Crucial_Ques-Christs_ReturnE9E:BOOKMOBIkk -=M]m}  -=M]m}  !"-#=$M%]&m'}()*+,-./0 12-3=4M5]6m7}89:;<=>?@ AB-C=DME]FmG}HIJKLMNOP QR-S=TMU]VmW}XYZ[\]^_\`ab$cPdMe f 0g  h Di pj\_MOBIy`0$`RgihEXTH<,0 @@Crucial Questions On Christ's Return

Information. 2

Chapter 1: Pre, Post Or A Millennial: Does It Matter?. 3

Chapter 2: Rapture: Fact Or Fairytale?. 15

Chapter 3: Tribulation: Now Or Never?. 27

Chapter 4: Israel: Finished With Or With A Future?. 37

Chapter 5: Satan - Figment Of Imagination Or Emerging Foe?. 48

Chapter 6: Heaven - Pie In The Sky Or Certain Promise?. 59


David Legge studied at the Irish Baptist College, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He served as Assistant Pastor at Portadown Baptist Church before receiving a call to the pastorate of the Iron Hall Assembly. He now serves as pastor-teacher of the Iron Hall, and resides in Belfast with his wife Barbara and their daughter Lydia.

The audio for this series is available free of charge either on our website (www.preachtheword.co.uk) or by request from info@preachtheword.co.uk

All material by Pastor Legge is copyrighted. However, these materials may be freely copied and distributed unaltered for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and the copyright is included. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold or used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. This copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all.

Crucial Questions On Christ's Return - Chapter 1

"Pre, Post Or A Millennial: Does It Matter?"

Copyright 2004

by Pastor David Legge

All Rights Reserved

Revelation 20

I. A Comparison

II. An Evaluation

III. A Conclusion

Tonight we're taking up a subject that I would have to say I have never ever heard dealt with as a subject on its own. It's referred to in many of the prophetic series that you will hear from pre-millennial pulpits, but I feel it's neglected in the sense that many folk assume, before even launching into the holy Scriptures, and particularly prophetic passages, that we have one particular scheme of thought with regards to our interpretation of Scripture. I would have to say that perhaps many, who we are numbered among, pre-millennialists, don't even understand our own belief, or indeed the belief of other brethren in Christ who could be classed as a-millennial or post-millennial - and believe it or not, that's not all there are, there are a whole lot of others, but we're just going to keep ourselves to those three main viewpoints: a-millennial, post-millennial, pre-millennial. We're asking the question tonight: does it matter? Does it really matter? Many people are saying today that it doesn't matter as long as you believe that the Lord is coming ultimately, what does it matter what you are in relation to your interpretation of prophetic matters?

I want to take as a springboard of Scripture tonight this passage, Revelation 20, which really is the major passage in the whole of the word of God on the subject of the millennium. Whether you're a-millennial, post-millennial, pre-millennial, the word 'millennial' comes into your definition in some shape or form, and we'll define them for you a little bit later - but we need to understand where this phrase and understanding 'millennial' comes from in the word of God. Revelation 20, beginning to read at verse 1:

John says: "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years", now that's where the phenomenon of millennial reign comes in - it is the idea of 1000 years of Satan being bound, and subsequently the Lord Jesus Christ reigning on the earth for 1000 years. Verse 3: "And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years" - there it is again. "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years" - there we have the idea of the millennium again. "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison".

We'll not go on any further, we'll probably deal with this passage in more detail in the weeks that lie ahead. 'Crucial Questions on Christ's Return' - the first fundamental one is this: 'Pre-, Post-, or A- Millennial: Does It Really Matter?'. During the history of the church of Jesus Christ three major views have been held of the future kingdom of God. That's really all that this word 'millennial reign', or 'millennium' means - it's synonymous of the kingdom of God as we understand it. Most Christians fit into the category of being either a-millennial, post-millennial, or pre-millennial in their understanding of the kingdom of God. That's all 'millennium' really means.

Now, when I was at Bible College there was a group of people who called themselves the 'pan-millennialists' - and they simply said: 'Well, we believe that it will all pan out in the end'! It was symptomatic, really, of people's frustration with this whole debate in general. They get so tired, perhaps, of Christians and high-browed theologians bickering over issues that they think are of least importance, if any importance whatsoever, and they just believe that as long as you believe the Saviour is coming it really doesn't matter how He comes, it will all pan out in the end. Does it really matter whether you are pre-, post- or a- millennial? Are there not much more important things in the Christian life than these? Is it not much more important to be thinking of the here and now of Christian experience, rather than pointing your sights way ahead in the future when you don't really know what's going to happen ultimately?

Let me, before we go into any real deep study of these great issues tonight of pre-, post- and a-millennialism - let me lay down a preface first of all in answer to the question: 'Does it really matter?'. First of all, does it really matter for the issue of salvation? The answer is categorically 'No', it does not matter with the issue of salvation whether you are pre-, post-, or a- millennial. Of course we, to call ourselves Christians, must believe that in the same sense as our Lord Jesus departed in His ascension, that same Jesus will come again - that is a fundamental Christian belief. You can't really call yourself a Christian if you don't believe in the second coming of the Lord Jesus, but it does not affect your salvation which interpretation you believe with regards to this issue. So let's clear that up very quickly.

Does it matter for your spirituality? It doesn't matter as regards to the question whether you're saved or lost, but does it matter in relation to your spirituality? Some people would tell us that you're more spiritual if you're pre-millennial, or a-millennial, or post-millennial - but let me say absolutely and categorically that it doesn't figure one iota on your spirituality what belief you have with regards to your interpretation of the Scriptures in this regard. Thirdly: does it matter for ultimate worldwide Christian fellowship? I have to believe, it is my own conviction, no, it ought not to matter. It is a fundamental of the faith to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back again, but that is where the fundamental of the faith ends - not any individual interpretation, no matter how important we may feel personally it to be. I re-echo the words of, I believe, Augustine the great church father, that in the Christian church at large on essentials there ought to be unity, on nonessentials liberty, and in all things charity. I hope tonight to strike a note of charity and grace in our deliberations on this subject tonight.

Let me, before we go on any further, illustrate this issue in this way: imagine that the long-lost cousin, Joshua, is coming home. He has sent a letter that he's going to return to the homestead. Brother Jimmy think he's going to come in a car, brother Joe think he's coming by plane, and brother Jimmy thinks he's coming by boat - and the next minute the three of them are all fighting over the matter. Then the doorbell rings and there's Joshua, and they've missed the whole joy of anticipation of Joshua's coming because they've been bickering about how he's coming. He was coming, and that is and ought to always stay the most important thing in our minds - and because they were fighting about it they even missed, not only the joy of anticipation, but the actuality of his personality as he came.

Now let me say that we must not allow the issues surrounding Christ's return to divert our attention from the great personality of this subject. This subject is not about dates, or charts, it is chiefly about the person of our Lord Jesus Christ - and let's never forget that. We come to the book that we have read out of tonight, it chiefly ought to be called and entitled 'The Revelation', not of St John the Divine, but 'The Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ'. It is about the consummation of all things, prophetically, in the will of God, in the person of His beloved Son the Lord Jesus Himself.

I would have to say that it worries me a little that prophetic meetings like this one tonight attract more people than any others. Let me strike a note of caution by quoting C.H. Spurgeon's beloved hymn that we often sing around the Lord's Table, and I freely admit that I am quoting it completely and utterly out of context - hopefully I won't do that with any of the Scriptures tonight! - but he says this:

'If now with eyes defiled and dim,

We see the signs, but see not Him,

O, may His love the scales displace

And bid us see Him face-to-face'.

Now with all those words of caution, if we conclude at the end of all that it doesn't matter what your particular interpretation of Scripture is in regard to prophetic issues, you have made a grave error. It may not be all-important, it may not affect your salvation or your sanctification or your ultimate universal fellowship with the church of Jesus Christ at large - although it is not all-important, we have to say that it is very important. Twofold: one, I believe for Assembly teaching - it begs the question: how can any local church teach on the subject of the second coming of the Saviour if it doesn't follow a certain line on it? I believe that the dearth in second coming teaching today is for this reason, that's why it's seldom preached on, because no one really wants to commit themselves to one particular interpretive view. We need to have, and it is healthy to have a particular line on prophecy, that we may teach this great fundamental truth. Secondly it is an important matter because Bible interpretation stands or falls on it. To a large extent the method of your Bible interpretation is affected on the whole by the view that you take on how to interpret prophecy. Of course, the prophetic Scriptures in the Bible are gravely affected by your interpretation, but I believe that indeed the whole of the interpretation of the word of God can be affected depending on which particular view you take: pre-, post-, or a- millennial. Most people delve, as I've said, into these prophetic passages without even considering these issues.

So although they are not all-important, let us get them into perspective tonight: they are very important. So let us begin, I want to start this evening with a comparison of these views. If you look on the back of your sheet tonight, we've gone to some trouble to put three diagrams that you may not be able to make head or tail of, but hopefully as we go through tonight's meeting - and I hope you won't restrict me to time at all this evening - we'll be able to understand them a little bit more and come to some conclusions at the end of our evaluations. If we are to compare these diagrams that you see, the first one that you have is a-millennialism, that we would have to say has had a very popular revival in our modern evangelical age.

Now let me break down this word 'a-millennialism' for you. This prefix 'A' means 'no' - it just means 'no', 'no-millennial', no millennium or millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. So a-millennialists are people who believe that there is no literal 1000 year political kingdom of God reign of the Lord Jesus Christ on the earth. Now hopefully you can see this little red dot, if you don't you need to get your eyes tested, but here is the cross of the Lord Jesus, and a-millennialism simply teaches that the present church age in which we live is the millennial reign of Christ. Do you understand that? This is why you have this line, we are now in the millennium, the consummation of the ages is not yet but it will come one day. The Lord Jesus Christ will come to the earth, there will be a general resurrection of the righteous and the wicked, there will be a final judgment and then the eternal state will be issued in.

They believe that the future kingdom that's foretold in Daniel's prophecy chapter 2 and chapter 7 is a totally spiritual kingdom in nature - not literal on the earth for 1000 years, but that kingdom consists of perhaps a few things. It either consists of the church age, you and I down here on earth now as we live for Christ; or it can also consist of Christ's present rule from heaven over the hearts of all His believing people down on the earth; or it can also consist of the future eternal state - what we would call the new heaven and the new earth. When Christ comes there will be a general resurrection of all the dead, there will be a general judgment and the sheep and the goats will be separated, and then the end will come of this present earth and the immediate future eternal state will be ushered in. Now I hope that you can understand in brief what a-millennialism is from that diagram.

Then the second major school of thought is what we call post-millennialism. Now if the prefix 'a' means 'no', the prefix 'post' means 'after'. This is a belief, which may seem strange to some, that Christ will come after the millennium. Now they believe in a literal kingdom of God upon the earth, maybe not a literal thousand years, but they believe that it will not be established by the Lord Jesus Christ coming to the earth and issuing in a thousand year reign on the earth, but instead through human effort - that means you and me as Christians, and the word in general through the effort of man's expanding knowledge, his new discoveries and inventions, his dominion over nature increasing as technology and science evolves, and also primarily in the Christian Church the expanding influence of Bible-believing Christians - they believe that we can usher in the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope you can understand that - look at your diagram up here or on your sheet. This is the present age, but through our effort as the world becomes better - whether it be through technology or evolution, some even believe, or the influence of us, the salt and light of the Gospel in society - we through the gradual Christianisation of the world will usher in the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then there will be, very similar to a-millennialism, a general resurrection of the righteous and the wicked, and the final judgment, and then the eternal state will be ushered in. So the second coming is post-millennial - in other words, the second coming is the crowning of the golden age where things get better because of, from a Christian perspective, the influence of the Gospel.

A-millennialism, post-millennialism and now finally pre-millennialism - 'a' means 'no', 'post' means 'after', and 'pre' of course means 'before'. This is the belief that the Lord Jesus Christ will return before the millennium, the thousand years or the kingdom of God, and His return will usher in this earthly reign of righteousness. In fact pre-millennialism believes that His return is for the establishing of the kingdom of God on earth. Revelation 20 is probably the major passage of Scripture on this theme, and a casual, simple, literal understanding of these seven verses that we read together tonight we're sure that there is to be a political kingdom of God with Christ ruling worldwide as King together with His saints - it's the most simple understanding of those verses. Pre-millennialists believe that the present church age, the one that we are in, will finish at the rapture of the church at the instigation of seven years tribulation. Pre-millennialists believe this is taught in the Scriptures, they separate the rapture of the church from the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth to judge the wicked and to bring His millennial reign to this planet.

'Millennium' is made up of two Latin words, it's made up of the word 'mille' which means '1000', and the word 'annum' which means 'years'. Pre-millennialists are those who believe that Christ's millennial reign is a literal 'mille-annum', 1000 years reign on the earth. Let me say before we go on any further that pre-millennialists believe that there are two distinct plans, one for the church of Jesus Christ which was a mystery never revealed to the Old Testament saints, and another programme for the people of Israel - ultimately they all come to the glory of God and the one consummation in Christ - but pre-millennialists are those who, as far as I can understand, chiefly believe the Scriptures as they are read in a literal, grammatical, historical sense in the word of God.

Now let's move on as we compare these views to an evaluation and examination of the three of them. We do so with this connecting feature: pre-millennialism is, I believe in my research and study, the undisputed view of the early church of Jesus Christ - there is no doubt about that. It used to be called 'chiliasm', and early Christians were called 'chiliasts' for the fact that they believed in the thousand year reign of Christ, and 'chiliasm' is simply derived from the Greek word for 1000 - they believed in the thousand year reign of the Lord Jesus. Now we do not have time to look at a complete detailed critique of these three views, but let us look at the evaluation of them in a twofold way. First: historically, as I have mentioned; and second: hermeneutically - now that word 'hermeneutics' is simply a big theological word for how you interpret the Bible. One: historics, two: hermeneutics.

Let's look at this from a historic point of view, and evaluate these three views: pre-, post-, and a-millennialism. Let me say that many historians disagree on whether they themselves are a-, pre-, or post-millennial - but most of them agree that the early church, just at the apostles and after that, the first view about prophetic things was pre-millennial. It was the predominant orthodox view of believers in the church of Jesus Christ, and in fact we can record that for the first three centuries of Christendom there was no other view but pre-millennialism. Now I could stand up here tonight and bore you with a whole list of past and present historians who all disagree on their own personal interpretation of prophetic Scriptures, but who all agree with the fact that the early church was orthodoxly pre-millennial.

I'm not going to give you them all, you're glad, but I will give you one - a man by the name of J.N.D. Kelly, nothing to do with the J.N.D. of the Brethren, or Kelly of the Brethren, a totally different person altogether - he is acknowledged internationally as an authority on patristic Christian thought, that is the Christian thought of the early church fathers. He is typical in his scholarly opinion on this regard of the historicity of the pre-millennial view - in fact, if you do A-level R.E. [Religious Education], his book is your core textbook for all of early church history. It was quite depressing at times, I will have to confess to you! But on this issue he says these words, I quote from his book 'Early Christian Doctrines': 'The great theologians who followed the apologists, Iraneaus, Tertullian and Hypolitus were primarily concerned to defend the traditional eschatological scheme against Gnosticism'. Now mark this: 'They are all exponents of millenarianism, that is the belief in the thousand year reign of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth'. He is saying that these patristic fathers, early church fathers, just after the apostles, to a man were all exponents and defendants of millenarianism.

Another historian by the name of Joseph Cullen Ayer in his book 'A Sourcebook for Ancient Church History', says these words - I quote: 'Primitive Church history was marked by great chilistic enthusiasm' - that is this belief in the thousand year reign of Christ - 'By Chiliasm, strictly speaking, is meant the belief that Christ was to return to earth and reign visibly for 1000 years. That return was commonly placed in the immediate future'. Now I want to lay this down as a fundamental right away: the historicity of the pre-millennial view of prophetic Scripture - and I want to say this, categorically: pre-millennialism was not contradicted by a single orthodox church father until the beginning of the third century AD. There was no other view, history defends and declares that.

Let me give you the examples of this in first century Christendom: Clement of Rome was pre-mille, Ignatius was pre-mille, Polycarp who incidentally was a disciple of John the Apostle who wrote the book of Revelation - he could be nothing else but pre-mille. In the second century Justin Martyr, Iraneaus who also was under Polycarp who was a disciple of John, and obviously Polycarp would have taught the teachings of John to Iraneaus, that is why he was pre-millennial - and indeed in some of his writings that I was reading today he warned against any attempts to allegorise Old Testament Scriptures on the thousand year reign of Christ, to somehow see them as a metaphor for the Christian age today - he warned against it! Tertullian also in the second century was pre-millennial. Third century Christians: Cyprian, Comedianius (sp?), Lactantius - many others, I could go down a whole list - but what I just want to prove to you tonight is the history of the church, before we even go near the Scriptures, the history of the church in the first three centuries knew nothing else but pre-millennial thought concerning the second coming of the Lord Jesus.

Well, where did it all go wrong for the pre-millennialists? Well let me bring you a little further in this history lesson which I believe is so important: the rejection of pre-millennial thought came chiefly from the Greek church of the east during the second century. The eastern Church were appalled at the heresies of a group of people called the Montanists - now I haven't got time to go into the controversial issues concerning the Montanists, but they were heretics and the eastern Church was justified in being appalled at them. But the fact of the matter was that the Montanists were also pre-millennial in their view - and, as we would use the expression today, the eastern Church threw out the baby with the bath water. Because they rejected the false doctrine of the Montanists, they also rejected their pre-millennial view of the second coming of the Saviour. Many in the eastern Greek church also rejected this view of a literal kingdom on the earth because they thought there was political danger in it, it could encourage perhaps an actual literal democratic uprising of Christian people, so they shied away from it. Also native to the eastern Greek church there was what we call today an anti-Semitism, they saw Jewish people and Israel as 'Christ-killers' - and therefore they couldn't even entertain, for one moment, that God would still have the Jewish people in mind with regards to His future prophetic programme.

Now add to all those factors that infiltrating the eastern church at this time was what theologians call 'Alexandrian theology'. Now please keep following with me, if you can't follow all this get the tape afterwards, but we have to lay this down for it's important and so relevant to our day and age and the understanding of prophecy that the church has today. This Alexandrian theology was developing in the Greek church, and Alexandrian theology was starting to imbibe the teaching of Plato and other Greek philosophers, who were saying this: every physical matter around us is evil - i.e. the things you see around you, and even your body, anything physical is evil; but anything spiritual is good. Therefore to conceive in their minds of a literal, physical, earthly kingdom of Christ was absurd and even to be despised - because everything physical was evil, therefore they opted for a spiritual kingdom. Now as this Alexandrian theology infiltrated the eastern church, one of its major proponents in Alexandria was a man called Origen - and he developed the common, even today, allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Now what does that mean? It simply means this: that you don't just take Scripture as it is read, but you read into it some kind of allegory or a metaphor, that it all represented something. Now we're not saying that you can't ever take metaphors from Scripture, and we believe highly in typology and so forth, but allegorical interpretation ignored the literal, historical, grammatical interpretation - the most plain and normal understanding as you read the word of God - and that got Origen into a whole lot of difficulties that we can't go into tonight.

That teaching was taken from the east to the west by a man called Jerome, who rejected everything Jewish within the Scriptures, and it was also promoted in the Western church now by a man that we all know well as St Augustine. Augustine, who incidentally previously held the pre-millennial view, began to develop his thought into a-millennialism - and he wrote a book that you can still buy cheaply in your popular Christian bookshelves called 'The City of God'. Augustine was the first Christian, the first Christian, to teach that the organised catholic universal church of Christ is the Messianic kingdom and the millennial reign today that began with the first coming of our Lord Jesus. Let me say that Augustine's view dominated the church of Jesus Christ for seventeen centuries, right up to the 17th century. That was the major view of the church: a-millennialism, coming from its forefather Augustine, and before him Origen and Alexandrian theology, to allegorise Scripture, particularly prophetic Scripture.

Now, what happened then in the 17th century? Well, in the 17th century - I was nearly going to say some of you could remember it! - in the 17th century there was an intellectual revolution. There was the beginning of the thought of evolution, there was also an industrial revolution, and you could say it was a real golden age beginning to start among humanity. There was an optimistic view on the threshold of time, both in the world and in the church, and so - you can almost see it now, can't you? - there was a move from Augustine's a-millennialism to post-millennialism, believing that this golden age was coming when there would be a great revival and the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ would be ushered in.

Let me say first of all that many of the most godly men that ever lived were post-millennial. During the 17th and 18th centuries there were revivals, of course there was Reformation, and then there was revival age - men like Whitefield and Wesley, men like Jonathan Edwards, Hodge and his great theology, post-millennial men. You could almost forgive them for thinking they were in a golden age, but the fact of the matter is: what chiefly encouraged their prophetic view was not the Scriptures, but was the situation in which they found themselves. Well, post-millennialism isn't too popular today - do you know why? Very simply: World War I and World War II - post-millennialism came almost to extinction. Now it's being revived today in some forms of charismatic theology, but ultimately people could no longer believe in a golden age when Nazism came to the fore. Now here's what happened in the church: most post-millennialists who came to World War I said: 'We can't believe in this golden age', and so they rejected totally any idea of the millennial reign of Christ for 1000 years - and guess what, they couldn't become pre-millennial because they believed in a thousand year reign, so what did they become? They became a-millennial. That's why the predominant belief of the church today is a-millennialism, worldwide I'm talking about. Even though there was a revival in pre-millennialism around the time of the early Plymouth Brethren and J. M. Darby and so on, a-millennialism has been the major prophetic theology of Reformed Protestantism, Covenant Protestantism, Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. What I want you to see from this history lesson tonight, even if you don't remember any of it, is this: a-millennialism and post-millennialism, rather than developing out of biblical understanding of the Scriptures, have chiefly evolved out of the influence of these historical factors in Church history, not from the Bible.

Now let's move on from history to hermeneutics, for this is where it really comes home to us as Bible-believing Christians - hermeneutics being, as I've said, your interpretation of the Bible that you have before you. Dr Walvoord, now deceased and gone to glory, a great prophetic teacher, was asked a few years ago this question: 'What do you predict will be the most significant theological issue over the next ten years?'. His answer included these words: 'The hermeneutical problem of not interpreting the Bible literally, especially the prophetic areas. The church today is engulfed in the idea that one cannot interpret prophecy literally'. Now listen, I'm not talking about a wooden literalism that doesn't see any symbolism in the book of Revelation - that is a misrepresentation of pre-millennialism. There is symbolism in all of prophetic Scripture, but what we're talking about here is that in a general sense, whenever we come to prophetic Scripture, we ought to come to it the same way we come to any piece of Scripture and read it with a plain, normal, and - mark these words - literal, historical and grammatical understanding and interpretation. You don't take a way-out, pie-in-the-sky meaning rather than the literal meaning. You don't pluck the Scripture out of its history to take it into present-day age and apply it only to ourselves and not to the ancient people who it was historically given to - i.e. the Jew. You don't just interpret it how it suits you today, and fit it into your scheme of prophecy, but you have to take it grammatically as it is written down whether in the Hebrew or the Greek language.

Now listen: if you read Revelation 20 in that literal, historical, grammatical way, you can only come to an interpretation that it is a pre-millennial understanding of the second coming of Christ. Now, if that doesn't prove it to you, let me quote you an a-millennialist - he's an a-millennialist, I didn't pay him to say it, he wrote it himself - Floyd E. Hamilton, and I can give you where he quoted it. Here's what he said: 'Now we must frankly admit that a literal interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies gives us just such a picture of an earthly reign of the Messiah as the pre-millennialists picture'. He quite freely admits 'We don't interpret prophecy literally, that's why we come to our a-millennial standpoint' - but if you want to interpret Scripture literally, grammatically, historically as we believe we ought to as fundamentalists - you will come to a pre-millennialist picture of things future. Pre-millennialism, and I say it categorically, is the only consistent hermeneutic of interpreting the Bible that interprets it the same from Genesis to Revelation. History testifies to it in examination, hermeneutics testifies to it.

Let's really get to grips with the Scriptures tonight and take a conclusion upon these views that are expressed. I believe the weight of biblical truth supports the pre-millennial return of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I believe in turn that there are serious biblical problems with a-millennialism and post-millennialism. Now I'm not saying, or implying, that there are no problems with pre-millennialism and there are no differences between pre-millennialists - because there are an awful lot! I'm losing count of them as I study it more and more! Let me leave you tonight in the moments that are left to us with a list that was first given by Gerald B. Stanton, quoted by Mr Tommy Ice who's coming soon to preach in the Iron Hall, and also in an article in the dictionary of pre-millennial theology - reasons why we know and believe that the Lord Jesus Christ must come before He ushers in this thousand year reign.

I give you it under ten headings, and I want you to note them down if you have a pen - if you don't have a pen, bring one next week, I don't think we have any extra pens, have we? No? Bring three next week, and if anybody forgets one you can give another two. Here are ten reasons, in conclusion, upon these views. The first we have already dealt with: the early church was pre-millennial. We all agree on that. Secondly we have looked at hermeneutics, it is the only consistent, literal interpretation of the Scriptures. Let me give you one example - Isaiah 11 and verse 6 talks about a day when the lion will lie down with the lamb. You know that passage, don't you? Now, a-millennialists and post-millennialists both interpret that as a metaphor of saying a sort of peace that comes from being a Christian. The fact of the matter is that that interpretation is problematic when you move out of Isaiah 11 and move into Isaiah 53 - 'He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We hid, as it were, our faces from Him, with His stripes we are healed'. The Jews today still take that passage as a metaphor, liberal Jews, as a metaphor for the Jewish nation suffering down all the ages - because they take an allegorical interpretation of it. But if you're consistent, literally, you have to assume that throughout the whole of Isaiah and Jeremiah and all the major and minor prophets that whenever this great golden age of a millennium is spoken about it is literal.

Thirdly, there is the unconditional nature of the covenants in the word of God. Now what am I talking about? Well, in Genesis 12 you read of the Abrahamic Covenant, the covenant that God made with Abraham. Then it's reiterated in Genesis 13 and Genesis 15, Genesis 17 and Genesis 22; and then it's confirmed to Isaac in Genesis 26; then to Jacob in Genesis 28 and Genesis 35 - and really the sum total of that covenant that God made with Abraham and his progeny was that his seed would increase as the grains of sand on the seashore, as the stars in the sky, and that a great nation would come from his bowels, and that that nation would bless the whole earth one day - obviously through Messiah, but ultimately the next promise in the covenant was this: that they would be given a land, and God gave him the border of that land that he would be given, and until this day Israel has not inhabited the whole of that land that was given in covenant promise to Abraham. That was an unconditional promise that was given to Abraham, that will be fulfilled - the church does not fulfil it in a spiritual sense, it cannot unless you're a thief taking Abraham's promise as your own when you're a Gentile! There is the Abrahamic Covenant yet to be fulfilled, so we understand - and we'll maybe look at this later on - that Israel is not the church, as a-millennialists understand and post-millennialists and some historic pre-millennialists. Israel and the church cannot and ought not to be confused. The unconditional nature of the covenants.

Now what leads on from that in one sense is fourthly that the Old Testament teaches a literal earthly kingdom. Now let me bring you to another covenant, you can turn to it if you wish, 2 Samuel 7:16 - this is the Davidic Covenant, the covenant that was given to David. Saul had been rejected, and Nathan said by God's hand upon him to David: 'And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee' - for ever - 'thy throne shall be established for ever'. Now does 'for ever' mean forever? Or does it suddenly become the Gentile people who are in the church of Jesus Christ in our modern age - it cannot if you take it literally, and you take it historically and grammatically. It was spoken to David, it was spoken about his throne in Jerusalem and about the Jewish nation. In Daniel 2:44 the Old Testament speaks of a literal earthly kingdom, it says: 'And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these other kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever' - Daniel 2:44, forever! A literal earthly kingdom that will wipe out all other kingdoms.

Now this kingdom is on the earth, not in heaven. Look at the prophecies of the Old Testament - Isaiah, taking one just, 11 and verse 9, Isaiah says that 'on that day', that millennial reign, 'the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea' - the earth, not heaven, the earth! Other passages tell us that the Lord will reign as King over all the earth. He will be the King, He will reign, Zechariah 14 speaks of that - turn with me to it, Zechariah 14 and verse 4: 'His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem', a mountain, literally and geographically, a nation, a city, Jerusalem, 'on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south'. Verse 9: 'And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one'. Verse 16: 'And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles'.

You read about it in Psalm 2, Ezekiel 37, Hosea 3, Zephaniah 3, and Isaiah 2:4 tells us that during that thousand year literal reign of Christ there will be peace that will reign on earth for the first time, and Isaiah 2 says in verse 4: 'They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more'. Read about it in Micah chapter 4, verses 3 to 4. We'll spend a week looking at Israel - bear with me, I've got the cold, and that day I'll have a new throat, praise the Lord! - but Israel shall have a final and permanent return to her homeland, this is Old Testament prophecy! It has to be fulfilled literally - Amos 9:15, just for one example, Amos 9:15: 'I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God'. Regardless of their sin and their backsliding, God promised to bring them back - if you don't believe that, read the latter chapters of the book of Ezekiel 37, 38; read also Isaiah 43, Jeremiah 30 - they all testify the same thing. Old Testament prophecy shows that Messiah's government shall not only take place in the land of Israel presently, but in the very city of Jerusalem - Micah 4, Zechariah 2, Zechariah 8 - and there will be, imagine this in the light of our contemporary situation and political unrest in Palestine, there will be no more unrest in the land, no more violence in Israel!

Isaiah 60 verse 18, listen to these words: 'Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise'. We read too in Daniel 9 and 12, and Ezekiel 40 to 48 - and we spent several long weeks looking at it - that Israel will rebuild a literal temple in Jerusalem, no doubt about it! Israel will be a redeemed people - now I could go on and on and keep you here most of the night going through these Old Testament prophecies, but I think you get my point, don't you? Do you think it is reasonable to just say in a nebulous way that this is all spiritual and applied to us today as the church of Jesus Christ in heaven when we get there one day? I do not think so, do you?

Fifthly: the kingdom is carried, as we have seen it prophetically in the Old Testament, it is carried unchanged into the New Testament. The understanding that the Jews had of the kingdom in the Old is still the understanding in the New. Matthew's gospel is the gospel of the kingdom, it's the gospel that sets forth the King of the Jews to us - His genealogy in chapter 1 is the genealogy of the Lord Jesus as the King, and the rightful King at that! When we go to Luke's gospel, if you turn with me to it, Luke chapter 1 verse 30, and the angel says unto Mary: 'Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David' - the Davidic Covenant. Now did He get that in His lifetime on the earth? He did not: 'And he shall reign over the house of Jacob' - who's that? It is Israel - 'for ever', has that happened? 'And of his kingdom there shall be no end'.

I think the Bible is clear, of course in the New Testament - although we have to say that there is a sense in which the kingdom of God is in our hearts and is not fully consummated as yet - in the New Testament there is still this prophetic idea and view that the literal kingdom of God is coming soon. There is an imminence, waiting on the Lord Jesus, as we'll see next week in the rapture - the believers in the New Testament were ready at any moment for Christ to come and for His kingdom.

Following on from that in the New Testament, sixthly: Christ also supports this earthly kingdom. In Matthew 6, just to cite one example, verse 10 in the Lord's prayer, or the disciple's prayer: 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done' - where? - 'on earth as it is in heaven'. Let me take you to another example - do you remember the disciples were arguing about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of God one day? The promise that the Lord Jesus included in His reply to them was that they would be sitting on thrones, and they would be judging the twelve tribes of Israel - the twelve tribes of where? Israel!

Now as I said, there is a kingdom in men's hearts, there's no doubt about that - but there is a literal kingdom yet to be fulfilled upon the earth, where the Lord Jesus will reign where'er the sun doth its successive journeys run. Christ testified Himself - seventhly, there are multiple resurrections in scripture. I only take time to cite two: there is the resurrection unto life that is spoken about, we'll look at it next week - 1 Corinthians 15, the rapture of the church, the resurrection of those who are dead in Christ. Paul talked about it in 1 Thessalonians 4: 'Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them that have died in Christ before us, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord'. The unrighteous dead are not mentioned, but then there is the unrighteous dead resurrected coming unto judgment that we read about in this passage in Revelation 20 verses 5 and 6, and later on in 12 to 15 - a different resurrection. There are other resurrections, don't confuse them all.

Eighthly - we've already mentioned this - Revelation 20 teaches in a simple understanding, you cannot read it any other way as you read it chronologically, pre-millennialism. Ninthly, pre-millennialism harmonises the entire Bible - there is no other system of biblical prophetic interpretation that attempts to bring all of the spheres of biblical literature together in one final consummation as this does. Tenthly and finally, only pre-millennialism provides a satisfactory conclusion to history - only pre-millennialism. What do I mean? Well, I mean this: what greater glory to the Lord Jesus Christ could there be than the fact that one day He will reign over this depraved old world? What would it be if He never had sway on the earth as the Old Testament testified to and prophesied? One of the glories of Christ is that He will come, and He will reign, and He will rule with a rod of iron and dash His enemies in pieces as a potter's vessel. Not only that, it'll be a righteous reign - and how could God take satisfaction in the whole running of human history if it didn't end in a satisfactory way in the reign of righteousness? Only this view concludes history in a satisfactory way.

I'm not getting paid for this tonight, but on the 13th of November we are having a teacher of the word of God by the name of Dr Thomas Ice - he's coming to open our new church building just across the way here. He probably, I would imagine, will be touching on prophetic themes at least at some point within his ministry. Thomas Ice is an authority on prophetic Scriptures, and in a discourse that he gave just there in 2003 on the subject: 'The Unscriptural Theologies of A-Millennialism and Post-Millennialism', which he gave to the pre-tribulation study group, he said these words - and it's with these words that I want to conclude. They're up here on the screen if you can see them, but I'll read them out to you - he says this, and I say it too: 'More could be said, suffice to say that neither post-, or a-millennialism is taught in the Bible'. That's an astounding statement, but it's true - neither a- nor post-millennialism is taught in the Bible: 'Show me a single text that teaches it! Pre-millennialism can be inductively gleaned from Revelation 20, in fact that is why we have these terms pre-millennialism, a-millennialism, post-millennialism - because Revelation 20 speaks of a 1000 year reign of Christ that will take place after His return in Revelation 19'. Now mark this statement, the next paragraph: 'Since sound theology should be developed from the Bible itself, and since the Bible teaches only a single viewpoint on any issue, a-millennialism and post-millennialism are nowhere to be found - but pre-millennialism is found in every page of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation'. Now mark these words: 'The strength of pre-millennialism is the text of Scripture, study it, teach it, proclaim it, hope in it, live it - Maranatha!'.

He also said in that lecture that historically only the Bible looks ahead to the future as a time when life will be better than it has ever been in the past. Have you ever thought about that? All the pagan religions of our world look into the past, and think: 'If only we could return to the good old days then everything would be wonderful. If we could just return to the days of the Pharaohs of Egypt, if we could bring back the wonderful days of Nebuchadnezzar' - maybe you're saying: 'If we could only get back to the 50's and the 60's when I was young' - listen: only the Bible teaches that the best is yet to come! It also teaches that He could come at any moment, He could even come this evening.

Well, I hope you see that I believe it matters - it may not be all-important, but it's very important. Hopefully it will serve as a foundation for the next five weeks - come back next week when we'll be looking at 'The Rapture of the Church - Biblical Fact or Fairytale?'.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - May 2004

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


Crucial Questions On Christ's Return - Chapter 2

"Rapture: Fact Or Fairytale?"

Copyright 2004

by Pastor David Legge

All Rights Reserved

John 14:1-3; 1 Corinthians 15:51-58; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

1.      Fairytales

(1) The word 'Rapture'

(2) The Irvingites

(3) The Secret Rapture

2.      Facts

(1) A comparison of texts

(2) A contrast in the comings

(3) The imminence of the Advent

(4) A time interval is required

(5) The nature of the Tribulation

(6) The nature of the Church

(7) The work of the Holy Spirit

3.      Focus

(1) Motive for sanctification

(2) Energy for soul-winning

(3) Comfort for suffering and sorrowful saints

John's gospel chapter 14, and this is a very familiar passage to most of you so we'll only read just the first three verses, because that's all that will be taking our attention really this evening. Verse 1: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also".

Put a finger, or if you don't have enough of those put a marker in chapter 14, and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 - all these three passages are on the theme of the rapture, and we'll prove that later on in our meeting, but just keep that in mind as we read these verses. Again this is a great passage of Scripture that we spent several weeks on recently in our exegesis of the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, specifically on resurrection, but we'll take just these verses 51 to 58 on the subject of the rapture: "Behold", Paul says, "I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord".

Put a marker in 1 Corinthians 15, and now turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 13 - Paul, again, writing to this church in Thessalonica says: "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep", which is just a phrase for those who have died in Christ, "that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent", or go before, "them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words".

Now I hope we established to most people's satisfaction last Monday evening that the only possible, as far as I'm concerned, biblical interpretation of prophetic truth within the Scriptures is a pre-millennial one. I hope that we showed that not just from the word of God, but from history and the fact that the early church predominantly, if not exclusively, for the first 300 years of her history was a pre-millennial church. Then we looked hermeneutically - that is the method of interpreting the Scriptures - we saw how the only real consistent way to interpret God's word is a literal, historical, grammatical interpretation read from Genesis to Revelation. That did not mean that there is no symbolism within the word of God, that we cannot read typology into certain truth - but first and foremost, the primary interpretation of all Scripture must be literal, historical and grammatical, and consistent throughout.

So we saw that pre-millennialism was the most biblical way of interpreting prophetic Scripture, yet I did allude last week to the fact that even among those calling themselves pre-millennialists there are different interpretations of prophetic Scripture - specifically on this subject that we're looking at tonight, the subject of the rapture of the church. There are about three major sections within pre-millennialism - that's right! Three more sections in pre-millennialism alone, in their understanding of the rapture of the church. Now, if David kindly puts the first diagram on the screen here which you have on the back of your study sheet, just to make it a little bit easier for me to point it out even though I don't have a pointer tonight - what we're talking about here with regards to the rapture of the church is this little line here, the coming of the Lord to the air, which is under number 4 in your diagram.

Now pre-tribulationists are people who believe that the rapture will take place before the tribulation - Daniel's 70th week - the Great Tribulation when God will pour on to this world, trouble that has never been seen before. So a pre-tribulationist is someone who believe that the rapture will take place before, pre- the tribulation. That's easy enough to understand, I hope. Then there's a group of people called mid-tribulationists, and they believe that after this false peace that is brought in by Antichrist after the first three and a half years of the tribulation's seven years, then the Lord Jesus will come to the air and rapture His church just before all of the - what would you say? - obvious wrath is poured out upon the earth. So in the 'mid' period, that's the mid-tribulationists. Then there are post-tribulationists, even among pre-millennialists, people who believe that the Lord Jesus Christ's coming to the air and the rapture of the church will take place almost simultaneously with His coming to the earth. His coming to the air for His saints and rapturing them will take place at the same time as His coming to the earth, the Mount of Olives, at the very end of the Great Tribulation just about number 8 there - it's all going to happen round about together at that point.

So even among people who would call themselves pre-millennialists, there are different views with regards to the rapture of the church. There's also a group of believers who call themselves partial-rapturists, and they believe really - some of them at least - that the rapture could take place at any point during the Great Tribulation, but the initial rapture will take place before the tribulation but specifically only of people who are really sanctified, really going on with God, and they would call them 'the overcomers' - real spiritual people will be raptured.

Now we'll deal with some of these features as we go throughout our study tonight, but of course we looked last week at a-millennialists and post-millennialists who generally believe that this idea of a rapture, being different and distinct from the actual coming of the Lord Jesus to the earth and His feet landing on the Mount of Olives, that it's a figment of the imagination, it's a fairytale of wooden literalistic Bible interpretation. It's a fairytale. So we're asking the question tonight under our title: 'The Rapture of the Church of Jesus Christ: is it a fact, a biblical fact that we can prove from the Scriptures, or is it a fanciful fairytale from our futuristic imagination?'.

In recent years a pre-wrath advocate, and that simply means one of these mid-tribulationists who believe that the Lord will take the church to be with Himself midway just before the real wrath starts three and a half years into the tribulation, a pre-wrath tribulationist by the name of Marvin Rosenthal - a converted Jew - wrote that 'the pre-tribulation rapture', I quote, 'is of satanic origin'. What are we talking about? Those who believe, and we include ourselves among those here in the Iron Hall tonight, we who believe that the Lord Jesus is going to rapture the church before the Great Tribulation are believing a satanic deception, something that he says - I quote: 'was unheard of before 1830', just a couple of hundred years ago.

That's one modern day objection to the belief in the rapture of the church just before the seven-year tribulation period. But there are other objections, those who say that this idea of a rapture is a fairytale say: 'Well, it's not found in the Bible'. If you get your concordance down and look right throughout the Old and New Testament, you will not find the word 'rapture' in the whole of the Scriptures. It's some theology that has been dreamed up in a man's imagination, but it's not found within the word of God. Then others who believe it's a fairytale believe that it was first introduced by John Nelson Darby of the Brethren movement - it's not from the Bible, but it was his invention. There are others who go even further to say that his invention came and was engendered by a prophetic utterance of a woman called Margaret McDonald in a meeting by a man called Edward Irving, who was really a precursor to the modern day pentecostal movement. J. N. Darby heard this prophetic utterance at Edward Irving's meeting, and it talked about a pre-tribulation rapture and he imbibed it, and he built his eschatology all around it, and that's where we get the idea of a rapture today.

Now the objections continue, and I could go on through a lot more this evening - save to say that they're all as ridiculous as those that I've just mentioned. All of them fail to credibly react with the Holy Scripture's biblical weight with regards to the evidence we have in the word of God for a rapture, and indeed for a pre-tribulation rapture before the Great Tribulation on the earth. So what I want us today is systematically tonight, first of all deal in brief with some of these fairytales that we've mentioned; and then secondly deal with the real biblical facts that we would rather get to tonight; and then finish off, God willing, if time permits focusing ourselves on what the rapture really ought to mean for us as Bible-believing Christians.

So let's look first of all at your first point: fairytales concerning the teaching of the rapture. I don't know whether you've ever heard of 'straw doll argumentation' - that simply means that if you're going to pull down another argument, you don't really grapple with the real issues that they're propounding, but you erect the issues that you want people to think they're propounding, and then you seek to destroy them and show that you have defeated their argument. It's not really dealing with the issues of your opponent, but rather it's inventing the issues that aren't there, that they're not propounding, and then seeking to prove those wrong when they aren't authentic in the first place. I believe that this is such, in a sense, as we go through some of these fairytales concerning what people say pre-tribulationists teach with regards to the rapture.

Let's deal with the first objection: those who say that the word 'rapture' is not found in the Bible, it doesn't appear within the word of God. You're right in one sense, if you believe that a linguistic translation such as the Authorised Version is the original Scriptures - which of course, it is not, it is the translation into English from the original Greek - but there's more than an English translation of the Bible, of course you know that. Before we go on any further with regards to the word 'rapture', which I believe is found in the Bible, you will not find the word 'Trinity' in the Bible, you will not find the word 'Bible' in the Bible - but we don't object to the use of that word, I hope. The fact of the matter is that the word which we read in 1 Thessalonians 4, if you want to turn to it, in verse 14 'caught up' is one word in the Greek language: 'Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air'. It is the Greek word 'harpazo' - you find it in Acts chapter 8, where you remember Philip went to preach to the Ethiopian eunuch. After his job was done and he'd led him to Christ, preaching from Isaiah 53, the Bible says that the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip - 'harpazo' is the Greek word. He was caught away, he was snatched away in a spiritual sense, he just disappeared.

You find the same word 'harpazo' in 2 Corinthians 12 and verses 2 and 4, where Paul is speaking of another man it seemed, but of his own testimony, spoke of how he was caught up to the third heaven and saw things that couldn't be uttered in our own languages - but this word 'caught up' is 'harpazo', to be snatched away. Now listen to me: it is a verb, but the noun corresponding to the verb 'harpazo' is simply the idea of rapture - Philip was raptured away from the Ethiopian eunuch, Paul was raptured into the third heaven - it means to seize upon with force, to snatch up, and the Greek word is the word that we get our English word 'harpoon' from...'harpazo'...'harpoon'. Now many years ago there was a translation of the Bible that was in Latin that was mostly used during the medieval times, and was adopted also by the Roman Catholic Church, and it was called the Latin Vulgate Version. The Latin Vulgate Version of the Bible used the word 'rapere', which is the root English term for 'rapture' - it is the word we get 'rapture' from. The idea is there, the root of the word 'rapture' is there - but apart from all that, many people that throw this stone at pre-tribulationists and say 'rapture' is not in the Bible, don't even realise that most, if not all, biblical commentators when they come to 1 Thessalonians 4, no matter what they believe about when or if the rapture will take place, interpret this as a rapture. The issue is not so much is it a rapture, but when it will take place and who it applies to. It is a false argument, so that's all the time we're going to spend on tonight - it is a fairytale in itself.

Secondly, here is another objection that people bring to the idea of a rapture before the tribulation, and I've just entitled it 'The Irvingites'. Marv Rosenthal, that I mentioned to you in my introduction, is a modern day adherent to this. He claims that this idea of a rapture before the tribulation was unheard of before 1830. In fact, I quote him, he says that 'It was introduced by Satanic means', I quote, 'to thwart the Lord's warning to His children'. He claims that Satan, the father of lies, gave a 15 -year-old girl named Margaret McDonald a lengthy vision. This vision was said to happen at a meeting of Edward Irving, and it was claimed by Rosenthal that Darby, who was there, adapted that prophetic utterance in a charismatic sense, and he built his eschatology around it. Now let me say that, as far as I can see, Rosenthal and other claimants of this issue of this prophecy that was given, cannot or do not substantiate their claims - they do not document the claim. Apart from the fact that the authenticity of those accusations cannot be ascertained, I ask this question: if you know anything about John Nelson Darby - and I hasten to add that I don't agree with him on all terms - but if you know anything about the man and the modern day Plymouth Brethren movement of its age and origins, who could believe that a man like J. N. Darby could base a complete system of eschatology on such a source as a 15 -year-old girl in some pre-charismatic meeting? Apart from all this, it is categorical that J. N. Darby clearly held an early form of pre-tribulation rapture in January 1827, three full years before this prophetic utterance in 1830.

Tommy Ice, who's coming to us in the not too distant future, he quotes F. F. Bruce who was part of the Brethren movement his entire life - and I hasten to also add that he was not a pre-tribulation rapturist, he didn't agree with what we're going to propound tonight - he said: 'When did he', Darby, 'get this idea of a pre-tribulation rapture?', I quote, 'The reviewers answer would be that it was in the air in the 1820s and the 1830s among eager students of unfulfilled prophecy. Direct dependence by Darby upon Margaret McDonald is unlikely'. Here is a man who is among the Brethren, who is an astounding scholar, but who is not a pre-tribulationist, who says it is unlikely that Darby built his eschatology around Margaret McDonald's utterance. A man who is definitely not a pre-tribulationist is called John Bray, he is an opponent of the pre-tribulation rapture. He says in even stronger terms: 'It is impossible for me to believe that Darby got his pre-tribulation rapture teaching from Margaret McDonald's vision in 1830, he was already a believer in it since 1827, as he plainly said'.

In fact, J. N. Darby, if you read his writings, says, testifying that in convalescence around these years of 1827 he was reading the word of God, and the views that he later espoused jumped out of the biblical page simply for one reason - he began to make a distinction between Israel in the word of God and the church, and when he did this everything fell into place. Darby was not the first in history to espouse to it, I'm not going to give you another history lesson tonight - I fear that I may have bored you all last week - but the fact of the matter is that many of the early church fathers believed in the immanency of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, which points to a pre-tribulation rapture. I hope you see that this accusation is not dealing with the biblical facts and the issue is concerned, but it is throwing mud and hoping that it will stick, and it is even happening in our modern age.

Here's the third objection that some make, which I believe is in a sense a fairytale. People say that it's 'a secret rapture' - Revelation 1:7 says that every eye will see the Lord when He returns, but you believe in this sort of secret rapture, an obscure abduction almost like a UFO, when no one will know about it - and all these Christians will disappear. Let me say that years ago pre-tribulationists did use the phrase 'secret rapture', but they did not use it in the way that opponents of pre-tribulationists use it as they erect this straw doll that I'm talking about, to dislocate it and pull apart in their argumentation. It has been misused and misrepresented, and that's why pre-tribulationists have stopped using it, because the idea of a secret rapture does not mean a secretive rapture - the sense is immanency, the sense is that there is nothing left for God to fulfil in His prophetic programme before the Lord Jesus can catch up His church. The very nature of the word 'rapture', 'caught up', is the sense of happening quickly, and people all around us astounded at what has happened.

First Thessalonians clearly teaches that the Lord will shout, there will be the voice of an archangel, there will be a trumpet blown - and although every eye will not see the Lord, I believe eyes will see what has happened, and the vacancy that there is on this planet of Bible-believing Christians. The whole world will know it has happened, even if they don't understand what has happened. Now if you're going to argue against this issue of the rapture of the church, whether it's biblical fact or fanciful fairytale, let's argue with the word of God - not these silly issues that don't really exist. So hopefully, now that we've dispensed with these fairytales concerning the teaching of the rapture, let's go to our second point - the facts from the Bible establishing the teaching of the rapture, and why I believe in the pre-tribulationist view of the rapture.

Now, if we could all turn to one single verse in the Bible tonight to prove that the rapture will take place before the seven-year tribulation, well, I wouldn't have to go on tonight. But there isn't one verse, one plain key verse - when the rapture will take place, where it will take place before the second coming and the tribulation - there is not one verse, or even a couple of verses all together that would really satisfy everyone. That's why there's so much debate about it! We would only be ignorant if we were to say anything else tonight. But as well as saying that, let me also say that there are many doctrines in the Bible that we hold very dear, and there is not one particular proof text that we can turn to to prove it. Systematic theology is a very worthy and valuable endeavour, that is simply taking a theme throughout the word of God, collecting all the facts that you can find within it, putting it together and coming to some conclusions - and there are certain facts that we have come to a conclusion on with regards to doctrine using systematic theology, not just a single verse, but taking a load of verses, harmonising passages and coming to systematic conclusions.

There are proof texts that we could turn to with regards to the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, something we hold as a fundamental - but in order to get a real picture of the whole deity of our Lord, and how His deity, the fact that He is God, relates to His humanity; the fact that He has two distinct natures unmingled in one personality - He was not two people in one body - all these things cannot be found in just one specific verse, you have to take the whole spectrum of Scripture and the weight of evidence there. The Trinity that I mentioned earlier, you will find it very hard to get one verse as a proof text for the Trinity - but we believe it because it's the testimony of the whole of the panorama of the word of God. Do you see what I'm talking about? It's similar with regards to this teaching of the rapture, that if you take a literal interpretation of the New Testament from start to finish relating to the rapture, it will, I believe, lead you to a pre-tribulationist interpretation.

Now that we've laid a foundation, let's look individually at some of these facts. Here's the first fact: if you do a comparison of some of the texts with regards to the second coming of our Lord Jesus, you will find that they're similar. I want you to turn to two passages: John 14 and 1 Thessalonians 4, and keep the two of them open because we're going to flick from one to the other. Some would doubt me, perhaps, reading John 14 as a passage on the rapture, but I hope that you'll see in just a moment or two that John 14 is talking exactly about the same event as 1 Thessalonians 4 - it can only be doing so, and you will see that the words that are used by the Lord are identical almost to the words that are used by the apostle, the phrases, even the order of the phrases are identical, showing us that they all refer to the same event.

Let me prove this to you. First of all look at verse 1 of John chapter 14, He talks about trouble, the Lord: 'Let not your heart be troubled'. Now go on to 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 13, he talks about trouble: 'But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not'. He starts to talk of trouble in John 14:1, and in verse 13 of 1 Thessalonians 4 he's talking about sorrow. Then He goes on in chapter 14 of John: 'ye believe in God, believe also in me' - He talks about belief. Look back at verse 14 of 1 Thessalonians 4: 'For if we believe that Jesus died' - he talks about belief - 'and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him'. Now go back to John 14, and in verse 1 - we haven't even got out of verse 1 yet - He talks about God and He talks about Himself: 'Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me'. Now go back to verse 14 of Thessalonians 4: 'For if we believe that Jesus', there's Jesus, 'died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him'.

Now verse 2 of John 14, He talks about the fact that He has imparted this knowledge to the disciples, He told them: 'In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you'. Verse 15 of 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul says: 'For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord'. Then in verse 3 of John 14, again He talks about coming: 'If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again'. Verse 15 of Thessalonians 4: 'For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them' - 'unto the coming of the Lord', the coming is there also. In verse 3 of John 14 again: 'I will receive you unto myself', and in verse 17 of 1 Thessalonians 4 there is the 'caught up' which is the reception of the church unto Himself. In verse 3 He says 'I will receive you to myself', and then in verse 17 of Thessalonians 4 'caught up together to meet the Lord in the air'.

What does He say in verse 3 John 14? 'Where I am, there ye may be also'. In verse 17 Thessalonians 4: 'and there we shall ever be with the Lord'. Have you seen that before? They are talking about the same event! Of course Paul is talking about the word of the Lord, could it not be the word of the Lord in John chapter 14? I don't know whether it's specifically so, but it certainly is the same event, the words are the same, the phrases the same, almost exact and in the same order - both passages only deal with righteous men, saved men; and both, if you will look at it for a moment, take the saint of God from trouble and sorrow to be forever with the Lord in glory, not on earth, they're taken from earth to heaven. Do you see the progression? There are certain comparisons of Scripture that are exact with regards to the issue of the second coming of the Lord - that is one biblical fact: certain Scriptures are in tandem and in agreement.

But we would have to say, on the other side of the coin, that there are certain Scriptures with regard to the second coming of the Lord which are not in agreement. Now what do I mean? I don't mean that the Bible is contradicting itself, but your second fact is that there is a contrast in the comings of the Lord within scripture. There's a contrast in the comings of the Lord in scripture, and what I mean by that is there's a difference between the rapture and the coming of the Lord to the earth when His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Now this truth of the rapture of the church is unique, Paul said that, and we read it tonight in 1 Corinthians 15:51: 'Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump'. A mystery in the word of God is something that had not been revealed to the Old Testament people of God, it is a mystery that God has only declared in this new dispensation to the apostles, and the apostles have given it to us in the Scriptures, the apostle's doctrine in the word of God. This mystery, not of resurrection, that is found in the Old Testament; not of the second advent of the Lord, that is found in the Old Testament, we looked at the prophets last week - but this mystery specifically that not only the dead would be raised, but those who are alive and remain who are saved will be changed at the coming of the Lord, and there will be a translation of the living as well as of the dead - that was never ever known before.

Now when we realise that we see that there is a contrast. The general idea in the Old Testament about resurrection, and even in the New Testament about resurrection, was never ever linked with this idea of rapture and translation of the living when the Lord Jesus comes to establish His kingdom. We see that this mystery, and what had previously been revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures, seem to be quite different when you compare them with one another. So what we're saying is, and I'm going to prove it to you in a minute, that this idea that we've established from John 14, 1 Thessalonians 4, and 1 Corinthians 15, is distinct and contrasting to what we have known in the Old Testament Scriptures with regards to the second coming of the Lord. Now in a sense that should make sense, because if this is a mystery it has to be different somehow from what has already been in the Old Testament Scriptures - do you understand? It cannot be the same if there is something that has not been revealed.

Let me show you the contrast in these two comings - I don't like calling them two comings, because really there's only one second coming of the Lord, but it's for our help. I know you're...well, I'll not say anything...I know you're a bit like myself - you have 'the rapture', and then we'll call it 'the coming in judgment' to distinguish it. You'll need be quick with me tonight to look for these verses. In 1 Thessalonians 4 and verses 16 and 17 the rapture is taught to us as the Lord's coming to the air, I think that's clear - do you see that? Take these down if you don't have the mind to remember them, write them down - 16 and 17 - we'll not read it. Then we turn to Zechariah 14 and verse 4, you can take that down, Zechariah the prophet speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ coming to the earth, not to the air but the earth, and His feet shall land on the Mount of Olives. There's a seismic shift takes place in the geography of Jerusalem and all the rest, and He's coming in judgment, He's coming for His people Israel, and He's coming in judgment - it is distinct. One is to the air, one is to the earth, do you see the difference?

Then a second distinction and contrast is found in these same verses, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and 17, He doesn't come with His saints, He comes for His saints. He is catching them up to be with the Lord in the air, but when we look at the coming to judgment we find in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, look at this one and we'll read it: 'To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints' - now is that a contradiction of what he's just about to say in chapter 4? It cannot be - He's coming for His saints, but there's a second coming with His saints - Jude 14 talks about it as well, chapter 1 and 14. Then the third contrast of the comings is found 1 Corinthians 15:51: 'We shall all be changed'. The first coming, the rapture, is a translation of all believers - now I'm not going to go into a critique of partial rapture teaching tonight, but save to say that one verse that for me defeats that argument is that verse that says to Corinthian carnal believers, remember what they were like! 'We shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye'.

The first coming, the rapture, is a translation - but there's no translations at all in the second coming of judgment, there's no change bodily that is spoken of in these passages. Then fourthly, this rapture is spoken of in the same verse as a mystery - 'Behold, I show you a mystery', 1 Corinthians 15 verse 51 - something that has not been revealed, but yet the second coming in judgment is right throughout the whole of the Old Testament in the minor and the major prophets. It's spoken of in Zechariah 14 we referred to just a moment ago - but the theme, the major theme perhaps, of the prophets in the Old Testament was not so much the Lord's first coming to Bethlehem, but His second coming in judgment. So if this is a mystery that has not been revealed, how could it be anything else but this rapture?

Fifthly, the rapture is never said in the New Testament to be preceded by signs in the heavens. If you were to turn tonight to Matthew 24, which is probably one of the most difficult passages in scripture on the second coming, you find that preceding the coming of the Lord in judgment there are celestial disturbances in the skies. In verse 29 of Matthew 24: 'Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory'. There is nothing like that in relation to the Lord's coming for the church, you will not find anything preceding it.

Then sixthly under rapture, the rapture is presented in 1 Thessalonians 4:18 as a time of blessing: 'Wherefore', he says, 'comfort one another with these words'. They were worried about their dead believers, friends and relatives, loved ones - 'Don't worry about it, you're going to be raptured! We don't know when, but the Lord's coming! Then, when you're raptured, they will go before you and rise a split-second before, and you will be with them and go to be with the Lord'. The emphasis of the second coming of judgment is not comfort or blessing, it is God's wrath. Turn to 2 Thessalonians and chapter 2 this time, verses 8 to 12 - look at the contrast here: 'And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth', the Antichrist, 'and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness'. A totally different slant, for it is judgment - God coming and devouring, through the Lord Jesus Christ, His enemies.

Seventhly, we see from 1 Corinthians 15:51 that it takes place in the twinkling of an eye, which is 1/50th of a second. But in Revelation 1 and verse 7 we read of the coming in judgment that every eye shall see it - every eye shall see it! The fact of the matter is that this is going to be visible, when He comes in judgment, and in fact the implications are ongoing. As you read Revelation 6 through to 19, look at how many chapters there are about what will happen on this earth when God's wrath is poured out. Eighthly: rapture involves the church primarily - if you look at these passages of comfort, John 14, 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Corinthians 15, they're all in relation to the church of Jesus Christ - but when you go into the book of Revelation from chapters 6 to 19, do you get the import of that? Chapters 6 to 19, the church is not mentioned, Israel is mentioned, the nations of this world are mentioned; because it's about Israel on the earth, not the church in heaven! It is important to see that distinction.

Those are the first two facts - these are shorter, and I hope you'll give me the time to deal with all of these tonight. Thirdly, another major fact in the New Testament is the imminence of the advent within the New Testament Scriptures, the imminence of the second coming, that means that it could happen at any time. That doesn't mean that things can't happen before it, but it does mean that certain things don't have to happen before it - do you see the difference? That is why, as you read verses in the New Testament about the second coming, you read words like this: 'look', 'watch', 'wait', 'be alert', 'be sober'. Let me give you a few: 1 Corinthians 1:7, Philippians 3:20 'For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ'. Listen to this one about deliverance from the tribulation, 1 Thessalonians 1 and verse 10: 'We wait for God's Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come'.

We could quote other verses about waiting and watching, Titus 2:13, Hebrews 9:28, 1 Peter 1:13, Jude 21 - now listen, if you had to wait for the Antichrist, or wait for what Jesus called the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel, or the installation of the Tribulation before the Lord Jesus Christ was going to come - would the command not be futile to wait and be ready, because in such an hour as ye know not your Lord doth come? This is what is called the 'blessed hope' - it would be some hope if we had to wait for all these things to happen before we could hope for it! I know there are certain things in scripture that men like the apostles knew was going to happen, but that is a personal knowledge given in personal revelation, we are looking to the word of God here tonight and the panorama of God's programme - as far as that is concerned, the second advent of the Lord is taught as imminent.

Fourthly, a time interval is required. This is why you will see that there are seven years - we'll look at that maybe next week when we look at the Tribulation - there is a time interval from the coming of the Lord to the air to the coming of the Lord to the earth, and it is necessary to facilitate events that are predicted within the word of God. Now here's one, in 2 Corinthians 5 we read that we must all, believers, stand before the judgment seat of Christ - the Greek word is 'bema' - it means a judgment for believers. Now if that is to happen, and after which in Revelation 19 we read that there is the marriage of the Lamb, and after the judgment seat of Christ when you get your rewards or you experience loss - whatever the case may be - you will then be fitted and given robes, robes which are the righteous act of the saints, the righteousnesses of the saints, from your own life I believe, and part of the reward perhaps, and you will be clothed in those and made ready to meet the Bridegroom in heaven for this great marriage ceremony. Now an interval is needed between the first coming in rapture, and the second coming in judgment if He's coming with His glorified saints, for the judgment seat to happen, for the marriage supper to happen, before He can bring them back to earth. So this idea that the rapture and the coming all happen together, you go up and then you go down, cannot happen if you understand these verses chronologically - there's too much to happen in between. I hope you can see that.

Fifthly - I could talk about other things there - but fifthly there is the nature of the Tribulation. I don't have time to go into all these verses, but the Bible teaches that this Tribulation period, this seven years between 6 and 8 there - that 'Great Tribulation' title should be all over there from 6 to 8. This time on the earth is equated with Daniel's 70th week in the book of Daniel. Now I know I'm blinding some of you with science, you don't understand any of this, but save to say that Daniel's 70th week - remember Daniel was a Jewish prophet - was spoken about for Israel's restoration and regeneration. You can go back as far as Deuteronomy 4 to read about this time, you can read about in Jeremiah 30, Ezekiel 20 and 22. In Daniel's 70th week the church of Jesus Christ, as we are, is not mentioned at all. The church is never mentioned as participating in Israel's time of trouble, or what in other places is called Jacob's trouble. This is synonymous with what we call the Great Tribulation, it's also called the Day of the Lord, it's also called the wrath of God, but wouldn't it be very strange if in Daniel's prophecy 69 of those weeks in the prophecy, which correspond to various years - we'll go into that maybe in another week - but if 69 of those weeks had all to do with Israel, and then all of a sudden the last week is now shared with a lot of Gentiles, whether they be redeemed or not. The fact of the matter is that Daniel 9 verse 24 tells us, turn with me to it: 'Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people', that's the Jews, 'and upon thy holy city', that's Jerusalem, 'to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy'.

There you have Israel, you have Jerusalem, you have Messiah - it's Jewish, it's a Jewish prophecy. This Great Tribulation is specifically for the Jewish people, to bring them back to God, it's for Israel! The tribulation is not for the church, and although the Lord said in John 6 'In the world ye shall have tribulation', it is a general type of tribulation that we all face day by day - but this is the Great Tribulation, for the purpose of God pouring His wrath onto the Jews, His earthly people. But I suppose the mirror image of that is also not just the fact that the nature of the tribulation proves that we will be raptured before it, but the nature of the church also would teach us this. This mystery of the rapture is not the only mystery in the New Testament, there's another mystery in Ephesians 3 which is the church itself - that Jews and Gentiles should be united in one body, and be brought together, and there'll be no Jew and no Gentile. This explains why the church should be translated to heaven, it's never mentioned in an Old Testament scripture dealing with the second coming - it's never mentioned, do you know why? Because the church isn't there in the Tribulation, and all these Old Testament prophecies are about the Tribulation for the Jews! Why would a mystery be mentioned if it was a mystery?

I hope I'm making some sense to you all tonight. The church alone has the promise that all believers will be taken - remember what the Lord said in John 14: 'to the Father's house', a translation not to the earth. Even this view at the end of the tribulation that you're raptured, and then you're changed while you're going up, and then you come down to earth - that's not taking you to the Father's house, is it? The nature of the church necessitates it - then seventhly: the work of the Holy Spirit. Turn with me to 2 Thessalonians 2 - this talks about the man of lawlessness, the man of sin, the son of perdition, the Antichrist - but it talks about him being held back, his influence being restricted. There is spoken of, in verse 6, a restrainer - verse 5: 'Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time'. Now another translation puts it like this: 'Now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time' - in this chapter to do with Antichrist there's something restraining Antichrist's influence in the earth. Now most Bible scholars, as far as I can ascertain, believe - and I do to - that this restraining influence is the Holy Spirit of the Living God, and specifically His indwelling ministry within His church. Now, do you know what it's saying here? The Antichrist cannot come to the fore if there is this restraining influence, so this restraining influence has to disappear - and the only way the Holy Spirit can disappear as He is in His church, is if the church disappears. That doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit won't be doing a work on the earth at that time, but it means that as the Holy Spirit came in the capacity of Pentecost, the way He had never been there before, He will go so that the tribulation can come. Do you see this?

Those are the facts, now let's in the remainder of the time look at the focus for living derived from the teaching of the rapture. Some practical implications with regards to this teaching, here is the first: there is a motive in this teaching for sanctification. What a motive there is! What do I mean? Well, at any hour - tonight! - the Lord Jesus can come. In 1 John 3:3, John said that one day we shall see Him as He is, and we shall be like Him at His coming, we shall be translated, we shall be changed - I wish I could talk about the resurrection body, it's just wonderful! But here's what John goes on to say: 'And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure'. Let's get past all this fascination about facts with regards to the second coming, and see the motivation there is in it to be holy - the Lord could come, and maybe the sin that you're dabbling in this very night, He'll catch you in it! How ashamed you will be.

The imminent return of the Lord Jesus is vitally connected with Christian living, and perhaps this is the reason why there is so little holiness in the church today - because there's so little watching and waiting for the coming of the Lord, some don't even believe He could come today, they're waiting on the Antichrist and seven years tribulation and all the rest. I'm not saying one view is more holy than the other, I think I cleared that up last week, but I'll tell you this: if Christians again were saying to one another 'Maranatha! Our Lord comes!', and were waiting and watching for His coming, do you not think we would be more holy in the light of it? How would we serve the Lord?

D. L. Moody, that great evangelist, who incidentally was also a pre-tribulationist, said: 'I never preach a sermon without thinking that possibly the Lord may come before I preach another'. Campbell Morgan said: 'I never begin my work in the morning without thinking that perhaps God may interrupt my work and begin His own; and I am not looking for death, I'm looking for Him'. Does it motivate you to holiness? It ought to! How long have we left? You might think you've another good 20 years in you - the Lord could be here tonight!

Does that not lead us on from a motivation for sanctification to an energy for soul winning and for service? I don't have time to go into this, but it's self-explanatory. In 1 Corinthians 7:29 Paul said in relation to marriage that 'the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none'. Paul said in Ephesians: 'Redeem the time, for the days are evil', the iniquity is already working of the Antichrist in our midst. The devil is champing at the bit, look at the things that are going on around us! There are still loved ones and friends and neighbours and work colleagues without Christ, should it not be an energy for our soul winning?

Then thirdly, the third focus for living derived from the teaching of the rapture, the third practical implication is this: comfort for the suffering and the sorrowful. You see, the Thessalonians were asking the question: 'Look, we believe in this imminent return' - let me tell you that they believed in it so much that some of them left work, and were all sitting about waiting on it! They believed in it, but they said: 'What if the Lord comes, my mother, my father, my husband, my wife, my brother, my sister they have died, they were Christians? You talk about this rapture and this coming, but what will happen to them?'. Paul says: 'Don't you worry, you'll not leave them behind, in fact they will go before you - you will not prevent them that sleep, but we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together to be with the Lord, with them in the air, and so shall we eve