Rapture, Second Coming, or Both? - Part 2

Blessings to Israel presents Discerning the Times, a program committed to encouraging you to view current events through the lens of the Bible. Now in honor of the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, please join us for today's program. Welcome to Discerning the Times.

My name is Brian Thomas. Always a blessing to be with you. This week, I'm going to share the conclusion of a message that I recently gave at our local assembly. If you would like to be a part of our local assembly, visit our website BlessingsToIsrael.com or GodFirst.org. That's G-O-D, the number one S-T dot O-R-G. Again, BlessingsToIsrael.com or GodFirst.org.

Go to the contact information there and reach out to us and we will share how you can be a part of our local fellowship. The message is titled The Rapture, Second Coming, or Both. I pray that it will be a blessing to you. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heaven will be shaken. Jesus here is speaking of what's going to happen at the end of the tribulation. Now, let's go over to Matthew chapter number 13. What we're going to see is that there is a parable of the wheat and the tares because the lady who submitted online this concern that she had, she said, where else in the Bible is this spoken of?

So go to Matthew chapter number 13 and let's go down to verse number 24. Another parable he put forth to them, saying the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?

How then does it have tares? He said to them, an enemy has done this. The servant said to him, do you want us then to go up and gather them up? But he said, no, lest while you gather up the tares, you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And at the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, first, gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them.

But gather the wheat into my barn. What are the tares? Tares are weeds.

Weeds are not good. They choke out the good crop and we're going to see that these tares are representing someone. Go down to verse thirty six. Then Jesus said, sent the multitude away and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, explain to us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said to them, he who sows the good seed is the son of man.

The field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The son of man will send out his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and those who practice lawlessness and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the son in the kingdom of their father.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. The gathering of the tares, the weeds to be burned in the fire is the same event as those taken in Matthew 24. Remember, in Matthew 24, Jesus said there will be two in the field. One will be taken. The other left two will be grinding at the meal. One will be taken.

The other left. This is not what we see in First Thessalonians Chapter four, which is the rapture of the church. This is a separate event. The rapture is before the tribulation. What we're speaking of here is seven years later at the end of the tribulation and note that the tares and the weeds grow up together. One thing we have to be cognizant of is that there are tares even within the church. And what I mean by that is the church we know is those who have received Christ as Lord and Savior. But among the church within the devil souls, those who are truly not saved, but they are there for the purpose of creating discord to create division. And we have to be cautious and recognize when we come across those people and know it's not that we are paranoid and we want to be looking at everyone with skepticism to say, are you really saved?

They're going to be disagreements among believers in Christ. But you can start to see patterns that can tell us that someone is really a tear that Satan has sown within. And so our Lord says, don't don't pull them up together.

He says, no, wait and let them grow. And then you will see. And the interesting thing between tares and wheat is that when they're young, they look the same. You really can't tell one from the other.

But as they grow more and more, you can distinguish one from the other more and more. And so the wicked are burned. But there is a way of escape because do we have to receive this judgment that is going to come? Do we have to get burned in the furnace? Our family Friday night for us is pizza night. When I'm done with the pizza, I collect the boxes and I take them out to burn them.

We live in a rural area, so it's OK to burn. And so this past weekend, I gathered the boxes and I sat them outside in order to burn them on the next day. And well, I went out Saturday morning to to run the errands that I typically do. And I saw the boxes and there was a a daddy long legs that was sitting on the pizza box and it wasn't moving. And I thought it was dead.

But I went on and ran my errands and I came back and I began gathering the pizza boxes along with some other items to to burn. And I took them out to the burn pile and I noticed the daddy long legs were still there. And I thought to myself again, I thought it was dead, but I did notice it began to move.

So so it was alive. And I thought to myself, I don't want to burn a daddy long legs because daddy long legs, they don't bother anybody. It would be different if it was a black widow or brown recluse, but the daddy long leg doesn't doesn't bother anybody. So I went and I collected some other things and I came back and I lit the fire, but I forgot the daddy long legs was on the box. So as I'm standing there waiting for the fire to get going good, I look and I see the daddy long legs is still on the box.

So I lifted the lead where it was at the very edge of the lead and thinking that it would it would move, but it was still there. Now, we know daddy long legs have those little thin, skinny, weak legs. So, so thin and weak that they have to be careful not to get caught in the rain because of their legs get wet.

They'll just crumble and collapse and they can just wash, wash right away. I've actually been watering plants out in the yard and and accidentally sprayed a daddy long leg and his legs would just fold right up and he just go go washing down the down the yard. And so I noticed as I look closer, I figured out why the daddy long legs were not moving on the front of the pizza box.

They have these stickers, these labels where they put the name of the customer and what your order is on the box. And this daddy long legs had gotten his leg stuck to the back of that sticker, the adhesive, because his legs are so thin and weak, it couldn't pull itself away. So as the fire is encroaching, I'm trying to free this daddy long legs and I'm trying to think, how do I do it without ripping his leg off?

Because again, that's how thin and brutal their legs are. But I eventually was able to to get it apart. I didn't get all the sticker off of it, but I at least got it away from the fire. And I was thinking to myself, that is what Jesus Christ does for us, because we are stuck in sin. Sin is all around us.

And as we see sin and Satan encroaching upon us, Satan is out to destroy. But Jesus comes in and rescues us. And he does that because of the fact that he died on the cross at Calvary. So he's already paid the penalty for sin. And all you have to do in order to receive that escape is receive his sacrifice.

Confess that you are a sinner and receive him as Lord and Savior. So there is a way of escape for all of us who put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. We don't have to be one who gets burned in the furnace at the end of the age. But I want to share some more scriptures with you. Let's go down a little further in Matthew, Chapter 13, verse number 47. The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which when it was full, they drew to shore and they sat down and gathered the good into the vessels, but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from the just and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Jesus said to them, Have you understood all these things?

They said to him, Yes, Lord. Then he said to them, Therefore, every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and things old. Dragnet is those large nets that we see fishers and they'll throw them out into a body of water like a pond or the ocean. And in the older days, they did it by hand. But today they have these ships with machinery that they can cast these large nets and and they drag them on to the ship. And when they pull these these drag nets in, it's full of fish. You're talking about thousands of pounds of fish in many cases. And so what you find is that sometimes, though, something will get caught up in the net that they're really not trying to catch.

And so our Lord is saying here in this dragnet, there's going to be some good in there and there's going to be some bad. I was watching a fishing documentary a few weeks ago and they were showing that very thing where they pulled up the net onto a ship. And, you know, when they released the net on the deck and all the fish just spill out onto the deck. And as the fish were spilling out, out came this huge sea lion.

The sea lion had got caught up in the net and was was surrounded within the net by all these fish. But that is what it's going to be like in the last days. There are going to be some things that Jesus is comparing here says there's going to be a gathering and there's going to be some good. But there's going to be some bad that needs to be cast out. And again, this is the same event as Matthew Chapter number 24, where one will be taking the other left two in the field, two grinding at the meal.

One will be taking the other left. The same as the parable of the wheat and the tares. There's another passage that I want to share with you again. I know we're looking at a lot of scriptures, but that's what we do here. We are students of the word. We love God's word. We love to navigate the text because the Bible interprets itself.

God did not put things out there for us so that we can't understand it. And that is why it's so important not to look at scripture as a standalone text. We need to look at it in the entire context of the Bible. Revelation, Chapter 14, verses 17 through 20, Revelation 14, 17 through 20. Then another angel came out of the temple, which is in heaven. He also having a sharp sickle and another angel came out from the altar who had power over fire. And he cried with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle saying thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth for her grapes are fully ripe. So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God. And the wine press was trampled outside of the city and blood came out of the wine press up to the horse's bridles for 1600 furlongs. What do we see here is the same event as Matthew 24.

Make a note of Revelation 19, 11 through 15 speaks of the same thing. The wine press. I won't read through it all for the sake of time, but both of these passages speak of the wine press.

And again, they also are pointing to the same event as Matthew chapter 24. Wine presses, this large machine, which in the ancient days, it was a wine press, was a large machine in which people had to get inside of it. And you would pour the grapes in and you would literally stop on these grapes.

And as they stopped on the grapes, it would squeeze out the juice. Well, Jesus is comparing his return the same way for those who are wicked. This is going to be for those who accepted the mark of the beast, the 666 during the tribulation and live all the way to the end. Those people will have to be dealt with. They cannot enter into the millennial kingdom. And that is exactly what our Lord is speaking of.

The wine press that is going to happen at the end of the age. Some argue, why can't the rapture of the church and this gathering of the wicked happen at the same moment? Because we saw clearly where the text tells us that there are going to be some good and then there are going to be some that are bad.

And people ask, well, can't these be the same event that happened at the same time? Because remember, Matthew 13, verse 48 states, and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away. Let me share with you how we know the rapture of the church cannot be at the end of the tribulation. Turn to John Chapter 14, verses one through three. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God.

Believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also.

These are the words of Jesus that he was speaking to the apostles prior to going to the cross prior to his death. He was telling them, I am going to put to a place to prepare a place for you. And where did he say he was going?

He said the father's house where there are many mansions. Well, going to the father's house doesn't happen with a post tribulation rapture of the church, because if the rapture were at the end of the tribulation, that would mean we would be caught up to meet the Lord in the air as he's descending to the earth. And we would just come back down to the earth with him. Because when Jesus comes back at a second coming at the end of the tribulation, he comes to the earth to stay. He comes to establish his millennial kingdom and he comes to spend eternity on the earth. He's not going back to heaven. And so when we look at this text, Jesus said clearly, I am going away to prepare a place for you. The only way in which that can work is if the rapture is before the tribulation, meaning when he catches us up before the tribulation, we go to heaven to the father's house where Jesus has been preparing after he was resurrected from the dead. He ascended to heaven. He went away and he has been preparing this place for us since that time.

And that is where we're going for a period of seven years. And then we'll come back with our Lord to the earth to establish his millennial kingdom. And another thing to think about is if the rapture of the church was at the end of the tribulation. Remember, at the rapture, all saved get glorified bodies.

We know that the scripture says when we receive a glorified body, we are then as the angels. We don't reproduce. We don't get married.

We don't have children. But in the millennial kingdom, the Bible clearly tells us there will be people there in natural bodies giving birth to children that are going to replenish the earth. The wicked we've seen through multiple passages, they are going to be judged. They're going to be burned in the fire.

They're going to be trampled in the winepress. So they're going to be killed. So so if if the wicked are killed and then all of the saved are glorified, who is going to be the ones having children? Well, again, that's why the rapture at the end of the tribulation does not work because and I've asked numerous people this who hold to the post tribulation rapture view, and no one has yet been able to give me a sound answer on it.

It doesn't work because there has to be people in natural bodies and who will those people be? They will be the ones who receive Christ as Lord and Savior after the rapture at the beginning of the tribulation. During that seven year period, they will receive Christ as Lord and Savior and they will survive some of them in natural bodies all the way to the end. Many are going to be martyred. Many are going to be killed during the tribulation. Those who refuse the mark of the beast. But there will be some who will survive to the end.

They are the ones that will enter the millennial kingdom and they will give birth to children. The good will be gathered at the end of the tribulation. Those are the ones who are not saved prior to the rapture of the church, but get saved during the tribulation and survive to the end. So the tribulation is about Israel.

It is not about the church. The church, by definition, is already saved because we recognize Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. So there's no need for the church to be on earth during the tribulation, because the primary purpose of the tribulation is to bring Israel to repentance, to recognize Jesus Christ as Messiah, receive him. And that will be the case even for Gentiles who do not receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. They too will be judged during this time.

But Israel, the Bible tells us that a remnant, he is going to be saved, is going to recognize him as Lord and Savior. And we also have a text and I won't read it, but the judgment of the sheep and the goats is going to take place at the end of the tribulation. All of these things are pointing to what Jesus is saying.

There's going to be a gathering at the end that is going to be for the wicked. So I wanted to share that because Matthew 24, I often made that mistake in the beginning of ministry when I would speak on the rapture. I would quote those verses. And I know many sound preachers who do it. But through studying over the years, I've come to find that, no, those are not rapture verses.

Those are verses speaking of the judgment of the wicked at the end of the age. Now, I want to revisit what we listened to in the beginning. We saw a video speaking of Ryan Newman. So I want to go back to that event.

February 16th, 2020. Here they come. Ryan Newman was in the number six car in the final lap of the 2020 Daytona 500 with a chance to win it again.

Ryan Newman to the lead of the Daytona 500. He'd leave without any memory of what would happen next. I've got stories. I've got conversations.

But in my mind, it still doesn't exist. And I don't know how to answer that other than God deletes that chapter for a reason. I always wear radio so I can talk to Ryan if anything bad happens. In his previous accidents, you can hear him and he'll say, yeah, I'm OK.

There was no voice this year, so it got pretty frightening at that point. It took more than 15 minutes for Newman to be cut from the car and rushed to the hospital. He was in a medically induced coma when his parents saw him. We got to his bedside and. I just stood there thinking, please, God, please help him.

You can't take my son. Newman would awaken essentially with a bruise to his brain and with his two daughters by his side. He left the hospital holding their hands just two days after the crash.

I know they were extremely happy that he was OK and got to walk out of the hospital with him, but I think it meant more to Ryan. That he that he had a hand on both girls. And was still there. Yeah, that was big.

My my oldest, she made the comment of daddy, you got to you got to you got to keep living so that we can spend time together. And that was pretty that was pretty special. That was that was an amazing feeling because it pieced everything together. Right. And that's that's all the answer I needed. As Ryan Newman returns to this Daytona 500, he carries many things, excitement, appreciation, gratitude.

What he won't carry is the weight of memory or the burden of fear. You know, people have asked me, you know, why do you get back in a race car? Did you talk to your daughters? Do your kids want you to not race again?

And like, no, like they they want me to do what I love and have fun. And I get it. Like, how can you not see the danger?

I do. But that fear isn't there. It's just not whatever happens to Ryan happens, whether he survives a crash like that or doesn't survive a crash like that. I wouldn't be bitter.

He was doing what he wanted to do. If you look at the car in my helmet, you wouldn't believe I'm sitting here. You'd be like, no, there's just no way.

But I believe it was thanks to somebody from above. He's lucky to be alive. And it's a miracle that God saved him.

It's just unbelievable. He's my miracle boy. As we were watching that race live back on February 16th, 2020, I was sitting there thinking to myself, Lord, please don't make this so that I've just witnessed this man die because that's how horrific that crash was. And as we saw him crash on that final lap, you saw the fire, the car was burning, you saw the fuel that was leaking out. And who was it that saved Ryan Newman? Yeah, it was the emergency personnel, the medical team. They came and they cut him out of the car. They put out the fire and cut him out. What if they had not been there? What if they had not came on the scene? Then he would have been burned in the fire. He would not have escaped. And I praise God that Ryan Newman did live in and you heard him say that he doesn't have a fear of what happens.

You heard his father say it. And for us as believers in Jesus Christ, we need not fear death because we know we have the assurance that we have eternal life through Jesus Christ. And so when we look at this, just like Ryan Newman was trapped in the fire, there was no way of escape until the medical personnel came. Well, for us in this life, there is no way of escape other than Jesus Christ. If you do not receive Jesus Christ, you're going to be consumed in the fire. And Jesus does for us what the emergency personnel did for Ryan Newman. Jesus does for us what I did for the daddy long legs. He rescues us from the fire that is coming in the end.

But to be rescued, you must accept his offer. So if you've never received him as Lord and Savior, will you do so on today? Thank you for tuning in to Discerning the Times. Please come back and join us next week as we continue to encourage you to view current events through the lens of the Bible. Until next time, remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, bless God's great nation of Israel and seek first the kingdom of God. Discerning the Times is presented by Blessings to Israel.