The Rapture

Eschatology, Humility, and the Need to Study End Times Carefully

If you have your Bibles, please open them to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and find your place at verse 13. Now I feel like this message is going to require a somewhat lengthy introduction, but for the sake of not wanting to be overly repetitive, I am going to have to bring some of you up to speed as to what we talked about the last few days because I realize not everyone was here.

Beginning Friday night, we began to do a conference on the subject of what's known as eschatology. We simply called it the End Times Conference because eschatology comes from the word which means last things, and typically when people study eschatology, they are studying the end times.

Many of you probably were surprised by some of what you heard. Some of the positions we take here are not very popular in especially broader evangelicalism. However, we hold to these positions because this is the conviction that we have arrived at through the study of scripture and because we know that on this subject, we are able to have disagreements with brothers in Christ and still be brothers in Christ.

This is what we would call a, I wouldn't even say it's a secondary issue, I would say this would be what's known as a tertiary issue or the more fancy word is adiaphora. Adiaphora means those things which are debatable, questionable, or even not known.

And so it's not to say that they're unimportant, but if you hear something from Brother Mike or Brother Andy or I on this subject and you have a disagreement, we are willing to concede that these things are things that are more able to be disagreed upon than say something like the Trinity, which we would say is a standard of Christian teaching that goes back to the beginning of the church and is not up for debate.

The doctrine of the Trinity is one that has been held by all Christians and therefore should not be one that is simply tossed around as if it were like a football willing to be held onto or not. That's not the way we look at doctrines like that or the veracity and tenacity of God's.

Word.

Things like that are not up for debate. And again, it's not to say that these things aren't important. It's not to say these things should not be studied. I just don't want this to become a dividing line.

There have been people who have been sitting right where you are who have heard me say things about end times and have literally walked out the door and never come back. And I honestly don't think that that should be the way we treat this subject.

We should treat it with at least a spirit of humility. And so I say that as my introduction. Let us enter into this subject with some humility. So Friday night, Mike talked about the subject of the Great Tribulation.

He preached from what is known as the Olivet Discourse, which is Jesus standing on the Mount of Olives looking at Jerusalem, making a pronouncement of judgment over the city.

Of Jerusalem.

And Mike explained that we understand the largest portion of the Olivet Discourse to having already been fulfilled in A .D. 70 in the destruction of Jerusalem. If you want to go back and listen to that message, you better have an hour and a half.

It was a great message. But at the hour mark, Mike was at verse 15 and I was like, buckle up because he ain't.

Stopping.

But it was great. Not one moment of it was boring. It was straight through the text and it was great. So if you want to hear more about that, go back and listen to that message. Brother Andy talked about the eternal state and the blessing of the eternal state being a reality that we have to look forward to regarding our blessing in the eternal state if we trust in Christ and know that our sin has been laid upon him, his righteousness given to us and therefore we can look forward to that with great anticipation.

The Millennium and Why the Rapture Was Added to the Conference

Now my sermon yesterday was on the subject of the millennium. And as I said, if you were here, I believe that we are currently in the millennium. I don't believe that that is a future reality. I believe that that is a present reality.

I made my argument if you want to go back and listen to it. But today we're going to be talking about an even more debated subject. In fact, this was not meant to be a part of the original conference when we sat down and talked about the conference.

We were going to do the tribulation, the millennium and the eternal state. And then I realized, well, we're leaving out something that is hotly debated in evangelical circles and that is the subject of the rapture.

And for those of you who don't know, I do online discourse and debate. Recently I was in a debate on the subject of the pre-tribulation rapture. And someone might ask, why would you debate that subject?

And I have two answers. Number one, because for many years I believed the rapture, meaning the pre-tribulation rapture, for many years I believed that was correct. And I defended it. And then I realized I was incorrect.

And so I look back at that time in my own history and I say, man, if somebody wouldn't have corrected me, I'd still be there. And so I see value in at least speaking it in the public forum so that people will hear another view.

Because I've heard so many times people holding to the pre-tribulation rapture. That's all they've ever heard. I remember one time I was working at First Coast High School back when I was in seminary.

I was sitting next to a lady and we were in the Bible club. We had a Bible club for kids. I was one of the instructors in the Bible club. And she began talking about the pre-tribulation rapture end time view.

And I said to her, I said, well, that's one view. And she goes, no, that's the only one. And I said, what do you mean? She says, that's the only view. I said, are you serious? You've never heard anything?

No.

And she says, what are the other ones? She'd never heard anything else. And so it made me think, why is it? And maybe I'm jumping a little ahead of myself. Why is it that this view is the one that many people have only ever heard?

Well, the reason is, is because in the last 200 years, particularly in the United States, because of the introduction of a doctrine called dispensational theology, it has grown as part of the culture of United States American evangelicalism that we hold to certain truths.

And one of those truths is the pre-tribulation rapture. It's just part of the culture. And if you don't believe it, here's a few little examples of it. There was a movie back in the 70s called A Thief in the Night.

A Thief in the Night popularized the idea that you better not go to sleep without Jesus because you might wake up and a third of the world be gone. And if you've never seen the movie, it's set like a horror film.

You got to be afraid. There's even a song. And boy, it's a scary song. Sounds like a Michael Myers Halloween song. You know, you don't want to be left behind. I'm doing it no justice, but that's this song about being left behind.

Then later, of course, Kirk Cameron took that same idea, popularized it after a set of books by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye had been written, and he popularized it through a series of films called The Left Behind Films.

Later, Nicolas Cage did another version of it. I didn't put his picture up there because we don't put Nicolas Cage in this church. But we have these films that have inculcated the culture and said this is the way it is.

And then, of course, there are books, many books. The one I put on the screen, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Happen in 1988. Well, it didn't. So those 88 reasons were wrong. But these are some of the things that people like me grew up with.

I grew up in the 90s. And I would go to churches that had plays, and they would be plays that were intended to frighten you. Not to frighten you of death, but to frighten you of the rapture. Not to frighten you of dying without Christ, but to frighten you that one day you might wake up and there would be a pile of clothes next to you and that was your good grandmother who loved Jesus and you didn't.

Am I lying? Now you young people, you may not know what I'm talking about, but this was the culture. It was this rapture culture that popularized our world. And therefore, many people didn't know there was any other option.

They didn't know there was any other teaching. This was just the way it was. So when somebody says, why do you debate the subject? Well, number one, I used to believe it. Now I don't. And I think there's worth talking about.

But the second reason is maybe even more important. I think it's important that we don't remain agnostic about eschatology. What does that mean? Agnosticism says, I don't know. And I can't know. So it doesn't matter.

See, if you talk to people and they say they're atheists, what you'll find out if you talk to an atheist, eventually if you push them hard enough, really they're agnostic. They'll say, you don't know.

I don't know. We can't know. And that's as far as they're going to go. And when you talk to people about eschatology, you'll find many people are agnostic about.

Eschatology.

Well, what's your position on the millennium? I don't know. You don't know. We don't know. Can't know. Well, what's your position on the rapture? I don't know. You don't know. We don't know. Can't know.

And I used to be that way. I used to call myself a pan-millennialist. You know what a pan-millennialist is? It's all going to pan out. It don't matter. It's all going to pan out. And in a sense, I still say that's okay if that's where you are because I'd rather you be a pan-millennialist than a hardcore dispensational pre-millennialist who's going to walk out the door because I say one thing that disagrees with you, at least be a little bit humble.

And if pan-millennialism keeps you humble, then keep your pan-millennialism. But I decided I'm tired of being agnostic on the subject, that I need to not only come to a conclusion, but it needs to be based in Scripture, it needs to be based in reason, and it needs not to be based on popular culture or what I was taught in seminary.

Because I was taught in seminary, if you're not a dispensational pre-millennialist and if you don't believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, I hope you get left behind. That's what my professor, I'm not lying, he looked at the whole class, he said, I hope you get left behind as if it were a threat.

Now he may have said it with a little tongue-in-cheek, but the heart of hearts is they were committed to this idea so much so that if you didn't agree, you were a heretic. I've heard that before. In fact, there was a book on my desk for years, and it was a book about Rick Warren's theology and how bad Rick Warren's theology is.

Now I got a million problems with Rick Warren's theology, but this whole book, and it wasn't too big, it was a booklet, but the whole book was, Rick Warren is dangerous because he denies a pre-tribulation rapture.

It's like, that's what you found bad about Rick Warren? The megachurch of megachurch guy? The guy who told every different religion and he told Jews and Muslims and everybody we all worship the same God, he didn't make any distinctions, and your problem is the pre-tribulation rapture, you got your priorities out of whack.

I mean for real, if that's your issue with Rick Warren, you got some problems. So as I said, I think it's important that we study these things, I think it's important that we have a humility about us as we study these things because if we don't, we may end up just like that.

Or our view has to be the standard of orthodoxy, and I don't think that's the way this subject is intended to be approached. I do think that the scripture gives us enough leeway in certain areas that we can have some disagreements and still be in the faith on this particular subject.

So if I don't believe, oh by the way, if you don't know what the view is, and I promise we are going to read the text, please don't think I'm, I'm doing a lengthy introduction because when we get to the text I want to make sure that we understand what we're talking.

About.

But if you don't, if you've never seen this, this is the model. This is the model of pre-tribulational rapturism that is popularly taught, and the model basically goes like this. Christ came, that's the cross, after Christ died and resurrected, he ascended into heaven, he is currently in heaven, but one day, we're in the church age now, one day he is going to rapture the church, he's going to come down just far enough to bring us up with him, and he's going to take us back up during the tribulation period, and then after the tribulation period he's going to return with us, and that will usher in the millennium.

This is a very basic model of pre-tribulation rapture theory. My theory is much simpler.

That's it.

I mean really, honestly, if you want to talk about simplicity, Jesus went and he's coming again. That's, I mean really, and where are we at now? We're in the millennium now, and when Jesus returns again he's going to inaugurate the eternal state, which Brother Andy preached on yesterday, and so I mean as far as simplicity goes, I mean look at the difference, and this is not even close to all the things, because in between the white circle and the red down arrow, I didn't even put in the seven year tribulation, which includes three different judgments, the judgments of the seals, and the judgment of the trumpets, and the judgment of the vials, and all of those things.

If you ever look at a dispensational chart, you better have your glasses, because they got it all figured out. But here is mine. It's very simple. Again, Christ ascended, he's seated at the right hand of the Father.

We call that the ascension and the session of Christ. He is currently seated at the right hand of the Father. We who die in Christ will be with him, and that's what I said yesterday referring to the millennium.

We are with him, and at the end of the age, there will be a return of Christ. So where does rapture theology come from? There is one primary passage that tends to be the passage that most people will argue about and for regarding the rapture, and it's 1 Thessalonians 4 .13.

Paul’s Teaching on Death, Grief, and Hope in 1 Thessalonians 4

Now, it is our standard practice here when I read for the sermon to stand. So if you'd like to stand, we'll read our sermon text this morning. Beginning at verse 13. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 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 Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet, excuse me, the sound of the trumpet of God, 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 Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you again for your word. Now as we seek to understand it, I pray that you would be with us, instruct us, and teach us by your spirit. In Christ's name, amen. When we look at a passage of scripture, it is always imperative that we look at it within its broader context.

Context begins first by looking at the whole Bible. We say, what is the Bible? It is God's word to us. And then we look at each individual book. Who wrote it? Why was it written? And to whom was it written?

And on what occasion? For what purpose? And that begins to draw the context even more narrow as to what the reason for this book.

Is.

And then we go to the individual passages and we look at these individual passages always with an eye toward the answer of this question. What did this mean to the original audience? And the way that we come to that conclusion is we look at it through what is known as the grammatico-historico method or the looking at grammar and syntax and we look at the historical context so as to arrive at a proper understanding.

This is the method that was employed by the reformers. This is the method which is typically employed in expositional preaching. It is what I hope that I model every Sunday morning when I stand up and walk through the books of the Bible verse by verse preaching within the context.

It keeps you from a lot of foolishness if you stay within the context because it's easy and this is really another product of American evangelicalism is what's known as topical preaching where pastors will simply have topics that they want to talk about, they'll choose the topic first and then they'll come back and they'll choose the text to go with the topic and therefore the text isn't determined, the meaning of the text isn't determined by the context of the book, it's determined by the context of the topic and therefore we find our meaning that way.

That is a very dangerous way to do Bible study. It's akin to lucky dipping. If you don't know what lucky dipping is, lucky dipping is when you just open your Bible, put your finger somewhere and say, what's this say about me?

And you read it and it says, you know, Judas went out and hung himself. You say, I don't like that one. You turn it again, you do it again, this is what you do, what he did do likewise, don't like that one.

And you turn it again, it says what you do, do quickly. Don't do that. That's the way people do that. They don't look at the context of passages. They want to apply everything to themselves immediately rather than looking at what the text itself has to say.

The context of 1 Thessalonians 4 is the concern that Paul has that there are those in Thessalonica who are suffering persecution and are concerned that Christ is not returning. He hasn't returned yet.

We're facing this persecution. We're facing these issues and where is he? People are dying, Paul. How can you preach hope? How can you preach glory when our people are being murdered? Our people are suffering.

And so Paul begins, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. Beloved, this might take all day because this by itself is an important reality that this text teaches us something about how we deal with death and life.

It begins by saying we don't want you to be uninformed. What we talked about earlier, ignorance, right? Eschatological agnosticism. We talked about people who just don't want to know, don't care to know, that kind of thing.

Or don't think anybody can know. No, we don't want you to not know. We don't want you to be uninformed. We don't want you to live in this fearful doubt and dread, particularly about those who have fallen asleep.

Now, beloved, the language of Scripture does not simply mean people who have fallen asleep in some form of coma. But the language of Scripture when it talks about those who sleep is referring to the grave.

It's referring to those who have died. And again, in the context of 1 Thessalonians, it is in the context of those who have died likely horrific deaths. Those who have died for their faith in Christ. And he says, we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.

And then this next sentence is so important. That you may not grieve as those who have no hope. Understand this. Anyone who ever tells you that there's no grief in the Christian life is selling you.

A bill of goods.

Anybody who tells you that Christians are not allowed to grieve never read the Old Testament. When Abraham grieved over the death of his wife, Sarah. When his sons grieved over his death. And then the sons of Isaac grieved over his death.

And the sons of Jacob, all 12 of them grieved. And the whole nation of Egypt grieved. If you remember that story at the end of Genesis. The idea that faithful people are not supposed to grieve is not the truth.

And that's why I'm going to tell you something. This is a departure, but I promise I'll be back.

Funerals.

I'm going to be careful here. What I'm about to say may sound somewhat corrective and even somewhat overly corrective. And if I need to correct it later, I will. But I'm going to say it. We make new names for funerals because we don't want to deal with grief.

We're going to say celebration of life, home going service. We make up all these names. For what reason? To try to take the sting out of death. And you know what it does? Is it hides it. You know, a lot of people don't even go to funerals anymore.

Some people don't even have funerals anymore. And sometimes we try to pretend like things didn't happen. We put walls up in the cemetery so we don't even see the tombstones anymore. We don't want to deal with it.

And why do you think so many people deal with depression and all of the different things.

That go along?

Because they're not facing their grief. They're not giving death its due. Death is an intruder in God's good world and it deserves a moment of silence and real reflection. You understand what I'm saying?

We have given up grief, but we're not supposed to not grieve. And if that's what you think Paul is saying here, I can tell you grammatically, historically, it is not. He is not telling you that if you see your parent drug away by the government and they are beheaded for their faith, that you're not allowed to mourn for that.

But what he is saying is don't mourn without hope. That's what he's saying. He's not saying you're not allowed to grieve. But he is saying don't grieve without hope because that's despair, right? When you see your brother in Christ die for his faith, when you see your brother in Christ imprisoned, as we saw just a few years ago in our neighbor to the north, the happiest place in the world, the kindest place in the world, the most polite place in the world, ye old Canada, was still willing to put ministers in jail if they were willing to have a service because people were sick.

It happened.

It happened.

What happens if they come in today and they take me away? You can cry a little, it's okay, because I ain't going to like it either. I'll stand, I hope, I pray as Mike said the other day, I hope in that day I will stand.

But when you see my children lose their father, you're allowed to grieve. Paul is not saying, again I said I could spend the whole day on this verse, I got other things I got to get to, but you understand the point.

We have to understand the context. Paul is giving hope to a people who are dealing with this very thing. They're not just being led away for a fine. They're being led away to the gallows or to the crosses or to the sword.

You understand?

Paul says we do not want you to grieve as those who have no hope. Then he gets into the theology. He says, for since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Here's what he's saying. Those people who have fallen asleep, they're not gone forever. Those people who sleep in Christ, sleep in Christ and they are not gone forever. In fact, it's not really here so I don't want to spend too much time in it, but they're already with him in the intermediate state.

They're already in the intermediate state. This passage isn't really about that because we're going to see this passage is actually about the resurrection, the body, but they're already spiritually with him.

We saw that in the millennium. The souls of those who'd been martyred or were around the thrones, right? Who was he talking about? He was talking about these people. He's talking about the people, the very people they're concerned about.

These people who'd lost their heads for the faith and look where they are now. Revelation 5 or 6, I think it might be 6, says that they are there spiritually crying out for justice. When oh Lord will you bring justice?

So not only do they know who they are, not only do they know how they died, but they know vindication is coming. It's an amazing reality. I mean, if you ever just stop and think about the other side of the veil, man, it's wild.

It's an amazing reality. And so Paul says, for since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus God will bring with him those who fall asleep. Then he gets to when that's going to happen.

Verse 15, 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 Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. Now again, what's the context?

We're still here, Paul says, we're still here, but guess what? The ones who fell asleep, the ones who died in the faith, they actually have priority. They're actually going to be the ones that get to go first.

I remember one of my seminary professors, he said the dead in Christ have to rise first because they got six feet further to go. I don't think that's the reason, but the idea is the idea of priority. In the resurrection, which I believe this is, we're going to talk about what the word rapture means in a minute because this is applied to the rapture.

I don't have a problem with the word rapture. It's not the word rapture that matters to me, it's where you put it. So because the word rapture comes from the Latin vulgate of this text, rapturo means to be snatched away or caught away, and we're going to see that word here in just a moment.

But the idea is we declare to you a word from the Lord, we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with a voice of the archangel, with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Beloved, that is the resurrection. Because they're already with Christ in spirit. But what is happening in this text is that the body, which was left behind at death, is now receiving its glorified status so that it can be wedded back to the spirit, and the person is now whole again.

You understand in the intermediate state, you are not as you will be forever. The spirits in Revelation 6 and Revelation 20 are disembodied spirits. They're not bodies, they're spirits. Man is, there's a debate whether man is dual in nature or threefold in nature, it's called the bipartite and tripartite division of man, and I don't want to debate that right now, but we know at least man has two constitutions.

He has his physical makeup and his spiritual makeup. We know that. And the Bible tells us in the book of James, just as the spirit, I'm sorry, just as the body without the spirit is dead, so too faith without works is dead, right?

And what that means is when your body dies, your spirit leaves. Now some people don't believe that. The Adventist movements of the 1800s did not believe that. Those are like the Seventh-day Adventists, the Advent Christian Church, the Jehovah Witnesses.

By the way, the return of Christ was huge in the 1800s. It was a huge theology that everyone was debating, and a lot of the dispensational stuff came out in the 1800s as well, and a lot of it had to do with this idea of Christ's return was imminent, Christ's return was right around the corner.

But they believed that when you died, your body and soul died, and it went into the ground into a place called, or a state called psychopenicia, or known as soul sleep. That you go into the ground, you're asleep in the ground.

But the Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible teaches that when you die, your spirit is with the Lord. There are several passages that say that. One of my favorite, of course, is on the Day of the Cross.

Jesus is there with the man who has just made his confession of faith. Remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said what? I tell you this day thou shalt be with me in paradise. Not 3 ,000 years in the future, 2 ,000 years, not at the resurrection, but today thou shalt be with me in paradise.

So there is at least something that's going to happen when you die. But that ain't the end. The spiritual intermediate state that your loved ones are now in, and if you are alive until you pass away, and Jesus doesn't come before you pass away, you're going to go there too, is an intermediate state of consciousness in a spiritual reality where you await the physical resurrection.

And the physical resurrection is right here. The dead in Christ will rise first. There's a painting, and the painting is a graveyard, and all the graves have the dirt overturned, and you see that all the graves are opened, and the painting is called The Great Gettin' Up Morning.

The Great Gettin' Up Morning. And it's taken from this passage that there's coming a great getting up morning when your dead body is going to be raised to the newness of life and to uncorruptible life.

No more sickness, no more disease, no more pain, no more suffering. You will be raised as Christ was raised with the same type of body Christ was raised with because the Bible says, when we see him as he is, we will be as he is.

And therefore, we have the, that's called the beatific vision or the vision of blessing that when we see him as he is, we will be as he is. That's the resurrection. That's what's here. The dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and are left, or who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, so we will always be with the Lord.

The Coming of the Lord, the Parousia, and the Triumph Parade

Here is the verse that is the contention verse. Two words in this verse tend to be the ones that are the most contentious. The first is the word caught up. That is where the Latin Bible gets the word, or where the Latin Bible uses the word rapturo, which is where the idea of the rapture comes from.

And meeting the Lord in the air is the other that tends to be the debated passage. And here's the debate. Jesus returns, according to Revelation 19, Jesus returns with his saints, but this says he comes and his saints come up to meet him.

And so the argument from the dispensational, premillennial, pre-tribulational, which is a big use of words, basically the ones who argue for the pre-tribulation rapture will say, this doesn't fit, this doesn't harmonize, because these people ain't coming down, these people are going up.

You see, they're saying these people are going up to the clouds, Jesus is coming down when he returns, so this can't be the return of Christ, this has to be something else. And therefore they introduce a pre-tribulation rapture, which again, if you go back to the model, it's something that is not the return of Christ.

They will say that this is not the return of Christ, this is the rapture. He's rapturing his church, and when he raptures his church, he takes them up into heaven, and they're there for seven years while the world undergoes a terrible time of tribulation.

And after that time of tribulation, he comes back with his church, and that is when the end, or actually the inauguration of the millennium, but the end of the seven year tribulation. Here's the issue with that.

That is what is known as theological novum. Theological novum means new theology. That is not something that was taught or believed about this text for 1800 years. You will not find it in any commentaries, you will not find it in any early church writings.

In fact, there are only a few places prior to the introduction of this in the 1800s, there's only a few places where you find anything about the church, quote unquote, escaping a time of wrath, but it's never in this model.

This model, where the church will escape the tribulation by being raptured out prior to the tribulation, that is a less, well, at this point I would say right at 200 year old theology, and you won't find it.

If you read, I've done it, I've read Calvin's commentary on this passage, he said this is the resurrection. I read John Gill's commentary on this, it's the resurrection. Everything before 1800, if you read it about this passage, this is the resurrection.

After the 1800s, after the writings of men like John Nelson Darby, C .I. Schofield, and others who introduced these things, and if you've ever seen C .I. Schofield's Bible, it was one of the most popular study Bibles in North America.