Latest / The Week in Bible Prophecy / Answering A Rapture Critic | Ken Johnson

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Answering A Rapture Critic | Ken Johnson · The Week in Bible Prophecy

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  Speaker 1: The Week in Bible Prophecy, a Prophecy Watchers podcast. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the podcast today, everyone mons us here in studio
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  Speaker 1: with doctor Ken Johnson. Welcome Ken here.
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  Speaker 2: We are, thank you for having me.
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  Speaker 1: It's good to be here. And we are going to
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  Speaker 1: be talking about one of our favorite topics and that
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  Speaker 1: is the rapture, and also we're going to talk about
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  Speaker 1: the timing. We're going to talk about the criticisms, some
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  Speaker 1: of the vitriol for sure, and also just how to
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  Speaker 1: answer some of the objections which are often just kind
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  Speaker 1: of repeated without any people doing their homework. But before
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  Speaker 1: we do, and remind everybody to consider joining us at
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  Speaker 1: our Orlando Prophecy conference in March. It'll be March twenty
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  Speaker 1: seventh through the thirtieth. You can go to Prophecywatchers dot
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  Speaker 1: com check it out. We're gonna have about twenty speakers
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  Speaker 1: there at the Florida Hotel. It's a great time to
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  Speaker 1: be there in the spring, and it's a great venue
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  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of food places, people can walk around,
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  Speaker 1: and it's it's just really really nice. So Propsywatchers dot
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  Speaker 1: com check it out. And so Ken here, you know
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  Speaker 1: here we are you you've written a book on the
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  Speaker 1: rapture and uh what uh you know, maybe give us,
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  Speaker 1: because we didn't do this before, kind of give us
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  Speaker 1: your when did you first? I mean maybe it's I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, maybe it's fifty years ago, I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: When did you come to be exposed to the idea
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  Speaker 1: of the rapture? And what caused you to embrace the
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  Speaker 1: idea of the preacher rapture? And maybe before you answered that,
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  Speaker 1: the first question would be what is the rapture at all?
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  Speaker 1: For I mean a brand new person that maybe an unbelievers,
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  Speaker 1: like what do you guys, what do you believe? Maybe
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  Speaker 1: give a definition of the rapture and then kind of
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  Speaker 1: talk about your your history there.
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  Speaker 3: Well, out of First and Second Thessalonians, it talks about
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  Speaker 3: a certain time when the dead rise and then we
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  Speaker 3: are changed into an immortal form, and that event is
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  Speaker 3: called the rapture, and it's something that Christians look forward to.
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  Speaker 3: And I got saved when I was around twelve and
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  Speaker 3: somewhere thirteen fourteen, I learned about the rapture. I learned
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  Speaker 3: a pre trib rapture to go right off the bat,
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  Speaker 3: and then I realized that there was mid people that
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  Speaker 3: thought it was at the end of the tribulation in
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  Speaker 3: the middle or you know, different things. And so I
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  Speaker 3: started looking at how to prove it one way or
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  Speaker 3: the other. And I looked at scripture, and scripture seemed
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  Speaker 3: pretty consistent. But one of the things I always did
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  Speaker 3: was I thought, well, I'll go back to the early
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  Speaker 3: church fathers, the disciples of the Apostles, see what they
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  Speaker 3: said about everything. And I did that with all the
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  Speaker 3: doctrines because I just I figured, if you studied under
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  Speaker 3: Peter and Paul and you said this is the way
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  Speaker 3: it is not just one person, but about forty of them,
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  Speaker 3: that's probably pretty.
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  Speaker 2: Safe, you know.
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  Speaker 3: And I come to find out that they were all
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  Speaker 3: pre millennial, they were all pre tribune, relational rapture people,
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  Speaker 3: just lots of the stuff that I pretty much thought, I,
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  Speaker 3: you know, believed. They just confirmed to me that that
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  Speaker 3: was correct doctrine.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think this is the uh, this is the
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  Speaker 1: fascinating thing about you know, learning things in the Bible.
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  Speaker 1: Because again same thing for me. I wasn't raised a Christian.
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  Speaker 1: And then I remember I got saved at eighteen, and
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  Speaker 1: it was pretty soon after that that somebody had given
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  Speaker 1: me a prophecy Bible, and I was like, what you
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  Speaker 1: know again, I didn't know anything. I mean talking about
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  Speaker 1: a complete green what's prophecy? And and so beginning to
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  Speaker 1: see that and then have them talk about the rapture,
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  Speaker 1: you know this, this catching away is what the word means.
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  Speaker 1: And then of course, as always, you begin to analyze, well,
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  Speaker 1: oh well that's a especially because if you if you
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  Speaker 1: go talk about the pre tripe rapture or as an example,
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  Speaker 1: and we'll talk about some of this, but somebody throws
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  Speaker 1: out you Matthew twenty four, twenty nine through thirty one, right,
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  Speaker 1: you hear this criticism, well, don't believe in the preacher raption.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm like twenty You're like, well, duh, why not?
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  Speaker 1: Well the Bible says immediately after the tribulation of those days,
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  Speaker 1: Jesus is going to send the angels out to gather
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  Speaker 1: the elect Clearly, that's the rapture. And you're like, oh, wow,
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  Speaker 1: that sounds pretty persuasive. And so at first, at first glance,
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  Speaker 1: I can see where people if I left it there
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  Speaker 1: and I never did a single ounce of continued study,
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  Speaker 1: I would have been like, oh that says it there.
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  Speaker 1: It is Wow, immediately after the tribulation. But then as
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  Speaker 1: you continue to learn, you continue to look at things
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  Speaker 1: in context. Right, you begin to learn about genre, and
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  Speaker 1: you learn how to interpret the Bible, and you go, ah,
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  Speaker 1: I see what's going on, and you learn uther areas
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  Speaker 1: of theology. So I think all of us try to deconstruct.
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  Speaker 1: I think, is I mean that's helpful. I mean in
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  Speaker 1: the sense of deconstructing the idea of the rapture and
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  Speaker 1: then to see which one has the greatest strengths. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: So your book that you wrote, what led you? You know,
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  Speaker 1: when did you write this? And I mean you've been
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  Speaker 1: written a lot of books, So when did you decide, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: I want to write a book on the rapture? And
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  Speaker 1: then kind of what was your idea behind it?
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  Speaker 3: Well, after I studied and went back through and looked
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  Speaker 3: at some of the other prophecies, I put together a
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  Speaker 3: book on prophecies, five hundred prophecies in order their fulfillment,
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  Speaker 3: and then I thought, well, I need to do one
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  Speaker 3: just specifically on the rapture because there's a lot of
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  Speaker 3: other nuances with it. And then pull in the Church
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  Speaker 3: fathers and there's some Dead Sea scrolls and some other things,
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  Speaker 3: just so that we get a complete picture that there's
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  Speaker 3: always been an idea of a rapture and for what
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  Speaker 3: reason and that kind of stuff. And then in the
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  Speaker 3: back of the book, I wanted to put in some
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  Speaker 3: of the objections from people that are pre mid post
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  Speaker 3: you know, and different things like that, and just just
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  Speaker 3: to have a definitive text.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that the just to me, this is
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  Speaker 1: very helpful for people, especially for those that are listening
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  Speaker 1: and like, well, you know, how do I just get
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  Speaker 1: it all in one spot? I mean, and your book
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  Speaker 1: isn't I mean it's not. It's one hundred and thirty pages,
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  Speaker 1: so it's not like it's overwhelmingly tedious by any means.
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  Speaker 1: But you have, you know, the rapture to find different
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  Speaker 1: past raptures seven year period, premillennial, first century Church, Day
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  Speaker 1: of the Lord, revealing of the Antichrist birth, paying is
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  Speaker 1: apostacy what Jesus said, rapture or apostasy, pre tribulational church fathers,
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  Speaker 1: rapture in the Old Testament, that's interesting, rapture in the
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  Speaker 1: ancient manuscripts. And then some of the general arguments against
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  Speaker 1: pre tribulationism, scriptural objections against pre tribulationism. You have some
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  Speaker 1: questions for non pre tribulationists, and then you have some definitions.
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  Speaker 1: So I mean this is this is very helpful when
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  Speaker 1: we think about I'll go there at page one oh
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  Speaker 1: six because I think this would be interesting. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not expecting to do this from memory, because you
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  Speaker 1: don't have a book in fun of you. I do.
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  Speaker 1: But questions for the non pre tribulationist. Let's discuss this
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  Speaker 1: because we got time. You say, if the rapture resurrection
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  Speaker 1: occurs at the end of the seven year period, and
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  Speaker 1: at that time believers are giving glorified bodies which neither
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  Speaker 1: give or given a marriage Matthew twenty two, then who
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  Speaker 1: populates the earth during the millennium? The two witnesses are
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  Speaker 1: also resurrected with glorified bodies, and the one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: forty four thousand our men who have never known a women.
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  Speaker 1: So talk about that question. Why that's an important question.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the key to all this is
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  Speaker 3: to understand there's not one prophecy in the Bible, which
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  Speaker 3: is the Rapture. There's hundreds of prophecies, and of course
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  Speaker 3: they spread out through time. But if we look specifically
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  Speaker 3: at the time period when Israel comes back we're living
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  Speaker 3: in now, and then the tribulation period kind of put
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  Speaker 3: those together. There's a bunch of prophecies about things that
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  Speaker 3: are supposed to happen. I mean, like one of my
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  Speaker 3: favorites is the Nile River drying up, and a lot
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  Speaker 3: of people will say, well, I think we're in the
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  Speaker 3: tribulation right now. It's like, funny, I haven't heard anything
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  Speaker 3: about the Nile River drying up.
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  Speaker 1: That was pretty good.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they always look at me, is like what It's like, well,
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  Speaker 3: we need to pull them all together. You know, that's
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  Speaker 3: just one out of several.
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  Speaker 1: So this you're not talking about the Euphrates River. You're
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  Speaker 1: talking about the Nile, Okay, because we know the Euphrates
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  Speaker 1: relations sixteen, So talk about the Nile a little bit.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's two prophecies.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's I think if I remember correctly, it's
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  Speaker 3: been a while, but I think it's Zephy Andiah, and
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  Speaker 3: Isaiah talks about when the evil King comes down to
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  Speaker 3: attack Egypt, that the Nile River dries up, and whether
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  Speaker 3: that's like a nuke or something.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, interesting'd be pretty easy to do. You just
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  Speaker 2: have to divert the water exaction.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, go up to go to go to the you
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  Speaker 1: know up in the highlands of Upper Egypt, and even
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  Speaker 1: the dam, right, I mean you could you could close
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  Speaker 1: it all up and divert it.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, that's the other thing that might might be.
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  Speaker 3: But somehow it happens and causes massive decay and things
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  Speaker 3: like that. But just trying to figure those things out.
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  Speaker 3: When we get to the whole idea of that, we
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  Speaker 3: have a tribulation period and then we have a millennial rain,
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  Speaker 3: and there's a lot of scriptures that talk about in
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  Speaker 3: the millennial rain, people will have kids and life spans
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  Speaker 3: will be increased. If you die at a hundred, it's
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  Speaker 3: like a baby.
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  Speaker 2: Dying because they live a lot longer.
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  Speaker 3: So the question then arises. It says that the Antichrist
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  Speaker 3: and his forces are destroyed and then we, whenever we're raptured,
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  Speaker 3: were changed into an immortal form. So if it all
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  Speaker 3: happens at the end, you're either raptured, resurrected, raptured, or
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  Speaker 3: you're destroyed. So who populates the people in the millennium?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that and it's interesting to me that I have
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  Speaker 1: a book on three views of the Rapture, and it's
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  Speaker 1: actually come out in a couple different editions, because the
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  Speaker 1: first edition was about you know, the pre trib, the
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  Speaker 1: mid trib, and the post trib and then the second
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  Speaker 1: one was pre trib pre wrath and post trip. But
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  Speaker 1: it's interesting the post tribe people that they took the position,
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  Speaker 1: and then each author has an opportunity to respond right
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  Speaker 1: and to question, and in both of those it's just
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  Speaker 1: again it's the views. I'm trying to think perspective series
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  Speaker 1: or something the Zondervan does, but it's the three views
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  Speaker 1: on the rapture. Either way, the post tribbers realize that
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  Speaker 1: the biggest for themselves, this is, out of their own words,
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  Speaker 1: the biggest challenge that we have in the post tribuew
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  Speaker 1: even though we believe it is who populates the millennium,
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  Speaker 1: they know that this is a catch twenty two for them,
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  Speaker 1: and so I think it's appropriate that you ask this question, hey,
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  Speaker 1: who populates because there really isn't any mechanism if everybody
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  Speaker 1: is raptured and changed and they're all in their glorified boys. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: question number two you have here. These are questions for again,
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  Speaker 1: the non pre tribulationist true believers knew the day and
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  Speaker 1: the hour of the First Coming after the decree came
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  Speaker 1: to rebuild Jerusalem. Your believers will know when the Second
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  Speaker 1: Coming will take place when the seven year period begins.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus said, no one will know the day or the
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  Speaker 1: hour of the rapture of the Church. Doesn't this prove
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  Speaker 1: that the rapture could not be in the middle or
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  Speaker 1: end of the seven year period. Otherwise believers will know
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  Speaker 1: the exact day and the hour of the rapture. So
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  Speaker 1: there must be a pre tribunalation, pre tribulational rapture. So
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  Speaker 1: this gets into the doctrine of imminence, right, that the
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  Speaker 1: rapture is unknown based on Matthew twenty four thirty six. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: as soon as the Antichrist signs a covenant with the
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  Speaker 1: Jews Daniel nine, twenty seven, whatever that looks like, boom
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  Speaker 1: twenty five and twenty days like we have it seven years,
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  Speaker 1: so to let the countdown begin to the time of
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  Speaker 1: the rapture at the second Coming.
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  Speaker 3: And that.
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  Speaker 1: That's kind of your point here, right, How how can
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  Speaker 1: how can Matthew twenty four to thirty six be true
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  Speaker 1: that nobody knows the day of the hour. If if
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  Speaker 1: the rapture is not on known is if it's not imminent?
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  Speaker 1: Is that kind of that's kind of where you're at.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, if it happens at some to us, some random
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  Speaker 3: point like today, tomorrow, whenever, then nobody would know. There's
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  Speaker 3: no no thing connecting it to say that it was
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  Speaker 3: a certain date or it was right before or right
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  Speaker 3: after a certain thing. But if you're going to say
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  Speaker 3: it's it's mid trib or post trib, then you can
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  Speaker 3: define that. Now, you still may not know the exact
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  Speaker 3: day and hour it happens, but you could say, well,
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  Speaker 3: since the tribulation hasn't started yet, obviously it's not happening
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  Speaker 3: this week, and I can guarantee it's not happening this week,
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  Speaker 3: and that that doesn't fit with what Jesus said if
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  Speaker 3: no one knows the hour of the day.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we also see too that, you know, we see
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  Speaker 1: the all of the all of the other groups, the
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  Speaker 1: post tripe pre wrath in midtrib They recognize the weight
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  Speaker 1: of what you're saying, and so they try to deny,
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  Speaker 1: they try to reject imminency on that. Because even if
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  Speaker 1: you are a pre wrather, which is the pre wrath position,
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  Speaker 1: is generally they don't know exactly when the rapture is.
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  Speaker 1: They just know it's about about the three quarter position
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  Speaker 1: of the seven year period. But if you see the
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  Speaker 1: Antichrist in the middle stop the sacrifices and declare himself
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  Speaker 1: to be God with the abomination of desolation. We see
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  Speaker 1: that phraseology in Daniel chapter twelve and there as well
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  Speaker 1: as Revelation twelve and other passages. It talks about twelve
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  Speaker 1: or in sixty days. So again, even if you got
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  Speaker 1: your dating wrong and you missed the first part, as
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  Speaker 1: soon as that midpoint comes and the abomination happens, okay,
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  Speaker 1: start the clock now, we know it's twelve sixty. So
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  Speaker 1: even there, you're still eliminating the idea of an unknown
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  Speaker 1: nature of the day or the hour, right, I mean yeah, even.
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  Speaker 3: If you tried to say, well, we don't know now,
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  Speaker 3: and then that's a different dispensation or whatever, they will
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  Speaker 3: know that's not exactly what Jesus said. No man knows
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  Speaker 3: the day or the hour. If you could say, well,
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  Speaker 3: it's in this certain time range for sure, that means
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  Speaker 3: I can say I can guarantee it's not today exactly
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  Speaker 3: or this next year given and if I can guarantee
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  Speaker 3: you it's not in this next year. I know something
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  Speaker 3: about the date.
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  Speaker 1: And how does that play in as well? Again, we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about imminency, and look, the word eminency's not in
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  Speaker 1: the Bible. We understand that we're Trinity's not the Bible
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  Speaker 1: or Bibles not the Bible. We've talked about that in
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  Speaker 1: various other context too. But nevertheless, why you came in
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  Speaker 1: addition to the Matthew twenty four to thirty six no
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  Speaker 1: one knows? Or Mark thirteen thirty two, there's all these
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  Speaker 1: passions they're similar to say the same thing. What other
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  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, how do the parables Luke twelve,
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  Speaker 1: Luke seventeen, Matthew twenty four. We see him about the
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  Speaker 1: idea of the son of man's going to come at
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  Speaker 1: a time when you don't know. He's be ready because
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  Speaker 1: if he's going to come on some people, like a
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  Speaker 1: thief in the night, they were not ready. They weren't
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  Speaker 1: expecting him. So you need to be ready because he's
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  Speaker 1: going to come at a time that you're unaware. Don't
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  Speaker 1: those contribute to the idea of imminency that we should
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  Speaker 1: be ready today even because we don't know exactly when.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say so some people that I've talked
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  Speaker 3: with have tried to say, well, what we're talking about
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  Speaker 3: is not the rapture, like some of the preterists will
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  Speaker 3: say that it was seventy a d. When the Lord came,
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  Speaker 3: et cetera. But the thing that I thought was interesting
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  Speaker 3: in studying like preterism versus futurism, in the Dead Sea Scrolls,
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  Speaker 3: it actually talks about ages and ages replicate, So in
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  Speaker 3: a sense, there are some prophecies that were partially fulfilled
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  Speaker 3: in seventy a D. With so thet preterorists aren't one
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  Speaker 3: hundred percent wrong, but it obviously happens again or the
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  Speaker 3: full fulfillment of which happens at our age. So there
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  Speaker 3: hasn't been a rapture by definition a harpodzo. So whatever
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  Speaker 3: it is we're talking about back then you're gonna you're
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  Speaker 3: just gonna have to jumble a whole lot of scriptures
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  Speaker 3: together to make it come out like that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, because we know that the eleve A Discourse, you
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  Speaker 1: know Luke twenty one, Mark thirteen and Matthew twenty four
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  Speaker 1: and twenty five, that it's all started with three questions
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  Speaker 1: by the disciples, what's gonna be the sign of your coming,
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  Speaker 1: what's going to be the end of the age, and
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  Speaker 1: what's going to be that well, what's gonna be the
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  Speaker 1: sign of Jesus coming, what's going to be the sign
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  Speaker 1: of the end of the age, and then what's going
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  Speaker 1: to be the sign of Jerusalem's destruction? So you have
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  Speaker 1: kind of those three ideas, So no doubt in Luke
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  Speaker 1: twenty one, Jesus describes the destruction of Jerusalem, which we
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  Speaker 1: know happened in seventy eight, right, But Mark thirteen and Matthew,
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  Speaker 1: they don't discuss that. It's weird. Luke's the only one
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  Speaker 1: that answers only gives the answer to that question. Specifically,
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  Speaker 1: when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know this destruction
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  Speaker 1: is near, and then they're gonna be exiled, you know,
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  Speaker 1: is will be destroyed and they'll be exiled into all
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  Speaker 1: the nations of the world. That very clearly seventy eight.
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  Speaker 1: So in that regard, as you said that we're not
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  Speaker 1: against we're not against seventy eight e being instrumental, right.
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  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, it definitely had some prophecies too.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: It several things.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Did a lot of people have this idea that the
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Lord came and a bunch of prophecies were fulfilled and
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: now nothing has happened and won't happen until the Second Coming,
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: that there are no prophecies during the Church Age, And
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: there's actually quite a few, not nearly as many as
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: back then for sure, but since Israel's come back, there's
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: been a bunch. There's been a good handful during the
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: Church Age, just different things.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so okay, this is good because we're going to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: get into what I really love to do. Is I
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: really enjoy answering people's objections because you know, my heart
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: is okay they mean, well, so many times they don't.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: They're they're hostile and there they have kind of a
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: tough attitude. But even if we just say, we'll given
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the benefit of doubt that they're they're curiously seeking some
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: of these these objections, and we want to get to
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: some of those. But the third question you have in
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the book Questions for non Pretribulationists, Uh, if the Antichrist
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: overcomes the Saints during the seven year period and Jesus
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: said the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't that prove a pre tribulational rapture give us the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: background here, and it really does focus around the world
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: around the word prevail for sure, so kind of why
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: did you ask this question for to a non trip pre.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Trial and the term saints too.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: The whole idea is that Jesus said that the gates
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: of Hell will not prevail against the Church.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Back in Daniel, it talked about the Antichrist persecuting the Saints.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: So at that point, if you just realize this is Daniel,
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: this is the Old Hell. There were saints in the
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Old Testament times, so who do they define saints as?
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: And those are believers in Messiah. At that time it
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: was primarily Jews, so we're talking about believers in Messiah.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: But the Church hadn't been born yet, so we're not
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: talking about the Church. So just because it says saints
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily mean the church itself. I run across the
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: same thing with the early Church fathers. There's a comment
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: of Justin Martyr talking about the Antichrist will seek to
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: harm the believers the Saints, and people go, oh, well
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: he must have been a preterist. Well, if you continue reading,
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: he makes a.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Very clear.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Definition later on that he is a pre trib So
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: the question then is how could you be pre trib
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: and say the Antichrist persecutes the saints. Well, the only
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: logical answer is that you're talking about Old Testament saints
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: or in that case, in that time period, we're talking
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: about tribulation saints.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Well. And the fact of the matter is, you know,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: justin Martyr's writing in the second century, right, so he
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: clearly is talking about a future Antichrist and not an
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: anti Christ of of eighty seventy, of seventy eighty right,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: A lot of the Church Fathers did that all the
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: way up to the three hundreds.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they clearly weren't preterist. They couldn't be because
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: they had they were thinking futuristic.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Still, yeah, I still read the Church Fathers and every
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: so often I'll run across somebody that something bad happened
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: to persecution or something, and they'll be like, could this
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: guy be the Antichrist?
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: You know, just like we do.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, they're thinking it's future. It wasn't past.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: So it's a literal guy that persecutes, you know, could
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: he be here?
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, and when is he coming? And uh, it's
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: it's it's so true what we see often, you know,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: just we see a lot of we get a lot
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: of emails, and we get a lot of comments, and
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: whether it's YouTube or just social media, and what we
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: find are often is the case that those that are
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: vocal and whatever people can be vocal, not against that,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: But I think the frustration comes when people are vocal
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: in their criticisms of the pretrib idea and they act
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: as if what's wrong with you? And literally sometimes using
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: words how could you be so foolish? It's clear that
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: you know Darby started it? How could you be so dumb?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: That this was started by Darby in eighteen twenty seven?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So you know, we've done many, many, many programs and
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I only want to spend a couple of minutes here
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: just just for the sake of comprehensiveness. But did Darby
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: start the rapture doctrine in eighteen twenty seven?
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: He made it popular again? Like I can tell.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I can show you many quotes from the early church
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: fathers and then everyone was pre millennial, most of which
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: a lot of people didn't mention the rapture. They were
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: just focused on the second. But they were all pre millennial.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: But there were several of them that were pre trip.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And in addition, just just so you can bring it up,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: in addition to your book on the Rapture, you have
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: another book on don't you have another book on the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: early Church Fathers as it relates to like the Rapture
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and the early Chu Fathers.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Wow, we did a book on the ancient Church Fathers.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: What I wanted to do is pull out the main doctrines.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: So because everybody told me, don't study the Church Fathers,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: you'll wind up being Roman Catholic. And you know, it's
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: just like you, Yeah, Well, the doctrines that we object
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: to from Roman Catholicism and extreme Calvinism and preterism and
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: that stuff, they were very specific and very much against that.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: It was started by Gnostic cults. So if you we're
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: not talking about middle age Church fathers, we're talking about
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: the people that were disciples of the Apostles for three
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: centuries basically. And so if you look at that, they
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: all had the same doctrine and it's it's exactly like
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: what we're taught. They took the scriptures literally.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, isn't that interesting? Until we get to Origin and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Augustine and the Alexandrian school. Yeah, and they start they
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: start magnifying allegory.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: I would make a comment though, Paul talks about in
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: a place where he says a heretic you reject after
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: the second warning. People think about a heretic as somebody
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: who has false doctrine. That's not what the word heretic means.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: It means a divisive person. So whether we're talking about
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: a rapture or a second coming, or how you get
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: saved or if someone is saved or whatever, we can
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: debate about that, and maybe it's like walking in sin
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: is extremely dangerous. It'll hurt you, so you definitely don't
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: want to do that, but we can talk about it.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: But when you start being divisive, you know, or hateful
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: about it, that's when we have a problem. So like
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: in the church, you were supposed to excommunicate if someone
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: was divisive. So it's like if you say, well I'm
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: not sure about a pre trip rapture and come to
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: church and learn and we'll see what happens. But when
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: you start under mining or doing something like that, that's
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: that becomes a moral issue.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Titus three very clear. After two times,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I mean we we we've had to do it. We've
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: had to do it as a pastor. You know, uh,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: not a lot during the years, but because you want
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: to be gracious. But when you warn people, and I
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: remember there was one guy where we were at the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: point and I would teach something, and then in between
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: when we'd go from our Sunday school class to the service,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: he would pass out flyers contradicting what I just taught
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: in Sunday school class. But he would do it quietly.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Well that's that's, you know, without without coming to me.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't like, hey, Mondo, can I sit
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: down with you and you know, can we maybe hash
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: this out or whatever. That's that's divisive. You're creating disunity
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: in the church. And uh. And again I wasn't teaching
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: anything that was contrary to the Gospel. It was simply
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: a different viewpoint on some minor doctrine. But it was
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: interesting in that situation. They didn't They had a hard
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: time in their own mind distinguish distinguishing between a major
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: doctrine and a minor doctrine or a essential doctrine. For them,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: everything was essential. So if you didn't follow what they thought,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: then you were teaching a contrary to essential and you know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: possibly weren't even saved.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: So yeah, that's the whole point of the apostasy. I
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: think that's how it starts. It's not a particular doctrine,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: but it's that attitude. You see it in the first
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: century when the Jews basically got Sadducees and Pharisees. They
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: both say, we are the government, you're not. Yeah, and
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: we have to enforce this. So we have to make
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: sure people don't murder. We have to make sure you
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: observe the Sabbath right, And they didn't differentiate. So if
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: I have a fork on the wrong side of the plate,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I'm doing the Sabbath wrong. They're supposed to kill me.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: And it got crazy.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: So as soon as you add in the oral the
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: oral traditions, right, you know that what Jesus called the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: tradition of the elders. When you add that there and
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: then that that's theirs very narrow a pharisaical viewpoints of
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the law. It's one thing we know an exod of
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: thirty five example, if if a guy's out picking up sticks,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: they had this, they had an example of it. Guy
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: was out picking up sticks on the Sabbath, they brought
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: him to Moses. Moses said kill him. Okay, well that's
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: pretty strong. Yeah, but yet the fork the bubble didn't
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: say about where or the washing of hands, right, I mean,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: so once they elevated those traditions up, it really created
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of legalism, as we know, and unfortunate.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and a lot of people say that that's that
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: doesn't seem very fair, but we don't know the entire story.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Is it a guy that accidentally picked up a stick.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that would be okay, just to do it.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: This is probably a guy that says, I'm going to
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: pick up sticks when I want to pick up stick, Fine,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: he's going to tell me what to do. Same kind
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: of a thing. That's the beginning of apostasy.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. We don't imagine that that God was out
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: there going, hey this guy, he goes, I didn't know.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. I'm I knew him. My parents never
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: taught me. Okay whatever. God is gracious in that regard. Okay,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about some of these criticisms that come
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: in and you have a list of them in your book.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: And then this is from a recent email that we
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: got and this is a classic one. The person rights.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: The word tribulation means a trying time or a time
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: of testing. The Bible is full of people that faced tribulation,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Bible says God is no respect or persons. So if
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: he raptured the church and allowed these others to face tribulation,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: he would be showing favoritism to the church. A lot
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: of things wrong in that statement, But tell me your thoughts.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Well, the whole idea is he's assuming that the reason
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: for the rapture is because God has some favorites and
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: He's going to spare them a little bit. And the
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: thing is, right now, we have major persecution, not necessarily
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: in this country, but I've got brothers and sisters all
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: over the planet that are severely persecuted even to day.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: So there's persecution, there's tribulation all over. And you know,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: you could say, like, well, why do the Americans kind
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: of get off scot free. That's kind of favoritism, same
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: kind of thing, And that's not is because we tried
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: to follow what God wanted. We have a constitution is
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: things are different over here, but that whole idea of
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: being because somebody is a favorite is not what the
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: scriptures teach or the scrolls. There's actually one of the
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Dead Sea scrolls that actually is talking about the concept
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: of the rapture and the concept is it's too engender repentance.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: And so the meaning is, you have all of these prophecies,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: and when the prophecies begin to be fulfilled, it should
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: wake you up. And when you get to a place
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: where you know, your grandma always talked about the rapture,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: and she's an idiot, you know, but now all of
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: a sudden, everybody's gone, and you know it happened like
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: she described it. So you know the rapture happened. That
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: should wake you up. So and then that's one reason
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: why we need to teach prophecy, even if we're laughed at,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: just in hopes that I would rather be laughed at
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: and one more person gets saved.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, I mean I think the I would challenge
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: this person. Also, the Bible says God's no respector of
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: person's acts Chapter ten Glatians two. We know that's in
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the scripture, but he equates that phraseology that is in
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the Bible, no respector of persons to favoritism. And I
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: think in terms of wait, wait, wait, what, how are
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: you defining that? Because for example, God reserves the right
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: to show grace unequally. It's this idea that, well, God
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: has to be equal in his distribution of grace. Where'd
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: you get that at in the Bible? Because I'll give
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you an example. We know in the Ten Commandments, right,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: if you go commit adultery or you murder somebody's it's
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: a capital crime, yes, death penalty. And that you know
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: what did David do with Abasheba. He commit adultery and
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: he killed the husband, and of course he lied about it.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Two capital crimes. And so the first thing that God
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: does with David, after Nathan goes to him, Nathan says,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: you will not die. Well, hey, wait a minute, God,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: why who are you to show grace to David? David
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: deserves death penalty twice because of each one. Now, the
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: guy picking up sticks got the death penalty, okay, and
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: that was a different law. Okay, well it was the
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: law of the Sabbath. But he's picking up sticks for
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: a fire, right whatever, we know, it doesn't matter. Both
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: of them were worthy of death. But God chose to
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: distribute his grace unequally. He didn't need He could have
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: killed David, but he said, I'm going to show him grace. Well,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: this reminds me of the parable in Matthew twenty about
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: the parable of the going out to the vineyard every day,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: and at the end of the day, God gives the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: same amount of money of payment to the guy that
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: worked one hour to the guy that worked all day. Right,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: And so the guy with working one day, he says, well, hey,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: why'd you kill me? Why didn't you kill David? God says, hey, look,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I can do whatever I want with what's mine. Are
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: you upset that I was gracious to David versus I
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: gave you justice? You know? So this is the interesting thing.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: So for him to say that, you know, would it
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: be wrong even if God said, hey, I'm gonna spare
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: this generation and I'm not gonna spare that one. Is
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: that wrong of God to do that? It's his decision.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: And I think the one thing that we tend to forget.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Everybody thinks, well, I've got it all together.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: I understand everything.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: We should remember, Like when we were kids and you
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: first learned something, or maybe even first became a Christian
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: and you learned something in the scriptures, and man, you
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: know you're right. Later on you study it and it's like, oh,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I misunderstood that he was an honest mistake, but I
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: didn't understand it everything perfectly. And remember that we all
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: have a sin nature. So just because you look at
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: God and say, why on earth would he do that,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: he wouldn't.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: He's a good God.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Well if that seems evil to you, it's probably because
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: you have a sin nature and you're not looking at it.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Correct absolutely, and God is this is where we forget
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: or we don't experience the holiness of God in a
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: in a real terms. I mean Isaiah six right, he
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: did he he was there, holy holy holyness. Oh whoa
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: whoas me? I'm a man of uncle clean lips amongst
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: the unclean people. I'm undone, and God's like, no, I'm
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: going to show you grace. But he right, he was
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: in the immediate presence of a holy God, and in
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: his sinful nature was exposed and he reconized. I think
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: that's often the case, and so we often you know,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I think of Psalm fifty where God says you thought
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I was like you, but I'm not, and I'm going
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: to rebuke you because you've defined this guy here has
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: defined what he thinks favoritism is or God being no
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: respected persons, when in reality, if that's God's decision, and
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: so God didn't violate anything, that God is not a
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: respected person's meaning that if we get if we receive
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: grace in the rapture, it's not because we deserved it
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: any more than the tribulation saints right, it's grace. Grace
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: is undeserved. So I find that question. We recognize we're
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: all going to, like you said, there's tribulation just around
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the world all the time. But maybe let me ask
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: you this then on that describe the difference then between
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: tribulation Jesus is in this world you're gonna have tribulation
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: versus the great tribulation. Is there a distinction there? And
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I think he's missing that.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, everything can become a description or a name, and
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: so we have to understand that he's correct and saying
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: that there's tribulation everywhere. Tribulation means persecution. Bad times, some
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: persecutions and tribulations are worse than others. But there is
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: a specific time according to scripture where there is a
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: time period of seven years, and it says that this
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: time of persecution, tribulation, whatever you want to call it,
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: this time, this bad time is worse than it ever
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: had has been on this planet, and it will never
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: happen again. Yeah, so that is the worst time ever.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: So when you describe it that way and then call
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: it this is the great tribulation, it.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Becomes a name.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: So in scripture when we talk about they have tribulation,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: they had a bad time. Somebody may have got killed,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: it might have been really bad, but it's nothing compared
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: to that time.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And that time we know is there's a lot of
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: words for it, but one of the monikers is the
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: wrath of God es scatological wrath of God. I mean,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: we know the wrath of God has a variety of
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: nuances in scripture. But you know, for Sesslians one to ten,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: fort Sessenings five to nine, that the church is not
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: destined or appointed to that es scatological wrath of God.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: And so this is why we say, wait a minute,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: when somebody is persecuted over here, you know, or they
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: have tribulation in this world, that's not the wrath of God.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: So we say Hey, the distinction that this guy's missing
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: is that the church is said, you will escape the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: wrath of God. Now we know in Romans five that's
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: the eternal wrath, but in the first ofsonian Epistles, as
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: we know, that is the eschatological wrath. This seven this
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: seven year period of time. And so when you have
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: a special promise like that, I mean, we could take
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: that to the bank. And it's not just tribulation in general.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: So the second thing he says here, you'll like this one.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: The word rapture is not found in the Bible. But
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Jesus's second coming is there's no verse in the Bible
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: tells us that his second coming and him coming for
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: his bride are two separate events. A couple different things there.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: What's your what's your take a crack at it?
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Well, first off, the word in the King James it
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: says catching away, and that's just the way we're doing it.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: And in Greek it's harpodzo. The word we use for
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: rapture comes from the Latin word in that particular verse.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: So to say the rapture is not in the Bible,
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: that's true, But neither is the second Coming. I mean,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: it's a very clear So he just says that, so
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: he's not being Actually, no, that's not correct. Neither is
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: the word trinity, neither is the word Bible in the Bible.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: But as far as that goes, there's nothing really that
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: tells us that they're two separate events. I think there
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: is very clearly. I think First and Second Thessalonians indicates that.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: Not super super clear, but.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: I think it indicates it.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: But in one place, I think Daniel chapter twelve is
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: extremely clear. It talks about a time of a resurrection
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: and those that are there are shining, and in other words,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: they have a glorified band the stars. Yeah, and so
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Paul tells us in First Corinthians that when the rapture happens,
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: it's at the at the time of a resurrection. It
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: all happens together in the twinkling of an eye. So
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: you have in Daniel twelve starting off a rapture resurrect action.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: It says a time time and a half, which is
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: two hundred and sixty days. It actually says from Moadeem
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: to Moadem, it's not just a year, but it's two
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: hundred and sixty days. And so from that time of when.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: All that Purty twelve hundred and sixty d twelve.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Hundred and sixty days.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So from that time period going forward is when
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: the persecution has comes in the abomination.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: That makes desolate.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: And then he turns around and says, from the time
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: of the abomination that makes things desolate, show there will
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: be twelve hundred and ninety days until the end. And
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: so there's some sort of an overlap, and I'm not
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: sure what, but the point is twelve hundred and sixty
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: is not twelve hundred and ninety. So if the rapture
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: resurrection happens and then there's twelve sixty, and then there's
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: twelve ninety.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: And then there's thirty and thirty five in that same.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah chapter, and it might even be longer than that,
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: but it can't be shorter than that.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: It can't be shorter.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: So it's got to be a pre tribe rapture. And
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: I think that's very very clear in Daniel twelve.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And the other thing that comes up is
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: in the in this this criticism set, this is one
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: that we hear all the time one Corinthians fifteen that
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: in describing the that we will all be changed, the
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: mystery that we will all be changed. There's there's a
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: there's a group alive. This is the mystery, not that
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: there was a resurrection, because that's in the Old Testament.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: The mystery behold, I tell you a mystery. There's a
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: group of people that will never die. Right, there's one generation.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: This was new that would go from living in our
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: mortal bodies in a moment in in a moment of
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: twinkling M and I, into the glorified state. That was
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: new information, which is a very logical thing. I'm glad
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: got added that, because you would you would wonder, well,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: when when that time happens, at the end, whatever that
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: end might be, what about the people who are living?
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: How are they going to get into their glorified states?
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Is it only be the the dead people that are
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: going to get the new glorified bodies? But he says
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: there it's going to happen at the last truck up.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: And so the next question how many trumpets are? Their
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: revelation talks about seven trumpets. So this is typical where
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: people say, because of Paul in verse fifteen to fifteen,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: that resurrection change passage is just referring to the seven
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: trumpet of the Book Revelation.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, actually it's not though.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you think about it, Paul wrote first
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: and second Thessalonians and then Corinthians somewhere in the neighborhood
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: of the fifties and sixties. He's according to church history,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: he died in sixty seven, so give or take a
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: couple of years, so all of his writings were before seventy.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Eight, and these honestly were in the fifties. So according
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: to what I read too, yeah, very early.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: So John writes the Book of Revelation in ninety five
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: at the Alapatmas, before he gets you know, publishes it.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: So Paul is not quoting something that hasn't been written
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: for fifty years after he died. Yeah, so he's obviously
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: talking about something else.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: So when you go.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: Back to the Jewish Pharisee type eschatologic studies, they have
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: something called the first Trump.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: These are just names for festivals.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: So the first Trump is Pentecost, the last Trump is
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: Russia Shanar Yam Turah, and the Great Trump is Yam kipor.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: So it teaches on the Covenant, the Rapture, and the
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: Second Coming. And so when you know this, for instance,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: when he talks about that, he says, it happens at
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: the last Trump. We have something that looks like a rapture,
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: for instance, in Matthew, except Matthew says it happens at
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: the Great Trump. So those are two different festivals, not
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: necessarily that they have to fall on those festivals, but
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: teaching is different.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: That language would jump out at you, especially if you
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: happen to be a pharisee, which Paul.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: Was right, yes exactly.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: So he's not talking about the Book of Revelation, which
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: if he was, it makes sense that it would pinpoint
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: a post trip rapture. But he's talking about the festival
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: of Yam Turah.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Oh. Paul's dead in sixty seven AD at the earliest.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Then we know the Book Revelation was written in the
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: mid nineties, ninety five ninety six, so almost at the
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: minimum would be thirty years if he wrote it on
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: the last day that he was alive, which we know
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: that's not the case. He wrote it least ten years earlier,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: so now we have forty years gap. So he's not
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: quoting a book that's not even written yet, and that's
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: really important. We also one of the phrases that comes
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: up often. You wrote about this in your book, is
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: the idea that the Bible does not teach a secret rapture? So,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: and I hear this more often than we should. But
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: have you ever in your life described it as a
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: secret rapture? I mean I haven't. I mean, I think
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: the only people that I ever heard a secret rapture
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: from are from the critics.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it means different things to different people. I mean,
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: if you're saying at we don't know when it happens,
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: the time is secret or unknown.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: So to speak, I can accept that.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: Then you could say it's a secret rapture. That's usually
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: not what they mean, though they're talking about this whole
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: idea of the it's not the second coming. It's the
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: secret little thing that happens somewhere else. And it's kind
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: of a misnomer.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: It's a pejorative. They're definitely using it as a pejorative.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's basically we're just saying, there is a rapture,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: there is a second coming. So let's look and see
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: if it's the same event or even two different things
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: that happen on the same day or whatever, or if
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: there's a way we can figure out approximately when it happens,
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: and that's all we're doing. But yeah, using that that
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: term doesn't really mean anything.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: No, not not to those that actually teach it and stuff. Again,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: it's kind of used as a it's kind again, it's
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: used as a pejorative. Often the case whenever I've heard
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: it's always in that way that that the secret gnostic
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: type of niche that only the Christians, you Christians, you
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: pre tribbers are gnostics because you it's secret and only
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: you get to know about it, And which that's not
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the case.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: When I hear about it, it's usually somebody talking about
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: Darby and Margaret I forget her last Donald McDonald, Yeah,
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: and the idea that they're the ones that invented.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: It or came up with the idea.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's it's a.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Secret thing that you know.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: So I usually hear it that way, And that's kind
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: of a weird misnomer too, because if you think about it,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: if you can show fifteen, sixteen and seventeenth century people
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: that taught a rapture, you can show people not believing
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: it in the Middle Ages because they were all millennial
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: or the Church, and.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: What did they really believe? Yeah, anyway, right, yeah, I mean,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: but then.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: You go back to the first and second century and everybody,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: I think everybody agrees that they were all pre millennial.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right, I mean, yeah, yeah, but they they.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: All a good portion of them.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: Anyway, We're also believed in a pre trib rapture and
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: that can be demonstrated easy. So even if it's a
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: fake doctrine, which it could be, the point is it
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: wasn't invented by Darby as a secret teaching. It's something
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: that's been around for a long time.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's that's for those in the
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: modern camp, primarily reformed camp. I guess at least it
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: relates to eschatology, but not always, but that most of
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: them are are all millennial. You know, they don't believe
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: there's a literal, physical millennium. They believe that the millennium
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: is spiritual and that we're living in it now. And
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: so therefore, when you have scripture Isaiah eleven and others
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: about the wolf laying down with the lamb and the
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: lion eating straw like an oxos, that it becomes allegorical, right,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: it becomes interpreted in a figurative way, which is unfortunate.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: But so for them, they still they can't even say, Hey,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: they might say the majority of church history believed in
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: all millennialism basically from Augustin on is where well, but
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: they can't say that the early church believed in a millennialism.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: I was reading Eusebius the other day.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: He's the father of church history, he writes in three
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: twenty five, and he's obviously an a millennial and he's
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: talking about this church father called Papias, who wasn't a
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: disciple of the apostles, but he actually went and interviewed
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: all of their disciples and wrote down all their cool stories.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Disciples the disciple of a disciple basically.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: And he wrote down all this stuff. And he's talking
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: about how wonderful and accurate and the stories are and
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: how great he was except for one thing. Somehow he
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: must have got confused because he believes that Jesus will
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: physically come back and reign him from Jerusalem for a
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: thousand years. And apparently a lot of other people got
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: confused on this too. Talks about how he's not very smart,
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: except that he's brilliant in his writings.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Yep, and wasn't wasn't Pappy's from polycarp right, and then
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Polycarpus from John right, So he was like third hand.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you got Ignacious and polycarp that are
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: writing in the first century, and then polycarp and all
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: these people, the disciples of the Apostles, how did they
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: make a mistake? And if he made a mistake like that,
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: why didn't all the other disciples say, hey, dude, don't
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: you know better than that?
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: You should know that's not what they taught us.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: You're withent a couple generations, and so yeah, it's interesting
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: that you so Eusebius could could tell him how brilliant
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: he was here but yet not here. Yeah, because and
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: then of course we know, you know, from basically the
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: fourth century on. Let's do one final one here that
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: comes up often. We talked about Derby. That that again,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: that's it's it's a myth that has started with Derby.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: This one says Revelation three ten, which is often quoted.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I believe strongly that's a pre tri verse. I've given
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: teachings on it, presentations on it. But it says Revelation
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: three ten doesn't say we won't go through the tribulation,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: but that God will protect us, just like he protected
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: the children of Israel when they were slaves in Egypt. Well,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: my first response was, people can read it. It says
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: nothing about Egypt. It says nothing about slaves. So that's
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: reading into it first of all. But then I'll I
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: have a lot to say, but I'll pass it on
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: to you. Kind of the closes up.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Well, you're assuming the point.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Again, the scripture does talk about there's one hundred and
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: forty four thousand witnesses that are protected of the Lord.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: It talks about there's a great multitude of believers, so
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: it's not like there's not believers in the tribulation period.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: So there are Tribulation saints. So the saints are persecuted
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: by the Antichrist and are kept in some cases. In
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: some cases they're killed. So the question is when you
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: say saint, who are you talking about? Daniel back in
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: his time, way before they were Christians, he talks about
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: the Antichrist persecuting the saints, you know, and he's obviously
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: not talking about the Church per se. So it's Old
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: Testament saints, the Church, and then tribulation saints. In a sense,
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: they're all saints. They're all believers in Messiah. But they're
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: three different bodies.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Well, and the fact is too that nowhere, I want
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: to say nowhere, there are very rare instances in the
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: book Revelation where God is giving a very specific protection
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: of the believers. For the most part. You read Revelation
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: thirteen seven, Revelation six, Revelation seven, people are dying, they're
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: you know, Revelation twenty. Those that had that were beheaded,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: you know, for their faith. So this idea that God
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: is protecting believers from the Antichrist, from the wrath of
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the Antichrist, from even from God's own wrath, it's just
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: not true. I mean, I mean, so Revelation three ten
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: is talking about being kept out of the hour, the
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: very hour itself, the very time, and not that we
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: would be kept through It's a different word, we know
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: the Greeks, it's ect versus dia. But okay, anyways, all
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: that being said, any final thoughts on the rapture and
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: those that.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Like to criticize it, Yeah, Well, his own point of
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: at the beginning of this was that one point would
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: prove that God shows favoritism if God is protecting some
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: people in the tribulation period and not. Isn't that favoritism
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: kind of goes against his own points?
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Why would God favor the Christians then, or the believers?
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: They're some Christians but not others.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Right, or even the unbeliever. I mean you think, okay, well,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: God's no respector so. Yeah.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: I think it's important that we not have biases that
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: we look at scripture. We really should take the attitude
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: like I have. I really don't care if it's premit
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: or post, but I would like to know for sure anything.
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: I'd like to know the date if I could say absolutely, yeah,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: I probably can't. But you know, but if someone thinks
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: they're you know, I've got Jehovah witness things that give
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: me the date of the rapture. Of course, now it's
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: already passed, so evidently it's false. But you know, I
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: want to look at all that stuff. But again, we
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: do not want to divide the Body of Christ on
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: any subject like that.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: That's sin.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and and that's why you know, our approach is,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: you know, we believe what we do, but we're not
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: going to divide over it. I speak very complimentary of
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: preadorists and others in the sense of they're my brother
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: in Christ. We love them, we can agree to disagree agreeably,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: and Jesus will know us by our love for one
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: another in these secondary issues or even tertiary issues in
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: that regard. But ken appreciate your time you wrote the
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: book The Rapture. If people want more information, they certainly
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: can go to prophesywatches dot com. And again your book
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: is very very helpful in that regard. Thank you, but everybody,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: thank you for listening this week, and I hope you
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: have a great week. We will try to continue to
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: keep you updated and appreciate your prayers as always for
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: what we do here couldn't do it without you and
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: without God's help. So we'll catch you next time.