Welcome to From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers and the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons from modern preachers
too.
This week we have Grant Jeffery with his
message, The Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church.
Did you know that the Bible presents the
resurrection, the rapture, as a central doctrine of
the teaching of Jesus Christ?
Saint Paul says that if Jesus Christ is
not physically risen from the dead, then we
are all in our sins and we are
fools to be Christians.
The physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is attested
by many witnesses, over 500 of which were
alive when Paul was writing around 62 A
.D. The resurrection is critical to our beliefs
as Christian, and it is critical to our
hope for the future.
Hi, I'm Grant Jeffery, and I'm proud to
introduce Bible Prophecy Revealed.
I am excited about this topic, dealing with
the rapture.
Many people have questions about the rapture and
wonder about whether the rapture is truly taught
in the Bible.
I've even had individuals say to me, I
don't believe in the rapture.
I say, well, what do you say?
Are you saying that you don't believe in
the resurrection of the body?
Do you believe that you're going to be
a disembodied spirit or ghost throughout eternity?
Is that what you think the Bible teaches?
And they usually smile and say, no, that's
not what I'm saying.
I don't believe in the rapture.
What they're really saying when I get to
the bottom of it is, they're wondering or
disbelieve in the pre-tribulation rapture.
It's the timing of the rapture that is
the area of controversy.
Well, first of all, I think it's important
that we understand the purpose of the rapture.
And in this program, we're going to examine
why we must be raptured.
Then we'll also look at the indications of
what the timing is, whether it will be
before the Antichrist, during his reign, or at
the end of his reign at the Battle
of Armageddon.
But believe me, the subject of the rapture
is critical because it is the promise of
Jesus Christ that our bodies will not remain
in the grave, will not remain in the
dust, but will be transformed into a body
that is fit for eternity.
That's the promise of the gospel.
That is the unique promise of Jesus Christ.
Do you know that when we bury an
individual in the ground, we say that by
saying dust to dust, we are proclaiming our
belief that death and burial in the ground
is not the end.
That's why Christians called it a cemetery.
It was a sleeping place for the body.
The spirit was with Jesus, but the body
rested in the ground, not forever, but until
the day of the glorious rapture, the resurrection.
One of my favorite topics in Bible prophecy
is the subject of the rapture, the resurrection
of the saints.
You know, Jesus' resurrection was central to his
life and ministry, and yet there are many
people today in the church who misunderstand the
resurrection and misunderstand the timing of the resurrection
and why it would be timed the way
it is.
We find in 1 Thessalonians 2.19, a
wonderful phrase in which Paul writes, for what
is our hope or joy or crown of
rejoicing?
Are not even ye in the presence of
our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?
Paul says the rapture, the resurrection is our
joy.
He says it's our rejoicing, it's our hope,
it's our crown of rejoicing.
So, do you rejoice in the hope of
resurrection?
You should, because while other generations of Christians
died in faith without having participated in the
rapture before their death, they will ultimately participate
in the rapture when you and I are
raptured.
But for those of us living, we have
the promise that if we are alive when
Christ comes, we'll not have to pass through
the portals of death, but we'll pass from
life to life eternal.
In 1 Thessalonians 4.16 and 17, here's
what Paul has to say.
He tells us, for the Lord himself shall
descend from heaven with a shout, and 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.
So shall we ever be with the Lord.
In this famous passage, a tremendous amount of
excellent teaching about the rapture is found.
For example, the Lord himself is going to
come at the revelation when he comes down
to the earth, and he comes down to
the earth to defeat the armies of Antichrist
and the armies of the kings of the
east to defend Israel from what would otherwise
be certain destruction.
And when he comes down, according to Revelation
19, he comes with the millions of saints.
If we come down from heaven with Jesus
riding on white horses, and we are in
our resurrection body, and we're wearing robes of
white representing the righteousness of the saints, then
obviously, logically, at some point previous to Armageddon,
we have received a resurrection body.
Because all Christians, those who are in heaven
now in their spirit, and those who are
alive at the time Christ comes in the
air, are going to have a resurrection body.
One of the things that's misunderstood by a
lot of people is the purpose of the
rapture.
The purpose of the rapture resurrection is this.
God has to transform your mortal body, which
either for dead Christians lies in ashes in
the ground, or for those who are alive
when Jesus comes, is a body that is
not fit for eternity.
It's mortal, it's corruptible.
And God tells us that he is going
to take our body and transform it into
a body fit for eternity.
Now the word rapture actually was introduced by
a great Christian teacher in 385 AD named
Jerome.
He was one of the fathers of the
early church.
And in his writings and translation of the
New Testament into Latin, he came to this
passage in 1 Thessalonians, and he came to
verse 17, and says that we which are
alive and remain shall be caught up together.
And he looked at that word caught up,
and he used the best Latin word possible,
which was repair.
Repair is to snatch up by external force.
And what he was saying is, that's the
best word.
And in the Latin, of his version of
the Bible that was very popular all the
way from 385, all the way up until
the King James Bible, repair was used.
That became the origin of the word rapture,
used as a noun.
The snatching up of the bodies of both
those who died in the grave, and those
who were alive.
The purpose of the rapture is to transform
your body into a body fit for eternity.
In 1 Corinthians 15, 53, you'll find that
what God is saying is that for this
corruptible, in other words, our natural body in
verse 53, must put on incorruption.
And this mortal must put on immortality.
Your body is corruptible.
Your body is mortal.
It must put on incorruption.
It must put on immortality.
Right now, your body is not fit for
heaven.
It's not fit to travel at the speed
of thought from heaven to earth and back,
so that you might rule and reign with
Jesus Christ, as we are promised in several
places.
The Bible tells us that we're going to
appear at the judgment seat of Christ.
There we're going to receive crowns and awards
that we might enjoy for eternity.
Well, if you are in disembodied spirit, which
is what our fellow Christians in heaven are,
they don't have a body.
They're there in spirit.
Remember Jesus said to the thief on the
cross, today, you'll be with me in paradise.
Paul said to be absent from the body
is to be present with the Lord.
So the Bible does not teach soul sleep.
No, those who die in the faith, believers
in Christ, are instantly transformed.
Their body goes into the ground, their spirit
goes to heaven, the new Jerusalem called paradise,
and there it is joyfully, consciously in the
presence of Jesus and the other saints.
But you don't yet have a body.
You can't eat and drink at the marriage
supper of the Lamb unless you have a
body.
And for those who think, well, that must
just be a symbol.
No, because we are told clearly that our
body in the resurrection is going to be
like Jesus' body when he rose from the
dead.
Well, what was his body like?
In Luke 24, we're told that when Jesus
was resurrected, he appeared in the middle of
the upper room, where his disciples were wondering
what in the world is going on.
And Jesus looked at them, and they looked
at him, and they thought they'd seen a
spirit or a ghost.
You see, it's very hard for people to
get their minds around the idea that in
the resurrection, our body is going to be
as real as it is today, only now
indestructible, immortal, incorruptible, not subject to disease or
accident or death, but real.
How real?
Jesus said, do you have here any broiled
fish or honeycomb?
And he sat down with his disciples in
his resurrection body and ate and drank with
them.
Why?
He obviously wouldn't have starved had he not
eaten.
But I believe he wanted to demonstrate that
in heaven and in eternity, we're going to
enjoy the good things of God's creation without
sin.
And we're going to be able to eat
and drink if we want.
We know that even the angels eat.
We're told, talking about the manna that God
sent supernaturally from heaven in the exodus, that
God sent them the corn of heaven, that
he sent them angels' food.
He fed them to the full.
In other words, manna was one of the
foods that angels eat.
So if angels eat and Jesus tells us
we're going to eat at the marriage supper
of the lamb, and he tells us our
body is going to be like his in
the resurrection, then we have the confidence that
we're going to eat and drink.
We're going to be able to enjoy all
the good things of creation, both in heaven
and in eternity of heaven that is so
vast that we've already measured that there are
at least 50 billion galaxies like our Milky
Way, filled with trillions of stars.
And now we're finding that half the stars
we've examined have planets.
I doubt very much that God created all
of this universe in its vast nature, and
only planet Earth would be viable.
In fact, I believe when man is sinless,
that we will be allowed to travel through
the glory of God's universe and see the
beauty of his creation and rejoice with the
angels at his creation.
How do I know your body is going
to be like Jesus when he rose from
the dead?
Well, in 1 John chapter 3 verse 2,
here's what John wrote, Beloved, now we are
children of God, and it doth not yet
been revealed what we shall be, but we
know that when he is revealed, we shall
be like him, for we shall see him
as he is.
The book of Philippians chapter 3 tells us
the same thing.
We're going to have a glorious resurrection body
like the body Jesus had.
That body is a body that is going
to be fit that we can rule and
reign and administer this earth with Jesus the
Messiah.
We're going to have a body that is
like the body Jesus had.
It's going to be a body without the
limitations that were given to Adam and Eve
and all of their descendants following the disobedience
and sin.
In fact, the rapture is going to reveal
a body that is so glorious.
Paul wrote about it and said that we
can hardly imagine the things that God has
prepared for us.
But one of the big questions about the
rapture is the timing.
Is it going to take place before the
seven-year tribulation period?
In other words, pre-tribulation?
Is it going to take place in the
middle of the seven years, mid-tribulation?
Or is it going to take place after
the tribulation at Armageddon, the post-tribulation theory?
Many who dislike the pre-tribulation theory have
suggested that it's a Johnny-come-lately idea,
invented only in the 1830s by John Darby
and the Plymouth Brethren.
However, I have discovered a book, a manuscript,
written by Ephraim the Syrian.
He was a great Christian saint, a deacon
and bishop, and he wrote extensively in the
early church.
And he wrote a book on the Antichrist
and the end of the world in which
he clearly says, in 373, he says that
the Lord will descend from heaven and will
take us to be with himself, that we
might escape the confusion that overtakes the whole
world.
It is a clear pre-tribulation rapture statement
that is made 15 centuries before most people
thought it was ever discussed.
Naturally, the Bible did not lay out precisely
when the rapture would take place.
God wanted us to be on our tiptoes,
in a sense, urgently expecting him.
He tells us constantly to watch, for you
know not when he comes.
But at the same time, Jesus condemned the
spiritual leaders of his day for being aware
of the physical signs of the weather and
not being aware of the signs of the
coming of the Son of Man.
The prophecies are being fulfilled.
Israel is back in the land.
We're living in the last days.
There are some Christians who rather facetiously say,
well, I'm not a pre-trib or post
-trib or mid-trib.
I'm a pan-tribulation.
I believe it'll all pan out in the
end.
Well, that may sound funny, but it's irresponsible.
If you read Revelation seriously as I do,
the seven-year tribulation will be the worst
period of time in God's entire history of
mankind.
It will be a time of such unparalleled
horror and judgment upon the earth that it's
very doubtful that many Christians could live if
that was God's purpose.
But I do not believe it is.
It is a time when God is going
to turn back to Israel with the church
taken out at the rapture before the tribulation.
God is going to cause the rising of
the two Jewish witnesses, Elijah, probably Moses, and
also the 144,000 Jewish witnesses.
There's going to be a rebuilt temple and
animal sacrifice.
With all of this going on, it would
be confusion if the church was still on
earth at that time.
My friends, we're living in the last days.
All these prophecies are coming to pass.
My friends, we're living in the last days.
All these prophecies are coming to pass.
When we look at it, some people ask
me a question and say, Grant, is there
a particular one single verse that points to
the fact that the rapture happens before the
coming of the seven-year tribulation, the Antichrist?
And I would point to this verse, Paul
writing to the Christians.
He says, we are to wait for his
son from heaven whom he raised from the
dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the
wrath to come.
I want you to think about the timing
and sequence of this.
He says Christians are to wait expectantly for
his son from heaven, that's the rapture, whom
he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which
delivered us from the wrath to come.
So Jesus coming from heaven, the rapture, is
going to deliver Christians from the wrath to
come.
Now there's only two possibilities for the wrath
to come.
Either the wrath to come is the wrath
of hell, or it is the wrath of
the tribulation.
Because from Revelation 6 to 19, the entire
judgments poured out upon earth are the wrath
of God poured on unrighteous sinners.
Well, it can't be the wrath of hell,
because his second coming doesn't deliver us from
the wrath of hell.
It's his first coming, his death, his atonement
on the cross.
That's what allowed us to escape the wrath
to come.
What we know is the rapture is going
to allow Christians to escape the wrath that
will come in the tribulation.
Why?
Not because we deserve it, but because it's
God's purpose.
From Genesis to Revelation, you will not find
a single example of God judging indiscriminately between
the righteous and the unrighteous.
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 9, he
says that God will deliver us from judgment.
He says he's delivered us under salvation, not
under the wrath of God.
Here's the promise.
Wrath will come, but not for those who
put their faith and trust in Jesus.
The promise of the rapture is surely one
of the most intriguing and fascinating of all
the prophecies that we could study.
It is the hope of the church in
this generation.
When all the prophecies are pointing to Christ's
return, because there is no specific time prophecy
that points to the rapture, except we know
that it's imminent, that it's going to happen
before the Antichrist appears, then if the Antichrist
is close, then the rapture, the resurrection of
the church of Jesus Christ is even closer.
You know, over the years as I have
taught this exciting topic of the rapture, I
received many questions from individuals.
A number of them naturally are about the
timing of the rapture, what evidence exists in
scripture that the rapture will be before the
Antichrist, as opposed to being during the Antichrist
rule, during the seven-year tribulation, or even
at Armageddon itself, having endured the entire mark
of the beast.
These are valid, important questions that need to
be answered by any serious student of the
Bible.
One question I have received is, explain why
you believe that the scriptures reveal that the
rapture will occur before the seven-year tribulation
period.
Here's the sequence very clearly.
We're to wait for a future event, Jesus
coming from heaven, the rapture, and then that
event is going to deliver us from the
wrath to come.
Here I think is the clearest indication that
what God is saying is that the deliverance
of the church through the second coming of
Jesus at the rapture when he comes in
the air with the saints, the spirits of
all those who died in faith, and then
those who are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the air.
We then will escape the wrath to come.
It's very clear from Revelation 6 to Revelation
19 that what is poured out from heaven
upon unrepentant sinners during that entire seven-year
period is the wrath of God.
Remember, it begins with the four horsemen of
the apocalypse which are clearly representative of the
wrath of God as shown over 12 other
times in the Old Testament.
The fact is, I think the scriptures clearly
show that God has not appointed us unto
wrath.
Saint Paul said, 1 Thessalonians 1.9, he
said that God has not appointed us to
wrath but to obtain salvation.
Here are two contrasting destinies.
One is that of unrepentant sinners who will
endure the wrath of God poured out without
mixture during the seven-year period, and then
there are those who put their faith in
Jesus as Christians, and their destiny is salvation.
There's several other things that point clearly to
the fact that the church is not on
earth at this time.
In sequence, in Revelation 4, John has been
lifted up to heaven, and he saw 24
elders with crowns upon their head.
Now, Paul, in his writings, in his epistles,
tells us, Henceforth there is laid up for
me a crown of righteousness, and not only
for me, but for all those that love
his appearing.
If you love the rapture, you're going to
get a crown of righteousness, according to Paul.
But notice he sees these elders with crowns.
These 24 elders represent the church resurrected to
heaven.
If they have crowns, then the rapture's already
occurred, and the judgment seat of Christ, in
which crowns are given out, has already occurred.
Three chapters later, in Revelation 7, John receives
a vision of a great multitude that no
one could number of every tribe, nation, kindred,
and tongue.
He asks the question logically, Who are these
guys?
He's already seen the rapture church.
Who are these people?
They're in heaven, too.
And the angel says, These are they which
come out of great tribulation, washed in the
blood of the Lamb.
Now, immediately, the angel's ready to pour out
the judgment of God, the wrath.
And the other angel says, Wait, we cannot
do it until we seal the witnesses of
God.
And they begin to seal, supernaturally, 144,000
righteous Jews, 12,000 from every tribe.
Now, two chapters later, in chapter 9, God
allows to be released from the satanic locusts
that, as part of the judgment of God,
they sting people so that everyone on earth
is stung except the 144,000 servants of
God who have been supernaturally sealed.
And when we're told that for five months,
people wish they could die, the pain is
so great, but they can't die.
Here's logically follow this.
There's 144,000 righteous Jews sealed for protection.
Everyone else on earth is stung by these
demonic locusts.
There's two groups that encompass the entire population
of earth, 144,000 righteous Jews and everyone
else, unrepentant sinners.
Where is the church?
The church is not there.
The church is already in heaven.
That also explains why the Antichrist curses those
who are in heaven, those who have escaped
him, the Christians.
A second question we're often asked is, why
do so many Christians deny the pre-tribulation
rapture so vehemently?
I believe that some, in their lack of
teaching, lack of study, somehow imagine the rapture
is an escape clause for the American or
worldwide church today, that somehow we will not
go through persecution, whereas many other generations have.
Well, my friends, if the Lord tarries much
longer, we're going to have persecution even in
America.
The truth of the matter is God has
never promised us freedom for persecution.
The truth is many millions of Christians have
been persecuted in the past and are so
today in many countries of the world, but
persecution is not essential to purifying us as
many imagine.
Think about it.
All those Christians who come in the air
with Jesus, millions of those did not go
through persecution but died in their peaceful sleep.
We also know that going through the tribulation
is not something that will purify us and
is necessary thereby.
Again, all those who come in the air
with Jesus at the rapture include both wonderful
righteous Christians like Saint Paul and include Christians
who had a kind of indifferent Christian following.
What we know is we are saved by
the blood of Jesus Christ applied to our
heart plus nothing else.
It is the judgment seat of Christ where
justice is handed out to us, where we
receive rewards and crowns and mansions that reflect
our faithful service.
I pray that the teaching of the rapture
will excite you as it does me.
It is a promise of God to the
church that Jesus Christ is coming, first for
his church and then seven or so years
later with his church.
God bless you.
You've been listening to the From the Pulpit
in Classic Sermons series.
This week you heard Grant Jeffrey with his
message, The Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church.
Tune in next week to hear Frilly Graham
talk about the Great Judgment on From the
Pulpit in Classic Sermons.