Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 16, 2022 | End Times: Follow the Signs with Patty Diliberto - Session 4: The Rapture of the Church

Transcript

February 16, 2022 | End Times: Follow the Signs with Patty Diliberto - Session 4: The Rapture of the Church · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you so much for the things that we are going to see tonight.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you so much for your amazing love for us.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: We are in awe of you, Lord.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And might you just come and manifest yourself here this evening with us?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we ask that and pray in the name of Jesus.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the first thing I want to look at tonight is and this week is the prophecy of the 70 weeks of Daniel.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm hoping that it's gonna make that it's gonna be easy and make sense to you, that you're gonna grasp it.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's taken me a bunch of times of going over it to kind of almost figure it out.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: So God outlined for Daniel and to Daniel three prophetic periods of of the for the history of Israel.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they are recorded in these verses.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Seventy-sevens are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Know and understand this.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: From the time the word goes out to restore and build Jerusalem until the anointed one, the ruler, comes, there will be seven sevens and sixty-two sevens.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble, after the sixty-two sevens, the anointed one will be put to death and will have nothing.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: The end will come like a flood.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: He will confirm a covenant with many for one seven.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: In the middle of the seven he will put an end to sacrifice and offering, and at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, from this prophecy we can make a number of observations, all right?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The first one, it seems that Israel's future is divided into three time periods.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel is told there would be three periods of weeks or sevens, and the sevens can be days, weeks, um, and years, depending on the context of the passage.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Almost all commentators and theologians agree that the weeks are seven of sevens are years.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's seven years that is being talked about here.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: The first period is forty-nine years.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: The second period is four hundred and thirty-four years, and the final period is seven years.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: The total number of years is 490.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So at the end of this period of 490-year period, everlasting righteousness will reign.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Everlasting righteousness will come in.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the struggle between God and Satan will be finished.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first observation, right?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to make more sense as we go on.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So just.
• 3:38
  unknown: Are you sure?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: The second observation is that the start date is given to us.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: The start date is given to us.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: The time to begin to count the 77s or the 490 years would be when the command was given to restore and rebuild the city of Jerusalem.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: The fulfillment of that is recorded in Nehemiah chapter 2.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is when Nehemiah tells King Xerxes, Arta Xerxes, that he wants to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and to rebuild the city.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's the time when it starts.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: At that point.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: When Jerusalem was just was restored and rebuilt, the first period of sevens.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, just a second, I my thing did something weird.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: The first period of sevens or 49 years ended.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it started when the temple was going to be rebuilt, and then it ended.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: The next period, is this on here?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: The next period of sevens or 434 years brings us to the first century A.D.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: and to the life of Jesus Christ.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: There is discussion among biblical scholars when exactly this 434 years ended.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Some say it was at his baptism, and some say it was at the triumphal entry whenever he comes into Jerusalem.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever the case is, the second group of sevens or 434 years were fulfilled during the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: You tracking with me?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: The second group of sevens.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is that up there?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Am I on the right slide?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, okay.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or the 434 years were fulfilled during the life and ministry of Jesus.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So then it ended.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when when Jesus died, and 10 days and after his ascension, 10 days later, something happened.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well anybody know what that was?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Given in the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, ten days later, after his ascension.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the third observation.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: There is an interval between the 69th and the 70th week.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important to understand that the prophetic time clock stopped at Jesus, with Jesus.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then there this during his life in history, and whether it was at his baptism or the triumphal entry, it doesn't really matter.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: It stopped.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And those the weeks have paused.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: The weeks have paused because the weeks have to do with Israel.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And what was birthed when the Holy Spirit came was the church and the church age.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So then Daniel wrote of these of certain events that would take place during the interval period.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is during the interval.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Two tragic things would happen.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel 9, um 926.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have that on there or was it on the other one?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here it is.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: After the 62 sevens, the anointed one will be put to death and will have nothing.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: The end will come like a flood.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So notice that he speaks of those particular events which will take place after the 62 sevens, after that time period.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And this seems to indicate that there's an interval because it didn't happen right away, right?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there's an interval between the 69th and the 70th week.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're presently in that interval.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: The church age is the interval.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel was told that during this interval, two things would happen, two events would happen.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: First, the Messiah would be killed, and after he arrived on the scene, and instead of establishing his kingdom and at this time, he would die.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what happened, of course.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: The second one was that the Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed in this interval.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Shortly after Jesus' death, the city and the temple were both destroyed in A.D.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: 70.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel was told that these two things would happen, and both of these predictions have absolutely been fulfilled.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what it looks like on a graph.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: The decree on the far left, the decree of Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem, the decree to Nehemiah, begins the 49 years.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then it ends, and the 434 years begins, and it ends with the Lord's crucifixion.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then the interval is the church age.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then after the rapture begins the 70th week of Daniel, or the last seven years.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the tribulation period.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what it looks like.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: The church is birthed at Pentecost, and I believe the church will be raptured before these last seven years begin because these last seven years have to do with Israel.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: The number seven is this the number of completion in the Bible.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so this interval, if this interval of the church age was not there, then all of those years would be consecutive, right?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: They would all follow one another.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: But because the church age is there, there's a gap, and then there's going to be one final seven.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Daniel is explaining in Daniel chapter nine.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that makes more sense.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: So does it have anything to do with the fact that the church age involves Gentiles, not just the Jewish nation?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: So then that was like the dividing.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because the whole church age basically has been the Gentiles.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And God has been working through Gentile believers to impact the world.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: We know that when the tribulation starts, he will be using Jewish believers.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the future seven-year period, today we're still in that period, and there's one final week to go.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel 9 27.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: He, the Antichrist, I put in there the Antichrist, will confirm a covenant with many for one seven.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: In the middle of the seven, he will put an end to sacrifice and offering.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation until the end that his decreed is poured out on him.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that the Messiah was to die and that the city and temple were to be destroyed indicates that the 70th week does not begin right immediately after the 69th week.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because those two things had to happen, right?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that tells us there's an interval.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 24, 15 says, So when you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel, let the reader understand.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Understand what?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: What are we supposed to understand?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Understand that it is the last seven years of the tribulation that is in view.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's in view here.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: According to Jesus, the abomination that causes desolation, which Daniel wrote about, was yet to be fulfilled, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't just around the corner.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was a pretty long gap that before this is going to happen.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it speaks of defiling the temple, but the holy of holies as well.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this is still future.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: This has not happened yet.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it would be the sign that his return to earth was very near.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be, it would be three and a half years away.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: This indicates that there's still that seven-year period to be fulfilled with respect to the nation of Israel.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some say that it has been fulfilled by Antiochus Epiphany IV, who was a Greek Hellenistic king from the Seleucid Empire, and he came and he offered a pig in the temple, and he offered that pig to Zeus, thus defiling the temple.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: But all of the rest of the revelation prophecies did not happen at that time and have never happened.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do the last seven years to complete Daniel's 70th year begin?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: How does it begin?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: It will begin with the signing and the confirming of a peace treaty between the nation of Israel and the coming world ruler, who will be the final antichrist.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And once that treaty is signed or confirmed, the prophetic clock starts again.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right at that moment.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it it's this last seven-year period, the Great Tribulation, where many of the events that are recorded in the book of Revelation take place, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Most of them.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it's important to understand that these years are not consecutive.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: All of the 490 years.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: After the two periods of 483 years in total, which are consecutive, the prophetic clock stopped.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: This occurred sometime during the life of Jesus.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is important, okay.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: The entire 70 weeks of Daniel's prophecy only has to do with Israel.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel was told that the entire period of the 77s was explicitly decreed for his people, the Jewish people.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel 9, 24.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that sounds like the end of everything to me, doesn't it to you?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's wrapping it all up with a bow.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: We never find in Scripture where God is using both Israel and New Testament, the New Testament church at the same time as his divine agents.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: He uses Israel all through the Old Testament.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he uses believers in the church age all through the church age, but never do they mix.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the church is not mentioned in the Old Testament at all.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, we've seen this because it was a mystery to them.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes sense to me that the church will be raptured out before the last seven years begins.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: It begins with the signing and confirming of a peace treaty between the nation of Israel and the Antichrist.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Anything else?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: What were you going to say?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: But the Jews, their eyes are dark and they're not going to understand.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, they wouldn't follow through with what's happening in front of them.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the only way to shut us out is to take us away.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Take us out of here because we're going to keep on.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: The church is not mentioned in the Old Testament because it was a mystery to them, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: In Scripture, the rapture is always portrayed as an imminent event.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: The word rapture is found in the Latin Bible, and the English word rapture is taken from the Latin word, whatever it is, there, however you pronounce that.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Does anybody know Latin in here?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Which which yeah, that which means to catch away or to snatch away.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always portrayed as an imminent event.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the term imminent literally means ready to take place or impending.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is really interesting.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing else, nothing else must be prophetically fulfilled before the rapture can occur.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's ready.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's been fulfilled that is going to, as far as pertaining to the church age stuff.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: As far as predicting the timing of the rapture, there's no easy answers, and we simply absolutely don't know when it is going to happen.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: If we could know, then all the Christians would agree on the rapture and when it's going to happen and on the tribulation.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there's not agreement amongst Christians about when this is going to happen.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Godly men and women disagree on this matter, and it makes it clear that we don't know and we can't know for certain when it will happen.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And remember that the rapture of the church is a mystery because the church was a mystery.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: So all of this is like the prophets in the Old Testament didn't see and understand this.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: A mystery is a truth revealed for the first time.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, almost everyone agrees that there's no single verse or passage that gives undeniable, irrefutable proof and answers to the timing of the rapture.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you had these verses on your homework if you did them.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I'm just going to read it to you.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 through 18.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about these, about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest who have no hope.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: For we believe Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him, according to the Lord's word.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: We tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep, for the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, encourage one another with these words.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then first Corinthians fifteen, fifty through fifty-five.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure it's exactly that, but anyway.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I tell you a mystery.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: We will not all sleep, but we will be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the reason we know this is a mystery is because Paul just said it's a mystery.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the mystery is we're all going to be changed instantly, in a twinkling of an eye.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so all the people who have been part of the church since the day of Pentecost to the day of rapture.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, the day of the rapture are going to be taken to heaven.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's one last time period, the seven years of tribulation that the whole world is going to experience.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then this the second coming of Christ is going to take place.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So where does the rapture fit in with that time period?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Does it occur before the last seven-year period?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Does it occur in the middle of the seven-year period, or does it occur near the end of that period, the final seven years?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're going to look at.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And there um I have six different views.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually more, but these are the most prominent ones, of when the rapture takes place.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the first view is that there is no rapture.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: This view says believers will remain upon the earth until the second coming of Christ.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we should not be looking for the Lord to snatch them away at the rapture.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't sound fun.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: The second one is the partial rapture view, and it says that not all Christians will be taken up to meet the Lord in the air.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Only those who were prepared or spiritually worthy will be caught up to meet the Lord in the rapture of the church.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's no real scriptural evidence for this view at all.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third view is a pre-tribulation rapture.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this view says that the rapture will take place before the beginning of the tribulation.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Believers will escape the time of God's wrath, which will come upon the earth during that seven years, actually, the second end of it, the second part of it.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: These living believers will be transformed immediately after the dead in Christ are raised to meet Jesus in the air.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus will bring these believers back with him when he comes at the second coming.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then the mid-tribulation rapture view.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: It says that the rapture will take place in the middle of the tribulation before the second coming.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: They say that before the wrath of God, which is in the second half of the tribulation, the church will be taken out to meet the Lord in the air at the rapture.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: They believe the church will participate in the first half of the rapture.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, of the tribulation, sorry, but will be around, will not be around when the severe stuff in the second half begins.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Mid-Tribulation view emphasizes that the New Testament church has been promised that they will experience persecution and tribulation and martyrdom.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: They believe that the first half of the tribulation is the church's call to enter into that.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: It seems to me, though, that the first half of the tribulation is more about the wrath of man than it is about the wrath of God, because it's about the wrath of the Antichrist, of the beast.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the divine wrath doesn't come until the midpoint after the abomination that causes desolation.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I would argue that believers have already been and are currently right now being persecuted, being martyred all over the world.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: So just because maybe we won't, and who knows if we will before the rapture, there are people who are experiencing that.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Many, many, many people are experiencing that around the world.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if this view is accurate, then the rapture would not be imminent, meaning in any moment, because you would know.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the signing of the covenant, and we're still here, so that means that we're going to be raptured three and a half years in at the it's not imminent at that point.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: The fifth view is the pre-wrath rapture.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this view is a recent theory that believes the rapture will take place five and one half years into the seven-year period.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: However, it will occur will occur before the wrath of God comes to the earth.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: It differs from the mid-trib view just in that it occurs at a later time.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then view six is the post-tribulation rapture.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this view holds that the church will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air as he returns back to the earth after the tribulation period.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the rapture of the church and the second coming are basically two parts of a single complex event.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: You'll go up and you'll come back down with him.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the people who hold to this post-tribulation view do not keep, and this is important, they don't keep the nation of Israel and the church age believers separate.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: They combine them and they they see the church as a continuation of Israel, which is basically replacement theology.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: They say Israel forfeited their promises of God, and that's not possible.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because those promises to Israel were binding for all time, right?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: They believe that the wrath of God is not poured out during the entire tribulation, but is limited to those last couple of months.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And again, there's no imminent rapture in this view, right?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: You would know when it was going to happen.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, it's always presented as an imminent event.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a mid-trib proponent, you would know about the time that the rapture was going to happen.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a post-trib proponent, you would know approximately when the return is going to happen.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's only those who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture that can honestly say Jesus could come at any moment.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Before we leave here tonight, he could come and snatch us away.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And remember that Jesus said no one knows the day or the hour.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: No one knows.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us that it's only the church age believers who have trusted in Christ as their Savior between the day of Pentecost and the rapture that will take part in the rapture.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's who's going.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the reasons it's also called the rapture of the church.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Every rapture theory acknowledges that there are believers, both Jews and Gentiles, on earth during this time before the second coming of Christ.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: But, and this is super important, there is no mention of the church in the Revelation passages that deal with the end times.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to read that.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Read that on the screen for yourself.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Hitchcock says, None of the New Testament passages that deal with the tribulation, that seven-year time of distress, right before the second coming, mention the presence of the church.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: There is a curious silence about the church.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: In Revelation chapter 1 through 3, the church is specifically mentioned 19 times.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: The church is again mentioned in Revelation 22, 16.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: But between those two points, the Church of Jesus Christ is strangely absent from the biblical account of events on earth.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: So during the tribulation and the judgments and the bulls and all of that being poured out and all of the activity of the Antichrist, the church is not mentioned at all.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: At all.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have to wonder why it's not mentioned, right?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: The church has played such a significant role for 2,000 years that the lack of activity is crazy.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it it makes many of us, myself included, come to the conclusion that we are not here.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: During that time, we're just the church is not here.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: We will be in heaven.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: We will have been snatched away to meet Jesus in the clouds.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Jewish people are the ones that God is working through through the entire seven years of tribulation.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: All the believers who are raptured who are alive when the angel calls and the trumpet sounds will be caught up, raptured, and immediately transformed and transported to heaven.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's all the living believers in the church age that are caught up immediately after the dead in Christ.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Notice it's the dead in Christ, not Old Testament believers.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens to the Old Testament believers?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: When will they be resurrected and receive their glorified bodies and their inheritance?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Hitchcock says, they will be resurrected at the end of the tribulation period.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel describes this resurrection.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel 12, 1 and 2.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: At that time, Michael, the great prince who protects your people, the Jewish people, will arise.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: There will be a time of distress such as not has not as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: But at that time your people, everyone whose name is found written in the book, will be delivered.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Multitudes who sleep in the dust of earth will awake, some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's pretty clear, right?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's when they're going to be resurrected.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: The dead will rise only after a great time of distress and tribulation.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of the parable that Jesus told in Matthew 20, 16 when he said the first will be last and the last will be first.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't speaking specifically of this, but it describes what will happen.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: We in the church age have been last eschatologically, and we will get to go up first.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: But those who were first, which is the Jewish people, will go up last.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: It just, I thought that was really interesting.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: The rapture comes without any signs or warnings.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: He will come like a thief in the night.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's true that there are many signs listed in Scripture, but as we've seen for the last two weeks, three weeks maybe, they're signs for the second coming and not for the rapture.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: But as we've seen, it's just interesting that we've already seen these.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Hitchcock says, as we see the prophetic signs in Scripture lining up, we must remember that these are the signs for not the imminent re-rapture, but of the approaching tribulation and second coming of Christ to establish his kingdom.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: However, the fact that we already see the signs of these events obviously indicates that the rapture is not far away.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: So in talking about the day of the Lord, which is the tribulation, remember the day of the Lord, that's what it's called, the tribulation, Paul says this.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: I believe this indicates that God has not appointed the church age believers to suffer his the wrath of God that's going to come and the second part of the tribulation.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 1 10, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Other translations of the word of the words delivers us from wrath in the Greek delivers means to draw or snatch out to oneself, to rescue or to save, to preserve.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a couple of good questions.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why is the church exempt from God's wrath, but the believers during the tribulation period are not?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: If God does not remove them from this wrath, then why should he remove the church?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why remove one set of believers but allow another group to suffer his wrath?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Those are really good questions.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: God made certain promises to the church age that he didn't make to the others.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And during um remember that these same people had an opportunity to accept Christ and to be part of the church.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: They did have that opportunity and they forfeited it because they rejected him.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't receive him.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: The tribulation believers, the tribulation saints are not the church.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: They are known as the tribulation saints, right?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or the believers in Messiah.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: The individuals who will be left on on here on earth will experience the wrath of man, the Antichrist, and the wrath of God until he takes them home.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there could be hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people who come immediately to faith in Christ after the rapture happens.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: These people will remember.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, also, um, I think there's gonna be some churches that are gonna have business as usual on a Sunday morning.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, can you imagine?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Coming to your church and everybody's there.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're going, you know what?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: The strangest things happen.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: See, no, I don't know where all these people went.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: We won't be there.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right, we won't be there.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: We will not be there.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: When we look at all the evidence, it seems to me that a pre-tribulation rapture makes sense and it makes the most scriptural sense.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: I firmly believe in this view, and um, but there are many others who believe just as strongly in the other views.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: After the rapture, the judgment seat of Christ takes place in heaven, and the participants in the judgment seat of Christ are the church age believers, all of us.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: These are the people who have trusted Christ from Pentecost to the rapture, and um and we are the bride of Christ.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: It it doesn't include the Old Testament believers, they will be judged at a later time.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is just a judgment for us.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: The the in Greek and in English, they both use the same word judge in two different senses.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have that on here?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, in two different senses.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: The one sense is condemnation, while the other sense is giving out of rewards.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Unbelievers will be judged in the first sense.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Unbelievers will be judged in that first sense.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: But believers in Christ will be judged in the second sense as far as rewards.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5.10 speaks of this special judgment.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Notice that it's the judgment seat of Christ for those who are in Christ.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due to us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the the judging of New Testament believers is going to occur after the church, but before the second coming of Christ to the earth.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: In the book of Revelation, we read this verse.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let us be glad, rejoice, and give him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has prepared herself.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure, for the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is a picture of the believers at the second coming of Christ.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we look like.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the church will look like.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're told that we are clothed in the righteous acts, and that sort of indicates that we've already received the judgment and the rewards.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: We've already received those rewards at the judgment seat of Christ.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: The judgment seat is also known as the bhima seat.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: You might have heard that that word before, the bhima seat.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this Greek word is also translated into court or tribunal.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the bima seat was was not only used to judge, but it was also a place where rewards were given.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what after the after the um all of the games, the contestants would come and they would receive their crowns or their their rewards for what they had done.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where they would receive it, is at the Bhima.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone is going to is going to receive the same rewards, obviously.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 3, 14 and 15, if anyone's work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone's work is burned up, it will be lost.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: But he will be saved, yet it will st it will be like an escape through fire.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: So unfortunately, there's going to be some people who lose their rewards.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: They won't lose heaven, but they will lose the rewards that they could have had.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Rewards in heaven are not a big motivator to me.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just I and probably probably not hardly any of us is it a reward for us.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of like, oh, it's going to happen, but you know.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I imagine that when we receive those rewards, we will just lay them at the feet of Jesus anyway.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're going to want to do with them.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much that we will realize in that moment.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the motivation for me.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: That when I'm before God, I'm going to wish I had given him so much more than what I have.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that that's going to be the feeling of everyone.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Just that you wish you could give him so much more.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to the to the rapture.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that when it happens, there's that little teeny tiny nanosecond when we go, this is it.
• 40:06
  unknown: Yeah.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just that are we are we all gonna hear?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're we're here.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's happening.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ding, it's we're done.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're out.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday in staff meeting, um, Ken Maynor was working on something, and I'm not kidding.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: The whole Teresa was was praying, I think she was praying, and um Ken turned this this thing on, and it sounded exactly like a shofar.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Teresa goes, Oh, is that the shofar?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no, we're all still here.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're good.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's just Ken.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I know, I mean, we are all looking forward to it.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Brenda Hall reminded me of something that I'd heard before, and it says, I'm no longer looking for the signs of the times, I'm listening for the trumpet.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna hear it.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be kind of like that machine that Ken was using, and all of a sudden you hear it and you go, This is it.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's pray.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you so much.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for all the things that you have revealed in Scripture.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: We can understand some, um, but not all.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that some of the things that we have have um made up our minds about could be totally wrong.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's um there's there's just so much we don't know, but so much that we can.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so we thank you for giving us your amazing word to let us know what we need to know.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, while um down here we don't think that that uh rewards are very important.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: We know that when we get there, we will gladly lay them at your feet because you are so worthy to receive anything and everything that we could ever do here on earth.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Jesus, um what you really, really, really want from each one of us is just truly our heart, because our heart represents the totality of who we are.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, we we just um we give you our hearts and we tell you that we long for your appearing.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: We do want to hear that that horn and that blast and that shout.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: So come, Lord Jesus, all of us just say, Come, Lord Jesus, and snatch us away.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: And until then, Lord, might we be faithful to you.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.