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Now, here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Hi, this is Robert Jeffers, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory. If every prediction Jesus made about the past, has been fulfilled. Then can't we bank on what he says about the future?
Yes, he can be trusted with the future because he knows everything. He plans everything that is going to happen. And today, we're going to look at how the end times reveal Jesus to be the perfect prophet. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jefferson.
From horoscopes to fortune tellers, People are constantly trying to predict the future, but there's only one prophet whose words we can really trust completely. Today on Pathway to Victory. Dr. Robert Jeffers looks at Jesus Christ's perfect prophetic record. And shares what he said about three future events that will impact every person on Earth.
But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. While there's still space available, I'd love for you to join me on the Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska. This luxurious voyage through Alaska's pristine wilderness offers everything you've dreamed of. Spectacular glacier views, charming coastal villages, and wildlife encounters with majestic bald eagles.
Picture yourself relaxing in elegant comfort while surrounded by fellow Christians who share your faith and values. This is far more than a vacation. It's an opportunity to experience God's awesome creation while building lasting friendships with like-minded believers. The dates are June 13th through 20th, 2026. and you can reserve your spot by going to ptv.org.
And then, I'm thrilled to tell you about a best-selling book I've prepared for you. Without question, this is one of the most important books I've ever written. My book is called Jesus Revealed in the End Times. The bottom line is this. Bible prophecy is all about our reigning King Jesus.
He is our hope. He is our peace. He is our joy. And in my book, I show you how His Second Coming should infuse transformation into every single hour of your life. I'm going to send a hardbound copy of Jesus Revealed in the End Times when you specifically request it, and when you include a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.
David and I will share more details about my book and other resources later in the program. But right now, let's turn our attention to study number three in my teaching series. I titled today's message, Jesus the Prophet. Among the modern day prophets, one of the most popular is a man named Kai Fu Li. He's a Taiwanese businessman and computer scientist.
Who has written a best-selling book about artificial intelligence? It's called AI 2041. 10 visions of our future. And he attempts to suggest what life is going to be like in 2041, a world in which artificial intelligence has changed everything. He predicts that this means, quote, the loss of traditional jobs, an unprecedented abundance of goods, exacerbated inequality, an autonomous weapons arms race, trade-offs between privacy and happiness.
Lee predicts that by the year 2041, we'll be wearing contact lenses that record every moment of our day, providing us with an infinite memory repository and digital immortality. Everything you do, every word you speak, every thought you have will be stored and preserved. presumably available to government agencies. as well as the curiosity of future generation. He then talks about the catastrophic dangers of future autonomous weapons designed to search for, engage, and kill people without any human involvement whatsoever.
This new generation of weaponry will be generated by AI and by quantum computing. I don't know about you, but when I hear that, I want to go hide someplace.
Now, the truth is, we don't know whether Kaifu Li's predictions, any of them or none of them, will come to pass. But there is one prophet. Who makes perfect. predictions about the future. We can trust every word he says about the future.
He knows the future perfectly. Because he has planned the future. And that prophet, the only one on whom we can rely. is named Jesus, the Christoph, the Messiah. We're in a series called Jesus Revealed in the End Times.
And we're discovering that Bible prophecy is not so much about events that will happen in the future. Those were secondary. The real thrust of Bible prophecy is the revelation, the unveiling of Jesus in all of his roles. Last time we looked at how the end times will reveal Jesus to be the ultimate Messiah. And today we're going to look at how the end times revealed Jesus to be the perfect person.
profit. I want us to consider for just a moment Jesus as prophet, his unique identity. In John 6, 14, we find this description of Jesus as the prophet who is to come. In Luke 7, 16, the amazed crowd said, A great prophet has risen among us. In Acts 3, We read that Jesus is the fulfiller of Moses' prediction that a great prophet would arise from Israel.
Remember that even the opening verses of Revelation talk about Jesus' role as a prophet, the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's how John begins the letter. The apocalypsis, the unveiling of Jesus Christ, which God gave him, Jesus, to show to his bondservants, the things that must soon take place. I want you to also consider the complete accuracy of Jesus' past prophecies. You see, you couldn't be right just most of the time if you claimed to be a prophet.
You couldn't be right some of the time. You had to be right all of the time. In fact, if you made a prophecy that didn't come true, you were to be stoned to death. Those were tough standards to live by. But Jesus met those standards.
Consider what he had to say about his first coming. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in human form, Jesus made certain prophecies about his short time on earth. I've listed just some of those prophecies that he nailed with 100% accuracy. He predicted that he would be arrested, that he would be mocked and spat upon and scourged. He would be crucified.
He would rise again three days after his death. He predicted that one of his disciples would betray him, that Peter would deny him, that the church would arise after his death. That the Holy Spirit would come upon his followers, that Jerusalem and its temple would one day be destroyed. All of those things have come to pass.
Now, here's the point. If every past prediction Jesus made about the past... has been fulfilled. Then can't we bank on what he says about the future? Yes, he can be trusted with the future because he knows everything, he plans everything that is going to happen.
And so, what I want to look at briefly today are three predictions Jesus made about the future: His future and your future that we can bank on and know are going to come true. What are these three future events? First of all, the rapture. Secondly, the end times, and finally, his second coming and kingdom. Let's first of all talk about Jesus and his prediction about the rapture.
The rapture, we believe, is the next event on God's prophetic timeline. It could happen at any moment. What do we mean by the rapture? You know, some people criticize me for preaching on the rapture. They said that's nowhere in the Bible.
You don't find the word rapture in the Bible.
Well, Even if that were true, it wouldn't make any difference. You don't find the word Trinity in the Bible either, but we believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But the fact is, the word rapture is found in the New Testament. It's found, first of all, in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. We'll look at the context of this in just a moment, but just notice Paul writes, Then we who are alive and remain will 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.
That word translated caught up. Is the Latin word rapturo? We get rapture from it, but it's a translation of the Greek word harpazzo, which means to snatch away. There's the word right there in 4:17. We're going to be caught up, snatched away together with them in the clouds.
Now, what did Jesus have to say about the rapture?
Now, those of you who have been around here for a while have heard me preach on the rapture, and you probably heard me make this statement that nowhere did Jesus say anything about the rapture.
Now, I'm going to stand by that comment with one asterisk. One little amendment. There is one verse in which Jesus may be alluding to the rapture. And it's the verse we're going to look at right now. The context is, the time before Jesus was crucified, he said to his disciples in John 13:33, Little children, I am with you for a little while longer.
You will seek me. And as I said to the Jews, now I say to you, Where I am going, you cannot come. What do you mean you can't come?
Well, you can't come now. And to clarify that, when the disciples were upset, he continued in chapter 14 with these familiar words: Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you.
For I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will. Come again. And take you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. I want you to underline the words: come again.
and take Some translations say, receive. When is it that Jesus Christ is coming again to take his disciples?
Well, there are really two stages, two fulfillments of that, two different events that share some things in common. One is the rapture. At the rapture, Jesus comes again in the air and takes believers, snatches them away to be with Him. We'll talk about that in more detail in a moment. But there's a second stage of the Second coming of Christ, and that is his visible return to earth when he doesn't come into the clouds, but he comes to earth.
The first time he comes at the rapture, he comes to take believers. The next time he comes, seven years later at the second coming, he comes with believers to the earth to establish his kingdom.
So in that sense, This phrase, I will come again and take you unto myself, has its ultimate fulfillment in the second coming after the tribulation. But there's a partial fulfillment at the rapture of the church.
Now to be fair, if that's all we had in the Bible about the rapture, that would be pretty flimsy to build a whole doctrine on, on the rapture of the church. But that's not all that's in the Bible about the rapture. Jesus didn't talk much about the rapture because the rapture was for the church age. Jesus' audience was primarily a Jewish audience. And that's why when Jesus talked to his disciples about the future, as we'll see in Matthew 24, he started with the tribulation.
And then went to the second coming and the millennial reign of Jesus and the judgments. He omitted the rapture because that was a peculiar. event for the church alone. That's why the Apostle Paul is the one who talks mainly about the rapture. Remember, Paul said in Ephesians 3, unto me, Paul.
I was given the charge to reveal the mystery. What is the mystery that Paul revealed? That is, that the Gentiles would be fellow heirs with the Jews in the promises of Abraham. You see, the idea that Gentiles would be converted wasn't new. There was no mystery to that.
The Old Testament's filled with examples of Gentiles who became Bible. Believers. But what was a mystery that Paul revealed was that Gentiles would be fellow heirs with the Jews of the promises of Abraham in different ways, but still beneficiaries of the Abrahamic covenant. And so since Paul was the one who revealed the mystery of the church age, Ephesians 3, it only makes sense that Paul would be the one to reveal the ending event of the church age, which is the rapture of the church.
Now people say all the time, well, I'm a red-letter Christian. I just concentrate on the red letters in the Bible, the words that Jesus spoke.
Well, guess what? All the words are important to God. They're all red letters. Paul was just as inspired as Jesus Christ. His words were just as much scripture as those of the Lord.
In fact, Peter, who didn't always get along with Paul, they had their differences. Even Peter referred to the writings of Paul as, quote, scripture. And so we can take authoritatively what Paul says about the rapture. And Paul gives us an outline of the rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4.
Now, he gives us the context beginning in verse 13. We don't want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you may not grieve as the rest who have no hope. You see, the Thessalonian Christians believed that Jesus was coming back in their lifetime. Paul believed he would live to see the return of Jesus Christ. But then something started to happen.
These Christians had loved ones who were Christians who began to die. And they began to despair, saying, Are they going to miss out? On the resurrection, when Christ comes back, they've already died. And so Paul reassures them about those whose bodies have fallen asleep. In the Bible, a Christian, when he dies, never goes to sleep.
There's no such thing as soul sleep. 2 Corinthians 5:8 says that for a Christian to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. The moment a Christian dies, the moment he closes his eye for the last time, he awakens in the presence of Jesus Christ. But his body Goes to sleep, so to speak. It's buried, it's cremated, it's blown up, it's eaten by the fish, something happens to it.
But it's destroyed. It is asleep awaiting a future resurrection. Verse 14 says, For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those whose bodies have fallen asleep in Jesus. And then he gives us this outline. And notice the five parts of this event.
First of all, Christ's appearance will be announced supernaturally. Look at verse 16. For 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.
In Jesus' day, when a Roman emperor or general would arrive, his arrival would be preceded by the blast of a trumpet.
So it shall be with the Lord. It will be announced supernaturally by the voice of the archangel and by the trumpet of God. And then Christ will descend from heaven. He will descend from heaven with a shout. He's in heaven right now, building a place for us, the new Jerusalem.
But when the time comes for him to return, he will descend from heaven. Thirdly, the dead in Christ will be raised. The bodies of the dead in Christ shall be raised. Who are the dead in Christ? Every Christian who has died since the time of Pentecost and body has been buried or cremated or whatever.
The dead in Christ will be the first ones who will be raised. And then notice. Forth, believers who are alive will be raptured and changed. If you happen to be among those who are alive during the rapture, you won't experience death. There's always been a generation of Christians who don't experience death in the Old Testament, Enoch and Elisha.
There'll be a generation of Christians who won't experience death at the rapture. They will be caught up. In the air, they will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And whether you're a resurrected, your body is resurrected because you've already died. or because you are raptured.
As you make your way to heaven, something magnificent is going to happen. 1 Corinthians 15:52 to 53, we shall all be changed. In the moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
Now, picture that. All of the cemetery graves are open of Christians, they are all rising up. You and I are following behind them if we are alive. And the Bible says, in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye. That's not the blinking of an eye, that's far too slow.
The twinkling of an eye is the amount of time it takes for light to pass from your iris and your eye to the retina. It's a nano, nano, nano, nanosecond. Instantaneously, that's how quickly you're going to receive that brand new body. A perfect body, a body that never grows sick again, never suffers, never dies. That's the promise that we have.
We shall be caught up together with them in the air. And then the best part of this, fifth, we will be with Christ forever. Notice this note of joy, encouragement he gave to those whose loved ones have passed away. And so, We shall always be with the Lord. Who are the we?
He's talked about two groups of Christians. Those who are resurrected. They come out of the grave, their bodies. but also those who were raptured. The we is all of us.
Every loved one you have who is a Christian, you will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. And the second word is always. You will always be with the Lord. and with one another, with your loved ones. No more separation, no more night, no more death, no more mourning, no more pain, for the first things will have passed away.
Therefore comfort one another with these words. I was reading this week about the first. Spaceport built in Great Britain for the launch of vertical rockets. It was built. on the Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland.
And as they were building that spaceport, They were involved in excavating the land to make preparations, and they discovered a cemetery that was 4,000 years old. That dates back to the time of Abraham. And they found it quite interesting, but that didn't stop them from building the spaceport. And today, covering those graves are the launch pads. for the rockets.
And I thought about that. I thought, isn't that a great metaphor for what awaits us as a Christian? I told you before. about that little plot of land north of here in Dan Alstein, Texas. That has been the site of the saddest days of my life.
Our family Rave plots are there. And it's there that I said goodbye to my great-grandmother. To my grandparents, my grandfather and grandmother, to my mom and dad. It was a place of mourning. But you know what?
It's only a cemetery for a while. Because what it really is, is a launching pad. Because one day Those graves are going to be opened. And one day, my loved ones and your loved ones are going to be taken out of that grave. And if we're alive and remain, we're going to be following, chasing after them on the way to heaven, and will be with the Lord forever.
Therefore, comfort one another with these words. How do we know it's going to happen? Because Jesus said it's going to happen, and you can trust Him completely.
Now, you know, there have been people who have tried to time when the rapture is going to happen.
Some people believe it happens before the tribulation.
Some people believe it happens after the tribulation.
Sometimes people believe it happens halfway during the tribulation. I believe in the pre-tribulation rapture that this happens before. Not problems, but before the great tribulation. Every Christian has experienced problems and tribulations throughout history, but there's a special tribulation coming that I believe we're exempt from. Why do I say that?
Why do I believe in a pre-tribulation rapture? I think the strongest argument for a pre-tribulation Rapture is the promise of God to keep believers from his wrath. We never have to fear the wrath of God. 1 Thessalonians 1.10 says, Jesus came to rescue us from the wrath. that is to come.
Our time constraints require us to break into the study right now. Please join us again tomorrow so that you can hear the remainder of our study about Jesus as the prophet. to listen to these presentations at your own speed. and at your convenience. Did you know that Pathway to Victory offers the full recordings?
In a moment, David will explain how you can receive unabridged C Ds and DVDs for this teaching series. But first, I'm eager to send you a copy of my hardbound book called Jesus Revealed in the End Times. It's the one I wrote while preparing this teaching series for you. In my book, I've identified eight different roles that Jesus fills in our lives. This is important.
Because these titles are often overshadowed by important events like the rapture, the tribulation, and the second coming. But when we bask in the glory of these eight different roles, we begin to revel in the hope and excitement he offers. I'm referring to Jesus as our Messiah, Prophet, Lamb, Conqueror, King, Judge, Lord, and Friend. You're invited to request a copy of my book, Jesus Revealed in the End Times. When you include a generous gift, to support the Ministry of Pathway to Victory.
I'll make sure it's sent to your home right away. and thank you for giving generously. Over the past few years, Pathway to Victory has been elevated to a position of prominence on radio. television and across all digital channels. But this comes with a price tag.
And we rely on loyal friends like you to support this ministry of faith. We're deeply grateful for our pathway partners and all who give generously. Here's David with all the details. Today, when you support Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, you're invited to request a copy of the best-selling book by Dr. Robert Jeffers called Jesus Revealed in the End Times.
Go to ptv.org or call us, 866-999-2965. And when you give $100 or more, You'll also receive the complete collection of audio and video discs for this month's teaching series, Jesus Revealed in the End Times. You'll get that along with the corresponding study guide. One more time, our phone number 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org. You could send your request by mail right to PO Box 223-609 Dallas, Texas 75222.
Again, that's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you back next time for part two of the message: Jesus the Prophet. That's Friday, here on Pathway to Victory.
Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. 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.
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