The Next Event in Biblical Prophecy

Transcript

GRM 1252
12/13/2020
The Next Event in Biblical Prophecy
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh


We have our attention focused on the birth of Christ in these days, that always draws my attention to the time when He will come again. So I want to talk with you, really for the next couple weeks, about the coming of Christ for the church, what we call the rapture of the church. My concern is that many believers are losing the joy and blessing of knowing that Christ is coming in a special and unique way for the church to take us to the place He has prepared for us. So even as we celebrate His birth we want to be reminded of what we are looking for in these days where so much of the world is seemingly unsettled between physical issues, political issues. And sometimes we as believers get ourselves drawn into these matters and they do impact us, but we don't want to lose our focus that we are looking for and expecting the coming of the Lord to call us to meet Him in the air and take us to the place in His Father's house that He has prepared for us.

Foundational to what we are going to talk about, and this is going to be a thinking study so get yourself ready, but we have to concentrate and appreciate fully what God has done for us. We talked about how we interpret scripture and the differences in views come to how you interpret the Bible, assuming you believe the Bible is the word of God. Do you take it at face value? We recently looked into what it means to interpret the Bible literally, normally, historically, grammatically. This draws a line of difference between people. Do you interpret Old Testament prophecies literally, at face value? Important to remember. When God gave His prophecies -- some of them have been fulfilled already, prophecies from Isaiah, Micah and so on. We celebrate the birth of Christ, He was born at Bethlehem and that's in agreement. Remember the gospels tell us where would the Messiah be born when the question came up, He'll be born in Bethlehem, that's what Micah the prophet prophesied. We sing about ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem.’ It was exactly the town; he just didn't mean some little town in some out-of-the-way place, it meant that specific town in that specific place at that specific time. When it said that the Messiah would suffer and die, Isaiah 53 wrote so clearly about the suffering and death of the Messiah. Not only would He suffer and die, but He would be buried in a rich man's tomb. How was that fulfilled? Literally, He was buried in a rich man's tomb.

So all prophecy that has already happened, has already been fulfilled, was fulfilled literally, exactly as it said. And I believe that the Bible indicates that all prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled will be fulfilled in the same way. You say, of course, I don't have to think as much as you indicated for that, but that's the big difference between those who claim to be Bible-believing Christians and yet disagree on matters relating to future prophecy. Most evangelicals -- if I can use that broad term, those who claim to believe the Bible, believe that you have to place your faith in Christ for salvation -- believe that you don't have to take the Old Testament prophecies literally, that there is a change when Christ comes, now we reinterpret the Old Testament in light of the coming of Christ. Now there is additional information given to us, more clarity and understanding given, but we don't change what was prophesied, what was given. If we are not clear on this, we end up out here in all kinds of things that we should not be involved in and much of it claims how do we understand the Bible regarding future events.

I was reading one man who used to teach at the seminary where many of the professors I had were taught, and he said the land promises to Israel were literally fulfilled in the coming of Christ. He is the fulfillment, to put it the way he put it, of the land promises. Wait a minute, you say that's a literal fulfillment? God said walk around all the land Abraham, every place where the soles of your feet touch that will be yours; He gave the geographical boundaries. Now you tell me that they were fulfilled literally in the person of Christ when He came, so there is no future fulfillment. Now you have just given the word ‘literal’ a totally different meaning. So we want to walk through the scripture. We're going to be focusing on the coming of Christ for the church, important to be clear on this. If you are not clear on this and the distinction that the scripture makes, then things will get to be fuzzy.

This is called the pre-tribulation rapture of the church. This is not new material if you have been here very long, but it is material we need to understand and grasp. Why don't you put up the chart called The 70 Weeks, this is the backbone of Israel's prophecy, I'm just going to show it to you, point out some things, we'll come back to it a little bit later in our study today. Seventy weeks are seventy sevens coming out of Daniel 9, we won't go there right now because we are going there later. And this lays out God's plan and program for the nation Israel. In that shaded area, the church age, is not included in that 490 year period. But there is indication when God gave His program for the nation Israel that there would be a gap there, and that gap is what we call the church age, the period of time in which we live. Four hundred eighty three years as you'll note there, 69 weeks, they are weeks of years not weeks of days, 483 of those years have already been fulfilled. In fact they came to a completion when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of that foal of a donkey and then roughly a week later He was crucified. There was a break. There is one seven year period yet future, that's the 70th week, a period of seven years. Now we believe that Christ is coming to gather all believers from the church age from the earth to meet Him in the air. It's called the rapture of the church. He will not come to earth, that's why we have Him coming down with that red arrow and then going back up. He calls the church, believers, both the dead and the living to meet Him in the air and then He takes them to His Father's house, the place He has prepared for them. Then there is a seven-year period divided into two 3½ year segments after which Christ will return to earth. So there are two phases of His second coming, one He just comes in the air for the church but regarding Israel and the establishing of the kingdom.

Now some people, perhaps most evangelicals today would consider themselves, at least in the scholarly world, post-tribulationalists. They do not believe Christ comes for the church before the seven-year period, rather He will come after that seven-year period. Now how does the church fit into that? We'll probably end up talking about that maybe on a Sunday night, maybe next Sunday night, we'll see. Some of those believe that the rapture occurs in connection with that second coming of Christ to earth after the seven years, post-tribulation. In other words they would say Christ calls the church to meet Him not beginning at the seven weeks but after the 70th week and then they come back down to earth with Him so it is one event. He comes down, pauses, calls the church to meet Him, and then together the church with Christ returns to earth and the kingdom is established, assuming they are post-tribulational pre-millenialists, to get our terminology down. There are some real problems with that view, we'll talk about that as we move along.

But we'll focus to begin with on the fact of the rapture, that event that is the next event in biblical prophecy. If you were looking for something today in prophecy it should be the rapture of the church. It is not Israel back in the land, it's not political events that are making way for the antichrist. Those things have significance… this seven-year period… there are events that will take place, Israel will be back in the land, the temple will be rebuilt, there will be a revived Roman Empire. So sometimes when we see some events happening here in the church age that are going to happen here (tribulation) we think we might be getting close. But really the next event in biblical prophecy is this event right here, the rapture of the church, so we don't want to get confused. Now those who hold that there is a post-tribulation rapture think we will go through this period of time, the church will experience the tribulation. That's why they call it the post-tribulation, the after tribulation rapture where the Church will be caught up, meet Christ as He is coming down and turn around and come back down with Him. Then we'll have the establishing of the kingdom. We're going to talk about our view, it's my view and, of course, it is your view because it is the biblical view, the rapture of the Church being caught up to meet Christ in the air. We'll leave it there with those.

Let me talk about the facts of the rapture, then I have a slide for you that will make some more distinctions. But just the basic fact of the rapture. Some people say the Bible doesn't use the word ‘rapture.’ Get your concordance out, if you get a concordance out, look for the word ‘rapture,’ it is not there so that tells you how reliable that view is. But it is there. Remember the Bible wasn't written in English, the New Testament basically was written in Greek so I wouldn't expect to find an English word unless we carried that word over into English from Greek. Like the word ‘baptism,’ the Greek word is ‘baptizo’or ‘baptismo,’ you can just transliterate it over and it becomes an English word, just carried over from Greek. But that didn't happen with the word ‘rapture.’

Let's look at a passage, let's go to 1 Thessalonians 4, this is one of the basic rapture passages, so we'll start with that. The facts of the rapture are clearly taught in the Bible. The rapture, and it comes from a Greek word, the Greek word is ‘harpazo,’ the way we would pronounce it, bring it over into English—h-a-r-p-a-z-o, ‘harpazo.’ Now what happened when the Bible was translated into Latin many years ago (those of you with a Roman Catholic background familiar with Jerome's Latin Vulgate) well, the Greek word ‘harpazo’ was translated into Latin in a word I think basically ‘rapturo,’ so it came into English ‘rapture.’ We'll find it in 1 Thessalonians 4, look at verse 13, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep.” Now he is writing to fellow believers, he's writing about Christians who have died, the Bible talks about them being asleep. It's not soul sleep because the Bible says the body without the spirit is dead. But the spirit… when the body leaves the spirit… Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. But when a person dies his spirit leaves his body, their body is lying there. Sometimes you've walked by a casket, the viewing, and you've said it looks like they are asleep. In that sense the body is asleep, it is not being used, it is somewhat dormant, like when we are asleep although some of you may thrash around a little bit, you get the picture. I don't want you to be worried about… These Christians are wondering, we have fellow believers, maybe loved ones who were part of our family, who have died. Christ didn't come back to establish a kingdom, are they going to miss out, where do we go, how does this all fit together?

I don't want you to grieve as the rest who have no hope. There are only two groups of people, those who have hope and those who have no hope. Believers with hope, it doesn't say they shouldn't grieve, but they shouldn't grieve with the hopelessness of those who have no hope. It is sorrowful when a loved one dies, we find believers in the Bible weeping, Jesus wept when confronted with the death of Lazarus, it is a natural thing, and so on. We won't look at other biblical examples. But we shouldn't have a hopeless grief. “If we believe,” now note this, “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again.” So you believe the truth of Christ dying to pay the penalty for our sin, that He rose from the dead because our penalty was paid in full, “even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus,” so here now we have some hope given. “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord,” so Paul is saying this is something revealed to me by God, this is not me giving you my best hope, this is me telling you what God has said.

“That we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” So now there is going to be an order when Christ comes for His church. Note, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” So when physical death occurs, that person's spirit, that person as a person leaves his body, it is immediately transported to heaven, the body is laid in the grave. When Christ comes for His church you have those events that take place, there will be a shout, the voice of the archangel, the trumpet of God, and the dead, those dead bodies will come out of the grave, doesn't matter how and what has happened. The body goes back to dust, from dust you were made to dust you will go back. I don't have any strong opinions biblically on the means. Some people are against cremation, that's fine, don't be cremated, but I don't see anything biblical. Cremation may accelerate the process of returning the body to dust and ashes, but leave it in the grave long enough and it has the same fate. Some were buried at sea and the fish ate the body and we say don't get too gruesome. However the body is disposed of, God is going to call it back is the point I want you to be clear on. How could He do that? He is God, He created it from dust to begin with. Don't try to help Him out with what you perceive to be a problem He has, like He said, if I were hungry would I tell you? He'll do it He says, the dead in Christ will rise. Some had been martyred in terrible ways and so on, they'll rise.

Okay. First… well, who is next? “Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words,” so this is the comfort we have as believers in our sorrow. We weep at the death of a loved one, but we don't weep with overwhelming despair because this is just a temporary separation. Some of you are snowbirds, you'll leave us, we don't weep at your leaving, we grumble that we are not going, too. So there is a little sorrow, we'll miss you, but that's all right, we'll see you in the spring. That's the way we are as believers, I'll miss you but I'll see you soon, relatively soon, hey, it doesn't matter, compared to eternity it's just a drop in the bucket. So it is not a hopeless sorrow, that's what he is telling these believers, comfort one another with these words.

You'll note we are caught up in the air to meet the Lord, so we'll always be with the Lord. Now you'll note that word caught up, verse 17, “Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up.” Do you know what that is? That's our word ‘harpazo,’ that's the Greek word. Some people say the word rapture is not used in the Bible. No, just tell them to get out their Greek concordance and look up ‘harpazo.’ I don't know Greek, that's obvious, you were looking for an English word in here and it was written in Greek, it's ‘harpazo.’ Here is what the Greek… if you went to a Greek dictionary, I checked it out, it means ‘to steal, to carry off, to snatch, to take away,’ that's what we are talking about. It is used 14 times in the New Testament this word ‘harpazo,’ we're just going to look at a few uses so you can see how it is used.

Come back to Acts 8, now keep in mind what we are talking about, as the word that is used to refer to our being caught up to meet Christ in the air, Acts 8. These are examples of how the word is used when it is not talking about being caught up to meet Christ in the air, but it will give you an idea of what the word means. In Acts 8 Philip the evangelist meets an Ethiopian eunuch who is a representative of Candace, Queen of Ethiopia and as he comes up on the chariot of this official of Ethiopia, he hears he was reading aloud from Isaiah 53. And that's what you have in verses 32-33, where Isaiah was prophesying. “He was led as a sheep to a slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearers is silent,” and so on. So as Philip has engaged him in conversation, Philip asked him, do you understand what you are reading and in verse 31 he said, how can I understand, I need someone to explain it. So after the reading of the passage here, verse 34, the Ethiopian eunuch says Philip, please tell me what it all means.

This man obviously has come up to Jerusalem, he is familiar with the Old Testament scriptures, he might be what we call a Gentile proselyte. “Philip,” verse 35, “opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture he preached Jesus to him,” explaining this is a prophecy of Jesus Christ and this has all been fulfilled at Jerusalem where the Messiah was crucified, buried in the tomb of a wealthy man and then raised from the dead. Well, the Ethiopian believes it and says I want to be baptized as a follower of this man who is now my Savior, so Philip takes him down into the water and baptizes him. Now note verse 39, “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord,” here is our word ‘harpazo’ translated ‘snatched’ here, “snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus,” Ashdod of the Old Testament. He is in another city now, just that quickly the Spirit of God grabbed ahold of him and transported him to another place in an instant of time. Philip blinks his eyes, one minute he is standing there with the Ethiopian eunuch, the next thing you know he opens his eyes and here I am at Azotus. And so that word can be used, he was caught away, snatched away, carried away, that's what we have in Thessalonians, so just what you would expect if you were going to be caught up to meet Christ in the air.

Come over to 2 Corinthians 12, Paul is defending his position as an apostle and he doesn't like to boast but he has to make clear to the Corinthians, God has called me and gifted me in a special and unique way and he has given me authority that you must recognize or you are in resistance and rebellion against God. He was an apostle so verse 1, “Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable,” if they were functioning as they should biblically he wouldn't have to be going through this, “but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.” God has revealed special things to me, 2 Corinthians is one of those letters. Partly, how did some of this happen? “I know a man,” so Paul steps outside now and speaks like he is speaking about himself in the third person here. “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago -- whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows –“ such a man was,” here is our word, “caught up to the third heaven,” ‘harpazo.’ Paul says it was such a real experience to me, I don't really know to this day after fourteen years whether God physically carried me to heaven to give me these revelations, or it was just a transformation in my spirit and a vision. I don't know but I know I was caught up to the very presence of God in heaven. And that's the word here, caught up. Again, it means to be raptured, your body in an instant of time from where you are to the place where God wants you.

Come to one more passage, that's all we'll do. Well, you go down to verse 4, if you are here, it is used again. He was caught up, it was used at the end of verse 2, there is our word ‘caught up’ again in verse 4, he was caught up, the word ‘harpazo.’ If we were in English we would say he was raptured up “into Paradise and heard inexpressible words,” some of which he wasn't allowed to pass on. Paul knew more but he was not allowed to give all the revelation that was given to him.

Over in Revelation 12:5, this is about Christ and this pictures… (we've studied Revelation 12, you'd have to refresh your mind) but the picture starts out of Israel as a woman and the Messiah is born to this woman, He was a Jew born to the nation Israel. Verse 5, just for time, “She gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.” What happened in Acts 1? Christ appears in His resurrected body, He addresses the disciples and then He is caught up in the clouds and He returns to His Father's presence and throne. So there is our word ‘caught up’ again. So you see this word is used for those kinds of events, so it fits with being used in 1 Thessalonians 4.

We looked at 1 Thessalonians 4, let's just look at a few passages that do in addition to 1 Thessalonians, talk about when we will be caught up to meet Christ and taken to heaven. Come back to John 14, Jesus is preparing His disciples for His imminent crucifixion, this is the last night; after their meal together He is instructing them about His impending arrest and crucifixion. He says in John 14:1, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places, if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” Now note here, He is speaking to them about something they do not comprehend yet. He does not say to them, I go but I'll come again to earth to establish the kingdom with you, that's what the Jews are looking for, that's what these disciples are looking for. But He says I am going to prepare a place for you in heaven in My Father's house for you, and if I prepare a place for you in My Father's house, I'll come and get you, receive you to Myself.

That would fit what He said in 1 Thessalonians 4:14, the Spirit said through Paul there that we're caught up to meet Christ in the air so He can take us where He is. He's not talking about coming to earth here, the Jews are confused on this still. Right now we understand the Messiah had to suffer and die, be raised from the dead. When we get to Acts 1 what do His disciples say? Will You now at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He doesn't say yes, now that I am resurrected we can have the kingdom. No, He says you don't need to know the timing of the establishing of the kingdom. He doesn't give them any detail, they don't need to know it because the church is going to be established shortly, we'll have it in Acts 2, we have a change from the human perspective in God's program. God now is going to reveal something that hadn't been revealed before. Not a change of God's mind, of course, it was in the plan of God but He hadn't revealed it before. Remember? We just read Paul had revelations given to him when he was transported to heaven that he wasn't allowed to make known. So here he is telling them about the place, I take it the place is the New Jerusalem. When we go there later in our study here we'll go to the New Jerusalem.

What is the New Jerusalem? It's the bride city, we see it in Revelation 19, it comes down out of heaven as a bride prepared for her husband, we're ready for the marriage of the Lamb. The church is the bride of Christ. So what happens when the church is raptured? Christ comes in the air to get us. Follows the pattern of the oriental wedding, we've been through this on other occasions, where the wedding was arranged, the betrothal period. We call it the engagement period. It was much more binding, when you were betrothed the agreement had been made between this man and woman, perhaps by the parents normally, that was a binding agreement, it could only be broken by divorce. Not like our engagement, we say we broke the engagement, we're not going through with it. It was much more serious. Remember when Mary was betrothed to Joseph and he found out she was pregnant, didn't know it was by the Holy Spirit yet. It said he thought he would, and he uses the word ‘divorce.’ That's what the Bible says, he was going to divorce her but do it privately, but it took a divorce to break the betrothal. So that engagement period as we would call it, but keep in mind it is a firm period, the betrothal period, was the way an oriental wedding was. Then after that time, and some years, and they could have been betrothed at a young age, they still practice that in some cultures. We had a couple here from India that practiced that and they had been betrothed by their parents many years earlier, so some cultures still practice it. But that's what went on in biblical times, what we are talking about here.

Then at the appropriate time the husband would be responsible to get a place ready for when he gets married, the marriage formally is consummated, he'll have a place in his father's house for them. Some of you have done that on the farm. You got a piece of land on the parents' farm, you made a place there where you and your wife and family could be. So that's the picture. Then when he had the place ready and the appointed time came, he would come to his bride's house and get her and take her back. And that's where the marriage is actually consummated and formalized. Then after that they come out, often back to the bride's house, where there is a celebration, the marriage supper. And that's the picture we have in Revelation 19, as we'll look at in a little bit. So that's what you have in John 14, an anticipation of that.

Come over to 1 Corinthians15. I think John 14 clearly lays out the rapture. In 1 Corinthians 15 this is the fullest explanation of the resurrection of the body that we have in the Bible so we call it the resurrection chapter. Other chapters talk about the resurrection but this one goes through in some detail what it means to have bodily resurrection. And we have to move down here to the last part of the chapter, verse 50, I want to clarify things here, 1 Corinthians 15:50, “Now I say this, brethren,” he's writing to fellow believers. You start out in chapter 1 he's writing to the church at Corinth so fellow believers who are members of the church. He has already clarified that by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, the church. “I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” Can you pop the 70 weeks chart up again because I don't want to get confused here? Now when we get to the end of the 70th week when Christ returns to earth, if everybody is raptured at that point, right here, if we are just caught up to meet Christ in the air, all believers, and turn around and come back down with Him, that would mean everybody going into the kingdom is in a glorified body. You say, that's what it says here, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” verse 50. Well, some people say then you can’t…

The problem is if you take prophecy literally, we are told there will be people who sin in this period of time, there will be people who die in this period of time. Where do they come from if everybody got a glorified body who goes into the kingdom? The solution to this is he is writing to the church at Corinth. So he is writing to the church, now it obviously has application because we are part of the church of Jesus Christ, so what was written for the church at Corinth was also for us. No one in the church will go into the kingdom in a physical body. He's writing to the brethren in the church. We've all gotten glorified bodies here, we'll be coming back with Christ over here in Revelation 19, but we'll be in glorified bodies. But there will be people who are saved in this 70th week period of time that will go in, in their physical body. We'll talk about that in our next study. If you don't have these things clarified, you end up saying then we can't take the Old Testament literally because people in physical bodies can't go into the kingdom. So… hm-m-m…

Well, maybe the kingdom is just a general reference to the Church Age or something. That's where you end up an amillennialist, no millennium. We are in the kingdom because it has been transferred from an earthly kingdom to a spiritual kingdom in the hearts. Those of you who have a Lutheran background, a Roman Catholic background or some of the major Protestant denominations because John Calvin and other Reformers were amillennial. They came out of Catholicism, they go back to it's just a spiritual kingdom. You see they changed the Old Testament, it's no longer literal. Of course, the ones that have already been fulfilled, Christ had to die, be buried, raised as the Old Testament said, He had to be born at Bethlehem, those were all literal. But nothing that is yet future is literal because the kingdom had to be established at His first coming, so we don't have Him ruling on the earth, so He rules from heaven and He rules in the hearts of all believers, so that's the kingdom. That's why it is important that we are clear on these things, because if that's true then we ought to be doing kingdom work and that's where you get all the emphasis, why Roman Catholicism is so involved in social action, social programs, they are politically active. Its just the way it is, if you are in the kingdom you are doing kingdom things. So then they take those things are to be characteristic of the kingdom and say since we are in the kingdom, it's a spiritual kingdom but we do these physical things. It's a mess, trust me, just keep track here, we're talking about the rapture right here. So that's why he says flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom, the church cannot go into the kingdom in physical bodies, it will not, it will be raptured before the kingdom. We'll talk more about the issue of being a post-trib premillennialist as we move along.

Okay, so this is what it tells us here then. “This perishable,” verse 54, “When this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ” When will that happen? At the rapture of the church -- for the church, not for Old Testament saints, they are not part of the church (that's where the literal clarification is helpful). Then we will see fulfilled Old Testament scripture, “Death is swallowed up in victory,” we will have the glorified body. And give thanks it is God who gives us the victory.

Verse 58, it has practical application, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” What does this mean for us today with viruses and sickness and illness and disease and political upheaval? Keep going forward, stay steady, “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” He gives us stability, that's why these things are important. We say that has to do with a future event, if the rapture occurs tomorrow, great; I'm worried about today. Well, let's go back to scripture, what are we going to be doing today in light of this truth? You see it is this truth. If the devil is successful in confusing believers about these truths about what God says about our future, we end up entangled in all kinds of things.

We're going to stand before God and He’ll say you had no business involved in that. Well, I didn't know. Why didn't you know, I told you. Well, I didn't think it was important. Now we are in trouble, aren't we? Are we going to tell God what He said I didn't count it important, I was just worried about today? So these things have to be applied, but they have to be applied correctly. There are churches getting into… It's everywhere, this is the move of evangelicalism today in our city, it's going there, then we say, why aren't we involved? Well, you have to go back, if you don't want to spend the time and think through these things biblically you'll be out here doing what someone else told you to do. We are to be steadfast, immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord. Aren't all these programs…? Not if He didn't tell the church to do it. We're doing the work of the Lord, not what someone else made up should be the work of the Lord. If we're not clear on these things, we're going to be all over the place, and that's where the church is today. And I will give you some concrete examples, if not before Christmas, after. If the Lord comes before then, it will be resolved.

One more passage on the rapture, Philippians 3. Paul is writing this while he is in prison and he sees the advantage of dying, because if I die I'll be with Christ, that's in chapter 1 verses 21 and following, we're not going there but that has to do with the spirit leaving the body. Now you come to chapter 3, look at the end of it. “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” who will establish His kingdom. No, that's not what we are looking for. “Who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory.” We'll have a body like His body after He was raised from the dead. It is this body but it has undergone a miraculous transformation. How will it happen? “By the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.” So they may burn this body to ashes and scatter it to the ocean, but they can't overcome the power of God who will call it back, but in a glorified way. So you see our citizenship is in heaven, he's talking to the church, he's writing to the church at Philippi. We get confused when we don't understand the distinction between Israel and the church and then we get mixed up and then to try to make it all fit since the church is Israel and Israel is the church, we begin to change what God promised to Israel because the church has superseded Israel. And that's the view of supersecessionism, the church supersedes, replaces Israel. There are all kinds of variations once you get off-track, it's not just about prophecy, it's about taking the Bible literally, interpreting it consistently the same way. Not having an excuse to jump off here because then you have things that the church is doing as though we were in the kingdom. And the Bible doesn't say we are in the kingdom. So the church, our citizenship is in heaven. He promises to transform this body to take us to the place He has prepared for us in heaven, the home of His Father. He says there will be all believers from the church meeting there, in Revelation 19. That's after the seven years. We come back to earth and He'll establish the kingdom. The order is set down for us, He walks us through that seven-year period in Revelation 4-19, basically. Chapters 4-5 are about the church in heaven, but on earth you have the tribulation in chapters 6-19, then we come back to earth.

All right I have a couple slides to mark the difference between the rapture and the Second Coming to earth. I say the rapture occurs before the tribulation, the coming to earth occurs seven years later. First characteristic of the rapture, Christ meets believers in the air, not on the earth, in the air.

Second characteristic of the rapture, the bodies of believers are glorified. That is crucial, everyone who is raptured is glorified, it's important. As we said, those who hold to a rapture after the seven years going into the kingdom have only people in glorified bodies going into the kingdom. Then you cannot interpret the passages about the kingdom in the Old Testament that say that an individual who dies at a hundred years of age is just a child and will be thought accursed under the curse of God, because you won't die at a hundred years of age unless you are under judgment. Well, you have people in glorified bodies now losing their salvation? Now you multiply. So if you don't get it right at the foundation, you begin to change things all along the way to get it to fit. That's the second characteristic of the rapture.

Third, believers are taken to heaven to be with the Lord. That's what we are doing, we are going to heaven, to His Father's house, to be where He has prepared a place for us. Didn't say we will come to earth and there I have a place, He says I am going to prepare a place for you in My Father's house. The kingdom on earth will be established here. Now eventually the New Jerusalem will come to earth but it retains its uniqueness, it remains heaven, we talked about that. In fact as an aside, but you know in the tabernacle then in the temple you had the Holy Place where the presence of the Lord was manifest behind the curtain. Well, the New Jerusalem has those dimensions magnified tremendously, can't do it by feet or yards or cubits, you have to do it by miles. We're going to get to that, but that's a future study.

All right now what's the Second Coming like? Well, here are some characteristics of the Second Coming to earth, after the seven-year tribulation. Christ returns to earth in great glory. We'll read a couple passages of scripture after I give you the points that show them because we're going to end up our time here.

Secondly, He destroys His enemies, there is a judgment that occurs, unbelievers are destroyed, cannot go into the kingdom because there is a sifting out. There is a resurrection in connection to the coming of Christ to earth of Old Testament saints and tribulation saints, we have another chart that we will look at next time that shows the distinction. But there are also people in their physical bodies, there will be judgment held. The bodies of believers will be glorified.

So the third point of the coming to earth is He takes believers into the kingdom. Some of those believers will be in physical bodies, some of those believers will be in glorified bodies. Now you begin to see how you could have people who sin in the millennium, because those who go in in physical bodies will be having children, those in glorified bodies will not be having families. In the resurrection in resurrected bodies we will not marry nor be given in marriage. So that will be one change. But there will be people being born in the millennium. That's why you see in the judgments… Come back to Matthew 13, Matthew 13, he is giving the parables about the kingdom. He's not talking about a mystery form of the kingdom that some dispensationalists misunderstood. He's not talking about a type of the kingdom that is existing today in the hearts of believers. This is additional truth that had not been revealed about the coming earthly kingdom and events that prepare the way for that kingdom.

Here are the wheat and the tares and what happens is wheat are true believers, tares are those who look like believers but they really haven't trusted in the salvation God has provided. Here there are two kinds, there are wheat and tares, that's all there is. Like we say there are people who have hope, there are people with no hope. The Bible is clear, there are children of light, there are children of darkness, the Bible draws clear, distinct lines. So the field is the world here and the condition in the world. He is writing to Jewish believers here, He is not preparing them for the church, He is telling them about the kingdom and the establishing of the kingdom. Verse 38, “The field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom,” the other are the sons of the world. Because the kingdom will be established on this earth, encompassing the world. The enemy who sowed the tares is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age. So here we are going to come… What is going to happen as we prepare for the coming of Christ and His return to earth? “Just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.” So they could understand, plant it in their field, there was wheat and there were tares, you go through and sort out the tares and throw them to be burned because they aren't any good. You want to harvest the wheat.

“The Son of Man,” here we are, we'll be at the end of the age. For the Jews they had two ages, the age before the kingdom and the age of the kingdom-- before the kingdom and after the kingdom, before the coming of the Messiah to establish the kingdom and after. Now keep in mind the end of the age for them is when the Messiah comes and establishes His kingdom. So at the end of the age, “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Now here you see a sorting out, will be a same kind of thing with good fish and bad fish down in verses 47 and following. Look at verse 49, “So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous.” So you see this is not the rapture, He's going to remove the wicked now. At the rapture the righteous are called to meet Christ in the air from the world. When Christ comes back at the Second Coming He will remove the wicked, they are not going into the kingdom, and then the righteous go into the kingdom.

Come over to Revelation 19 and we will stop here. We'll pick up with the biblical support for a pre-tribulation rapture, why it has to be pre-tribulation, we'll walk through those points our next time. Revelation 19, here we are, “Let us rejoice.” Now what has happened, chapters 6-19 we had that seven-year period we looked at, it is divided into two 3½-year periods. Those of you who were here with our study of Revelation we walked through that. It's in the book of Daniel. Now we are ready, chapter 19 opens up with heaven celebrating, all those in heaven. And do you know what? It will be angels, it will be the spirits of Old Testament believers without their glorified bodies. It will be believers in glorified bodies. They are going to all be celebrating. Verse 1, the end of the verse, “Hallelujah,” means’ praise the Lord,’ the word ‘praise’ and the word ‘God’ combined in hallelujah, praise God. “Salvation and glory and power belong to our God; because His judgments are true and righteous,” He has judged this unbelieving world, if I can summarize it. Now in verse 3, “And a second time they said, ‘Hallelujah,’ ” then at the end of verse 4, “Hallelujah,” then in verse 6 at the end of the verse, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come.” And literally that past tense could be translated ‘has occurred,’ because the betrothal occurred, you and I were bound to Christ when we placed our faith in Him. We now belong to Him, we have been joined to Christ. But we haven’t entered into the intimacy of that relationship that we will when we are called into His presence. That's why it is pictured as a marriage, it is not sexual, but it has an intimacy and closeness that could only be pictured by that.

So it has occurred, now what is next? “His bride has made herself ready, it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” We have already been rewarded, the bema seat of Christ has occurred for the church, now look at verse 9, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb,” Note, “These are true words of God,” don't miss it. This was given to the churches in Revelation. People make a muddle of it, it was given for us to understand, take it as it is. Now we are ready for the marriage supper of the Lamb. Remember John the Baptist? He introduced Christ to the nation Israel, but he said I am not the bride, I'm not part of the bride, I am a friend of the bridegroom. He understood a distinction there, God had made it known to him, I'm not part of the bride of Christ, I'm a friend of the bridegroom. We don't have time to go back and look in Matthew 25, but if you go back and read Matthew 25 the opening verses, you have the parable of the ten virgins and when the Messiah comes five of the virgins are prepared for His coming, five are not. What happened? The bridegroom comes and the five who were not prepared went out to get ready, too late, when they came back they couldn't get in. What's the picture? The marriage supper has begun, you are not part of the bridal party, they are excluded. It's a picture of the judgment of Israel, those who will be ready for the Messiah when He comes, those who will not. Those who are ready will go into the kingdom with Him, those who are not will be closed out and Matthew 25 goes on to talk about they are cast into the fire, same as we saw in Matthew 13.

So the Bible makes perfect sense if we just don't let ourselves get twisted, off-track here. Now I realize I haven't given all the biblical reasons to support a pre-tribulational rapture and in a sense this is foundational. But now the next thing we will do is walk through what I think are the proofs, the evidences, that the rapture of the church has to occur prior to the seven year tribulation, and it will flow out of the fact we're going to take biblical prophecy literally and not muddle it together. We keep things separate that God keeps separate, and put things together that God puts together. And keep in mind, God keeps His word, He's the God who cannot lie, He cannot change what He said to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so there has to be a physical land. There will be some who hold to a physical land who believe in the rapture after the tribulation. I believe they have insurmountable obstacles to deal with, we'll talk a little bit about that.

The important thing in all this is to be part of the bride of the Lamb, if you are not you will be left behind, if the rapture would occur you would not go. You could have attended this church, you could have been baptized at this church, you could have been raised in a Christian home, but you haven't placed your faith truly in Christ. You are not part of His bride, you will not be taken. Then I'll realize what you were saying is true, then I'll believe. I don't think so, there are evidences in scripture it's going to be much more difficult to believe. I'm not going to say it is impossible, that's in God's hands. But God doesn't promise another opportunity, today is the day of salvation, He doesn't promise to give a person another opportunity tomorrow to believe in Christ. He says today is the day of salvation, now is the acceptable time, this is the time you have, you don't know whether you will be here tomorrow. We've had people who have sat in this service, by the next Sunday they had died. So have you ever trusted Christ as your Savior and have that settled? That way you are ready for whatever comes.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the truth of your word. You are a gracious and loving God who provided your Son to be the Savior for us who are so undeserving. Thank you for loving us when we were lost, and drawing us, placing us where we could hear the truth that You loved us and had Your Son die for us, our eyes could be opened to believe the wonder that He is the Savior for me. I pray for any who are here who have not trusted Christ, that this would be a day of salvation for them. And for those of us who have, Lord, may these truths be precious to us. You have saved us in the church to be the bride of Christ. These ought to be the most precious truths, we are to be living every day with expectation, anticipation, hoping for the coming of our Lord and Savior to call us to meet Him in the air. We pray in Christ's name, amen.