 Well, good morning. It's always a joy to be with you guys. It's been a few years, so I'm delighted to be back with you again. I fill in for your wonderful pastor while he gets a quick break. You know, I've been preaching in California since the 1970s. And back in the 70s, people used to try to say to me, you can't build a large church in California. There's too many distractions. Well, the Calvary Chapel guys didn't know any better than to try. Take God at His word and preach the gospel, teach the word, and do it. You are sitting in the midst of a miracle of the blessing of God. And you have one of the finest pastors in all of America. David Rosales loves you, loves the Lord, loves the Word and has been at it for so many years. He's probably in the top one or 2% of all pastors. Most guys don't stay 20 and 30 years and more. Some of them burn out after three years. Some of them don't have anything to say after six months. So this is also part of God's blessing. And what a thrill to be here with all of you. You're part of it because it's not just about Him and the staff. It's about all of you serving together, praying together, working together, sharing together in the work of the Lord in this phenomenal place. My wife, Don and I have been married for over 50 years. And she'll be out in the gazebo with me afterwards. And we'd love to meet you, but we have three grown married children, seven grandchildren. And we said, wow, it's cold here in Virginia. Let's go to California. It'll be warm. Yeah, that was a mistake. But fun time for us to be here. Now, I know your pastor is a big UCLA fan. And I'm sorry, but our university, Liberty University, a Christian university beat UCLA in basketball last weekend. It's probably the first time they ever lost to a Christian school and their coach got fired. But maybe that was a blessing. I don't know. So big win for us, probably the biggest in our history. But Liberty University is fully accredited at every level, bachelor's, master's, doctorates. We have a law school, a medical school, engineering, counseling, and divinity is the study of the divine God in the Bible and theology and church ministries, et cetera. If you go online to liberty.edu for education, the whole thing will come up. If you're interested, we have over 100,000 online students. You can do a fully accredited degree at Liberty. Never leave California. You could technically stay in your bedroom and never leave your bedroom as long as you've got a computer, et cetera. So if you're interested, check it out. Now, medical school, no, you got to do that in person. And some of the law degrees, some of that in person, some of that's online. And even some of the nursing programs online, but eventually you got to go to a real hospital and learn how to do it. So they'll help you figure all that out. Also, some of you know our television program, The King is Coming. If you Google it up, it'll come up. We're on his channel on the internet about five times a week. We're on the Dish Network this afternoon at 4.30 here in California on Direct TV at five. So just look it up in the program guide. The King is Coming and that'll pop up. But it's been a joy of mine to serve the Lord now for over 50 years, to preach virtually on every continent except Antarctica. There's nobody there but penguins and a couple of scientists. So everywhere else, for a kid who grew up in Detroit, Michigan, in a home of parents who were eighth grade dropouts who didn't know God from a goat to hear the gospel in Vacation Bible School and come to faith and see God work, touch our family and ultimately send me all over the world. All three of our married kids are in some form of Christian work. It's just wonderful what God does when he steps into your life and changes everything. Now, go ahead. Thank the Lord. Back in May, I was speaking at the East Coast Calvary Chapel pastor's conference on the topic of the message this morning. Can we still believe in the rapture? You said, well, why would you pose the question that way? Well, because there are all kinds of people abandoning the doctrine of the rapture these days. People will say silly things like, well, the word rapture does not in the Bible. Look in the concordance. You can't find it. Well, look in the concordance for the word trinity. It's not in the Bible either. You can't find that. We'll be believing the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with co-equal attributes. The concept is there whether the English word is there or not. We're worshiping on a Sunday, but the word Sunday is not in the Bible. It says they worshiped on what? The Lord's day. Well, that was the Sunday, the first day of the week. That was the day Jesus rose from the dead, rose from the dead on Sunday. Why do Christians worship on Sunday? It's a resurrection celebration every Sunday. The concept is there whether or not the word is there. Now, I'll show you in a moment the concept of the rapture is clearly there in the Bible, whether the English word is there or not. So Mark Hitchcock, who teaches at Dallas Seminary and myself, went together and co-wrote this book. Can we still believe in the rapture? It's virtually brand new. We'll have it out in the gazebo afterwards. It's $15 and it's going to answer all those tough questions. Everything I cover in the message this morning and a whole lot more will be in here. Oh, it's a relatively new idea. No, not really. Paul taught it back in the first century. And it has appeared throughout church history constantly. Then there's a second book that I co-wrote with Tim LaHaye, who wrote the Left Behind series, Tim's in Heaven Now. And this book, Target Israel, caught in the crosshairs of the end times, the last book Tim ever wrote. And he and I wrote it together. It deals with what in the world is going on in the Middle East, Syria, Russia, Iran, all the crisis that's taking place in the Middle East. And yet Israel sits in this window of peace and the blessing of God. There were pastors taking a group there in March. Great time to go to Israel. You say, well, is it safe? Of course it is. All their neighbors that are mad at them are mad at themselves. And they're in conflict with themselves and they don't have time or resources to mess with Israel because God is doing an amazing thing there, setting the table for the end times. It's also $15 or get both books for $20. If you see something in there that might help a friend who's struggling with something, take a picture of it on your phone. Send it to them. I don't care. That'll tell you in the front of the book, this is copyrighted and don't reproduce it. But it's my book. I don't care. As old as I am, please use it. Send it to anybody. I don't want it. It'll be a blessing to them. Now, when we're done, it'll be there if you need it. Now, right now, take your Bible and find first Thessalonians chapter four. We'll get to that in a moment. First Thessalonians in the New Testament, fourth chapter. The question we want to raise this morning, can we still believe in the rapture? Is that clearly taught in the New Testament? And I'm going to argue, yes, it is. The difference among believers is the timing of it, not the fact of it. There has to be a rapture. There has to be a time when the dead are raised and the living are caught up. The only difference among believers is, is it going to happen before the time of tribulation in wrath? Your pastor and I believe yes, or during the time of tribulation, or after the time of tribulation, or there is no tribulation, or all of time is tribulation, or before the millennium, or after the millennium, or there is no millennium, or at the end of time, you've got to put it somewhere. Yet, people will go around saying there's not going to be a rapture. What they mean is, they don't think it'll be before the time of tribulation, you still have to have one. I was attending a church some years ago where a friend of mine was the pastor, but he did not believe in a pre-tribulational rapture. So he preached the whole sermon against the rapture. And when he, in his own church, when he came to the end of the sermon, his concluding remark was, and so we see there never will be a rapture. All we have to look forward to is trouble, trouble, and more trouble. And his own congregation moaned out loud. Now, you've got to hit Presbyterians pretty hard to get them to moan. They moaned. I was real tempted to stand up in the back and shout, wherefore, comfort one another with those words, but I didn't. After the service, we chatted. And he said, well, I know we disagree on this. I said, Wilson, I know you're a millennial, but there's got to be a rapture. Even you believe there has to be a time, the dead are raised and the living are caught up at the end of time. We only differ on the timing, not the fact of the rapture. And yet, people who disagree on the timing will go around and say silly things like there never will be a rapture. Now, there's got to be a rapture, or the Bible's not true. Even a theologian, as liberal, as Amal Bruner said, a Christian faith without the hope of the Second Coming is like a ladder that leads nowhere. Every Christian denomination has somewhere in their doctrinal statement and affirmation of the Second Coming. Catholics do. They believe Jesus will come again one day. Presbyterians do. Baptists do. Methodists do. Pentecostals do. Charismatics do. Everybody says one day, Jesus will return. The differences on the timing, that's all. And the details of when and how he will return when he comes back. The facts of Bible prophecy are very clear. Jesus told the disciples, I'm about to go back to the Father's house, heaven. And if I go, I will do what? Come again. And receive you unto myself. Jesus promised he would return. So every legitimate Christian denomination believes Christ will come back one day. The difference is on the matter of timing. Other matters are a matter of interpretation. How do I interpret what the tribulation is all about? It's not just trouble. People always suffer trouble. The concept of what we call the tribulation period is the wrath of the Lamb, Christ. It's the wrath of Almighty God. The judgments in the Book of Revelation are called the wrath of the Lamb and the wrath of the Father. I don't believe the church is the object of the wrath of God. The wrath of Satan, yes. We're the object of the wrath of men, yes. All that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer what? Persecution, trouble, difficulties, but not the wrath of God. And I think that's the difference, interpretively. Beyond that, everything else is a matter of speculation. My dear friend Tim LaHaye, we had lunch with his wife earlier this weekend with Beverly LaHaye. Tim always said, well, I think when the rapture occurs and you go up, all your clothes fall off and they're left behind as a testimony of the fact you've been raptured away. Really? Okay. I didn't see that in the Bible, but maybe. But I said, Tim, what about your glasses? What about false teeth? What about fillings? What about artificial parts? Some of us would have more left behind than God. There's grandma. Man, she left a pile. None of that was real. I don't know. There are some things we won't know till it happens. But are we going? Yeah, I think the Bible makes that very, very clear. Now let's go to our passage. First Thessalonians chapter four. The Apostle Paul went to this town Thessalonica. It's in Greece, still there today. When he got there, there were no Christians, none. He preaches the Gospel, people get saved, he plants a church and he teaches them basic Bible doctrine, including the doctrine of the rapture and the return of Christ. He only stayed three weeks. She was like, I don't think these doctors in the second coming are very important. Paul fought so. He only stayed there three weeks. And he left. And as far as we know, he never went back. But a few months later, some of the believers in Thessalonica died. And so people were asking the question, did they miss the return of Christ? And he's writing back to answer that and say, no, no, they didn't miss out at all. Absent from the body, spirits present with the Lord in heaven. And when he returns, they're coming back with him. Why? To get their body, to resurrect the body. People say to me all the time, well, if I died and went to heaven, why do I need my body? Because otherwise you'd be a disembodied spirit forever. You're going to get the body back. So where does it say that? Let's take a look. First Thessalonians, chapter four, beginning at verse 13. Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant or uninformed about those that are asleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind. Do they have no hope? Unbelievers. For if we believe Jesus died and he rose again, well, ask yourself, how did he rise? Literally, bodily, physically. If he died and rose again, so we believe God will bring with Jesus those that have fallen asleep in him. Bring him from where? Bring him from heaven. Bring him back. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you we are still alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not proceed those that have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a shout or a loud command, with a voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. They're at least six feet under. They'll come up first. And after that, we who are still alive and remain will be, and what are those next two words? Caught up. If you like to mark things in your Bible, I'd circle caught up. That's the rapture. Yeah, it doesn't say rapture in English. We'll see in a moment it's a Greek word, harpazo. You say, what does that mean? Basically, zap. You're out of here to the glory of God. Caught up, caught away, snatched away. They'll be caught up together with them, the dead, in the clouds to meet the Lord where? In the air. You might underline in the air. Not on the earth, in the air. And so shall we be with the Lord forever, therefore comfort or encourage one another with these words. The message of Bible prophecy is not meant to scare us, it's meant to prepare us. It's not just about what's going to happen, it's about who's going to come. It's all about Jesus. Sometimes he goes to me, oh, prophecy scares me. Well, if you're lost, it ought to scare the daylights out of you. If you're saved, it ought to thrill your heart because he's coming for you. If somebody were to ask you, is Jesus coming for you? The right answer is not, well, I hope so. You hope so, you better know so. The Bible says these things are written so that we might what? Know that we believe. Not just hope so, you need to know so. Well, I'm doing the best I can. The best you can will never measure up. God did the best he could when he sent Jesus, the sinless Son of God, to go to the cross to take your sin upon himself and die in your place. You're not going to do better than that. Jesus paid at what? All. Not part of it, all of it. So that he could wash the stain of sin away from our lives. He's the one who's done everything that we need to get us prepared for time and for eternity. Now let's take the text apart for a moment and let's suggest there are seven assurances of the rapture in this passage. Seven things, Paul saying, I want you guys in Thessalonica to know. And then through the inspired scripture, he wants us to know centuries later. Assurance number one, the reminder, do not grieve like an unbeliever. At the death of a loved one, do Christians grieve? Yes. Are our hearts broken? Yes. Do we miss them? Yes. But we know that we will what? See them again. The unbeliever doesn't have that hope. Because if you're an unbeliever, you're not going to see them again. And if you're an atheist and you say, I don't even believe in God. Well then death is the end. The cessation of existence. It's like you're done. The videotape ran out, it's gone. That's it. You're never going to see them again. When I was a young preacher in my 20s, I had to do a funeral of an unsafe teenager who got killed in a motorcycle accident. It was horrible. People wept and cried and sobbed and screamed. And his girlfriend ran down the aisle, dove in the casket on the dead body. Grief like an unbeliever. Now real believers, do they cry? Sure we do. Are hearts broken? Yes they are. But we don't cry like an unbeliever because we know death is not the end. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. And one day we'll all be reunited and I'll see them again. Therefore he tells us, don't grieve like others who have no hope. Why? Because you have the blessed hope of the coming of Christ. Number two, the reassurance that death will return. He tells us clearly in this passage, verse 14, if we believe Jesus died and he rose again, how did he rise? Literally, bodily, physically? A glorified body? Yes. But a real body where he would say to the disciples after the resurrection, touch me and see that I'm real. Thomas, put your finger in the nail print. Be not faithless but believing. On three occasions after the resurrection Jesus ate food with the disciples. Man, I like those passages. That implies you can eat in a resurrected body and not gain weight, etc. But a real body. Somebody asked me once, do you think there'll be anything man made in heaven? I thought about that for a moment. I said yes. If nothing else, the nail prints in Jesus' hands and feet. He had those after the resurrection. You say, well won't those make us sad? No. The nail prints shout to you for all eternity. I love you. I love you. I did it all for you. It reminds us of a loving Savior, the sacrificial lamb who died in our place, who's the conquering lamb who conquers death in the power of his resurrection. If we believe Jesus died and he literally rose again, didn't just spiritually rise, didn't just ooze out of the grave, Jesus rose in a glorified body right through the stone. The angel didn't roll the stone away to let him out of the tomb. He's already gone. The angel rolled the stone away to let us in. So we could see he is not here. He is what? Risen, as he said. The promise of the resurrection. Therefore, he says, so God will bring with Jesus those that have fallen asleep in him. Why? Because that departed spirit is going to be reunited with its body. That's going to be literally resurrected as well. The Lord will bring with him those that have departed. Assurance number three, the Lord himself will return. He will descend from heaven into the clouds. Now ultimately, at the rapture, we're going to get caught up in the clouds. At the final phase of the return, we're going to come back to earth to the battle of Armageddon. We're going to come back to the final triumph. We're going to come back to reign and roll with Christ on earth, etc. for a thousand years. You say, we're going to come back for a thousand years. What are we going to do for a thousand years? You could start by straightening out the traffic in Los Angeles. That'd be real good. There's a lot of good things you could do for a thousand years. But the emphasis here is Christ himself will return. Jesus is indeed coming again. We're 16 again. The Lord himself will come down from heaven with three signals. The triumphal shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God. The archangel shouts, the trumpet sounds, and we'll see in a moment the dead will be raised and the living will be caught up. Now sometimes critics of the rapture say, oh, you guys are teaching a secret rapture. No, I don't think it's a secret if suddenly millions of people disappear. That's not going to be a secret. It's going to be like, yikes, where'd they go? What happened? Aliens got them. Laser beams zapped them. I don't know. Whatever. It's not a secret. And the precedent is already there in Scripture. Only the believers hear the trumpet. Only the believers hear the shout. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. And I know them. I know who they are. I know who the real believers are. I know who I'm going to call. The question is, is he going to call you? That is going to happen one day. Now in the Old Testament, the prophet Daniel had an angel appear to him and start speaking to him, and he fell on his face. And there were people with him. They heard noise, but they didn't hear the voice. They didn't see the angel. Only Daniel did. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul, when he was still unconverted, saw all of Tarsus on the road to Damascus to persecute Christians. And the risen Christ appears to him and speaks to him. Saw, saw, why are you persecuting me? Only saw heard him and saw the light. The others knew something was happening, but they didn't know what was going on. Same idea here. Only the believers respond. Saul says, what Lord, what do you want me to do? And God converts him and he becomes the apostle Paul. There'll be a shout one day, the voice of a archangel in the trumpet call of God. The question is, are you going to hear it? Number four, the resurrection of the dead in Christ then takes place. The dead will rise first. Why? They're gone into the dust and ashes of time. Some of them, their bodies well preserved in a casket. Some have been cremated. Some burned up at the stake. Murders burned at the stake. Some were burned in a plane crash. It doesn't matter. The atoms remain. God can still bring you back to life again miraculously in the resurrection. Going toward Rome, going to the catacombs. I've been there. Fascinating places underground where early Christians were buried in all these little slots. There's nothing in them. Bodies are long gone and disintegrated. And yet the promise still holds true. Twenty-one centuries later, believers have died with faith in Jesus, faith in eternal life, faith in the promise of heaven. Bodies in the grave. Some of them preserved. Some of them disintegrated. Spirits in heaven. And yet Jesus says, I'm going to bring that spirit back with me one day and those bodies are going to be resurrected. The dead in Christ will rise first. Then he says, then we that are alive and remain, number five, the living will be caught up in the rapture. The word rapture in English comes from the Latin Bible, rapeo, rapere, becomes rapture. In the original Greek language that Paul wrote the letter in, it's the word harpazo. Snatched away, caught away. Remember Jesus said, what? I will come one day like a what? Thief in the night. Fosh, you're out of here instantly. He comes to snatch the church away before he unleashes wrath on the planet. Call the bride of Christ home before you bring wrath and destruction to the planet. That's the promise. Now that term and that concept is found throughout the Bible. You know, somebody tried to say to me one time, oh, the rapture is only taught in first Thessalonians four. Well, that's good enough. But no, it's actually all over the place. In the book of Genesis, in the Old Testament, Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him bodily to heaven. Oh, she was gone. That's a rapture. In the book of Second Kings, the prophet Elijah is caught up, body, soul, and spirit in a chariot of fire and whisk away, bodily raptured away. So there's two raptures in the Old Testament. Enoch and Elijah were taken to heaven without seeing death. Then in the New Testament, interestingly, we have other references to raptures. Philip, the evangelist, is witnessing to the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts, chapter eight. And the eunuch professes faith in Christ, and Philip baptizes the African man. And as soon as he comes up out of the water, the book of Acts says Philip was harpazo, raptured away, a temporary rapture. And he's dropped down about 30 miles away, instantly, miraculously, a temporary rapture. Paul himself says in one of his letters, I was harpazo, caught up into the third heaven, the dwelling place of God. He wasn't allowed to write a book about it or say anything about it. I was just caught away into the presence of God temporarily. Some think when he was stoned at Lystra and left for dead, possibly his spirit went to heaven, and then God sent him back. Two temporary raptures. Then interestingly, the ascension of Jesus himself in Revelation chapter 12 is called harpazo. You have that interesting statement in Revelation 12 about the child that is destined to rule the world with a rod of iron, Christ, but he was caught up under the Father's throne. Well, we know from the Gospels that's the ascension. He ascends bodily, physically, spiritually into heaven. Harpazo, raptured into heaven, the ascension. And then you have that unusual passage in Revelation 11 about the two witnesses in the last days that are preaching the Gospel to the Jewish people, two Jewish prophets, and they preach for three and a half years and halfway through the time of Tribulation, the Antichrist has them executed, kills them and won't allow them to be buried, and lives their dead bodies for three and a half days in the street in Jerusalem. Now you're in the second half of the Tribulation period. And after three and a half days, Revelation 11 says, the Spirit of God came into them and raised them up and then raptured harpazo, snatched them up to heaven in the sight of the whole world. That's an amazing passage. Man, I'd love to be watching CNN on that day. We're here in Jerusalem with a live camera feed off the satellite and the two guys are still dead in the middle of the street. Everybody's having a party. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. They're moving around. They're moving around. They're getting up. They're going up zaptor out of here. Now why in the world would God let them be killed? Turn around and resurrect them three and a half days later and rapture them up to heaven to give the world one more chance because he's a God of mercy and grace to let him know the rapture had already occurred. It wasn't aliens and laser beams, you idiots. It was the rapture. And I'm going to give you a mini rapture right now and show you how it works because God wants all men to what? Repent and be saved. He doesn't want you to go to hell. He doesn't want you to be condemned. Your own sin condemns you. You condemn yourself. And God says, I love you so much. I'll step into the fallenness of earth when Adam and Eva sinned against God. He didn't abandon them. God comes walking in the garden in the fallen place, calling like a parent. Adam, earth man, where are you? Eve, what have you done? God just asked questions. They start blaming each other and blaming God and blaming the devil. There's no woman you gave me. If the serpent made me do it, whatever, human nature never changes. Time and culture changes. People don't. When things go wrong, they blame God. They blame the devil or they blame each other. Happens all the time in a college campus. You guys let a fire in the dorm. My roommate told me to do it. God told me no, he didn't. The devil made me do it. No, you did it. Whatever. And yet God loves us so much. He said to Adam and Eve, come here. I can help. We can shed some blood. God killed the first animal. No, technically, it was their fault. God shed the first blood. God made the first sacrifice and God gives him the first promise. One day, I'll send somebody to the seat of the woman, a human being, into the human race who'll crush the head of the serpent, the messianic promise, the Savior's coming. He comes down in the person of Jesus Christ. God incarnated in human flesh. Looks like a man, but talks like God. Walks among men, but lives above men. Who dares to say that if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. That I and the Father are one. That I have the power to forgive your sins. And people say, only God can forgive sins. Right. That before Abraham was, I am and takes the sacred name of God and applies it to himself. Though Jesus comes screaming at us that he's God and goes to the cross and takes our sin on himself. In those horrible moments, when he stands up on the nails, pulls himself up on the spikes, when he shouts, my God, why have you forsaken me? He's actually quoting Psalm 22, the first verse. That Psalm goes on to say, they gambled for my robe. They pierced my hands and my feet. He knows exactly what's happening. I'm fulfilling that prediction right now. The wrath of the Father is on me because the sin of the world is on me. Now that's pretty heavy stuff if you think about it. That every rotten thing you or I have ever said or done or thought and everything else was laid on him in that moment. He took it, and he took the wrath of God for our sin. Nobody loves you like Jesus loves you. Nobody died for you like Jesus died for you. Nobody rose from the dead for you except Jesus. Nobody's coming again for you except Jesus. He is the solution to the human problem. He comes into the darkness of this world to say, I'll take it all on myself. I'll rise above it. I'll give them hope. I'll give them help for the future. I grew up in a lost home, no Jesus, no God, no Bible, Detroit, Michigan, eighth grade dropouts for parents. They were sincere. They are honest. Dad was a truck driver. Did the best he could, but they didn't know anything about God. I had never found God, but a church a lot like this built a new building near our house years ago and sent out a flyer advertising vacation Bible school. My mother read the flyer. Oh, it goes on for five days. Good. Get him out of the house. Send him there. I went there and learned Jesus loved me that he died for my sins, that he rose from the dead, that he's coming again, that I could have a home in heaven forever and it's free. I raised my hand. I'm like, yeah, I'm in. I'll go for that. Fortunately, the lady that dealt with me, Mrs. Johnson, was very thorough, very clear. Kid, this is not just a simple little deal here. You're giving your life to Jesus forever. This is a lifetime commitment. You're putting your hope for the future and for eternity in what he did for you on the cross. You ready to do that? And God was pulling at my heart and I said, absolutely yes. And God changed everything. Later, my parents eventually came to faith and God stepped into our lives. All of my kids today are in some kind of Christian work. I have seven grandchildren and know the Lord. God just amazingly, many of you had that same experience. How many of you were a first generation real born again Christian in your family? Let me see your hands. Lots of you. God bless you. Your relatives thought you were nuts, didn't they? Hell, they've gone crazy. No, they've gone to Jesus and you don't know him or you'd be as excited as they are, et cetera. It's a wonderful thing, but it's not without its challenges. Without its difficulties. Well, we don't have a model to go after. I didn't have a model of how to be a Christian parent. I didn't have a model of how to grow in my relationship with the Lord. I had to learn the hard way. Some of you did. Some of you were blessed to grow up in a Christian home. Your parents really knew the Lord. They set an example for you. Some of you, your parents said they knew the Lord and lived like the devil. And you had to overcome that, whatever, et cetera. What an amazing salvation God makes available to all of us. And one day, the Lord is going to come. The debt are going to be raised. Their spirit's going to be reunited with their body. The living are going to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Sometimes people say, well, Ed, come on, you and Pastor David, you guys are teaching two second comings. No, we're not. Two aspects of the second coming, yes. His coming in the air for the believers, His coming to the earth to return to set up His kingdom on earth. There are multiple aspects to the first coming of Christ, birth of Christ, part of the first coming, life of Christ, His ministry, His death, His resurrection, His ascension. It was all part of the first coming. And in the second coming, the two aspects are the rapture takes place in the air, in the clouds. The return takes place to the earth. In fact, when you line up the events of going up and the events of coming back, there are so many distinct events, there's no way they could happen simultaneously at the same time. Now, we've got them all listed for you in the book. But the idea is this. In the rapture, you're going up to meet the Father at the Father's house. You're going to see in a moment of the judgment seat to the marriage of Christ in the return. You're coming back to the battle of Armageddon. You're coming back to the triumph. You're coming back to reign and rule with Him on earth. Two different aspects, all part of His return. Number six, the rapture involves a reunion. All the saved of all time, reunited. Every genuine believer from every century, resurrected, body reunited with the Spirit which returns with Christ in the air. And then the living believers caught up in the air miraculously. Again, critics will say, ah, come on, you're just going to go right up through the ceiling? Well, you're going to raise a dead guy right up out of a casket. You say you believe in the resurrection. Oh, yeah. Well, if he can raise a dead one, he can rapture a living one. Why don't you think cars crash and planes crash? I don't know. The Bible doesn't talk about that. I can't assume everybody's pedestrian at that moment. I don't know. I'm going to let God sort that out when the time comes. But it will come because you've got to put it somewhere. There has to be a time the dead are raised and the living are caught up. You can differ with other believers on the timing, but not the fact of the rapture. So be aware of people who go around and say, there will never be a rapture. No, there will be. You can put it somewhere else if you want to, but there's got to be a rapture at some point in time. And then number seven, that leads to the resolution. Therefore, do what? Comfort one another. Encourage one another with that hope. It's actually the Greek word paracaleo from which we get the word paraclete. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, I will send you another one. Comforter. In the Greek it's the paraclete. Here it's the verbal form of it. When you comfort one another, you're doing the work of the Spirit encouraging each other's lives and hearts, looking forward with anticipation. Paul said in one of his letters, for all of those that love is appearing, there is a crown of righteousness laid out. Does my view of the Second Coming give me a love for the appearing of Christ, for the coming of Christ that I look forward to being with Him? Now, why do we need a rapture? Let me suggest four simple things. The purpose of the rapture. First of all, is to take the bride, the believers, home to the Father's house. What's the church called in the New Testament? The Bride of Christ. Now, it's a spiritual picture. I get it. It's a metaphor. He's the groom. We're the bride. We're united with Him in salvation. John 14, if I go back to the Father's house, I'll come again and take you to be with me. He said that the night before he went to the cross. After Judas, the unbeliever left the room. The promise was only given to the eleven believing disciples. You take the bride to the Father's house, to the judgment seat of Christ, the Bema seat judgment, where we receive our rewards for your faithful service to the Lord. All those times, you taught a children's class, a youth class, worked with the teenagers, worked with adults, visited widows, ministered to people in the hospital, struggling, hurting people, whatever. You worked on the parking lot, you served as a not sure God kept the record book. And God will reward our faithful service. We don't serve so we can go to heaven. We serve because we are going to heaven and we're on our way by the grace of God. We serve out of worship and appreciation to the Lord. Every time you gave to invest in the work of this church, you get part of the blessing. All of Pastor David's ministry for all these years, you've held them up. You've supported them and encouraged them and prayed for them. You share in the blessing. The scripture says whoever assists the prophet of God shares in the prophet's blessing as well. God keeps the record book. Little old Mrs. Johnson led me to Christ when I was a kid. She had no idea this kid one day will be the head of the largest theological school in the world. We have over 10,000 ministry students at Liberty studying for the ministry out of that 100,000 total. She had no idea this kid will go all over the planet preaching the gospel, teaching the Bible on every continent. She had no idea that I'd broadcast the gospel on television and millions of people would hear it. She will share in the blessing, in the reward at the judgment seat of Christ. You're going to share in blessings you don't even know you're going to get. Thirdly, you've got to take the bride of Christ to heaven to the marriage of the lamb. The marriage takes place in heaven, not on earth. You've got to go up before you come back. Read Revelation 19. The marriage of the lamb is in heaven and then the bride returns with Christ in the triumphal return. Same chapter. You've got to go to the marriage before we come back, robed in white as the bride of Christ riding out of heaven in triumph. No longer the church persecuted, no longer the church martyred, maligned, made fun of on Saturday Night Live, rejected, whatever. No, now she's the church triumphant. She said, great, are we going to come back to fight? No, we're going to come back and watch and cheer him on. Why? Jesus doesn't need guns and tanks and bombs to win the battle of Armageddon. He who spoke the world into existence, speaks, and it's all over. The word of his mouth slays the army of the Antichrist. The beast and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire and we reign and rule with Christ for a thousand years on planet earth. That's the message of the Bible. So when I look at those promises and I sort out all the pieces of Bible prophecy related to the rapture, why do I think it has to take place before the time of wrath, before the time of tribulation? Let me quickly give you 10 suggestions. 10 reasons for a pre-tribulational rapture. Number one, Jesus' promise to the disciples. If I go back to the Father's house, I will take you there. Spirit's there, body's still in the grave. Gotta come back and raise that body. Secondly, Jesus' instructions in Matthew 24. He said, keep watching for me to come. He didn't say, keep watching with the Antichrist. Beware of people who say, I don't know who the Antichrist is. No, you don't. You usually think it's somebody you didn't vote for. Ah, that's what you think. You don't want to know who the Antichrist is. You figure out who the Antichrist is, you've been let behind. Ah, that's for the people that have been let behind to figure out. He said, Luke 21, pray that you escape the hour of trouble that's coming. Well, why would you pray that you escape it if you can't escape it? Revelation 3.10, the church's promise you'll be kept from, out from, the hour of trouble that's coming on the whole world. Number three, the persecuted woman in Revelation 12, who's the mother of the Messiah, the mother of Christ, symbolizes the nation of Israel. Jesus descends from what? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David. That's why you have that genealogy in Matthew 1 that opens the New Testament. It's the heresy that are going to be persecuted by the Antichrist. Number four, and I think this one's really important, the church is not the object of the wrath of Christ. The wrath of man, yes. The wrath of Satan, yes. The wrath of Jesus? No, never. He took the wrath of God on our behalf. He stands between us and the wrath of God. The church is not the object of the wrath of Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5.9, for it is not appointed unto you to experience what? The wrath. Number five, the rapture is always pictured as imminent. It could potentially happen at any moment. In any moment, the trumpet could sound, the archangel could shout, are there prophetic things that could happen in the meantime? Yes. Do they have to happen before there could be a rapture? No, it could happen at any time. When it happens, it's instantaneous. 1 Corinthians 15. In a moment, in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, zap, the dead are raised, the living are caught up. The rapture is uniquely for those that are in Christ. It's not for unbelievers. It's only for true believers. Number eight, the rapture has to precede the beam of seed judgment, as we've already seen, the judgment seed of Christ. You go there to receive your rewards and what? The robe of white that you get at the marriage. Number nine, the rapture has to precede the marriage, if nothing else. And it has to precede the return at Armageddon. All of that is in the 19th chapter of Revelation. Now, there are a lot more reasons. We give you a bunch of those in the book. It'll really help. But here's the deal. If I were to look at all these things, I'd ask myself two questions. Number one, does the Bible teach there will be a rapture? The obvious answer is what? Yes. There has to be a time when the dead are raised and the living are caught up. You can differ on the timing if you want to. There has to be a rapture. So don't go around saying there's never going to be a rapture. No, there's going to be a rapture. The question is simply when? Number two, why do I think it occurs before the time of tribulation? Because the time of tribulation is clearly called the wrath of the Lamb and the wrath of God the Father. Read the book of Revelation. The church is not the object of the wrath of God. Jesus took the wrath. The church is the object of the love of Christ and the grace of God. And yet some people try to say, well, I think the church goes through the tribulation. Here you've got to beat up the bride to purify her. Purify her. That sounds like Protestant purgatory. Get her ready for the marriage. Now I'm going to show you a picture. Now I don't want to offend anybody. It's actually an actress. But look at this picture. Is that Jesus' plan for his bride? Beat her up. Beat her up. Beat her up. Beat her up. Get her ready for heaven. I would suggest to you, no, a thousand times no. He loved the bride. He died for the bride. He gave himself for the bride. He took the wrath. He took the beating on the cross. That's what the message of salvation is all about. Jesus took it all. He died. Hey, Rose, he's coming again. Hallelujah. What a savior. Nobody loves you like he loves you. No wonder he wants to be spiritually married to you. He did everything to provide for you time and eternity. Blessings on earth and the eternal blessing of everlasting life. Nobody loves you like he loves you. Nobody gave himself like he gave himself. Will I struggle here on earth? Yes. Will I have the wrath of men to deal with at times? Yes. The wrath of Satan? Yes. But hallelujah, never the wrath of God. I am saved and secure in the Savior's love.