The Apocalypse - the Rapture and the Revelation — Steve Gallagher

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The Rapture and the Two Doctrinal Positions

We're ready to get into the heart of the book of Revelation, Revelation 6 and the opening of the seals. But I felt like because the way the end times have been presented to the church and how strong that perception is in the church, I felt like I should take one session and deal with the rapture.

So this morning I want to take a look at the two primary doctrinal positions regarding the rapture, okay? I just finished this book written by George Eldon Ladd, whose commentary I've been quoting through the book of Revelation, but he wrote this book, The Blessed Hope, in 1956.

And it was really quite the stand that he took when he wrote that book. It's about the pre-tribulation rapture theory and also the post-tribulation theory. And one of the things he stressed in this book was the need for believers to be able to hold their own opinions about these things without it dividing believers.

And I really appreciated his spirit, you know. Actually, he was presenting the post-trib position in a culture that had become completely dominated by the pre-trib rapture theory. And I know he probably really suffered for his stand.

And you know, one of the things he's saying is that can we just be humble and agree to disagree and still love each other? You know, it's just kind of that approach. He quoted something that Harry Ironside had said.

Now, Harry Ironside was a pastor of the Moody Church back in, you know, about 100 years ago, and he was definitely on the pre-trib rapture side. But listen to what he says. He said, it passes our comprehension how any man or set of men with an atom of genuine love for the Lord and His people can deliberately brand as heretics fellow believers whose lives are generally fragrant with Christian graces, who stand unflinchingly for the inspiration of the entire Bible simply because they hold different views on prophecy.

And that's the spirit we need to be in, amen? Whenever we approach these kinds of subjects, I can tell you for myself I am not coming in dogmatic about anything, but whenever we approach these, we have to be humble about it and we just have to let the Lord lead us and we're going to have opinions, but let's just not hold on to them so dogmatically that we can't fellowship with people who see things differently.

All right, let me open up in a word of prayer. Lord, I do want to thank you that you have a plan of action for the end times, that we can trust you, that you have proven yourself over and over and over again to be faithful to your people.

And whatever your plan is for your people in the last days, during the tribulation period or whatever, Lord, we know that you will care for us and we thank you for that. We pray that you will lead us in this Bible study today, help me to articulate these viewpoints, and Lord, just leave us with this class today with a sense of having a better idea of what is being presented out there, what's being taught, and so forth, in Jesus' name, amen.

Historical Development of End-Times Teaching

All right, I want to begin by just kind of giving a real brief history of this teaching. The early Christians had a very simple perspective of the end times. There would be an apostasy in the church, there would be the man of sin, there would be a time of great distress.

In the midst of all this, Israel would come to the Lord, the Antichrist would rule the world and persecute Christians, God would pour out His wrath, there would be the makings of a great war against God, and finally Jesus Christ would return and defeat Satan and the Antichrist.

It was all very, you know, pretty much simply laid out. It was only later that all the doctrinal things started occurring, you know, and people started coming up with theories and stuff like that as to more of the details of how things would happen.

But over time, a new theory was arrived at, it's called the amillennial theory, meaning that these people felt like the millennium that's discussed in Revelation 20, and perhaps in different passages in Isaiah, that it was a figurative period of time, it wasn't meant to be taken literally.

And you know, that's really their approach to the entire book of Revelation, that it's not futurist, it's not this is what's coming, it's more of a, remember how I quoted Joel Beakey in the introduction to Revelation, the first class, and that's the approach he had where he's just kind of, everything is spiritualized and has some kind of a, you know, spiritual implication, you shouldn't take any of this stuff as literal.

So that came into the forefront in the church, you know, kind of developed and grew, and it became the dominant theory for hundreds of years, really. And also kind of alongside of it, the post-tribulation theory, which is very similar, but a little differently, that the thousand years is literal, but we're already in the thousand years and we're coming to the end of the thousand years.

That's the post-millennial perspective, and of course the kingdom now, people are part of that, that they believe we're going to win the world for Christ, and then Jesus is going to return. Okay, so that's those two perspectives, and they dominated the church.

Well, in the early 1800s, there were stirrings amongst some different people about, you know, are you sure this is right? You know, and they started questioning it, and in the 1820s, a group of men came together, they were called the Plymouth Brethren.

They really just started coming together, they were ministers, they started coming together to pray and to seek the Lord. And one of those men was a guy named J .N. Darby, and he was dissatisfied with this all-millennial standpoint of the end times, and he developed what has become known as dispensationalism.

It was a program, I don't know how to say it, a doctrinal perspective that laid out the end times. It was a pre-millennial viewpoint, which was good. But people felt like it was a breath of fresh air, because now they could have the expectancy of the Lord's return, and they could start looking forward to the end time events and stuff like that, you know.

So they were glad that someone was taking a stand and saying, wait a minute, there is a millennial period, and there's all these things that are going to happen that are described in the book of Revelation, you know, and all of that.

But along with that, he believed in a pre-tribulation rapture. He's the one that developed that whole theory, it was unknown before J .N. Darby came along. And so it became this package, and it was packaged together, pre-trib, pre-millennial.

So people wanted to believe in the pre-millennial, they were happy to hear that, but along with it came the pre-trib rapture theory, so it was a package. And so that gained momentum, because here is a way that we can look forward to the coming of the Lord, and so on.

So that swept through the church in the 1800s, and most of the church accepted it. Many backed away when they started really getting into scripture and seeing, yeah, I understand the pre-millennial perspective, but this pre-trib rapture just doesn't add up, you know, so a lot of the ministers backed out of that part of it, and so on.

But anyway, it definitely is the dominant theory in the evangelical world today. There are many of the mainline denominations that still hold to the amillennial viewpoint, but as far as the evangelical world, the pre-trib rapture theory definitely is the dominant belief system.

The Pre-Tribulation Rapture Argument

I'm going to read what George Ladd said about it, because he kind of says it in a concise way, what pre-tribulation people believe. Pre-tribulation teaches that the second coming of Christ is to be divided into two aspects, which, it is assumed, are separated by the great tribulation.

These two events are called the rapture and the revelation, what he means by revelation is the second coming, okay? The rapture, or catching up of the church to meet the Lord in the air, is a different event from the revelation, when He will appear in the manifestation of His glory.

The rapture occurs before the tribulation, while the revelation occurs when Christ comes to end the tribulation and to execute righteous judgment upon the earth. At the rapture, Christ comes in the air for His saints.

During the interval of the seven-year tribulation, the saints are with the Lord in the air, receiving their rewards at the bema of Christ. At the revelation, Christ comes to earth with His saints, 1 Thessalonians 3 .13.

As one writer has said, He certainly must come for them before He can come with them. Since the rapture precedes the tribulation, it is assumed that it may occur at any moment. But the revelation cannot occur until after the appearance of Antichrist and the great tribulation.

So that's kind of in a nutshell what they believe, and I wanted to read that so you could get the sense of it. There are three primary points in favor of this belief system. Number one would be the sense of imminence that it brings.

Paul said in 2 Timothy 4 .8, he mentioned all those who love the Lord's appearing. And in Titus 2 .13, he mentioned the blessed hope, the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there are other references as well, giving you the sense of the imminence of Christ's return.

He could come at any moment, that sense of expectancy. So if you were a pre-trib rapture person, you would say, well, how could we live with that sense of expectancy if we've got to wait for the Antichrist, for the tribulation period, for the persecution, for the apostasy?

All these things have to happen first, and that's what it says in 2 Thessalonians 2, that the Lord does not come until the apostasy and the man of sin is revealed, right? So they're saying there's got to be a coming of the Lord before the tribulation or there wouldn't be a sense of imminency.

And really the only argument that George Ladd had for that was that, well, yeah, there is a sense of imminency, but you're waiting for this whole plan to show up. It's the day of the Lord, and the day of the Lord has all of these events attached to it and as part of it.

So that's his answer to their argument for the imminence of Christ's return. And then, of course, the things that Jesus said about the days of Noah, you know, there will be eating, there will be drinking, there will be giving in marriage.

In other words, that's a picture of life going on as usual. And you know, it doesn't sound like you would expect things to look at the end of the tribulation period when all the trumpets have been blasted, all those terrible plagues have come upon the earth, you know, and the bowls of wrath have been poured out, and the persecution of the saints.

It doesn't exactly sound like life as usual, does it? So they have a point there, but what George Ladd says in response to that is that, yes, all those things happen, but the truth is life still does go on.

I mean, people are still living life, trying to live life, trying to eke out an existence on this planet, even though all that stuff is going on. So that's his argument to it. Their third point of contention is that Christians won't face God's wrath.

And there are a number of verses that say that. 1 Thessalonians 1 .10, 1 Thessalonians 5 .9, Daniel 12 .1, 2 Peter 2 .9, Revelation 3 .10 are all verses that make comments along the lines that Christians will not face the wrath of God, which is certainly true.

George Ladd's argument to that is that, yes, that is true, but God can keep His people. And he points back to the Hebrews in Egypt when the plagues fell upon the Egyptians and the Israelites were kept protected through the whole thing.

And you know, he's got a good point there. They really don't have an argument for that because it has happened, and that certainly could be said was a harbinger of what's going to happen in the end times.

The Post-Tribulation Rapture Position

All right, so that's basically the pre-Trib rapture theory in a nutshell. Listen, I'm not going to do justice to any of this today because I'm, you know, I would really have to take whole classes on each of these to do them any justice, and I don't want to take that much time, but I do want to present them.

So let's take a look at the post-Trib rapture theory. The first thing George Ladd says is, bottom line is the rapture just isn't taught in Scripture. You know, you can find verses to kind of support this theory, but nowhere in the Bible does it just state it, you know, that this is what's going to happen.

In fact, one of the things he points out is there are places where everything is being laid out as far as the end time events, and you would expect Paul, or Jesus, to say, okay, and right here, I'm going to come back, or the Lord's going to come back, and he's going to, you know, rapture out his people, and then after that, it's going to be the man of sin, the apostasy, the tribulation, but nowhere is that stated.

There is nothing stated, just straight out statement, this is what's going to happen. There is no statement. Another argument that he brings forth is that about the last trump and the last day. One of the verses that the pre-trib rapture people use is 1 Corinthians 15, 51, and 52.

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

Now that is one of the big verses that the rapture people use, and yet it happens at the last trumpet. And so George Ladd would say, yeah, but that is talking about, you know, the bowl, at the end of the bowls, you know how, remember how we talked about this, that the seventh seal opens the door for the trumpets, and the seventh trumpet opens the door for the bowls of judgment, and that, so that seventh trumpet, it could be said, is that last period of judgment.

But anyway, the point that he would make is that you couldn't say that the Lord is coming for his people at the last trumpet, certainly not before the tribulation and before any of the trumpets have sounded.

That's one thing, and then also the whole idea of the last day. For instance, in John 11, 24, Martha tells Jesus that she knows that her brother is going to rise on the last day. Now if, you know, if you believe in the rapture, it wouldn't be the last day, it would be seven years before the last day, at least seven years.

So that doesn't really add up. Also, he talks about the fact that there's not three resurrections talked about in Scripture, there's only two. There's the resurrection that everyone experiences, we die and we're resurrected, okay?

That's the first resurrection. The second resurrection is at the second coming of the Lord. But there's nowhere described a third resurrection. There's only two resurrections. And I would just add in there also, he didn't say this, but I would say this, that I would call this an American doctrine.

This is a doctrine that so much fits in line with the mentality of the, I'm going to say American church, but it's not even that, it's the apostate church. I mean, now, see, now I'm getting, I'm crossing a line here and I don't want to state this too strongly or whatever, this is just my opinion.

But it just has that feel to it. If you're a Christian in China, I guarantee you, you don't believe in the rapture theory. They don't believe in that over there. Their statement is, they look at American Christians and their whole thing is like, what do you mean you're not going to suffer persecution?

That's all we know here. That's all we've ever known here in China is persecution for the faith. You know, and this whole idea that you're going to somehow sidestep all of that. It just doesn't even fit in their thinking over there in countries where they're being persecuted for their faith.

The post-trib is just basically, the bottom line is what George Ladd and others believe is that the Lord is coming back again. And that's all there is, is that it's a second coming of the Lord. That's what's being described in these verses.

Also in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16, let me read it. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven what they shout with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God and 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 and so we shall always be with the Lord. Now when you look at that just in its bare bones statement, there's nothing that tells you it's a pre-trib rapture, right?

There's nothing in there. It just sounds like it's coming of the Lord. So my perspective, and maybe I don't understand it all correctly, but I believe that George Ladd is on much more solid foundation doctrinally in what he teaches than what the pre-trib rapture people teach.

They have a belief system, but you have to make it work. You know, you have to kind of force fit it into scripture. It's not natural. It's just not there. All right, so those are the two main theories, and I want to talk about a third one, which I became aware of 20 years ago, and it's called the sixth seal theory.

The Sixth Seal Theory and the Coming Outpouring

One of the things that George Ladd believes, as I'm going through his commentary in the book of Revelation, he believes that the seal judgments all happened at Calvary, that that transaction that we read about, studied about in chapter five, that that happened when Jesus went back to heaven after his victory over Satan at Calvary, and that then those seals were broken all at once, and that all the things in the seal judgments, and we'll get into that next week, that those things have always been a part of church history, and when you think about it, there's always been earthquakes, famines, wars, and there's certainly always been martyrdom since the church has been in existence.

So that's what George Ladd teaches, and I just wanted to get that in. The sixth seal theory came from Rex Andrews, and Rex Andrews taught that the first five seals were opened at Calvary, and the sixth seal has not yet been opened.

And when the sixth seal is opened, the Lord is going to present himself in some form or fashion to people, and those who have loved his appearing, who have lived their lives right with the Lord and are really prepared to meet the Lord, are going to welcome his return, but those who are in sin and rebellion and self-will and so on are going to shirk away and cry out, it's the wrath of the Lamb, you know, when they see the Lord in that sense.

Does that mean that the Lord is going to appear in the sky and, you know, CNN will get video footage and everyone will see him? No, I don't believe that. I know that some of you have heard me share this before.

This kind of was a revelation to me one time years ago when I used to walk down in the woods and pray, well I still do that, but the Lord's presence was so strong, and the way it came to me was it was like he was hovering over me, and I used to call him Jehovah in the treetops, because that's how it felt to me.

His presence was so real to me when I'd be out there having my prayer times, and I just came to expect it, you know, that was just my normal prayer life. I'm talking like 20 years ago, 25 years ago, back in those days, and when I started learning about this whole sixth seal theory, and they were teaching it about how the Lord is going to appear to his people, it occurred to me one day when I was out walking and praying, and that same sort of sense of God's presence hovering over me, well we know he wasn't up there in the treetops, right?

He was with me. He's in my inside world. That's what it is, and one day he's going to break through and just make himself much more real than I have ever known. You know, that's the way it came to me, and that there's going to be a great outpouring of his spirit that is going to begin with the Jews in Israel, but is also going to sweep across the church, or all happen simultaneously, whatever.

It's definitely taught very clearly in scripture about Israel. There's no question about that. The only question is, is that going to also happen with the church? And think about it. Let's look at some of these things we've already touched on.

The sense of imminency. Does this work? Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Because the Lord, if this is all true, that those first five seals have already been broken, and the next impending eschatological event to happen is the breaking of the sixth seal, and the Lord possessing his people in a mighty, revival isn't even a strong enough term, mighty outpouring of his Holy Spirit like was at the day of Pentecost, except even much greater, a much greater scale, a worldwide scale.

If that's the next event, then yes, I would say we could say that we are expecting the Lord, right? It's not a rapture, in other words, taking us physically out of here, but it's the Lord coming to his people in a mighty way.

So yes, I would say it fits in with the imminency argument. Days of Noah, same thing, right? Life goes on as usual. Suddenly, the Lord is there coming to his people. The last trump and the last day, that all still fits because we're going to stay here and go through, and so all of that still fits in because those verses apply to the second coming, not to a rapture or not to the Lord coming to his people in the way I'm talking about.

There's only one second coming, not two, and the saints are going to go through victoriously, through the end times, through the tribulation period, and so on. Now think about some of the things that we keep hearing about going through the book of Revelation.

Two of the main concepts that are being stressed over and over and over again are persevering through and overcoming, right? Two different concepts, you know, they're linked very much together, but they're both there and persevering in the sense of going through tribulation, hardship, and so on, but overcoming.

Remember that statement, either I made the statement or I read it, but it was basically that we conquer Satan even while we're being physically conquered. That while the Antichrist is persecuting us and putting us to death, we conquer, not physically, not by force, but we conquer through faith, and by standing faithful to the Lord through all of it.

So, you know, those are some of the main points in regards to the sixth seal theory. Let me just look at a couple of verses with you. If you have your Bibles, open up to Joel chapter 2, and we'll read a few verses here starting with verse 28.

Verse 28, it will come about after this that I will pour out my spirit on all mankind, and your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days.

I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, blood, fire, and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered.

For on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, there will be those who escape, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls. All right, now some of that is definitely talking about Jewish people, but the sixth seal described in Revelation 6, you see the same sorts of terminology used that the sun would become black as sackcloth and the moon would become like blood.

You know, you see that same sense about what's happening. And these terms are also used in Matthew 24 in the Olivet Discourse, and I'll get into that more in the next couple weeks. So there's definitely a connection between what's being described here and the sixth seal.

There's no question that there is a connection there. How does that fit in? Well, to me, this makes sense. It makes a lot of sense that when the Lord comes back, it's going to be cataclysmic to this world, but it's going to be the Lord coming to his people in a very powerful way.

The New Covenant and the Promise of Spiritual Renewal

Let's look also at the new covenant in Jeremiah 31. By the way, what was just described in Joel, a precursor to it happened on the day of Pentecost, but that was just a harbinger of something much greater later.

I mean, if you look at that, that did not all happen on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. There was a mighty outpouring, right? You can read about it. What was it like when all of a sudden the Lord fell upon his people in that upper room so powerfully that there were tongues of fire, it seemed like, on people's heads, and people come out and they're just uttering the words of the Lord in different languages, and there was a mighty outpouring of his power that stayed with the church and empowered the church to go through all that it went through in the early days of the church, and 3 ,000 people got saved.

Man, if that isn't a revival. But that was just a harbinger of the great revival that's still yet to come. That did not all get fulfilled in Acts 2. Something else is coming that looks just like that.

Now, what about the new covenant? Jeremiah 31, 31, Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.

But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

They will not teach again each man his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

This is a part of the new covenant, and it's also discussed in Ezekiel and Zechariah, when the Lord pours out His Holy Spirit and the tremendous response that's going to occur with the Jewish people. That's coming.

Another harbinger in Scripture is the life of Paul. You remember what happened to him? He's just a hard-hearted Jew on his way to Damascus, and all of a sudden the Lord appears to him, and he falls off his horse.

He's blinded. He has a tremendous conversion experience. That's a harbinger of what's coming to the Jewish people. It's a very tremendous thing to look forward to, and you see it all through the prophets.

These different passages of Scripture, and I've put a lot of them in the notes there, you can look them up later, where it's talking about what it's like to live your life with the Lord when He really possesses you.

You know, not just kind of this in-and-out thing that we struggle with, and always dealing with your flesh, and when the Lord comes upon His people like this, it will be easier to completely obey Him than to do wrong.

You know, it will be easy, it will be effortless to live out a powerful life with the Lord. His power is going to be upon you. I gave a message a number of years ago called The Great Outpouring. It's on the Eternal Weight website, and I talked about what that is going to be like when that happens, and you know, you could always listen to it later if you want.

Revelation as the Consummation of Biblical History

All right, I want to wrap it up with this thought. Ladd makes a point that the book of Revelation is the book of consummation. And if you remember right, I had quoted, I think it was one of the pulpit commentators who said that it's like the Grand Central Station of the Bible.

You know, that all these concepts that began back in Genesis or other books, you know, that came later, that all those train tracks end up at the book of Revelation and find their consummation there. He narrows it down to three things I'll just touch on briefly.

The Consummation of Evil

The first is the consummation of evil. And man, I tell you, you look at this world. I'm just going to touch on one thing that happened this week. It was just a simple little statement made by a homosexual activist.

This week, the Boy Scouts have announced that they're looking at backing off their ban on homosexuality. And okay, you know, whatever with that. That's the way everything's going, of course. But one of the homosexual activists made the statement.

He said, we have now reached the pinnacle. You know, his whole point was we have fought for the last 40 years, ever since the Stonewall riots in New York City back in 69. We have been fighting for our rights and we have finally arrived.

You know, they have had their way. And CNN website had a timeline of this. Actually, I wrote an article about it myself a few years ago in our magazine. But this timeline of events of the homosexual activism and all the victories that they have won, until finally now they are getting same-sex marriage is being accepted in states around the country.

And, you know, now this thing with the Boy Scouts, just one thing after another, after another, after another. They have won the battle. They have won the war, you know. And that is one tiny slice of the consummation of evil.

That's where we have arrived at in all the 6 ,000 years of history. You know, we are getting to the place. Mostly, it's not that man is more evil now. Man has always had the propensity for evil. We saw that in World War II.

But what's happening now is technology. The technological advances that have come upon mankind, that we have achieved in this last number of years, have allowed evil to flourish like never before. So that's what we're seeing is the consummation of evil.

The Bible talks about fruit ripening. And that's what this is, is the fruit is ripening for the Lord's return. And it's still going to get worse. You know, we're not there yet. But I just thought that was an interesting statement that that man made.

The Consummation of Judgment and Salvation

Also, he talks about the consummation of God's judgment. You know, there have been periods of God's judgment throughout history. But we are going to come to a time when he is going to pour out his wrath upon sinful humanity like never before.

Like no nation has ever experienced. We're going to see the consummation of God's judgment upon sin. We're coming into those days. And lastly, the consummation of salvation for God's people. Now, George Ladd didn't know anything at all about the sixth seal theory.

But think about it. You know, I just have to believe that if we are going to go through the tribulation period, we have got to be empowered like never before. You know, I cannot imagine going through at my current spiritual condition.

I will. And I'm ready to lay my life down today. You know, I'm not afraid of death. But to live with the powerful testimony that you keep seeing through the book of Revelation, that word of their testimony that is going to incite such wrath to have that holy boldness that those first apostles had after getting infilled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 2.

Something dramatic must happen. And I don't believe that the church is going to just kind of limp her way out on the history of mankind. That God is bringing his bride in with all these spots and wrinkles and problems and faults and sin and carnality and half-heartedness.

I just don't believe that's the bride that Jesus Christ is coming back for. Something has to happen. Some people would say, well, it's going to be persecution that purges the church. And that very well could be.

You know, I wouldn't argue with that. I really wouldn't. But I still believe that the Lord is going to come upon his people like never before. You know, it's interesting that we don't have a problem believing that demons can possess people.

We don't have a problem believing that there's going to be a man of sin completely possessed by Satan himself. None of us have a problem believing that. But there's something about believing that God can possess us like that.

That suddenly, oh no, God doesn't do those things. Well, maybe he will. And maybe that's what we should be expecting and longing for and looking towards. Amen. All right, so next week we'll get into Revelation 6 and start looking at some of the end time events.

We're going to start moving now into the future events that are coming. And it's going to get very interesting next week. Okay. God bless you.