Eternal life resides in Jesus and in Him alone. No one else! This is true now and will also be the case after Jesus removes His true church from the earth.
In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
What do people need the most? The answer remains the same as it’s always been: A clear understanding of the Gospel. By this I mean that people need Jesus, not the one that so many today create in their mind but but the One revealed on the pages of Scripture.
Is God finished with Israel? Most pastors today would answer yes. They either believe God has replaced Israel with the church or they may tell you that Jesus Himself fulfilled all the promises and covenants regarding Israel.
As a result, they see no prophetic significance in Israel’s miraculous rebirth as a nation. Those in this no more Israel camp make two critical errors.
While I do not claim to have 20/20 vision for what lies ahead in the coming year, I believe it could very well be a tumultuous time that will bring the fulfillment of many biblical prophecies much closer if not to fruition.
I am not making predictions with what follows, but rather pointing to certain 2020 events that I believe will make 2020 highly significant in regard to biblical prophecy.
While Scripture alone must be our sole source for faith and practice, the study of church history does serve a couple useful purposes. First, it helps us understand the historical background for what we believe. And second, it refutes those who use church history against what we believe. This last point is especially true in the realm of future things.
The scoffers of our day love to tell us that no one believed like we do until the late nineteenth century.
Waiting is difficult! Whether we’re waiting for cold symptoms to subside, a job offer, or a storm in our life to end, it’s never fun waiting (to say the least).
It’s also not easy waiting for Jesus to take us home to heaven as He promised in John 14:2-3. Yet I know so many of you, like me, have been waiting decades for His appearing.
The world is abuzz with the news that President Trump ordered a deadly and successful strike on Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military general who was directly responsible for the killing of hundreds of American soldiers in the past couple decades.
As many in the world breathe a sigh of relief at the death of this tyrant, they also wonder what’s next for our world. Could there be a devastating world war, much worse than anything that has previously happened?
It was an overcast day when those on the left dragged a disheveled President Trump before the Lord Jesus. The President had in their opinion, committed impeachable offences. They also hoped that his past immorality and impure speech would make him all the more offensive and vile to the Savior.
The Lord did not immediately respond to their numerous accusations of wrongdoing that took a good half hour to recount. Instead, he stooped and wrote something in the dust.
Do you remember the EF Hutton commercials from several decades ago? In the midst of a loud and boisterous party someone uttered these words, “EF Hutton says. . . .” Instantly the noisy room became quiet as everyone leaned toward the person speaking to hear the latest investment advice from the corporate giant.
The commercials no longer appear on our television screen. As the result of a check kiting scandal, EF Hutton dissolved into other companies and no longer exists.
Randy Alcorn, in his book Heaven, wrote, “As long as the resurrected universe remains either undesirable or unimaginable, Satan succeeds in sabotaging our love for Heaven.”
What are some popular stories about heaven that the enemy of our soul uses to sabotage our desire for the home Jesus is preparing for us?
Jesus is coming for His saints, for us, before the start of this awful period in human history.
In the points below, I review the previous signposts that have led to our destination. I believe that combined they provide a solid scriptural foundation for placing the rapture before the start of the day of the Lord.
This brings us to our next signpost on the path to establishing a biblical basis for the pretribulation rapture: church history. The purpose of this signpost is not to justify our belief in the pretribulation rapture on the basis of history nor is it to convince those who reject it on this faulty basis.
Rather, my intent is to provide those who already believe in the rapture with evidence of a belief in it from church history.
Premillennialists regard the book of Revelation as future prophecy, the very thing it claims to be (22:18). As we have acknowledged from the beginning of this series, a discussion of where to place the rapture only makes sense within premillennialism, which maintains beliefs in a literal tribulation and a thousand year reign of Jesus on earth before the millennium.
This brings us to our next signpost on our way to establishing a biblical basis for a pretribulation rapture: Absence. The book of Revelation excludes the church from judgments of the tribulation.
When Jesus comes for His church, will He leave any true believer behind on the earth to endure the horrors of the tribulation?
Some say yes. They claim Jesus will only catch up believers who are watching for His appearing or those walking with Him at the time. In other words, the Lord will leave behind saints lacking in some way.
This teaching contradicts both the Gospel and God’s Word.
As we saw in our last signpost, the false report informing the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord had already begun put these new believers in a state of severe panic (see signpost #6). In response,
This brings us to the next word on our signposts: “Restrainer.” Why is this word so significant? A key event at the start of the tribulation, the revealing of the antichrist, cannot happen until God removes the Restrainer who is currently holding back his unveiling to the world.
No, you have not taken a wrong turn on our journey toward establishing a biblical basis for the pretribulation rapture. The word “panic,” our next signpost, confirms that the Thessalonian saints expected the Lord to come for them before the start of the day of the Lord,
First, let’s back up a bit and set the stage for Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians. With the ink scarcely dry on the parchment of the apostle’s first letter to them, false teachers forged a message to these new believers telling them the day of the Lord had already begun.
Dwight L. Moody once gave the following illustration during a sermon to demonstrate that our salvation is all of grace and not of works . . . .
Each and every one of our good works as believers results from our regeneration that occurs at the moment of our rebirth. Works contribute absolutely nothing to our salvation nor do they keep us saved. It’s all of grace from beginning to end.
A news story about a burglar in Rochelle Park, New Jersey recently caught my attention. In the process of robbing a home, the thief woke up the couple who lived there. Not wanting the owners to catch him, the robber climbed out a window and fled from the scene of the crime.
Sticking with his escape plan, he ran down the street and quickly hopped into the backseat of a car. Unfortunately for him, he soon discovered he had gotten into a police car, which made his ensuing arrest rather easy.
In 1 Thessalonians 5;2, Paul compares the arrival of the day of the Lord to the surprise of discovering a intruder in one’s home. He likely had a more competent thief in mind than the bungling burglar in New Jersey.
My wife and I walked into the restaurant with high expectations. Someone had told us this was the best place in the area for Italian food. Maybe it was an off night, but we left unsatisfied with what we ordered that evening. As I look back, I wonder if our anticipation of a really great Italian dinner contributed to our disappointment.
Expectations have a powerful influence on us. The wrong ones, such as what we will see with Paul’s new converts in Thessalonica, can lead to much disappointment and even grief.
The next signpost we see along our journey toward establishing a biblical foundation for the pretribulation rapture is “imminency.” This marker signifies that the Lord’s appearing to take us home can occur at any moment.
If Jesus is truly coming for us before the start of the tribulation, we would expect to see an imminent anticipation of New Testament saints.
The next signpost pointing to the occurrence of the rapture before the tribulation simply says “unique.” For pretribulationism to be biblical, the rapture and second coming cannot be the same event. If they are identical, we obviously cannot separate them by seven years or so.
If premillennialism is true, and it absolutely is, then then the following differences between the rapture and second coming passages argue strongly for regarding them as separate and unique events.
