HAS GOD CALLED OFF THE RAPTURE?
1 Thess. 4:15-18
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. A deacon had a talking female parrot that always said, “Kiss me! Kiss me!” This bothered the deacon.
2. Then he heard the pastor had a parrot who always said, “Let’s pray! Let’s pray!” That sounded more dignified, so he approached the pastor about putting his parrot with the pastor’s to change his parrot’s comments. Pastor agreed.
3. So the deacon brought over his parrot and stuck it in the cage with the pastor’s parrot. As usual, the deacon’s parrot cried, “Let’s Kiss! Let’s Kiss!”
4. The pastor’s parrot bowed his head and said, “My prayers have been answered!”
B. WHERE DID THE REFRIGERATOR CAR GO? [7700, # 4887]
1. There was a mysterious disappearance of a refrigerator car from the center of a long freight train during a non-stop trip of 25 miles in Pennsylvania on a night in 1898.
2. Until it was found by a farmer 3 weeks later, concealed in trees, no one could imagine what could have happened.
3. While rounding sharp steep curves, the car became uncoupled at both ends. After it toppled from the rails, the rear section of the train caught up with the front section of the train and the recoupled itself with the front section!
C. ANOTHER MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE
1. But the Bible tells of a greater mysterious disappearance – millions of Christians will simultaneously & instantly disappear from the Earth. This event is called the Rapture. Why will God do this?
a. Remove the Church before the Great Tribulation.
b. To bring Israel to salvation (after Rapture).
c. Also to Judge the world who’ve rejected God’s Messiah.
2. But although there are hundreds of Scriptures pointing to Christ’s Second Coming & Rapture, some Christians have written-off the idea of the Rapture, or more dangerously, quit looking for and expecting the soon coming of Jesus Christ.
3. 15 “According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 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. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.” 1 Thess. 4:15-18.
D. THESIS & TITLE
1. I want to expose three subtle arguments the enemy uses to get us to quit looking for Jesus’ soon coming;
a. The Long Length of Time it’s Been;
b. Previous False Alarms of His Coming;
c. Life Goes on Normally (‘we see no supernatural’)
2. So I want to address the subject: “Has God Called Off the Rapture?”
I. LONG LENGTH OF TIME
A. THE MEANING OF ‘QUICKLY’ ‘SOON’?
Scoffers and unbelievers have long derided our Lord’s statement, “Behold, I come quickly” (Rev. 3:11; 22:7,12,20).
1. However the meaning of “soon” is that it could happen “at any moment.”
2. Like my answering machine. Message: “I will return soon.” I use the same announcement whether I’m going to be gone 2 minutes or 2 weeks. Why? Because I want to encourage the caller without revealing how long I’ll be gone.
B. BUT THE LORD WAS CLEAR ON 2 POINTS:
1. No one knows the Day or Hour – even the Son!
a. Mk. 13:32, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
b. The Lord Jesus didn’t misrepresent the length of time because He didn’t know how long it would be.
2. The Lord Himself did teach it would be a long time before He came back for us.
a. “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come…. But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’” Mt. 24:6,48.
b. “The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep…. “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them.” Matt. 25:5,19.
3. The Lord knew what a test of faith such a delay could be, so He warned us in advance.
4. “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” 2 Peter 3:9.
II. FAILURE OF DATE SETTER/ ‘PROPHETS’
A. “BOY WHO CRIED WOLF”
1. We’ve all heard the story of the boy who cried ‘wolf!’ The moral? Because he cried falsely, no one believed him when it was true.
2. So many times has an “expert” on prophecy has given a false alarm about the Rapture so that the world and sometimes the church has developed a doubting spirit.
3. EXAMPLES OF FALSE ALARMS:
a. Hal Lindsey developed the teaching that since Israel started as a nation in 1948, and a “generation” = 40 years, that the Rapture should happen around 1988.
b. Edgar C. Whisenant (September 25, 1932 – May 16, 2001), was a former NASA engineer and Bible student also predicted the Rapture would occur in 1988. He published “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988.” 4.5 million copies were sold in bookstores and elsewhere. Many staked their lives on this book and were disillusioned.
c. Then there was the great Y2K disaster that never happened and some Christians believed the Rapture would happen because we were at the 6,000 year mark of human history and the 1,000 Sabbath ‘day’ would be the Millennial Period.
d. Harold Camping prophecy – Jesus would return by May 21, 2011.
e. Then some predicted the end of the world on Dec. 21, 2012 because of the Mayan calendar ending on that date.
f. Most recent was the John Hagee “Blood Moons” teaching that the numerous blood moons occurring on Jewish holidays would usher in some kind of End-Time domino effect of end time events.
4. Christians have gotten their hopes up, only to be let down. So many have quit looking for the Rapture.
B. EVEN PROPHETIC MESSAGES
1. 2 Thess. 2:1-3. It happened in Paul’s day!
2 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way…”
2. Don’t let it dampen your excitement; if there weren’t real $100 bills, there wouldn’t be counterfeits!
III. LIFE GOES ON NORMALLY
A. ROUTINE EXISTENCE
1. 2 Pet. 3:3, 5-7 Living N.T. 3 First, I want to remind you that in the last days there will come scoffers who will do every wrong they can think of and laugh at the truth.5-6 They deliberately forget this fact: that God did destroy the world with a mighty flood long after he had made the heavens by the word of his command and had used the waters to form the earth and surround it. 7 And God has commanded that the earth and the heavens be stored away for a great bonfire at the judgment day, when all ungodly men will perish.
2. What is the logic of the Scoffers?
a. “Hey, we don’t see any big evidence of God!”
b. “Life goes on routinely.”
c. There’s no large-scale interventions from God.”
B. NO, GOD HAS STEPPED IN BEFORE
1. In Creation,
2. In the Great Flood of Noah;
3. In destroying Sodom & Gomorrah;
4. In delivering Israel from Egyptian bondage;
5. In Israel’s history: Jordan River parting, Sun stand still 12 hours, defeat larger nations, prophecies of future, etc.
6. In sending His Son in human flesh Star of Bethlehem);
7. In establishing the church by the Holy Spirit.
C. SO THERE IS PRECIDENT; reason to believe God will do it again:
1. Rapture of the Church;
2. Destruction of this world & Creation of the New Heavens & New Earth, 2 Pet. 3:10-13, “10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
3. Has God called off the Rapture? NO! The signs are everywhere!
CONCLUSION
A. POSITIVE & NEGATIVE EXAMPLES OF READINESS FOR HIS COMING
1. POSITIVE: Luke 12:35-36,38-40.
a. 35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
b. Have your heart set on Jesus. Be watching/ waiting/ working!
c. Heb. 9:28, “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”
2. NEGATIVE: Luke 12:45-46.
a. 45 But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. 46 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
b. The servant who sinned was the one who in his heart gave up looking for his Lord to come!
B. ILLUSTRATION
1. Dr. G, Campbell Morgan said, “To me the Second Coming is the perpetual light on the path which makes the present bearable. I never lay my head on my pillow without thinking that, maybe before the morning breaks, the final morning may have dawned! I never begin my work without thinking that, perhaps, He may interrupt my work and begin His!”
2. HAS GOD CALLED OFF THE RAPTURE? NO!
C. THE CALL
1. ARE YOU READY FOR THE RAPTURE?
2. Have you been looking for the Rapture every day?
3. If the Rapture happened tonight, would you go? If you’re not sure, let me see your hands.
