Mark Hitchcock Rapture Church

give a great big welcome to dr. mark hitchcock what is great to be here with you after launch this is always the most exciting time to speak to a crowd everybody's all fired off right after lunch usually and anyway it's great to be great to be here with you I'm not going to be able to be here today for the Q&A session I'm sorry I'm gonna have to get I have to get on back I'm gonna be at our church tomorrow they're back in Oklahoma at Faith Bible Church dr. Dave Reagan will answer all the questions anybody has for me so you just give those to dr. Reagan he'll be glad to answer those for you we want to spend our time this afternoon talking about the Blessed hope the rapture of the church and I thought I'd just begin by sharing a quick story about how I became interested in the rapture really how I became interested in the whole topic of Bible prophecy now back when I was a boy about 11 years of age the late great planet Earth came out a lot of you remember that it came out in May of 1970 and at a church that I was a member of every lot of the young people were reading it my sister was a couple of years older than me and so for several years there that really it was just everything was all abuzz about prophecy and events that were happening in the world so I remember reading that book I was probably 12 or 13 when I finally read it it laid around the house for a while I was just mesmerized by the fact that events in the world of our day seemed to be predicted I'm in the Bible that the stage was being set for these events to take place and so I read the book and just became very excited I mean you know I don't know how much I understood at that age of it but it had a deep impact on my life well not long after that there was a movie that came out called the thief in the night some of you probably remember anybody seen that movie a thief in the night which kind of we've shown it to my boys you know it's not the greatest acting and it kind of like a b-movie they kind of laugh at it but I'll tell you show it to young people even today it was made back in probably the early 70s they may laugh at it a bit but when it starts getting down to things it gets serious because in that movie by the way I saw it at our church on like a Wednesday night or on a Sunday night as we used to have our meetings back then and they showed it and that was back in the old days of the old reel-to-reel you know some of you remember that the old reel-to-reel projector kind of thing kind of rattled you know was it going I remember sitting there by it and that during the movie few different ones in the movie or telling people about prophetic events telling them about the rapture how the Lord's going to come well at the end of the movie there's a scene where the pastor of the church there that's been talking a lot in the movies mowing the yard about the church and the camera goes away and it comes back and the mower sitting there and he's gone and there's another scene where there's a man who's been telling his wife about the Lord throughout the movie and now he's in there shaving a whole electric razor you know plugged in and she's lying in bed and now they're having a conversation suddenly there's no response and she gets up after a couple of minutes and goes and looks in there and the razors just lying there in the sink buzzing and he's gone and she kind of has this real cheesy expression you again the acting isn't the greatest but I remember as a young as a young person watching this and it began to hit me for the very first time that the rapture is real and it's going to take place someday and people are going to disappear all over this world who know the Lord then at the end of the movie there's a group they're singing that Oh Larry Norman song they call these people I call them hippies back to annual long hair and they out singing that old song you know two men walking up a hill one disappears ones left standing still I wish we'd all been ready husband and wife or lying in bed she hears a noise she turns her head he's gone I wish we'd all been ready there's no time to change your mind the Sun has come and you've been left behind now I'm out of there that night and I can still remember I mean it's just imprinted upon my life the truth of the rapture in Bible prophecy well about a week later I came home from school one day got off the bus and walked home and came into the house and began walking around in there and my mom wasn't there well my mom was always there when I got home from school and my brother and sister rose with her and I mean she was they're always there and you know it is a young person all of a sudden this stock came over me that maybe I missed the rapture and I was a believer but you know sometimes when you're younger you kind of you know have a little bit of a lack of assurance or whatever will I be in looking around she hung out clothes on the clothesline still back then I went in the backyard and I was looking everywhere and finally I thought I'll call my dad at his office cuz I knew if he wasn't there I was really in big trouble he's always there at his office so anyway about that time they came in they'd been next door at the neighbor's house but it's it's through events like that as I was a young person that God really impressed upon me the truth of prophecy but especially the rapture and the doctrine of the rapture is my favorite event of Bible prophecy to talk about really for two main reasons number one is it's the Blessed hope that we have in this world we live in it's the only hope and if our hope is in man or in politics or in human leaders or in ourselves or in anything other than Christ and his coming I'm really our hope is ill-founded but the second thing is the rapture I believe is the next great event in the fulfillment of prophecy I believe it's the next great event on God's prophetic calendar so what I want to do here in our time this afternoon is look at really two main points I want to look briefly at the truth of the rapture what the rapture is and some details of it that by the way you see that picture there I came in here a little while ago to get my computer set up and all peoples coats and everything we're all laying over chairs in here it kind of looked like the rapture you know Bibles laying on the floor in fact I heard Tim LaHaye talking a while back he was talking about with some people there's gonna be more left here than is gonna go you know false teeth glasses you know hips knees you know all the different stuff that's left behind here but the truth of the rapture I want to talk about and then the timing of the rapture what I mean by that is not when it's going to happen like what day or what month because no one knows the time but the timing in relation to the tribulation period you know pre-trib mid-trib post-trib pre-wrath partial rapture want to look at each of those views and kind of talk briefly of why I don't hold the other views and then give a few reasons why I believe in pre-trib rapture because the pre-trib rapture today is coming under more and more attack and assault all the time now you can you can hold any view of the timing of the rapture and be a wonderful dedicated believer in Christ not an issue of faith or a fellowship but it whereas we're going to see though which view you hold of the timing of the rapture is very important because our future is going to be dramatically different depending upon which one of those views you take are we going to be out here before the rapture before the tribulation starts halfway through it all the way through it our future is dramatically different depending on which one of those views you hold to now I want to define the rapture upfront the rapture is the translation of living believers to heaven in a moment of time without experiencing death that is the rapture now the resurrection of those who have died is different from the rapture but these two are often joined together because they happen in conjunction with one another the difference is the rapture is for living Saints and the resurrection is for deceased Saints it's the the raising of their bodies and we'll talk about each of these and how they fit together in this one event but technically the rapture is the translation of living believers body soul and spirit being glorified in a moment of time and caught up to be with the Lord without experiencing death or someone has said it like this a rapture is how God gets living people from heaven to earth without dying that's a good basic way to define the rapture how God gets living people from heaven to earth without dying now there are three main New Testament texts I believe that describe and define and deal with the rapture John 14 one through three first Corinthians 15:51 258 and in 1st Thessalonians 4 13 through 18 and I want to focus in in our time this afternoon on the Thessalonians passage together I want to begin by looking at verses 13 to 15 kind of briefly to kind of get the background of this but I want to spend most of our time on verses 16 to 18 and then we'll look at the the issue of the timing of the rapture notice in 4:13 Paul says but we do not want you to be uninformed two brethren about those who are asleep so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope now Paul is writing this to eliminate ignorant and also to alleviate the grief and the confusion these believers are experiencing when Paul wrote first Thessalonians he's writing it from the city of Corinth on his second missionary journey he'd come from Troas across over to Philip I got run out of town there came to Thessalonica gets run out of town there goes to Berea on down to Athens ends up down in Corinth he was probably in Thessalonica for a period of a few weeks time probably six to eight weeks of time it says in acts 17 that he reasoned in the synagogue for three Sabbath's but I think he was there longer than that because it seems like most of the believers there were Gentiles well Paul goes on down from there when he's run out of town and ends up in Corinth and evidently what had happened is some of the believers there had died and since Paul had taught him all about the rapture and the coming of the Lord they were concerned what's going to happen to those who've died before the rapture takes place are they going to miss out on it are they going to be second-class citizens how do they fit in with these events let me just pause and say something this is a brief aside but it's important for today read through first and second Thessalonians sometimes and see all the things that Paul talks about in those letters he talks about election and he talks about sanctification he talks about the Holy Spirit he talks about man being body soul and spirit he talks about the rapture he talks about the day of the Lord he talks about the becoming man of sin he talks about the removal of the restrainer he talks and writes back to him as if they already knew about all those things now think about this Paul was with them for six to eight weeks of time and he had taught them about all of those things and I always like to say people can go to church today for 50 years and never hear that stuff think about what all Paul taught those believers in six to eight weeks time we think you know in churches today people don't talk about prophecy anymore but Paul these weren't brand new believers and he'd given them a crash course on on eschatology around Bible prophecy and to me we need to be doing this same thing we need to be teaching people the Word of God and teaching people doctrine now that's what the Apostle Paul did in his ministry but the Lord wanted them and wanted us to understand what's going to happen when these events take place and so he says in verse 13 we don't want you to grieve for those who fallen asleep so you won't grieve as do the rest who have no hope now it's not wrong to grieve but we shouldn't grief as those who have no hope Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus but we don't weep as those who don't have any hope for our loved ones who know the Lord now the word sleep here you're gonna notice this is used several times here he uses it in verse 14 those who fallen asleep verse 15 those who fallen asleep and in the Greek here this is the word koimoi oh and I mention that because there was an ancient word also from that the word coin materia and we get our word cemetery from that word and the word coin materia referred basically to a dormitory or a sleeping place so when you go out to a cemetery a cemetery is a dormitory or a sleeping place for bodies the word sleep here doesn't refer to the soul the soul doesn't sleep the soul of a believer goes immediately to be with the Lord the soul of an unbeliever goes immediately to Hades at death but it's the body that falls asleep Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord we have to remember in the Bible that death means separation in the Bible remember when Adam and Eve ate of the tree the knowledge of good and evil God said in the day you eat of it you will die you will surely die that is they were spiritually separated from God whenever a person dies there's a separation that takes place we don't cease to exist but the in material and the material separate the body falls asleep and of course the final death is the eternal death or second death when people are eternally separated from God so what happens when a person dies is who's a believer the body falls asleep and the immaterial part of that person goes to be with the Lord and we're going to see in a minute that whenever the rapture takes place that body is going to be raised and rejoined with that spirit a glorified body joined with a perfected spirit there's a tombstone I heard about one time down in Alabama and it's of a man named Solomon Pease it's P EAS and it says on the tombstone it says here lies the body of Solomon Pease under the grass and under the trees but Pease is not here only the pod Pease shelled out and went to God now that's a that's a exact picture of what happens when somebody dies the pod stays here but the peas the the immaterial part shells out and goes to be with God and so death for a believer is falling asleep the body falls asleep now notice he says in verse 14 for if we believe and literally in the Greek that should be translated for since we believe it's not maybe maybe we do and maybe we don't but since we believe Jesus died and rose again even so God will bring with him those who falling asleep in Jesus he's gonna bring with him those who fall into sleep what's he gonna bring with him he's gonna bring their soul their spirit with him because their body that has fallen asleep and then he says in verse 15 for this we say to you by the word of the Lord see Paul didn't make this up he received this by divine revelation from God see this whole truth of the rapture in first Corinthians 15 is called a mystery and a mystery in the New Testament is something that has never been revealed before up to that time and something that man could could never dream up himself or figure out it can only be understood through divine revelation and the mystery of the rapture is that a whole generation of people are going to do an end run on the grave there's gonna be a whole generation of people who are not going to taste physical death and so Paul says I got this by the word of the Lord I like that verse in 1st Corinthians 15 he says there in 1st Corinthians 15:51 he says we shall not he says behold I tell you a mystery and this is the mystery we shall not all sleep that is not everybody's going to die but we will all be changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye it is every believer who's alive on the earth is going to have to undergo a transformation to go and to be in the Lord's presence when I was growing up they used to have that verse above the nursery in the church that verse it says we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed now that is not a good interpretation of a Bible verse but it is a pretty good application of a Bible verse if you've ever worked in the nursery before but Paul got this from the Lord himself and he says we say this that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not go before those who fallen asleep so he says look those who died they're not going to be second-class citizens when this takes place in fact they're going to go first and he's going to tell us more about that down in verse 16 now I want to focus in now in verse 16 and 17 on the chronological sequence of the rapture this these verses 16 and 17 give the sequence of events and the sounds that accompany the rapture and I've got these four main points I want us to look up there's going to be a return there's going to be a resurrection there's going to be a removal and there's going to be a reunion the first order of events is what I call the return Jesus himself in verse 16 it says the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and with the trumpet of God Jesus himself will descend and there's going to be a shout and there's only a couple of other times when we know in the Bible Jesus shouted he shouted one time you remember Lazarus come forth Lazarus his body came out of the grave Jesus gave a loud cry or shout from the cross the Bible says the tombs burst open and many who were in them came out but he's going to give another shout at the rapture from the skies that is going to raise the dead and call the believers to heaven now the voice of the Archangel is probably to gather the angels together for this great event and the trumpet of God is probably to gather together of the Lord's people now as we go through and look at this one of the things we need to remember is all these events of the rapture are going to occur in the amount of time it takes to blink your eye over in first corinthians it says that it's going to happen in a moment and the word their moment is a tomas in greek and adam something that can't be divided any further it's going to happen in a Natomas in the twinkling of an eye on us some people take that that means the time it takes for light to reflect off the eye but it probably just means the time it takes to blink your eye because that's the the fastest movement on the human body fact they say it takes a 50th of a second to blink your eye and the average person blinks 25 times a minute so if you take a 10 hour trip and drive 55 miles an hour you drive 33 miles with your eyes shot you might think about that next time you're driving but what the Lord does here is he slows the film down here so we can see it frame by frame it's kind of like when you watch a football game and they're trying to show you if the guy caught the pass you know and he catches it and they show one you know tow touchdown and the other tell them and they just slow it down as slow as you possibly can but as we go through this don't think that it's going to be like ok the Lord is going to the sin and there's going to be a shout and the voice of the Archangel the trumpet of God like it's going to take 30 seconds or five minutes to take place god slows it down here for us slows the film down so we can see it frame by frame but it's going to happen in the time it takes to blink your eye all of these events now I've often wondered whenever the Lord comes at the rapture and the the he gives the shout and the trumpet sounds and the the voice of the Archangel with the people here on earth who are left behind to be able to hear those sounds now if you ever wondered about that now the Bible doesn't tell us for sure but remember when saul was on the road to damascus remember those who are with him they could hear the sounds but they couldn't understand what was being said i've often wondered if the people who are left behind that the rapture may not hear these sounds reverberating around the earth will just add to that the the angst and the drama and the confusion and the fear with what's taking place so the first event is going to be the return the lord himself is going to descend the second event is the resurrection notice in verse 16 and the and the dead in Christ will rise first this is the raising of the bodies of deceased church age believers now I say Church age believers because notice it says the dead in Christ will rise first Old Testament believers they're believers in the Lord they're Saints but Old Testament believers I don't think we're in Christ they're not in Christ through the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit my view is that Old Testament Saints bodies won't be raised until the end of the tribulation and I would base that on Daniel chapter 12 verses 1 & 2 where it talks there about the tribulation and then verse 3 says and many of those who are in the sleep and the dust of the earth will be raised you know those who were righteous to everlasting life and those who are evil to everlasting punishment so it seems to me that Old Testament Saints aren't raised their bodies until the end of the Tribulation Period but it says here the dead in Christ will be raised and the purpose of the rapture primarily is to end the church age you remember the church age started suddenly back on the day of Pentecost as the Holy Spirit descended was sudden and dramatic it happened in a moment of time and I think in the same way the church age is going to end dramatically and suddenly as well with the rapture of the church this says here the dead in Christ are going to rise first now I heard about a debate years ago between a Baptist and a Presbyterian about who was going to go first when the Lord comes and finally the Baptist gave in and said well I guess it is right you Presbyterians will go first after all it does say the dead in Christ will rise first or you've all heard you know the dead rise first because they have 6 feet further to go I mean there's all those old statements like that well what Paul is showing the Thessalonians here is the dead will not miss the rapture those who die before the rapture they're not going to miss it they're not going to be at any disadvantage in fact they're gonna rise first now one other question I've often asked about this is when the rapture takes place or when this event takes place the resurrection will will the tombs and graves all over the earth be disrupted where the bodies come out now they don't have to be because these are gonna be glorified perfected bodies like the body that Jesus has it could go through walls and so obviously they could come up out of the ground without disturbing the tone but remember when Jesus was raised this stone was rolled away and remember in Matthew 27 when Jesus is on the cross it says the tombs burst open and many of those who were in them that the tombs came out so it seems again that these tombs are opened up and again I wouldn't be dogmatic about it but think about that if that takes place all over the world think again I mean it'd be like the Night of the Living Dead as people are all over the world and these tombs and graves are disturbed and people running what in the world has taken place and they search for some kind of an explanation for it it's a great story I read years ago about during the civil war there was some soldiers who had to spend the night out in an open field one night and in the dead of winter and as they as each soldier was lying they didn't have tents but it snowed a whole bunch overnight and so it will each one of these soldiers were they were it was like there was a mound there it almost looked like a fresh grave and the chaplain commented how when he got up the next morning there were these mounds just all over this field and whenever the Trumper do that morning sounded the trumpet and blue revelry every one of these men came rising up out of these out of their their bed as it were in the snow falling off him what a picture that was of the coming resurrection of the dead but the Bible tells us the dead in Christ are going to rise first their bodies will be brought up glorified perfected immortal imperishable incorruptible bodies and they're going to be joined with the perfected spirits that the Lord is bringing and they're going to be joined back together again at that time now what about those who are still alive though in this takes place this brings us to the third and the sequence of events the removal or technically we could call this the rapture in chapter 5 and verse 17 it says then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the lord in the now that word the words caught up are one Greek word which is the Greek word harpazo it's used 13 times in the New Testament and it means to snatch or to seize or to take away suddenly or to transport from one place to another now one of the arguments it's always given against the rapture is I've had people say this to me many many times they'll say the word rapture isn't in the Bible anywhere and that's true of most English translations but we have to remember the Bible was written in Greek the New Testament and we have this Greek word harpazo but when jerome translated the Bible into Latin into the Vulgate he used a verb the verb or a Pio that became rap Toro was the Latin word that was used and then of course in English translations it usually has something like caught up or snatched up or something like that so I always tell people if you don't like to call it the rapture of the church call it the harpazo of the church or call it the snatching away of the church or whatever you want to call it but it's gonna happen there's going to be a time when those of us who are alive and remain are gonna be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and since the word rapture has been used throughout church history it's it's as good a word as any to use and I think we ought to stick with it but in John 10:28 when Jesus says no one can snatch you out of my father's hand that's the word harpazo remember in Acts chapter 8 when the Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch it says he comes up out of the water and it says Philip was snatched away and taken to another place that's that same word are pazzo he found himself 20 miles away at a different place and it's used in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 where Paul I remember at some time in his life the Bible says Paul said I was caught up to paradise to the third heaven where I I heard things they're not permitted for a man to speak one of the reasons I think Paul loved this doctrine of the rapture so much as he'd actually experienced a personal rapture once some time in his life he had been caught up to be with the Lord and to see him there and of course he then came back down to finish them out his missed his ministry when the rapture takes place in the moment and the twinkling of an eye we're gonna be glorified instantaneously and did you notice here in verse 17 Paul says then we who are alive and remain will be caught up he includes himself in it he doesn't say you who are alive and remain but we Paul believed it could happen in his lifetime and we're to live with that same hope we'll talk about that a little bit later why I believe the rapture is an imminent event that could happen in any moment when the rapture happens though a good way to describe it is kind of like this if you had an old box up in your attic and it had some nails and screws and some bolts and some things like that in there that you wanted to get out to use but this box also had a bunch of dirt and paper and sticks and all kinds of other stuff in there you could go through and pick each piece out individually that you wanted but that take a while the fastest way to get what you wanted out of there will be just to hold a big strong magnet over that box and in a second of time everything in that box that shares the same properties as that magnet would immediately be drawn up to it and everything that doesn't share its properties would be left behind and that's exactly how it's going to be at the rapture the Lord is going to descend from heaven now he's not coming all the way to the earth because we're gonna meet him in the air but he's going to come and suspend himself above the earth and everyone that shares his properties all of those who are in Christ through faith in the Lord Jesus are gonna be caught up to meet him and all of those who do not share his life are gonna be left behind here on the earth now one of the arguments I've actually heard about the rapture as some people have told me they've said you know I would believe in this thing it just sounds too bizarre I mean the rib they'll say do you really believe that someday people are going to disappear from the earth without dying well think about this this is another chart I've got from Tommy ice and Tim ley from charting the end times these are the seven raptures of history and prophecy Enoch went to heaven without dying right Elisha experienced a rapture Isaiah some believe in Isaiah six was caught up to see God and his temple in heaven and came back down Jesus in Revelation 12 his ascension to heaven when he ascended to heaven the word harpazo is used for that Jesus being caught up at his ascension I'm Philip was raptured from one place on earth to another Paul says he was caught up to paradise and then the ultimate final rapture will be the rapture of the church now all of those other raptures involved individuals like Enoch and Elijah but the only thing that's going to be different about the rapture of the church is it's just going to involve more people but all of these raptures that have already occurred in the past they were all literal historical events that took place so I believe we should see that the future rapture of the church is going to be literal and historical as well in other words this precedent for it it's already taken place with individuals like Enoch and individuals like Elijah as well an entire generation of believers will not die we're gonna do an end run on the grave it's like one of my friends used to say years ago he'd say I'm looking for the upper taker not the undertaker and now that's the what we should be doing so there's going to be a return of Christ there's going to be a resurrection of the dead there's going to be a rapture of the living and the fourth in the sequence of events is there's going to be a great reunion we're going to be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we always be with the Lord countless reunions with all of our loved ones but primarily you'll notice this focus is on Christ it's the lord himself will descend it's the dead in Christ will rise we're going to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord I don't know if you've ever thought about this before but when we see Jesus Christ for the first time we're not only going to be seeing our Redeemer the one who paid the price for our sins but we're going to be looking into the face of the one who made us the Bible says in John chapter one that Jesus is the word and it says without him not anything was made that has been made he's the creator I can't imagine what that's going to be like someday not only to look into the face of the one who redeemed me but to look into the face of the one who made me to look into the face of our Creator you know we're waiting for the rapture we often talk about that but really what we're waiting for is a person we're not just waiting for an event we're waiting for Christ himself to come and to call us and to take us to be with himself my grandmother her favorite song was that old song face to face it says face to face with Christ my Savior face to face what will it be when with a rapture I behold him Jesus Christ who died for me face to face old blissful moment face to face to see and though face to face with my Redeemer Jesus Christ who loves me so that's the great reunion that's going to take place someday when we meet the Lord in the air and according to the Bible um I believe it could happen at any time now think about this for a moment it says they were going to get caught up we're going to meet the Lord in the air and we're gonna ever be with the Lord now have you ever wondered at this point in this passage where are we going to go where are we gonna go there's two answers to that we'll talk about this in a minute but if you're a post tribulation estuve you think the church is going to go through the whole tribulation post tribulation to say we're going to go up and meet the Lord in the air as he's coming back at his second coming we're going to do a u-turn and come right back down to the earth with him it's the yo-yo view the rapture I call u-turn you go up and meet him on the way down come right back down with him but if you're pre-trib as I am you think we're gonna go meet the Lord in the air we're gonna go up and back down we're gonna go up and up we're gonna go to the father's house there's a lot of parallels between this passage in John 14 Jesus said there you know don't let your heart be troubled you believe in God believe also in me in my father's house are many dwelling places but we're not saw would have told you I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also according to John 14 I believe when he comes and catches us up at the rapture we're not going to go up and back down we're gonna go up and up to the father's house and I think after the rapture then that's when in heaven the judgment seat of Christ and the marriage of the lamb and those things are going to take place then we will come back with him rewarded wearing the fine linen which is the righteous acts of the saints I'm over in Revelation chapter 19 this whole passage ends though with this great word of comfort therefore comfort one another with these words that the coming of the Lord always has practical application every one of the places where it's mentioned in the Bible it always has practical application and here it's to give us hope it's to give us comfort that we stand at the grave of a loved one who's a believer in Christ we're gonna see them again someday that that's not the last of them we're just we're not saying goodbye we're just saying goodnight as they fallen asleep they're in their body that they'll be raised some day to be with us and my prayer is for my own life is that we'll live looking for this event that we'll be ready for it when it comes now that's the truth of the rapture there's a lot more we could say about it but that's the basic truth I believe in the rapture and I want to spend the rest of our time looking at the timing of the rapture and these are the five main views of the timing of the rapture there's the pre-trib view the partial wraps review the mid-trib view the post-trib view and then the pre-wrath view and I want to look briefly at each of these and give a few points for you to consider about them and I want to give some reasons why I believe in the pre-trib rapture which again the pre-trib rapture it's really in vogue today to attack the pre-trib rapture a lot of people are leaving this view and I think there are a lot of people who never really understood it to start with because what a lot of people are saying is well look if you believe in pre-trib rapture you believe in two second comings you know Christ is going to come that before the tribulation he's going to come at the end we don't believe in two second comings we're gonna be caught up and meet him in the air he's not coming back to the earth well we would say is there's one coming of the Lord there's two phases to his coming there's a coming for his Saints and then there's a coming with his signs so we don't believe in two second comings another argument you'll often hear about pre-trib rapture against it is they'll say the pre-trib rapture is new it just came about in the 1830s you know the guy named JN Darby well that arguments not true we have a lot of historical antecedent for pre-trib rapture all the way back in the fourth century back into the 1300s there was a group that believed in pre-trib rapture Morgan Edwards who founded Brown University believed in a pre-trib rapture in the 1740s a hundred years before Darby so it's not true that the pre-trib rapture is some new doctrines there's a lot of straw man arguments out there against it again let me say this though this discussion of the timing of the rapture is an in-house debate that we can have among Christians it's not a test of fellowship to me the truth of the rapture you have to believe it's going to happen but the issue of when it happens is something that we can discuss as brothers and sisters in the Lord let me just go through these views quickly the partial rapture view holds that at the rapture only faithful totally dedicated Christians will be caught up leaving carnal Christians behind to be chastened by the tribulation period by the way every person I've ever heard of who believes in partial rapture always thinks they're going with the first group I've never met anybody it holds us that thinks they're going later on but actually most people that hold the partial rapture actually believe that the dedicated Christians will go before the tribulation and that there will actually be many many raptures during the tribulation as different groups are ready they'll be caught up at different times throughout the Tribulation Period let me give you a few reasons why I reject is partial rapture theory one is the only qualification for being a participant in the rapture according to first Thessalonians is you have to be in Christ says the dead in Christ will rise first and you assume that it means those who are alive are in Christ as well there aren't different degrees of being in Christ you're either in Christ or you're not in Christ you're either believer or you're not a believer so to me the only qualification is to be in Christ it's not if you're you know more godly than somebody else secondly in 1st Corinthians 15 it says we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye whenever the rapture happened it's going to be all of us doesn't say we shall not some of asleep but some of the she'll be changed in a moment the twinkling of an eye but all of us will be so whenever the rapture occurs I believe it's gonna include all believers at that point in time the third thing is the church is the body of Christ and how can you have the body divided up part of the body going and part of it staying here and part of it going at different times to me it it doesn't make sense of this holistic view of the body of Jesus Christ so I reject this idea of some kind of a partial rapture that's going to take place another view is the mid-trib rapture and that is that the rapture occurs in the middle of the tribulation thus believers endure the first half of it now one of the questions with all of these views is everybody agrees that believers are not appointed under wrath the big question is when does the wrath start mid triggers would say you know the first half of the tribulation is relative peace we're out of here and then the wrath is just in the last half and we're going to escape the wrath the difficulty with that kind of view for me as I see that all the way back at the opening of the first seal judgment those seals that are opened up those Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that's when the wrath of God starts at the very beginning of the tribulation because who is the one who opens those seals it's the Lamb Jesus is the one who's bringing forth these seals upon the earth now I will grant you it gets worse as the tribulation goes on but I see the whole time period as God's wrath it just escalates them as it goes on so that's one of the reasons why I would reject mid-trib also we're going to talk about this later but it denies the idea of eminency it denies that Christ could come back today because if you hold mid-trib Jesus can't come back for at least three and a half years right because we're not even in the tribulation yet so he can't come back today and I think the New Testament teaches eminency a third view that's probably the most popular view really out there today certainly among scholars the post-trib view says the rapture occurs at the end of the tribulation force all believers to endure the entire seven years of Wrath that are on the earth there's several reasons why I don't hold the post-trib one of them is if we're gonna have to go through the whole tribulation why doesn't the Bible in the New Testament tell us how to endure that seven-year period of time have you ever noticed there's no instruction in the New Testament for what to do during the tribulation the reason I think there's no instruction there so I don't think we're gonna be here there's another passage maybe you've never thought about this one before not but you got to hang with me with this as I explained this to us quickly and in Matthew 25 it pictures there in verse 31 the second coming of Jesus and it says and what Jesus said this actually two days before he died he says when the Son of Man comes and all the holy angels with him he's going to sit on his glorious throne he's going to gather the nation's before him and he's gonna put the sheep on his right hand the goats on his left and he's going to separate them like a shepherd separating the sheep from the goats so when Jesus comes at his second coming there's going to be believers and unbelievers on the earth sheep and goats now think about this if the rapture is post-trib and right but right as Jesus is coming back at his second coming all the Christians get caught up and we do a u-turn and come right back down with him to the earth all that's going to be left on the earth is goats right there won't be any sheep all the Sheep just got caught up to heaven and came back with him so when it says he's going to come back and there's going to be sheep and goats on the earth to me that necessitates there's some time for sheep to have come to know the Lord during that period of time so that's another reason I reject that the post-trib rapture also part of my problem with post-trib rapture is it makes the rapture to me inconsequential I mean if we've gone through the whole seven-year tribulation and Jesus catches us up to be with him on it right as he's coming down who I have a rapture I mean why not just wait for him to get down here to the earth it to me it renders the whole idea of a rapture just kind of as a great anticlimax it's a great inconsequential event but the other thing is post-trib like mid-trib also denies eminency Jesus can't come back at any moment of time if you hold to the post-trib view one other view that's gained some following a recent times is the pre-wrath rapture it's basically about a three-quarter rapture you know it's not middle it's not the end it's kind of halfway in between and I would I would use the same arguments really I use for mid-trib and post trip for the pre-wrath view the pre-wrath view though says the wrath doesn't start til about 3/4 of the way through that's when the day of the Lord really starts so we're out of here before that wrath starts but again I start the wrath all the way back at the beginning it's the lamb who's opening these seals and bringing them forth I'm on to the earth so I see the whole seven years as a time of Wrath it does get worse and intensify and escalate but the whole period of time I see is a time of Wrath which I think is a problem for the pre-wrath view now the pre-trib used the root view that I hold and that is the rapture will occur before the tribulation and will include all believers in Jesus Christ let me give you a few reasons why I hold the pre-trib rapture view one is there's no mention of the church in revelation 4 through 19 the word Church the word ekklesia occurs 20 times in the book of Revelation it occurs 19 times in chapters 1 through 3 and it occurs one time over in chapter 22 verse 16 but during all this time of Revelation 4 through 19 at this time of tribulation the church is never mentioned to me the absence of the church there during that time is an argument that we're not going to be on the earth during that time of tribulation a second argument I would use is I believe we're going to be exempt from divine wrath right here in this same book in 1st Thessalonians chapter one and verse 10 he says that were to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead that is Jesus who rescues us from the wrath to come it's saying there but we're waiting for him to come to deliver us from the wrath now again if you take the whole time period to be wrath as I then that means we're gonna have to be taken up before the tribute before the tribulation starts also in first Thessalonians 5:9 just a little further down here it says God is not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ and I think the wrath there's not the wrath of hell it's the wrath of the day of the Lord cuz that's what he's just finished talking about in Chapter five there's also another great verse in Revelation 3:10 that talks about how the Lord is going to deliver his people now listen to this he says I'm going to deliver you from that time of testing that's coming upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth notice he doesn't say there I'm gonna deliver you from the testing he says I'm gonna deliver you from the time of the testing in other words we won't be here for the time of the testing it'd be like if this was a large classroom and we got to the end of the semester and I said okay everybody here in the class who has an A you have to show up for the time of the final test but you don't have to take it but you got to be here during the hour while the test is taken that's the post-trib view right we're gonna be here during the test but we're gonna somehow be exempt from it while we're here on the earth which to me is strange because the tribulation is gonna be worldwide and it's scope but if on the other hand I said everybody who has an a when we have the final test you don't even have to show up for the test you're exempt from the hour you don't have to be here for the hour of the test that's the pre-trib view that's what revelation 3:10 says I will keep you from the time or the hour of the testing that's going to come upon the earth to test those who dwell upon the earth another argument use it's right here in our same passage look at 1st Thessalonians 5 and verse through verses 1 2 3 now notice I'm going to read the pronouns here and I'm going to I'm going to kind of emphasize them for effect now as to the times and the seasons brethren obviously Christians you that as you Christians have no need of anything to be written to you for you yourselves know full well the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night while they are saying notice you didn't say you now it says while they are saying peace and safety then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman and they will by no means escape and then the very next verse says but you brethren are not in the darkness that the day should overtake you notice the difference he didn't say while you're saying peace and safety destruction is going to come upon you and you won't escape it today it's them he's making a sharp contrast here between the believers and the unbelievers another argument I would make here for pre-trib rapture is just in verse 18 of chapter 4 that we looked at a minute ago after talking about the rapture what does he say he says therefore comfort one another with these words now how comforting would it be to say and by the way you got to go through the whole seven-year tribulation I mean to me in fact I heard Tim LaHaye say this years ago he said if that's true then it's not the Blessed hope it's the blasted hope I mean it'd be better to die before the tribulation wouldn't he go on and be with the Lord than have to go through that time but he says therefore comfort one another with these words it's a comfort but those who've died before us have gone on to be with the Lord and I think the comfort is we're not going to be here during the day of the Lord either we're gonna go there to be with them and you see here just the order of this passage chapter 4 verses 13 to 18 deals with the rapture and in chapter 5 verses 1 to 6 deals with the day of the Lord of the tribulation now which comes first it's the rapture and then he goes after that to talk about the day of the Lord or that coming time of tribulation so even the order here and first Thessalonians 4 and 5 gives the idea is the rapture then that time a tribulation is going to come after that by the way I've got these reasons here dr. John Walvoord years ago had 50 reasons for the pre-trib rapture I would keep you about 6 o'clock if we went through all of those so I just picked out a few but let me just give you one more the final one and that's the doctrine of eminency now imminence does mean that the rapture must occur soon it means that nothing must occur before it in other words it's a sign Lusa vent it's certain to occur at some time but uncertain at what time that's what imminency means we just don't know when it's going to can happen at any time and I think the New Testament presents the rapture as it dot as a truth that's that's imminent that could come at any time for instance in 1st Corinthians 16:22 Paul uses the word there maranatha that aramaic words the only time it's in the New Testament maranatha means our Lord come well if he can't come at any time why say maranatha I mean if mid-trib 'he's true or pre Raths true or post ribs true you can't come back for at least three and a half years or five and a half years or seven years but the early church lived as an expectant people that word on their lips in fact many people have said that that was the word they used when they would greet one another in the marketplace because it was an Aramaic word that a lot of the Greek people didn't know I'd see each other they'd say Maranatha our Lord calm in Philippians 3:20 it says that our citizenships in heaven from which we eagerly wait for a savior the Lord Jesus Christ will come and deliver us and transform our humble bodies and make them like unto his glorious body 1st Thessalonians 1:10 says there in our text it says the weirdal wait for his son from heaven who delivers us from the wrath to come Titus 2:13 says we're to be looking for the Blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus it doesn't say we're to be looking for the Antichrist we're looking for the tribulation says we're to be looking for the Blessed hope the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus now think about this women for just a moment if you believe in any of you other than pre-trib you cannot legitimately say Jesus could come back today because if you're if you're mid-trib it's at least three and a half years away if you're pre-wrath it's five and a half if you're post-trib 'it's at least seven years away donald gray Barnhouse the great pastor a tenth presbyterian up in up in philadelphia years ago he made a little parody that old song there's a there's a great old song that says Jesus may come today glad day glad day and I would see my friend trials and troubles would end up Jesus would come today glad day glad day is it the crowning day I'll live for today and her anxious be Jesus my lord I soon shall see glad day glad day is it the crowning day and Barnhouse said if you hold any of you other than pre-trib then you have to say Jesus can't come today sad day sad day and I won't see my friend trials and troubles won't end because Jesus can't come today sad day sad day today is not the crowning day I won't live for today anxious I'll be the beast and the false prophet I soon shall see sad day sad day today is not the crowning day that's true that's true only only those who believe in pre-trib rapture can really get up in the morning and say perhaps today today might be the day that Jesus comes back and I can promise you that will change the way you live if you really get up and say you know the Lord could come today there's some things that you will do that you won't do or there's some things that maybe you weren't going to do that you will do it's a powerful motivating influence on our lives if we really believed that Christ could come back at any time and I think as the church loses this idea of the any moment return of Christ and as it fails to be preached and proclaimed that it's very easy for us to become less committed and less motivated in our lives to live a holy and and godly lives and committed lives for the Lord Jesus Christ and so if we believe in pre-trib rapture we can get up every morning and we can legitimately say look up into the heavens and say perhaps today this may be the day today when Jesus comes and of course if we believe that here today then that means he could come today and that means that each one of us need to be ready and I would encourage you if you've never trusted in Jesus Christ your savior that's what you need to do someday he's going to come like I told you like that big magnet and if you're not in Christ if you don't have him as your Savior you're gonna be left behind my favorite words really from any song or from that old song Rock of Ages it's a verse in it that says could my tears forever flow could my zeal no longer know these four sin cannot atone thou must save and Dowell owned in my hand no price I bring simply to the cross I cling and that's the truth of salvation we come to Jesus Christ with with empty hands nothing in our hands to bring to offer up to him to somehow merit or earn our salvation we come to him with empty hands and we just simply cling to the cross of Jesus Christ and we trust in him we cast everything we are and we have upon him to trust him not to be our Savior so I would encourage you this right now as we pray here in just a moment if you've never trusted in Christ you need to come to him and say lord I come to you right now with nothing of my own merit or my own works I come and cling to Jesus Christ and him alone is my rock of ages' as my Savior and again as I I think I mentioned this last night before those of us who believe this we need to be premillennial we need to be pre-tribulation abut we need to be prepared we need to live our lives for the Lord Jesus as if he could come at any time let's look to him in prayer now our Father we thank you that we have hope today in this uncertain world in which we live and father we thank you that our hope is in a person it's not just some event that's going to take place it's in a person it's the Lord Himself will the sound will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord father we look forward to that day when our faith will become sight when we will look face to face not only with our Redeemer but face to face with our Creator the one who made us father help us to live this day and in light of that day help us to live looking fill us with hope we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ amen you

Channel: Calvary Chapel Saint Paul

Views: 41,286

Keywords: Mark, Hitchcock, Rapture, Church

Id: Wc3IjIXnaCA

Length: 55min 53sec (3353 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 08 2013