The Second Coming of Jesus Christ (2)

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Dr. Lars Larson

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Let's turn to 1 Thessalonians 4, please, as we continue our study of this epistle.
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And with verse 13 of chapter 4 that we began to address two weeks ago, we are addressing this matter of the
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Second Coming of Jesus Christ. With verse 13, Paul begins this new subject.
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He was not attempting to provide a full explanation of the coming, that is the parousia is the
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Greek word for coming, coming of the Lord. And that's important to understand.
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Paul's explanation was intended to address a specific concern of this church at Thessalonica.
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Some of them were ignorant, confused, and perhaps even distraught about believers, Christians, who had died before the return of the
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Lord. And so the apostles sought to explain to them that their concern, their anxiety, was ill -founded.
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For when the Lord returns, he will first raise the sleeping ones from the grave, and then they who were alive would join them, meeting the
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Lord in the air. And so will they then be forever with the Lord. And so in order for Paul to address this concern specifically, directly, he only saw it necessary to speak of this aspect of Christ's Second Coming, that is the gathering of the people of God to be with the
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Lord Jesus. This is very important to understand. Let's read our paragraph once again.
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But we do not want you to be uninformed brothers about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope.
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For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
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For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the
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Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the
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Lord himself will descend from heaven with the cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.
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And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
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Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord, and therefore encourage one another with these words.
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Now throughout 19 centuries of the Christian era, of Christian history, this rapture that is described here in this paragraph was understood to be setting forth in the second coming of Jesus Christ.
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The rapture occurred at the second coming. The rapture and the second coming were one event. But a minority of Christians in the 19th century, the 1800s, really beginning in about 1830, very few
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Christians, but on through the 19th century, increasing in number. And not until the so -called
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Niagara Conferences of 1878 and on toward the latter two decades of the 19th century, a different position arose.
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They began to teach that this event that we just read about, this rapture, is not to be identified with the full manifestation of the second coming of Christ.
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That the second coming of Christ is to be understood as coming in two stages. You have this, the rapture of the
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Church, which is the first stage of the second coming.
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And then later, they would argue seven years later, there was a second stage of the second coming, which we're familiar with when the
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Lord Jesus returns to the earth and brings his judgment upon the fallen world.
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And so they said this rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4 was a separate event from the full revelation of Jesus, which is set forth in Revelation 1.
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7. Behold, he is coming with clouds. Every eye will see him, even they who pierced him.
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And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him. Even so, amen. And so they said that there are two great events in the coming of the
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Lord Jesus in the future. The rapture of his people, and then the full revelation of Christ at his second coming.
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And so they indicated that this rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 -18, is to be understood as a secret rapture, in which the
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Lord is not returning to the earth, he's just returning to the clouds, the air to gather his people,
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Christians, resurrect the church, and return to heaven. He would rapture the church only, not
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Old Testament saints, they argued, but just the church. In other words, those who became Christians really from the day of Pentecost up until the day of this rapture.
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Only they are to be included in this event of 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 -17.
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And they taught that after this rapture, then there would come to pass in the earth a period of seven years of tribulation.
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And they said half of that seven years, the latter three and a half years, would be understood as great tribulation.
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Rapture of the church, tribulation on earth. Seven years. And at the end of that seven years is when
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Jesus comes back in the second stage of the second coming, when he would visibly come to judge the world.
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And so they would argue that this tribulation period after the church is taken out, Christians taken out, was basically a tribulation period for Jewish people.
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They described it as a phrase used in the prophets, the time of Jacob's trouble.
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And the Bible does speak of the time of Jacob's trouble, but it's not a reference to a future seven year tribulation period,
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I might say. And then they taught that only at the end of this seven year tribulation, what they called the 70th week of Daniel, which opens up a whole can of worms as to what that means.
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And we're going to try and explain it as best we can. They said only after this 70th week of Daniel, which they regard as that seven year period of tribulation, would
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Jesus' second coming take place. And so this two stage coming of Jesus Christ is the view now of the vast majority of Bible believing
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Christians of the 20th century and the 21st century. I don't know how many, maybe 95 percent.
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That might be a little low, it might be more, 97, 98 percent of Christians believe in this scenario, a two stage coming of the
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Lord Jesus. But I would argue that it's an errant view of the scriptures held by well -intentioned, well -meaning people.
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I believe it. This is what I was taught from 1972, when
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I was converted, until about 1981 or so, about eight, nine years,
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I taught these things. Believe them. Because that's all I ever heard. That's all I was ever taught.
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I, like many, have never been exposed to any teaching other than this one. And what happens unwittingly when we come to believe something to be so biblical, when we hear something challenging that, in our defense of what we believe to be biblical, we think we're defending the
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Bible. And whoever presents something that's contrary to what we believe, we assume is their teaching against the
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Bible. And once you put a Christian within that defensive posture of defending the
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Bible because of my position, well, that person becomes really unteachable.
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And that's the way most people are. I guarantee you, if this message that I was given today was given in most evangelical churches, they would throw me out.
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I mean, this is how adamant and vehement people are with their view to the end times.
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I think it's more volatile than the doctrines of grace, than the five points of Calvinism.
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If you don't hold to a pre -trib, pre -mill return of Christ, woe unto you.
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Well, again, I believe it's not biblical. And this view, of course, that I've described is really promoted by the who's who of evangelicalism.
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I mean, great men of God. And I included some of their names in the footnote there.
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And this view is promoted by a number of book publishers, a number of books written, most of the
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Christian radio and television ministries. The man
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I mentioned who wrote me from Connecticut this week, he said, I had a view of the end times.
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He said, I thought I was the only one in the world that had this position until I heard you on the radio. That's how unusual it is.
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And so, you know, there's people around, there's reformed guys around who have the same understanding.
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And again, I would argue that our position is the biblical one. And our position is the one reflected in all the old confessions of faith, all the
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Protestants, you know, espouse what we espouse, again, all the way up really until the end of the 19th century and really at the beginning of the 20th century with the publication of the
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Schofield Study Bible, that all changed. And so, although we're in a tiny minority today, when you take the whole scheme of church history, we're in the vast majority, because this two -stage
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Second Coming is never found in one of the old confessions. What you have is a statement, is that the
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Lord Jesus Christ is coming one time at the end of the age to judge the world and to save his people, transform them, giving them new bodies and everlasting life.
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The old confession spoke of the Second Coming in very brief terms, very clearly stated terms, as we just rehearsed.
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And so, we're going against what is popular and what is assumed by so many people.
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And many have never heard anything different. And so they tend to react when they hear something different.
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And I get reactions from people from time to time, through email and whatnot, again through our radio programs.
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I had a nice visit the other day on the phone for about an hour, I don't know, 45 minutes or an hour with Denise, a listener up in New Hampshire who was struggling over these issues.
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And she heard she's got a new pastor who's teaching the same thing I'm teaching. And so she called me because she hears me on the radio to ask questions.
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And she had very sincere, lovely young Christian lady who's seeking answers and she was calling.
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And I know what she was going through because I went through it, so many others have too.
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And so it's a difficult issue. Considering it's popular and wide acceptance in the absence of teaching of another view, it's really my responsibility, our responsibility to make the case against this position.
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I have to do that. I realize the burden of proof is on me and us as a church to make this case, and this is what we're attempting to do.
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But first, let's be clear as to what most Bible believers believe. And so I put in your notes a portion of a statement of faith, and this happens to be the statement of faith that is held by the
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Dallas Theological Seminary, one of the longest, oldest promoters of this dispensational view of the end times.
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And so here, this is a typical confession, however, about the end times. Article 18, the blessed hope, that would be the rapture.
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We believe that according to the word of God, the next great event in the fulfillment of prophecy will be the coming of the
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Lord in the air to receive to himself and to heaven both his own who are alive and remain unto his coming, and also all who have fallen asleep in Jesus, and that this event is the blessed hope set before us in the scripture, and for this we should be constantly looking.
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So it's the rapture of the church, Jesus not coming to the earth, he's just coming to the air and then returning with his people to heaven.
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And then what follows, of course, is Article 19, the tribulation. We believe the translation of the church, that would be the rapture of the church, will be followed by the fulfillment of Israel's 70th week, there it is,
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Daniel 9, during which the church, the body of Christ, will be in heaven. Church is in heaven, tribulation on earth, but it's
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Israel's tribulation principally. The whole period of Israel's 70th week will be a time of judgment on the whole earth at the end of which the time to the
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Gentiles will be brought to a close. The latter half of this period will be the time of Jacob's trouble, that would be the
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Great Tribulation, which our Lord called, here it is, the Great Tribulation. We believe that, and I believe that Great Tribulation Jesus spoke about in Matthew 24 was the siege of Jerusalem in A .D.
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70 by the Roman armies, that was the time of Jacob's trouble. They projected into the future.
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We believe that universal righteousness will not be realized previous to the second coming of Christ, amen to that, but that the world is day by day ripening for judgment and that the age will end with a fearful apostasy.
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And followed the tribulation, here you have Article 20, the second coming of Christ.
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So you've got the rapture in Article 18, now you've got the second coming, really the second second coming in Article 20.
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We believe that the period of Great Tribulation of the earth will be climaxed by the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth as he went, in person on the clouds and with power and great glory to introduce the millennial age, in other words a thousand year kingdom on earth is what they're talking about.
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To bind Satan and place him in the abyss, to lift the curse which now rests upon the whole creation, to restore
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Israel to her own land, to give her the realization of God's covenant promises, to bring the whole world to the knowledge of God.
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This is a thousand year kingdom, they say, will come into existence. And then after this thousand years they have the eternal state,
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Article 21. We believe that at death the spirits and souls of those who have trusted in the
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Lord Jesus for salvation pass immediately into his presence and there remain in conscious bliss until the resurrection of the glorified body when
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Christ comes for his own, whereupon soul and body reunited shall be associated with him forever in glory.
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But the spirits and souls of the unbelieving remain after death conscious of condemnation and misery until the final judgment of the great white throne at the close of the millennium.
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So understand what they're saying, they're putting a thousand years between the resurrection of Christians and the judgment and damnation of unbelievers, two separate events a thousand years apart.
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When soul and body reunited shall be cast into the lake of fire not to be annihilated but to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the
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Lord and from the glory of his power. Now that is viewed as the standard evangelical view of the end times by most
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Bible believing Christians. I would argue there are a number of errant positions presented in the statements that we just read.
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Again, it advocates that the second coming of Christ will be in two stages separated by a seven year tribulation period which claims to be the 70th week of Daniel.
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It promotes a thousand year Jewish millennium on earth, not Christian but Jewish ultimately with Israel as preeminent.
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It denies a general judgment of mankind which I would say the Bible teaches very clearly where believers and unbelievers are raised and judged and separated from one another.
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They deny that. With a thousand year kingdom age in between it advocates two separate identities for the church and for the state of Israel and that they have two different destinies and God's purpose within history, the church and Israel and Israel is never to be confused with the church.
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The church is never to be seen as having Israel's promises.
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The two are separate kingdoms they advocate, separate promises are given to Israel and the church.
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The two shall never mix, two different people, two different kingdoms, two different destinies through eternity.
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We would advocate that that is a terrible way to view the scriptures. There is one people of God all redeemed by Jesus Christ, Old Testament saints,
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New Testament saints. There is one body of believers coming to Mount Zion, the heavenly
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Jerusalem. Abraham was looking for the city whose builder and maker is God, a city built without hands, the
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New Jerusalem just as we are. There's one destiny for the people of God. So in contrast to that view above we advocate the following and it's not difficult.
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The Bible foretells a single second coming of Jesus Christ when he will call unto himself his people from the grave and the world.
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At his second coming Jesus Christ will bring all mankind into a general judgment over which he will preside as the judge.
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He will then separate the redeemed from the damned. The redeemed will be granted entrance into the fullness of the kingdom of God, even the
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New Jerusalem and the new heavens and the new earth in which they will dwell with our Lord for eternity and the damned will be consigned to eternal punishment.
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There is one last day, one general resurrection, a separation, a judgment of all mankind into two destinies.
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It's not that complicated we would argue. The above scenario can get very complicated when you start working out the details.
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Well we'll first make the case that the doctrine of a pre -tribulation rapture of the church followed by a seven year tribulation ending in the visible return of the
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Lord Jesus is not biblical. But let's consider several claims that are commonly set forth to argue their position.
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First let's consider the pre -tribulation rapture of the church. First it is commonly taught that the doctrine of the pre -tribulation rapture is taught in Matthew 24, 40 and 41 which in part reads one will be taken and the other left.
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That is such a common expression applied to the rapture of the church it's hard to hear it taught otherwise.
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Here's the paragraph of our Lord's words. But if that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my
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Father only, but as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
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For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying, giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the
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Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken, the other left.
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Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken, the other left. Watch therefore for you do not know what hour your
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Lord is coming, but know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, not allowed his house to be broken into.
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Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. And so they believe that that speaks of the rapture, catching away of people,
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Christians from the earth. And so they say this is a pre -tribulation rapture of the church, the
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Lord separates his people from all others, he takes away his people in the rapture, the ones who are left behind are those who will have to face living on earth through the seven -year tribulation.
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The last thing you want is to be left behind, is what is argued. And the very popular twelve -volume fiction series, they've sold sixty million copies of that series, by Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, is entitled
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Left Behind, based on these verses in Matthew 2440. Some will be taken, others left.
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The context of Matthew 24, however, is quite clear that the ones who are taken are not the ones who are blessed of the
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Lord. He's not talking about the rapture of the church. I would argue he's talking about the judgment of God on Jerusalem in A .D.
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70. The Left Behind series assumes the ones that are left behind are the ones under God's judgment who have to undergo the tribulation.
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The ones God takes away are the Christians who are raptured out of the world before the tribulation. But it's clear from the context that those who are taken away by God are taken away in judgment by God.
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They're taken away. That is, they're killed. Just as in the days of Noah, Jesus said, the flood came and took them all away.
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Who were the ones left behind? It was Noah and his family, wasn't it?
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They were the blessed ones. The ones taken away were taken away by the flood of judgment.
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And Jesus said that when this manifestation of judgment occurs, the same kind of thing happens.
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And so the ones who were left behind in the days of Noah were not the unfortunate ones, as pre -tribulationists teach, but rather the ones left behind are like Noah and his family who survived
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God's judgment. They've been spared by God's mercy shown to them. The ones that are taken away are the ones that are killed to the judgment of God.
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And the passage in Luke's gospel, the parallel passage, makes this very clear, even more clear. And so in Luke 17, 22 through 36, we read the parallel event.
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And here it's very clear he's talking about the event of the fall of Jerusalem by the Romans in A .D.
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70. And he, Jesus, said to his disciples, The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the
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Son of Man, and you will not see it. You're going to long for the good old days when Jesus was teaching and healing and walking among us.
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And they will say to you, Look here, look there. Do not go after them or follow them, for as the lightning that flashes out of one part of heaven shines unto the other part of heaven, so also the
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Son of Man will be. But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
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He has to go through the cross. And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will also be in the days of the
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Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, life was going on as usual, until the day
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Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, as it was also in the days of Lot, talking about Sodom and Gomorrah, they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built.
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Life was going on as normal. They didn't anticipate the heavens opening up and fire and brimstone coming upon them.
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But on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.
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Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. Now this would be true in A .D.
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70, and it's the same principle at the second coming as well I think. Verse 31,
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And that day he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away.
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They had flat housetops, and many times they'd be out there during the day time or evening, and he's saying don't even go down into the house to gather your goods, you get down and you get out, you run.
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And likewise the one who's in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life will preserve it.
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Verse 34, I tell you that in that night there will be two men in one bed, the one will be taken the other left.
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Two women will be grinding together, the one will be taken the other left. Two men will be in the field, the one will be taken and the other left.
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Same kind of language. Some taken, some left. Now who are the ones who are blessed?
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Again, many of those, not all, who hold to a pre -tribulation rapture argue that here Jesus was speaking of his coming to rapture his church out of the world.
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Those left behind are ones who must face the end time tribulation period, just before the second coming of Christ.
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But it's apparent here that the ones who are taken are ones who die. For the
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Lord declared that some would be taken, and the disciples then asked the question in verse 37, where are they taken
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Lord? Verse 38 reads, he said to them, wherever the body is, they are the eagles.
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And the eagles should probably be understood as vultures. There the vultures will be gathered. Some will be taken.
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Where are they taken Lord? Their bodies are strewn out there in the field and they are being fed upon by vultures.
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They're killed. And so the ones who are taken are the ones who fall under God's judgment.
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He's not speaking about a secret rapture of the church. And again,
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I would argue that this is our Lord, not speaking of his second coming in this context, but rather he is speaking about the sudden judgment of God that would come upon Jerusalem that occurred in the
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Roman siege of Jerusalem in AD, actually lasted three and a half years, 67 to 70.
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Again look at verse 31, it reads, and that day he was on the housetop, his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away.
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Our Lord was telling his people that when his judgment was about to fall on Jerusalem, they were to flee immediately without hesitation.
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Don't come down in your house, don't pack, get out, flee. Is there any command in scripture that when the rapture of Jesus Christ occurs, you're supposed to get up and flee?
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That doesn't happen, does it? People are changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. You don't flee anywhere, do you?
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He's talking about the judgment of God that Jesus Christ ordered, behold your house is left to you desolate, you know, not one stone of these buildings is going to be standing to one another.
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Master, when are these things going to take place? And Jesus is telling them. But when the second coming of Jesus Christ occurs, there's no command to flee.
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Where would anybody flee to? Our Lord was warning his disciples about the judgment of God that would come upon that people, even upon that generation.
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And yet they apply these passages to the rapture of the church. They completely reverse it.
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The title of the Left Behind series is unbiblical. They're assuming those left behind have to go through the tribulation.
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No, the ones who left behind were the ones who were spared God's judgment. They were the ones that fled out of Jerusalem in A .D.
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70. And the early church historian Eusebius in the early 4th century wrote that not one
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Christian died in the siege of Jerusalem because when they saw the city surrounded by the
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Roman armies, they fled as the Lord Jesus told them to do. Whereas the
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Jewish zealots in Jerusalem, they actually became hardened and the siege was then laid.
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And after three and a half years, Josephus recorded the overthrow of that city.
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And so, this is just one passage of many that I believe is wrested out of its context and used to argue for a pre -tribulation rapture and it just doesn't stand up under scrutiny.
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Secondly, those who espouse a pre -tribulation rapture declare that the rapture is distinct in that his coming in the rapture will be like a thief.
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And they say it will be a secret rapture. They argue the rapture is to be distinguished from the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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That is the full second stage of the second coming. For the first coming, the first second coming, the rapture is quiet and secret.
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But the second is manifest openly, all, every eye shall see it, even those who pierced him. They say that Christ will slip in and snatch his people from the earth and return to heaven with them to leave the people on the earth wondering what happened and why so many people are missing.
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And you can see drawings and posters of this event. So they say when
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Jesus comes as a thief at the rapture, he will come secretly and quietly and snatch away his church and return to heaven.
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And so when the rapture occurs, suddenly you're going to have airlines flying at 40 ,000 feet and the
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Christian pilot and co -pilot vanish. And you have non -Christians that have to deal with it.
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You have husbands and wives together and all of a sudden one of them is a Christian, he or she vanishes.
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Mothers have their babies suddenly disappear from their arms. One Rhoda Christian doctor who has just made an incision for major surgery suddenly disappeared through the ceiling of the operating room.
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It's said that members of churches that missed the rapture because they weren't Christians will all of a sudden have meetings and appoint new church leaders and try to determine how they're going to survive through the tribulation that they know is coming upon them.
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And so here are a few statements and I've included them where they say this rapture is a secret coming, a quiet coming.
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His appearance in the clouds will be veiled to the human eye and no one will see him. He will slip in, slip out, move in to get his jewels and slip out under the cover of night.
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Quickly and invisibly, unperceived by the world, the Lord will come as a thief in the night and catch away his waiting saints.
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The rapture will be a secret appearing and only the believers will know about it. In the rapture only the
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Christian will see him. It's a mystery, it's a secret. It will be a secret rapture, quiet, noiseless.
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Suddenly as the step of the thief in the night, all that the world will know will be that multitudes at once have gone.
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This is such a common belief, folks, among Bible believers and they've never heard anything different.
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But the belief that the coming of Jesus Christ is secret because he's coming as a thief is to misunderstand and misapply the meaning of the metaphor of thief.
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Our Lord was not intending to say by the metaphor of a thief that his coming would be like a thief comes quietly and unnoticed in the night, but rather the idea is that a thief comes unexpectedly.
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That's the issue. Not secretly, not quietly, but unexpectedly.
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And that's why we're told as Christians to always be watching, right? So that day doesn't catch you unexpectedly.
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One passage that clearly dispels this idea that the Lord will come secretly and quietly like a thief is 2
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Peter 3 .10. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. Now what happens when the
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Lord comes like a thief? Then the heavens will pass away with a roar. Doesn't sound too quiet or noiseless nor secret.
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The heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
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Our friend Bill Downing was very clever when he read this in our men's group some years ago. He indeed left for Canada yesterday.
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He says the world tells us that the universe began with a big bang, but this says it's going to end with a big bang.
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And he was absolutely right. He is coming like a thief comes, not in the sense that he'll be quiet or unnoticed, but he'll come when his enemies do not expect him.
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That's the metaphor. And by the way, the common teaching of premillennialists is that after the second coming of Christ there will be a future thousand -year earthly Jewish kingdom over which the
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Lord Jesus will reign as the son of David. After this thousand -year kingdom, they say the world will then be renovated by fire and a new heavens and a new earth will appear.
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But if you consider 2 Peter 3 .10, we read the renovation of the heavens and earth takes place at the second coming of Christ, not a thousand years after the second coming of Christ.
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So you know what they have to do? They have to take that the day of the Lord and they have to say that day of the
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Lord is really a thousand and seven years long. It's all the day of the Lord.
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And so they make it as like one big event. It really turns it on its head.
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And so actually premillennialists have to put a thousand years interval in this verse between the words come like a thief, but the day of the
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Lord will come like a thief, parentheses one thousand years transpire, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar.
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That's what their system demands. Now the second coming of Christ as a thief describes how unbelievers will be unprepared and caught on to where it is coming.
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In contrast, the Lord's coming will not overtake his people as a thief, 1
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Thessalonians 5 .1. And as soon as we get out of this paragraph in chapter four, we'll enter into this section in the next chapter.
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And Paul wrote, now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the
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Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape.
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Notice verse four, but you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.
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See, he only comes as a thief with regard to unbelievers or professing Christians who in reality are not.
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Why? For you are all children of light, children of the day. We're not of the night or of darkness. And so let's not sleep as others sleep, but let us be watchful.
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And so the Lord comes as a thief, but it's not a secret rapture to snatch away his people.
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Rather his coming as a thief will result in sudden destruction that will come upon them. And so it's wrong to say that when the
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Lord comes as a thief, it's referring to a secret rapture apart from the second coming when he would judge the world.
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It's one event. Thirdly, they say pre -tribulationism or the pre -tribulation rapture can be seen by distinguishing
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Jesus coming for his saints and Jesus coming with his saints. This is a very common expression that you can find.
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Chapters are often entitled this, Jesus coming for his saints and Jesus coming with his saints as it describes two comings, as it were, two stages of the second coming.
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He first comes for his saints in the rapture and then he comes with his saints seven years later at the second coming.
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This is what they argue. But we would say it's a false distinction. Yes, the word of God speaks of the
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Lord Jesus Christ coming with his saints. We have that in Jude 14 and 15.
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Now Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied about these men also saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they've committed in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
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Clearly this is a reference to the second coming of Christ. But as common as the assertion is made that his coming with his saints is to be distinguished from his coming for the saints as two stages of his second coming, this does not bear up under scrutiny.
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But even if our passage in 1 Thessalonians 4 .13 and following, which they claim to be speaking of a pre -tribulation rapture of the church in which he's coming for his saints, they argue, actually the paragraph that we read in 1
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Thessalonians 4 speaks about Jesus coming with his saints. Isn't that right?
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Not for them. He says, I don't want you to be alarmed at those Christians who have already died.
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For when God sends Jesus back, he's going to send those saints back with him, with him.
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But they say the rapture is for the saints. In fact, interestingly, you realize the scriptures never use the expression for his saints with regard to the second coming.
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Yes, the scriptures speak of the Lord coming and his people rising to meet him in order to join with him.
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But it's a false distinction to say there's two separate comings, one for his saints and one with his saints, by saying one is the rapture and the second is the revelation, the second coming of Christ.
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And yet they argue this all day long. And so the pre -tribulation rapture is a recent invention, the 19th century.
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A few have tried to argue that, no, they're increasingly caught in math, they've talked about a pre -trib rapture, but they are snatching at straws.
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And there are those that argue, no, no, it wasn't the result of a vision that Margaret MacDonald had, a teenage
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Scottish girl up in Scotland in the 1830s who had a vision that God revealed to her that the church would not go through the tribulation.
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And dispensationalists now are arguing that's not true, that's not the source of it. But really from that time, the teaching of the pre -tribulation rapture can be dated, being promoted by Edward Irving in London in his church and by J .N.
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Darby, the father of Plymouth Brethren, who was really the mentor of C .I.
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Schofield. That's really where this whole teaching originated, although some are trying to argue that that's not the case.
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Well after the so -called rapture, they claim there's a future seven -year tribulation. We're not going to get very far on this.
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Again, it's commonly believed by evangelicals that the Bible foretells a future end -time tribulation of seven years' tribulation.
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Now please understand, I'm not saying that there won't be an end -time tribulation. I'm saying, though, that the
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Bible does not teach there will be a seven -year time of tribulation before the coming of Christ.
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But this is such a doctrine of belief that is assumed by everybody. They may even question it.
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Obviously there's going to be a seven -year tribulation period. Tim LaHaye and Jenkins wrote about it, right, in their fiction series.
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And Hal Lindsey talked about it in his Late Great Planet Earth back in the 70s. Everybody knows this.
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Everybody agrees with this. This is what Billy Graham believes. It's got to be true. This is what they think.
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But we would argue that this is not biblical. Yes, the scriptures describe that this world will grow difficult and worse as time progresses.
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And those seven vials in the book of Tribulation may indeed speak of a terrible time right before the
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Second Coming. I don't know. But on the other hand, it might be like A .D.
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70 was when Jesus said, you know, life is going to be going on just like in the days of Noah, just like in the days of Lot, marrying, giving in marriage, eating and drinking, and then all of a sudden, bang, the end comes.
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Becomes like a thief. That may be how it comes out. I don't know. But they argue that there will be a tribulation separating the first stage of the
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Second Coming from the second stage of the Second Coming. And after that, the thousand -year millennium will be established.
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And so they say this, this tribulation period is just an absolute certainty.
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It will take place, they argue. But I would argue that it does not. It will not.
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First, there's a failure to recognize the fulfillment of New Testament prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem by the
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Roman armies in A .D. 70. This is so important. This event in A .D.
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70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, not one stone was left upon it, was the result of King Jesus pronouncing judgment upon Jerusalem.
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Behold, your house is left to you desolate. What is the abomination of desolation?
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Either the Roman armies or their rejection of Jesus, their Messiah, was the abomination that resulted in their desolation.
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That's what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 24. A .D. 70 was an event that far surpasses most any event in history.
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And you can read about Josephus, who was an eyewitness, a Jewish man who had given himself over to the
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Romans. He was with the Roman general Titus, and he recorded what he saw. And it's in his works.
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And it was a terrible, terrible siege and time for Jerusalem.
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Several million people were said to perish through starvation and through disease, and then ultimately by the
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Romans. Right across the street from the Colosseum in Rome, there's an archway, and it's a commemoration of Titus conquering
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Jerusalem. And there's a relief on the arch, it's there today, right next to the traffic street, and you can see it where the
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Roman armies are leading the Jews in chains as they're going to Rome after the fall of Jerusalem in A .D.
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70. It was a very, very significant event. But most Christians do not see that as an important event.
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And so they take all of the prophecies of that event that Jesus gave, all these things will come to pass on this generation, and they project it as applying to the
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Second Coming. You follow what I'm saying? And so all the prophecies that the Lord Jesus gave, all the warnings that he gave, the need to flee for Jerusalem, all of these things, because they do not see
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A .D. 70 and its significance, they project all those prophecies as occurring before the
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Second Coming of Christ. Ralph Woodrow, who has a great book on this matter, sets forth these two views.
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Christians who hold the futurist interpretation applies these verses about deceivers, wars, earthquakes, famines, pestilences to our time as things leading up to the
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Tribulation period, which they believe will be the last seven years of this age after the Rapture.
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The abomination of desolation is regarded as an idol of the Antichrist, or the Antichrist himself, to be set up in the
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Holy of Holies of a rebuilt temple at Jerusalem. And when this happens, according to this position, the
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Jews will flee into the mountains, for then there shall be great tribulation. And they argue the
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Jews in the future, after the Rapture, during the Tribulation, midway through the seven years, when they finally understand the
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Antichrist is evil, they flee from Jerusalem, and it's argued that they seek haven or safety in Petra, you know, down in South Jordan, the rose -colored rock city.
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I remember a generation ago, back in the 1970s, some rich Christian guy bought a whole bunch of Bibles and put them there in those buildings in Petra, assuming these
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Jews fleeing Jerusalem are going to go there and then read the Word of God and get converted during the Tribulation.
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Incredible! In contrast, the fulfilled interpretation holds that the deceivers, wars, earthquakes, famines, pestilences were things which
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Jesus said would happen, things that happened before the destruction of the Temple. The abomination of desolation, by comparing the parallel accounts with Gentile armies that surrounded
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Jerusalem, upon heeding the warnings of Jesus, the disciples fled from Jerusalem and Judea, while Jesus called great tribulation, referred to the judgment that fell upon the
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Jewish nation, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A .D. 70. And so, depending on how you understand
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A .D. 70, is going to affect how you understand the Second Coming and events prior to it.
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Again, this is just an assumption on the part of most Christians, however, they are uninformed.
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We are going to stop shortly because of the time, but I just want to complete this little bit here. Second, it is commonly asserted that the
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Church will not go through the Tribulation but will be raptured out of the world before its onset. The Lord loves
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His Church. He is not going to allow the Church to go through Tribulation. I don't know where they get that.
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Because the Scripture says everywhere that He preserves us. They argue from 1 Thessalonians 1 .9
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and following. For they themselves declare concerning what manner of entry we had to you, how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true
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God, to wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.
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And they argue the wrath to come is the Tribulation. The Lord won't allow us to go through the
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Tribulation but will rapture us out. But the wrath to come is not a reference to the Tribulation.
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Paul is talking about eternal hell, the judgment of God, the damnation that falls upon the unsaved world.
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God has delivered us from the wrath to come. We are going to escape eternal hell through Jesus Christ.
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He is not talking about a Tribulation period. They argue the same thing from 1
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Thessalonians 5 .9 and 10. It reads, for God did not appoint us to wrath but to obtain salvation.
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And they argue that the wrath here is the Tribulation period from which we will be raptured beforehand.
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But again, Paul is not speaking of the Tribulation period. He is talking about being saved from God's damnation, saved from God's wrath.
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In contrast to that, we obtain salvation from God's wrath upon sin.
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They also make arguments from silence. They say from Revelation 4 all the way through Revelation 18, the
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Church is never mentioned and therefore the Church is raptured out before the
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Tribulation. It is described, they argue, from Revelation 4 through chapter 18.
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But again, this assumes several things that are wrong. They assume that the book of Revelation is chronological and they believe the book of Revelation is all future, after the
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Rapture. Some say Revelation 4, others argue Revelation 6, with the opening of the seven seals at the beginning, they say, of the
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Tribulation. We would argue that Revelation should not be understood chronologically, but rather it addresses the
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Church age going back over it and over it and over it. There are seven cycles where you are basically a recapitulation of God's dealings throughout this
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Church age. But they argue it is chronological and the Church is not mentioned from Revelation 4 to 18, therefore the
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Church is not on earth during the Tribulation period. We would argue that in Revelation 19, 20, and 21, when it talks about the
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Second Coming of Christ and the Millennium, the Church is also not mentioned in those chapters. Does that mean the Church isn't present?
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You see, there is an error of logic that is well documented.
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You don't argue for things that are true from things that are silent. It is an error of logic.
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You don't argue this is true because it is not set, is basically what they are doing. It is faulty logic.
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And yet this is a common argument they have. And then you read in the Scriptures, everywhere we are appointed to Tribulation.
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John 16, 33, These things I have spoken to you, Jesus said, that in me you may have peace.
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In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
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Acts 14, 21, Paul told the Church, We must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom of God.
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1 Thessalonians 3, 4, we saw earlier, For in fact, we told you before, when we were with you, that we should suffer tribulation, just as it has happened in you now.
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John, in the opening words of Revelation, I, your brother and companion in tribulation.
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Now they would respond, yeah, yeah, there is tribulation that we go through in this world, but we are talking about the end time tribulation and the great tribulation.
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And that is different, they said. But our Lord Jesus, you know there are only two places in the
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Bible where the words great tribulation are found, and one is found in Revelation 2, when
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Jesus was talking to a church that existed in 100 A .D. at the end of the first century.
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He said, if you don't repent, I'll cast her into a sick bed and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.
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And so great tribulation isn't speaking about a specific three and a half year period of time in the future. I think in one context, it was speaking about the
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A .D. 70 event, but for that matter, all of us endure tribulation, in fact, if I had time,
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I could spend a message showing you that this entire church age is described as a time of tribulation for which we are all enduring and the
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Lord is carrying us through. And yet they project it into the future. And then lastly, and we'll close, they argue, we saw it in the
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Dallas Seminary Confession, and you can see it everywhere, they argue that there must be a seven year tribulation period at the end, after the rapture and before the second coming, it must be a seven year tribulation in order to fulfill
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Daniel's prophecy of the 70th week. And that is the only argument that they have for a seven year tribulation.
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And we'll show you next week, we'll argue next week, that 70th week was realized in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. But they take the 70 weeks of Daniel and they say that the end of the 69th week was when
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Jesus died, and then because the Jews rejected the kingdom, rejected Jesus, God postponed the kingdom, and so now between the end of the 69th week and the beginning of the 70th week of Daniel, we have this parenthesis of time, the church age.
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But after the rapture of the church, God will go back and restart his prophetic clock, and the 70th week of Daniel will begin to unfold.
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But that turns on its head the entire time frame that God gave to Daniel, 490 years.
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Not 2 ,490 years plus, but 490 years.
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I don't know why it is, but my old friend Doug Moore always comes to mind when he was trying to show his
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Baptist pastor about these things years ago, and his pastor argued about this parenthesis, this church age, and splitting up the 70 weeks, and Doug, as his character was, he got a ruler, and he took a hacksaw and cut it off at 11 inches, and put a rubber band between the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th inch, gave it to his pastor and said, here, now you can make this ruler as long as you want, and basically he was saying, this is what you're doing with the time frame of Daniel's 70 weeks, you're rendering it meaningless if you can make it as long as you want beyond 490 years.
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But we'll address that next week, Lord willing. May the Lord help us and give us understanding in these matters.
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I understand it's difficult, but don't think it's unimportant. Don't think it's trivial.
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There are people running all over the world, all over our land, who've got their eyes focused upon that earthly Jerusalem over there and the land grant, and they've got their eyes, they think that they are immune from any future manifestation of God's judgment because we're going to be raptured out of here.
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All those poor guys that are left behind, God have mercy on us. May the
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Lord not allow us to be overtaken when the Lord comes, that we not be overtaken as a thief, for we ought to be people of the day, alert and ready.
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Thank you, Father, for your word. Give us understanding in these matters and help us, our
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Lord, to also be able to help our brothers and sisters in Christ who may be confused about these matters.
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May you help us, Lord, to be true to your word and faithful and considerate and compassionate to our brethren,
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Lord, who may not know differently because they haven't been taught differently.
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we pray that you would help us, Lord, to be true to you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.