The Rapture & Tribulation Mark 13:14-23

Mark 13:14-23 ¹⁴ “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁵ Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. ¹⁶ Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. ¹⁷ How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! ¹⁸ Pray that this will not take place in winter, ¹⁹ because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.

²⁰ “If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. ²¹ At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. ²² For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. ²³ So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

This talks about the 7 year tribulation. We believers will be spared from this awful time because God will rapture His church right before this takes place.

1 Thessalonians 4: 13- 18 ¹³ Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵ According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Paul wrote this to the Thessalonians because they were worried. Early Christians thought Jesus would be right back! And of course he hadn’t come back yet. So they worried about their loved ones who were believers, but had died since Jesus went back to heaven. Paul tells them that the ones who “sleep in death” will rise when Christ calls His church and join Jesus and the living believers in the air. This is what’s known as the rapture of the church. It is NOT Jesus’ second coming because He doesn’t set foot on the earth this time. His second coming is after the tribulation, which he cuts short because no one would have survived it.

Paul also talks about the rapture in 1 Corinthians 15: 51-54 ⁵¹ Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

And in Revelation 3:10 Jesus says ¹⁰ Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.

Again telling us we won’t be here for the tribulation. And in John 14:1-3 He tells us where He’s taking us: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. ² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

The tribulation is first talked about in Daniel 9: 24-27 ²⁴ “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

²⁵ “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. ²⁶ After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. ²⁷ He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

So 4 things are prophesized in a time line:

1. There would be a decree to rebuild Jerusalem.

2. Jerusalem and the Temple would be rebuilt.

3. Then an anointed one (messiah) would be "cut off" (an idiom for "rejected" or "killed").

4. Then Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed again.

All of these events later happened, in the same order in which they are described in Daniel 9:24-26:

1. After the Medo-Persians had conquered the Babylonian empire about 2540 years ago, they ruled a vast empire that included the land of Israel. About 2446 years ago (about 445 BC), Persian king Artaxerxes gave permission to the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem, which was still in ruins after having been destroyed earlier by the Babylonians.

2. The Jews rebuilt the Temple and the city of Jerusalem.

3. Then, in about 33 AD, Jesus entered Jerusalem as the Messiah who had been promised by Old Testament prophets. But, many people rejected Jesus as the Messiah and He was crucified by the Romans.

4. About 40 years after Jesus was crucified, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. (The Temple has not been rebuilt since then).

And it will be rebuilt during the tribulation. And there will be some kind of Abomination of Desolation at the temple half way through the 7 year period. Then God’s wrath will pour out onto the earth. This will be worse then Noah’s flood. Worse then Sodom and Gomorrah. Worse then anything the world has seen yet. A season of great suffering. A season of great deception.

But not for us! Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

Studying end times can be confusing. But Jesus wants us to know. At the end of the Mark passage in verse 23 He said, So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

Jesus is the great Prophet and He wants us to know His plan. Knowing His plan will give us confidence that through faith in Him we will be protected.

End Times. What people think and why they care.

Pastor Kurt is starting a sermon series on end times! One of my favorite studies!

Eschatologyis the study of the End Times. And there are many ways people have looked at this time. There are 4 views regarding the return of Christ:

Postmillennialism – believes life on earth gradually improves as the kingdom of God fills the earth through more and more Christians bringing His will down from heaven. Christ reigns now in our hearts. We are in the millennium. Christ overwhelms the world with increasing influence and ushers in a golden age through preaching that reaches the ends of the world. This is optimistic eschatology.

Amillennialism - A system for understanding the church and end times that believes that this age is the millennium. There is no literal thousand year bodily reign of Jesus Christ on earth until the eternal state.

Historical Premillennialism - A system for understanding the church and end times that believes Christ will come back after a period of trouble followed by Christ’s thousand year reign. The issue of the return of Christ whether future or not is difficult to determine. Preterism, a popular example, is a form of historical Premillennialism that says that Jesus returned in 70 AD.

Dispensational or Futuristic Premillennialism - A system for understanding the church and end times that believes that Christ’s return is definitely future and occurs in two phases separated by the tribulation. Christ’s reign on earth will be bodily and will graft national Israelback into the vine of salvation.

There are 3 basic views regarding the rapture and its timing in God’s plans:

Pre trib rapture - The rapture occurs before the tribulation begins.

Mid trib rapture – The rapture occurs before Jacob’s sorrow in the midst of two sets of 3 ½ years

Post trib rapture - The rapture and the second coming are immediately before the millennium.

We are dispensational premillennialists who anticipate the pretribulational rapture of the church. We are in the church age. The next event will be the Rapture of the Church (this is not Christ’s second coming as He will call us from above and we will rise to meet Him in the air.) Next will be the 7 year tribulation, THEN Christ returns to end that and He will reign for 1000 years while Satan is bound. Satan will break out, people will sin and Christ will once and for all end sin, cast Satan in the lake of fire and reign on the new Heavens and Earth forever.

The tribulation is described in Mark 13 and Revelation. It is a time of profound trial on earth.

Studying end times is important because almost 1/3 of the Bible is prophecy and 1/3 of the prophecy in the Old Testament points to Jesus’first coming and 2/3s to His second coming! 62 or the 66 books mention it.

It’s also important because it induces a healthy fear of God, makes us realize we need to starting living right and that we need to evangelize more.

1 John 3: 1-3 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears^] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

We see from this passage that we are blessed when we study end times because:

1.      We become overwhelmed by the love of God.

2.      We realize that we are misunderstood by the world and our lives must be different from the world’s.

3.      We know we are possessed by God. We are now His children!

4.      We see we will be glorified in His image. “When He appears we will be like Him.”Our relationship with Him will be increased a thousand fold at that time.

5.      We will be purified when we stand before Him.

 

 

1st Thessalonians 4 Part 3

1st Thessalonians 4:16-17 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Christ’s second coming is referred to over three hundred times in the New Testament. Let’s look at what will happen when He returns. In 4:16 and 17 it says the Lord Himself will descend from heaven and the dead in Christ (those bodies) will rise first and then everyone who is still alive on earth will rise and meet them in the air. “So we shall always be with the Lord.”

This is the Rapture which literally means “to snatch up” or to “catch up”. All believers (and only believers) will share in this event. Also in verse 16, notice that Jesus Himself is coming. He’s not sending someone or sending for us. He’s actually coming to get us!

This will be an event of majesty and honor. There will be “the cry of command” or in some translations, “a shout” which is an authoritative utterance. One commentator likened it to the battle cry of the military heralds. Jesus called Lazarus from the grave with a loud authoritative voice. He will call for His church too.

John 5:25 I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

Some translations say, “with a shout and an arch angel’s cry” and most commentators believe that Jesus will give the shout and the archangel will add to it. There will also be a trumpet. Trumpets are mentioned a lot in the Old Testament at times of victory and festivals. In the book of Numbers God communicated with the huge camp of Israelites by signals from 2 silver trumpets.

John Calvin thinks these three things happening are how a field marshal gathers his armies to battle. The shout, the voice and the trumpet picture one great event. It is a call to those who have been saved by grace to rise and follow the King of Kings.

When they meet in the air, both the dead in Christ and those still alive on earth will get resurrected bodies like Christ’s. It will be a body that never wears out or be subject to pain, disease or death. As John Wolvoord wrote, “it will be suited for the glorious presence of the Lord.”

Finally when we tell someone they look divine it will be true!

We get some idea of the resurrected body in the account of the transfiguration of Jesus:

Matthew 17:2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.

The reunion of those who have died in Christ is very important to Paul. He stresses the fact they will be together again. He says, “We shall always be with the Lord.” There is permanence in our fellowship with Christ and each other. It’s a comforting and encouraging thought. And in fact Paul says we should comfort each other with these words.

The reason we can comfort others is because God chose to reveal this to us. He doesn’t leave us in ignorance or without hope. This is going to happen: a promise from God is the same as already done. Hope in the Bible is not the way we use hope – it’s a sure thing.

A Christian faces death not in despair, but with sureness of what will happen. And the really important thing about all of this is that we’re ready. We need to be right with God. We need to accept Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. We need to live each day like it might be our last because some day it will be.

Our preparation should be: repentance, renewal, diligent proclamation of the gospel and Christ-like living.