There's a better way. for us Christians than just having gifts. And that's love. Speaking in tongues doesn't require sacrifice or effort. You can just do it.
You can fake it. Love is sacrifice. Love's got blood on it, sweat on it. Love is hard. It hurts to love the unlovable.
No wonder people fake tongues. But I don't know how you can fake love. I mean, you can fake, you got smiles, you know, a smile is just a frown turned upside down, my friends. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville.
Pastor Rick is currently teaching through a topical series. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio. specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Pastor Rick has been tracking through a message called Spiritual Gifts and the Rapture on this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Do the gifts continue or do they not?
It has nothing to do with your salvation unless you decide to make it. Here's how you can make it so. And the Calvinists do this sometimes. If you don't believe this doctrine, you're not saved. See, now you have just started.
Attacking the work of the Holy Spirit in somebody else's life. On the grounds of if I say, for example, I believe in free will, if God invites me to be saved, he says as many as received him. If I receive him, that's not works. Christ himself said, This is the works, your faith.
So now we have a group coming along from this movement. It's not new, it just revives every so many decades. And they're saying, well, now you believe you're saved by works. You're free will, you're accepting salvation as works somehow. And they said, because you're too depraved.
to ever accept salvation. Where is that? There's nowhere in the Bible does it say you're so depraved you can't respond to God. If that were the case, God wouldn't have spoken to Adam after he stumbled into sin. He says, I'm done with these guys.
I used to walk with them now, they're hiding in fig leaves, all this stuff. I'm done. But God did not do that.
So they persecuted the Anabaptists. They perse they charge Jacob. Arminius with heresy. 'Cause he didn't believe in Calvinism. How can that be heresy?
I believe Christ is Lord and Savior. I believe he died and rose again. I believe he's the Son of God. I believe he's coming again. How am I a heretic when I agree that he's left-handed or right-handed?
Luke chapter 11 verse 13. How much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Too bad you were born long after that one. You have to be taught those kinds of doctrines.
Somebody has to come along. If you're reading the Bible, somebody has to come along and say, you know, that stuff doesn't work anymore. Oh, the the these parts work, but those parts don't. You have to have someone come along and tell you God has chosen who's going to hell and who's not, and nobody is. It's Christian fatalism.
I know I'm sneaking into Calvinist. Because some of the questions I've got are the differences between Reformed theology, Calvinism, Arminianism, and we're going to have to. deal with that and you your regulars here you probably can Finish my sentences on these things and cue my ire.
Okay, hit it, Pastor. But we have to talk about them because it's out there. Chuck Smith said this. There must be a middle position between the Pentecostals with their over emphasis on experience and the fundamentalists who, in their quest to be right, in too many cases, have become dead right. Yeah, dead orthodoxy.
That orthodoxy is more than just doing ritual. It includes arrogance. Smugness. This is what happened in Ephesus. They were doing all these things, but their orthodoxy was dead.
The main thing of their belief was not operating. And that was, of course, love. And many self- Professed analytical academic. Christians say these have stopped. I say analytical because The ones that I have dealt with, they always say this.
Well, I'm more analytical than that. To which I respond, I'm too stupid to be analytical. I just believe any fact when I drive I don't even open my eyes. Too much analyzing going on. It's like the rest of us are idiots because we don't share your view.
We're not analytical. It's obnoxious.
So they arbitrarily take other liberties. Changing the meanings of words.
So when you come to John 3:16. And when it says, God so loved the world, do you know they've changed the meaning of the word world? to mean the elect How do you do if you did that with the Trinity, you'd be a heretic. And these are big names, big names. They make these statements as though they're fact.
I saw one recently, he just recently went to heaven. I believe he went to heaven. But he says, you know, Calvary Chapel does this. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's wrong.
And the people that hear him Take every word he says as law. And that's the story of Christianity.
Well, the reformers, they will say, did not believe in the gifts of the Spirit. The sign gifts, tongues, interpretation, healing, And uh Prophecy. Miracles. But we have on record Martin Luther, a reformer, John Owen, a Puritan Calvinist, John Calvin. The mother of all Calvinists?
This is what they said.
Now, these men spoke, only Owen spoke English, and that was old English. Calvin spoke, was from Switzerland, he spoke the French, and Luther was German, and they were bilingual, of course, but they didn't speak English.
So translating their own words comes up to this: about the gifts, the signed gifts. They're not normative. But God raises them up as the need demands. Their heroes believed the gifts did not stop. That God can activate them whatever they want.
But this is sort of the intellectual Mania That Has blanketed Western civilization now. You either have an emotional takeover without reason or logic, or you have this. Smug analytical Ultra academic approach, which is Bogus. You can be an academic, you're formally educated and believe in the gifts and surrender none of your intelligence.
So, refusing to believe that God can still set the heart on fire. is dead theology. And I would counsel you for Yeah. Take the step in that direction. Nor the other direction where you think you can do anything you want because you say you love Jesus, even if it contradicts the Scripture.
And above all, don't defend those who contradict the Scripture. 1 Corinthians 12, 31. Earnestly desire the best gifts, and yet I show you a more excellent way. I'm rereading that verse because Paul is saying. I want you to have the gifts.
The best ones. which are the ones that are needed. Wherever you may be. But there's a better way. for us Christians than just having gifts.
And that's love. Speaking in tongues doesn't require sacrifice or effort. You can just do it. You can fake it. Love is sacrifice.
Love's got blood on it, sweat on it. Love is hard. It hurts to love the unlovable. No wonder people fake tongues. But I don't know how you can fake love.
I mean, you can fake, you got smiles, you know, a smile is just a frown turned upside down, my friends. Some of you might know that song. Yeah, you can act, you know, you can be a hypocrite if you opt to be that. But I think when it's genuine love, people feel it coming from you. They don't just hear you.
and look at you. They feel it. Like it vibrates out of them.
Okay.
So now we come to the rapture.
So I I like the question because it has a smiley face on it. And that's always good. They say when you submit a resume, use gold leaf paper. And juice up the envelope and all, and you'll rise in a stack.
Well, that didn't happen with this one, because we're like into 10 questions. Anyway. Hi, and whoever you are, hi. My question is, will you please teach on the rapture of the church. No.
I have heard, continues the question, in all my Christian life. It is almost folklore to me. But I must understand it from the scriptures. Yeah, you have to applaud that. Good for you.
At this point, I don't know what I believe about it. Thank you. And whoever you are. You're welcome. It's almost like talking to AI, you know?
It's like. Thank you, Siri, you know.
So I'm interacting with Grok on some questions. And then I said So what's your phone number? Yeah. They respond. Oh, that's very nice of you, but I am artificial intelligence.
I said, well, of course you gotta know, I know that. And then it responds, oh, that's very funny.
So you can have this dialogue with the machine now. And it's it's c scary. Anyway. So, the rapture. I had hoped to be raptured this morning, and that would have been my answer.
But that didn't work out, so I had to work.
So we'll take 1 Corinthians 4.17. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Which is another indication that when Satan is released for a short while, he can't touch us. We'll be forever with the Lord. But anyway, back to this.
This is one of the kingpin verses for the rapture. That word That I read in the English two words caught up as a single word in the original Greek writing. Parpazzo which is translated into the Latin Bible as raptio or raptus. which is where we get the word rapture.
So when the Jehovah Witnesses say, Well, that word's not in the Bible, they are wrong. I like they're wrong about everything. They don't understand the movement of language.
So the word rapture is right there, 1 Corinthians 4, 17. Turned out we have Anglicize the word to the point where We have We call it rapture. but it has its roots in Harpazzo. It is the flash removal. Of true Christians, the universal church, not just the local church, the true believers, they're all true Christians.
the flash removal from this life to heaven without them tasting death. That's what the rapture is. And The reason is that we escape the wrath to come. The great tribulation period is God's punishment on wickedness. The rapture launches the Great Tribulation period.
Once the rapture comes, seven years of Great Tribulation will blanket the planet. And now turn to 2 Corinthians. And chapter 2, the first four verses.
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled. Either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us. As though the day of Christ had come.
Okay, pause. The day of the Lord stretches over time. It's not one single day. It's not just the tribulation. It goes into the millennial kingdom.
The day of the Lord is broad. And Where a lot of people who do not believe in the rapture get tripped up is they can't make a distinction between the Jews. And the Gentile church. They cannot make a distinction of Christ. Coming for his church at the rapture, and then coming back seven years later with his church.
to establish his government. And once they step away from making those distinctions, They get all confused. I'm getting ahead of myself. What is happening here with the Thessalonians? These are brand new believers, relatively, a year or two if that.
Probably more measured in months. And Paul taught them on the rapture as new believers. And they felt when Paul left. You got chased out of Thessalonica. goes to Berea and he ends up in Corinth.
Anyway, they fell that they missed the rapture because there were those know-it-alls coming behind. with all of their heresies. And that's why he's saying, don't be shaken by this. I told you. And that's what he's saying.
And he continues, Let no one deceive you. By any means, for that day. Will not come unless the falling away comes and the man of sin is revealed. The son of perdition. I'll finish it.
who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God. Or that is worship so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. The Jewish temple existed when Paul wrote that. The Jewish temple would be completely destroyed. That verse still is in a fact.
Separating the Jew from the Gentile.
So, this is the background to the teaching on the rapture that he already taught in chapter 4 that I mentioned in the beginning. And I'm going to keep on going through this. And hopefully, you'll be able to say, now I've got the scriptures on why. There's this belief in the rapture, and there's no, I don't find a way around it. I tried to break this.
I tried to say, okay, let me prove. The Bible doesn't teach this flash removal of Christians. You can't. Any I don't think you can. Anyway.
The purpose to evacuate true believers and we have types to go through. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 10. And wait for his son from heaven. Because Christ is crucified ascended at this point. Whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.
Do you know that Christian is saying There are Christians out there saying. There's no rapture. We're going through the tribulation because they're guilt-ridden. They don't understand grace. But what does that say?
Yeah. It tells you. He delivers us from the wrath to come. 1 Cru Thessalonians 5, 9. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
He then says, and I'll get to it. Comfort one another with these words.
Well, it wouldn't be able to comfort all it's like look we're gonna go through hell in a little bit But be comfortable. Revelation 3.10. And incidentally, where is the church once Antichrist shows up in Revelation 6. All the way to chapter 19. Where is the church?
It's missing. It's not there. Tribulation converts are there, but they can't assemble. Christianity has been outlawed, true Christianity. The Jews, they're still against the Christians until they're almost wiped out.
Then they turn to Christ.
So the church age is Revelation 2 and 3. And Jesus said to the church at Philadelphia, Because you have kept my command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world. to test those who dwell on the earth. There's never been something that has tested the whole world, not since Noah's flood. Irrefutable verses that promise extraction from the wrath to come.
And if you've been going to Revelation with us, you know. I've been repeating this over and over. About the tribulation converts. And the 144,000. Making up for the absence of local church assemblies.
There'll be no more preaching like this is happening here. You're going to get people in the pulpit telling you how wonderful Antichrist is. And all you can believe any God you want to believe. And people have a right to change who they are and all this nonsense. That's what you're going to get if you're still alive.
Through that period. 1 Thessalonians 4:13. I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have. guide. Paul uses fallen asleep as a euphemism.
But I'm going to use what he means. I'm going to give an interpretive rendering. He says, Those who have died, let you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who died in Jesus. That's the second coming of Christ.
And we'll be with them. For we say to you By the word of the Lord. That we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are dead. In other words, the dead saints They're going to receive their glorified bodies, and in a flash we'll receive ours, and we'll all be together. He continues.
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout. with the voice of an archangel. and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first, their glorified bodies, as we covered last Sundays. Verse 17.
Then we who are alive and remain shall be raptured. Together with them In the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Now the second coming He doesn't stay in the air. He puts Boots on the ground, he comes to earth.
So there's a distinction. Continuing on. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.
So you can't be comforted. With these words, if you're going to go through the Great Tribulation period. And Jesus said, Such as the world has never known. Tribulation. 1 Corinthians fifteen.
Verse 51, behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall not all die, but we shall all be changed. There it is. How do you get to heaven and not die? Elijah is an example of that. Taken up in a in a chariot of fire.
He says, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, they glorified again bodies, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption. and this mortal must put on immortality So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, And this mortal has put on immortality. Then we shall be brought to pass Then it shall be brought to pass a saying that is written.
Death is swallowed up in victory. I think Paul sometimes gets a little wordy. Like just then with the immortality.
So there in fifteen Corinthians Paul is saying we're going to be changed in an instant. We're going to go from this life to the next life. In a flash And that happens at the rapture. I don't know of any verses cancelling any of this. There are two New Testament distinct aspects of Christ coming.
As I mentioned, one coming for his saints, the rapture, when the trumpet sounds and he calls us up. And we have the banquet in heaven with the Lord. And then seven years later, we return. All of us To set things in order at the second coming.
So let's briefly talk about the types. What is a Bible type? Types are predictive prophecies. They tell the future through events. And I'll give it examples in a minute.
A type transfers the literal event. into a future event. And it does with symbols and lives. For example, Enoch walked with God and he was no more. For God took him.
That's he was raptured. It was taken by God. Lot couldn't, or let's take Noah. Noah, the flood could not come until Noah was in the ark safe with the believers. The rapture cannot come until the well, the great tribulation cannot come.
Until the believers are safe. In the ark of Christ's presence. Lot.
Sodom and Gomorrah could not be destroyed till Lot was taken out of the city. He's a type of the Gentile. Being 'cause Lot wasn't a Jew. It was a Mesopotamian with Abraham. And no connection.
directly to Isaac and Jacob? And uh It was a nephew of Abraham. Lot had to be taken out of the city before the wrath of God came upon it. Moses and Elijah They too are representatives. Moses represents believers who died.
And they are raised again, and where we see him on the Mount of Transfiguration. Elijah represents believers who meet the Lord in heaven. The raptured believers. And we see him also on the Mount of Transfiguration. When the three Jewish boys Shadrach, Neshach, and Abednego, when they are in the fiery furnace.
Where's Daniel? He's missing. He represents the absent church during The time of Jacob's trouble. Of course, they come through, they survive. The oven of Nebuchadnezzar, but they are a type.
A predictive prophecy built into the events. You can see it once you understand what the rapture is. You say, you know what, there are similarities here. Between these Events in the lives of These believers. And not, I should add, not believing the rapture will not leave you out of the rapture.
You'll just have the dumb look on your face as you're going up. You see that guy there, he didn't believe it.
So And so the critics Their foundational era in end time study is failure to distinguish Israel. From the church. since Pentecost and that makes messes them up Throughout their theology. They have a low understanding of grace and they're big on guilt, usually. They feel like the church shouldn't get off easily.
I don't know what planet they're living on. We're getting off easily We can point to a lot of horrific times in this age that people didn't deserve to go through. Anyway, they also say, well, the reformers and the dark age believers didn't. believe in the ra preach on the rapture. They didn't even preach on s well, the dark age.
Church didn't preach on salvation. I know I'm over time.
Well, we've still got a little bit. It's what we're afraid of me going overtime. Is the teachers in the back rioting. We want to keep them happy, so we'll finish this up. Jesus said about those days, for these are days of vengeance, Luke 2.
21, verse 22, and also in Luke 21, but take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you unexpectedly, or it will come. As a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth, watch, therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape the things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man. He is speaking beyond his audience. His audience all died of sickness and old age. None of them.
We're alive. We'll be alive. when these things happen. He's speaking to future generations. And it'll close with this verse.
From Exodus 8. And I hope I've answered your question and assured you from the scriptures. God said To Pharaoh, I will make a difference between my people and your people. And that is a foundational statement. Two.
Sparing us from the wrath to come. Let's pray. Our Father, we got through these questions. Even if it was tough on the audience, you and me got through it. Thank you, Lord.
In Jesus' name, amen. I'm not cute. Thanks for tuning in today to Cross Reference Radio, where Pastor Rick has some answers for various questions that have been asked. We can't fully express how grateful we are that you've been with us today. But if you're ever looking for more teaching and content from us, you're welcome to subscribe to our podcast.
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