Lift - How to Give Hope to the Fearful and Help to the Fearless, Part 2

When you hear the word rapture, what comes to your mind? What is it? When does it happen? Who does it involve?

Did you ever wonder how all this prophecy stuff really works out? Stay with us. That's our topic today. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.

Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. If you've ever wanted clarity on what the Bible says about the future or what happens to Christians after we die, today's program is for you. As we continue our series, Lift the Awesome Power of Encouragement, Chip's going to be in 1 Thessalonians Chapter 5 addressing these topics and more and connecting them all back to the idea of encouragement. But before we dive in, I recommend you get Chip's message notes for today's teaching. He has a thorough outline and a few clear diagrams to help you better understand this important subject. Download them under the broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org.

App listeners tap fill in notes. Okay, here's Chip with the second half of his talk, how to give hope to the fearful and help to the fearless. First John tells us that a proper study of prophecy causes us to fix our eyes on the person of Christ and as we do, it is the hope of His return and the lack of awareness of when it exactly will be that purifies us because we live thinking moment by moment, maybe today. Ryrie goes on to say that not only then is there return of Christ that is eminent, there's the resurrection of the dead. This is the first resurrection, it's of the church and we'll talk later and I'll give you some information about how you can discover the resurrection of Jewish believers and Gentile believers. Third, there's the actual rapture of the church where we meet Jesus in the air and meet our loved ones who've died. Then there's the reunion of believers with Christ and with each other. What a great thought.

People that you love, the people that are in Christ. Death isn't forever for believers. That's why He said, I don't want you to be ignorant, brother. I don't want you to grieve like those who don't have hope. You grieve but not like those who don't have hope. In fact, notice He says there's reassurance, the reassurance of hope in the face of death. Can you say that?

Can you say that for you and can you say that for the people you care most about? Finally at the bottom, you see a brief picture that I'm just going to allude to because many of you are going to get excited and I'm glad. You're going to think, you know what? I've got to start reading about prophecy and I want to learn about this. What you're going to do is you're going to go home and you're thinking, prophecy.

Let's see. Revelation. I'm going to read Revelation. You're going to get to about chapter eight and then you're going to say, man, this is nuts.

I don't understand any of this. Let me give you the cliff notes. Let me just give you the cliff notes of the book of Revelation and Prophecy. There's much, much more.

Here's the cliff notes. We have Christ's death and resurrection. That was prophesied. And then we have the church time where we are here. And then what we've just talked about, Jesus will come, there'll be the rapture. Notice he doesn't come to the earth.

We meet him in the clouds. And then immediately after the rapture, a series of events will happen very quickly. There will be a peace accord signed in the Middle East that will blow people's mind. The emergence of the antichrist will come and there'll be such chaos, he'll promise hope and peace and people will say, hey, you know, let's give this guy the ball.

He'll have supernatural powers. And for the first three and a half years of the tribulation, it'll be like, hey, this is great. The church will have been raptured out and that won't be done in a secret or in a corner.

People will make up all kinds of bizarre stories to talk about what happened to those people and why. Many people will be like people, maybe even some of you in this room who understand the story, who said, I'll wait till later. And the rapture will occur and they will go through the tribulation and they will trust in Christ during that time.

God says he will send 144,000 evangelists, Jewish evangelists, because he's going to go after his people and love them and draw them back. And then the second half of this three and a half years will be chaos, judgment, wrath, like you cannot imagine. So in the little section where there's the tribulation between the rapture and Christ's return, write Revelation, R-E-V, period, 6 through 18. And as you read through that, you'll know, oh, that's what's occurring here. Then Christ's return, that's chapter 19.

That's the battle, literally it's a war of Armageddon. And then chapter 20 will talk about the literal thousand year reign where Christ is coming back and he will fulfill every promise that he made to the nation of Israel. At the end of that time, there will be one last sort of hoopla and you can read about that and there'll be final judgment and then there'll be a new heaven and a new earth.

Revelation 20 tells you about that thousand year reign and then eternity, the new heaven, new earth is described in chapter 21 and 22. So you've got the cliff notes and so as you read through, that'll give you some understanding. Now you'll still find significant confusion, but this little book, one, I like it because it's thin. There's a high correlation between thin books and what gets read. Second, it's very brief and clear. It's called Come Quickly, Lord Jesus, What You Should Know About the Rapture by Dr. Charles Ryrie. Now, those of you that have been around the block, questions have popped up in your mind.

Don't some people believe differently about the rapture in mid and post? Absolutely. All those are covered here. I can't cover all that. They're covered clearly, fairly.

Well, what about the millennial kingdom and how's that populated? Covered here. What about that passage in Revelation 3? Covered here.

So that's the overview. Now, fasten your safety belt and let's turn the page and we want to look at the final portion of Paul's teaching. Notice very importantly that in the NIV, the first verse says now. That's okay. Good translation.

It's not quite as hard. The word there is but. He's making a contrast. He says now, if you hear it as now, it's a great word. If it's but, see he's talked about the church, he's talked about the rapture, he's talked about the coming, but now he's going to shift gears and he says, I want to talk about the end times in general. And in verses one through three, he's going to teach us as believers, we need to warn. We need to warn the people in our relational network and we need to do it by speaking the truth in love. And then in verses four through 11, he's going to come back and say, we need to not just warn them.

We need to win them by literally living the truth out in everyday life. So let's look at these three verses and see what he says about not just the rapture. What he's going to do is talk about the day of the Lord. And the day of the Lord was prophesied in the Old Testament so they should know about it.

Isaiah 2, Isaiah 4, Isaiah 12, Joel 1, Amos 5, Zephaniah 1 and 3. The day of the Lord was, I mean, they knew about the day of the Lord. And the day of the Lord then was also taught by who?

Christ. His disciples asked him about it. You know, Mark 13, Matthew 24, Matthew 25. He clearly, they knew and the apostle Paul taught them when he was with them about the day of the Lord. And the day of the Lord is this time where historically there's going to be great judgment followed by great blessing. And the day of the Lord in the New Testament is always used in reference to not the church, but the judgment of the nations. So with that sort of planted in the back of your mind, let's look at the first three verses where we need to warn others. It says, but or now brothers, about times and dates, literally about kind of the durations and the characteristics of this whole end time scenario.

About the times and the dates, we don't need to write you. Why? For you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. They know very well.

Why? Old Testament teaching, teaching of Paul, teaching of Christ. So what he's talking about now is not any mystery, not any new information. He's giving them the big picture. You know the day of the Lord when Jesus comes in final judgment, it's going to come like a thief in the night. Verse three, why people are saying peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly. And then notice the simile, as labor pains on a pregnant woman and they will not escape. That same little double negative strongest in the New Testament, it's here.

They in no way ever will escape. It's very strong. Now let's make three quick observations about those verses. Observation number one, Jesus' return is certain. He's saying, you know, Old Testament, I don't have to warn you.

I don't have to tell you. It's going to be like a thief in the night, but it is absolutely certain. The little picture he gives, you know, a woman who's five, six months pregnant, she may not know the day the baby's coming, but she's real sure something's coming, right?

What she doesn't know, she's always semi unexpected about the specific day. And so that's how the picture plays out. He says, guys, we need to warn people. Jesus is coming back. Secondly, Jesus' return will be unexpected. People will be saying things like, oh yeah, I know there's a crisis in the Middle East, but they've always had problems.

Oh, I know there's this devastating disease that causes AIDS, but people have always had that. Oh sure, there's a few wars and lots more earthquakes, and I know there's three or four major third world countries that their economy can sink everything, and I understand that, you know, Iraq may have nuclear arms, and North Korea, and the whole world could go up in smoke, but see, I try not to think of those things. Besides, the stock market's going up, and my own personal private little world seems to be okay. Peace, peace, safety, a thinking person who would study world history would find the level of devastation, earthquakes, wars, rumors and wars, plagues in our day are at an unparalleled level. And only a person in denial, only a person who sticks their head in the sand, only a person who is so defensive about reality that they want to keep God at a distance can push all that information and all that truth away. A thinking person says, the world's got major problems, and it could go up in smoke. There are idiots and terrorists stealing plutonium. There are countries now with atomic power that, you know, we wouldn't let our children play with, let alone let run a country. And he's saying, Jesus is coming back.

It's not peace and safety, and when he comes back, he's going to surprise a lot of people. And some of those people are your friends. Some of those people are your family members. And dare I say, probably in a group this size, some of those people are you.

God brought some of you today to have a divine appointment. You don't know Christ as your savior. You might be a great person, a moral person, a great worker, a good mom, a good dad, a great single person.

I'm not saying you're a bad person. I mean, you're just one of us, but you don't know Christ. You haven't accepted the Lord Jesus as his sacrificial payment for your sin. And when the rapture occurs, those who know him go, and those who don't, don't. And it is unkind, unloving, and cruel to keep that to yourself.

And the warning is, would you please tell people that? These are the claims of Christ. I'm going to be your friend whether you accept them.

I'm going to be your friend whether you reject them. But I have a moral responsibility to tell you, he's coming, it's certain. He's coming unexpectedly. And finally, when he comes, it will not be to bless, it will be to judge. And you can either allow him to be your judge now, and let him judge your sin, and place it all on Christ so you come as a son or a daughter, or you can wait and stiff arm God, and he will be your judge later, and every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, and you'll suffer irreparable damage. We are told by our Lord to warn those in this situation. We're not only to warn them, but we're to win them. There's one major point I want you to get from verse 4 through 11. Simply put, you win them by living a significantly pure life, where you live out what you say you believe. Notice verse 4, but you brothers are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief.

In other words, hey, there's going to be no surprise for you. You are sons of light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. Now listen to this.

Here's the application. So then, let us not be like others who are asleep. This is a different word for asleep. This means moral and spiritual lethargy. It means indifference to spiritual things. It said, let's not be like them who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. Alert means to be mentally sharp, spiritually alert, calm, sober-minded. Gives multiple reference to an attitude of prayer. So be alert and self-controlled.

That word means moral purity. Be stable. Live a life of holiness in view of the Lord's return.

For those who sleep, verse 7, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. Contrast, but since we belong to the day, let us be, notice the repetition, self-controlled. Live out this life.

This time it's in the present tense. Continually be self-controlled. At home, be self-controlled. How? By the grace of God. At work, be self-controlled.

Specifically, how do you do it? He tells us, putting on faith and love as a breastplate and the hope of salvation as a helmet. That's in a tense of the verb that means do it once and for all. Put on a breastplate of faith, trust God, accept His love, and be loving toward others and have the security of your life, the helmet you're thinking, by the hope of salvation. And it's of a soldier.

It means be, not like a soldier asleep, be alert, be strong, be ready. Go into your world, into your relational network, and exhibit faith and love and hope in such a way where people say, hey, man, how in the world do you do it? You got three kids, you're under such pressure. How does your life work? Your wife walked out on you, your husband walked out on you, that boss treats you terrible.

I don't know how you make it on what you live on. There's something different about you. Yeah, it's Christ. See, we're to win the world by living a winsome, God-empowered, grace-oriented life. He gives the reason for God to not appoint us to suffer wrath. God's will isn't that we're involved when the wrath occurs, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And then notice verse 10, what a line. He died for us. The little word for means on our behalf and in our place. He died for us.

Just let it sink in, okay? He died for, you put your name in it. He died for you.

He died for me. And this idea isn't just some man fully God, fully man died somewhere historically. The idea is every sin, every shameful thing, everything in your closet and mine, he died in your place.

God judged that sin when Jesus died on the cross. And all that you've done, all that I've done, all that anyone has done was poured out on Christ and he is our sin substitute. He died for us in our place. He's the lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.

You know what your responsibility is? To receive him, to turn to him, to lift the empty hands of faith and say, God, I need you. Now notice why he died for you.

This is so great. So that whether we are awake, alive, or asleep, dead, we may live together with him. I don't know your background. My background in church was so terrible, I never had any idea that God wanted a relationship with me. Jesus died on the cross isn't some little thing to sing. He died on the cross because you matter. He loves you. He understands your hurt. He understands your pain. He understands where you've been. He understands your baggage.

You know what he's saying? Come to me. Come to me today. Let me love you. Let me forgive you. Join my family.

Let me cleanse you. Let me take the deepest wounds and hurts. I'll be the dad you never had. I'll be the mom you never had. I'll be the mate that left you. I'll be the person you've been searching for. Whatever you think success or money or anything is going to get you, I'll be that. I am God and you matter to me.

I died for you because I want a relationship. He doesn't want to give you a list of dos and don'ts and duties and how many things you're supposed to go to. He wants to bring you into a loving relationship with him and your service to him will flow out of gratitude and life and love.

And then he tells us, therefore encourage one another and build up each other just as in fact you are. I'd like you to ask a couple questions before we go home. The first being, would you characterize your response to Christ's return as A, a fearless skeptic, B, fearfully confused, or C, joyfully anticipating?

What would you mark down if you had to? Are you certain that you are ready for the Lord's return if Jesus, if you knew 155 today the Lord was coming back, are you with absolute confidence sure that you would be a part of that event called the caught up or the rapture? Not because you're a good person, not because you go to church, not because you give the United Way, not because you read the Bible now and then, but solely because you are related rightly to God through the person of Christ and his work on the cross and by faith you've accepted that free gift. Are you ready? Third question I would ask is, is there someone you need to warn and to win before Christ returns? Do your names come to your mind as I was talking, aunt, uncle, friend, co-worker, family member, an ex, a child, a mom, a dad?

Who is it and when will you start that game plan? The first place is to pray. As we close today I want to tell you very upfrontly that today is the day of salvation. God brought some of you here today and you'll never hear the gospel as clearly, not because of the guy who's preaching, but because of the spirit that's working. You may never hear it as clearly as you have it right now and that your response today is not I'll think about it. Your response today is Lord Jesus I get it. Yes I'm a strong willed person, yes I want my own way, but I've been stiff arming you long enough and I want to put down the hands of resistance and I want to ask you today to forgive me, to cleanse me, to come into my life and make me a new person. It's called being born again or born from above. I want to pray a prayer and not by some rote, but if it really reflects where you're at and you want to respond to Christ, do it today will you?

You may never hear His voice as clearly as you hear it today. Lord Jesus you said that no one comes to you unless they're drawn by the Father. And that's not mystical, it means they hear the gospel, it means that they're in a place like today and they hear clearly that you love them, that they can in no way by any works or effort of their own get good enough, but they need to humble themselves and they need to trust that Jesus died in their place to pay for their sin and that you rose again to give them new life. If you're in that boat today, I encourage you to take a courageous step of faith and entrust yourself to the Savior. And if you don't know how, just follow along, you can pray in your mind, but pray along with me. Dear Jesus, please forgive me. I'm sorry for the things that I've done that I know are wrong. I'm sorry for the people that I've hurt and the promises I've broken.

I can't do it anymore. Please forgive me and come into my life right now. I trust that your death paid for my sin and your resurrection will give me new life.

Make me the man, the woman, the student that you want me to be. Amen and amen. Well, you're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and before we go on, if you prayed with Chip just now and you're thinking, so what do I do now?

What's the next step? Well, we want to help. We have a free resource that was specifically created for new believers. This tool will help you gain a clear understanding of what it means to be saved and wholeheartedly follow Jesus. To request this free resource, call 888-333-6003 or visit livingontheedge.org. Then click the New Believers button.

That's livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. Let us help you get started in your faith journey. And as Chip always says, welcome to the family. And speaking of Chip, he's with me in studio now to share a quick word with all of you. Chip?

Thanks so much, Dave. I just want to stop and pause with a very select group of people. You're people that pray for Living on the Edge. I know because you write and tell me.

And you're people who give financially to Living on the Edge. And as I have communicated the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the power of God to salvation. And we know that when we share the gospel like this on a broadcast, literally hundreds and hundreds of people come to Christ. And so you're a part of that.

And we have reaped, not because we're special, but because the gospel is the power of God to salvation. But I want to just celebrate that reward and thank every one of you who pray and thank every single person who gives to this ministry. People's lives will be different forever and ever and ever because of you.

Thanks so much. Well, as Chip said, if you're already a financial partner, thank you. With your help, Living on the Edge is ministering to more people than ever. But if you're benefiting from this ministry and haven't yet taken that step, now's a great time to join the team. To become a monthly partner, go to livingontheedge.org or text donate to 74141. That's the word donate to 74141 or visit livingontheedge.org.

App listeners tap donate. Well, with that, here's Chip to share some application for us to think about. As you probably have noticed, this message today on the rapture and on prophecy in general is anything but irrelevant and esoteric. This is a message that gets right down to where we live with huge implications. And this passage in first Thessalonians four is the classic passage on the rapture and end times. And you'll hear this taught many times, but I think it's interesting that today we walk through chapter five, verses one through 11, where the apostle Paul takes the truth about prophecy and he says, this is the important application. We must warn people that there is an end coming and we want them to be ready. And there's only two ways to warn them. One, we have to warn them by how we live so that it makes sense that what we say is true. And then we have to warn them with our words and tell them and explain in a nonjudgmental way, Hey, the end is coming. In this passage, we learned that Jesus' return is certain.

It's not a maybe. It's as certain as the promise that the Messiah would come one day. He came biblical passages for over 700 years prior to the time predicted his first arrival and Jesus, the last words he told us was, I will be back. When he ascended, the angels looking down on that crowd said, why are you looking up as though something strange is happening? The one you see ascending is going to return. Jesus is coming back and when he returns, it will be an unexpected event. He's not going to send you a letter and say, by the way, if you've been waiting to kind of get your life right, if you've decided to kind of sow some wild oats and wait a little bit later, you don't get that opportunity. You'll never know when it is and when he comes, it means judgment. We need to understand and we need to tell others that everyone will stand before God and you will be judged.

Let me ask you, are you ready? No, not the person next to you. Not other people. I didn't ask if you went to church. I didn't ask if you were religious.

I didn't ask if you were moral. Are you ready for the Lord's return if he returned three minutes from the end of this program? Would you know that you'd spend eternity with him in heaven? If not, can I suggest that today is the day of salvation. Today's the day for you to ask Jesus to come into your life to say, I believe you're the savior. I believe you died for me. I believe you rose from the dead and I know you're coming back and turn from your sin and receive Christ as your savior.

Now one more question before we close. Do you know someone that needs to be warned, fellow believer? Is there someone that you really care for but you just haven't got around to telling him?

We never know when he's going to come back. Today's the day. Write a letter. Jot a note.

Set aside a lunch. Tell him in a loving way he loves them and simply share the gospel. Great challenge Chip, thanks. As we close, if you're looking for a way to get even more plugged in with Living on the Edge and our resources, check out the Chip Ingram app. You can listen to our most recent series, sign up for daily discipleship and more. We want to help you grow in your walk with Jesus and the Chip Ingram app is a great way to immerse yourself in godly enriching content. Well from all of us here, I'm Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.