First Thessalonians 5, beginning at verse 1.
But of the times and seasons, brethren, ye
have no need that I write unto you.
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of
the Lord so cometh as a thief in
the night.
For when they shall say, Peace and safety,
then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail
upon a woman with a child, and they
shall not escape.
For ye, brethren, are not in darkness, but
that day should overtake you as a thief.
Ye are all the children of light and
the children of the day.
We are not of the night nor of
darkness.
Therefore let us not sleep as do others,
but let us watch and be sober.
For they that sleep sleep in the night,
and they that be drunken are drunken in
the night.
But let us who are of the day
be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith
and love, and for an helmet the hope
of salvation.
For God has not appointed us to wrath,
but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus
Christ, who died for us, that whether we
wake or sleep we should live together with
him.
May God add his blessing to the reading
of this portion of his word.
Will the church go through the tribulation period?
There are few, if any, prophetic questions that
are more vigorously being debated today than that
question.
There are a number of different answers given
to this problem.
There are some who say that the church
is going through all of the tribulation period.
There are others who say, no, the church
is going through half of it and then
will be raptured.
There are others who say, no, the church
will not go through any of the tribulation
period.
Then there are yet others who say those
of the church who have been sanctified will
be taken out before the tribulation begins, and
the rest will be left to go through
the tribulation period.
You can see that there are a great
many conflicting ideas on this subject, and I
want to devote our time of study together
on this subject this evening to try to
give you the comfort and assurance of the
word of God, that as you live from
day to day you might have the earnest
conviction that we are not looking for the
events of the wrath of God, but that
we are looking for our Lord from heaven
who shall translate us into his presence and
transform us into his glory.
In the previous studies which we have had
together, we have defined some terms that we
have to speak about again this evening.
We believe that the next event in prophecy
is what we call the rapture, or the
translation of the church.
The word rapture in the old English sense
of the word does not mean joy, it
means to snatch away or to take out.
Sometimes we refer to that event of 1
Thessalonians chapter 4 as the rapture of the
church, or the translation of the church, when
the Lord Jesus Christ is going to appear
in the heavens, and he is going to
call out of the grave the body of
everyone who has died in Christ, who is
a member of the body of Christ or
the church, and he is going to call
up with them every living believer on the
earth at that time, and those dead resurrected
ones and the living ones who have been
translated and transformed are going to be joined
into one body, and they are going to
meet the Lord in the air, and thus
shall we ever be with the Lord.
We found that after the tribulation period, the
earth will experience the time of tribulation.
We have seen from the word of God
that the tribulation period is seven years in
duration.
It is a time of judgment, of indignation,
of wrath, of darkness, of blackness, when the
wrath of God is poured out upon unbelieving
men, upon nations that have rejected Christ and
the message of the gospel.
Now, the problem we face this evening is,
what is the time of this translation, or
this rapture of the church, in reference to
the tribulation period?
Translating it into practical language, it is this.
Are we waiting for the man of sin?
Are we waiting for the great world wars
that will sweep across the face of the
earth and wipe out tens and hundreds of
thousands of men?
Are we looking for the great world dictators
expecting him to put us to death, or
are we looking for a translation out of
this earth before these awesome and awful events
begin to transpire upon the earth?
What is our hope?
I remember some years ago now, I was
teaching at what was then the Philadelphia Bible
Institute, and it was my privilege to teach
the doctrines of future things in the prophetic
subject.
Year by year, I would take classes through
these doctrines and try to ground them in
the teaching of the word of God.
It was my earnest conviction then, as it
is now, that the church would not go
through any portion of the tribulation period, and
I used to have a mimeograph list of
some 22 reasons why I believed the church
would not go through the tribulation period.
Pentecost 22 reasons became quite famous because no
student ever dared to come to an examination
without having memorized those reasons for fear that
I would ask that question on the final
exam.
I never did, but they always anticipated the
worst.
I cannot quite figure out why students always
think that the dean is coming out in
the professor at the time of final examination,
but they do.
But the students were not in the dark
as to what my position on this contested
doctrine was, and on one occasion when I
was taking the class through this part of
our course, and was ready to present the
reasons why the church would not go through
the tribulation period, I was greeted at the
door by a stranger, and he said, May
I have the privilege of sitting in on
your class?
And I said, Why certainly.
And a little bit later, some of the
students began to come in, and they came
and whispered to me, You know who that
is?
They mentioned to me.
And I said, Well, what does that mean?
I know he has a famous name and
all the rest of it.
And they said, Well, he believes the church
is going through the tribulation period, and he
is here to debate the issue with you,
and we want to see it give good.
And you know that students will tear a
teacher apart among themselves, but let somebody from
the outside come in, and they'll defend him
to the last stitch, and I can be
very thankful of that.
And so, whatever they thought of me or
of my classes, they were sure that I
could out-argue and out-quote scripture to
this brother.
And so, they were waiting to see what
would happen, and for the fireworks to begin.
And I had just started on my lecture
for the day, and that guest hands up,
and he said, Mr. Pentecost, but, he says,
can I ask a question?
And to the chagrin of all the students,
I said, no sir.
I said, I'm employed by the institute to
teach these students the doctrines of the word
of God, and not to debate them before
the students of the students of judgment.
I'd be glad to discuss it with you
outside of class, and it's based now.
The students likewise.
But, the dean was behind me, and if
you knew the size of the dean, that
was sufficient.
And as I began, after the class was
over, and the young man came, and he
just went this way through the students that
were between the two of us to get
to me in a hurry, and he was
ready to go to battle for his position.
And I said to him, do you think
that the church is going through the tribulation
period?
He said, yes, I do.
And I said, I wish you would tell
me then, what is your blessed hope?
I said, my blessed hope is that the
Lord Jesus Christ is going to appear in
the heavens, and take me to himself, and
I'm going to be translated out of this
awful scene of carnage and death that will
be poured out in the visitation of God's
wrath.
Tell me, what is your hope?
And he said, my hope and confident expectation
is that I shall be martyred for the
sake of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is my hope.
And I said, is that a blessed hope
to you?
To be martyred?
He turned around and walked away.
That young man was later martyred.
He was one of the five that lost
their lives in trying to bring the gospel
to the Afro-Indians in South America.
But, he was not martyred because the church
was going through the tribulation period, and I
am confident that in the presence of the
Lord, he knows better tonight about these doctrines.
Thank God for those who are willing to
lay down their lives for the gospel, but
I am thankful from the word of God
that our blessed hope is not that we
can wait for the martyred sword or for
the dictator's bullet to terminate our lives because
of the events that happened.
Just briefly this evening, I want to mention
some of the various views on this before
I try to give you just a few
of the reasons why the church is not
going through the tribulation.
Now, don't get scared.
I'm not going to try to give those
22 reasons.
When I came to write on this subject
some years ago, that list grew from 22
to about 28, or something like that.
I've forgotten how many, and we would be
here until midnight if I tried to give
you all the reasons.
But I do want you to be able
to contrast these different views, because I am
certain that you will not have talked to
people about the Lord's coming very long before
these questions will be raised.
There are several rather long words that I
want you to be able to rattle off
your tongue until they become second nature for
you.
I want you to be able to discuss
mid-tribulation rapturism, post-tribulation rapturism, pre-tribulation
rapturism, and partial rapturism.
Now, that's what we're going to do tonight.
Now, these words are really very simple.
You take, first of all, the partial rapture
position, and that is the view widely held
by those of a Pentecostal background who believe
that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes into
the clouds to take up the church into
the air, only those will be caught up
to meet the Lord who have had some
second blessing, or some second work of grace,
or who are sanctified or made holy in
their daily walk.
They believe that the body of Christ is
going to be divided into two parts, and
that part will go to be with the
Lord, but the unsanctified or the unsecond blessing
part will be left on the earth to
go through the tribulation as a Protestant purgatory,
to burn away the sins, to sanctify us
fully that we might have a second work
of grace.
I myself have to reject this interpretation, even
though it is held by some very devout
and God-fearing people, for I read in
the word of God that the death of
Christ removes every sin.
The death of Christ gives me a standing
before God so that God accepts me in
the beloved.
The death of Christ removes every transgression and
gives to me as a gracious gift eternal
life and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and
I submit to you on the authority of
the word of God that there is not
one single reason why God should keep me
out of heaven at the time of the
rapture because of the gift that he has
given to me in the person and the
work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The value of the death of Christ makes
a partial rapture impossible, and further, the unity
of the body of Christ makes a rapture
impossible.
We're going to study it later in our
series when we come to the marriage of
the Lamb, that God is calling out a
people whom he is going to give to
his son as his bride.
You mean to tell me that when the
bride is presented by the Father to the
Son, the bride is going to have a
hand missing here, and an ear missing there,
and a leg missing here because the part
of the body was unfit to be presented
to the Lord?
What a ridiculous thing, for everyone who has
accepted Jesus Christ as a personal Savior has
been made a member of the body of
Jesus Christ, and will become a part of
that bride presented by the Father to the
Son.
And then I have to reject this doctrine,
because it makes the basis of our blessed
hope our own work, our own righteousness.
It's a question, have I sanctified myself enough
to get by when the rapture comes?
God is not going to accept me into
heaven because I've sanctified myself, or I have
stopped this or given up that.
He's going to accept me solely on the
basis of the work of Christ.
And so, just briefly, we have to set
aside the doctrine that only those who have
had the second blessing, or have been sanctified,
or who are watching for his coming, will
be translated into sudden.
Then there is second, the doctrine or the
teaching that we call the post-tribulation rapture
position.
Post, of course, is a prefix which means
after, and post-tribulation means after the tribulation.
If you're familiar with post-posting, that means
it gets to you after post it has
been posted.
So, post, you see, means after, and it'll
help you remember it that way.
The post-tribulation rapturist is the individual who
says that the church is going to go
through the seven years of that tribulation period,
is going to undergo all the fire of
the judgment of the wrath of God, and
then will be caught up to meet the
Lord in the air and immediately come back
to the earth with him.
They do not deny that there will be
a rapture of First Thessalonians 4, but they
say that that one is caught up to
come immediately back to this earth to be
with the Lord.
The church then must undergo all the wrath
of God that we looked at last time
in our study of God's picture of the
tribulation period.
Now, the scriptures that they use to prove
this, and they have scripture for it, comes
principally from a passage like John chapter 15
verse 18 and 19, where our Lord says,
if the world hates you, you know that
it hated me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world
would love his own, but because you're not
of the world, but I have chosen you
out of the world, therefore the world hateth
you.
And then in chapter 16, verse 1 and
2, our Lord says, These things have I
spoken unto you, that ye should not be
offended.
They shall put you out of the synagogue,
yea, the time shall come that whosoever killeth
you will think that he doeth God's service.
And our Lord is speaking of trials, of
testings, and of tribulations that his disciples will
have to go through for Christ's sake.
And the point that they miss in using
these scriptures is that the word tribulation is
used in two different senses in the word
of God.
It is used, first of all, of any
severe trial that comes upon an individual because
he lives in this body and in the
midst of this world that is under the
control of Satan.
And the word of God does promise that
we shall have tribulation, for our Lord says
that in this world ye shall have tribulation,
but be of good cheer, I have overcome
the world.
Yet the word tribulation is used in a
second sense, and it is used of future
things of that seven year period when the
wrath of God is poured out upon the
earth.
Now, God did promise that all believers living
in this world would undergo tribulation, but that
is not a promise that we will undergo
the tribulation that will take place on the
earth after the Lord has come.
Now, the problem in this view, that I
believe we have to notice, is that the
word of God has described for us in
detail the tribulation.
It is said, as we saw last week,
that the tribulation is a period of wrath,
a period of judgment, a period of the
indignation of God against men.
And yet what promise has been given to
believers in the Lord Jesus Christ?
Romans 8.1. There is therefore now no
what?
Or better translated, judgment.
There is no judgment to them that are
in Christ Jesus.
For in 1 John chapter 2 and verse
17, John tells us that as Christ is
in this world in relationship to judgment, so
are we.
That as Christ cannot be brought into judgment
because of sins again.
No more can we be brought into judgment
for sin.
Now, when the tribulation period is poured out
upon the earth, as we saw last time,
to purify Israel, to judge sinners, to discipline
Gentile nations, to prepare them for the kingdom,
and to see God's judgment and vengeance upon
sin and sinful men, the church cannot be
in that period and undergo visitation of God,
or let God be a liar.
For God says there is no judgment of
any kind, and since the tribulation is a
period of judgment, the church cannot go through
that tribulation at all.
Then there is the group that we call
the mid-tribulation position.
The mid-position says that the church is
going to go through half of the tribulation.
As we noted on the blackboard last week,
the tribulation period itself of seven years duration
is divided into two equal parts of three
and one-half years each.
The exponents of this position say that the
church will go through the first three and
a half years of the seven, then the
rapture will take place, and the church will
be delivered from only the last three and
a half years of the tribulation.
When we studied this period last time, we
saw that during the first half of the
tribulation period, there would be wars and rumors
of war.
There would be pestilence, and there would be
famine.
There would be widespread desolation and decimation as
the wrath of God is poured out upon
the earth.
And just as the church cannot go through
the last part of the tribulation period, the
church cannot go through the first part of
the tribulation period either, unless God should be
a liar, for He has said there is
no judgment at all to them that are
in Christ Jesus.
Now, we have tried just briefly, in a
sentence or two, to acquaint you with these
different views because someone before long is bound
to ask you whether you are a mid
-trib or a post-trib or a partial
rapturous or just what you are, and I
want you to have a vague familiarity, anyway,
with these terms.
We want to come to consider now what
the Scripture teaches concerning the time of the
translation of the church, and I want to
give you just several reasons that are sufficient
for me to demonstrate the fact that the
church will not go through any of that
awful period that will be poured out upon
the earth.
First of all, may I suggest the very
nature of the tribulation period itself precludes the
church from going through any of it.
This is a little bit repetitious to what
we said a moment ago, but may I
point out to you that this tribulation period
is a period of wrath.
We looked at Scripture after Scripture last week,
and we cannot take time to do it
again, that shows us that God is going
to pour out judgment upon Christless and godless
men who have submitted themselves to the authority
of the man of sin, and are enmeshed
in a lawless, godless system that is a
manifestation of the power of Satan.
And, since that tribulation period has within it
not one ray of hope or of light,
God could not put the bride for his
son in that period, for the church does
not need any visitation of the wrath of
God.
The church has been cleansed, the church has
been purchased, the church has been set apart
to Jesus Christ, the church that was in
the plan of God from eternity past has
been brought together, and every member united to
the living head Jesus Christ, and God will
not permit his blood-bought, redeemed ones to
go through that period of judgment and experience
the outpouring of his wrath.
But someone will say, but haven't saints always
had to suffer, and don't saints need to
be cleansed?
Yes, that is true, in our walk daily
we need cleansing, but God's method of cleansing
his child who has become defiled in his
pilgrimage is not descending through the fires of
judgment to burn out that sin.
God has an established method, and that method
is 1 John 1 9, that we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
God's method of cleansing the sinner is through
the blood of Jesus Christ.
God's method of cleansing the saint who sins
is through the blood of Jesus Christ, and
God is not going to set aside the
blood of Jesus Christ and say, I will
use a branding iron to burn sin out
of them.
The tribulation period, because of its very nature,
precludes the church from going through it.
In the second place, may I suggest that
the purposes of the tribulation period prevent the
church going through it.
We tried to outline the divine purposes in
the tribulation period last time.
May I just briefly summarize for your thinking
that which God is going to accomplish?
First of all, from Revelation chapter 3 and
verse 10, the tribulation is coming to try
them that dwell upon the earth.
It is to prove that earth dwellers, or
the earthlings, are not born again.
God is going to use the tribulation period
to separate those who accept the gospel from
those who reject the gospel, and at the
end of the tribulation, there will be a
multitude from every kindred and tongue and tribe
and nation that have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the
Lamb.
But the very fear of persecution will have
kept many from accepting Jesus Christ as a
personal Savior.
So, God, first of all, is going to
try them that dwell on the earth.
In the second place, God is going to
use the tribulation period to cleanse the nation
Israel.
We find that in Exodus chapter 20, God
is going to cause his people Israel to
pass under the rod of judgment, to purge
out the rebels, and to bring a people
to himself.
And the very experiences through which Israel will
go in the tribulation period will bring many
of them to a dependence upon God for
deliverance from the awful fire of his wrath.
God is going to use it in the
life of the nation Israel.
God is going to use it in the
Gentile nation, for the Gentiles will have the
gospel proclaimed to them as the gospel has
never been proclaimed before, and God's emissaries will
go from one end of the earth to
the other to carry the message of salvation
through Jesus Christ during those seven years of
the tribulation period.
But they will refuse to turn to God,
and God is going to bring this discipline
upon them because they have rejected Jesus Christ
as a personal savior.
And then God is going to give Satan
an opportunity to demonstrate what his system is
like, and what the earth will be like,
and what his kingdom will be like when
he has authority on this earth when all
restraint from God has been taken away.
Now, you will observe that in all of
those divine purposes of the tribulation period, to
try to purge Israel, to chasten Gentiles and
sinners, and to manifest the system of Satan,
the Church has no relationship to that program
at all.
It has no part there, for God is
not working with the Church.
God is working to fulfill an entirely different
program.
Then I believe that we ought to understand
the passage in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, that
to me gives us another reason for believing
that the Church will not go through the
tribulation period.
Now, I realize that there are many different
interpretations of this passage, and I can only
take you through it briefly this evening to
try to give you my understanding of this
important passage that lets you see how I
believe it supports this hope that is given
to us.
In 2 Thessalonians 2, beginning at verses 1
and 2, you will observe that the Apostle
Paul is writing because some of them in
Thessalonica had a misunderstanding.
They were going through great persecutions.
They began to wonder, could these persecutions we're
going through be the persecutions of the tribulation
period?
And if so, they reasoned, what happened to
Paul's teaching?
Because Paul taught us we wouldn't go through
the persecutions of the tribulation period.
Here we're going through persecutions.
So they wanted to know two things.
Are the persecutions or sufferings we're enduring the
sufferings of the tribulation?
Second, was Paul right when he taught us
in 1 Thessalonians that we wouldn't go through
the tribulation period?
So Paul has to write because some very
clever fellow had written a letter and had
signed the Apostle Paul's name to it.
And these people said, well look, Paul has
written this himself.
He's evidently changed his mind, and they tried
doing it by a forged letter.
So Paul has to write and say in
2 Thessalonians 1, Now we beseech you, brethren,
by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by our gathering together unto him, that ye
be not soon shaken in mind, or be
troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor
by letter, as though it came from us,
that the day of Christ are better translated
as the day of the Lord, or the
tribulation period is already at hand.
Now, he said, some smart aleck is telling
you in my name that the day of
the Lord or the tribulation has already come,
and therefore Paul's doctrine is wrong.
Paul says, I'm going to prove to you
we can't be in the tribulation period yet.
He says, verse 3, let no man deceive
you by any means, as though we were
already in the tribulation.
For that day, that is of the tribulation,
shall not come except there come literally a
departure, and the man of sin be revealed
the son of perdition.
Now, the departure or the falling away may
be either the falling away of the saints
from the true faith or the apostasy of
the last days, or it may be the
departure of the saints from the earth, and
I believe there is good reason for adopting
that second interpretation.
He says, let me tell you, you can't
be in the tribulation period because, first of
all, the departure hasn't taken place, and second,
the man of sin hasn't been revealed, the
son of perdition.
Now, who is the son of perdition?
The man of sin.
We're going to spend an hour on him
some night, and we're going to see that
he is the head of the revived Roman
Empire, the head of the federated states of
Europe that will appear on the world scene.
And Paul says, as long as this head
of the revived Roman Empire has not yet
come, and all the world has not yet
been brought under this one world dictator, you
ought to know you can't be in the
tribulation period.
And he describes this individual who will come.
He is one, verse 4, who opposeth and
exalteth himself above all that is called God,
so that he is worshipped, and he is
going to sit in the temple of God
trying to prove to all men that he
is God.
Now, come to verse 6.
Let me change the old English reading for
a little more modern reading.
Verse 6 says, Now ye know what restraint
that he, the man of sin, might be
revealed in the appointed time that God has
for him.
The mystery of lawlessness has already worked.
Paul says that Satan has been trying to
bring his world ruler on the scene.
Satan would like to have translated Caesar.
He would like to have translated Nero into
the man of sin.
He would like to have turned Hitler or
Stalin into the man of sin.
He would love to have gotten hold of
one of these world dictators, and made him
the capstone of Satan's great program, but he
wasn't able to do it.
Why not?
Something was restraining Satan from doing his work.
You know that the mystery of lawlessness or
iniquity already works.
Only he who now restrains will keep on
restraining until he'd be taken out of the
way.
Now, I use what you probably will take
as a rather crude illustration.
It isn't the first time, but if it
gets a point across, you'll forgive me.
Suppose you catch a skunk.
I mean, not a pet one, but one
of the wild varieties.
You put that skunk in a barrel.
You clamp a lid on that skunk, and
then you sit on the lid to keep
him from getting out.
Now, you've got that skunk in a barrel,
and you'll keep him from running around wild,
and casting his scent every place he goes.
But that skunk in that barrel can still
kick up an awful stink, and that's what
Satan is doing now.
God has him confined.
God is restraining, and God is holding, and
God has him in a barrel with a
lid clamped on it, and someone is restraining,
keeping that lid off.
He can still cause an awful stink.
You don't have to get very far outside
of church before you can smell his activities
around.
He's sure doing this, but the time is
coming when God is going to say, all
right, let's take the lid off that barrel,
and let Satan out to do what he
wants to, and he's going to bring this
great world system to its consummation under one
great world dictator, with a one world religion,
when all the world were to see.
And the question is, what is restraining Satan?
It is my conviction that this is a
present-day ministry of the Holy Spirit, and
as long as the Holy Spirit has not
given Satan liberty to go everywhere fulfilling his
purpose and bringing his program to its consummation,
that the tribulation theory cannot come.
Now, the church is the residence of the
Holy Spirit.
The church is his body, and believers are
in swell.
What know ye not that your body is
the temple of the Holy Spirit?
And it is my understanding that when the
Lord Jesus Christ shall appear in the heavens
and take the temple of the Holy Spirit
to himself, even though the Holy Spirit is
omnipresent and can carry on a ministry, it's
going to be God's signal to Satan, the
lid's off, you go ahead and do what
you want to do.
The tribulation theory cannot come until all restraint
is removed, and that restraint cannot and will
not be removed as long as the church
is still in this world.
Then I believe there is another indication.
Will you turn with me to Revelation chapter
4?
Again, we come to a point that is
variously interpreted, and I'm not going to try
to defend the point, but simply give you
my understanding and conclusion in this.
After the letters to the seven churches in
Revelation chapters 1 to 3, in chapter 4,
John moves into the tribulation theory itself, and
he looks up into heaven, verse 4, and
round about the throne were four and twenty
thrones.
And upon the thrones I saw four and
twenty elders sitting.
Now, look at the garb of these elders.
They are clothed in white raiment, and if
you turn over to chapter 19, the white
raiment is the raiment of the saints of
this age who have been in glory with
the Lord.
And they had on their heads crowns of
gold, to whom in the scriptures the promise
given that they shall wear crowns of gold.
Why, to those that overtop in this present
church age.
The reward for believers of this present age
is that they shall be robed in the
righteousness of Christ, and shall be crowned with
golden crowns.
And we find in verse 10, the four
and twenty elders fall down before him that
sat on the throne, and worship him that
liveth forever and ever, and cast their crowns
before the throne.
And what are believers going to do forever?
They're going to be occupied in worship and
in praise of the Lord.
It is my understanding that these four and
twenty elders represent the redeemed, translated glorified, and
rewarded body of saints of this present day,
or the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, when are they first seen in heaven?
But bless your heart, not in the middle
of the tribulation or at the end of
the tribulation, but at the very beginning of
the tribulation, John looks up into heaven and
sees them there with the Lord Jesus Christ
seated with him on his throne.
Now, there are several passages of scripture that
I believe very clearly teach us that the
church will not go through any of the
period of the tribulation.
Look at Revelation 3.
I want to look in closing at several
verses of scripture that I think teach this
very clearly.
Revelation 3.10, the letter to the church
of Philadelphia, the letter to the true church
of the last days of the history of
the invisible church on earth, and the Lord
says, Behold, thou hast kept the word of
my patience.
I also will keep thee from the hour
of temptation, which shall come upon all the
world to try them that dwell upon the
earth.
Now, notice the promise in the middle of
this verse.
I also will keep thee from the hour
of testing.
That's what it says literally.
I will keep you from the hour of
testing.
Now, you will notice the Lord Jesus did
not say, When the hour of testing comes,
I will let you go through it, but
I'll give you a special garment so you
will be delivered through the flames.
The children of Israel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
when they had to go through the fiery
furnace were preserved sovereignly through the flames.
But he didn't say, I'm going to be
with you when you go through the tribulation.
He said, I'm going to keep you away
from the tribulation, translating it literally.
And, further, he says, I'm going to keep
you from the hour.
I'm going to deliver you out of that
period of time when the tribulation falls upon
this earth, and it is my earnest conviction
that we have a very clear promise to
the true church, the faithful church.
I will keep thee away from even the
time itself when the tribulation shall come on
the earth to try them that dwell on
the earth.
We look at another passage with me, and
go back to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
1 Thessalonians 5, a passage which we read
for our scripture this evening, and after in
chapter 4 the apostle Paul has written those
familiar words describing the translation of the church
when we shall be called up to meet
the Lord in the air.
It begins in chapter 5 and says, What
are the times and seasons, brethren, when this
is going to take place?
You don't need for me to write you,
for you know that the day of the
Lord, now just for your own thinking, put
in there the tribulation period, comes as a
thief in the night.
What's the peculiar thing about the coming of
a thief in the night?
It's unexpected, it's unannounced.
No thief sends a letter and says, tomorrow
night at midnight I'm going to break into
your home, be prepared.
He comes stealthily, he comes unexpectedly and unannounced,
and Paul says it would be absolutely foolish
for me to try to tell you when
the rapture of the church is going to
take place, because it's coming as unexpected as
the coming of a thief in the night.
That means we had better be prepared at
all times.
Then he continues, when people will say, peace
and safety, or let me put it this
way, when people will say, there's no possibility
of the Lord coming now, what's going to
happen?
Sudden destruction upon them.
Many use the very graphic illustration as travail
upon a woman with child, as the labor
pains as suddenly as the labor pains come
that are irreversible.
So is going to be the coming of
the Lord.
Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ
should come for his church tonight?
Do you believe that?
If you say, I don't think he's coming
tonight, then you better be careful, because that's
what the Lord said, that when you say,
no, he couldn't come now, the very time
he will come and will catch some people
unprepared.
Now, he says in verse 4, what about
this tribulation period?
He said, ye brethren, believers, are not in
darkness.
You don't belong to darkness, you belong in
the light, because Jesus Christ is the light.
Verse 5, ye believers are all the children
of light and the children of the day.
We're not of the night nor of the
darkness.
And then he goes down and says in
verse 9, God has not appointed us to
wrath.
Now, what wrath is he talking about?
The wrath of the tribulation period, the wrath
of the day of the Lord.
And he says, we have not been appointed
to the wrath of the day of the
Lord.
Why?
Because the wrath of the day of the
Lord is for those who are in darkness,
and we're not in darkness, we're in the
light.
If we have accepted Jesus Christ as Savior,
we are light in the Lord.
And since the tribulation period is a period
of darkness, then we have no part in
it.
And the tribulation is for those who are
in the night and in the darkness.
But God has appointed us to salvation.
Now, what kind of salvation is he talking
about?
There is salvation from sin, and we already
have that, so God hasn't appointed us to
get salvation from sin, but there's another kind
of salvation.
That's salvation out of this earth to you,
out of this cursed earth in which we
now live.
And how are we going to get saved
out of this earth?
You're going to find resurrection or translation or
rapture.
So he says to us, God hasn't appointed
us as believers to the wrath of the
tribulation, which is for those who are in
darkness, but he has appointed us to salvation
by translation by the Lord Jesus Christ, who
died for us.
That whether we wake or sleep, that is,
whether we are awake or whether we are
alive at the time the rapture takes place,
or whether we have died in Christ, it
doesn't matter.
Christ has died for us, and whether we
die or whether we are awake, we will
all live together with him.
How?
By translation.
So I believe this passage very clearly teaches
us that the church cannot go through that
period.
It is a period of the wrath of
God.
Look at one more passage, back in 1
Thessalonians, chapter 1, and verse 9 and 10.
1 Thessalonians 1, 9, and 10.
So they themselves show of us what manner
of entering in we had unto you, and
how ye turned from God to idols to
serve the living and true God, to wait
for his Son from heaven, whom he raised
from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us
from the wrath to come.
Now what wrath is he talking about?
If you go back and study in this
epistle, you will find that the wrath is
the wrath of the tribulation period itself.
You can see it in chapter 1 of
2 Thessalonians, chapter 1, verse 7 and 8.
To you who are troubled, rest with us,
when the Lord shall be revealed from heaven
with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking
vengeance on them that know not God, and
that obey not the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ, you shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord, and
from the glory of his power, when he
shall come to be glorified in his face.
There he is speaking of his second coming
back here to the earth, as the culmination
of his wrath upon godless men.
So when the apostle in 1 Thessalonians 1,
10 says he has delivered us from wrath
to come, he is speaking of the wrath
that shall be poured out upon this earth.
There is a very interesting illustration of this
given to us back in the book of
Genesis.
I want to use it as an illustration
this evening.
In Genesis chapter 19, and we find there
that God has announced he is going to
bring destruction upon the city of Sodom and
Gomorrah.
Because of their wickedness and their godlessness, God
is going to pour out his wrath upon
those cities, and they shall be judged by
fire from heaven.
Now then, we find that God sends a
messenger to tell Lot to get out of
Sodom.
Lot doesn't belong to Sodom, because we're told
in 1 Peter that Lot is a righteous
man.
Lot was where he had no business being,
but Lot is a righteous man.
And God sends word to Lot to get
out of Sodom, because he's going to pour
out his wrath upon it.
And then when we come down to verse
17 of Genesis 19, we read, He said,
Escape for thy life, look not behind thee,
neither stay thou in all the flame.
Escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
Lot said unto him, O not so, my
lord.
And verse 20, told again, This city is
near to flee unto his little one.
Let me escape thither, and my soul shall
live.
And the answer comes in verse 22, and
this is the word I want you to
notice.
The messenger says, Hate thee, escape thither, for
I cannot do anything till thou become thither.
Do you hear what the angel says to
Lot?
He says, I'm going to bring the wrath
of God upon the wicked, godless cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah, and you get out of
here.
You, a righteous man, are holding back the
visitation of the judgment of God upon the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
You get out, because I can't do anything
until you get out of here.
You see, that's what God is saying to
the church today, that this world is going
to see the outpouring of the wrath of
God upon us.
God says to the church of believers in
Jesus Christ, I won't and I can't pour
out my wrath until you're out of there,
because you are the fault of your you
are preventing the outpouring of the judgment of
the wrath of God.
The time is coming when God is going
to call every blood-bought believer of this
age to himself.
There will be none but ungodly men left
upon this earth.
They will be left here to undergo that
visitation of the wrath of God in their
bodies, and then when the tribulation period is
over, and they are separated from the faith
of the king of kings and lord of
lords, they will hear his sentence depart from
me, which is into everlasting fire, prepared for
the devil and his angels.
The wrath of God upon sinful men.
Let me say to you, if you are
outside of Christ tonight, beloved, the Lord Jesus
Christ could come at any moment.
There is not one line in the book
that makes it necessary for the Lord Jesus
Christ to delay his coming.
He could come at any moment.
If you are without Jesus Christ when he
comes into the clouds of heaven, you will
be left here to undergo the visitation of
God's wrath, and to endure eternal separation from
God because you rejected Jesus Christ as your
Savior.
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is
going to take our blood-bought ones out
of this earth, too.
We would like to invite you to join
us.
Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and
then look with us for the time of
our translation and glorification.
If the church were to go through the
tribulation period, half of it or all of
it, we would be prepared.
We would know we had seven years, six
years, five years, four years, three years, two
years, one more to yield before we have
to get ready to meet the Lord.
But since he is coming at any moment,
we don't know when, we will see you.
Are you ready?
Our Father, may the Spirit of God who
has given us this portion of his Word,
who has given us the privilege of looking
into it this evening, use the Word for
our gratification.
Give us the joy in believing in that
blessed hope that Jesus Christ shall come to
translate us into his presence.
Give us the joy, moment by moment, as
we live, as we expect and look for
him, as there is one here without Christ.
May that one step out of darkness into
thy marvelous light.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.