Well, I can see I better leaf that subject and get down to the root of our reason for being here. So would you join me please as we turn to 1 Corinthians 15. You landscape grace church, is that right? Praise the Lord, good. Thank you for your ministry today, both of you. First Corinthians 15, we are going today to take an excursion from the verse by verse exposition that we've been giving through 1 Corinthians.
Today in chapter 15 we're going to review a couple of verses that will lead us to the subject we want to talk about today and next week too. In verse 51 we review from last week where it says, listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed.
For an elaboration on these words turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 where we have the fullest prophecy of this coming event which we refer to as the rapture. First Thessalonians 4, beginning in verse 13, says, Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again. So we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 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. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. Well, let's pray together now, shall we? Lord, we thank you for the blessing of this service and for each one who has come. And now I pray that as we look into your holy word, that our hearts will be instructed and encouraged as they ought to be in this matter of the Lord's soon return. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
In the passages that we have read, we are assured of the future resurrection of the dead and of the expectation that we have who will be alive in that day that our Lord Jesus comes for the church. There is confusion in the evangelical world regarding the timing of this future event which we refer to as the rapture. There really are three positions, two of which are more prominent.
There are those who are called pre-tribulational in their view, teaching that before the tribulation period comes upon the world at the end of this age, the rapture will occur. Then there are those that are referred to as mid-tribulationalists, who teach that the Lord's coming will be in the middle of the tribulation. And then there are those who are called post-tribulationalists, who teach that the Lord's coming for his church will be after the tribulation period.
The church will be here through the entire period that is called the tribulation. Now, because there are good men who are divided in their conviction over this particular matter, it is fair to say, I think, that there is no clear, crystal clear and precise statement in Scripture that says the church will be taken out of the world before the tribulation comes upon it. Does that then leave us, though, to be confused about this matter?
Are we able to discern from Scripture's evidence that will give us the right interpretation and understanding of when the rapture will occur? The answer to that, I am convinced, is yes. Yet we can know, on the basis of the evidence of Scripture, when the Lord Jesus will come back for his church. We take the position that the coming of our Lord for the church will occur before the tribulation period.
In other words, we would be classified, if that's what we should do, to be classified, as pre-tribulationless in our view of our Lord's return for the church. Now, that is not to suggest that those who might hold another position are heretics. It does not mean that they are wicked and ungodly, because they have a different position that we might on the timing of our Lord's coming. All believe that the Lord is going to come. It is simply a matter of when he is going to return.
But as I have stated, I don't believe we are left to uncertainty and confusion in this matter. There are those who are content to say, well, whenever the Lord comes, he comes. I'm not going to worry about it. But because I'm rather involved in this matter of the rapture of the church, because I'm a part of it through faith in Jesus Christ, I'm kind of interested to know when it's going to happen.
Am I to look forward to a period of suffering and tribulation upon the world, through which I will endure? Or do I have the hope of Christ coming for me before that tribulation period occurs? That's the question. After a careful analysis of the data that is given to us in the Bible, I believe that we can speak with assurance and with confidence that our Lord's coming is in fact going to be before the tribulation period comes upon the world.
Now, before we go into the reasons as to why we take that position specifically, it's important for us to understand some basic terms that we're going to deal with. Thus, on the outline that you were given as you came in this morning—I hope that you got one at least—you'll notice that the first point is defining the terms. There are five terms or phrases that are very important to understand if one is going to interpret the Bible, whether it comes to prophecy or other important areas.
These five terms are Israel, the Church, the Tribulation, the Rapture, and the Second Coming. Now, frankly, there's a lot of confusion in the evangelical world because these terms are not clearly understood and differentiated. If we can understand what these terms refer to, then it will help us to understand what the Bible is teaching us about them. Let's talk first about Israel. What do we mean when we refer to Israel? That is a name that is seen in the newspaper every day of the week.
Now it refers to a political entity, a nation of people, in the Mideast, and we read about the hotly contested land upon which they have established their nation. These people who inhabit that land—the Jewish people, the Israelites—are the descendants of one who first bore the name Israel. Would you turn please to Genesis chapter 32, where we have the record of this name being given by God Himself.
Genesis chapter 32, verse 28, this is the record of Jacob's wrestling match with the angel of the Lord at a place called Peniel. This angel of the Lord is actually a pre-incarnate appearance of God the Son. As Jacob wrestles, he is wrestling not with just a man, but with God Himself. God has confronted Jacob. Jacob asks for God's blessing. He responds, what is your name? Jacob says, Jacob.
The man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome. The name Jacob means what? It's a planter or deceiver. Jacob had to confess that that was his name. But then the Lord marvelously says to him, well, no longer will you be called supplanter or Jacob. From now on you will be called Israel. The name Israel means one who struggles with God or having power with God or some say a prince with God.
It is an exalted name that is given to this man at this point in his life, and from this time on he frequently is called by the name Israel. The name came to apply to his descendants after this. Now some 3700 years later we talk about the Israelites. They are the descendants of Jacob. But more than that, they are also the descendants of Abraham, aren't they? Because Jacob came from Abraham. In Genesis 12 we have the record of God calling out from the world this man, Abraham.
The calling of God was by grace. There was nothing in Abraham that necessarily promoted him before God. But God, out of his grace and his purposes, chose Abraham. Abraham responded in faith and believed God. It was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham had a number of sons. The first one was Ishmael. Ishmael was called the son of the flesh. God had promised a son to Abraham. Ishmael was the product not of faith but rather of Abraham's scheming to have a son.
But then God did fulfill his promise to Abraham by the birth of Isaac. When he was too old to have a son, and when Sarah was too old to have a child, they bore a son by the miracle of God. That was the child that God promised them. It was through Isaac then that the promise was to come upon Abraham and his descendants. Then Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. It was God's pleasure to choose Jacob as the one through whom the blessing would come.
Then Jacob had a large family with many sons and daughters. It is to the sons of Israel or the tribes or the families of Israel that the promises have fallen out. We see that the Israelites are named after Jacob, but they are rooted back to Abraham. They are the heirs of the promises given to Abraham. It is also important to understand as we talk about Israel that it is of Israel that Christ came according to the flesh. He is the promised Messiah of the Israelites.
At the present time Israel has been set aside because of her rejection of her Messiah. In Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11 we have recorded for us the theology of God setting aside Israel and choosing out a new group of people in this age called the church. We'll talk about that in a moment. During this age Israel has been spiritually shunted aside because of her unbelief. But as the apostle clearly points out in Romans, the Lord is not through with Israel.
At the present time Israel has been broken off and we who for the most part are Gentiles and who make up the church have been grafted in to the promises of God. But there is a time coming when Israel, this branch that has been broken off the tree, will be put back into the tree and will find all the promises of God given to her fulfilled. God has not failed yet in fulfilling a single promise and he will never fail.
Israel set aside temporarily will be brought back into the fullness of God's blessing. And then let's talk about the church. We've already suggested that the church is a group that God is calling out during this age. It is a group that is distinct from Israel. One of the mistakes that is sometimes made is to link Israel with the church and to say that the church is just the outgrowth of Israel.
There are those who say that Israel has been permanently set aside and that all the promises given to Israel in the Old Testament should be spiritualized and applied in a spiritual way to the church. In other words, for example, the land that God promised to Abraham and his descendants will not ever really be given to them. But rather we spiritualize that concept and say, well, that's the blessings that we have now in the church age.
To not make a difference between Israel and the church leads to confusion in understanding and interpreting the Bible. There are parts of the Bible that are written to Israel and which do not directly apply to the church. And the opposite is also true. The church is an elect group that God is calling out. It is composed of both Jews and Gentiles. Perhaps one of the finest summaries of the whole doctrine of the church is found in Ephesians chapter 2, and I would ask you to turn there with me.
Ephesians chapter 2 verse 11. You have to keep in mind that there was a lot of friction and tension in the early days of the church between Jews and Gentiles that existed before our Lord even came. There has been through the centuries hostility between Jew and Gentile. Even after the church began to be formed, there was still tension between the two groups.
There were some Jews who felt that for a Gentile to be saved, he had to first become a Jew to submit himself to the ordinances and the rituals of Israel in order to become a Christian. Now the apostle refutes that whole idea entirely. And he shows in the verses that we are going to read that actually God is calling some from the Jews and actually many from the Gentiles and is composing a brand new entity called the church.
Notice he says in verse 11, Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision, that done in the body by the hands of men, remember that at that time, before you were saved, you were separate from Christ, excluded from the citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two—that is, Jew and Gentile—one, he has made the two one, and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.
His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them, Jew and Gentile, to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away, Gentiles, and peace to those who were near, Jews. For through him we both have access to the Father by one spirit.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord, and in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. What is Paul saying here? Well, God has done a marvelous thing.
In this age, God is building a brand-new temple in which he is to be worshiped. Now, when the Jews heard the word temple, what did they think of? They thought of that building in Jerusalem with the holy place and the holy of holies and the ark and the mercy seat and all the rest. What the apostle was saying is that God is building a brand-new temple. It's not any longer a physical material building in Jerusalem, but now God is building a spiritual temple.
It is composed of people, Jews and Gentiles. He is saying it's something brand-new, and in chapter 3, verses 1 to 13, he elaborates even more on this. We don't have time to read it, but he calls it a mystery. By that he means that this doctrine of the church, this brand-new body of people that God is calling out, is something that has not been revealed before this time. Jesus spoke about it in Matthew 16 when he said, I will build my church. He anticipated the building of the church.
It's future tense. He wasn't building it then. He was dealing with Israel at that point, but because he was God, he knew what was going to happen. He said, I will build my church. That construction literally began on the day of Pentecost when, according to the promises of God, the Holy Spirit came down and for the first time indwelt all believers. That's one of the distinguishing marks between those who are in the church and those who a couple of thousand years ago were part of Israel.
At that time, the Holy Spirit would come upon people for a period of time to accomplish certain things, but the Holy Spirit did not dwell in each individual believer in Israel. But in the church, the Holy Spirit lives and dwells within us. First Corinthians 12, he abides within us. The wonderful mystery is that now in the church Christ is in us, in us literally, and that's our hope of glory. So that's the church. In the book of Acts, you see this church unfolding.
At first, of course, the church was entirely Jewish, but very shortly there were half-Jews who were saved. They were called Samaritans. And by Acts 10, there were people who were full Gentiles who were being saved, and they were receiving the same Holy Spirit that had been given on the day of Pentecost to the Jews, and yet they were not becoming Jews to get the Holy Spirit. Obviously, God is doing something brand new. It was hard for the Jews to understand that.
It continued to be a point of tension until Acts 15. By that time in the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul and Barnabas had been out on a glorious missionary journey throughout the Roman Empire. Thousands upon thousands of pagan Gentiles had been saved, as well as many Jews. They had believed on their Christ. And as they came back to Jerusalem to give a report of that, oh, there was a problem.
And they called together a big church council, and all the apostles were there, and James, the Lord's brother, was the moderator. And there were some who stood up and said, no, these Gentiles have to become Jews. They have to be circumcised. They have to go through the ritual of the Jewish faith in order to become Christians. And Paul stood up and said, no, God has already evidenced the fact that something new is happening. And Peter then got up and confirmed what Paul was saying.
And then James stood up and, filled with the Holy Spirit and with wisdom, he outlined a compromise between the two sides so that biblical doctrine was not sacrificed and yet there could be unity in the church. A marvelous passage in Acts 15. Well, that was the unfolding of this doctrine of the church. Jesus anticipated it, but it was not fully revealed until the epistles and especially the writing of the apostle Paul. Now let's talk about the tribulation.
The tribulation is a period of time that has set aside the conclusion of this age for two purposes. First, to bring Israel to repentance of her unbelief. Israel became an entity in 1948, but Israel did not go back to her land in faith. Even today, most of the Jews are practicing atheists. They are culturally Jews, but religiously they are nothing. They don't believe in God.
At the end of this age, there is a time coming in which God is going to very strongly again deal with Israel and bring her to repentance so that that nation can be restored to him and his promises will be fulfilled. A second purpose of that period of time coming is so that God can judge the Gentile nations and all people who reject the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that period of time is spoken of in one place in Matthew 24 verses 15 to 21. Don't turn there. We don't have time to read it.
But I will ask you to turn to the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. Daniel chapter 9 and verse 24. We have an amazing prophecy. Of course, if you know the book of Daniel, you know that there are a number of amazing prophecies in this book. And here's an example. In Daniel 9 verse 24, it says, 70 sevens. The word weeks there literally means sevens. It could be seven days, seven weeks, seven years, and we know from our perspective that it refers to a period of years.
He's talking about 70 periods of seven years literally are decreed for your people and your holy city. That is for Daniel's people, the Jews, and for Jerusalem. 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. Know and understand this.
Look at verse 25. From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the anointed one, the ruler, comes, there will be seven sevens and sixty-two sevens. In other words, a total of 69 of these periods of seven years. That total is 483 years. Now from the perspective that we are looking back upon these things, we see how precisely God has fulfilled prophecy. The decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem went out in 445 B.C. from our exerxes.
Exactly 483 lunar years after that, in 32 A.D., the Lord Jesus Christ entered into Jerusalem in his triumphal entry and proclaimed himself as the king. He said on that day that if the people were not crying out, Hosanna, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord, the stones themselves would cry out, for he was the king and he was presenting himself to his people. So in exactly 483 years, that prophecy was literally fulfilled. That's 69 now of the total of 70 periods of seven.
That leaves one period of seven years that has not been fulfilled. Just keep that in mind. Now it goes on to say here in verse 25, it, the city, will be rebuilt with streets and a trench but in times of trouble. We'll go back and read Nehemiah if you want to know about that. He says, after the sixty-two sevens, which come after the first seven sevens, the anointed one will be cut off and will have nothing, referring to the crucifixion of Christ.
He will be cut off and will have nothing of the regal splendor and glory that belongs to him. Then he says, the people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Now who destroyed Jerusalem and the temple? The Romans. In 70 AD, General Titus marched into the city. They surrounded the city, besieged it, and the city ultimately fell after a long siege and the city was absolutely destroyed.
Now Daniel says, God says through him, that it is the people of the ruler who will come who would do that. Now who is this ruler who is to come? He's the same one who's called the little horn in Daniel chapter seven. In the New Testament, he bears the name Antichrist. He goes on to say, the end will come like a flood, war will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He, that is this ruler who will come, Antichrist, will confirm a covenant with many for one seven.
And there's the seventy-seventh. But in the middle of that seven, he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. Now what's he saying? Well, he's saying that this ruler who's to come out of revived Rome will make a covenant with many, that is with the Jews. Part of that covenant will be that they can reestablish their worship in Jerusalem and have a temple again and they will jump at that chance. They would do it today if there was a way to do it.
But Daniel prophesies in the middle of that period of seven years, in other words after three and a half years, this ruler will completely change his approach to the Jews. Instead of being a friend to them as he will pretend to be, he will suddenly turn and be their most fierce persecutor in history. And he will cause their sacrifices to stop, that's what he says. And he will cause desolation, he calls it the abominations of desolation. We don't have time to go a lot into that.
It simply means that Antichrist will set up himself in the temple in Jerusalem as deity and will show himself to be God by miracles, deceitful miracles that he will perform. That will be at the three and a half year point. And then for the remainder of that 70th week, that last period of seven years, the Jews will be horribly persecuted. That is the tribulation period that is to come. The thing I'm trying to point out to you is this. The tribulation period is primarily a Jewish time.
It relates to God's completion of his dealings with Israel, the people of Daniel. In Jeremiah, Jeremiah said that this period will be known as a time of Jacob's sorrow and trouble. It's a Jewish period. Now we've talked about the rapture last week. It is that time when the Lord will come in the air and will catch up the saints to be with himself. Let's go right on to the fifth one, the Second Coming. Let's turn to one final passage in Matthew chapter 24 where Jesus describes the Second Coming.
It's important to understand that Matthew chapters 24 and 25 are given in specific response to questions that are asked of our Lord in verses 1 and 2. Our Lord is not dealing in these chapters at all with the Church. The Church is not even on the scene at this point and is certainly not revealed. Jesus had spoken a word about it in chapter 16, but that was all there was. Chapters 24 and 25 deal with Israel.
Jeremiah says in verse 29, immediately after the distress or the tribulation of those days, described in the previous verses, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
He will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other. Because a trumpet is mentioned and the word elect is mentioned in verse 31, there are those who assume that this refers to the rapture. It does not. He is talking about the calling together of the Jewish people after the tribulation has come to its climax. He calls them together, his elect, from the four winds of the earth.
This does not refer to the rapture of the church. He is talking here about his second coming to the earth. The day the Lord Jesus left the Mount of Olives and went up and was taken out of the sight of the disciples, two angels spoke to the disciples as they watched Jesus disappear. And they said, Why stand you here gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus will still come again in a like manner as you have seen him go into heaven. What are they saying?
He is going to come back out of the clouds and come back down to the Mount of Olives. And when is he going to do that? Well, when these words here are fulfilled. Zechariah says that his feet will touch the top of the mountain, the Mount of Olives, and it will cleave in two. The topography of Jerusalem will be rearranged on that climactic day as our Lord returns to the earth.
Now so that we can see how all of this falls out, I am going to ask you to turn your attention up here for a moment to this overhead. And you may want to get your note paper out and draw this line and bring it with you again next week because it will help us. We will put a line on here to represent a schedule of events that are to occur on the earth. We want to divide the line according to the Old Covenant or the Old Testament and the New Covenant, the New Testament.
The Bible makes that division in God's dealings with man, and the thing that makes the difference is the cross, isn't it? Now there are those who decry the use of the name dispensationalists.
There are some who feel that that oversimplifies the Word of God, but it seems to me that if a person so much as sees the difference between the covenant of the law and the covenant of grace and how God deals differently with Israel over here and the church here, he is in some form a dispensationalist, for it simply means that God deals with his people based upon a certain covenant.
Israel, the covenant of the law, the Old Testament, the church, the New Covenant of God's grace established in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is, as I say, the cross that makes the division here. Now we've talked about the seventy weeks. Let's put that on here, 445 B.C. That was the decree of our exerxes to rebuild Jerusalem.
The Lord says there would be seventy, or rather sixty-nine sevens that would occur, 483 years in other words, until the Messiah would come and would be cut off, referring to his crucifixion, 32 A.D. That's when that occurred. So we have the exact fulfillment of that prophecy from Daniel chapter 9. This is the age of the church here, and at the conclusion of this age will come one more week or one more period of sevens, so that the seventy of them will all be fulfilled, one seven or seven years.
There's this period that is referred to as the tribulation. Let me just write in trim there and abbreviate it. What concludes the tribulation? How is it marked to be over? Well, the scripture is very clear that the Lord Jesus Christ will come back and the great battle of Armageddon will be fought. That will conclude the tribulation. And then will begin what is called the one thousand year reign of Christ, the millennium in other words. That will be fulfilled.
The question we are talking about in these days is when does the rapture of the church take place? Does it occur in the middle of the tribulation period? As some teach, does it occur simultaneously with this coming to the earth of our Lord? Our response is no to both of those questions, but rather that the Lord's coming for the church is a separate event that occurs before the tribulation period. That's why we say that we believe in the pre-tribulation rapture of the church.
The tribulation is a period that deals with Israel. It's the fulfillment of God's promises back in chapter nine of Daniel to that people. Before that begins, the church will be taken out. Now I've made that statement, and obviously the question is why do you believe that? Well come back next week and find out. It's time for us to conclude for today. So last week I heard J. Vernon McGee preach and he was preaching through the book of Ruth, which is one of his specialties.
Every time he quit he said I'm going to leave you on a cliffhanger so you'll come back next week or next to the next service. So we're going to leave you at the cliffhanger.