The Rapture & Revival: Preparing for the Second Coming

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. To find out how to know God personally, go to knowgod.org. K-N-O-W, knowgod.org. Hey, would you do me a favor?

Share this message with someone who needs to hear it. We know Jesus could come back soon, but how soon? Pastor Greg Laurie addresses that question today here on A New Beginning. We were praying back in 1970 that Jesus would come back. You're saying, well, Greg, wasn't your timing a little bit off? Yeah, maybe we were a little early, but guess what? It impacted us in the way that we live and consider that we've never been closer to the return of Jesus Christ than we are right now. He is coming back again.

I still believe it. This is the day when the lost are found. This is the day for a new beginning. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

Oh, can you hear all the angels are singing? This is the day, the day when life begins. In 2 Peter 3, we read, the Lord isn't really being slow about his promise, as some people think.

No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. Some people accepted Christ yesterday. Good thing the rapture didn't happen the day before yesterday. Coming up on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us learn all we can about the rapture, that great event when we are suddenly caught up to meet the Lord in the air. This is the day, the day when life begins. Why don't you grab your Bibles and turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4.

1 Thessalonians chapter 4. The title of my message is Revival and the Rapture. So we are talking about the Jesus revolution. You know, in the day we called it the Jesus movement, but either phrase is great, because you know what it was about?

Jesus. It wasn't called the God revolution, though God did it. It wasn't called the Bible revolution, though we read the Bible a lot and still do. It was called the Jesus revolution because it was about Jesus. And sometimes in the church we forget what our message is.

Our message is Jesus Christ. What is a revolution? Generally we think of a revolution in a negative sense, an upheaval, and it can be that.

But this was a positive revolution. A word revolution also means a turning around or a rotating or a returning to something. It is a returning to something. And what is it a return to? It is a return to New Testament Christianity. It is a return to being like the church of the first century that turned their world upside down. That is why we call it a revival. To revive is to restore to original condition. Once someone asked the great evangelist Billy Sunday about revival, and he said, they tell me a revival is only temporary. He said, so is a bath, but it will do you some good. And some of you need to take that literally, and I won't say who.

No, I'm joking. But you know, we need a revival. We need a bath, if you will. A cleansing, a returning to something that God did many years ago. But the first century church, you know, they rocked the world. It was G. Campbell Morgan who said, quote, organized Christianity that fails to make a disturbance is dead.

And that is true. Everywhere the apostle Paul went there was either a riot or a revival. And sometimes I wonder if it is time to rescue Jesus from modern day Christianity.

One person put it this way, and I love it. Revival is when God gets so sick and tired of being misrepresented he shows up himself. And we are saying, Lord, do that again. And there were some earmarks of the Jesus movement, of things that I remember. One of them was there was a sense of expectancy in the services. By the way, no one was ever late for church because if you were, well, you wouldn't get a seat. There was a sense that God is going to do something here in this service. And so we came with open hearts and with open Bibles. And I think it is very important the way we go to church. That we come saying, I want God to speak to me today.

I am open to that. And it was a move of the Holy Spirit. The Jesus movement was, it was the Holy Spirit of God working through the Word of God in the hearts of the people of God. It was a work that he did then and it is a work he still wants to do today. Because one of the things we talked a lot about back in those days and it was the return of Jesus Christ.

It was in a lot of messages. And you are saying, well, Greg, wasn't your timing a little bit off? What was that, 45 years ago? Yeah, maybe we were a little early, but guess what?

It impacted us in the way that we lived. And consider this, we have never been closer to the return of Jesus Christ than we are right here, right now. He is coming back again.

I still believe it. And we are going to see what the Bible says about what I believe is the next event on the prophetic calendar. It is called the rapture. You have heard that before. Some people would say, well, you can't find the word rapture in the Bible.

Well, that is true in a way. But you can also not find the word Bible in the Bible. Nor can you find the word Trinity in the Bible.

And those are all things that we know are true. So let's understand what the rapture is. There is a Greek word harpazo that is used many times in Scripture. This word harpazo describes a catching up of people into the presence of the Lord. If you have a Latin translation, it is translated rapturus where we get our English word rapture from. So I don't care if you call it the rapture or if you call it the harpazo.

Hey, call it the great escape if you want to. Whatever you call it, it is a real biblical event. Jesus said in John 14, In My Father's house are many mansions of where we are not so I would have told you. If I go, I will come again and receive you unto Myself that where I am you may be also.

That word receive is harpazo. I will catch you up into heaven. So it is a real event that is coming. And in my understanding of Bible prophecy, it can happen at any moment. Looking at the big picture, I think the next event on the prophetic calendar is the rapture. On the heels of that will be the emergence of a world leader who will be charismatic. He will be a great peacemaker. He will come about with economic solutions. But in reality the Bible says he will be the antichrist. And the prefix anti doesn't just mean against.

It also means instead of. He will come as a false messiah. Some people will think he is the messiah.

He will rebuild the third temple in Jerusalem. And then ultimately he will perform what is called the abomination of desolation where he erects an image of himself and commands people to worship him. And that marks effectively the halfway point of the seven year tribulation period. The tribulation period ends with the battles of Armageddon. And then Christ comes back in the second coming. And then there is the millennial reign of Jesus.

It lasts for a thousand years. And then finally heaven comes to earth. The new Jerusalem like a bride waiting to meet our groom. And some guys are saying, I don't want to be a bride. You are a bride.

Deal with it. In the church we are the bride of Christ. That is what the Bible calls us. And so this moment, this event, this rapture can happen at any time. And that brings us to our text. 1 Thessalonians 4 16, The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. And then we which are alive and remaining will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. This phrase caught up is from the Greek word harpazo. That word is used 13 times in the New Testament.

It means to take forcibly, to snatch, or to catch up. So here is a few questions. Why is there a rapture? Well Paul gave this teaching in response to the believers in Thessalonica who had loved ones die. And they wondered will we ever see our loved ones again. So Paul is telling them you are going to be reunited with your loved ones. In fact in 1 Thessalonians 4 13 he says, We don't want you to be uninformed brothers about those who have died so that you will not grieve as those who have no hope.

A very important thing Paul is saying. We don't want you to be uninformed brothers. So he talks about Bible prophecy. And I bring this up because sometimes people will say no one can understand these things. And so it is just a waste of time to even try.

No. Why would Paul have said we don't want you to be uninformed brothers if God did not want us to know about the events that are coming. And coming back to that event I mentioned the abomination of desolation.

Jesus referred to it in Matthew 24. He says, And when you see the abomination of desolation, then let the reader understand. So we need to understand what these things mean. In the book of Daniel in the 12th chapter it is said that the things of Bible prophecy the understanding of Bible prophecy will increase in the last days. One of the signs of the end times is we will have a better understanding of what all of these things mean. We often talk about the book of Revelation. What does revelation mean? It means the unveiling. It is God's desire to reveal not to conceal. And then Paul goes on to say, So comfort one another with these words.

Why? Well because when a loved one dies we miss them. Many of you have loved ones in heaven right now.

Well Kathy and I do. Of course our son is there. And our mothers are there. And my father is there. So you know that kind of connects you to heaven. You think about it and you wonder about having conversations with them and what it will be like to be reunited. So this is what Paul is saying. And this is why they should comfort us.

He says we will be caught up together to meet them in the air. Who? Loved ones who have preceded us. I was talking with a dear saint the other day.

Yesterday actually. She is 95 years old. And she wanted to know when she dies what happens to her body. And what happens to her spirit. I said well what happens when you die is your spirit goes into the presence of God. And your body goes into the ground. But at the rapture your body is going to be resurrected. So your body will be resurrected in a perfected state. So that is when that all is going to happen.

So this is this great hope. Now look the rapture can happen in our lifetime. But we need to always be ready to meet the Lord. So you either get to heaven through rapture or you get to heaven through death.

Cab or Uber. I don't care. I am just going to go to heaven. So the idea is to be ready. And this brings comfort to you because you know you will see your loved ones again. Imagine what it would be like to suddenly be reunited with a loved one you had been cut off from for so long.

And to be in their presence again. Husbands reunited with wives. Wives reunited with husbands. Parents reunited with children. Children with parents. Brothers with sisters. Sisters with brothers.

Friends with friends. That event is going to happen. And it is a glorious event.

Not so good for people that don't believe. Jesus said two men will be in a field. One will be taken. The other left. Two will be sleeping in a bed. One will be taken.

And the other left. Watch therefore for you don't know what hour the Lord is coming. And so this is kind of a scary thing but there will be people that will be left to face the tribulation period because they have not put their faith in Jesus Christ when the rapture occurs. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. So many listeners have commented on the encouragement they receive from these daily messages.

Like these posts on social media. Pastor Greg, 20 years ago I gave my life to Jesus after listening to you on the radio. God bless you always. Pastor Greg, God bless you all from Seguin, Texas. Thanks for being there for us. If it wasn't for your ministry, Pastor Greg, I would have lost hope when my husband passed away last year.

Thank you so much for all you do. Has Pastor Greg heard from you? If these daily studies in God's Word have encouraged you, why not drop him a comment? Email him at gregatharvest.org.

Again, that's gregatharvest.org. Well, we're talking about the rapture today. Pastor Greg is bringing a message called The Rapture and Revival. Part of his new series titled Jesus Revolution.

Let's listen. When is the rapture? Well, this is one that people have asked for many years.

When is it? Well, here is what Jesus says. No one knows the day or the hour. Not even the angels nor the Son.

Only the Father. If you were to go back to the original language and translate that, it would come out to say, No one knows the day or the hour. And actually what it means is, No one knows the day or the hour. Why do I say that? Because every now and then someone comes along and they say, I have cracked the code. I know when the rapture is.

No, they don't. No one knows the day or the hour. It could happen today. It could happen tonight. It could happen tomorrow. It could happen in a month, in a year, in a decade. We don't know when it will happen but we want to watch and be ready.

But I will tell you this. When it happens, it will happen so quickly you can't even measure it in time. We are told over in 1 Corinthians 15, I tell you a mystery will not all sleep but will be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. At the last trumpet the trumpet will sound.

The dead will be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. The twinkling of an eye. Not even the blinking of an eye. How long is the twinkle of an eye?

Well I don't know. It is from the Greek word atomos. We get our English word atom from it.

It is something that is very small. I guess the twinkling would take as long as maybe it would take to say the word atomos. It is just that fast. So some will say, Well I will accept Christ when the rapture happens. Really? You better be fast.

You see people getting raptured. Lord Jesus. Oh that is way too long.

Lord no too long. No. It is too late. And you will be left behind and you don't want that to happen. So why is it important to believe this? Well if I believe it, and I really should if I believe the Bible, it will have an effect on me spiritually. In 1 John 3 it says, He that has this hope purifies himself even as he is pure. So if I really believe this it is going to impact me in decisions I make. Things that I do.

Everything really. Someone once asked the great evangelist D.O. Moody, If you knew the Lord would return tonight how would you spend the rest of the day? Without hesitation he said, I wouldn't do anything different than I do every day.

See this is the whole point. If I really believe this. How many of you believe Jesus could come back?

Ok. If you believe this have you told anyone about Jesus? Do you know relatives, friends, others that need to hear this good news? Live every day as though it were the last day. Because one day it will be. Martin Luther once said, There are two days of my life. There is this day and there is that day. And that day he was referring to was the return of the Lord.

So we want to be ready. Now why has Jesus not already come back? Well let me take a quick poll. How many of you have become a Christian since 1970? You have accepted Christ since 1970. Raise your hand. Ok. That is a lot of you.

I would even say a majority of you. We were praying back in 1970 that Jesus would come back. Aren't you glad he didn't answer our prayer? It says in 1 Peter, The Lord is not late as some men count lateness. He is long suffering toward us.

Listen. Not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. The Lord is waiting for the final people to believe. It is even possible that somewhere on this earth possibly even in this service or watching somewhere is that final person the Lord is waiting for to get saved. And then the rapture is going to happen.

Can you imagine if you knew who that person was? Would you be tempted to apply pressure like, Dude could you get saved like now? So we can get out of here. But the Lord is waiting.

Why? Because he loves us. He wants us to have a relationship with him. But here is our prayer. When that day happens only the Lord knows. But we want him to send at least one more spiritual awakening to America. We need a fifth awakening. I would be so bold as to say we even need a sixth and a seventh should the Lord tarry.

But listen. Revival. That can happen for you right here right now. We can talk about how the church needs revival. But you can just ask yourself the question do you need revival? Do I need revival? What is revival?

It is being restored to original condition. You know if you want to see a revival you should do revival like things. And that is what we are sort of doing here today. We are remembering things. Things that happened before.

And we are saying do it again. And in the same way if you want to see revival in your life do revival like things. In Revelation chapter 2 Jesus talks to the church.

And he says you know what I know you guys are discerning and you work hard and you test those who say they are apostles and are not. But I have this against you. You have left your first love. So remember therefore from where you have fallen and do the first works quickly.

Very interesting. He says you know you are doing a great job but there is a problem. You have left your first love. So first you should remember. And I am going to ask you to remember right now. Think back in your life. Some of you have been a Christian for a while. Some of you not as long. But was there a time in your life where you were stronger spiritually than you are now?

Was there a time in your life as a follower of Jesus where your passion was greater and the fire burned hotter than it is burning right now? Okay remember that. It is a point of reference. Now repent. He says remember from where you have fallen and repent. And it is interesting he uses the phrase where you have fallen. See we think of falling away from the Lord as something dramatic. Oh they abandon their faith and they are doing all these horrible things now.

And yeah that is a form of it. But Jesus said if you have left your first love you have fallen. It is sort of like a slow motion fall.

It is not as dramatic but it is still falling. Remember from where you have fallen. Then he says and do the first works quickly. So the three R's of revival. The three R's of getting right with God are remember, repent, and repeat.

Go back and do those things again. Heard about a lady that wanted to divorce her husband. But she did not want to just divorce him. She wanted him to suffer. So she went to an attorney and said what can I do when I divorce my husband to bring the most pain possible? The lawyer said hoo hoo hoo hoo ha.

Evil laugh. He said I have the solution. He says for the next six months I want you to smother your husband with affection. Tell him how wonderful he is. How responsible he is. How much you respect him. How much you care for him. And then at six months hit him with the divorce papers.

He won't know what hit him and it will make his life miserable. She said I will do it. She told her husband how much he loved him. How great he was. How much you respected him.

How much she adored him. And the lawyer calls at six months and says okay let's get this divorce going. She says divorce?

We are going on our second honeymoon. So the point is she was doing what she should have been doing all along. And in the same way if we want revival just do revival like things. If you want to restore a marriage that is failing go bring the romance back in your marriage.

Do the things you did in the beginning. The same is true of your relationship with God. And I wonder if some of us need revival in our life.

Look it can happen. We just say Lord I need to be restored to that original condition. I need to get back to that walk I once had with you. You know there are some of you here that might have been around in the days of the Jesus movement. That is great. What a wonderful thing that was.

But this is now. How is your relationship with God now? Are you walking with the Lord today?

And are you ready for his return now? Well if not this is a great opportunity to get right with God. If you want to be sure that you are ready to meet the Lord. If you want to be confident that you will be ready to be caught up to meet him in the air you need to ask Jesus Christ to come into your life. He died on the cross for you 2000 years ago.

He shed his blood for you. He paid the price for every sin you have ever committed. And if you will put your faith in him and ask him to forgive you you can be confident your sin is forgiven and you can know for certain that you will go to heaven when you die and you can also know for certain you will be ready for the rapture. You will be rapture ready.

And if you are not sure if you are now here is an opportunity for you to make that commitment or recommitment to Christ. Let's all pray together. Father I pray now for every person that is watching. If they don't know you Jesus.

If they are not right with you help them to get right with you. We ask in Jesus name I pray. Amen. Pastor Greg Laurie with an important prayer. And if you'd like to make a change today in your relationship with the Lord Pastor Greg will help you do that in just a moment before today's edition of A New Beginning concludes.

If you missed any part of our study today you can catch up by going to our website harvest.org. The title is The Jesus Revolution and Evangelism. Or order a CD by dialing 1-800-821-3300.

That's 1-800-821-3300. And then we want to make available Pastor Greg's outstanding book called Jesus Revolution. The subtitle is How God Transformed an Unlikely Generation and How He Can Do It Again Today. You know Pastor Greg my son and his family used to live pretty close to some railroad tracks and trains came through quite a lot. I noticed that you can feel the rumbling before the train gets there.

That's right. Let me ask you is there a revival coming down the tracks? Are you feeling some rumblings right now?

My response would be duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. I hear the train coming. It's coming.

No it's Johnny Cash, okay. I pray so and I hope so. Because there's a lot of turmoil and trouble in our nation right now. And if God doesn't step in I don't know how we're gonna heal this nation of ours. But God does give us a prescription for the healing of a nation from 2 Chronicles 7.14 which I've quoted before and I'm sure I'll quote again.

Because God says of my people which are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my faith and turn from their wicked ways. Then I will hear from heaven and heal their land. We need the Lord to heal the nation. And we need to pray for a spiritual awakening. The last great spiritual revival in the history of our nation was the Jesus movement also called the Jesus revolution. By the way Time magazine coined that phrase and it was a revolution. It changed the church, it changed the nation and I can tell you it changed my life and the lives of thousands of other people. Many of them young though it wasn't limited to young people it was primarily a youth revival. Well since I was there I wanted to tell people what it was like.

I wanted to sort of take you back in time and try to put you in that place. But then I have take away truths that I've written in this book that you can apply in the hope that you can have a spiritual awakening in your life or in your church or in your community and in our country and indeed in our world. The Jesus movement was not confined to the shores of the United States it spread around the planet. And we need to see it happen again. And now with all of our social media and instant communication it would be so exciting to give some good news to people instead of all this bad news and all of this fake news. We need God in America. We need God in our lives. We need to be returned to our original state. You know I think sometimes we over spiritualize the word revival.

Let's just use another word. Restoration. If I were to take an old beat up 57 Chevy sitting around in a junk yard and restore it to original condition get the engine running, redo the upholstery give it a new paint job, put it back out on the street you'd say that is a beautifully restored car. We want to see our nation restored. We want to see our lives restored. We need to see a revival.

Let's pray for that together. And to help you learn more about what God did in the last great spiritual awakening I want to send you a copy of my book simply titled Jesus Revolution. I hope that it will inspire you to pray that you will have your own personal revival. And I'll send you this book for your gift of any size.

Whatever you send will be invested into this ministry so more people can hear the word of God and so more people can come to know Jesus Christ. So order your copy of Jesus Revolution. Yeah we hope you'll do that today. We have a copy waiting for you. We'll get it on its way to you just as soon as we hear from you. Hey Dave don't forget to tell them that there's also a study guide that will send them along with their copy of Jesus Revolution. Again for their gift of any size.

Yeah that's right. It's a great tool to help you study these insights on a deeper level and even lead a small group study. Learn how your Bible study group or home fellowship group can help pave the way for the next great spiritual awakening. So we hope you'll send a generous gift today and that you'll ask for Jesus Revolution along with the study guide. You can write A New Beginning Box 4000 Riverside, California 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300.

We're here to take your call 24-7 at 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org. Well Pastor Greg today you wrapped up your message by talking about eternity. How can somebody listening know they're going to heaven? Well that's a great question and I guess let me take it a step further.

I know that is the most important question you can ask. How can a person know they're going to heaven? Let me say at the outset I believe I'm going to heaven. In fact I'll take it a step further. I know I'm going to heaven.

You see Greg isn't that kind of arrogant? Not really. Because I know this because God has made a promise to me and I've believed that promise. The Bible says we write these things to you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. I've believed on the name of the Son of God, thus I know I'll go to heaven when I die. Here's my question to you. Do you believe on the name of the Son of God? Is there any more important issue than that?

I can't think of one. So I'd like to lead you in a simple prayer and this is a prayer where you will be asking Jesus to forgive you of your sin and you'll be asking him to be your own savior friend. Lord, it's a prayer only you can pray.

Pray these words if you would. Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner but I know that you are the savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose from the dead. Jesus, come into my life. I want to believe in you. I want to follow you.

I want this relationship with you. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sin and rising again from the dead and I thank you that you've heard this prayer and I believe you've come into my life. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. I want to help you grow in your faith. I want to help you grow spiritually so I have a free gift for you. It's called the New Believers Growth Packet. What's in it?

No, not a bag of seeds to plant in your backyard. I guess it's sort of a form of a bag of seeds because I want to sow some spiritual seed in your life to help you develop as a follower of Christ so I'm gonna send you a copy of the New Testament in the New Living Translation but it's a special edition. It's called the New Believers Bible and it's filled with notes that I wrote that will encourage you in this new commitment or recommitment you've made to Christ and there's some other materials in the New Believers packet as well so order your copy today and I'm so glad I had this privilege today to lead you in that prayer. God bless you. You've made the right decision, the decision to follow Jesus Christ. Yeah, and here's how to get that New Believers packet.

Just write us at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514 or call 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org and click the words Know God. Well, next time, Pastor Greg brings important insight on personal evangelism and the key role it plays in bringing the next great spiritual awakening to our culture. Tune in for A New Beginning. This is the day, the day when life begins The preceding message from Greg Laurie was made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for Pastor Greg's free daily email devotions at harvest.org.