What the Bible Says About the End Times, Part 1- Revelation 20

chapter 20 and you might be wondering, well, why are we jumping to the end of the book?

Shouldn't we be starting at the beginning? Good point. That's a fair point. I'm not

going to deny that. But here's the reason we're jumping to the end is because

there's this one passage at the end of Revelation that talks about the end

times, the millennium, the thousand years and all this kind of stuff. And it's

one passage in the Bible, just not even that long of a passage, and it probably

has sparked more controversy and conversations than maybe any other

single passage in the Bible. I mean books and books and books have been

written debating this passage. So obviously we're going to solve it tonight

and we're going to figure it out, right? No, of course not. Okay, again, don't

put that on me. I can't do that for you, okay? But the reason that we are going to

jump all the way to the end here is because a person's view of the end times

and what they think about the millennium and the return of Christ and all that

kind of stuff, it greatly affects how you read the book of Revelation, right? So

we'll be reading through the book and we could come to a passage and I could say,

well, this is talking about this and if you have a totally different

understanding of the millennium, the return of Christ, the end times, you would

say, well, know what you're reading there has to do with this portion of the

timeline in which all these things are going to occur. And so basically how you

view that one situation, the return of Christ, the millennium, is going to

completely dictate how you view the rest of the book of Revelation. It's going to

completely color. Like just for instance, there's one view of eschatology. So

eschatology just means a study of the end times. Eschatah comes from eschaton,

meaning the end or finality and ology is obviously like study of something. So

eschatology, it's the study of the last things, the end times, right? So there's

one view of eschatology that literally says that Revelation 4 through

basically 20 has nothing to do with the church at all. And if that is your view,

then when you read Revelation, that's obviously going to color how you

interpret it, right? If you think that this has nothing to do with the church,

but this is just a prediction pertaining to Israel, well then that's going to

offer a different interpretation and application for you, correct? So we're

going to discuss these things, we're going to go through them, and we're going

to disagree some. But that's okay because we're just going to study the word,

we're going to have nice pleasant conversations, no one's going to throw

anything at anybody, and we're just going to talk about it, right? That's what

we're going to do. So Revelation chapter 20, beginning in verse 1, we'll read

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

through verse 6, it's just six verses, all right? Then I saw an angel coming down

from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit or the abyss in a

great chain, and he sees the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and

Satan, and he bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and

shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not deceive the nations any

longer until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a

little while. Then I saw thrones and seated on them were those to whom the

authority to judge was committed, and I also saw the souls of those who had been

beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had

not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their

foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a

thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand

years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one

who shares in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power,

but they will be priests of God and of Christ and they will reign with him for

a thousand years. That's our passage. Because we're going to be

discussing different views and things like that, trying to make sense of this

important passage in Revelation so that we can have a framework to actually

interpret the book of Revelation. I'm going to read you a quote, and I want it

to be kind of our whole motto for how we study the book of Revelation. Okay? You

ready for this? You can write it down or you can just try to remember it. In

essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity. Okay?

I'll read that again. In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity.

Now, let's keep that in mind. Okay? Because eschatology, would we say that is an

essential doctrine of salvation? How you view or your understanding of the end

times, is that essential for salvation in Christ? No. It's non-essential. Is it

important? Absolutely. Of course it is. But is it essential? No. Okay. Well, so it's

a non-essential, so we have liberty to disagree and still be Christians. So let's

be charitable. No one in here is going to call anyone else a heretic.

Can we just onboard with that? No matter what view of eschatology

you hold to, you can still be orthodox. They are all orthodox positions and

they all try to base their position on the Bible. Can we admit that? Right? Again,

we want to still man other people's positions. We don't want to straw man them

and just knock them down. We want to give them credit and say that they are

trying to make the best sense of Scripture and so they believe what they

believe. So, again, let's be charitable as we discuss this. Alright, now we get into

the weeds. Charitable. Charitable. Alright. I thought a long time about how do you

even start this? And so let's just do like a little timeline. So here's the

cross and then we'll say like shortly after there was a resurrection but I

don't want to draw a line because this is going to get messy if we start doing

even more lines. But let's just do like your basic timeline. Here's the cross

and let's say here's the millennium. Millennium. Seems pretty simple. It's

not. There's a lot that goes into it. But let's just say this is the millennium

and what we're talking about is the return of Christ. When is Christ going

to return? And you have this major event. Well, there are really only two options.

He can come before the millennium which would be pre-millennialism. Right? On

board. Before the millennium. Or he could come after the millennialism, the

millennium which would be post. Post millennialism. So there are basically

four views but they all kind of fall within these two broad categories. Jesus

is either going to return before the millennium or he's going to return

after the millennium. So on this side you would have dispensationalism which I'm

not going to spell all that out but dispensationalism which is a form of

pre-millennialism and then you also have what's called historic pre-millennialism

which again is as you can tell a form of pre-millennialism. Right? And on this

side you would have the post-millennialists after the millennium and you

would also have what's known as a millennialism which is really a bad name

for this whole view. A millennialism should just be referred to as realized

eschatology because this ah here is from the Greek it's a negation it means no

millennium and so there's there's a view that they would say like oh our

millennials don't believe in a millennium at all which is not true they just have

a different view of the millennium they believe it's realized now and so even

that would be a form of post-millennialism because Christ is returning after.

Now here's the hard part about discussing all these different things okay? It's

that not only there are a bunch of different views it's that the views are

very nuanced even within like there are different forms of dispensationalists

there are liberal forms of post-millennialism post-millennials there are

orthodox covenantal millennials there are all sorts of different views okay and

it's hard to to speak in general terms because you don't want to paint people

with a broad brush and get it wrong right so like for instance to give you

an example I hate when people assume what I believe rather than just asking me

what I believe you know so people say oh you're Southern Baptist that must mean

you think this I'm like you could just ask me you know like oh you're Southern

Baptist you think Deakin should be running the church no no or you're

Southern Baptist you don't think the church should have elders actually I do

you could ask me like there are Southern Baptist but there are all sorts of

nuances even within Southern Baptist right and so there are dispensationalists

and there's nuances in the same with all the other views so I'm gonna speak in

generalities and if you're sitting here and you're like well I'm a

millennialist and I don't believe that that's okay I'm again speaking in general

terms because I can't go into like 30 different variations of this show I mean

unless y'all want me to but I think let's just keep it general right let's you

know not quite surface level but a little beneath that so let's just do that

and we'll be good so again try to think well how do we start this

conversation about the millennium and how do we interpret everything so I

thought well what if we just go in in terms of like order kind of right in

terms of what to expect so so if this is Christ's death and his resurrection

well the first thing that we would say in terms of the views we have to start

with premillennialism right because that's Christ is returning before the

millennium occurs and according to premillennialists they would say that

right before the millennium starts what happens anybody know according to this

view dispensationalist premillennialists what happens prior to the millennium

started the rapture yeah so and this is very specific to with dispensationalist

so we're gonna talk about them first they would say that the rapture happens

but what's important to note is it's a halfway kind of thing right so they

would say that in the rapture and so you can just rapture here they would say

that Jesus returns partway to earth he's gonna descend from heaven and kind of

come down descend to the level of basically the clouds not come all the

way to the earth but he's going to call up the church and the church will meet

Jesus in the clouds and he escorts them back to heaven so the church remains in

heaven for the duration of the millennium right we tracking so far they

remain there for the millennium Jesus is gonna have this millennium so so there's

a time of like you know tribulation here and actually before the millennium

there's tribulation we're getting run out of room or timeline but there's a

seven-year according to again dispensationalist there's a seven-year

tribulation period you'll have the beast the anti-crime Satan running around

causing all sorts of trouble but then Jesus is going to return after seven

years he's gonna come all the way back down to earth at this point he's going

to bind Satan defeat the armies of evil and then he's going to rule on earth so

on earth for a thousand years and and we'll just polls right there so everybody

tracking this is the dispensational view there's gonna be what is known as they

call it a secret rapture anybody know why they would call it a secret rapture

because Christ isn't coming all the way back down the church is basically

disappearing right like people are going about their lives and then people

disappear and so it's a secret in the sense of like it's completely unexpected

it could happen at any point you don't actually see it happen it just happens

like we could be I could be mid-sentence right now and so it'd been cool though

because you imagine like if that it happened so I could be mid-sentence and

the rapture could happen and all the church true Christians could disappear

to meet Jesus in the sky and live in heaven forever so when you think about

these different views dispensational historic premillennialism post-malinialism

all-malinialism tongue twister what do you think is the most popular and wide

held view in the church today okay this one right dispensationalism by and large

I would say a majority if not the vast majority of the church holds to this view

of eschatology and it's probably the one you're most familiar with right yeah so

that's why it's our starting place so so let's let's get a little bit of

background not only is this the predominant view in the church it has

been since the 20th century okay and in premillennial eschatology it's been

around for ever since you know Jesus resurrected and ascended okay in fact

historic premillennialism has been the most wide held view throughout church

history that's different than this different than dispensationalism but

historic premillennialism has been the most wide held view throughout church

history and so an interesting fact though did you know that this view the

one that we just talked about the one that we said that the majority of the

church believes today the one that you're most familiar with did you know it

was started in the year 1830 by a man named John Darby he was a Scottsman a

preacher and a theologian and what's interesting about this is there is not a

single record of anything in all of Christian literature and Christian

church history to say that anyone ever believed this scheme so not like not

certain aspects but but this whole scheme no one believed that for the first

1830 years of the church it's pretty interesting is it not now does that make

it wrong no should it raise concern for investigation yeah I think that's fair

so here's an interesting question to consider how did this brand-new

theology that was started in 1830 become the most widely held view in the

church today and be the one that pretty much every Christian is familiar with

how did that happen well here's how it happened John Darby created it in 1830

started becoming really popular a lot of his students then go to America and

they start spreading now think back to the situation in the early 1900s in

America what was going on what had just ended not too long ago that America was

still trying to recover from Civil War right life was not easy back then right

there's another war coming that they didn't even know about at the time but

if you're living in the early 1900s in America you're trying to recover from

the Civil War people were not very educated back then either most people

were laborers they would go to school for a little bit and then they would leave

to go pursue a career that doesn't mean everybody did that some people

obviously went to college and whatnot but the vast majority of Americans were

just laborers who were widely uneducated and so here's what they did they had

their Bible but they weren't too educated they wanted to understand it what

was the Bible they were using at the time King James right it's been the most

popular Bible since the 17th century and so again you're in early America you're

you're not very educated you have a Bible and you want to know it you want to

know what God says but you're just having trouble understand it well great

solution comes out a new study Bible and if there's a new study Bible and it's

a study Bible of the KJV and that's the Bible you use and it's got notes in

there to help you understand it guess what Bible you're gonna be buying to help

you understand it that one that's exactly what happened in the year 1909 and

you're not gonna be tested on these dates but if you're just interested in a

little bit of church history it's fun to mark it down in the year 1909 arguably

the most famous study Bible of all time was printed and it changed the course of

Christian theology and church history because it became so popular in fact it

is still so popular or it was so popular and so important many people still own

this study Bible today isn't that right mr. McKinney he owns one which one is it

called the Scofield study Bible one of the most renowned and popular study

Bibles of all time Scofield was a student well I say a student he encountered

the students of Darby and adopted Darby's theology that he had created this

dispensational theology and Scofield added his thoughts to it and tried to

adapt it even more and because that was the only really King James study Bible

of the time people bought it and that thing spread like wildfire I mean it

went everywhere widely popular it wasn't even revised until about 1950 that's

how popular it was and how mainstream it was everybody owned one one of the

concerning things with the Scofield study Bible though is that it was

primarily only Scofield's thoughts and opinion in the Bible most study Bibles

today have like an editorial team where they'll all contribute and do that but

this was primarily Scofield and so again think back if you're early

America's 1900 and you're not very educated you want to understand it if

you read anything this man says and an official King James study Bible are you

gonna disagree with him no you're just gonna believe it you accept it and and

again just a pulse right a couple rabbit trails here but I'll just go on

one this is why I always caution people with study Bibles in general like I

don't have a problem giving them to people but I always tell them you have

to keep in mind the word of God is the word of God and everything under that

the footnotes that's the thoughts of man okay and the thoughts of man are not

the word of God they need to be examined critically and they need to be you know

assessed and things like that you shouldn't just open a study Bible and

read what it says and just accept it uncritically okay you shouldn't accept

anything I say uncritically check me against the word of God because if I'm

airing against the word of God believe that not me okay don't accept anything

man says uncritically but that's exactly what happened they didn't you know

think about it critically that should accept it whatever Darby had to say and

or Scofield had to say and so that's how that became the most popular view in

America and in the church it got so bad that if you disagreed with any aspect of

this new theology that was literally started in 1830 and popularized in

1909 you could be called a heretic and you could be kicked out of the church if

you disagreed with this that's how prominent and then the way it made

itself in the mainstream culture and media to where even atheists know about

this kind of stuff today was because of a book series anybody know the book

series left behind that's right book series and then they made movies with

Kirk Cameron and then they made one with Nick Cage I think and that fell off and

they said all right one left behind is fine enough for Nick Cage so that's it

but but left behind is directly based on this theology by Darby and so that's

important to know right like this is the most popular view in the church today

but it should caution us and we should be noticing the fact that there's not a

single person in all of church history for the first 1830 years who believed

what most people in the church believe today so that's why we go back to

scripture right that's why I say let's not just take what we've always heard

let's just test it against the word of God so we're not going to be able to get

too far tonight but just some main tenets of dispensationalism and I'm

going to be you know trying to steel man this as much as I can and and I would

hope that a dispensationalist would say oh yeah that's what I believe right so

most dispensationalists one of the key tenets of dispensationalism is they

always make a very sharp distinction between Israel and the church so anything

in the Old Testament where it says this prophecy was for Israel they will not

recognize any sort of like symbolic fulfillment in the church today they'll

say that is particularly for Israel and Israel only and so when you get into

revelation and you see certain prophecies they will say primarily this has to

do with Israel and not the church most dispensationalists believe that the

rapture happens sometime before Revelation chapter 4 and that revelation

Revelation 4 · chapter mention Revelation 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4 up to chapter 20 has to do with Israel and what's going to happen

during the time when the tribulation is focused on Israel so they make this this

sharp distinction between Israel and the church and they also have a very

specific detailed chronology of how the end times events will go this is this is

the simplest dispensational chart you'll ever see and that's because I

literally can't remember all the things to put up here so just to be honest but

Google dispensational in times chart and you'll see there's I mean there's pages

of arrows and things like this of all the kind of stuff that has to happen so

they have a very detailed understanding of that and and particularly of what the

different things mean so like for instance the tribulation they would say

that's primarily focused on Israel on the Jews that Jesus raptures the church

up and they're in heaven and the tribulation time is to prepare Israel

to receive King Jesus so that when he does appear after the tribulation they

will recognize him as the Messiah and be prepared to believe in him and welcome

him as their king and then that time starts the thousand year reign on earth

where Israel is mostly predominant I believe most dispensationalists and

again this isn't also you could be a variation but but most dispensationalists

will say that the church even remains in heaven during the millennium and that

the Jews are the ones who reign on earth with Christ as well as those who become

believers during the millennium reign again you might be a different

variation but that's what's mostly in the literature today and and during the

the millennium at the beginning Satan is bound and he's bound for the thousand

years where he's unable to deceive the nations and then after that time there's

a short letting loose of Satan there's a final defeat and then that leads to

resurrection and judgment and all that kind of stuff and the other thing to

note really about dispensational theology is they're very literal they're

always literal in their interpretation and you remember I think it was two

weeks ago we asked this like should we interpret the Bible literally and it was

kind of a trick question because the answer was yes whenever the Bible

intends to be interpreted literally because there are times when it doesn't

like when it says God has wings or God is a rock like he's not really a rock and

he doesn't really have wings but so you don't need interpret that literally but

dispensationalists when they look at revelation almost everything in it

despite the fact that it is apocalyptic despite the fact that is prophecy they

will interpret it literally so when they see 144,000 that are sealed they'll

say that's literally 144,000 could be that's a fair interpretation when they

they see certain things that are to happen they'll say that's literal there's

no they like Babylon they'll say that is literally Babylon that's a another fair

interpretation it could be might not be but it is a fair interpretation the

thousand years they'll say that is a literal one thousand year period again

it could be might not be so fair interpretation but these are where

they're basing their views they want to interpret it literally those are the

key distinctions now I want to look very quickly because we don't have a lot of

time I actually thought I was going to cover like most of the end times views

tonight so I'm an optimistic person I'm not a post-mill person but I'm an

optimistic person so yeah and just you know there's so if we're thinking like

disc and historical and a mill and post mill I told you all before like these

are the four main views and it it like throughout my Christian walk I have

held to three out of the four of these views so like you should be willing to

change your view if you're convinced by scripture like I started out here and

then I went here and then I went here and then some days I'm here and then

some days I'm back here never here but you know back and forth between these

two on any given Wednesday so you should be willing to just say I'm trying to

make the best sense of scripture and you know if that means I need to change my

view I'm willing to do that so I want to look very quickly because we won't get

into too much of this this idea of of the rapture and particularly this idea of

what's known as like a secret rapture where Christians disappear they're

culled up to meet Jesus halfway in the sky and then he escorts them back to

heaven so that the tribulation can start on earth now every in times view

believes in the rapture can we let's just get that out there now but not every

in times view means the same thing when they say the rapture so they all

believe in it they just don't believe the same thing about it so where does this

idea from a rapture come from anybody know off top of your head

Thessalonians very good yeah all right so first Thessalonians chapter 4 this is

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

what it says in verse 16 it says the Lord himself will descend from heaven

with a cry of command and 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 culled up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord

in the air so we will always be with the Lord that's where the idea of the

rapture comes from it's the the main rapture passage in the Bible and you

can you can see where the view comes from right Jesus will descend and we will

be culled up in the sky with him will meet him there and the word rapture it

comes from this passage kind of it actually comes from the Latin Vulgate

so Latin Vulgate was just the the main Latin Bible for a very very long time

and that phrase cull up there is actually the the Latin word rapio which is

where you can see we get the word rapture today and so you're thinking oh

where'd the word rapture come from it came from the Latin Vulgate and so

that's where we get the word rapture and the idea that we will be culled up in

the sky but then there's another idea that comes from 1 Corinthians 1552

which talks about how we'll all be changed in what do you remember the

phrasing there the the twinkling of an eye right it's so it's this it's this

immediate thing right it's something that happens very quickly we're changed

and made different in the twinkling of an eye and and so you see this idea

others will often appeal to there's a passage in Matthew 24 if you just want

to write that down you can reference it later but you know this passage in Matthew

24 it talks about how two men are going to be out in the field right one's going

to be taken one's going to be left behind two women are going to be working

and one is going to be taken and one is going to be left behind and so there's

the idea that people are just going to disappear when the rapture happens again

notice how all of these things they are basing them on scripture so even if you

disagree with them and that's okay if you do notice that they do have a

scriptural basis for it and they are seeking to ground their views in

scripture can we be charitable and admit that because it's easy when you

disagree with something to be like oh that's ridiculous right give them credit

they're basing it on scripture all right so what do we say about this well again

we just said they're basing it on scripture so good for them that's what

you should do with every view a couple quick critiques I would say and again

I'm not trying to lead you one way or the other you can come to whatever view

you want again like all of these these are orthodox positions if you are one of

these four and you believe Jesus is the Messiah and you've trusted in him for

something you're going to heaven good job like that's great you could be any

one of these four and again notice I have been three out of the four so I'm

gonna offer critiques I'm not trying to push you one way or the other I'm just

going to offer some critiques and let you evaluate as well my main critique

of really this whole scheme of dispensationalism really comes back to

the fact that it was started in 1830 it's concerning to me that no one

throughout church history up to that point had thought of these things and

put them together and articulated them and believed them especially when you

consider the people who were predominant in church history think about Luther and

Augustine you think about even the early church fathers I mean you think about

Athanasius and Christos and some of these guys like no one was believing this

for the first 1830 years of the church that's always dangerous that's my main

critique of N.T. Wright as well by the way like I'm I'm gonna show my cards on

that I'm not an N.T. Wright fan I think he's wrong on pretty much everything but

he tries to be novel all the time and it's dangerous to be novel especially

when it comes to theology because that tends to lead towards heresy not saying

this is heresy at all it's again we've shown where they base it in scripture

but what I am saying is you should be wary of novel things in theology okay the

other thing that I think needs to be taken into account here if you'll flip

in your Bibles you have them open to Revelation flip back to chapter one

okay I want you to see something Revelation chapter one this is the very

beginning of the book and and again keep in mind the idea here as you're

turning is that Jesus is not going to return fully to earth at this time he's

going to return partway the church will disappear and then meet him in the sky

where he'll escort them back to heaven and they'll be okay Revelation chapter

one verse seven the Bible says this behold he is coming with the clouds and

every eye will see him even those who pierced him and all the tribes of the

earth will well on account of him even so amen or let it be even so let it be

now what do you think is is is the reason I bring up that verse in

particular yeah because it says that when Jesus returns he says behold I'm

coming he's coming with the clouds and it says what every eye will see him so

that kind of at least offers a critique I'm not and it disproves it because

obviously there are smart dispensations like oh I've never seen that verse like

no they can account for it but I'm saying it is at least all for a critique

that says if Jesus isn't coming all the way back if he's just stopping in the

clouds and the church is getting called up to meet him there it seems like not

every eye is going to see him right so every eye will see him and the nations

understand the significance because did you see it said that they're going to

wail on account of him in other words the unbelievers at the time of Christ's

return who deny him and make fun of Christians and say we're ridiculous for

believing as in Jesus as the Messiah as God in the flesh he's gonna appear and

they're gonna know in that moment oh no we were wrong we were wrong for making

fun of them and rejecting the gospel and now he has come and it is too late the

nations are gonna wail when Jesus returns because they're gonna see him

they're gonna know not because they're gonna see a bunch of clothes laying on

the ground and wonder what is going on here I have no idea okay the other thing

to to remember remember in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 it says that

when Jesus returns he's gonna return with a cry of command with the voice of an

archangel and the sound of the trumpet of God that's kind of hard to keep secret

is it not I mean if he's gonna return with all this fanfare and noise it

seems like it's gonna be hard to wonder what's going on here that he's gonna be

visible and it is gonna be something noticed by all people another little

critique I would offer there is I do think it tends to shift the New Testament

hope because what a dispensationalist is looking forward to next and

I don't mean like oh they're hanging all their hopes on this but but they

anticipate the next cosmic event to be the rapture of the church again that's

fair that's within their right and they base it on scripture but but I think

that shifts the New Testament hope because you never see Paul or John or

Peter or Luke or the author of Hebrews ever saying and wait for the rapture

they're always pointing people to the return of Christ right he's coming he's

coming soon wait for his return soon he's gonna appear soon he's gonna make

all things right this is the hope that he's coming with and we're gonna be

raised to new life we're gonna have these glorified bodies it seems like all

their hope is in Jesus's visible bodily return to earth not looking forward to

the rapture in fact the book of Revelation literally ends with Jesus

saying surely I'm coming soon and John responds I love reading Revelation

because John has these responses like we just read where he's like hey they're

gonna well even so let it be well John responds to Jesus and he says amen come

Lord Jesus so notice that none of the biblical New Testament writers are ever

saying Lord take us away from this place get us out of here God rapture us now

let us be away from this place it's always Jesus come and be with us come and

make things right that's in his prayer Jesus said your will be done on earth as

it is in heaven right your kingdom come so the the Christians in the New

Testament are never writing saying get us out of this place they're saying

Jesus empower us to make this place look more like your kingdom and more like

your will is being done on this earth so so I think it does tend to shift the

New Testament hope a little bit to hoping for a rapture in the removal of

the church rather than the return of Christ and him being the the conqueror

for the church and so that's just one thing the other little critique very

quickly we'll get through this that'd be fun is that the Latin word for rapture

that that we get the word from there it does mean to like to remove or get

called up but but it's actually interesting if you look at the Greek

word which is more important than Latin word can we agree on that right the

Greek word is more important in the Latin because the Bible was written in

Greek it was inspired in Greek so Greek is way more important than English or

Latin so the Greek word there it's an interesting word and I think Joseph has

done some work on this as well for 1st Thessalonians 4 didn't you do something

with this? Okay, misremembering, that's fine. Well you'll get there. We're still

training him okay we're training him but but the Greek word the word in Greek

there it was used to describe what would happen when a king or a dignitary was

coming to a town and what would happen is that people from this town would

actually leave and they would go out and meet that king about halfway to when he

was getting to the town they wanted to meet him there to welcome him that they

were excited and then interestingly the word is used to describe not only that

but what they would do then is they would return and they would escort the

king back to their city so it wasn't they go out to meet the king and then they

just stay there or they go somewhere else they go to meet the king for the

purpose of being the ones to escort him back to the city that's the word that's

used here in Greek that the church is being called up to meet Jesus there but

they're also returning to the earth is escorting Jesus to the earth well he's

going to show himself to be the Messiah and the king and then one final thing and

we'll end with this and again we'll just pick up next week just keep on going

but the other thing to keep in mind here and this is really interesting study

for you to do we mentioned that passage from Matthew Matthew 24 if you want to

write it down where you know you've got the two people and one of them

disappears and one's left behind right well that needs to be interpreted in

light of the other parables that go with it like the one from Matthew chapter 13

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

if you want to write that down the famous parable of the weeds right you know

this one a man a master of a house goes out and he's planting some wheat in his

field and as he and his laborers go in his enemy comes and what does the enemy

do he sows weeds in the midst of his wheat and when it finally starts to grow

up they go and look and the servants are kind of cheeky and they're like hey I

can't afford good good wheat these days I mean did you not plant some good seed

and he's like no no I did this is an enemy and he has sown this these weeds to

be against us right and they're like well what do you want us to do you want us

to go and pick all at pick out all the the weeds and he's like no you might mess

up you might get some wheat he's like let them both grow into the end right

they're both going to exist into the end and he says and then what we're going to

do is we're gonna when we can tell the distinction between the wheat and the

weeds we're going to gather the weeds first and we're going to throw them into

the fire and then when Jesus interprets this parable he says this how it's going

to be at the end but there's gonna be believers and unbelievers are gonna

exist into the end and then the Son of Man is gonna send his angels and he's

gonna snatch people who's getting snatched it's not the Christians it's

the weeds those are the people who are snatched according to Jesus in this

parable the angels are gonna come they're gonna gather the unbelievers and

then they're thrown into the lake of fire where there's weeping and gnashing of

tea so when you think about that and then you read this other parable where

one's disappearing in one stain well the last time we read that in Matthew the

ones who were disappearing who are being taken weren't the Christians were they

the ones who were left behind were the Christians and the ones being taken for

the unbelievers who were going to be escorted away to final judgment and in

the lake of fire so there's just a couple things to think about when it comes

to this idea of dispensationalism and really the rapture that's the only thing

we touched on tonight all right so I I didn't touch on any of the other aspects

of dispensationalism really and we'll get into more stuff next week because

because what we want to do is we're in Revelation 20 and we want to see okay

what's the order of events when we have to start here because according to

dispensationalism and premillennialism it's a rapture but the next thing we

read in Revelation 20 is that Satan is bound right after this time period

starts Satan is bound for the duration of the millennium seems pretty simple

right come back next week and well I had to talk about it so I know that's a lot

of information but I hope you see the importance of not just accepting what

you've always been told or what's popular or what's going around but

examining it with scripture trying to make the best sense of scripture and

also kind of knowing the history of where these things started and originated

okay all right Michael Stevenson how about closing some prayer

you