Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. Today, what is the pre-tribulation rapture? What is the teaching's origin? And I want to ask you today, too, what did the church teach before the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture became so popular?

It is so popular today, isn't it? Just witnessed the snoozer film recently, Nicholas. But what I want to do today is challenge you, dear listener, because so many of you espouse this doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture. What I want to challenge you to do is think about it in perhaps a different way than you have in the past. In fact, the entire framework of dispensational pre-millennialism that casts all of prophecy about the end times into the future, because there are distinct problems with front-loading all of the prophecies of the end times into the future.

That is a future of Antichrist tribulation, a rebuilt temple, and, of course, a pre-tribulation rapture. For example, please explain to me why this view, this futurist view, has any credibility after the failure of the so-called blood moons nonsense espoused by teachers like John Hagee. Hagee is the pastor of megachurch Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, with some 20,000-plus active members. Hagee has made his bones by flogging this dead horse of red heifer rapture religion for decades now.

His book, Jerusalem Countdown, A Warning to the World, is an updated version of Hal Lindsey's landmark book, The Late Great Planet Earth, with many of the same themes. This would include the idea that Russia and the Islamic States would invade Israel, be destroyed by God, and this would precipitate the head of the European Union, the Antichrist, in this scheme, to confront Israel in conjunction with China and the West. On and on it goes. Leaving this classic core notion of end times of religion aside for the moment, Hagee most recently published a book called Four Blood Moons. Something is about to change.

Da-da-da. Hagee first reviews the importance of blood moons in the past, at least to him, leaving a lot of other history behind. But these four blood moons are celestial phenomena in which lunar eclipses turn the moon a reddish hue, metaphorically in appearance, like blood, fulfilling the prophecy of Joel 2.31, ostensibly, that is, the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord, unquote. Now, in dispensational premillennialism, this refers to the pre-tribulational rapture, which is our main topic of discussion today.

It refers to the pre-tribulational rapture of the church from the world, and then the commencement of a seven-year period of great distress called the Great Tribulation. Now, these eclipses occur rarely but significantly in clusters of four called tetrads. Hagee covers when they have been in the past and their significance for Jews and for Israel, ostensibly. For example, a blood moon tetra occurred in 1949 and 1950, just following the founding of the State of Israel, and then again in 1967 and 1968, after the Six-Day War, when Israel gained possession of Jerusalem.

Now, Hagee feels that the tetrad of blood moons recently concluded, as of September 28th of this year, would portend, as he says, something big, like these other dates. Please tell me, dear listener, what happened? Huh? What happened? Nothing.

It is yet another failed prediction of the end, for which your system, dispensational premillennialism, is responsible. Hagee, now, he has cleverly hedged his bets by saying he never predicted the time of the end, and that no man can set the day or the hour, but rather that these things prove that Christ may well be coming soon. Well, duh, tell me something I don't know, Mr. Hagee. All of this could be maintained without reference to a prophetic diversion like the four blood moons.

What Hagee cannot escape is that his claim that something big, something huge, on a par with the supposed big and huge events he cites from history, will happen no later than September of 2015, already passed. As is characteristics of false prophets, Hagee has dropped all reference to his book, and he's given no explanation either, but he carries on as if he had said nothing about these things. Oh, note with me as well, the failed predictions of dispensational premillennialism. For example, Hal Lindsey of late great Planet Earth fame, published in the 70s.

Many others of his day also confidently predicted that the rapture would take place on, or the premillennial rapture, which is our main topic of discussion today. He predicted that the, that the pre-tribulational rapture would take place on or before 1988, since Jesus in his Olivet Discourse said, this generation, that is the generation in which Israel was formed, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. This generation, indeed, was that one which would commence end-time prophecy when Israel was restored as a nation, and Israel was restored in 1948. And a generation in the Bible was about 40 years years.

So, Hal Lindsey said, voila, the end times would commence on or around 1988. All of this is true, but what happened? Nothing. Do you remember also the popular radio teacher, Harold Camping, who predicted that the rapture would take place on May 21st, 2011, when his prediction failed to take place? He at first said it was a spiritual judgment of the world, but then he later retracted it when he realized how absurd it was.

Well, Camping experienced a mild stroke, and he retired from public ministry. Dear listener, when will you stop making excuses for false prophets that have as their source a false biblical eschatology, like premillennial dispensationalism, like a pre-tribulational rapture? Your system, dispensational premillennialism, puts all of Revelation and related prophecies into the future. A future with which these teachers then, very conveniently, can tease and tantalize you, writing books.

How many of you have been fleeced by the Left Behind series, buying the continuing books being churned out by Tim LaHaye, who has made a fortune on gullible believers? Or preaching of sermons? How many of you think you know that the locusts of Revelation are helicopters, that Gog and Magog are Russia? Or that the Antichrist will come from the European Union? On and on it goes.

And they even make movies and cable channel documentaries. How about Nicolas Cage and the Left Behind movie? What a snoozer. I hope you didn't waste your money on that one. Or even the History Channel special on the Antichrist.

Well, dear listener, do you think that because you have made it into mainstream media, and that most contemporary churches, perhaps yours as well, now teach this futurist system that it is true? Rather, the popularity in the general culture of America ought to make you think twice about its veracity. Could it not be that while you are distracted, chasing prophetic shadows, Revelation, Rapture, and Red Heifers in the church, while the world chases sports and social media and online video games, that perhaps a real beast is devouring you? The Apostle John would say, yes, this calls for a mind with wisdom.

And he was speaking of interpreting the symbols of the beast. What I would like to do with you today is consider very carefully the doctrine of the pre-tribulational rapture. Paul calls the rapture our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. And such it is, dear listener. In every age, the people of God have longed for His return in great power and glory to redeem us.

This return is called the parousia, or coming. It will be powerful and glorious and personal. How do we know? Well, there is one text to which all agree is basic, and that's 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 to 18. Let me read that text for you today.

Paul says, But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. Note very clearly, dear listener, the context of these verses. The Thessalonians were concerned about members who had died in expectation of Christ's return.

What would be their fate when Christ did return? Would they be left behind, if we may borrow a phrase? Paul reassures them that no, so far from being in limbo somewhere, would these who have preceded be, that indeed, rather, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. It's a euphemism for death, of course. Paul then goes on to describe the nature of his return.

And note with me these things. Number one, this is the one, the only, and the final return of Christ. Paul paints a picture of the one, the only, and the final return of Christ. There is not a hint of evidence that this is anything other.

Pre-tribulationists are insistent that this text refers to the pre-tribulation rapture of the church out of the world that will signal the onset of the great tribulation, the appearance of the Antichrist, an eventual showdown at Armageddon, and then a second, second coming of Christ to inaugurate a literal thousand-year millennial reign from Jerusalem, and then with a third second coming at the end of the millennium to inaugurate the eternal state, do you realize that your system, a pre-tribulational rapture system, has three second comings rather than one, the rapture and then the coming at, to begin the thousand-year millennial reign, and then a third second coming at the end of the millennium to inaugurate the eternal state.

Wow, that's a lot to deduce from this text. Where, pray tell, is all of that here in this text? It is not. Rather, this text employs the same kind of language of finality that all other biblical texts use to describe Christ's second coming and the end of the age. For example, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 says this about his second coming.

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering, since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us.

When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, inflaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed. Unquote from 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, the same kind of language that we have here in 1 Thessalonians.

And then of course from Acts chapter 1, where the angel says to the apostles, when he had said these things as they were looking on, he was lifted up, that is Jesus, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. Once more, there's not a hint in any of these texts other than the one, the only, and the final return of Christ.

To place this text in a pre-tribulational scheme of the end times, one must import those ideas of a pre-tribulational rapture from the outside to make this text mean what they want it to mean. Dear listener, eisegesis is the method of reading into a text meanings that are not there. Exegesis is reading out of a text what is inherent in its meaning, that is the things that are there. Pre-tribulational rapture interpretation of this text is eisegesis, the reading into a text of the most egregious kind.

Even the next chapter confirms our interpretation, chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians, because Paul moves on from considering the host with which Christ returns to the general timing of it. He calls it the times and seasons of Christ's return. Paul reminds them of something they are already aware, that is the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Now, understand, pre-tribulation rapturists play theological twister here. You know what theological twister is?

That is, you have to bend over and say, this text means that, and then take your foot and say, this text means actually that, and then pretty soon you're in a pretzel. By making a distinction between Christ's parousia and the day of the Lord, pre-tribulational rapturists play theological twister. They say that these two texts are different times and days, because two different words are used. That is, parousia, or coming, and day of the Lord. But this, dear listener, I submit to you is playing childish word games.

Christ's coming, all through the Bible, is called different things. Christ's coming is also called His appearing in Titus chapter 2 and 1 Timothy chapter 6. Christ's coming is also called His revealing in 1 Corinthians 1.7. Christ's coming is also called His revelation in 1 Peter 1.7 and 13. Christ's coming is also called the day in 1 Corinthians 3.13.

Christ's coming is also called the great day of God Almighty in Revelation 16.13. Well, are we to then to parse these all out to different comings of the Lord at different times, just because they use different words? How absurd it is. I may call it the 4th of July, or Independence Day, or even Fireworks Day, as my kids used to call it, but it's the same thing. Here, the same thing obtains.

There are other names too numerous to mention for this day of the Lord, but they all refer to the same thing, the coming of Christ. Variations in wording do not decide the issue. Context determines the issue, and the context here demands that Paul's train of thought continues in the same vein. These refer to the same thing. Pre-tribulation rapturists, by making a distinction between his parousia and the day of the Lord, make a distinction without a difference.

The rapture is of a peace with the one, the only, the final coming of Christ. A pre-tribulation rapture is just plain wrong. Secondly, note with me from this text, that is 1 Thessalonians 4.13-19. Indeed, secondly, the rapture will be anything but secret. Pre-tribulation rapture teachers are fond of calling this a secret rapture, since the world will be in wonder and consternation at what happened to all the believers.

Remember the old bumper sticker, in case of rapture, this vehicle will be driverless? The movie Thief in the Night is a dramatization of this, as is the Nicolas Cage snoozer left behind. But does our text really support this assertion? Once more, the context of the rapture shows it of a whole with the one, the only, the final coming of Christ. Our text says the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, or a cry of command.

This can hardly be secret, as cry of command, the ESV, shout from the King James. It will also come with the voice of an archangel, and all through the judgment texts, the archangels are anything but quiet and silent. This cannot be secret. And then Christ will also come, as 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 says, with the sound of the trumpet of God. This cannot be secret either.

Trumpets were used by armies to signal orders in battle, because they were loud enough to be heard above the din of desperate combat. Oh, dear listener, perhaps the Lord will strike unbelievers of the earth with deafness first, maybe, to make it secret. Or perhaps we've mistranslated shout for whisper, and those trumpets of God are jazz trumpets with mutes. Ah, some pre-tribulation rapture teachers try to get around this difficulty by saying that only believers will hear this glorious, intimidating cacophony. Oh, once again, how absurd, though, dear listener.

This is eisegesis of the most egregious kind. Instead of being secret, the rapture will be loud, glorious, and evident to all the world. Thirdly, let me also point out from this text, 1 Corinthians 4, 13 to 19, perhaps you should have your Bible open to it. You must also note that all of the saints will escort Christ in glory to the earth. Pre-tribulation rapture teachers, excuse me, are fond of saying that Christ first comes for his church, and then he comes with his church.

He first comes for his church, indicated by texts like ours before us today, and then ostensibly he comes later with his church after the great tribulation and after the battle at Armageddon on the day of the Lord, as in chapter 5. So they think. They think, pre-tribulation rapturists, think that the logic of this passage before us today is that those of us left alive at his coming will be caught up, that is, raptured, together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

Thus, according to pre-tribulation rapture teachers, we will be in heaven, in the air, while God deals in wrath with the world on the earth during the great tribulation. After that, they say, he will come back on the day of the Lord, taken up in chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians with his saints. In the pre-trib logic, it makes no sense. Many of the authors have said this. It makes no sense for us to be caught up in the air, only to descend right back down to the earth.

How silly. But once more, this reasoning of pre-tribulation rapture teachers ignores the cultural context of this letter. At this time in the ancient world, it was proper protocol for those receiving a guest, especially a royal personage, to come out to meet them and then escort them to their destination. The wedding party, that is, the virgins in the parable of the bridegroom, went out to meet the bridegroom and his party to escort them to the bridal chamber. The people, also in the Old Testament, went out to meet David after his victories and escort him back into Jerusalem.

They went out to meet Christ at the triumphal entry and escort him to the temple. Well, of course, Paul, when he arrived at Rome, the brothers, the text tells us, came out as far as the Forum of Appius and the three taverns to meet him and then escort him to his destination. This is cultural protocol in those days. It's precisely what is going on here in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Those saints alive at his return will be caught up in the air to join those who have preceded us in death in order that we might all be of the host that escorts the Lord to the earth to claim his possession.

This protocol might not make sense to pre-tribulation rapture teachers who are ignorant of the cultural context of the ancient world in which Paul composed his letters, but the Thessalonians would find it making perfect sense. All of the saints will escort Christ in glory to the earth. And then fourthly as well, note with me, the pre-tribulation rapture teaching is a recent innovation in doctrine. Yes, the pre-tribulation rapture teaching is a recent innovation in doctrine.

Perhaps you have been led to believe that this is what the church has always taught concerning end times since the Apostle Paul, yet church historians have traced the doctrine of a pre-tribulational rapture of the church to the early quarter of the 19th century during a series of charismatic revival meetings in England. Now, as in America, religious revival was sweeping across England, causing a great deal of upheaval in the churches. One of those churches was pastored by a Presbyterian minister named Edward Irving. I'm sorry, Edward Irving.

And he started the New Catholic Apostolic Church after he was checked out of the Presbyterian church for heresy. Along the way, he also pioneered the new views on pre-tribulation rapture and its attendant doctrines too. Irving was a very bright fellow and eloquent speaker who drew large crowds through the revivals being sponsored by one lady powers court. They were known as the powers court meetings.

Now, Irving had come across the work of a Jesuit priest named Emmanuel Lacunza, who had written a book entitled The Coming of Messiah and Glory and Majesty in 1812, in which Lacunza taught that all of the prophecies concerning the second coming of Christ were yet in the future, including a pre-tribulational rapture. It appears from his own writing and speaking that Irving did not emphasize the aspect of a two-stage return of Christ, which Lacunza emphasized. He didn't do so at once, but he did so increasing after one Mary MacDonald, a then 15-year-old from Glasgow, Scotland, Mary MacDonald.

She began speaking of a pre-trib rapture in a several-hour period of prophecy and visions that she received as a part of the exercise of the charismatic gifts of the Catholic Apostolic Church. This was in April of 1830, and it quickly spread as a teaching in Irving's church, increasingly in his writings and sermons too as well. But the man who really put the futurist view of the end times as we know it into warp drive, if you will, was John Nelson Darby, an Anglican minister who became convinced that the established church was corrupt, that individual believers should eschew the denominational churches and gather simply as brethren.

Thus was born the Brethren Movement, which became, to Darby's chagrin, another denomination. This is how it goes. But Darby also ministered closely during this period, well into the latter half of the 19th century, spreading the gospel of pre-millennial dispensationalism throughout England in his speaking and in his writing. He even traveled to America, where a man named C.I. Schofield became a close disciple of Darby.

And of course, we get the Schofield reference Bible. Well, during the period of the Powers Court meetings and the end times fever in Irving's church, Darby was present and he was circulating amongst them. He spent time with Mary McDonnell and her family, hearing and noting the latest developments. Darby claims that his understanding of the pre-tribulational rapture came purely from his study of Scripture. But several scholars now doubt this.

I urge you to reference the incredible cover-up, The True Story of the Pre-Trib Rapture, written by Dave McPherson, published by Logos International. Whatever the precise relationship between Emmanuel Lacunza, Edward Irving, Mary McDonnell, John Nelson Darby may be, that is, who formed it first, who served as source for whom, and what was the source of inspiration for these things. Well, it is clear that these were the days when the doctrine of the pre-tribulational rapture of the church was cooked up during the early to mid-1800s in the atmosphere of a charismatic revival.

The church had known nothing, absolutely nothing, of a pre-tribulational rapture before. What the church has taught consistently throughout its history is the one, the only, the final coming of Christ in great power and glory to redeem his people and judge the world. So make no mistake about this, dear listener, this is not just a choice between potato and potato, between tomato and tomato. No, those who hold to the church's classic understanding of Christ's return understand that there is much tribulation, suffering, and persecution to come for the church, and that we must prepare for it.

Persecution that is happening right now, dear listener. Pre-tribulation rapture teachers assure us that we will be raptured out of tribulation by and by in the future, not to worry. Those who hold to the classic understanding of Christ's return understand indeed that the church has always faced the beasts, the dragon, the antichrists of the Bible, and they battle them still today, right now. Pre-tribulation rapture teachers assure us that this is all in the future.

Those who hold to the church's classic understanding of Christ's return develop strategies for prayers concerning and exhortations toward battling these beasts, dragons, and antichrists of the Bible for the glory of God and the winning of souls for Christ right now. Pre-tribulation rapture teachers assure us that all of that will come in due time for those left behind after the rapture.

In short, dear listener, your pre-tribulation rapture beliefs, they are robbing you of much of your Christian walk of discipleship right now by lulling you into thinking that suffering and persecution and tribulation are for another generation, another people after you are raptured out of the world. This has perhaps a subtle but real effect on your mind and heart. Please tell this assurance of yours to the church that will not face great tribulation. They will not face great tribulation. Tell this to the many countless thousands being beheaded and crucified and burned to death at the hands of Islam all across the earth.

I encourage you to buck the trend of the hour, dear listener. Re-examine in the light of the Bible and its classic interpretation what you've been taught in your churches, popular books, and radio teachers. Take back your walk of discipleship. Let the blessing of the promise of Christ's return wash over you, dear listener. The one, the only, the final coming of Christ for his church.

It is truly what Paul calls it, the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We meet for holy worship at 10 a.m. at Sunday at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Call us at 523-0196.