Amen, the title of my sermon tonight is The Rapture in 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
The rapture in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, we just read the most clear and the most famous passage
about the rapture, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4.
When you're studying the second coming of Christ or when you're studying the rapture
end times prophecy, 1 and 2 Thessalonians are a great place to study because it's a
set of books that cover this subject quite a bit.
Now obviously the main study is the book of Revelation and obviously there are some
great passages of scripture in the four gospels.
But when it comes to Paul's epistles, 1 and 2 Thessalonians are the ones where he spends
the most time talking about end times and in fact this issue is brought up in every
single chapter in the books of 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
So let's start out in 1 Thessalonians chapter number 1 and let's understand this concept
of the rapture in 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
It says in chapter 1 verse 10, and to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from
the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
So the Bible here talks about us being delivered from the wrath to come and it talks about
us waiting for his son from heaven, waiting for Jesus Christ to come in the clouds that
we might be delivered from the wrath to come.
Look at chapter 2 of 1 Thessalonians and the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians chapter
2 verse 19, 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?
For ye are our glory and joy.
So when the apostle Paul is talking to people that he is one unto Christ, he is talking
about them being his joy or his glory or his crown of rejoicing in the presence of
our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming.
Why?
Because when Jesus Christ comes in the clouds, what we just read in 1 Thessalonians 4, We
which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds.
Who are the them?
The dead in Christ which shall rise first.
So it's a great meeting of the dead in Christ and we which are alive and remain all being
caught up together in the clouds with Jesus.
And in fact the primary context in 1 Thessalonians 4 was that he said, I would not have you to
be ignorant brethren concerning them which are asleep, those who have died and gone on
to be with the Lord, 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 under
the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel,
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.
So the discussion starts out there with, I would not have you to be ignorant brethren
concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not even as others which have no hope.
Meaning that other people who have no hope, if they're not a Christian, if they lose someone
they're never going to see that person again.
Whereas we as Christians know, Jesus is going to bring them with him and we're going to
be caught up together with them.
We're going to meet them.
So doesn't that make perfect sense that the apostle Paul would say, in the presence of
our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming, you're going to be our rejoicing.
If you want somebody to the Lord, it's going to be pretty exciting to be reunited with
that person in heaven.
So that makes perfect sense, right?
Let's flip over to chapter 3.
In chapter 3, the Bible says in verse 13, to the end he may establish your hearts unblameable
in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all
his saints.
So in chapter 2, he said that you're going to be my rejoicing at the coming of Jesus
Christ.
And here it says, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
So do you see how consistent this is?
In chapter 1, we talked about what?
Waiting for his son from heaven.
Chapter 2, we talked about what?
When he comes, we'll get to see these people that we won to Christ.
Chapter 3, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
And when we get to chapter 4, if you flip over to the main passage in chapter 4, the
Bible says in verse 15, 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 which are asleep.
Say, what are you trying to show us here, Pastor Anderson?
I'm trying to show you that the rapture is called the coming of the Lord.
In chapter 2, in chapter 3, in chapter 4, over and over again, the rapture is called
the coming of the Lord.
No one disputes that 1 Thessalonians 4 is the rapture passage.
And yet, what is it called?
The coming of the Lord.
Yet, in your average, independent Baptist church today, there's a teaching out there
that says, oh, the second coming of Christ and the rapture, that's two different things.
That's two different events.
Well guess what?
That doesn't jive with scripture because the scripture says that the rapture is the coming
of the Lord.
Now unless this is coming one and a half, this is the second coming.
I mean, if you can count, the first coming would be Bethlehem's manger and then the second
coming would be when he comes in the clouds.
That's the second coming.
You know, well that's not what they meant.
And here's what I've often heard.
Well, it doesn't count because his feet don't touch the ground, right?
And look, if I had a nickel for every time I heard this, I'd be a wealthy man.
Doesn't count because his feet didn't touch the ground.
Really?
Because where does the Bible say that?
The Bible says the coming, I'm just going to call it the coming.
And the problem is when you stop using Bible terminology for what the Bible means, people
are going to get confused.
So if you come up with this other event that you start calling the second coming and say,
well that's not the rapture, aren't people going to be confused when all these rapture
passages call it the coming?
See how confusing that is?
And then when you get to 1 Thessalonians chapter 313, they'll say, oh well, I don't even know
if that's the rapture or the second coming, quote unquote.
The second coming is the rapture.
Now the event that they're confusing it with is Armageddon.
So why don't we call that what the Bible calls it, Armageddon?
So Revelation 19, when Jesus comes on a white horse and the armies in heaven are following
him, that event is called Armageddon because the Bible says he gathered them into a place
called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
So what theologians and scholars have decided is that Armageddon is the second coming because
he actually touches the ground.
The rapture is not the second coming because he didn't touch the ground.
But the Bible calls it the coming.
Case closed, end of story.
So let's talk the way the Bible talks and let's call it the second coming.
Now these people who try to say the second coming is different than the rapture, here's
what they'll often say.
Well at the rapture he comes for his own and at the second coming he comes with his own.
Who's ever heard that one before?
You know at the rapture he comes for his own and then at the second coming he comes with
his own.
But is that really true?
No.
Because in 1 Thessalonians 4, let's look at it about the rapture and the Bible says in
verse 14, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep
in Jesus will God bring with him.
So let me ask you this, at the rapture is he bringing people with him?
So is it accurate to say, well these are two different events because at the rapture he
comes for his own and at the second coming he comes with his own.
Guess what, the second coming is the rapture and he's coming both for his own and with
his own.
Why?
Because those that are asleep in Jesus will God bring with him and then we which are alive
and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds.
So he's coming for his own that are on this earth walking around breathing and he's coming
with his own, those that are asleep in Jesus.
And you say well Pastor Anderson but the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Right but that's the body.
It's only the body that's going to rise first.
The soul is already in heaven.
So if a person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ their savior dies, their soul is already
in heaven right now.
Their soul is not in the earth, the body is in the earth.
So that's why the Bible says that they which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
What's that talking about, the body or the soul?
The soul.
He's going to bring them with him from heaven but then the bodies are going to rise and
then they're going to be reunited and then their bodies are going to be changed in a
moment in a twinkling of an eye and they'll be given a glorified body.
Now when we look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, 13 it says to the end he may establish
your hearts unblameable in holiness before God even our father at the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ with all his saints.
That's the rapture because in chapter 4 he flat out says God's going to bring them with
him.
And the idea is the comfort of seeing those people again.
Now I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this passage in 1 Thessalonians 4 because
it's the one that we're already the most familiar with.
We see though that a trumpet sounds, they which are alive are caught up together with
the dead in Christ, the souls of the dead are coming from heaven, the bodies are coming
up out of the graves and we meet the Lord in the air and the Bible says so shall we
ever be with the Lord.
So from that point onward we're going to be with Christ.
And of course we're going to go to heaven to be with Christ because Jesus said 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 to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you
unto myself that where I am there ye may be also and whither I go you know and the way
you know.
Okay so we are going to at the rapture be going to heaven to be with Jesus in heaven.
Does everybody understand that?
This event is known as the coming of Christ, we would call it the second coming of Christ
because he already came the first time, we're caught up and we go to be with him and we're
in heaven with him at that time.
Okay now let's get into chapter 5, this is a key chapter.
Verse 1 starts out with the word but.
Now this is a conjunction so this means that we're still talking about the same thing.
But of the times and the seasons brethren you have no need that I write unto you.
Now what's the contrast?
In chapter 4 verse 13 he said but I would not have you to be ignorant brethren concerning
them when you're asleep.
So he's about to tell them something that some of them could possibly be ignorant about
and he's trying to fill them in on that and let them know that they don't have to mourn
like those who have no hope.
But when he gets to chapter 5 verse 1 he says but of the times and the seasons brethren
you have no need that I write unto you.
So they needed to get that explanation in chapter 4 about their dead loved ones that
they might not sorrow as those who have no hope but then he says you know you don't need
me to tell you of the times and seasons.
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
So what's he saying?
He's saying you don't need me to tell you the times and the seasons of the rapture because
you already know that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
Now that means that the day of the Lord has the same timing as the rapture.
Because how much sense would it make to say well you know yeah you don't need me to tell
you the times and seasons of the rapture because the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in
the night if the day of the Lord is something different.
That wouldn't make any sense would it?
I mean think about it if I said to you well you know of the times and seasons of the endio
soul winning marathon you have no need that I write unto you because you already know
that the potluck 100 you know is going to be in fall of 2019.
Is that going to make any sense to you?
That would make no sense right?
But what if I said this?
What of the times and the seasons of you know the endio soul winning marathon you have no
need that I write unto you because I already told you that we shall eat round table pizza
on February 2nd.
Hey I told you you will taste of that heavenly pizza with me on February the 2nd.
That would make sense why?
Because the timing of the round table pizza is the same as the timing of the soul winning
in indio california.
Oh you have no need for me to give you the date for the indio soul winning.
You've already marked your calendar for that round table pizza.
Dining.
Do you see what I'm saying?
That makes sense.
But if I'm talking about two totally different events or two events that are separated in
time that would make no sense.
And the bible is written to make sense.
God's not trying to trick us or play games with us or get us mixed up.
He doesn't want us to be ignorant.
He's trying to teach us.
So he says hey you don't need me but of the times and the seasons brethren you 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.
Now this is why people say that the rapture is coming as a thief in the night.
Why?
Because if the day of the lord is coming as a thief in the night then that means that
the rapture is coming as a thief in the night too because they're both having the same timing.
In fact there's a whole movie made about it in the 1970s called a thief in the night.
Now unfortunately this movie taught false doctrine and it totally perverted the meaning
of this phrase a thief in the night but still those who believe in the rapture have traditionally
understood that it's coming as a thief in the night because the day of the lord's coming
as a thief in the night because of this scripture.
Everybody following so far?
Okay.
Let's keep reading verse three.
For when they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail
upon a woman with child and they shall not escape.
Now is he talking to you or them?
Saying they're not going to escape.
Sudden destruction is going to come upon them not upon you.
You're saved.
Sudden destruction will come upon them.
They shall not escape but ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should overtake
you as a thief.
You 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.
Now notice what he says here.
You are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief.
That day is going to overtake you but not as a thief.
Why?
Because you're watching.
Why?
Because you're of the light.
Being in darkness means that you don't have the information.
Don't keep me in the dark on this.
What does that mean?
You're not in the know.
He's saying look you're not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief.
You're not sitting there saying oh peace and safety and falling for all the devil's
lies and the anti-Christ lies.
You're watching.
You're paying attention.
You know what's going on and by the time it gets to the point where the second coming
of Christ aka the rapture is around the corner, you're going to be ready for it.
You're going to be watching for it.
You're going to be aware of it.
You're not going to be surprised by it.
It's not going to overtake you as a thief.
So to sit there and say oh the rapture is like a thief in the night, it could happen
at any moment.
It's going to catch us all off guard.
It's going to catch us all unawares.
No it's only going to catch people unawares who are deceived, who are in darkness, who
don't know what the Bible says.
Those who know what the Bible says are not in darkness that that day should overtake
them as a thief.
You're all the children of light and the children of the day.
He says in verse 6, therefore let us not sleep as do others but let us watch and be sober.
Now doesn't it make sense that if you're told to watch that there's something to watch for?
But yet those who believe in this pre-tribulation rapture doctrine where Jesus can come at any
moment and the rapture comes before the tribulation and don't mix it up with the second coming,
wouldn't they say there's no sign to watch for?
They literally say that it could happen before the sermon's over.
They believe it could happen today.
Just look in the hymnal under the second coming section.
There are all these songs.
He's coming today.
It could be today.
It might be today.
I promise you something.
Jesus Christ is not coming back today and I got bad news for you.
It's not going to be tomorrow either and it's not going to be the day after that.
In fact, Jesus Christ is not returning in 2019.
He's not returning in 2020.
He's not returning in 2021.
The soonest that he could possibly return, the soonest that he could possibly return
is over three and a half years from now because the Bible tells us that all these things have
to happen first and none of them have happened yet and those events are going to take over
three and a half years.
So even if they started tomorrow, it's at least three and a half years out.
So this doctrine that says, oh, Christ can come at any moment.
He's coming as a thief.
You know, you're talking like an unsaved person because guess what?
He's only coming as a thief if you're unsaved or if you're just completely in the dark about
scripture.
We're supposed to know what's going on and be able to notice these events happening and
that's why Jesus said when you see these things therefore come to pass, then look up,
lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh.
He says when you see these things happen, look up, your redemption draweth nigh.
He doesn't say there are no signs to his coming.
The next event on God's prophetic calendar is the rapture.
Wrong.
The rapture is something that people watch for because there are signs that lead up to
the rapture.
There are events leading up to the rapture and we're going to get into what those are
a little bit later.
But let's stop and talk about this thing of the day of the Lord.
Flip back to Isaiah chapter 13.
We're just going to look at a few scriptures on this because I want to stay with my focus
in Thessalonians but let's cross reference with Isaiah a little bit because remember
the timing of Indio is the same as the timing of Round Table, okay?
The timing of the rapture is the same timing as the day of the Lord.
Otherwise 1 Thessalonians 5 makes no sense, okay?
So then we need to ask ourselves, what is the day of the Lord?
Now the good news is that the Bible talks a lot about the day of the Lord.
So there's a ton of information in the Bible on the day of the Lord.
That's why he says, oh, you don't need me to write to you.
You already know about the day of the Lord.
You already know that he's coming as a thief.
So let's familiarize ourselves with the day of the Lord because if we're going to watch
we don't want him to say to us, hey, you know, you have no need that I write unto
you.
And you're like, yeah, actually I do need you to write unto me because I don't know
Isaiah.
I don't know Zechariah.
I don't know Joel.
I don't know Acts.
You know, he's expecting you to know some stuff, all right?
So let's get caught up here, right, and familiarize ourselves.
Look at Isaiah 13.
Let's look at some scriptures on the day of the Lord.
Verse 6 of Isaiah 13, how will ye for the day of the Lord is at hand it shall come as
a destruction from the Almighty.
Boy, that sounds like Thessalonians, remember?
When they say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them and they shall
not escape but you're not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief.
So it says in verse 7, therefore shall all hands be faint and every heart, every man's
heart shall melt and they shall be afraid.
Pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them.
They shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth.
Isn't that exactly what we read in 1 Thessalonians 5?
When they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail
upon a woman with child and they shall not escape.
Look, the apostle Paul, when he writes 1 Thessalonians 5, is referring them back to day of the Lord
passages.
He's saying, look, you already know that the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night
and then he's quoting stuff from the Old Testament about the day of the Lord.
You know, it's like a woman in travail, remember?
Isaiah 13.
He says in verse number 9, behold, the day of the Lord cometh cruel both with wrath and
fierce anger.
Notice, the day of the Lord is a day of wrath.
It says to lay the land desolate, he shall destroy the sinners out of it for the stars
of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light.
The sun shall be darkened in his going forth and the moon shall not cause her light to
shine and I will punish the world for their evil and the wicked for their iniquity and
I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease and I will lay low the haughtiness of
the terrible.
I will make a man more precious than fine gold, even a man than the gold wedge of Ophir,
therefore I will shake the heavens and the earth shall remove out of her place in the
wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of his fierce anger.
Here are the elements that I want you to notice in this passage that are going to be repeated
over and over again in Old Testament day of the Lord passages.
Number 1, God's wrath.
Number 2, destruction upon the wicked, sudden destruction.
Number 3, the sun, moon, and stars are darkened.
Number 4, heaven and earth are shaken.
And number 5, it's like a woman in travail, right?
God's wrath, destruction on the wicked, sun and moon darkened, stars fall, heaven and
earth shaken, woman in travail.
Those are the 5 elements, okay?
Go to Joel, Joel chapter 1 at the end of the Old Testament are the minor prophets, little
tiny books before Matthew.
Go to Joel chapter 1, actually just go straight to Joel 2 and I'll read you Joel 1.
Joel 1 15 says, alas for the day, for the day of the Lord is at hand and as a destruction
from the Almighty shall it come.
So the day of the Lord is going to come like a destruction from the Almighty.
Is that consistent with what we've seen so far?
Is that consistent with 1 Thessalonians 5?
Absolutely.
Look at chapter 2 verse 9, they shall run to and fro in the city.
They shall run upon the wall.
They shall climb up upon the houses.
They shall enter in at the windows like a thief.
The earth shall quake before them.
The heavens shall tremble.
The sun and the moon shall be dark and the stars shall withdraw their shining and the
Lord shall utter his voice before his army for his camp is very great for who is strong
that executed his word for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible and who can
abide it?
So what is the day of the Lord like?
It's dark.
Sun and moon darkened.
It's terrible.
And on and on.
Earthquake.
Some of the same things.
Jump down to verse 30.
And I will show wonders.
In the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke, the sun shall be
turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and the terrible day of the
Lord come.
So again, we see the same thing.
It's likened unto a thief.
It is destruction upon the wicked.
Sun and moon darkened.
Heaven and earth shaken.
Clouds and darkness and fire.
Everybody got that?
We saw it in Isaiah.
We saw it in Joel.
We saw it in 1 Thessalonians 5.
Go to Amos.
Joel, Amos.
It's right near Joel.
Look at Amos chapter 5 verse 18.
Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord.
To what end is it for you?
The day of the Lord is darkness and not light.
As if a man did flee from a lion and a bear met him or went into the house and leaned
his hand on the wall and a serpent bit him, should not the day of the Lord be darkness
and not light, even very dark and no brightness in it?
So again, in this description we see destruction upon the wicked.
It's no good day for them.
Boy, you guys are looking forward to it.
You apparently don't know that you're on the receiving end of it because he's rebuking
the wicked there.
And then he says that there's going to be darkness and destruction.
Go to Zephaniah chapter 1.
Zephaniah chapter 1, a little bit later in the Minor Prophets, look at verse 14.
Zephaniah 1.14, the great day of the Lord is near.
It is near and hasteth greatly.
Even the voice of the day of the Lord, the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.
That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of waste-ness and desolation,
a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet
and alarm against the fenced cities and against the high towers.
And I will bring distress upon men.
And they shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Lord.
And their blood shall be poured out as dust and their flesh as the dung.
Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the
Lord's wrath.
But the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, for he shall make even
a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
So again we have God's wrath, destruction upon the wicked, clouds and darkness, mighty
men crying bitterly, a trumpet and fire.
So you're getting the picture of the Old Testament concept of the day of the Lord, right?
The day of the Lord is this idea of God coming and punishing the wicked and pouring out his
wrath on them.
It comes suddenly.
It brings destruction and desolation upon them.
It's clouds.
It's darkness.
And the main thing, the key thing, the hallmark of this are the sun and the moon and the stars
being darkened.
That's the main thing.
So when we get into the New Testament, nothing changes.
In the New Testament, just for sake of time, I'll just mention to you that Acts chapter
2 mentions that the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the
great and terrible day of the Lord come.
So what is the main thing that Peter emphasizes in Acts 2?
Sun and moon being darkened before the day of the Lord.
Then when you get to Peter's epistle, 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 10, it says, but the day of
the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with
the great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
It also talks in the same passage about the day of God, which is again the same day.
Day of the Lord, day of God talks about burning up, fire.
Things are being burned up.
That's consistent.
Amen.
So 1 Thessalonians 5 said, you don't need to know the times and the seasons because
you already know that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
Now go to Matthew 24.
Matthew chapter 24 and look at what the Bible says in Matthew 24.
And we'll see that the day of the Lord and the rapture both happen on the same day.
Now the day of the Lord is from the perspective of the unsaved people because for them it's
what?
Oh, it's nothing to look forward to for them.
It's a day of clouds, darkness, wrath, destruction, punishment.
They're going to be scared to death and shaking their boots.
From the Christian's perspective, this day is a glorious day and that's why when we're
talking about it from a Christian's perspective, it's often called the day of Christ.
The day of Christ is a positive mention of it.
Or we use the word rapture and people say, well, rapture, that's not a biblical word.
That's not in the Bible.
Actually, it is in the Bible, it's just in a different language, okay?
So basically, if you read a Latin Bible, you'll basically get a word that looks like rapture
because it just means caught up.
Have you ever heard of someone just being enraptured, like nothing to do with the Bible
but they're just in a rapture?
It means they're caught up or carried away, okay?
So rapture simply means they're caught up and the Bible does use the words, we shall
be caught up together, caught up to meet them together, right?
We're caught up and so if you're reading the Bible in Latin, then it uses a word that's
where our word rapture comes from.
So it's really just, we could just call it the catch up but that sounds stupid so we
call it the rapture.
So to sit there and say, oh, the rapture, that's not a biblical term, what do you, okay,
the catching up together in the clouds with Christ is kind of a mouthful.
So we're just saying rapture because the Bible tells us we should use words that are easy
to be understood.
Otherwise, we're speaking in the air.
So when we say rapture, we mean being caught up and the Bible does say that we shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds.
Look at Matthew 24 and verse 29, it says immediately after the tribulation, 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 the heaven and the powers of the heaven 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 and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet and
they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the
other.
So what do we see here described?
Both the events of the day of the Lord and the events of the rapture are both described
because he says, the sun and moon are darkened, that's the day of the Lord.
The trumpet sounds and the elect are gathered, that's the rapture.
He says that they will mourn, why?
Because the day of the Lord is a day where mighty men are mourning and scared, right?
Flip over to Revelation 6.
Revelation 6 is where we can see the day of the Lord take place in the book of Revelation
and we will see that the same day that the day of the Lord takes place is the same day
that the rapture takes place, okay?
Look if you would at Revelation chapter number 6 and we've already gone through in chapter
6 up to this point if you read the chapter, all the events of the first five seals and
the first five seals when they're opened, they have to do with war all over the earth,
natural disasters, earthquakes, famines, pestilence, the people dying, just a horrible time of
trouble, a horrible time of tribulation upon this earth and then also martyrs being killed
for the cause of Christ.
The fifth seal had to do with people being killed for Christ.
So let's get into the sixth seal.
It says in verse 12, and I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal and lo there was
a great earthquake, sound familiar, from the day of the Lord?
And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became his blood and the stars
of heaven fell into the earth even as a fig tree cast with her untimely figs when she
is shaken of a mighty wind and the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together
and every mountain and island were moved out of their places and the kings of the earth
and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and every
bond man and every free man hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains
and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him that
sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb for the great day of his wrath is
come and who shall be able to stand?
Boy, if that's not the day of the Lord, then I give up.
The sun and moon darkened, the earthquake, the day of the Lord is here, the great day
of his wrath is come, who shall be able to stand on the day of God's wrath?
Mighty men are trembling and scared and astonished.
Now let me ask you this, if we have identified the day of the Lord in revelation, sun and
moon darkened, earthquake, the great day of his wrath, it's come, it's here, it's now.
That's what is come, it doesn't say it had come or has come, the great day of his wrath
is come, meaning it just arrived today, here it is.
Now shouldn't we expect to find the rapture then?
Because according to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, these events are happening in the same
timing, in tandem.
According to Matthew 24, they happen in tandem.
According to Luke 17, they happen in tandem because in Luke 17, he said the same day Noah
got in the ark, it rained and the flood came and took them all away.
In Luke 17, Jesus said the same day that Lot went out of Sodom and Gomorrah is the
same day that it rained fire and brimstone and destroyed them.
He said, even so shall it be also in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
Two will be in the field, one taken, the other left.
Two women grinding at the mill, the one taken, the other left.
So when the rapture takes place, it's going to be the same day the wrath comes, the judgment
comes.
Look, was Lot taken out and then there was a delay?
No, the same day Lot went out, man, fire and brimstone rained immediately.
The same day Noah got on the ark, the flood came.
Same day.
Okay, so can somebody explain to me why these Hollywood movies left behind and so forth,
why do they show everybody disappearing but there's no fire and brimstone falling from
the sky?
Do you see any fire and brimstone coming down in those movies?
Is it like the great day of his wrath?
Do you see men calling for the mountains and rocks to fall on them?
Do you see fire and smoke and darkness and God's wrath being poured out, fire and brimstone?
No, you don't see any of those things.
Why?
Because they're pre-trib movies and the pre-tribulation rapture doctrine teaches a lie that the rapture
happens way before any of that happens and that everybody's going to be going, where
is everybody?
I don't know where everybody went.
You know, people are going to be more concerned about taking cover from the fire and brimstone
that's raining out of the sky than to worry about, oh, I wonder where everybody is.
And you know what, you've got to be a little concerned when Hollywood's promoting your
doctrine.
Did somebody say the Jews are promoting that doctrine?
You vicious anti-Semite.
No, I'm just kidding.
How dare you speak the obvious fact that the Jews run Hollywood?
How dare you say the truth so loud in this church?
But anyway, don't distract me, don't get me off track here.
So the point is, if we read about the day of the Lord in Revelation chapter 6, we should
expect to find the rapture, shouldn't we?
If these events happen in tandem.
Now look, is the book of Revelation, is it a revelation or not?
What does revelation mean?
It means to reveal.
So should the book of Revelation be hiding things or should it be exposing things?
So is it going to hide the rapture where we can't find it, tuck it away in some cryptic
passage, some symbolic passage?
No.
It's going to be where we'd expect to find it, okay?
So the great day of his wrath has come, who shall be able to stand?
Chapter 7, what should we expect to read about in chapter 7?
It better be there, right?
Now look, when we get to chapter 8, guess what happens in chapter 8?
Look at chapter 8 verse 1.
And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half
an hour.
And then he explains how fire and brimstone start raining from the sky.
And look, there is so much fire and brimstone that rains from the sky.
And this is just the first trumpet, because you know you get into the seven trumpets and
seven vials?
Right at the beginning, when the seventh seal is opened and the seven angels with the trumpets
begin to sound, they prepare themselves to sound, and the first angel sounds.
You know what the results of the first angel sounding are, is that all the green grass
in the entire world is burned up.
You think you're going to notice that?
Is that a major cataclysm?
If there's fire and brimstone raining on the earth to the point where one-third of
the trees are burned up, and all the grass is burned up, let that sink in.
One-third of the trees burned up.
All the grass burned up.
Now why is that?
Well because trees are more robust than grass.
You know, fire could come through an area and wipe out all the grass, but you know,
maybe two-thirds of the trees could survive that.
So it sounds to me like the whole earth is going to be on fire.
I mean it's going to be a major, major cataclysm.
And this is before we even get into the trumpets and vials in earnest.
It's before the second trumpet, the third trumpet, the fourth trumpet, the fifth trumpet,
the sixth trumpet.
I mean just right out of the gate, a half hour after the seventh seal is opened, a half
hour goes by and fire starts raining from the sky.
Now, if the wrath is poured out and things are getting wiped out in chapter eight, and
chapter six says, boy the day of the Lord's here!
What should we expect to find in chapter seven?
It better be there.
I'm going to be real disappointed if it's not there because of the fact that, you know,
he spent all this time connecting the day of the Lord with the rapture and, you know,
here it is, the day of the Lord, and then we know that everything's getting torched
in chapter eight.
Okay, let's see what we find in chapter seven.
Look at chapter seven, verse one.
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding
the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea,
nor on any tree.
And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God.
And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth
and the sea, saying, hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees, till we have
sealed the servants of our God and their foreheads.
Let me ask you something.
Has he been hurting the trees and the sea and the earth up to this point?
No, because he said, don't hurt the earth, don't hurt the sea, don't hurt the trees until
the servants of our God are sealed and their foreheads.
That you know what that proves is that he hasn't been doing that up to that point.
That's all gonna happen in chapter eight, right, when everything starts getting torched.
What's the first thing to get burned up?
The trees.
What happens with the second trumpet?
The sea.
All the things that he says don't do, that all happens in chapter eight.
But wait, don't do it until we've sealed the servants of our God and their foreheads.
And then this is where the 144,000 are sealed, 12,000 each from the tribes of the children
of Israel, okay?
But look what happens right after he seals the 144,000.
Verse eight, of the tribe of Zebulun were sealed 12,000, of the tribe of Joseph were
sealed 12,000, of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed 12,000.
After this, I beheld and lo, a great multitude which no man could number of all nations and
kindreds and peoples and tongues stood before the throne and before the lamb, clothed with
white robes and palms in their hands.
Let me ask you this, where's the throne of God?
It's in heaven.
So John's up in heaven and after the 144,000 are sealed, after the day of the Lord is come,
but before God pours out his wrath in chapter eight, it says after this, I beheld and lo,
a great multitude of all nations, all kindreds, all tongues, they're clothed in white robes,
they have palms in their hands, and the Bible says, they cried with a loud voice saying,
salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne and under the lamb.
And all the angels stood round about the throne and about the elders and the four beasts and
fell before the throne on their faces and worshiped God saying, Amen, blessing and glory
and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be unto our God forever and
ever.
Here's the key, look at verse 13.
And one of the elders answered saying unto me, what are these which are arrayed in white
robes?
And whence came they?
What does the word whence mean?
Whence means from where, right?
Dei donde.
Where did they come from?
Whence came they, in our modern vernacular would be, where did they come from?
Who are these people in white robes?
Who are these multitude that no man could number of all nations, all kindreds, all families,
who are they and where did they come from?
Where did they come from?
Why does that matter?
Because they just got there.
Whoa, where did these people come from?
Well John, they've been here the whole time, buddy.
Obviously if he says, who are these people and where did they come from?
You know what that means?
It means that they just got there.
Let me prove it to you further.
And then he says, well sir, thou knowest because the angel asked John, who are these people?
Where did they come from?
And John's like, you know, why are you asking me?
You should be telling me.
Sir, thou knowest.
And he said to me, yeah I do know, I was just kidding with you, and he said to me, these
are they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the lamb.
Therefore are they before the throne of God and serve him day and night at his temple
and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them
nor any heat, for the lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall
lead them unto living fountains of waters and God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes.
So isn't it interesting that the day of the Lord hits in chapter 6, then in chapter 7
a multitude appears in heaven that's so big that no man can number it, and then in chapter
number 8 all of a sudden God pours out his wrath.
That's the rapture, friend.
Revelation 7 is the rapture in the book of Revelation, a multitude appearing in heaven
of all nations, all kindreds, where did they come from, hey they came out of great tribulation,
they've washed their robes.
You say, well, you know, this is only the tribulation saints.
You know, there only ever have been tribulation saints since the world began.
Because every single Christian goes through tribulation.
Every Christian goes through tribulation.
The Bible says that over and over again, I told you before that we would suffer tribulation,
he said in 1 Thessalonians 3.
So over and over again the Bible says we're all going to go through tribulation.
Now obviously there's the great tribulation in the end times.
And guess what?
We're going to be there.
If it happens in our lifetime, we're not getting raptured before the tribulation, friend.
We're going to be here for the tribulation, we're going to be raptured before God pours
out his wrath.
So when God's pouring out fire and brimstone and burning up all the trees and the grass,
we're going to be gone.
Why?
Because the rapture is pre-wrath.
It's before the wrath, but it's after the tribulation.
The sun and moon are darkened after the tribulation, then the rapture, then God pours out his wrath.
That's the biblical order.
You're seeing it yourself.
I hope you're turning with me and seeing this from the Bible.
Now what do the pre-tribbers do with these passages?
Well, they end up twisting them and lying about them, unfortunately.
And I hate to say that.
You say, well, you're being kind of mean there because, you know, they're innocent, they
don't know better.
Forgive them for they know not what they do.
Look, I've sat and listened to several pre-trib sermons over the past few weeks.
Not even several.
I've listened to like eight or nine.
And I was just searching YouTube for pre-trib sermons from Baptist churches, looking up
preachers that I know that are pre-trib listening to their sermons, and they just tell outright
lies.
Like, for example, you know, I was listening to a guy preach about this passage in Revelation
7, and he said, you know, yeah, I mean, there were thousands of people there that John's
looking at thousands of people, maybe even tens of thousands of people.
This doesn't say thousands.
This doesn't say tens of thousands.
You know what it says?
A multitude that no man can number.
You know how big of a multitude the Bible numbers?
The Bible talks about over a million Ethiopians coming against Judah in the Old Testament
to fight against Judah, an army of over a million Ethiopians.
The Bible talks about, in fact, the children of Israel being numbered in the days of David
and in the days of Joab, and it comes up with a number of 1.1 million, where they did a
census in the land of Israel where they counted 1.1 million people were counted.
And then the Bible also talks about that there were angels around the throne 10,000 times
10,000.
But, I mean, human beings, men, have numbered 1.1 million people in the Bible.
And what about all the censuses that are taken now?
I mean, is there a census taken in the U.S. every 10 years?
What kind of multitude do they number?
Well, they, I mean, they end up numbering hundreds of millions of people.
But you say, well, but, yeah, it's not really counting a crowd or numbering a multitude
or whatever.
Okay, but the Bible numbers multitudes of hundreds of thousands of people.
It numbered an army of a million people and said, look, this is a million people.
This is not a million people.
This is not tens of thousands of people.
This is not thousands of people.
This is a multitude that no man can number because it's every saved person who has
ever lived in the history of mankind.
That makes sense.
But you know why they downplay it and say, yeah, this is thousands of people, maybe even
tens of thousands?
Because they want you to believe, oh, these are the tribulation saints.
And what they mean by that is these are just the people who got saved during the tribulation.
I mean, good night.
You're very optimistic about so many.
So basically, basically the rapture is going to happen.
All the, all the believers are all removed according to them, right?
And then, and then over the course of three and a half years or seven years, how's this
great multitude that no man can number?
Boy.
Oh, well, you know, that's just the, you know, the 144,000 are going to do that.
They're going to win all these people to the Lord.
You know what?
Boy, that's great.
That sounds great, except it's not biblical.
Okay.
So the bottom line is they want to downplay this multitude.
It's an innumerable multitude.
And guess what?
I'm part of that multitude.
You're going to be in that multitude.
Isn't it interesting that John already knows what we look like?
I don't know if he spotted us in that crowd because there's so many people in the crowd.
Hopefully I was toward the front and made eye contact.
I don't know.
But the point is, you know, someday, and in a sense, this event has already happened in
a sense.
John already saw us all up there.
We were all in heaven.
And John said, who are these people?
And we're like, that's us.
We're experiencing this.
You know, isn't that great?
What a day that will be.
And so, you know, what do pre-trippers do with scriptures like this?
Well, you know, they end up twisting them and lying about them.
Okay.
Now let's go to the big one that they twist and lie about, 2 Thessalonians 2.
This is the one that they can never tell the truth about.
This is the one where you're kind of forgiving them for twisting things.
You're forgiving them for lying about what it means to be the coming of the Lord.
You forgive them for ignoring clear scripture.
And you're trying to make excuses for them, make excuses for them.
But whenever I'm listening to that sermon and they turn to 2 Thessalonians 2, that's
when I just lose all sympathy for them.
Because I'm thinking to myself, you just lied through your teeth.
Because every single preacher that I listen to on 2 Thessalonians 2 virtually, and they
were all using a King James Bible, they all twist what this says exactly the way the NIV
and the ESV and other versions twisted.
Let me show you what I'm talking about.
Look at 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 1.
Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering
together unto him.
Now every preacher I listen to on this, they all admitted that's the rapture.
They all admitted that 2 Thessalonians 2, when it says the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ and our gathering together unto him, they all admitted it's the rapture.
Look what it says.
That you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word nor
by letter as from us as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a falling
away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.
Every King James preacher that I heard preach this who was pre-trib and I listened to many
sermons over the past few weeks, here's what they all said.
The Thessalonians were worried that the day of the Lord or the day of Christ had already
happened.
They were worried that the day of Christ had already happened.
They thought they'd missed it.
And he's explained to them, don't worry, you haven't missed it.
Now is that what that says?
Look down at your Bible.
I mean, is that what the Bible says?
The Bible says that you be not soon shaken in mind as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by any means, that day shall not come except X, Y, and Z come
first.
Now, does that say that they were worried that it already happened?
You know what it says is don't let them deceive you into thinking that it's at hand.
What does at hand mean?
It means about to happen.
Something's about to happen, all right, in the words of TD Jakes, something's about to
happen.
Something's about to happen.
You know what he's basically saying is, look, it's not at hand.
That hand means like you could reach out and touch it.
It's right here.
It's arriving.
It's about to happen.
You know what at hand basically means, that it can happen any moment, which is exactly
what they teach, which is a lie.
They teach that the day of Christ can happen at any moment.
He's coming today.
He could come today.
It's the next thing on his prophetic calendar.
What are they saying?
They're saying that the day of Christ is at hand, and he's saying, nope, don't let anyone
deceive you into thinking that it's at hand.
That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and the man of sin be
revealed, the son of perdition.
Those are the two things that must happen first.
Even pre-trippers admit that the man of sin is revealed at the midpoint of Daniel's 70th
week, at the midpoint of the seven years of the end times, that at the midpoint he's revealed.
That has to happen first.
That's why the rapture comes after the midpoint, because it says that there has to be a great
falling away and the man of sin be revealed.
Let me take out the ESV Bible here.
Here's an ESV Bible.
I'm going to look up 2 Thessalonians 2 in the ESV.
You look down at your King James.
The King James says that the deception is that the day of Christ is at hand.
That's a deception.
That day's not going to come until X, Y, and Z happen first.
Listen to the ESV as you look down at your King James.
It says in chapter 2, verse 2, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit
or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the
Lord has come.
So what's the deception in the ESV?
Oh, don't let anybody tell you that the day of the Lord has come.
What does the King James say?
Don't let them tell you that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let's see what the NIV says.
Look it up here in the NIV, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.
It says, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report, or letter
supposed to have come from us saying that the day of the Lord has already come.
Don't let anyone deceive you in any way.
So can somebody explain to me why, when I downloaded a whole bunch of sermons by pre-Trib
independent Baptists, who all professed to be King James only, and for the King James
Bible to be their final authority, why did every last one of them, every single one of
them said what?
They all said, oh, well, Paul's writing them so that they'll know that it hasn't already
happened.
Is that what the King James said?
Is that what the NIV said?
Is that what the ESV said?
Is that what all the modern perversions say?
Yes.
So are these guys reading the NIV?
I don't believe they are.
When they say, I'm King James only, I believe that.
I believe that they're telling the truth.
I don't think that they have an ESV hidden away with a Playboy magazine or something
somewhere, where they're secretly reading the ESV or secretly reading the NIV.
I believe that they actually only read the King James, but you know what it tells me?
They're getting their doctrine from a bunch of NIV preachers.
They're getting their doctrine from a bunch of ESV preachers.
Look, this pre-trip doctrine didn't come from a King James Bible.
It came from people who don't believe in the King James Bible.
That's where this pre-trip rapture doctrine came from.
Look, the guy who started it in the 1830s, John Nelson Darby, came out with his own translation,
the Darby translation.
You're not going to believe what it says in this passage.
Same thing with the NIV says and the ESV says.
Look up the Darby translation and it'll call Joseph Jesus' father.
Look up the Darby translation, it removes entire verses.
It's basically like an NIV.
Everything the NIV does that's false, that's what the Darby translation does.
I mean, the Darby translation was perverting scripture before it was cool.
And he is known as the father of dispensationalism, the father of the pre-trip rapture doctrine.
He is the one that made it popular and they pass on to Larkin and Schofield and the rest
of them and that's all going to be in Brother Bruce Mejia's documentary tomorrow, amen,
on the dispensation of heresy.
But the thing about that is that, you know, how can a King James preacher get up and say
they're worried that it already came?
You know what that tells me?
They didn't get their sermon from the Holy Ghost and the King James Bible, they read
a book about the pre-trip rapture and they're getting up and regurgitating those arguments.
That's what they're doing because there's no way that a Christian could open a King
James Bible and read this verse and say, oh, they're afraid it already happened.
Don't let anybody tell you that it already happened.
That's not what he said.
Don't let anyone tell you that it's imminent.
Don't let anyone tell you that it's at hand.
Don't let anyone tell you it's about to happen because these two things have to happen first.
I heard another one try to wiggle.
I always love to just hear what do they say about 2 Thessalonians 2 because this is where
they show their true colors, where they start quoting the NIV, quoting the ESV, and they
always try to wiggle out of it.
I heard one of them try to wiggle out of it this way.
He said, well, it's only the falling away that has to come first.
So he tried to cut this sentence in half and say in verse 3, it'd be there if you look
at it, except they're coming falling away first.
And he tried to say that's the only thing that has to happen first is just the falling
away.
And they tried to make this stand on its own and that man of sin be revealed, the son of
perdition.
That can't stand on its own.
That's not a complete thought.
That man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.
Is that a complete thought?
Is that a grammatically correct sentence?
That's a dependent clause.
That is not an independent clause.
It has to be connected with the first half of the sentence.
It can't be a new thought.
Unless you speak Ebonics, then it stands alone.
Because in Ebonics, I have a book in my office on Ebonics, and it breaks down the rules of
Ebonics and gives you the grammar of Ebonics.
And it says that in Ebonics, the verb to be is often not conjugated in Ebonics.
So basically in Ebonics, you could say the man of sin be revealed.
Be he revealed?
He be revealed.
That man of sin be revealed.
Look, is this a prophecy of Ebonics?
Was Ebonics prophesied almost 2,000 years ago by the apostle Paul?
Was he the OG, the original gangster that gave us Ebonics?
Because I don't think so.
I think what he's saying is, hey, it has to be said, that day should not come except
there come a falling away first, and the man of sin be revealed.
The son of perdition.
See, if you put them together, then sorry, Ebonics has to wait until the 20th century
to come on the scene.
So if you're willing to accept that the man of sin be revealed, but this is the kind of
stuff that pre-trippers have to do to try to wiggle out of this passage.
They have to come up with crazy stuff.
That's crazy, friend.
And it's so funny watching the guy talk about it.
His name was Doug Stauffer.
He gets all excited about it.
He's sitting on this talk show, and this guy's like, what about 2 Thessalonians 2?
You wrote this book about the pre-trib rapture.
What about 2 Thessalonians 2?
What about where he says there has to come a falling away first, and the man of sin be
revealed?
He's like, I love it when people ask me that.
I love it when they ask me that.
And then he proceeded to give the explanation about only the falling away comes first, and
the man of sin be revealed.
Of course, he didn't say it like that.
But he's all excited.
That's a pretty embarrassing interpretation to get excited about.
Why are you so excited about twisting the Bible?
Why don't you just believe what it says?
Oh, yeah, that's right, because you're an evangelist, and if you come out against the
pre-trib rapture, you're never going to be invited to preach again.
You're going to be blacklisted by all the independent Baptists if you're not pre-trib.
Because if you're not pre-trib, you're not in the club.
It's that simple.
That's why I'm not in the club.
Brother Jimenez is not in the club.
Pastor Romero's not in the club.
Jonathan Shelley's not in the club.
Guess why we're not in the club?
Because we're not pre-trib, and you've got to be pre-trib to be in the club.
Why?
Because all the TV preachers are pre-trib.
All the books down at the Christian bookstore are pre-trib.
The Hollywood movies are pre-trib.
The board game, the video game, the action figure, it's all pre-trib.
Because that's what the devil's promoting.
And it makes sense that he's trying to get people ready for the anti-Christ.
Who does the anti-Christ say that he is?
Christ.
So who do they say is coming at any moment?
Christ will come at any moment.
Who's really coming at any moment?
Pretending to be?
Okay, now think about it.
Would it make any sense to come out with a counterfeit after the real thing has already
showed up?
What about this?
Remember when Esau was supposed to get the blessing, and then he goes out hunting, and
then Jacob comes in first and says, all right, I'm your son Esau.
So what is he doing?
He's the anti-Esau, right?
Because anti means in the place of.
Okay, so the anti-Christ is coming to the place of Christ.
So the anti-Esau shows up first.
All right, I'm here for the blessing.
Are you really Esau?
Oh yeah, I'm Esau.
Okay, would that have worked if he'd already finished blessing Esau, and then the anti-Esau
shows up?
I'm your son Esau.
Get out of here, you idiot.
Right.
The anti-Esau showed up first just like the anti-Christ shows up before Jesus Christ shows
up.
And you say, well, but when Jesus Christ shows up, it's a secret rapture.
And they literally say that when the trumpet sounds, only the saved will hear it.
It's like a dog whistle, where you blow a dog whistle and only dogs hear it, but nobody
else hears it.
So they say when the rapture happens, the trumpet's going to sound, and it's going to
be like.
But we're going to hear like, doo doo, and we're going to be like, doo doo, and everybody
else is just going to be like, what, why are you making that face?
And then comes this doctrine that there's going to be a pile of clothes and we're going
to disappear and, you know, and everything like that.
And then, oh, by the way, Peter Ruckman taught, I just learned this watching Brother Bruce
Mejia's documentary, that when the rapture happens, all the blood is left behind.
So he said it's going to be a pile of clothes and five quarts of blood is just going to
go like.
Boy, they could have really turned that left behind into like a slasher film, you know,
with those levels.
I mean, I mean, they're like, all right, Paramount Studios or whatever, you know, can we get
like 5,000 gallons of blood for this one scene?
Yeah, we have a scene where a lot of people are getting raptured.
So we got to just fill a church with blood or whatever.
You know, I mean, just stupid stuff, Fran.
So anyway, you know, there's so much more I could say.
Whenever I preach on the subject, I always run out of time, you know, because there's
so much Bible.
So we didn't even get through all the things in Thessalonians.
There's so many other things in Thessalonians that just demolish the pre-trib rapture.
Second Thessalonians Chapter 1, Second Thessalonians Chapter 1 destroys the pre-trib rapture.
We don't even have time for it, okay.
But you get the idea, folks.
If you study Thessalonians, you don't walk away with the pre-trib rapture.
You walk away with the rapture that's after the tribulation but before God's wrath is
poured out.
That's the biblical timing.
Don't try to change what the Bible says or cram a square peg into a round hole.
Just read the Bible and just believe it.
Read Thessalonians and believe it.
Read Revelation and believe it.
Read the words of Jesus in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21 and believe them.
Don't twist it.
Look, I listened to another pre-trib preacher and I'm not going to name this guy's name
because he's actually an old friend of mine.
And so I don't want to throw my old friend under the bus.
But I listened to a pre-trib sermon.
I kid you not.
This is a guy that I know personally.
And he literally preached verse by verse through every verse in Matthew 24 until he got to
verse 28.
And you know 29 says what?
After the tribulation, he got to verse 28 and he literally said, let's jump down to
verse 34 because we all know the story.
So he's going word by word, verse by verse through verse 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
He gets to 28 and says, hey, let's jump down to verse 34 because we all know the story.
We don't all know the story, friend.
You jumped over the part that said after the tribulation because it destroys your whole
sermon.
That's wicked.
If you're going to get up in the pulpit and you're going verse by verse through Matthew
24 and you have to jump over a portion.
And look, it would be one thing if you would have said, hey, let's jump down to verse
34 for sake of time.
Now we'd still call him out and say, hey, you're skipping over the part that messes
with your doctrine.
Okay, it would be pretty obvious why he's skipping it, right, verse 29?
But to get up and say, let's go ahead and jump down because we all know the story, that
is a bold-faced lie because pre-trib churches don't all know the story of verses 29 through
31.
He was just lying, shame, shameful.
So you know what, it's getting hard to be patient with these pre-trib pastors because
of the fact that, you know, I can understand if they're out of ignorance, they're wrong
about it, but, you know, pretty much the word has gotten out about this in churches with
the internet, with YouTube, with our film After the Tribulation that's been viewed
over 15 million times.
The word's getting out, friend.
And so when these guys are confronted with this and they just dig in and won't change
and then they get up and twist scripture and start quoting the ESV and the NIV and, I mean,
it's sad.
It's sad and I don't see how God's going to be pleased with that, you know, when they
won't face what the scripture says and when they'll even get up and lie and say, oh, well,
let's skip it for sake of time or, oh, well, you know, it says they're worried that it
had already come.
That's not what it says, friend.
Let's be faithful to the word of God.
And part of the purpose of this sermon is so that you can understand these things so
that you can be able to defend what you believe in and be able to show people from the Bible
if they come at you with this pre-trib rapture, you'll be able to shut them down from the
Bible and say, hey, look, let me show you what the Bible actually says.
Let's go to 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5.
Let's go to Matthew 24.
Let's look at the scriptures because you know what?
We're not afraid of these scriptures, but they are.
And if anybody looks at this with an open mind, they're not going to walk away pre-trib.
Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
Thank you for the clear teachings.
Help us all to study the book of Revelation and Thessalonians and all these things so
that we can be watching and be ready, Lord, so that we understand what's happening when
it happens.
It may happen in our lifetime, it may not happen in our lifetime, but we ought to be
ready just in case.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.