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The Rapture: Pre-Trib, Pre-Wrath, or Post-Trib? | Michael Rowntree · The Remnant Radio's Podcast

• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, welcome back to the wonderful world of Remnant Radio.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, we're talking about the Rapture.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be an exciting program.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: You guys stay tuned.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're back in our small series on the book of Revelation, and today we're talking about the rapture.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, when does it happen?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a thing?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I'll tell you, this is a subject when people come out of the pre-trib space.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: They kind of definitively say there is no rapture of the church.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting because it's like, ah, that word is in Latin.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have it in the Bible.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not a, it's it's not invented, but it's an interesting subject, lots of thoughts about the rapture.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and to answer those questions that many people have, I've got Michael Roundtree, the rap, the author of the book, The World Made Right, co-host of the podcast.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know him, you love him.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Michael, tell us what we're going to be tackling today in the program.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the rapture.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I hear a lot of Christians will say, like, I don't believe in the rapture.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I know what they mean by that, but what they're saying, it can't be true if they're believers in Jesus, because every believer in Jesus believes in a rapture.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: The question is the timing.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what they mean by that is they're talking about dispensationalism, which is the broader sort of theological category within which lies the pre-tribulational rapture, the idea that seven years before like everything goes down, or with the seven years before the return of Jesus, you have the launch of the Great Tribulation, and right before that, you have Jesus catching his believers secretly up in the clouds.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and I say secretly because dispensationalists or pre-tribulationists will dis will differentiate between the second coming, the glorious second coming of Jesus, which is public and every eye will see him, and the not quite private, but a essentially secret second coming.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: But they wouldn't even word it like that.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: They would say these are all like, you know, because maybe an outsider might call it, oh, so you believe in a second and third coming, and they would say, No, we believe in one second coming divided into two stages, seven years apart.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so pre-tribulation, because before it gets all bad, before this great tribulation, which they would identify with the last seven years of history, when the Antichrist is rising up and killing a bunch of people and all of this, God's people will be assumed up into heaven.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: They will be caught up.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the chief text for this is First Thessalonians chapter 4.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: We might as well read it, Josh.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: But this is why I'm going to say everybody believes in a rapture.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: You either believe that it happens, well, there are actually a few theories in contemporary times and maybe even some more in ancient times.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: But but the idea that so some will say, well, the rapture being caught up with Jesus occurs seven years before Jesus' glorious return.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's pre-tribulationist.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Then there are those of the pre-Wrath Rapture opinion, which will say, well, actually, the Antichrist could rise to power, and saints could have to live through, you know, like some of his dominion, but before like God's punitive wrath is poured out on the earth, and the trumpets and the bowls, God will save his people.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be a pre-wrath rapture.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And where these two agree is that God will deliver his people from wrath.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's no punitive wrath poured out on God's own people, and they just differ on the timing.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Pre-tribulationists, it's before the great tribulation at all.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: The pre-wrath, well, you'll have to live through some of the great tribulation.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And but you won't have to live through God's punitive wrath poured out on the earth.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have maybe like historic premillennialists, post-millennialists, as well as omillennialists would also be in this category, which is the belief that, or we could maybe put all of those in post-tribulational rapture category, right?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Which is the public return of Jesus is simultaneous to the rapture.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus comes back in glory, he catches us up in glory.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so those are the three, I guess, broad category understandings of a rapture.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Again, pre-tribulational, pre-wrath, or post-tribulational, which could include a lot of different other eschatological categories.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we can get to 1 Thessalonians 4 if you want to read that, or we can maybe you have a follow-up question first.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever you want, Josh Ford, you want to take this.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: I I think with the rapture conversation that is really interesting to folks, is that well, with in the Western mind, and I'm gonna I'm gonna diverge a little bit with this.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: In the Western mind, the uh the idea that God puts his church through punishment seems to be a it's a characterization, like they're fighting a cartoon, you know.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I talk to people who are pre-trab rapture folks, godly men and women, you know, that they they read the Bible faithfully, they teach the Bible faithfully.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not I'm not speaking in a disparaging way, but sometimes when they speak about people who are post-trib, they'll say things like, you know, you're saying Jesus is gonna beat up his bride before he comes back, and I go, guys, that all throughout history, you know, uh God pours out plagues on Egypt and and protects Israel in the midst of that, like the Goshen principle, right?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Where there's darkness all over Israel, but or all over Egypt, but there's there's light in Goshen.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's there's plagues that are hitting the Egyptians, the death of the firstborns going everywhere, but but the the children of Israel are safe by the blood, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Over and over, God is able to distinguish his wrath on evildoers while being bringing protection to his people.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: He spares Noah during the flood, he he pulls Lot out of Sodom and Gomorrah.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's all these accounts where there is judgment being brought on the earth, and the bride, the people of God, whatever you want to label them in those Old Testament contexts, they they seem to remain safe.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm curious as you understand it, because they'll argue, you know, hey, that's a picture of the rapture, you know, Noah being removed from the you know, into the ark and and Lot coming out of Sodom.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: These are pictures of God removing his people from danger in the same way he's going to remove us from the planet.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I go, man, he didn't remove them from the planet, you know, he he brought them to a place of safety and refuge.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I I'd be curious what your your take on some of that is.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is that been a pretty common colloquialism towards people who are post-trib from the pre-trib guys, or have they softened up some of their language when it comes to talking to their counterparts across the aisle?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I I hear that language all the time.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I think both sides of the debate, we just need to speak more respectfully toward one another.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think dispensationalists are getting it really bad right now from people.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: People are just kind of body slamming them because the Left Behind series and the late great planet Earth.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think people are feeling done with the hype.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I think to so well, on one hand, to be fair, the the people who have been teaching hype have been dispensationalists and they have sold millions upon millions of books.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, let's be fair on the other side and say not all dispes are talking that way.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mentioned this in another podcast, but like Michael Spiegel, dispensationalist as the day is long and super responsible in his articulation.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, yeah, pick up his book, The Fathers on the Future, if you want like a responsible articulation of dispensationalism.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I just think we have to be careful and and the same goes toward post-tribulationalists.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just let's not let's at least avoid this.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's avoid like if our problem is with beating up the body of Christ, well, let's not beat up ourselves as the body of Christ, right?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I have heard dispensationalists say, you know, you believe that Jesus is gonna beat up his bride in the great tribulation.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I I don't obviously I don't like that, but I can actually find so I believe post-tribulationally, right?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that so there is a rapture, rapture from the Latin word rapturo, which means caught up, we will be caught up with the Lord and meet him in the air, 1 Thessalonians 4.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I believe all that, and I believe it happens at the second coming of Jesus, but I was also going to say that the common ground that I can find with dispensationalists as well as pre-wrath rapture believe believers, is I actually too believe that God does not express punitive wrath upon his people, and I'm using the word punitive on purpose here because the trumpets and the bowls within the book of Revelation, there are three series of sevens.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the the trumpets and the bowls are interesting in that day of the Lord imagery is used to depict them, number one.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So they seem to depict this final day, or I would say season.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've made the argument repeatedly that day doesn't mean 24 hours, a period of judgment.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I would agree that with, say, George Eldon Ladd, who's uh thinks differently than me on a lot of things when it comes to Revelation, but I agree with him that the trumpets and bowls cluster toward the very end and the seals span church history.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: The seals are diff distinct from the trumpets and the bowls, and that the the seals are not parallel to them.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: The trumpets and the bowls parallel almost across the board, like the first trumpet and the first bowl, and the second trumpet and the second bowl.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at them, it's almost like it's the same judgment, but escalated by the time you get to bowls.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not perfectly, but it would be like, you know, both trumpet six and bowl six both mention the Euphrates, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So there is this parallelism between trumpets and bulls.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I would depict these as God's punitive wrath.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in Revelation chapter seven, God's servants are sealed before his punitive wrath is poured out upon the earth.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the uh the seven seals of Revelation chapter six feel a little different in multiple respects.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: On one hand, they're not parallel to the trumpets and bowls.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: In addition, the seals are the in the terms of the imagery of John's visions, they're seven seals that that close the scroll.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so the trumpets and bowls ostensibly are inside the scroll.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're told on the inside, right?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Once you've unsealed it.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: But the but you can't actually read about any of the inside, what I might call the nitty-gritty end of the end in times intel, right?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: What's in that scroll, God's plan for making the world right?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can't really actually open it until you break all seven seals.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would view these seven seals as spanning all of redemptive history.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's why Christ's ascension and coronation is Revelation chapter five.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Lamb is slain, he's worthy to open the scrolls.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: We realize, ah, this is the root of David, this is the Davidic king, he's coming and he's receiving his kingdom, and he's he's conquered and he's worthy to open the seals that are on the scroll.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so it begins breaking them, and that plays out across redemptive history.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it culminates in in Christ's return with the seventh seal.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I would view those as different, and and here's why I'm going into this detail, Josh, is that in Revelation chapter six, the uh believers actually do suffer through these, for instance.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: The fifth seal is martyrdom.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Christians are being martyred.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's part of it.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I perceive that like the the it's a little like whereas the trumpets and bulls are like punishment.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: The seals include punishment, but it's not just punishment, it's actually also just replaying events such as uh or foretelling events like mass martyrdom is going to occur.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not like God's punishing his people.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think punitive judgments is the perfect word to describe the seals, but I think it is the perfect word to describe the trumpets and bowls.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe God perfectly preserves his people from the trumpets and bowls.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And now to come back to what you're saying, Josh, I absolutely do not believe that in order for that to happen, we have to be raptured.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that in order to be protected from the trumpets and bowls of God's punitive wrath.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I'm gonna say one more thing.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: When I say punitive wrath, the bowls, it's like that final escalation.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: The trumpets, trumpets warn.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there is still actually a warning effect that's taking place, so unbelievers can still be saved during that time.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I think there is a way, just like you talked about the Goshen principle, or like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being preserved in the flame, or Daniel in the lion's den.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I'm bringing up two Daniel stories of rescue is because Daniel is sort of like one of your earliest apocalyptic books.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's the second half of the book of Daniel is apocalyptic visions, and the first half is stories, and the two halves are tied together because Daniel and his friends are going to show us how do you live in the midst of beastly empires when they arise in the last days, when these apocalyptic visions play out over history, which would be future for Daniel, as they're playing out, Daniel and his friends are showing us how wisdom lives it out, and and so as they're living it out, you see God's preserving them in the midst of it.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So God saves them.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and this is probably a good time to quote Revelation 3.10, because this is one of the go-to verses for the pre-tribulational rapture.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: My brothers, whom I love and respect.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Revelation 3.10, it says, God's promise to Philadelphia, the church in Philadelphia, because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what I say in my book is that verse can't mean for us what it didn't mean for them.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So this was originally a letter to the church in Philadelphia, and God had told that church that he will preserve them from the hour of trial that's coming over the whole world.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so and so there's there is a trial, but they'll be preserved through it.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they weren't raptured.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if it didn't mean you'll be raptured to rescue you from that trial in full in uh Revelation 3.10, if it didn't mean it for them, we would need it's just a strong burden of proof that that we would have to say, well, but for us it means something different.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: For us, it means there's an hour of trial, a great tribulation that's coming over the earth, and God will preserve us through rapture.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't teach that.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't teach that to Philadelphia.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: You would have to make the argument that, well, it it it, you know, Philadelphia was preserved in the midst of some kind of trial, but but ultimately there's a greater fulfillment.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and I just say, well, on the same token, if you can if you can agree that Philadelphia was saved from some kind of trial that's taking place in their day without being raptured, the same could happen.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just like it happened in Israel and Goshen, the same could happen to any of God's people.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: He could find a way to preserve us in the eye of the storm, so to speak.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think that Revelation 3.10 is teaching a pre-tribulational rapture.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So most I think you could say it might agree with that teaching.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you can say it actually teaches that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is not clear, and and I would disagree with it.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but what about the the folks out there who are looking at John in Revelation, like early couple chapters, you know, he's writing to the churches, he he does have a vision of some kind.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: He sees Christ amongst the lampstands, that kind of thing.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: But then there's like this shift that happens in chapter four where he's caught up.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And some are arguing that, well, this is a picture of the church being caught up in a rapturous-like experience.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they would say, hey, the church is like pretty absent, you know, throughout these visions.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: We don't see the church being referenced exclusively.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: We see, you know, martyrs that are in the heavens that have been beheaded, we see the saints in the throne room, we see elders, but we don't we don't see the church on the earth during the time of all the things that are happening in the book of Revelation as an argument for, hey, look, that's why, you know, we're not there.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to take from John 4 this kind of rapturous experience where John is caught up into the heavens to see things that are happening.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Tell tell explain that to me.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: How do you respond?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so one of the arguments of dispensationalists is is what you said that hey, in the first three chapters of Revelation, you see the word church, church, church, church, church.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I have a count in my book somewhere, maybe it's three dozen times, two to three dozen times, something like that.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Church, church, church.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: But then in chapter four, through the end of the book, you don't see the word church again.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that dispensationalists would say this is, is the reason that the word church is absent from the latter portion of John's book is because the church itself is absent from the earth.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: It has been raptured.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they'll identify that moment in chapter four, where John is caught up into heaven.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an image of the church being caught up into heaven.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, the rapture.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: They see it in Revelation chapter four.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the argument, but I think there are a few arguments against it.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: One is the church, the word church is not just absent from the visions of what's happening on earth in the latter half of the book, it's also absent from the visions of what's happening in heaven in the latter half of the book.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have heavenly visions in Revelation chapter 7, Revelation 11, Revelation 14 and 15, like multiple times you see these heavenly visions, and never are the people of God called church there.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: So my question to a dispensationalist would be: does that mean that the church is not in heaven either?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because that would also violate your theology.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, like if you're going to stick to that logic, it leads to a dead end.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because the pre just pre-tribulationist is going to say, well, the church is definitely in heaven, and yet the word church is never used to describe the church in heaven.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's an argument from silence, and I I think that it is a dead end.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that I would say is it it feels like a stretch to me to say John being caught up in heaven is the rapture.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and so where a pre-tribulationist will say is they'll say, okay, John's caught up into heaven in Revelation 4, and in four and five, he's watching this throne room scene play out.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: But then in chapter six, the wrath begins, the great tribulation, the seals are being broken, and the four horsemen are coming forth, etc.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so seals, trumpets, and bulls, that's they would say that's all the great tribulation, and the church is up in heaven, just like that heavenly scene of chapters four and five.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and so let's go to Revelation four and see if if that's what it's trying to say.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So after this, this is verse one after this I looked and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice, which I heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And at once I was in the spirit, I behold a throne, a throne that stood in heaven.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so, chapter four, he's gonna see the father who sits enthroned.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter five, he's gonna see the son, the lamb, who stands in victory.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and so is that a picture of the rapture?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's what I would say.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: When you hear when you read this, like there was a voice like a trumpet, and it said this, it's actually it's not trying to remind us of the last trumpet and and Christ's return.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not pointing to that, it's actually pointing to verse 10 of chapter one, where it says, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so you see, in both scenarios, chapter one and chapter four, he hears a loud voice like a trumpet.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in both cases, he sees a vision of a glorified Jesus.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And chapter four, he actually gets he gets a vision of God the Father's throne room and Jesus, so he gets both of those.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter one, he gets a vision of Jesus in glory, and so this voice like a trumpet and John being caught up doesn't seem to be about a rapture, it seems to be a literary signpost connecting chapter four and chapter one, where there is a vision of the divine, and so and so I would say.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Say, I'm not convinced that's talking about a rapture.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if it was a rapture, why is it just John being caught up?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why isn't it the whole church being caught up?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: So those are a few of my responses.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: I outline a lot more arguments in my book, but anyway, but I think that's probably enough for a podcast for now.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we we we kind of looked at some of the pre-trib rapture positions in Revelation.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we should look at some of the pre-Wrath positions in Revelation.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: You suggest that Revelation 7 is not a good example of a pre-Wrath position.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: So as a reminder, pre-Wrath is this idea that like believers will live through a little bit of the Great Tribulation.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know how long it'll be, but that but at some point Christ will return and he'll save us from his punitive wrath, understood as the trumpets and the bowls.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can see the difference between the two positions in this, where the pre-wrath folks see the church enduring much of the breaking of those seals.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I say much of because the seventh seal is the return of Jesus Himself.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: But they see that the church living through all of that and or a bunch of that, and but none of the trumpets and bulls.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so whereas the pre-tribulation guys will say, okay, we're caught up, like John was caught up before seals, trumpets and bowls, all three, this series of 21 events in the last days.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the pre-wrath folks will say, actually, no, we live through some of the seals, but we don't live through this punitive wrath expressed in the trumpets and bowls.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And since the trumpets begin in Revelation chapter 8, and chapter 7 is this sort of intervening period where certain people are protected from that punitive wrath being poured out, they see this as uh salvation from God's wrath, uh, his punitive judgments, they actually see it as a rapture.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and they have an interesting interpretation of these 144,000 that get sealed.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if you look at Revelation chapter 7, it it's you know, I saw an angel ascending with the rising of the sun.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: This angel's told, like, hey, don't harm the earth and sea or the trees until we've sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: So seal the servants on the god of God on the forehead.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he's and he says, I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000 from every tribe of the sons of Israel, 12,000 from Judah, 12,000 from Reuben, etc.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some uh challenges to this list because it doesn't appear anywhere else.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so you know, we want to take this literally, but it's what's challenging is there's no tribe of Dan here, and and also the tribe of Manasseh is mentioned.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Manasseh is one of the sons of Joseph, and yet Joseph is mentioned, so it's like is Manasseh double counted?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the list is interesting, but I think there are some theological points being made from each of them.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, Judah is listed first, which is not typical, but Judah was, you know, you have the line of the tribe of Judah, he was the the chief and and leader.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so anyway, he hears 144,000.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in the context of people who are going to be sealed from God's punitive wrath being poured out on the earth.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's called scene one, 144,000 numbered Jewish tribes.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get to scene two.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: After this, I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lord.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: And these are those who come out of the great tribulation.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so it what at least many of the pre-wrath guys will say it like this that Revelation chapter seven is showing a pre-wrath rapture.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the outcome of that rapture is this scene, too, of a multitude of Gentiles who are standing before the throne and then pulled out from within the great tribulation.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so they've been pulled out from God's wrath.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so, if you ask, like, well, what about those people who are sealed from the wrath and are staying on the earth?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the pre-wrath guys that I've read have articulated it like this these sealed servants of God who are marked on the forehead and protected from God's punitive wrath upon the earth.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: These servants of God are unbelieving Jews.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And okay, so summarize, we've got scene one, where you have the numbered Jewish people, the numbered Jewish tribes, and scene two with the innumerable Gentile tribes.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so pre-Wrath views these as the raptured people of God.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a quote from Alan Kirschner, who's a pre-wrath guy.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: He says, The innumerable multitude can be none other than the resurrected and raptured people of God.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is perfectly fitting to see them taken out of the great tribulation with glorified bodies to heaven at this point, because it happens just before the seventh seal is opened, triggering the day of the Lord's wrath, Revelation 8.1.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so he argues well that God must protect people from wrath.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I agree with that, and I like Alan Kirschner, and I and I think he has a lot of good insights.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the question that arises is why would God rapture the Gentiles of scene two, but not the Jews of scene one?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've read of pre-wrath is that they'll answer like this: Well, these are unbelievers, so the sealed servants of God who have the seal on their forehead, these are unbelievers whom God seals to advance his program for Israel while the church is in heaven.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a few problems with this.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: First, it ignores the Old Testament allusion to Ezekiel 9.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening in when God seals these people on the forehead?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't an allusion to Ezekiel 9 of God sealing his servants there who sigh and groan over the abominations done in Jerusalem.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: God gives Ezekiel a vision, he sees all these abominations playing out.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And an angel or a celestial figure goes around marking people on the forehead to be preserved from the divine wrath that's about to fall on Jerusalem.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so John in Revelation chapter 7 is using that same kind of imagery, a seal on the forehead, protected from wrath.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: But in Ezekiel 9, it's for God's servants like his people.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: But pre-wrath, or at least this version of pre-wrath, answers, oh, well, these are unbelievers advancing the program for Israel.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't buy that.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: So and I'll give my interpretation's controversial.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: In Revelation chapter five, John heard that there was a lion, a lion of the tribe of Judah.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Judah was prophesied, Isaiah 49, that he'd be like a lion's cub, and he'd put his paw on the neck of his enemies, and that kind of war military image coheres with lion, you know, like Judah, his descendants are going to pounce on Israel's enemies.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so this was the messianic expectation, which it uh furthermore is narrowed into the line of David.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and so in Revelation, they're looking for someone who's worthy to open the scroll, that is, not just to reveal its contents, but to actually bring them to pass, to redeem the world.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're looking for someone worthy from the tribe of Judah, from the line of David, and John's weeping because there's nobody who's going to be this redeemer who's going to come and do it.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: He hears that there's a lion, but then he turns and he sees a lamb.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Can't get more opposite of lion than lamb.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you can.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a slain lamb, but it's a slain lamb who's standing.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: He stands in resurrection power.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so this it's like an adjustment of Israel's expectation.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: They expected a Mufasa or Aslan-like Messiah who's going around and tossing the bad guys around like beanbags and you know, establishing this terrestrial kingdom right away.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's their expectation based on these messianic prophecies about the Messiah coming and delivering Israel from their oppressors.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: So he hears about a lion, a military image, but then he sees a lamb, a sacrificial image.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, rather than being the military messiah they expected, is actually a martyr messiah.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's better.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: He hears Lion, he sees lamb.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can't get more opposite than one or the other, but Jesus is both.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, fast forward to Revelation chapter 7, and you see the same kind of expectation playing out in my reading.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: John hears a number, 144,000.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now keep in mind, you read Leon Morris's book on apocalyptic literature.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about numerology and how they have these incredibly like symbolic numbers all throughout all throughout apocalyptic literature.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Numbering often means protection, preserve preservation in terms of the symbolism.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: But here's 144,000.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he turned, and by the way, when they numbered these tribes in Jerusalem or in Israel, it was often a military census.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're numbering their fighting men.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so just like Israel expected a military messiah, they also expected a messianic army who was going to go out and conquer the bad guys.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: In my book, I actually quote from one of the war scrolls and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it talks about how they how they expected that the sons of light would triumph over the sons of darkness, this messianic army would triumph over the sons of darkness, the Gentiles, and they would and they would wash and they would wash out Gentile blood from their clothing.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 7, you see these martyrs who their own robes are washed in the blood of the lamb.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like a complete, it's like a uh adjustment of this expectation.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: They expected a military messiah, they got a martyr messiah, they expected to be part of the messiah's army, and they are, but that army takes after its slain lamb commander.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would say that just as the lion is the lamb, the numbered Jewish tribes is innumerable tribes of Gentile martyrs.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: The two are the same.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would say that I think aligns with how the language and the vision plays out in Revelation that he's trying to adjust in times expectations.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he'll do this in these sort of pauses in the action, not just Revelation 5 and 7, but he'll also do it in chapter 11 about a temple that we won't have time to discuss today.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: But Israel had these in times expectations, and then God seems to keep adjusting them.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think that this is about unbelievers being preserved from wrath, because it doesn't really make sense of the seal imagery and its connection to Ezekiel chapter 9.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make any sense at all to me.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think it makes more sense to say that John's doing the same thing in Revelation 7 that he did in Revelation chapter 5, but instead of just being about the Messiah, it's about the Messiah's army.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how I would understand it, Josh.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's let's talk about uh the restrainer in 2 Thessalonians.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Can you unpack that concept?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because people, when they're talking about the tribulation, Revelation's not typically the first place that they want to go.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna hang out in the Thessalonian areas, right?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna they're gonna talk about being caught up with the Lord, they're gonna talk about this restrainer.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Man, unpack some of that for us and how you see it.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna open to 2 Thessalonians 2 and start interpreting it as I go.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: So now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, that's one of three major words for the second coming of Jesus, the great and glorious return of Jesus.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, that's the rapture.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, already it seems that the glorious public return of Jesus is associated with our being raptured into heaven to be with Jesus.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Now, about these things, we ask you not to be quickly shaken of mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to come from us, the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they thought.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: The day of the Lord has come.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, hey guys, the day of the Lord hasn't come, and here's how you know it hasn't come.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: What day?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: The day of our the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the day of our being gathered into Him and the rapture.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: None of that will happen until this happens first.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I think this makes it very difficult to believe in a pre-tribulation rapture.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: These two signs should be first.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: It also makes it difficult to believe in an any moment rapture because Paul himself seems to be articulating that that won't, the rapture will not happen, the second coming will not happen until you see these two signs.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: That day will not come unless the rebellion comes first.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: On our last episode, I or a couple episodes ago, I call this the great apostasy, a tremendous falling away that's going to happen before Christ returns.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: This goes back to Daniel chapter 11.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is borrowing language from there that seems like it there's some debate over this, but it seems like it was originally about Antiochus IV Epiphanes, but also speaks beyond Antiochus into a final in times tyrant, a man of lawlessness.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, now some say, well, it's not an individual man, it's a line of popes or or whatever.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked about that on a previous episode.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: I believe man means man.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the simplest explanation.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I do believe that we have a final ruler.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul is saying, don't expect the second coming to occur.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Don't expect the day of the Lord to occur.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't expect the gathering, the rapture to occur until you see masses and masses of people falling away, probably falling, following after this guy who rises up in this horrific temple blasphemy.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: And until that happens, the day of the Lord hasn't come because that's like a trigger for the day of the Lord.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: So do you proclaiming yourself to be God?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're about to get to the mystery of lawlessness, Josh, and the restrainer.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things, and you know what is restraining him now, so that he may be revealed in his time.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Already we're seeing sovereign language here that that evil is being restrained, okay?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that he has a time.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a sovereign order over this.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's a huge theme in Revelation as well.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: We'll read of the beast, for instance, that he was allowed to conquer and he's given certain time frames that he can conquer and wreak his havoc.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's the devil, but he's God's devil.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: He puts him on a leash.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: He says, For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: So notice there's a future man of lawlessness, but there is a current mystery of lawlessness.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: And only he who now restrains it, restrains it, will do so until he is out of the way.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing, so by the appearance of his coming.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is going to destroy this man of lawlessness.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: The coming lawlessness one is by activity of Satan, it's etc.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: false signs and wonders.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a mystery of lawlessness at play right now.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: And one day that mystery of lawlessness, there's this hiddenness to it, will become a manifest and revealed man of lawlessness.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be fully embodied in this one person, a man, who seems to be leading a giant rebellion and is responsible for this horrific temple blasphemy, however one interprets that.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul sees a future day associated with the day of the Lord, where this future evil ruler is going to mark the moment where this underlying mystery of lawlessness is going to give way to a revealed man of lawlessness.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what is it that's restraining his revelation?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we don't perfectly know.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say it, he calls it a he and an it.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the early church thought of this restrainer as the Roman Empire, but man, it feels really at odds with John's imagery in Revelation 13 that Rome, of all places, would restrain a man of lawlessness, would restrain evil in some way.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: If anything, Rome perpetrated that evil.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: That seems to be one of the major teachings of Revelation.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the pre-trib rapture guys, I won't say all of them, but I would say the most popular and common explanation that I've that I've heard has been that the restrainer is the Holy Spirit.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: The problem and and that when the church is removed from the earth in the rapture, the Holy Spirit is taken out of the way in the sense that Christ in us, the spirit in us, is removed from the earth, and earth descends into lawlessness, and the man of lawlessness arises because the spirit in the church is taken out of the way.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it's really awkward to say he, the Holy Spirit, will be taken out of the way.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like that.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: It feels improper to speak of the Holy Spirit as an it that will be taken out of the way.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now it is also called a he.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's very difficult to know what precisely it is.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I am an all millennialist, I do confess, and I think it coheres really well with the all millennialist framework when you look at Revelation chapter 20, and we'll look at that in a few weeks.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: But evil is being restrained, and it's restrained by a mighty angel.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: If Revelation 12 and 20 are really meant to be parallel and they are, could it be Michael the angel, archangel who is the restrainer?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Alan Kirschner, who I quoted earlier, actually believes Michael the Archangel is the restrainer.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he cites research, which I've read by a guy, I want to say his name is Colin Nichols.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: I downloaded his journal article on it.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's fascinating.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he looks at Daniel in correlations with Revelation to show Michael to be the restrainer.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we can't say that definitively.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think what we're basically the church has agreed throughout history is that whatever the restrainer is, it's something on team God that is restraining this evil because the devil doesn't restrain evil, God does.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: But there is going to come a time when God stops restraining that evil, called here this mystery of lawlessness, this underlying seedbed of evil, that God is going to stop letting it be such a mystery and it will become manifest as the man of lawlessness.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think a great argument could be made that it's an angel, but in the least it appears to be something on team God, restraining this evil.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: But there will come a time in God's time when it will be no longer restrained.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then the other part that that I would say that pre-tribulationists will respond to is the the Greek word apostasia, translated rebellion.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: I called it the great apostasy.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think that's a and I'm not a Greek scholar, and I won't pretend to be, but those who are Greek scholars, which I've read, is like there's there's no place ever that this what they'll what they'll try to say is that this apostasia refers to like basically the removal of the church, not just rebellion.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I just think that can't be.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how the word is ever used.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of have to invent a word meaning I think probably your more responsible dispensationalists aren't going to use that that translation.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: One more thing that I'll say on the pre-tribulational interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 2.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to say every single one of them says this, but many of the guys that I've read, I've read a lot of books on it, have used this exact argument that when Paul talks about a great apostasy or rebellion, that word, uh, the Greek word, and I don't pretend to be a Greek scholar, I'm not at all, but the Greek word apostasia, they'll say, well, that word in verse three actually means departure.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's talking about the departure of the church.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: But man, the Greek scholars that I've read on that say, that's really not at all what it can mean.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and contextually, we've already seen what Paul says earlier about the gathering that it's associated with the coming of the Lord, the public, the public return of the Lord Jesus.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: So from what I've understood from from other Greek scholars, that's not really a fair meaning of the word and that and that the rebellion makes a lot more sense, which is why every major translation renders it that way.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's fair.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've hung out a lot in the text itself, which I think anyone who's a theology nerd is going to appreciate.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to want us to hang out in the scriptures.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you've done that.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I think one of the guardrails that we have when it comes to understanding the scriptures is that of church history.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe you could weigh into how the historic church has viewed the concept of the rapture as I understand it, the kind of secret tribulational sort of rapture.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: At least people who are speaking polemically against dispensationalists will say, Well, Darby invented this.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: This this doesn't exist in church history.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yet some are argue that it does.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: So way into this.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: What do the church fathers say?
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say most church fathers, pretty much all church fathers that I can find expect believers to go through horrible tribulation and for it to culminate with Christ's return.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like they expect that.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now there are a few nuances and things we've got to address.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to talk about Irenaeus, we've got to talk about pseudo-ephraim and and Darby.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll start with Darby.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Dar Darby was like really 1830.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: He comes, he comes along and he really systematizes this teaching that became known as dispensationalism and the pre-tribulational rapture.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I would say that was the first time a pre-tribulational rapture that applies to all believers was ever discussed in church history, 1830.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is a fair guardrail.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'd never seen this before.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying we never saw anything at all resembling it, but we'd never seen that.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: All believers getting raptured before everything goes to pot, right?
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: We hadn't seen that.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that started with Darby in the 19th century and then really blew up from there.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, going into I said 19th century, yes, and then into the 20th century with a couple of really popular books, the best-selling nonfiction book, the 1970s, Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then the the Left Behind series, as I recall, sold even more.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: So uh and so that's what a lot of people are familiar with, and it was not not really systematized like that until the 19th century.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there is a real guardrail to consider there.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then a lot of pre-trib guys will cite pseudo-ephraim.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Joel Richardson has done some great work on this.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to his YouTube video, but but what I've found there is that their research is a lot of a lot of guys actually kind of dishonest.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: They'll quote him, but they'll drop it off right before they'll drop off the quote that sounds kind of pre-rate pre-trib rapture.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: They'll finish the quote one sentence before it says, and we will all face this evil.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of like you're kind of picking and choose, and plus there's debate over this who this person is, is a different person, and was it later than what they said?
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and it does appear later, and it does it does appear to be later.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I I don't think serious scholars buy the pseudo-ephram argument that there was some kind of pre-trib rapture and someone kind of close to church fathers, albeit hundreds of years later.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: The best articulation and the best case is made by Michael Spiegel, who I mentioned earlier about Irenaeus.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what's difficult about Irenaeus is Irenaeus does have believers going through the horrific last season of history before Christ returns.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: Very clearly he talks about that repeatedly.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so and so you have that believers going through it all.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: But then in the next breath, he'll say something like this.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: He'll say, So Irenaeus writing in the second century when in the end the church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it is said there shall be tribulation such as has not been seen, such as has not been since the beginning, neither shall be.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: So he does seem to picture some kind of rescue from tribulation.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so the question is, what does that mean?
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what Spiegel talks about is he seems to think that carnal Christians and unbelievers will go through it, but that spiritual Christians, those who are really going after the Lord, will be caught up.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: That seems to be Irenaeus' perspective.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that is not dispensationalism, that is not what they teach.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the hard line between God's program for Israel and God's program for the Gentiles, we don't see that.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the truth is, if you look at the very earliest church history, I will say it does lean pre-tribulational.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, even in saying that, it's I mean, there's there's a book, gosh, is it by Charles Hill?
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we'll quote it quote it exactly when we get to the millennium episode.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's just when when we're trying to like in the year 2026, we have all these neat systems for eschatol eschat eschatology, those were not in place in the first century, in the second century, that developed over time, and so nobody's gonna find a hundred percent tally in the just like this church father said across the board on eschatology because none of our systems perfectly match that.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I would say dispensationalism as a system did not appear to exist until 1830, but there were some rudimentary, slightly different uh expressions of it early in Irenaeus.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know of others who talk about an assumption like Irenaeus does, but anyway, so so that's what I would say.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: It would give me pause.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: The the church history record would give me pause on dispensationalism precisely, but it doesn't, that by itself doesn't mean it's wrong.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our ultimate our ultimate standard is scripture.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's how I'd answer it, Josh.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: But but let's just say, you know, when Siegel came on, he talked about the church fathers, Calvinism or Minianism are modern articulations of soteriology or the doctrine of how we get saved, right?
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we said, hey, Siegel, what is what does the early church say about this?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: If you had to label them Calvinist or Arminian, what do you think the representation would be?
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, Oh, 60-40.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: So what I hear you saying is uh kind of what is it, premillennialism would be the majority view, and omillennial or post-millennial view would be minority views.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: But would you would you have a guess as to the percentages there?
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, hey, a good chunk of them are well, so I think here's the challenge is and even stating that the premillennialism that they described does not sound like the premillennialism that anyone describes today.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I recall, and man, it's it's been a few years since I read the book, but as I recall, the premillennialism that they expected was like the soul went into sleep, like the spirit didn't go straight to be with the Lord.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was a millennialist who taught the latter, which is what I believe the Bible teaches.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, Charles Hill goes into that, and and so the views are just like like nobody was exactly anything of the schools of thought that we had, it seems like, or at least not many.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it at least in broad brushes, it seems like uh majority.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: I Josh, I don't really want to put a percentage on it because I I just feel like I'm not well read enough on church history.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've read a fair amount, but there's so much to read.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I would say the majority, a decent majority, were premillennialists, albeit a different version of premillennialism than people are today.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: But in general, they expected a thousand-year reign of Christ.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they actually I could say it like this they expected a final antichrist to rise.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: They expected Christ to return.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: They did not expect a pre-tribulational rapture.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: For the most part, there was, you know, that weird quote in Irenaeus, but nothing for universal for Christians.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and then afterward, there was a thousand-year reign of Christ, whether taken literally or symbolic, and that it then culminated in the new heavens and the new earth.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's a broad brushstroke of, I think, early church history, but there was also a lot of a millennial thought in there if Charles Hill is right in his evaluation, and man, I I was pretty compelled by it.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let me ask one final question.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's not trying to correct the pre-trib or the post-trib and mid-trib or the pan-trib, it'll all pan out in the end.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's talk about the folks.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is a question I have.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to being caught up with the Lord, why am I getting caught up?
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: If he's coming back, why get caught up?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of odd, right?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like he is coming down with his legions and we're getting caught up with him.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't we just stay here if we're supposed to rule and reign here with him?
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why doesn't he just like pardon the this is blasphemous to say that?
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say I dream of genie, but like that's not I don't want to compare that to Jesus, but like just kind of spontaneously make us glow or you know, give us those heavenly bodies.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we have to be caught up with him in order to come down with him?
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't make a ton of sense.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's a great point, and it's a point that pre-tribulationists would say, like, hold on, you're good, because the picture is the dead in Christ will rise first, first Thessalonians.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: The dead in Christ will rise first, and then and then those who are alive will be caught up together and they'll meet Jesus in the air.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of how he finishes.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're gonna meet Jesus in the air.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't precisely say it just says we'll be with the Lord forever.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean we're going to heaven after that?
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: Pre-trib says, Yes, you go to heaven and you chill with Jesus while earth goes to pot down below, and then you know, he returns and and his visible second coming, right?
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: So what I would say is that that like if I'm to respond to the pre-tribulational objection, it makes no sense that you would go up to meet Jesus in the air if you weren't going to heaven afterward.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: It would make more to say that you go up only to come down, it sounds like a rapture yo-yo.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're flying up and then you're flying back down and hanging out with Jesus on the earth.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, really?
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Craig Blumberg has uh great thought on this, and he is a uh seminary professor.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say he's in Denver, if I remember right.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and he's gonna he's gonna comment on the Greek term for meet, isn't meet the Lord in the air.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the Greek word, and I'll probably pronounce this wrong, but appentasis.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says this.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says the term appentasis is used for the meeting with Christ, a term regularly used in Hellenistic Greek to refer to a welcoming party leaving a city or a house in order to go down to the road or meet an honored guest, visiting dignitary or triumphant military leader, and form an escort party to accompany the person back to his home or town.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: The imagery then is virtually requires that the rapture be the catching up of believers from earth into the air to meet the Lord, descending in the clouds to escort him back to earth in triumph, imagery that is consistent only with a post-tribulational rapture.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, this Greek word we where Paul says we meet the Lord in the air, it's a word used to describe meeting a king or a dignitary outside of town to welcome in.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you hear a king's coming, you're like, Man, let's roll out the red carpet for this guy.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's you know, let's come out and welcome him, let's throw a big parade for him, let's bring him back into town and honor and dignity.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's how they would welcome a foreign dignity or a dignitary like that.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so what he's saying is we're meeting the Lord in the air to escort him back home to earth, just like that.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same Greek word that was used in contemporary literature of their time to describe meeting that dignitary outside and escorting him back inside.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the way I say it in my book is the rapture exists because Jesus deserves a parade.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's coming.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna meet him in the air, and we're going to escort him back to his rightful home right here on earth.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: Caesar and Rome thought they removed him from the earth, but the risen Jesus is returning to the earth and will live with him forever.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, so Josh, I really like the way Blomberg points out the meaning of that word to help us understand.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is not about, like for those who believe in a post-tribulational rapture, this is not about like a rapture yo-yo or where you're going to get whiplash afterward.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's about giving Jesus the honor that is due to him as a king who's coming back into his own territory.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: After all, he's the ruler of the kings of the earth, all authority in heaven and on earth does belong to him, and he's coming back to reign in person and physically on the earth.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's what it's about.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's got to be like a a war picture, too, right?
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like the armies of heaven, if you will, like to have us all in one place to come down and rule and reign with Christ.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I know that we're not really doing a whole lot of you know sword fighting and shooting, but like he's he's melting jokers with his mouth.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, but but there is some kind of picture there, right?
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there is.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: In like Revelation 19, it uses that kind of martial imagery where where Jesus is putting an end to Armageddon.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the people of this world are closing in on God's people, and Jesus returns and he puts an end to it all, and it pictures the armies of heaven following him, but they're not wearing battle fatigues, they're wearing fine linen, which represents the righteous deeds of the saints.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so it seems to picture, like, I mean, Jesus is the one with the sword in his mouth, it's judgment in accordance with his word that he's delivering against his enemies.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there is this military imagery that coheres with that.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we're part of it.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that aligns really well with the bigger biblical picture that while God is the ultimate judge, there will be some ways in which we are participating in that judgment.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: Read Daniel chapter seven, where it's like the the beast is is crushed and the and and the people, the saints, are actually part of this judgment.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I think that's what's happening in Revelation chapter 19.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and so, yeah, Josh, the military imagery also counts.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I love to contribute something to the conversation.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: So thankful for that.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's let's say this is a wrap for today's program.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is a fantastic way to put the bow on this episode and talking about what what our role is in all of this, hoping and longing for Christ's return, that when we see him, we're gonna be like him.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be a transformation of his people.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's right that when he has this parade-like uh invitation into the earth, he is adorned in some sense with his people that are gonna reflect his holy, his his holy nature and his his.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna talk about energies and essence here when it talks about being glorified in Christ, but but I don't mean to.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: Michael, thank you so much for unpacking all this for us for people who have got more questions on the rapture, book of Revelation, those sorts of things.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: I want to put into your book, The World Made Right.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: Go check it out.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a link for it in the description.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: At the releasing of this video, I think we're still in pre-sale, so I'd encourage you to go pick it up while you can.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: You get a discount when you pick it up on that pre-sale price, and you can kind of walk through the book of Revelation more sequentially as Michael reads it.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of great stories, lots of really accessible life applications when it comes to these sorts of passages of scripture that can be really daunting.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: Michael makes them really easy to grapple with.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: So encourage you guys to go pick that up.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, link in the description, and we'll see you next week.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: Same time, 4 to 5 p.m.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: Central Standard Time, and we're gonna be tackling more of the book of Revelation.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: Michael, what's next on the docket?
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_00: After the rapture, man, I'd have to go look up.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: It might be the millennium, but yeah, I don't know for sure.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I do want to emphasize what you just said a moment ago about the application because we're kind of geeking out theology, but my my book was actually written for just everyday people to understand it.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I weave in lots of personal story because I really firmly believe revelation it is for all of us, and it's not about us, but it is for us.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I think that means that like it it touches on the everyday life application of what you're walking through.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I do tell a lot of stories for that reason, and revelation itself is a cosmic story, and so and so I I want to help bring home John's visions so that they feel personal and real.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think that's a good balance, Josh, that you put in there because yes, we're geeking out a little bit on theology here, and there is the theology in the book, but it's also pretty personal.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's fantastic, guys.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for tuning in.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next week.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, it's the millennium.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about that one.