Jesus is coming again.
That is something to get excited about. On today's broadcast, I'm going to open up for you why the teaching of a pre-trib rapture has been used by God to stir up excitement about the Lord's return. Even though I myself do not hold to a pre-trib rapture, even though during this series of teaching about the end times, I've explained why I don't believe a pre-trib rapture, what I want to do in some of these broadcasts is look at different views, views that I don't agree with, but you may hold to, and say, what's the strength of this?
How has God used certain truths, and where do we need to be careful? This is Michael Brown. You are listening to the Line of Fire, and we are here five days a week to infuse you with faith, with truth, with courage, to help you stand strong on the front lines, because every single one of us today, as followers of Jesus, we are in the line of fire, but we are not going down. We are not going under.
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Go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org. Click subscribe, and you are in. Okay, the idea that Jesus is returning is something that could seem very distant because we've been waiting for it for 2000 years. We've been waiting for the return of Jesus since he left. When I say we, I mean generations of believers, and you even have prayers in the New Testament, even so come Lord Jesus at the end of the book of Revelation, or the Aramaic words Maranatha, our Lord come, which coming to Greek is Maranatha. So we've been saying that in 1st Corinthians 16, been saying that for centuries and centuries and centuries, and it's easy to just make it so distant as if it will never happen. In other words, we talk about it. We speak about it as if it's real, but it doesn't have reality in our lives.
This is what can happen. Now, the idea of going to be with Jesus at death, that's real, because every one of us is going to die, and all of us in the course of our lives will lose someone that we know, that we love, a friend, a family member, and if they're a believer, we console that they are with the Lord. So that's ever present. That's ever real.
And someone getting saved, new life coming into the kingdom, born again, that's real. That's today. That's now. We see the transformation in front of our eyes.
Or God answering prayer. That's real. That's now. We can see it. We can feel it.
We can touch it. But the idea of the second coming can seem so distant. Or we might have an end time view that the world has to be completely changed before Jesus can return, and that's distant, distant, distant.
And because of that, we lose this sense of hope. Remember in Titus, the second chapter, the return of the Lord is referred to as our blessed hope, and then in 2 Timothy 4, Paul talks about longing for his appearing. So, again, if you're just tuning in, I do not personally believe in a pre-trib rapture. I do not hold to this myself for many, many reasons scripture that we've gone through. Later in the broadcast, we'll tell you how you can get the book written by Professor Craig Keener and me, not afraid of the Antichrist, why we don't believe in a pre-trib rapture. We don't divide over this. We work together side by side with brothers and sisters who have different views about the end times.
As long as we agree about the foundations of our faith, we can work together. But there are ways in which the pre-trib rapture has been used by God to stir things in the church. Now, let me explain. Let me explain. I'm going to read you first from 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, beginning in verse 52. Listen, I tell you a mystery. A mystery in the New Testament is referring to something that was in the heart and mind of God all along in his plan of salvation, but has only been revealed in the New Testament, has only been revealed with the coming of Jesus. So, Jew and Gentile coming together as one in the Messiah. That was spoken of in the Old Testament, but the way it happens in coming together now in this age through Jesus, that was now revealed in the New Testament. So, this mystery, this is something that was in the heart and mind of God, but is now being revealed.
Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the devil be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality.
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of sin. The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm, let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. In a moment, in a flash, twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, we'll be raised imperishable. We will be changed.
Wow! What a glorious truth. Now, here's the thing. That's written, that's true, regardless of exactly how you see the return of Jesus, whether you're a pre-trib, mid-trib, pre-wrath, post-trib, whether you are pre-mil, amil, post-mil, all these different views, you would say, okay, I believe that this is going to happen at the end when Jesus returns. I just don't believe in a pre-trib rapture. Here's my point. Even though I don't believe in a pre-trib rapture, I've seen how those who teach it and preach it emphasize these truths in ways that other Christians may not.
It has become more of a reality that this will happen through pre-trib teaching. Now, please understand, throughout the body, we have the fullness of God working through us in the church, but each of us individually is only a part. We are each individual parts of the body of Christ. In the same way, I am not a Calvinist. Many of you listening are. Many of you are not. Some of you don't know what Calvinists teach and believe, so you don't know whether you are or not. I'm not a Calvinist. I was for five years, from 1977 to 1982. I wasn't before that.
I haven't been since then. However, I recognize there are certain things that Calvinists emphasize. The sovereignty of God, the kingship of God, the fact that God rules and reigns. This is a powerful truth that many others have lost sight of, and you almost get the idea through some Christian teaching and preaching that the devil reigns, that the devil runs things, and we're in this futile battle with Satan, and God's kind of on the sidelines wringing his hands saying, I wish somebody would do something. So when Calvinists teach and preach, even though I differ with aspects of Calvinism, I agree with the exaltation of the sovereignty of God, and it's important we preach that and we teach that. Now, I myself hold to a view that also puts an emphasis on the role of what human beings do and the imperative of the Great Commission, and that burdens me to go and give my life as if it did depend on my obedience. In other words, I can't just sit home and fold my hands and sit back in the recliner and take a nap because God is king.
No, he calls us to work. Now, Calvinists would agree with that too, but there are Calvinists who kind of fall asleep at the wheel. The sovereignty of God, God in his sovereignty will send revival when he pleases, and he's waiting for us to long for him and cry out and pray and seek his face. So there's a strength, there's a weakness. So in many, many different aspects of the body, I find strengths and I find weaknesses. The same with different doctrines, with different teachings.
I may disagree with a certain point but say, yeah, but you've got another aspect that's healthy and good. So this is what's happened with the teaching of the pre-trib rapture. It's made the second coming more real. It's made the second coming feel like it's more tangible. It's made the second coming feel like something that we could actually experience. That's why you have, you know, the novels, the best-selling novel series Left Behind and the Left Behind movies and the old classics, you know, Thief in the Night and various things about the end times and the Antichrist and all of this.
I know people can get fixated on it, date-setting, and we'll talk about this, the dangers of date-setting and give you examples of why it's been wrong and unhealthy. But there's been something healthy and that people say, it's going to happen. He's coming again. He's coming again.
And often this emphasis of the return of Jesus, this excitement about the return of Jesus, this reality that we're going to be changed. It's going to happen. He's going to appear. We're going to see him. We're going to become like him.
We're going to be with him forever. That this excitement has often come through the teaching of the pre-trib rapture. So my point is, let's hold to the excitement. Let's hold to the vision.
Let's hold to the reality. But you don't have to believe in the pre-trib rapture in order to do that. So I appreciate what the teaching has done in terms of the excitement about the return of Jesus. I really, really do. The downside is, for many, it's led to an unhealthy escapism. And rather than say, what can we do while we're here in this world?
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Make sure you hit subscribe to get our monthly frontline newsletter. Okay, Hal Lindsey's book, The Late Great Planet Earth, that had just come out when I was a new believer saved in 1971. To my memory, I don't remember reading much of the book. I think I read some of the book. I certainly don't remember reading all of the book, but everybody was talking about it. When I say everybody, I mean it seemed to be the subject even in the news that you'd hear about it, that people would make reference to it. And if I recall, I even had a chat with my dad about it who may have looked at it at that point as a non-believer. What it did was it made the Bible relevant. Now, I don't agree with much of the contents of The Late Great Planet Earth.
And if you read it today, if you read it in the 2020s, you would see parts that clearly were outdated and this was supposed to happen and that was supposed to happen. Remember Gorbachev and he had the birthmark on his forehead and like, that's the mark of the beast. Gorbachev is the Antichrist. You know, crazy stuff like that. I remember talking to a woman one day and she found out I was a believer and she was a believer, but she wanted me to know, this is when Reagan was president, she said, Ronald Wilson Reagan, six letters in each name, 666, mark of the beast.
She's like, are you telling me Ronald Reagan is the Antichrist? And Hal Lindsey didn't say that, but there are a lot of things in the book that would talk about, you know, this is going to happen this way, this is going to happen that way. And, you know, you'd have the European Union, that's 10 states that represents the 10 kings here.
Well, then what if it's not 10 states anymore? And, you know, this place in prophecy and this group in this country, et cetera. So a lot of it obviously outdated. But here's what it did. Here's what the book did. I've met people that got saved through reading the book, who became very solid, rock solid believers.
One of them became a major seminary professor. He got saved reading that book because it made the Bible real to him as a Jewish man who didn't know the Lord. It made the Bible real.
And then once he started reading the Bible, he found out about salvation through Jesus and was born again. So what the book did in a positive sense, and this is with someone who disagrees with much of the content, what it did in a positive sense was to say what's written in the Bible still speaks to today, that there are even geopolitical things unfolding on the earth. And the Bible is speaking to those things.
Now, again, I believe many of the applications were wrong. I believe many of the interpretations of individual verses were wrong. But I believe what was right and accurate was to say the Bible remains in many ways a contemporary book. And the regathering of the Jewish people back to the land, that's written about in the Bible. And the world controversy over the city of Jerusalem, that's written about in the Bible. And this being the city of final conflict, that's written about in the Bible.
And Jesus is coming back to that very city. That's written about in the Bible. I did not read any of the books of the Left Behind series, nor did I see any of the movies.
It's not because I'm too good to do that. There's only so much time to read and there are other things I chose to read and other things I chose to see. But obviously, some of you listening did read the books because they were best sellers.
Some of you did see the movie series. And again, as someone who disagrees with the theology, what I appreciate is how it made these events real, is how it made these end time things something that we will really see, if not in our lifetimes, in the lifetime of a future generation, as opposed to something that's just so distant, it'll never happen. So we give lip service to it, but we don't think of the reality. So I am appreciative to the teaching of a pre-trib rapture in that it brought back the excitement about the second coming, the reality of the second coming, the sudden dramaticness of what God will do at the end. I appreciate all that while rejecting the teaching of pre-trib. If you say, I don't know why you reject it, I'm just tuning in now, by all means, get our book that goes through what the scriptures say. And this is in a way that's not divisive.
It's not demeaning to others. It's saying, hey, here's why we see these things differently. Now you can consider the verses for yourself.
Here again, though, is what I feel is a real problem with the pre-trib teaching that we must avoid. In John 17, 15, Jesus is praying for his apostles. And he said, God, I don't pray that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. Many of us have developed an escapist mindset where our big emphasis is getting out of here, getting out of here. We're out of here any minute.
And the moment there's some bad news, you know, major world news, or at least there could be a world war three, or threats of nuclear warfare, or, you know, the latest catastrophic news about climate change or something, or the latest moral depravity on display in the society, et cetera, et cetera. The moment that happens for some believers, their first reaction is, that's it, we're out of here any moment. The reality is we are here. And when Jesus returns, we will leave this world to go up to meet him and descend together. The plan is not to take us out of this world. The plan is to change us, and then ultimately with the return of Jesus, to change the whole world around us. But right now, this is our mission place.
This is our assignment. There's no use thinking about getting out of here. That's not the goal. The goal is to bring God's kingdom in here through the preaching of the gospel, through the making of disciples, through the demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit.
That's the goal. And in the sixties, as late great planet Earth became very popular into the sixties, early seventies, and as more and more believers were now embracing this idea of a preacher of rapture rather for any moment, Christians looked around and they saw what was happening in the sixties, sex, drugs, rock and roll, Eastern religion, all this demonic stuff. And they thought this is the final falling away. This is the final apostasy. I mean, I heard that stuff as a new believer.
I heard other believers talking about it. This is the final falling away. This is the last apostasy.
These are the last of the last days right here in a minute. We're not thinking about changing the laws. We're not thinking about about the elections. I don't even remember hearing a word about Roe v. Wade in 1973. Literally, I don't remember hearing a word about it in church.
We're out of here any minute. It's when the lost and and Jesus coming soon. That was the mentality that so many had, whereas those with different social agenda say gay activists who said, hey, we're fighting for equality and freedom and liberation and tolerance. They said, we're going to write the revolution into law and radical feminists, my body, my choice and their mindset. They're going to write their revolution into law.
And and the Marxist ideologues, they're going to become the professors at our universities and and bring their revolution into our school systems. And they all succeeded. They all succeeded. They changed the culture. They changed the world we live in. They they they changed what happens when your kids go to school from from grade school up to university.
They succeeded because they had an agenda of social change. Well, many of us thought, well, we're going to make well, many of us thought we're out of here. And what's the use of trying? Everything's going to get worse. So, friends, that has been a destructive mentality. So while I live with excitement about the return of the Lord in my dream is that he'll return in my lifetime, that we'll get the work done for him to return in our lifetimes.
That's my dream at the age of 69. But either way, we have an assignment and maybe we have 60, 70, 80, 90 years to fulfill the assignment. And then we're all done one way or another.
Death comes for everyone. We're all done. What have we done with those years? Have we left a better world to our kids and our grandkids? Or have we lived with that idea of we're out of here any moment?
So take hold of the glory and wonder of the second coming, but do not get caught up in an escapist mentality. This is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for tuning in. Just a reminder that we are supported. If we have been a blessing to you, if you're being enriched in the word and prayer and your own walk with God through this broadcast, then stand with us so that we can reach many, many more and bless many, many more. Together, friends, we're making a difference. So go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org and click donate.
