Transcript

You might remember a man by the name of Edgar Whisenant. He was a NASA engineer who used his mathematical skills to set a date for the return of Christ.

He wrote a book called, “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Take Place in 1988.” The book created a buzz in the Christian community.

He was so certain that Jesus would return on September 10,1988 that he said, “If I’m wrong then the scripture is mistaken.” He believed for certain that Christ would be here that day.

But the day came and passed and Edgar didn’t know half as much as he thought he did. The old saying held true, “If first you don’t succeed, fail and fail again.”

Edgar wrote a second book the next year claiming that he forgot that the calendar didn’t start with 1 but year 0, so he said he was a year off. But of course, he failed again.

It’s wrong to set dates for the Rapture. We are taught by Paul that every day is a possible day that the Lord will return, and we are to be ready and looking for Him every single day.
Any date that is set should be immediately dismissed out of hand as error and false teaching.

In this episode, we’ll continue to look at the differences between the two future comings of Christ, the Rapture and the Second Coming.

1 Thessalonians 5:5-6: “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.”

There two different burdens with the Rapture and the Second Coming. Our burden in light of the Rapture is to reach others for Christ so they are not left behind to go into the Tribulation.

That’s what Paul talks about in 1 Thessalonians, 5:4-8, that as children of light and children of the day, we need to be a light to the world.

He challenges the church that since we are children of the day, we shouldn’t be sleeping or insensitive spiritually speaking. We need to live awake and aware of what is coming with the Rapture and Tribulation that follows it.

And we need to be watchful and sober, taking our responsibilities as believers seriously, being sensitive to the need of the unbelieving to trust Christ before it’s too late.

Because every day the Lord could come, and thus every day those around us could then be plunged into the darkness and judgment of the Tribulation.

This makes the evangelization of the lost always urgent, and our burden is to reach people so they are not left behind at the Rapture.

However, the burden of Israel in light of the second Coming will be for God’s vengeance to be poured out on their enemies.

Often when you read the Book of Psalms, you’ll read these glorious verses about the Lord, and Him being our strong tower and refuge, about His greatness and glory.

And then all of a sudden the next verse will say, Wipe out my enemies, Lord. Destroy the wicked. Send them to the lower parts of the earth. It kind of jolts you when you read it.

However, in light of the Tribulation and Second Coming, these imprecatory Psalms, as they are called, will be Israel’s burden and how they will pray in that day.

And they won’t be wrong in doing so. It will be a righteous burden. With the antichrist hunting and persecuting believers in Jesus Christ, torturing and putting them to death, they will rightly pray in that day, “Lord, judge my enemies and destroy the wicked.”

Revelation 19:11: “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.”

The Rapture precedes the day of wrath. Paul’s epistles to the Thessalonians make this crystal clear to the Church that we have the comfort and assurance of being delivered from the wrath to come.

The Tribulation is the day of Jacob’s, or Israel’s, trouble. It is not the day of trouble for the Body of Christ. The Tribulation is Daniel’s 70th week and part of God’s prophetic timeline for Israel before He establishes His kingdom on earth.

But currently, God’s prophetic program with Israel is on hold until this age of grace concludes with the Rapture. The next thing on God’s prophetic timeline is the Tribulation, but we are removed before it ever begins.

The Second Coming concludes the day of wrath in the Tribulation period. This one is pretty easy to see just by reading the book of Revelation and seeing its sequence of events, and where you find the Second Coming.

After you read about the seal, trumpet, and bowl judgments, at the conclusion of that 7-year time of God’s wrath being poured out on the world, and at the end of the book of Revelation, then you read of the heavens being opened and Christ coming on a white horse at the Battle of Armageddon.

Romans 11:25: “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”

With Israel temporarily set aside in unbelief, God today is having a program with the Gentiles, the nations. The Rapture marks the end of the dispensation of the grace of God.

Romans 11:25 talks about when the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. And that’s when the fullness of this program with the Gentiles is completed.

I personally believe this is when the last member of the Church, the body of Christ is saved, and the body of Christ is complete.

At this time, the Lord will descend to raise the bodies of the members of the Body of Christ who are with Him in heaven, and to catch the living members of the Body of Christ up to be with Him, bringing the whole body of Christ together to be in heaven with Him.

However, the Second Coming marks the end of the world, the end of the Tribulation. That’s what the disciples asked the Lord about in Matthew 24:3.

“And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”

And then the Lord proceeded to graciously answer their question.

They asked Him about the sign of thy coming and in verses 29 and 30, He told them about the signs in the heaven above that would precede His coming, and then the sign of the Son of Man in heaven would appear, which is Christ Himself coming with power and glory.

They asked about the end of the world, and the Lord’s Second Coming marks the end of the world and the end of the Tribulation. That will be the end of the world as we know it.

Because everything will drastically change after His Second Coming and with the establishment of His kingdom on the earth.

Jeremiah 23:5-6: “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

“In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

“Sudden destruction” famines, war, disease, disasters follow the Rapture. Following the Rapture of the Church, Revelation 6 and 1 Thessalonians 5:3 tell us about a short time of deceptive peace and safety at the beginning of the Tribulation.

But then “sudden destruction” will come upon the world. This time of horror and destruction with its famines, food shortages, wars, pestilence, mega-natural disasters, and great loss of life are all detailed in the Book of Revelation.

But in contrast, true peace, righteousness, safety, justice follow the Second Coming. This all comes as a result of the establishment of the Lord’s millennial kingdom. When Christ comes to reign on the earth as King, this is what He brings to the earth.

Wherever Christ is, that’s what you find: peace, righteousness, safety, and justice. When the Prince of peace reigns there will be true peace on the earth. When the Lord our righteousness is present here on earth, righteousness will pervade everything.

Matthew 25:31-32: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.”

The judgment seat of Christ follows the Rapture in heaven. Following the Rapture, after the whole Body of Christ is in heaven, is when we will individually stand before the Lord to give an account of the journey of our Christian lives and our service for Him.

Rewards and our eternal reigning position with Christ will be determined at that time based upon our faithfulness to Christ and His truth.

There’s a judgment that follows the Second Coming too. The Judgment of the Nations follows the Second Coming on the earth.

After the Second Coming at the close of the Tribulation, and before the Kingdom begins, the Lord will sit on the throne of His glory to judge the nations.

The nations will be judged for their treatment of believing Israel during the 7-year Tribulation. If they cared for believing Israel and helped her during those years, they are granted entrance into the Lord’s kingdom and will be told: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (v. 34).

If they failed to treat the Lord’s brethren in Israel with kindness during that time, those nations will be told: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (v. 41).

Revelation 19:20: “And the beast [or the Anti-Christ] was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.”

The Rapture takes place before the antichrist is revealed. There is a continuous curiosity about the Anti-Christ and who he might be. Many have all kinds of ideas about who the Antichrist is, and that this might be him, and or that might be him.

But 2 Thessalonians 2 teaches that this “man of sin” won’t be revealed until after we’re gone and taken to heaven at the Rapture. We will never know who the Anti-Christ is.

It’s a waste of time to try to figure it out, because we won’t be here when he is revealed and rises to prominence after the Rapture.

Having said that, one of my teachers in Bible school made a good point. The devil has no idea when the Rapture will occur. Therefore, for the past 2000 years, there has always been a potential Anti-Christ on the earth.

Since he doesn’t know when the Rapture will take place, Satan always has a guy that he would use to be the Anti-Christ. So currently, there is someone on the earth that would be the Anti-Christ if the Lord comes in our lifetimes.

But he’ll only be revealed after we’re in heaven. And this drives my wife crazy. She really hopes that the Lord will let her have a peak from heaven one day.

But there is a difference between the Rapture and Christ’s Second Coming with this.

Because Christ’s Second Coming terminates the reign and life of the Anti-Christ.

Revelation 19 makes that very clear.

Satan through the Anti-Christ will attempt to counterfeit God’s plans by having a worldwide kingdom of peace with worldwide worship of the Anti-Christ as God in flesh.

At the end of Tribulation, as things begin to fall apart for him, the Anti-Christ will amass a huge army and overwhelm and overrun the land of Israel from top to bottom and gather for the Battle of Armageddon to make war with God.

Then the true Christ will descend from heaven at His Second Coming with power and glory, and He will crush this huge army, and then He’ll take that lying, scrawny, weak, wicked, little man by the scruff of the neck and cast him alive into the lake of fire.

Joel 3:16: “The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake.”

At the Rapture, the Lord descends from heaven “with a shout” to raise the dead and call the Body of Christ home. Paul refers to the death of the body as sleeping in 1 Thessalonians 4. It’s a term of hope, implying that the dead, sleeping body will be awakened to life in the resurrection one day.

The souls of the saints in the Body of Christ are in heaven, and they come with Christ to the Rapture. The Lord comes “with a shout” to wake up the sleeping, dead bodies of these members of the Body of Christ. And those bodies will respond to that shout and will rise.

When the Lord raised the body of Lazarus from the dead, John 11:43 says, “He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.” Likewise, at the Rapture, with a loud voice, the Lord in His authority over death, shouts and immediately the dead in Christ rise first.

And as Christ calls the Body of Christ home, the power of that shout, from the Lord of Life, will also raise the living right off the earth and catch us up to be with Him and change and glorify our bodies.

At the Second Coming, the Lord comes with a “roar,” “shout,” with a “sharp sword” out of His mouth which destroys the Anti-Christ’s army. The Lord’s shout at the Second Coming doesn’t result in life, but rather death. It’s a different kind of shout with different results.

As the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Christ comes with a roar. That powerful roar, shout and sword that proceeds out of His mouth will cause the Anti-Christ’s army to reel back in fear and panic and will literally cause people to melt away.

Zechariah 14:12 says, “Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.”

And the Lord’s roar will cause a confusion so that the Anti-Christ’s army will begin killing each other like the 135,000 Midianites did before Gideon’s 300 men perched above them.

Revelation 19:11,14: “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.”

At the Rapture, the Lord Himself descends and gloriously appears in the clouds in the air. Nothing is said about any horse that the Lord is riding at the Rapture, or any horses for the angels or armies of heaven.

We are just told “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven” and He comes without a white horse. By grace and a humble love for each of us, our Lord will personally descend Himself from heaven to meet us in the air.

But there’s a difference between the Rapture and the Second Coming in His descent.

Because at the Second Coming, the Lord descends from heaven on a “white horse” and the armies of heaven follow Him on white horses.

Sometimes I get asked whether there will be animals in heaven. The Second Coming shows that there are white horses in heaven.

At the Second Coming, the Lord, with the armies of heaven will come on white war horses to judge and make war and conquer the Anti-Christ, to take control of the earth as the true Christ establishes His worldwide kingdom.

Matthew 25:5-6: “While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.”
For the Rapture, Christ could come at any time, day or night. We are to be “looking” and ready always.

Many times, I think we get it in our minds that the Lord is going to come at noon day to catch us away to heaven, and it may be daytime in the USA when the Lord comes for us.

But it’s going to be nighttime in a lot of places around the globe when the Lord comes, and it may be the evening or midnight or 3:00 in the morning in the USA when He comes.

As we’re always, faithfully “looking for that blessed hope,” and ready always, we should remember this when we go to bed, that the Rapture could happen in the middle of the night when we’re asleep. But that would be a great way to be woken up though, to wake up and see the Lord in the air.

For the Second Coming, I believe that Christ will come in one of the night watches in Israel. You see that from Matthew 25, when the Lord told the parable of the ten virgins, and how at midnight, the cry was made “Behold, the bridegroom cometh.”

Further, the Lord in Matthew 24:43 said: “But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what WATCH the thief would come, he would have watched.” That “watch” refers to one of the four nighttime watches of the night in Israel, from 6pm to 6am.

Also, again with Gideon’s 300 and the Midianite army, it was “in the beginning of the middle watch” that the 300 blew their trumpets, broke their pitchers revealing the light inside, and then yelled, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!”

And at the Second Coming, the Lord will come with a sudden burst of light, with the sword that proceeds out of His mouth, and with trumpet sound. This took place at the beginning of the middle watch which was midnight.

And with this event foreshadowing the Second Coming, I believe it points to the Lord coming in one of the night watches in Israel.

Revelation 16:15: “ Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth…”

The Rapture is “the Blessed Hope” and the simile of a thief is never used for it. Confusion has come about concerning the Rapture and Second Coming by misapplying terms to them.

The “thief in the night” simile has often been mistakenly applied to the Rapture. But in Scripture the thief in the night is not pertaining to the Rapture at all.

It is never called that in the Bible. It is rather called things like “the Blessed Hope,” “His appearing,” and “our gathering together unto Him.”

Along that line, we are often accused of being in error by referring to the Lord’s coming for the Church as “the Rapture,” because the term Rapture is not found in the Bible.

But like the term Trinity is not found in the Bible but is applied to the Godhead, three in one, rapture is simply a term we apply to our catching away to heaven.

The term rapture is derived from the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible, where in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, the expression ‘caught up’ is translated by the Latin word “rapturo.”

Rapturo is where we get our English word Rapture, and rapturo means “to carry off, to catch away by force.” And this is what takes place at the Rapture, we, the Body of Christ are carried off and caught away by force as the Lord catches us up to heaven.

But thief in the night is not used for our catching away at the Lord’s coming for the Body of Christ.

The simile of a thief in the night describes the Second Coming. It is also used to describe the coming of the day of the Lord in Scripture.

The Lord, referring to His Second Coming, in Revelation 16:5 says, “Behold, I come as a thief.” And again Matthew 24:42-43, the Lord, referring to His second coming teaches about the thief coming during one of the night watches.

The thief in the night simile describes the suddenness and the unexpectedness of His coming to Israel, and how it will surprise so many.

Colossians 3:4: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”

Christ comes in glory at the Rapture to take the body of Christ into glory in heaven.

When Christ returns, He will come in all His glory, the glory of His power and greatness. This is true for both the Rapture and the Second Coming.

Titus 2:13 tells us to be “Looking for that blessed hope, and the GLORIOUS appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” As God, Christ has the glory of God, and when He appears He comes in His glory, and it will be a glorious appearing.

Likewise, at the Second Coming, Christ comes in “great glory.” Matthew 24:30 tells us that at that day all the tribes of the earth will mourn, “and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great GLORY.”

Where the difference comes in, is the glory to which Christ takes those He comes for at each coming. In this, there are two different glories associated with the two future comings of Christ. For us, the Body of Christ, when Christ shall appear, then we will also appear with Him in glory, that is the glory of heaven.

Israel has the hope of glory also, but it’s the glory of the earthly millennial kingdom. Thus Christ comes in glory at the Second Coming to take Israel into the “glory” of the earthly kingdom. Daniel 7:14 speaks of that kingdom, “And there was given him dominion, and GLORY, and a kingdom…”

Please join us next time, when we’ll continue our walk through the comparisons and contrasts between the Rapture of the Body of Christ and the Second Coming of Christ to Israel.