age and before this last seven-year period? We began to look at seven reasons. They are not the only reasons, I just selected seven that indicate the church which began in Acts 2 and will continue until the rapture. The church will be removed before this final seven-year period in God's program for Israel. And when Christ returns at the end of that seven years, the church will come with Him and then He will establish the kingdom. The book of Revelation moves us through. Really this period here, this 70th week is what Revelation 6-19 is about and it is broken into two 3½ -year segments. We'll see that as we move through the book of Revelation.

The distinction we're talking about has to do with what this is called the rapture, this is called the Second Coming to earth on this line—one before the seven years, one after the seven years. Both before the kingdom that He will establish. The rapture is referred to, for example, in 1 Thessalonians 4. I was reading something this week where someone remarked about the word rapture doesn't appear in the Bible, and we talked about this. The word rapture is a word we use in English, the Greek word is harpazo, for example used in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 where the church is caught up. Our word rapture comes from the Latin word. When the Greek Bible was translated into Latin and then we carried some of those words into English. We talk about the millennium, which is Latin for thousand years, which we will come to in Revelation 20.

So we are looking at reasons why we believe the rapture occurs at the end of the church age and before the tribulation. There are different views, they are all wrong, so we are just looking at the right one. We'll say more about those later.

The first reason why I believe the rapture occurs at the beginning, we've looked at this, the focus of the 70 weeks of Daniel. Remember in Daniel 9, seventy weeks are determined upon you, your people and the holy city. So it is for Daniel and his people the Jews and the city of Jerusalem. So the focus of the 70 weeks of Daniel is on Israel. The church is not revealed in the Old Testament, the church is not revealed in the Gospels. Two uses of the word but there is no real information. Paul says in Ephesians 3 that the mystery of the church and its fullness was given to him. Well Paul is not even saved until you get to Acts 9 in that early history of the church. Now the church began in Acts 2 but the full explaining of what God is doing during this period of time, from Acts 2 down until the rapture of the church is not unfolded until you get into the epistles particularly. So the very focus of the 70 weeks of Daniel is on Israel. And we keep Israel and the church distinct because we follow a literal interpretation of prophecy. So we take the promises to Israel to refer to physical Israel, and the church is not Israel and Israel is not the church. So that's our first reason.

The second reason we looked at was the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the church. We looked at the passages in John's Gospel as Jesus met with His disciples on that last night before His crucifixion. He told them it was important that He go back to heaven because the Holy Spirit would not be sent down to earth until He had returned to heaven. Now the Holy Spirit is God, He has always been present, but following the resurrection and ascension of Christ, the Holy Spirit was going to come in a special and unique way. We looked at this. In John 16 Jesus said when the Holy Spirit comes, He will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. You remember during Christ's earthly ministry, Matthew 10, He sent His disciples out in pairs, two by two. And He said, you don't go to the Samaritans in their cities. Samaritans were mixed-blood Jews, Jews who had intermarried with non-Jews. You don't go to the cities of the Gentiles, you only go to the lost people of the house of Israel. So it was carrying the message to Israel during Christ's earthly ministry, until they rejected Him as their king. When the Holy Spirit comes, His ministry will move beyond Israel to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. And during this period of time we call the church age, it is primarily Gentile. Not that some Jews are not saved, but it is primarily Gentile in its impact. God's work of salvation is focused in the church, not in Israel in these days. So the promised ministry of the Holy Spirit. That verse I read, he talks about the Holy Spirit coming in John 14:15, but it is in John 16 that He says He will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. We'll say more about the Holy Spirit's ministry as well at a later point, we looked at it last time but we will repeat it later.

A third reason, now as we move forward to what we have not covered, the absence of the church in Revelation 6-18. By this I mean the church is mentioned as the church 20 times in the book of Revelation, 19 times in the first three chapters, then one time in the last chapter, chapter 22. I think it is significant that during the first three chapters he refers to the church 19 times and he won't mention the church as the church again until he closes that book in chapter 22. Now I think the church is present in Revelation 4 and following, but not on earth. And we will see when we get into chapters 4-5, we're going to see the church represented as being in heaven, and represented by the 24 elders. And we'll talk about that and the reasons why we understand that the 24 elders are representative of the church. And those 24 elders will be mentioned again in chapters 7, 11, 14.

Turn to Revelation 19. Here is an example of the 24 elders in Revelation 19. And the maybe we'll come back to Revelation 4 and you'll see them at the beginning. Revelation 19, you are preparing for the return of Christ to the earth and so there is celebration in heaven that now we will have Christ coming in His glory to this earth to destroy His enemies and to establish His kingdom. So there is shouting in heaven. Verse 1, “Hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God.” And you'll note down in verse 4, “And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne, saying, Amen, hallelujah, praise God.” The 24 elders there I believe represent the church. Then the marriage of the Lamb and His bride has made herself ready. And the bride comes now back to earth with Christ. She already has been taken to heaven in the rapture. The marriage of the Lamb has occurred. Now we come back to earth for the marriage supper of the Lamb, the unveiling and revealing of His bride before all, as Revelation 19 indicates. Then we'll move into the kingdom in chapter 20.

While you are in Revelation come back to chapter 4, just to mention. We'll get into this when we come into chapter 4. And John is called up to heaven in his spirit to observe now things that are going to be revealed. So he is told at the end of verse 1, “Come up here and I will show you what must take place after these things.” So a door is opened in heaven and he is brought into heaven, and he is in the spirit there, has been transformed like in a vision, if you will. In verse 3, “and He who is sitting,” there is one sitting on a throne and He is described in His glorious appearance. Then verse 4, “Around the throne were 24 elders,” that's the throne of God. There are 24 thrones. “Upon the thrones were 24 elders.” So you have God the Father, we're going to see all three members of the triune God are seen in heaven. We sometimes think we won't see the Father, we will see the Father as well as the Son. And John sees the Father on the throne. “Around the throne are 24 thrones, upon the thrones I saw 24 elders sitting.” I believe this is representative of the church now being in heaven, and we'll do the reasons for that when we get into chapter 4.

So the absence of the church, particularly in Revelation 6-18, where he has addressed individual, local churches repeatedly, particularly in chapters 2-3. Then when you get to the terrible events unfolding on this earth, the church is not mentioned at all on earth. That is significant I believe, and another reason why the indication is the church has been removed. It is not a part of God's 70 weeks, 490 years, that focus His program on the nation Israel. So just like the church did not begin until after the 69th week is over, it will be removed before the 70th week.

A fourth reason for the rapture before this 70th week. This 70th week is characterized by wrath, God's wrath being poured out on an unbelieving world. And the whole world is taken up in this. As we'll see as we move through the book of Revelation, literally billions of people will die on this planet in this seven-year period. It will be so bad that Jesus said in that closing discourse we call the Olivet Discourse given on the Mount of Olives where He addresses this time leading up to His return in glory to the earth. He said if He didn't cut it off after seven years, there wouldn't be a person left alive on the face of the earth. That's how the destruction of God's wrath is consuming the world. But the church is promised deliverance from God's wrath. If you are still in the book of Revelation, come to Revelation 3. Then we are going to go back to the Old Testament and come back into the New. In Revelation 3 remember each of these seven churches are addressed as individual, local churches of the time. But the message given to these churches has significance and importance for every local church. So at the end of every one of these letters remember He said, he who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And each of these letters ends with a promise to the believers in these churches, and the overcomers.

And in the letter to the church at Philadelphia in Revelation 3 he tells of the time, verse 9, and he'll talk about unbelieving Jews who have been involved in persecuting this local church, they will come down and “bow down at your feet and know that I have loved you. Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that which is about to come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth.” Here the church and the churches are promised deliverance from this time that will come. That's what Revelation 6-19 is about, this time of testing, judgment on the world.

Come over to Revelation 6 before we go to the Old Testament. We have moved into the beginning of this 70th week with chapter 6. Chapters 4-5 talked about what is going on in heaven. Now we are back on earth in chapter 6, to see what is happening there. And you see verse 12, the sixth seal is broken, there is an earthquake, the sun became black as sackcloth, the whole moon became like blood, stars fell to the earth, the sky was split apart like a scroll. “The kings of the earth,” verse 15, “ the great men, the commanders, the rich, the strong, every slave, every free man hid themselves in caves, among the rocks. The said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us, hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come and who is able to stand.” Tells you something about the character and characteristics of this period of time. But the church, and in the letter to the church at Philadelphia, the churches have been promised to be kept from this time of testing, the time of God's wrath. It is focused on an unbelieving world.

Let's jump back to just one passage in the Old Testament, Isaiah 13. There are many passages in the Old Testament on the Day of the Lord, and that seven-year period is a key time in the Day of the Lord. It is not all there is to it, but it is a key time in that Day of the Lord, a time when God now is dealing with the enemies of Israel, dealing with a world that has been in open rebellion against Him. And you will note as you go through here, some of what we read in Revelation 6, and we'll see other references that come out of passages like this. Pick up with verse 6, “Wail, for the Day of the Lord is near, it will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will fall limp, every man's heart will melt. They will be terrified.”

Remember that picture we read in Revelation 6, they are crying for the rocks to fall on them, hide us from His wrath. “Pain and anguish will take hold of them, they will writhe like a woman in labor.” This is used by Christ, the same analogy—a woman in labor and the pains that come—to describe this period in Matthew 24. We'll see it as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, talking about this same period, same description. This is time like a woman in labor. “They will look at one another in astonishment, their faces aflame. Behold the Day of the Lord is coming, cruel with fury and burning anger to make the land a desolation. He will exterminate its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations won't flash their light, the sun will be dark when it rises, the moon will not shed its light.” Remember in Revelation 6, talking about the sun, the moon.

“Thus I will punish the world for its evil.” You see the direction of this, not God's purpose that His people, the church, the bride of Christ be here for this. Unbelieving Israel is here, because after the rapture of the church the only people left on the face of the earth are unbelievers, because every believer will have been removed. We will talk about that in a little bit. “Thus I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for its iniquity. I will put an end to the arrogance of the proud, I will abase the haughtiness of the ruthless, I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold, mankind than the gold of Ophir.” And when we go through the tribulation and look at those judgments, you will come through that period wondering. It is hard to believe anybody will be alive. And you realize Christ's words are to be taken literally. If I didn't stop it at the end of seven years, nobody would survive. It's not the kind of situation you could endure indefinitely. And it will be brought to an end by the personal return of Christ to earth. Verse 13, “Therefore I will shake the heaven, make the heavens tremble. The earth will be shaken from its place at the fury of the Lord of hosts in the day of His burning anger.” We are not the objects of God's anger, we are the objects of His love. He is not going to be pouring out His wrath on us, He has promised us deliverance from wrath that will come.

Stop in Matthew 24, I referred to that. And this is a discourse, covers Matthew 24-25, given as the disciples ask Christ about His coming to establish the kingdom and what will be the signs, what is going to be happening. He goes on, we don't have time to read all of this. Verse 9, He tells some of the beginning of things, we'll see this as we progress through this in Revelation. Then in verse 9, “They will deliver you to tribulation, they will kill you, you will be hated,” talking about Jews. Verse 15, “When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the Holy Place.” We'll get to this when we get into Revelation 12 and 13, we'll get details on this from the book of Daniel. Verse 21, “There will be great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world nor ever will be.” Then note verse 22, “Unless those days have been cut short, no life would have been saved.” Talking about this cut it short by cutting it off at the end of seven years by His supernatural intervention. Then in verse 29, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days” then you have the Son of Man coming in glory to the earth to establish His kingdom.

Come over to 1 Thessalonians, Paul wrote extensively about prophetic matters here. Paul wrote two letters to the Thessalonians, we'll be in both of them. Here a promise for deliverance from wrath. Look in 1 Thessalonians 1, the end of verse 9, telling us about their testimony being know, “how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from wrath to come.” Now you come over to 1 Thessalonians 5:9, “God has not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we will live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” We are not destined for the wrath. What is the wrath that he is talking about? Well as we saw at a previous point, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 talks about the rapture where we will be caught up to meet Christ in the air and our bodies undergo transformation. Then in verse 1 of chapter 5 he tells them things they already know because this day of wrath has been revealed in Scripture. Things are starting to be put together; we see more pieces.

Verse 2, “For you yourselves know full well that the Day of the Lord,” so there we saw in Isaiah 13 what the Day of the Lord will be like. “It will come like a thief in the night, when they are saying peace and safety destruction will come upon them suddenly like pains upon a woman with child.” That's the same thing Isaiah 13 used as its analogy, that Christ used in Matthew 24. “But you are not in darkness that that day would overtake you like a thief. You are sons of light, sons of day, not of night or darkness.” Down to verse 9, “For God has not destined us for wrath.” So the promise to the church, that time, the most awful time the world will have ever seen, there has nothing ever been like it. That's what Jesus said, it will be something like never seen before. The whole world engulfed in this destructive wrath of God. We look around and say, how does God put up with what goes on? There will come a time when the fullness of His wrath will be displayed so bad when we get into Revelation it will say people will be gnawing on their tongues for pain. You know what it is like when you accidentally bite your tongue, that hurts. Well people will be purposely biting their tongues, trying to distract themselves from the pain other parts of their body are experiencing. Terrible time. But that is not what God intends to pour out on His people. The church is promised deliverance from wrath to come.

So you have the order, the rapture at the end of 1 Thessalonians 4 and then the Day of the Lord. And remember there were no chapter divisions, no verses so as he wrote this it would have just flowed. You “comfort one another with these words.” Now you know about the Day of the Lord, now you know about deliverance before the Day of the Lord. And you are not appointed to wrath. So we'll be studying Revelation but not because we fear or need to know because we'll be there, but we need to know because that is to shape and control our living here. We'll talk about that more at a future time as well. So that is the fourth reason for a pre-tribulation rapture—Christ coming for the church to remove us before that seven-year period.

The fifth is, there must be a gap between the rapture and the Second Coming. We have to have a gap between the rapture and the Second Coming. The Bible indicates when we go into the kingdom that Christ will establish all unbelievers are going to be excluded. But there are going to be people in the millennium that die, there are going to be people in the millennium that sin, there are going to be a huge number at the end of the millennium who rebel against Christ. You have to have a gap between the rapture and the Second Coming to establish His kingdom.

I want to put up a chart, chart 10. But I didn't realize I made a mistake. This gives you the two views, this is the view we are defending here. The rapture occurs before the 70th week. This here, and I didn't realize this until the last hour when I did my class and I'm explaining. There are those who hold the rapture occurs after the tribulation, they believe the church goes through the 70th week. So when I put this together I picked it up from over here but as I explained it, I said the church goes through the tribulation when you believe He won't come until after the tribulation. But I didn't continue it through. So that tan color on this one goes through here. Now if the rapture occurs here after the seven years, Christ returns, calls the church to meet Him in the air, then comes back down to earth with the church and we go into the kingdom, everybody going into the kingdom has a glorified body because living and dead are translated, undergo a change, they are glorified. Then we go into the millennium.

Come back to Isaiah 65, in case you are not familiar, just an example passage. Remember the Old Testament prophets didn't put things in order. In fact much of the order is not put together in biblical prophecy until you get to the book of Revelation. Isaiah when he wrote, he wrote about the coming of the Lord. He didn't write about the first coming and the Second Coming, he wrote about the coming of the Lord. Later revelation enables us to see that when Isaiah wrote this it really was fulfilled at the first coming, when he wrote this it is at the Second Coming. So we are going to see here things that are mixed together.

Verse 17, “Behold I create new heavens and a new earth,” we'll get to that in Revelation 21. There is no weeping, no crying, and he'll mention that verse in Revelation 21. “There will no longer be an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who doesn't live out his days.” Now note this, “A youth will die at the age of one hundred, one who does not reach the age of one hundred will be accursed.” Wait a minute, if everybody going into the kingdom has a glorified body, how can anybody die and be under the curse of God? That's why we are saying there has to be some kind of gap between the coming to earth and the establishing of the kingdom here.

Then on we go, down in verse 23, “They won't labor in vain or bear children for calamity.” And the animals, the curse will be lifted from the creation as the chapter ends. But you have death occurring here. In Zechariah you have mention of punishment on the nation of Egypt if they don't come up for the appointed feasts at the temple. And we're in the kingdom. Wait a minute, how can you not do what you are supposed to do if people aren't sinning? So this is why there must be a break.

Come over to Revelation 20. Now we have the first phase of the eternal kingdom revealed in Revelation 20 for the first time, and we'll get to this. There is a thousand years at the beginning of this eternal kingdom. During this thousand years Satan is bound, Revelation 20:2. “He is bound for a thousand years.” That means he is not free to go about on the earth, he is not present on earth during this thousand-year period when Christ is reigning. And a resurrection, we won't get into that right now. And there is blessing on those who have been part of the first resurrection, Christ reigning for a thousand years and we reign with Him. Verse 7, “When the thousand years are completed, Satan is released from his prison.” Now he'll come about the earth to deceive the nations. So for a thousand years Christ has been reigning, there has been no satanic influence anywhere in the world. Furthermore it has been a perfect environment, the animals don't even fight with each other; the curse has been lifted. But now Satan is turned loose and he goes about deceiving people in all the nations of the world. And you'll note, the end of verse 8, “The number of them is like the sand of the seashores. They came up on the broad plain of the earth to surround the camp of the saints, the beloved city,” Jerusalem. “Fire came down from heaven and destroyed them.”

Now where did this number that you can't even count…. they are like the sand of the seashore. Because remember during this thousand years there will be no death except for overt sin. People will know, someone dies who is only 99, he's cursed of God. So there won't be murders going on and so on. Christ will intervene before those kinds of sins occur.

But now there have been children born. So you have to have people going into the kingdom in their physical bodies. If the rapture occurs at the end of the seven-year tribulation as Christ returns to earth to establish His kingdom, everybody going into the kingdom has a glorified body, no physical body. Who is having children? Jesus said when you get a resurrection body you will not marry, you will not be having a family. Where do these people like the sand of the seashore come from if everybody got a glorified body when Christ was on His way down to establish His kingdom? Our answer….all believers are raptured at the beginning of the seven-year tribulation.

Then as we will see when we study in these chapters of Revelation, there are people saved during that seven years because the Gospel will be preached. There will be people saved. Perhaps some people, if the rapture occurs tonight, those that you shared the Gospel with. And they realize you and other people they knew were believers are gone. Perhaps they will go get that tract out, go get their Bible out and they'll get saved. We don't know, but there will be people saved in that seven years. They are in natural physical bodies. They as unbelievers went in, they have children, children are born. There is no death, there is no disease so we have a population explosion going on like has never occurred. So after a thousand years of no disease, no cancer, none of that, the earth has been repopulated.

And you see what happens. People living during this thousand years in these physical bodies, born there, have had a perfect King, they have lived in a world of a perfect environment, Satan has not been present. The only thing there is their sinful heart that they were born with. And when Satan is given his freedom now, they are moved. You can have Satan as your god or you can have Christ. They come up, let's dethrone Christ. So we have the destruction of all the wicked, the Great White Throne, and we move into eternity.

The people's excuse is it's their environment. If we help them improve their environment. Well, after a thousand years with a perfect environment people aren't improved. Well if it weren't for the devil in the world deceiving people . . . Take the devil out for a thousand years, you haven't improved people. It is God's final demonstration that our problem is us and our own sinfulness.

So you have to have time. What do people that believe the rapture occurs after the 70 weeks? The blend the church and Israel. That's why we call them covenantal pre-millennielists. They believe Christ will come to earth to establish His kingdom but they believe that the church has replaced Israel.

I was reading a man yesterday in connection with our study in Galatians, but he is a post-tribulationist. He was talking about the church being the new Israel and Israel really gets absorbed into the church so that church age just continues and the church goes through the tribulation. But then you have the problem. So then they say maybe some unbelievers do get to go into the kingdom and only really bad people who have been persecuting the Jews. But that's really a problem. You are not only confusing, you don't take a literal interpretation. That's why we started with literal interpretation. If you are going to have the church be the new Israel, you don't have any verses to support that if you interpret the Bible literally. So they begin to adjust it.

So pre-trib. There has to be a gap between the rapture and the Second Coming. We have seven years for people to get saved and those who are believers and have survived the seven-year tribulation, they were saved after the rapture. They will go into the kingdom in their physical bodies. Now we'll be that kingdom in our glorified body. They in their physical body will be marrying, having children and so on. We will be ruling and reigning with Christ in our glorified bodies. It's not a problem, there are spirit-being angels here and we are physical here. The only thing is they are not visible. So it's not a problem. You have spirit beings, have glorified beings. When Christ got His glorified body He sat down with the disciples and had fish. So maybe in our glorified body we will stop in on some of these people and have dinner. That's not in Revelation but we'll see how it unfolds. So that was the fifth point, there must be a gap.

The sixth point, the departure in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, come back there. In his first letter he talked about the rapture and then the indication in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 is evidently some in Thessalonica were concerned. If we are looking for the rapture of the church, what about our loved ones who have died? Do they just lose out? Now understand if we are alive, we will be caught up to meet Christ in the air. What about Christians who have died? And Paul told them, don't worry about that, their bodies are going to be caught up and they will move back into those bodies. And they will be glorified. Now when you get into his second letter he says to them in chapter 2, “Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him.” What would they be talking about? Well, what he wrote them in the first letter. “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, the voice of the archangel, the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we will ever be with the Lord.” Because as John 14 says He takes us to His Father's house where He has prepared a place.

So in 2 Thessalonians 2:1, the coming of our Lord and our gathering together to Him. He doesn't say our coming of the Lord to the earth to establish His kingdom, which is what the Jews had been looking for through their history until the coming of Christ. “I don't want you,” verse 2, “to be quickly shaken from your composure or disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us to the effect,” now here is our expression, “that the Day of the Lord has come.”

We know from Acts that the Thessalonian church was under persecution and they knew what had been taught, what the Old Testament Scripture said and what had further been taught that there was going to be a time of God's wrath and suffering. Maybe we are in it. And evidently some false teachers were coming and spreading the word and saying, that's what Paul teaches. Remember he said early in his ministry, through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom. So we are in the Day of the Lord, that's why you are suffering. Paul says don't be shaken by that, “to the effect the Day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you. It will not come until,” two things happen, “the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship so he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as God.”

Remember I told you these things when I was with you.
Amazing what Paul got into. Paul only spent weeks in Thessalonica but he taught them prophecy. People today in church say I'm not that interested in prophecy, I don't see its relevance. Well, Paul saw its relevance, I told you that when I was there. And he wasn't there that long, because the opposition built and he had to leave. But remember I told you about this.

What does he say? “……. deceive you unless the apostasy comes first.” That's the first of two events that will happen, the apostasy. We think of apostasy as some kind of heresy. Apostasy is a severe departure from the truth. This word, this noun apostasy is only used one other time in the New Testament and it's a departure from Moses, which would be departing from what Moses had revealed. But the basic meaning of the word is departure. Lidell and Scott has a lexicon on classical Greek and I pulled it off my shelf, not because I am an expert in classical Greek, to look at the word again that I had put in my notes. And they give the meaning, departure, disappearance. I think what this word means here, unless the departure comes first. Now if we had translated it that way, we have just transliterated it because our English word apostasy comes from the Greek word. We've just transliterated the letters, instead of apostasia we have apostasy, just transliterated. But if we had translated it, we would have “unless the departure comes first.” And it has the definite article, the.

What is the departure he has referred to? Well, go back to verse 1. “Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering to Him.” Now let me tell you the Day of the Lord will not come unless the departure comes first. What departure? Well many have taken this to mean there will be a major departure from truth before Christ comes. And I don't say that wouldn't happen, but I think the departure he is talking about here is the departure he talked about in verse 1, the departure he talked about in his previous letter at the end of 1 Thessalonians 4. When we are caught up, we depart from the earth to meet the Lord in the air. The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him. It will not come unless the departure comes first.

And then the second thing that will happen, “the man of lawlessness is revealed.” And if you were here when we went back to Daniel 9, what will mark the beginning of that last seven-year period? The prince who will come will sign a covenant with Israel for one seven-year period. So you can't be in the Day of the Lord because that beginning will be marked with the beginning of that seven-year period when this prince who will come, here called the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, he'll be described for us when we get into those chapter in Revelation, particularly around chapter 13, about when he takes his seat, when all worship must be directed toward him. Here is what Paul talks about. So he has to be revealed. When will he be revealed? Anybody has a Bible, and even unbelievers, maybe they got saved right after the rapture. Doesn't matter. If you missed the rapture by 45 seconds, you missed it. You are going into the tribulation. The rapture occurs, there may be a period of time, maybe weeks, even months. We aren't told, it evidently won't be long because the church is removed so God can complete His program. But shortly thereafter there will be a signing of an agreement with Israel. There may be people sitting and watching the news and they see this man sign the agreement. They will remember what you told them, and they refused to believe. We don't know. That will unveil him, reveal him for who he is. We'll see more about that when we get into Revelation.

We have to jump down to verses 7 and 8, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.” And who or what is restraining, holding back the breaking out and coming of this man of lawlessness and the unfolding of this last seven-year period? Can't happen until the Holy Spirit is removed. How did the Holy Spirit come in Acts 2? Sent from heaven, established the church. He has always been present in the world but He came to begin the church and its ministry. But the church's ministry will be complete, the Holy Spirit leaves with the church in the way He came to begin the church. The restrainer is gone, that which kept this from happening. Could we have the tribulation today, the Day of the Lord begin? No, not unless the rapture of the church occurs today, then it can occur any time. The connection, the man of lawlessness can sign an agreement. So you have the restrainer taken out of the way. That will be the same thing as the departure in verse 3. The church will depart with the removal of the Holy Spirit and just the way He came in Acts 2. “Then that lawless one will be revealed.” That's the same as we had at the end of verse 3.

So you have the departure of the church and the Holy Spirit, you have the revelation of the man of sin. And it's the same in verse 3, same two points, and then verses 7-8, same two points. So I think the Scripture is clear.

The final point, the seventh, is the imminent return of the Lord. We don't have time to talk about that, but we will be talking about some of these things in the future. Next week we will have a guest speaker, then have some things to wrap this up the following week, and then we will have Easter, then we will move into Revelation 4. Exciting area, God has much to say about it. He holds us accountable to know it, understand it, and pronounces blessing on those who do, as we have seen in Revelation. So no more thrilling part of Scripture for us as God's people than what He wants us to know and live in light of.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for Your truth. Thank You, Lord, that we have the Spirit Who has brought redemption to our hearts and minds by opening our blinded eyes that we might see and believe in the Savior who loved us and died for us, Whose coming again to take us to a place He has prepared for us. We will meet Him in the air with fellow loved ones, we will be removed from this sin-cursed earth so that we will not endure and be the objects of your unrelenting wrath. Lord, thank You for so great a salvation. Lord, we look forward to the coming of the Lord for us, to the time in heaven and then when we will be unveiled with Him when He comes in His glory to establish His kingdom. I pray that as we study these matters, Lord, they will shape our thinking, we will adjust our lives to live in light of them so we will be a people about Your business. Thank You for this time together in the Word. In Christ's name, amen.