End-Time Events According to the Bible – Program 4

By: Dave Hunt, Hal Lindsey and Dr. David Breese; ©1992

The Bible talks says that at some point in the future Jesus will come and take Christians back to heaven. Why do we call this event the rapture, and what will that event be like?

Contents

What is the Rapture, and What is the Significance of the Rapture?

Introduction

The eyes of all Americans as well as the world are focused on President-Elect Bill Clinton’s plans for change. Time magazine states: “With all that is at stake and with all the hope that America has invested in him, Clinton can scarcely afford to prove unequal to his task.” If Clinton fails and has a one-term presidency, it would suggest to many that government cannot cope with our problems and that the American economy is sliding toward certain decline. Meanwhile, one Congressman has said, “The world will not stop just because we have a new president.” Boris Yeltsin heads toward a possible overthrow by hardliners frustrated with his rule. North Korea is suspected of developing a nuclear weapons capability. And China’s arms buildup is causing concern in the rest of Asia. The German defense minister has warned America not to forget the turmoil in the former Soviet republics, three of which still have nuclear weapons on their soil. And now that Baker and Bush are gone, what will happen to the Middle East peace talks?

Where are all of these world events leading? Do they parallel the prophetic picture of history outlined in the Bible?

Today, Americans look at the future and wonder what this next year will bring. Will our government be able to reduce the huge deficit? Will our economy continue to climb and will there be more jobs? Will our schools be able to teach our children what they need to know? And will we be able to find solutions to the rising AIDS epidemic, teen pregnancies, crime and violence in our society? What will happen if we don’t find answers to these problems?

Concerning international affairs, the world wonders if the Russian people will continue to follow Boris Yeltsin and the ideals of their new democracy as they experience their worst economic crisis. New prices for food and materials have risen 1,300% since January. Most political observers agree this moment is decisive and the nation’s young democracy is under siege.

Where are all of these events going to lead? Do they parallel the prophetic picture of history outlined in the Bible? My three guests today are all best-selling authors and internationally known Bible scholars. They are: Hal Lindsey, Dr. David Breeze and Dave Hunt. We invite you to join us.

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Ankerberg: We’re so glad that you joined us today. We’re talking with three biblical scholars on biblical prophecy – Dr. David Breese, Hal Lindsey and Dave Hunt – and we are talking about, What does God and the Bible have to say about current world events? Where is history going? And, guys, this week I want to talk about that which Jesus and the apostles all talked about, His coming again, but specifically that which we have called “The rapture.” And, Dave Hunt, I’ll let you start us off with the verses and explain that, what it means, and the tremendous significance it’s going to have on our world.

Hunt: Jesus said in John 14:3, “I am going away to prepare a place for you.” He didn’t sneak off to the Gobi Desert somewhere, you know, or up in the Himalayas like the New Agers might want to say, you know, to Shangri-La, but He went to heaven. “In my Father’s house are many mansions. I’m going to go up there to prepare a place for you, and if I go away I’m going to come again to take you to be with me.” [John 14:3] So that would be the first Scripture. He’s going to take us out of this world.

Now, you quoted 1 Thessalonians 4 beginning with verse 13: “The dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” I’ve known Hal for probably 30 years now. I remember when he first wrote The Late Great Planet Earth way back there. I know people don’t think that I’m that old, but…. And we used to argue back in those days, “pre-trib rapture,” “post-trib,” “mid-trib,” you know, and so forth. I can tell you the argument in the church is rapture or no rapture. And there are people who are saying that Jesus isn’t going to take us out of here; we Christians have to take over this world and then He will come back to rule over the kingdom we’ve established. Now, if the real Jesus is going to catch us up and we’re going to meet Him in the air, and you’re looking forward to meeting a Jesus who when you meet Him your feet are planted on planet Earth and He’s arrived to take over the kingdom you’ve established for Him, you know who you’re working for: Antichrist, not Christ. So that’s one reason why this is a very important topic. We better be straight on this.

Now, let me just carry it just a little bit farther. Supposing it happened, for you skeptics out there, whoever you may be. Just for a moment, suppose it happened. What would be the reaction in this world? Have you ever really thought that through? It’s going to happen. I will tell you the reaction would be stark raving terror! Terror. Absolute terror! Whoever you are, who may be out there, you have seen people vanish in mid-sentence. You’ve seen planes fall out of the sky. You’ve seen cars crash because people have vanished. But that’s not just the chaos, but I’ll tell you what the real terror is: Where did they go? Who took them? Is some intergalactic power snatching slaves from planet Earth? Will I be next?

And in the midst of this chaos, see, we’ve talked a little bit about Antichrist. I don’t think there’s anything that would unite the world like this event. Suddenly, terrified, and a man arises and he has an explanation and you would be only too glad to have “big brother” put his mark on your hand and on your forehead and know that he is watching out for you and you’re not going to be snatched away when whoever is doing this does it again and it’s going to happen.

Ankerberg: Hal Lindsey, I want you to define terms for us. What is the rapture? What is this thing that we’ve mentioned call the tribulation? What is the Millennium and what are these words: pre-, mid- and -post?

Lindsey: Okay. You know, Dave is outlining a very powerful enemy of this teaching, outside the church. My greatest concern is about the one inside the church, the Dominionists, who say there will be no rapture. They say our citizenship is on earth and that we’re to take dominion over the earth. That’s why I wrote my latest book, The Road to Holocaust, to correct this heresy, as far as I’m concerned.

But it says in Philippians 3:20-21, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with his glorious body.” In other words, we shouldn’t be trying to set up a kingdom here but looking for the King to come and take us to be with Him.

But the rapture, what is it? The rapture is a misnomer. I call it “the great snatch” because that is what the Greek word means in 1 Thessalonians 4, where it says He will snatch us out. It means that in a moment of time, according to 1 Corinthians 15:50-54, that Jesus Christ, without warning, is suddenly going to snatch out of this world every living believer. And in that moment the mystery is that He’s going to transform people without seeing physical death into immortality with bodies exactly like His. And it’s an instantaneous thing. The world will not know what happened. That’s the rapture.

The tribulation is a seven-year period Daniel outlined. It is the seven remaining years that God allotted to Israel to finish all that He called them to do. They were allotted 490 years; at 483 years they cut it short by rejecting their own Messiah. They still have seven years left on God’s allotted time clock. That is the time when the tribulation will take place. The book of Revelation, from chapter 4 through chapter 20, is focused on that seven-year period. So it’s extremely important.

What is “pre-,” “post-” and “mid-” tribulation. These are three different theories. The pre-tribulation rapture means that we believe that Christ will snatch out every living believer before the beginning of that seven-year period of world judgment. The mid-trib position means that He will snatch out the believers in the middle of that seven-year period. The post-tribulation view says it will be at the end, simultaneously with, the visible, personal coming back of Christ to the earth in what we call The Second Coming. Now, I, after studying this issue for some 37 years, believe more emphatically than ever that He is coming before. I’m a pre-tribulationist. And the reasons are based on solid Scripture.

Ankerberg: Let’s have Dr. Breese give us a couple of those.

Breese: Now, the apostle Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians said there is a generation of living Christians that will not die; but rather, they will be taken home to be with Christ and that, of course, is a great encouragement. “Behold, I show 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.” [1 Cor. 15:51] Paul speaks to the church at Philadelphia and says, “Because you have kept the word of my patience, I will keep you from that hour of temptation, trial, tribulation, which will come upon all the world.” [Rev. 3:10] First Thessalonians tells us that Christ must first come for His saints and then He comes with His saints. When John saw the vision of the return of Christ in power and great glory in Revelation 19, He was coming with an army of His saints. Jude, verse 14 says, “Behold, He comes with ten thousands of His saints.” So the saints are taken to heaven to be a part then, at the end of the tribulation, of that conquering army that returns with Jesus Christ.

And one more thing, you have in this dispensation the church under grace. You have the way of salvation by believing in Jesus Christ and the finished work of the cross, and by accepting that you are instantly and eternally saved. However, during the days of the tribulation, the message will be the Gospel of the Kingdom. There will be a temple; there will be a sabbath day’s journey. It will be particularly an Israeli proposition. And I contend that you cannot have those two valid messages in the same world at the same time. So the end of the Church Age, we who are destined to rule the universe are taken home to be with Jesus Christ after which God renews His program with the nation of Israel. Works out beautifully, and that’s exactly what the Scripture teaches.

Ankerberg: Now, there are some people and some scholars, even on our side of the fence, guys, that in the Christian church say, “No, no, no. This time called the tribulation that Jesus talked about, the Christians are going to have to go through that. It doesn’t happen before the tribulation but it comes at the end. And the fact is that the Christians will be taken up and then brought right back and that is all one event called “The Second Coming.” Now, Hal, you have written emphatically against that point of view and what I want is evidence. Why do you say that?

Lindsey: Yes, I wrote a book called The Rapture in order to set forth my views on this. Now, I want to be clear. There are godly men who believe all three of these positions, who also believe the Bible is the Word of God. And all of these positions have their problems. The reason I am still a pre-tribulationist – and I was shaky when I was writing the book The Rapture because I really opened myself up to everything other people had written – but the reason I remain a pre-tribulationist is because I can answer the questions that are thrown at me from the Scripture and not have anything shaken.

But I can pose formidable questions to those, especially the post-tribulationists, that really I think you have to allegorize Scripture to try and answer. And here’s one of them: We know that when Christ comes back at the end of the tribulation that the believers who survived the tribulation will go as mortals into the Millennium, the kingdom for a thousand years on earth that is just right after. And these believing mortals are to re-population the earth. Passages like Isaiah 65:17 and following talk about the marvels of that age where there’s going to be a tremendous population explosion and so forth that starts with only believers.

Now, if the rapture occurs simultaneously with the Second Coming, it means, according to 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 that every believer is translated instantaneously into immortality, which means there would be no more mortal believers left on earth. So where are you going to get the believers to repopulate the earth? There wouldn’t be any.

Secondly, in Matthew 25, it talks about the first thing Jesus will do when He comes back to the earth. It says, “Immediately after those days,” He’s going to gather all toi ethnesin, the Gentiles. He’s going to gather all Gentiles together and He’s going to separate them “as the shepherd separates sheep from goats.” [Matt. 25:31] In other words, His first act, when He comes to the earth, is to separate believers from unbelievers. The believers go into the Kingdom; the unbelievers are cast off the earth instantly into judgment. Now, if the rapture had just taken place, as those who post-tribulationists say, then there would be no need for that. The separation would have taken place with every believer going up to meet Christ and then coming right back down. So there’s no way to reconcile those Scriptures with other Scriptures about this.

John 14:3 that Dave Hunt quoted a while ago. Jesus says, “I am going away, but if I go I will come back for you.” He says, “I’m going to my Father’s house, and there I’m going to build mansions for you. And if I go, I will come again that you may be with me where I am.” Where is Jesus right now? He’s not on the earth. He’s in the Father’s house. Why is He building those mansions? It is because He’s coming to take us back to where He is now, which is heaven. Now, if the post-tribulationist is correct, He would bring us back to the earth, not to the mansions in heaven. And so He’s in a useless building program right now, according to that.

I don’t even bother with the mid-tribulationist because that’s a figment of imagination. There’s not enough Scripture to even begin to support that position.

Hunt: Now, we have to distinguish between the rapture and the Second Coming. At the rapture He comes for His saints, as we’ve already heard; at the Second Coming He comes with His saints. Zechariah 14. When His feet touch the Mount of Olives, Dave Breese quoted Jude, verse 14, Enoch said, the seventh from Adam, “He comes with ten thousands of His saints.” Zechariah 14 says all His saints come with Him. If all of His saints come with Him at the Second Coming, they must have got up there somehow. That’s the rapture. Now, that takes place first.

Now, we have to face the fact that there are contradictions. Right in Matthew 24 there are contradictions. Jesus says, “I’m going to come as a thief in the night. I’m going to come and you’re not going to know. But such an hour as you think not I’m going to come.” But in verse 33 Hal quoted earlier, “When you see all these signs, then you know it’s near, right at the door.” Now, how are you going to put those two together? He’s talking about two different events. The rapture is going to surprise everybody. “As it was in the days of Noah, they’re eating and drinking and marrying..” you can’t put that in the middle of Armageddon. He’s going to come at a time of peace and prosperity….no, He’s coming at a time of war in the middle of Armageddon. Wait a minute, you’ve got TWO comings! You can’t escape it.

And that was the thing that stumbled even the disciples, even John the Baptist. John the Baptist sent two disciples to say, “Are you He that should come or look we for another?” Why did he ask that question? This is John the Baptist who knew. He was the forerunner. He proclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God that bears the weight of the sin of the world. This is the one of whom I spake” and so forth. [John 1:29-30] Why did he begin to doubt? Because he was in prison about to get his head cut off and it didn’t compute. He said, “I’m your right-hand man. I introduced you to Israel. If you’re going to rule on the throne of your father David, how come I’m about to get killed? It doesn’t make sense?” That why the rabbis mocked Jesus. “If you’re the Messiah, hey, what are you doing up on that cross. Come on down.” [Matt. 27:42] Because they didn’t understand there were two comings.

How would you know that from Old Testament? You couldn’t put into one time and into one event and one time frame what the Old Testament said about the coming of Christ.

And neither can you put into one event and one time frame what the New Testament says. He’s coming as a thief. He’ll surprise you. No, all the signs will tell you plainly. The signs are for the Second Coming. The rapture is imminent at any moment. And that’s why Jesus warned, He said, “You better be like those who have their loins gird about; your clothes are on, you’re ready to go, your lamps are burning and you’re ready the moment I knock at the door you can open it up and be ready for me.” That’s why He warned we should watch and be ready for His coming. And I think it’s the most powerful, motivating factor for the Christian life to get out and witness for Him, to live for Him, and let Him have His way in our lives because He could come at any moment.

Ankerberg: I often thought it might be ironical that this would take place after we have taped this program. This is already up on satellite and it’s going to play across the country and Ankerberg, Hunt, Lindsey and Breese are gone.

Join us next week and we’re going to turn our attention to what’s going to take place after that rapture transpires. The world leader called the Antichrist is going to take control. What’s he like? What does the Bible say about him? What about the global religion of the Antichrist. Do we see signs of it today? What about global unity and how does this play right into the hands of this coming world leader the Bible calls the Antichrist? All next week. I hope you’ll join us.

Read Part 5