Hi, this is Robert Jefferson. Welcome to another bonus episode of the Pathway to Victory Podcast. Today I'm sharing with you the second part of our Ask the Pastor Q&A session. During this special event, I had the privilege of answering questions directly from our ministry friends and partners.
My friend and the Executive Director of Pathway to Victory, Michael Clark, is served as the moderator. In this episode, I'll answer more audience questions about Scripture, including fascinating insights about heaven, God's prophetic timeline, and whether suicide affects a believer's eternal destiny. I'll also share how biblical wisdom helps us navigate life's most challenging relationships. I'm always grateful for these opportunities to connect with our ministry partners, and I want to make sure that our podcast community can also benefit from this discussion. You, our podcast listeners, are such an important part of our ministry family.
Our podcast audience continues to grow, and I'm thankful for each of you who make Pathway to Victory a regular part of your day. Now, let's continue with this special edition of Ask the Pastor. Dr. Jeffress, I have heard that the seven-year tribulation does not have to immediately follow the rapture of the church. Does the Bible allow for this possibility?
It's possible, but not probable. First of all, let's establish what is the rapture. It is the snatching away of the church.
First Thessalonians 4, for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. People say, well, that term rapture isn't in the Bible. Yes, it is.
It's right there. Snatched away. That's the word rapturo in Latin, harpazo in Greek.
It means to snatch away. This is the Lord taking away the saints before the great tribulation begins, the final seven years of earth's history. People say, well, you're just trying to find an easy out for Christians, not have to go through persecution.
No. Christians in every age have been persecuted. Christians in every age have gone through tribulation. Jesus said in John 16, 33, in this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. But the final tribulation, what we call the great tribulation, is not just a case of natural catastrophes or persecution by unbelievers.
It's a time that God pours out His judgment on the world. And as Christians, we never have to fear the condemnation of God. Romans 8, 1 says, there is therefore now no condemnation awaiting those who are in Christ Jesus. We don't have to fear God's wrath because the wrath of God we deserve was placed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He experienced the wrath so that we could escape it. So, Christians are not going to be here during the great tribulation.
They are going to be snatched away. But in 1 Thessalonians 4, the Bible closes that description of the rapture in verse 18, therefore comfort one another with these words. And then immediately in chapter 5 verse 1, remember there were no chapter divisions in the original text. This is all one passage. It says in chapter 5 verse 1, now concerning peri-day, the day of the Lord, that is the tribulation. And then here's everything you need to know about the tribulation.
There's no hint that there's any separation. And by the way, now I'm going to get to preaching. What happens, imagine every Christian on the face of the earth, if they were raptured right now, what would that do to the world?
It would only take the world a little while to completely unravel economically, morally, spiritually, if every believer were to go. You know, 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 2 says, the man of lawlessness, the antichrist, is being restrained right now. But when the restrainer is taken out, who is the restrainer? He's the Holy Spirit. It's not the Holy Spirit for the Holy Spirit. It's not the Holy Spirit floating around somewhere. It's the Holy Spirit of us. We are indwelt by the Spirit. We are the restrainers of evil. And that's what people don't understand about the church.
Yes, the church is to share the gospel, point to the light of Jesus Christ. But we're also to be salt. He said, you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Salt was a preservative. It didn't prevent the decay of meat, but it slowed down the decay of meat.
It gave the meat a longer shelf life. And in the same way, we as Christians have been left here to slow down the decay of this world so that they have longer to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. But once the believers are taken out of the way, once the restrainer of evil is gone, it's going to be like dominoes collapsing very quickly. You know, to give you a good picture of what we as Christians are supposed to be doing.
And I'm going to be speaking on this in Washington at Ralph Reed's Faith and Family Summit, June 28th, I think it is. But a good picture is, imagine a giant dam that's holding millions and millions of gallons of water back. And there's a little village below the dam. And just imagine some of the village people, maybe I ought to change that, some of the townspeople look up and they see the dam starting to spring leaks. And so a group of the townspeople go up to that dam and they push on the bricks. They try to plug the leaks. Now they know ultimately their job is futile. They know eventually that dam is going to collapse.
But they're trying to delay it so that they can give the townspeople below time to reach a place of safety. Now that is a picture of what Christians are to do. We are to push back against evil. We're to stand up in our school board meetings and say no to this ungodly transgender agenda. We're to, in the voting booth, select candidates not to be pastors, but to be restrainers of evil.
We want to slow down, not because we're trying to save America. Nowhere in the Bible does God tell us that our job as Christians is to save America. Our job is to save Americans from the wrath of God by introducing them to faith in Jesus Christ. So we have a responsibility not to stay in that salt shaker, but to penetrate every part of our society, not because we're going to save this world, but we want to slow down the crumbling, slow down the crumbling, the decay, so that we have an opportunity to share the gospel. Pastor, in going through the questions, I know we could do an entire show just on the questions that were to deal with prophecy and end times.
Here's another one. During the millennial reign of Christ, to what extent will the curse be lifted from earth? Will conditions on earth go back to the way they were in the Garden of Eden?
Give you a picture. We have the Rapture. That's the next event that happens on God's prophetic outline. It could happen before we finish this afternoon's session, or it could be a thousand years from now. There are no prophecies that have to be fulfilled for the Rapture to occur. It's imminent.
It could happen at any moment. That's followed by the seven years of tribulation. The Rapture is followed, I believe, very closely with the rise of the Antichrist. I think there will be such chaos after the Rapture. There's no telling what's going to happen, but people will crave a leader who promises peace in the Middle East, and that's what will happen. And we see how that is being longed for right now and end all of this turmoil and the threat of Iran and China and so forth. He will make a peace covenant with Israel. The first few years of the tribulation may be relatively peaceful and prosperous, but halfway through that tribulation, the Antichrist turns his back on Israel, betrays Israel, and then all hell literally breaks loose. And you have the final three and a half years, which you find described in Revelation 6-19. The tribulation climaxes with the Battle of Armageddon. You know, people for hundreds of years wondered, why would world leaders from all over the world descend on that little country, Israel, that is no bigger than the state of New Jersey?
How could that be? Well, I think we can see really easily now how a regional conflict could become a worldwide conflict. And what makes this time different than any other time of unrest in the Middle East?
Two words, nuclear weapons, thousands of nuclear weapons out there, thousands of threats. So, the Battle of Armageddon is waged up and down the country of Israel, but it's centered at Megiddo, the Plain of Megiddo, when suddenly the world forces fighting with one another will look up, the clouds part, and the Lord Jesus returns, and we return with him, that army dressed in fine linen. Christ comes and establishes his thousand-year kingdom on earth. We call it the Millennium, Revelation 20, verses 1-6, the thousand years. It's a time when Satan is bound for a thousand years.
At the end of the thousand years, he's released for a little while. Those who have been born during the Millennium will have an opportunity to either accept Christ as their Savior or reject him. Some inexplicably will choose to rebel against Christ, who's been reigning for a thousand years. And at the end of that rebellion comes the great white throne judgment, Revelation 20. If any man's name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was cast into the lake of fire.
So, you've got the great white throne judgment, the judgment of all unbelievers who are cast into the lake of fire. And then the world, the present world, is burned up, and Revelation 21 says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. And we have heaven, eternity, future for believers. The interesting thing about heaven is, heaven's not up there. Right now, when we die, we go immediately to be with the Lord, wherever he is. But the Bible says, there's a new Jerusalem being built in someplace that's going to come down to earth. Heaven is not us going up there someplace, spinning around on some distant planet. It's going to be this world recreated, as God intended it to be. We were made for this world. Our new bodies will be made for this world.
Now, that's a long discourse. What's the difference between the millennium and the eternal state? The thousand-year reign of Christ on earth is the earth renovated.
Eternity, future is the heaven and earth recreated. There's a difference between a renovation and a recreation. When I came to First Baptist Dallas, the physical facilities were in shambles.
I couldn't do everything at once, but I knew we had to do something immediately. We renovated our children's facility. It's been a million or something dollars, that was 20 years ago. But I knew that wasn't the ultimate end. Ultimately, we ended up blowing up six blocks of downtown Dallas and starting over with a new campus.
Our campus wasn't just renovated, it was recreated. During the millennium, there will be some who are born during the millennium who will – the Bible says, Isaiah said, if a person doesn't reach to age 100, he will be thought to be accursed. Now, what time in history is Isaiah talking about? Is he talking about heaven? Well, nobody dies in heaven, not in 100 years or a million years. He can't be talking about heaven.
It's not now. People don't normally live to be 100. He's talking about in that millennium, that renovated earth when Satan is bound for a thousand years.
But there's coming a recreated earth in which there'll be no longer any mourning death or crying or tears for the first thing will have passed away. Dr. Jeffress, does the Bible allow any possibility that the Antichrist could be a woman? Pray for me.
It'd be easy to make a cheap joke there, wouldn't it? How many of you men are married to the Antichrist? You may think you've got a candidate. No, no, the Bible is very clear. It is a man, the man of lawlessness. And there is a female, if you want to say, character, the whore of Babylon. But it's a church, probably not one individual, could be a female leader of a church. But it's a world religion that first of all, throws its support behind the Antichrist, and then they turn on one another.
Dr. Jeffress, what are the biblical pros and cons of women in leadership roles in the church? Well, this is a hot topic. And, you know, the question can only be answered by what does the Bible say? It's not what does the culture say? What do I think?
How do I feel? It's what the Bible says. Let's be clear. The Bible limits the role of pastor to a man. 1 Timothy 3, he's to be the husband of one wife.
It's very clear. The pastor is limited to men. And somebody asked John MacArthur one time, what do you think of a church that has a woman as a pastor? And he said, that church doesn't have a pastor.
I mean, it's just very clear. Men are to be pastors. But I think in saying that, we've done a disservice to the body of Christ not to talk about all the things women can do in the church and are open for women to do. And my oldest daughter, Amy, and my daughter Julia, when she was nine years old, I was preaching out at the Glorietta Baptist Encampment outside of Albuquerque and had several thousand people there. And I was preaching one evening and Julia was with us. And I was preaching on Abraham, placing his son Isaac on the altar. And I gave the invitation.
Lots of people came forward. And among them, my daughter Julia walked forward. And I was so surprised to see her. I said, Julia, what are you doing here? And she said, well, I want to give my life to be a missionary.
And I thought to myself, we've never talked about that. I said, Julia, what makes you think God wants you to be a missionary? She leaned over and she said, well, I really want to be a pastor, but since I can't do that, I'll be a missionary. So she was called to ministry.
And there's all kind of things we could emphasize that she could do. And so we did something at First Baptist Dallas. We uphold the principle that men alone are to be pastors, but we also believe women have a vital place in ministry. In fact, you know, the truth is, had it not been for women, Christianity would have died at birth. It is women who have made the difference in the Christian faith. Remember, it was women who first saw the empty tomb and were commissioned to go and share that news with others. So we made a decision at First Baptist Dallas. We were going to recognize women called to ministry, whether it be as a children's director or as a missionary or as a women's ministry director. And so we developed the term commissioned. We don't ordain women to the office of pastor, but we commission women who are called to ministry.
And we had our first commissioning service about a year ago, and our women were so encouraged by it. And so we'll continue to do that, but we shouldn't try to fit the Bible to fit the culture. We ought to shape the culture to fit the Bible.
Dr. Jeffress, do we choose Christ for salvation or does he choose us for salvation? Another easy one. I want everybody to stand up. Now, did I force anybody to stand up?
Did I put a gun to your head? You chose to stand up. Would you have stood up if I hadn't said stand up? I didn't see one of you standing before I said it. Now be seated.
That's all you need to know. Lazarus would not have come out of that tomb if Jesus hadn't called him. But Lazarus had a choice. He didn't have to come out.
He chose to obey the command of God and come out. And it's the same way with salvation. We're going to talk about this more Wednesday. My final message is going to be eternal security. Can you really have it?
Is it really true? Once saved, always saved. We're going to see what the Bible says about that. But we're going to talk about 1 John 4.10. Herein is love.
Not that we loved God, but that God loved us and gave himself as the propitiation, the satisfaction for our sins. You know, somebody I was talking with just a few minutes ago, I think it was James Boyce who used this illustration. If you put a bale of hay in front of a tiger, is that tiger going to eat that hay? It's free too, isn't it? There's nothing keeping it from it. But never in a thousand years will that lion eat that hay because it's not in his nature. He's a carnivore by nature.
And carnivores will never choose hay. It's the same way with us. We're free. Anybody's free to receive Christ as Savior, to trust in Christ. But the unsaved person will never choose to do it unless God does a work in his life. It's only when we're regenerated that we have the ability.
Now, you can go to extremes on either side of that. Like I said this morning, try to explain predestination and you'll lose your mind. Explain it away and you'll lose your soul.
What I know is this. I would have never chosen Christ unless God had given me the ability to do that. And salvation is all of God. It doesn't mean we don't have a responsibility. We have to answer the call.
We're to go and share that news with as many people as possible. But our spiritual rebirth started with God, not with us. Pastor, this question was asked a few different ways.
Is suicide an eternal death as well as physical? You know, we all have experiences that mark us and we never will forget. I remember as youth minister of the church I now serve, when Dr. Crystal was pastor, we had a deacon in the church.
In fact, he worked in my area in the youth ministry, respected deacon. And he ended his life with a shotgun. And it was a horrible thing. And the family suffered so much. And I remember going to the funeral service and wondered, what is Dr. Crystal going to say?
What do you say in a situation like this? And I'll never forget. He said, our bodies get physically ill. We are in imperfect bodies. Our bodies get sick and we go to the doctor. Our minds sometimes get sick. We don't damn people for getting sick in the mind.
We help them wherever we can. But we don't damn them for all eternity because of a sickness in their mind. And I would just say the same thing to somebody who has a loved one who experienced suicide. We're going to talk about this Wednesday, but Jesus said, I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish. No man shall snatch out of my hands those whom the Father has given me. And if you're a Christian, you're in Christ, nothing will ever separate you from the love of God. As Michael quoted this morning, death won't, life won't.
Our fears for today are our worries about tomorrow. Wherever we are, high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing, and that includes suicide, will ever separate us from the love of God. Pastor, there are a lot of questions also about heaven. I've got a lot of questions about heaven. So people want to know, Dr. Jeffress, when we're in heaven, will we still see people and family on earth that are still alive, and will we recognize those that are in heaven that we spent time on earth with?
The answer is yes and yes. That used to creep me out as a child, thinking about people in heaven watching me, and you know, let's just be honest, we want to know, are they watching us when we go to the bathroom? I mean, you know, we all wonder about that. The Bible, I think, is very clear. People in heaven are aware of what's happening on earth.
How do I say that with such confidence? In Revelation 6 and 7, the martyred saints are pictured in heaven saying, Lord, as they look at what happens on earth, how long are you going to let this blasphemy continue? When are you going to bring justice to the world? So the saints in heaven are aware of what's happening on earth. And people say, well, how could they be happy if they see how miserable everything is on earth, or how miserable their loved ones are? How can they be happy and still rejoice? Well, the fact is, they know the whole story.
They know how the story ends. And so, what we do on earth cannot quench the joy of those who are in heaven. Now, the question is, do we know one another in heaven?
Absolutely. You know how I know that? The Bible says Jesus Christ in His resurrected body was the protodocus, He was the prototype of the body we will all receive. If you want to know what our life is going to be like in our new bodies, just look at those 40 days that Jesus spent on earth in His resurrected body. His disciples recognized Him. No, not at first. Have you ever been someplace and you've seen somebody and they were not where they normally are?
Maybe you run into them in another city and so you think for a second, you're not expecting to see them there, but then once you see them, you know them. It's going to be that way with Jesus and with us. He was recognized by His disciples.
We'll know one another in heaven as well. The Bible says in His resurrected body, Jesus ate. He got hungry. The disciples were wanting to talk about spiritual things. He said, I'm hungry, get me something to eat. So in our resurrected bodies, we'll be able to enjoy cruise vacations and all the food that you have.
I don't know if we'll be cruising here or not, but we're going to be eating for sure. And so we're not just spirit. God made us body, soul and spirit. And there's never been a time that our spirits existed without our bodies.
And so we will have a new body. We'll know one another, but we'll never go to the doctor again. Pastor, second to last question, because this one came up a lot too, all on the theme of forgiveness. And this particular question says, Dr. Jeffress, God says to love your neighbor, but you don't know my neighbor.
He's really hard to love. So how do I get rid of the disdain and gain patience and kindness and the fruit of the Spirit? How do I forgive? Well, the word forgive means to let go of, to release a death that is owed to you. I say forgiveness is giving up your right to hurt somebody else for hurting you. Now, we're to forgive. We're to unconditionally forgive.
If you make your forgiveness of another person dependent on what they do or don't do, I'm not going to forgive until they ask forgiveness. You're making yourself a slave to that other person. Have you ever seen one of those three legged races they used to do at old fashioned picnics? You know, you have your leg tied to the leg of the other person and you hobble together toward the finish line. And, you know, if you've ever done that before, you've had this thought, if only I could get free from this idiot, I could make a lot better time. But a three legged race doesn't allow for solo contenders.
You can only go as fast and far as the other person your partner is able to go. The same way when you tie your forgiveness to somebody else, you're tying your emotional well-being to them, you cannot get any farther or further in life than they're willing to allow you to go. And what if they choose not to repent? Are you a prisoner of that person for the rest of your life?
What if the person who's wronged you has moved and you've lost contact with them? What if it's a parent who's in the cemetery and they can never ask forgiveness? No, forgiveness is the process by which we say, God, you know how much this person has hurt me, but I am letting go of it. I'm going to let you deal with them.
I'm going to let you settle the score so I can be free to get on with my life. Forgiveness has no strings attached, but reconciliation has many strings attached. You can forgive somebody without being reconciled with them.
How can two walk together lest they be agreed? If somebody isn't willing to admit how much they've hurt you, you're going to have a hard time having a relationship with them. You know, if somebody steals $50,000 from you, cheats you, you may let go of that and forgive them, but you're not going to want to go in business with them again until they make some restitution. Forgiveness has no strings attached. Reconciliation has several strings attached.
So it's important to know the difference between the two. Pastor, final question, and it's really a beautiful, poignant one, and one I've never heard you answer before. How would you like to be remembered? Do you know something I don't know yet?
Certainly not. Remember the old joke about the doctor who says to the patient, I've got some bad news and some terrible news for you. The patient said, what's the bad news? And the doctor said, well, the test results came back, and you only have 24 hours to live. The patient was stunned. He said, what could be worse than that? And the doctor said, I was supposed to have told you yesterday. So I hope you don't have a report that I don't have. No, sir. You know, how would I like to – I've never had anybody ask me that before.
I think it would be different for different people. I hope Amy will remember me as a husband who loved her, as a loving husband. I hope my children and three grandchildren will remember me as a great-grandfather. But as far as other people, I really want to be remembered, hopefully, as somebody who faithfully preached the Word of God.
That's my one desire. I want to thank you for the great questions on these inaugural episodes of Ask the Pastor. I didn't know this was a series. We're going to do it again. Thank Dr. Jeffress one more time.
Would you please? You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. And right now, your ministry gift will be matched and therefore doubled in impact thanks to the Salt and Light Matching Challenge. Take advantage of this opportunity to double your impact before the deadline on July 6th. To give toward the matching challenge, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
