What about the Rapture?

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. 1

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Thessalonians 4, 16 through 18. I'm just gonna read that. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a 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. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.

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And I'll tell you a little bit of a story. Growing up, there was a time period in my life when my maternal grandmother, my mom's mom, drove an 18 -wheeler.

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And we called her Doodle. That's not important, but that's what we called her. So I don't remember how old

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I was. I think that I was a Christian at this point, but I remember there was a summer when

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I spent some time with them and rode in the big truck. And this is one of the first times

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I remember her talking to me about Jesus is coming back. I don't remember everything that she said.

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I don't know if she had a correct view or not. I do know she said, Jesus is coming back. And my first reaction, young,

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I was probably maybe like 11 or 12, my first reaction was, that sounds terrifying.

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And so this is around 1997, probably 1998, somewhere in there.

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And if you remember the Left Behind book series, I don't know if some of you guys remember that.

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Actually, some of you might be too young for that. But you remember the Left Behind book series, it came out,

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I had to look this up. It actually, the first book came out at the end of 1995.

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It was all pretty close together for me. Now, I never personally read a single book of Left Behind.

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But their influence, the Left Behind book series, the influence of that thinking, obviously permeated, or maybe

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I shouldn't say obvious, but it did permeate the church that I was part of, the church world that I was a part of.

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This was how it was going to be, right? Things were going to perpetually get worse and worse, there'd be some sort of great war in the

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Middle East, an Antichrist figure would appear, but somewhere all that, before the Great Tribulation, there would be this secret rapture.

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The old joke was, a terrible joke, I'll tell it, the old joke was, guys would be like,

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I want a bumper sticker that says, in case of rapture, mother -in -law will grab steering wheel. That was a joke, but you think about it, and you'll get the joke.

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But the idea was, everybody'd be driving around, and then all of a sudden, poof, the

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Christians are gone. And then everything will just descend into mass chaos.

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In my teenage years, I was just like, I was kind of uncomfortable with that. I mean, it just kind of worried me.

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I don't know, that's just how it was. I actually remember, this will be funny to you,

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I actually remember praying to the Lord, Lord, could I please have a wife and family before the rapture happens?

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I prayed that. You know, I just, anyway, that was my context.

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Then I had this problem, reading the Bible. Now, I was not a consistent Bible reader as a teenager, not like, it was really about age 21, or maybe 20, when

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I got convicted and just said, I've got to read the Bible every day. And so, but in my teenage years,

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I did read the Bible, and as I was reading the Bible, I just could never make this stuff fit.

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But I accepted it as truth. I accepted this is just it, this is it, this is how it's gonna be.

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There'll be a secret rapture, there'll be seven years of tribulation, and then, you know, there'll be the 1 ,000 -year millennial reign.

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This is just how it works. Even as late as 2010, you know, so by 2010,

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I was 24, so even that late, this is just how it's gonna be. But the problem is,

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I just couldn't explain it well, or defend it well from the

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Scriptures. Now, I know that people today do try to, or they do, they do, let's be charitable.

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They do take the Scriptures and try to explain it. But people also take infant baptism and try to explain it from the

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Scriptures. But for me, I'm just talking about me, I couldn't make that, I couldn't make the argument work.

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And I probably didn't wanna admit it back then, but I was a bit skeptical. And the reason

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I didn't wanna admit it is because I was just under the impression that pre -trib rapture, rapture before the tribulation, secret rapture, that's

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Christianity. That's what I believed. So I was like, if you say, well,

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I'm not 100 % sure that this squares with the teaching of the Scriptures, then you're like, well, you're not a

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Christian, right? Now, I'll be honest, some people, and I kinda get nervous about even teaching like this, I hope no one in our church would be like this, but some people may believe that.

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If you move on this, but I'm just telling you, historically, this has not been the dominant position.

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It feels like the dominant position now, but it has not been the dominant position. And I'm gonna show you tonight that I think we can make a pretty strong case this is not the biblical position.

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Now, again, just on my journey, 2011, I began to try to think through these things better, not just accepting what

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I'd always heard, just kinda try to wrestle with these things, began studying the Scriptures better.

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And I'll be honest with you, 13 years later, I'm still on that journey. I'm not an expert, don't look at me as the eschatology expert.

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But I tell you one thing that I have settled on really firmly, and I hope to share this with you tonight, explain it to you tonight.

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But one thing I've settled on really firmly, and I've shared this with you before, is that eschatology does not have to be as complicated and as convoluted as some people make it out to be.

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It really is more simple than what some people try to make it, okay?

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Now, that doesn't mean that I have all the answers to everything, it doesn't mean that there aren't passages that are difficult to wrestle with, and concepts to think through,

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I get it. But it does mean that the overall system and layout of eschatology, of the

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Doctrine and the End Times, in the Bible, is not difficult. And I hope to show that to you tonight when we talk about the rapture.

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So here's the first thing, first point. So the first two points, I think, are quicker, and then we'll spend a little bit longer on the last point.

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So point number one tonight, the rapture is real. So do we have to believe in a rapture?

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I would say absolutely. The concept of the rapture is a biblical concept.

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And I'll show it to you from the Scriptures. It's there in our text in verse 17.

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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. Now I'm gonna give you a foreshadowing if you didn't already catch it.

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I am going to teach tonight against the idea of a secret pre -trib rapture.

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However, I want to establish up front that we're not teaching against the rapture.

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That's in the text. The rapture is real. It is there in verse 17.

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Can anybody identify in your Bible where do you think the word rapture comes from? Just guess from the text.

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What do you see of the concept of rapture in verse 17? Yeah, you say caught up.

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That's right, caught up. So in the Latin Vulgate, the word there doesn't matter, but the word is where we get the

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English word rapture. So you say, where is the word rapture in the Bible?

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Technically, it's not in the Bible. It's not in the English translation or the Greek even, but it's the

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Latin translation of the Greek is where we get the word rapture. Then we have another passage to consider.

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If you just turn there quickly in 1 Corinthians, 1

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Corinthians chapter 15, the end of 1

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Corinthians. So we'll come back in just a minute, but 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Now we don't have this word here, but we have the similar concept.

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So 1 Corinthians 15, beginning in verse 50. I tell you this brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

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Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

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In other words, we shall not all sleep. Not everybody's going to die, but everybody is going to be what?

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Changed, you're talking about Christians. In a moment, how are they going to be changed? Verse 52, 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 shall be changed.

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For this perishable body must put on the imperishable and this mortal body must put on immortality.

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Now, it's not the exact same teaching there of the rapture, but it is parallel.

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I mean, it's happening at the same time, just doesn't use the word rapture. So Matthew Henry of this text, 1

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Corinthians 15 through 53 says, at or immediately before this rapture into the clouds, those who are alive will undergo a mighty change which will be equivalent to dying.

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This change is so mysterious that we cannot comprehend it. We know little or nothing of it.

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So again, when I say that eschatology is simple, I don't mean we are able to exhaust all these little things.

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Like what's that gonna be like? What is it gonna be like to go from one state to another state in the sense of you're in this state and you change, we put off the imperishable, or sorry, the perishable puts off, puts on.

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We put off the perishable, put on the imperishable. You get it, right, sorry, okay. We don't able to explain necessarily all that ins and outs, but the overall concept flows smoothly, okay.

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So point number one, there will be a rapture. The Lord Jesus is absolutely coming for his church and we will be caught up with him in the air, all right.

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Now we need to go to the second point. Yeah. You think, which I never watched the left behind or the rim,

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I wasn't allowed to, but you think they get some of the kind of sudden rapture from Matthew 24, the man, one left in the field, yeah, yeah.

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I think that's part of it. I think there's a, it's kind of like my analogy tonight is infant baptism.

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There's not a text that teaches infant baptism. There's not a text that teaches secret rapture, but there are texts that you could put together and try to derive this teaching.

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Yeah, no, no. Well, because in one sense you look at it and you're like, honestly, and how could anybody come up with this, you know, as you just take the text, but there are well -meaning brothers and sisters and so we're not.

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I wasn't gonna say anything, but I got a question. Yeah. Okay. I always believe that the rapture ended in the seventh year of the tribulation.

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I always believe he come after the tribulation, is that true? That's what we're gonna teach tonight, yeah.

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But as far as a seven -year tribulation, I mean, we're not really getting into that, but I think that's a misunderstanding of Daniel.

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I think that that's not, you know, a seven -year tribulation. I think it really comes from, so what we're arguing against tonight is this dispensational mindset that tries to separate

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Israel and the church. Instead of one people of God, essentially you have two. God has two different plans.

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He's got one plan for Israel, one plan for the church. Instead of just one plan through his son, through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ to redeem one people, one bride for himself.

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So anyway, we'll probably get to that later. Not so much tonight about the seven years, but yeah. Okay, so let's keep going.

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So number one, the rapture is real. Number two, the rapture is, I was just gonna put public, but I thought we'll use this adjective here.

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It's very public, okay? So back to our text in 1 Thessalonians 4 .16.

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So there is no such thing as a secret rapture where people don't know what's going on, okay?

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So I gotta get back to it in the text. 1 Thessalonians 4, where people are just like, what in the world happened, you know?

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Like, you see the movies, my pilot, he's gone. I don't know what happened.

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What, okay, what does the text say? 1 Thessalonians 4 .16. For the

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Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command.

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Three different phrases here. With a 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. That's not secret. It's explicitly saying this is a very public and open event.

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It's very loud. Also, it says the Lord himself. Now, you understand that if the text just said dramatically the

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Lord will descend, that would make sense, right? The Lord will descend. That would not change the meaning of the text.

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If it just said the Lord will descend from heaven, it'd be saying the same thing. However, the pronoun for himself is used in the text.

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Why? I think it's for a point of clarity and emphasis. It's not just, you know, the

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Lord himself. It's like emphatic that Jesus bodily is descending here.

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And keep, by the way, keep that in your mind, too. The Lord himself will what? Descend. From where?

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From heaven. Where is Jesus at right now? What's he doing in heaven?

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Yeah, but specifically, what is his posture in heaven right now? Yeah, he's sitting down, okay?

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So he is going to get up from his throne bodily and descend from heaven very publicly with a cry of command.

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Now, it doesn't matter so much tonight that we figure out what each one of these phrases mean. Just know that it's very loud and very public.

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With a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

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So this is very emphatic. This is absolutely noticeable. It's not a secret event.

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In Matthew 24, 31, that's on your sheet. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

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Now, that's very interesting today because you guys know my position on John MacArthur. I love

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John MacArthur. I wish that there were more John MacArthur's in the United States. I'm reading his systematic theology today and he's just wrong, he's just wrong on this.

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He separates Matthew 24 from 1 Thessalonians 4. You know, these are two different events.

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That's what he says. That there's a rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4, but then there's this other thing in Matthew 24 when

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Jesus really comes back. It's just a convoluted, it's very complicated and difficult when the plain reading is, there's just the same thing.

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He's gathering his church in 1 Thessalonians 4, gathering his elect in Matthew 24. And the point

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I'm trying to make now is this is a very public event, loud trumpet call. And so he's bodily descending, calling the church to himself, right?

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It's not gonna be the people disappearing. Revelation 1, 7, behold, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him.

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Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. That's right.

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And all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so, amen, right?

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So, number one, the rapture is real. Number two, the rapture is not just public, very public.

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And then thirdly, we stay on this for a little while. The rapture marks the end of this age, okay?

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We've talked about how many ages are there? Two, two ages.

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There is this age and the age to come. Now, we are going to get into signs of the ends of the age and we'll talk about the tribulation, we'll talk about the

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Antichrist. Coincidentally, just in God's providence this Sunday, we're talking about the spirit of the

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Antichrist and actually from Nahum, I'll explain all that when we get there. But we will talk about the, capital

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A, Antichrist, the man of lawlessness, all those things. But right now, we'll fast forward a little bit and we'll just talk about the end of the age, okay?

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So we're back in 1 Thessalonians, so chapter five. By the way, when Paul wrote this letter to the

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Thessalonians is he writing chapter divisions? No, he's writing one letter.

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So some people, and I think it's probably, number one, it's probably because of their system and number two, it's probably the chapter throws them off.

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But they wanna take what we read at the end of chapter four and put seven years of tribulation between chapter four and chapter five.

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Is that there? No, and I would argue it can't fit there, but we'll talk about that later.

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I have a question too. Well, this is kind of, now that all these people have told me that, I don't know.

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That is not important to our discussion time. It's a good question, just not important for where we're at.

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Okay, it's good, but good question. Okay, so chapter five, 1 Thessalonians. Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you.

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For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the 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.

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They will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.

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And now go ahead and go to your next letter, 2 Thessalonians chapter two. 2

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Thessalonians chapter two. Now these are two different letters, but they're to the same church, and they're dealing with the same issues in the church.

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So now 2 Thessalonians chapter two says, now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him.

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You understand? This puts both those events together. So they're already together in chapter four and chapter five of 1

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Thessalonians. You get to 2 Thessalonians chapter two, the events are together too. The coming of the

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Lord, the day of the Lord, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ are being gathered together to Him. We ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter to be from us to the effect that the day of the

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Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first, the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exhausts himself against every so -called

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God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be

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God. Now, it's not tonight's lesson to talk about the man of lawlessness. It's simply the lesson tonight to show you that the rapture occurs at the day of the

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Lord, that these are not two separate events. Like this is just like,

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I think people get frustrated trying to read these texts and say, well, I've got to figure out a way to fit all this stuff, all this baggage

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I'm carrying the seven year and I've got to figure out how to cram this here in the text. It's not there.

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It's not in these texts. And it's not meant to be in these texts because the rapture and the day of the

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Lord are one event. If you have missed out on this series, if you haven't gotten anything from this series so far, please get this point.

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The return of Jesus is a single event. It is not two events in the

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Bible. In order to have a pre -tribulation rapture, you have to have

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Jesus coming back how many times? Twice. He comes back once and does what?

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Secretly raptures his church. And then he's back for seven years. I'm not trying to be rude or whatever.

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I'm not trying to make a characterization of the position.

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I'm just saying Jesus gets off his throne, comes back, gets to church, goes back, sits on his throne seven years, then he comes back again.

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And then you understand that's complicated. That's right, me too.

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Because it's very simple. Jesus comes back how many times? One time.

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It is a single event. When Jesus returns to rapture the church, that is the day of the

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Lord. That marks the end of this present age and entering us into the eternal state.

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So let me just show you again, back up to 1 Thessalonians 4. We'll just do some work here with what the text is saying.

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So in verse 17, this is where we get the word rapture from. You remember that. 1 Thessalonians 4, 17.

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Then we who are alive who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds.

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Now draw your attention to this phrase. To meet the Lord in the air. Now what does that mean?

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The rapture will meet the Lord in the air. Well, some people would say, well, see, it's obvious.

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We're gonna meet the Lord in the air and then what do they say? He's gonna take us all back to heaven, right?

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But number one, that's not what the text says. It doesn't say that. It says that, remember, what is

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Jesus' position here? Verse 16, the Lord himself will do what? Ascend or descend. So where's

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Jesus? He's coming down. We meet him in the air. So do we go back up?

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Well, let me, number one, no, he's coming back down. But I think we can make the case from the text itself.

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I think I'll put this on your sheet. This is just a little bit of grammatical work from the Theological Dictionary of the

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New Testament. So this word for meet, the word apontasis, okay?

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The word apontasis is to be understood as a technical term for a civic custom of antiquity whereby a public welcome was accorded by a city to important visitors.

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Similarly, when Christians leave the gates of the world, they will welcome Christ in the air, acclaiming him as kurios, that is,

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Lord. Okay, if that's kind of clunky for you, listen to the commentator F .F. Bruce. When a dignitary paid an official visit, or parousia, that's coming to a city in Hellenistic times, the action of the leading citizens in going out to meet him and escorting him on the final stage of his journey was called the apontasis.

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This is what we're saying. When the text says it will meet the Lord in the air, here's what the word, here's the idea and the concept of the word.

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A king's coming to a city, or a very important official is coming to the city. And what would you do if you're in the city?

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There would be a group from the city that would do what? Go out to meet that person. And then what would they do?

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Return to where he's from. No, they would go out to meet that person, and what would happen?

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Escort him back. Escort him into the city, right? Bring him into the city.

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His whole entourage now coming into the city. This is the word that Paul uses because this is the concept that we need to understand.

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The rapture is not to go up in the air and then get sucked back into heaven or whatever. The rapture is we meet

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Jesus in the air as he's on his way, what? Remember? Down, as he is descending.

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And we rule and we reign with him. So the text is saying we're called to meet the king as he's coming down to judge his enemies and rule the new heavens and new earth.

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So the rapture and the day of the Lord are a singular event. It is a really odd work by dispensationalists to try to separate this rapture from the day of the

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Lord when they're right here together. And grammatically and contextually, you just can't fit this in there.

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It's very similar. Let me just give you this argument real quick. This is totally off topic, but I'm gonna give you this.

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Go to Acts 16. It's very similar to this argument. So in Acts 16, totally off topic, but I'll hopefully use this as an illustration.

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Okay, in Acts 16, the flipping jailer gets saved. And in verse 33,

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Acts 16, 33, let's go to verse 34.

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Then he brought them into his house and set food before him and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he believed in God.

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And so the argument goes that infant baptism, this is one of the arguments, infant baptism is legitimate because his entire, the flipping jailer's entire household believe in God.

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Therefore, that's an example of infant baptism. No, right, yeah, that's not true.

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You just, as a preconceived concept that you're forcing on the text, and I would even argue this, the text won't allow for that because verse 34 says that he rejoiced along with his entire household.

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You understand? In other words, his whole household is old enough to do what? Rejoice, right?

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And so the text doesn't allow for infant baptism to fit in there. And I'm arguing the same thing of 1

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Thessalonians. I'm not telling you tonight that the secret rapture and the seven -year tribulation is simply missing from 1

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Thessalonians 4 and 5. Of course it's missing. Actually, I would argue it's missing from everywhere. But it's not just that it's missing from 1

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Thessalonians 4 and 5. It's that the text itself will not allow for that interpretation to fit, okay?

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So John Gill notes of this, that Christ will now appear of this descending, 1

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Thessalonians 4, 17. Christ will now appear as the King of kings and Lord of lords, as a judge of the whole earth, attending with the hosts or armies of heaven, and the shout of a king will be among them.

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Perhaps the same is intended as by the voice of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters and of mighty thunderings upon the coming of Christ, the destruction of Antichrist and the marriage of the

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Lamb in Revelation 19, 1, 6, 7, 14, 15, okay? Matthew 24, 29 through 31.

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Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heaven will be shaken.

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Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man. And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the

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Son of Man coming to both the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

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Now, some dispensationalists will actually try to say, well, see, that's when he's coming back and the second time he's coming back and then he's getting

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Israel and all that. Again, that's like an extra rapture. I don't know, it's convoluted, it's messed up. This is all one event, right?

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Gathering the elect from the four winds, rapturing the church, it's all the same.

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Matthew 25, 31 through 33. When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

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Before him will be gathered all the nations and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

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And he will place the sheep on his right but the goats on the left. How many times did Jesus come back? One time.

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When the Son of Man comes in his glory. He's not coming back not in his glory to get the church but then he's coming back in his glory.

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That's just a poor understanding of the text. Again, 1

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Corinthians 15, 51 and 52. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the what trumpet?

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No, the last. So how many more trumpets are gonna happen after this trumpet?

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Zero. Right, because this is the last trumpet, okay?

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The trumpet will sound, all the dead will be raised and perishable and we shall be changed. So at the rapture is the last what?

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Trumpet. It's over. This is all one event.

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There's not the rapture trumpet and then the trumpet where Jesus really comes back. It's one trumpet, the last trumpet, okay?

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That's it. As one commentator notes, the return of Christ at the close of history is a singular unitary event.

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So let me put it to you in very plain terms. I'm not trying to be hard. I'm just trying to put a stake in the ground here.

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The doctrine of the pre -trib rapture, it's a myth. Again, it's very similar to how people understand infant baptism.

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You have this preconceived idea. Infant baptism must be true. Now I'm gonna run to the scriptures and I'm gonna find evidences to support my case.

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Very similar, it's a different doctrine, but similar hermeneutic with the pre -trib rapture.

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This has to be, this has to be. And so we're gonna figure out a way to support it.

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It really comes from a poor understanding of the church in Israel. So there was a reason as a teenage boy that I couldn't find the pre -trib rapture in Scripture.

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It's not there. Cornelius Venema says, the teaching of a pre -tribulation rapture as understood within the framework of dispensationalism is not founded upon the teaching of any biblical passage.

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You can read Grudem. I'll read Louis Burkoff. On the basis of Scripture, it should be maintained that the second coming of the

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Lord will be a single event. Happily, some pre -millenarians, that's hard to say the way he says it, do not agree with the doctrine of a twofold second coming of Christ and speak of it as an unwarranted novelty.

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Says Frost, it is not generally known and yet is an indisputable fact that the doctrine of pre -tribulation resurrection and rapture is a modern interpretation.

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I am tempted to say a modern invention. According to him, it dates from the day of Irving and Darby.

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That's the 1830s, so less than 200 years old.

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Now, I'm not saying, hear me clearly, I'm not saying if you believe in a pre -trib rapture that you're a bad person or that you're a heretic.

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I'm not saying that. Well, you're not a heretic based on that. I guess technically you could hold to the pre -trib rapture and be a heretic for some other reason.

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But the fact that you hold to the pre -trib rapture doesn't make one a heretic. You can be a part of this church.

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You can be a solid member of this church and hold to pre -trib rapture.

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But good men hold this belief. I'm just saying it's not the biblical teaching, okay?

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We do and we have to be charitable toward one another. We differ in eschatological views.

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We must be charitable, we must be kind, we must wrestle with these things as brothers and sisters. I'm just trying to present to you this is the biblical case.

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Okay, real quick, just to finish this off. Let me give you three quick reasons why we have to take this position.

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Three practical reasons why. Number one, it simplifies eschatology. I'm not saying it answers every question.

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We could wrestle with Daniel 9, all those things. We have work to do with those things. But this is a simple outline believers can grasp.

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There are two ages. There's this age now, there's the age to come. There'll be a tribulation.

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There is tribulation and distress in this age. There will be final tribulation. There will be antichrist.

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There are antichrists in this age. There will be the antichrist revealed in the final days. And then the end will come.

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Christ will return, calls the church to himself. As he descends, he has final victory.

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We meet him in the air in his victorious procession, as it were, and this isn't just believers alive.

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It's believers who've gone before us. All believers of all time, we enter into this victory with him.

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So it simplifies eschatology. Secondly, it causes us to be prepared for the days ahead.

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I've heard this all my life. You know, the Bible just says it's gonna get worse and worse, and then we're gonna be raptured out of here.

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Well, the Bible really doesn't say it like that. Okay, number one. But number two,

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I'm just telling you tonight. I'm not trying to scare you. We will not escape tribulation.

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We will face trials and tribulation in this life. We will face persecution in this life.

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If we're alive long enough, when the Lord is to return, I do believe there'll be a little season, the Bible talks about, of final tribulation.

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Satan is loosed, as it were, completely. You know, now he's restricted in certain ways.

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He's obviously very active in certain ways. But there'll be a little season of serious tribulation.

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And all over the world today, the church is facing tribulation. So I'm just telling you, don't tell yourself, well,

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I'm never gonna have to face anything really serious. I live in America, and I'll be raptured before I face anything really serious.

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That's not true. You need to be prepared. Sam Walton has a great quote. I'll leave it to you, because it's kind of long, but you can read that.

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But the people of God must be ready to resist the temptation to give up. You must be ready to resist the temptation to turn our backs on the

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Lord, even during times of serious trial and tribulation. All right, so it simplifies eschatology.

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It causes us to be prepared for the days ahead. And then finally, so you can read that quote from Sam Walton.

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Finally, though, it causes us to be more serious about evangelism. This is a little bit weaker argument, I get. But there's at least an idea in people's minds, maybe not explicitly, but implicitly, that when the secret rapture happens, all

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Christians disappear, then people will get serious. Why could they not?

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If I get raptured out of here, then my lost family, because I've been talking to them all these years, they're gonna know what happened, and they're gonna get saved.

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Or they'll wander into the church, and they'll find literature, or they'll find Bibles, and they'll get saved.

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Or maybe you had this thought before. I had this thought as a teenager. Man, well, if I'm not really converted,

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I guess when the rapture happens, and I don't go, then I'll know, and I'll get saved then, right?

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And so we have these things. But here's what I'm saying. When the rapture happens, it's over. It's over.

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So we must be spurred on to evangelism now. We must be serious about kingdom work now.

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We must be serious about examining ourselves to see whether we're in the faith now. Today is the day of salvation.

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This is now, all right? So I'll close with this, and I went a minute over.

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By the time I get done, it'll be a couple minutes over. Thank you for your patience. But let me just remind you, because I'm right here, 1

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Thessalonians 4, 18. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. And then chapter five, verse 11.

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Therefore, encourage one another, and build one another up, just as you are doing. The study of eschatology is not meant to cause us to be at each other's throats.

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It's not meant to cause us to fight or divide. It's meant to what? Encourage us, to build up the church, not for confusion, not for division, not for fear.

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It's meant for strength. It's meant for hope. It's meant for unity. It's meant for the exaltation of Christ.

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This quote from Matthew Henry is beautiful. The doctrine of the resurrection and the second coming of Christ is a great antidote against the fear of death and inordinate sorrow for the death of our

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Christian friends. You miss your Christian family. You're sad at your Christian family that's gone.

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They're passed on. You're gonna see them again. That's the encouragement. Your brothers and sisters, you're gonna see them again.

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You're frustrated about injustice in this world. You hear the stories even going on in our own town about this or that thing happening.

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You're frustrated about it. Jesus is coming back. He's gonna make all things right. You're frustrated with your kids or whatever the case may be like.

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Jesus is coming back and we win. His life, death, burial, resurrection has secured a victory for all those who put their faith in Christ.

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He's coming back physically, bodily, really. And he's going to rapture the church.

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And when he does and descends with her in all her glory, he'll judge the wicked and we'll reign with him forever in the new heavens and new earth.

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Even so, Lord, come quickly. If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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God's doing. This is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poimos, the masterpiece of God.