Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click the donate button, or follow the link in our show notes.
Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Jesus is coming back again. He is coming back to reclaim this earth. He is coming back to judge the unrighteous and to reward the righteous. And the place He is coming back is this place we're standing on right now, the Mount of Olives. And so today, we're going to talk about that important event, history's most important event. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress.
Think about it. Can you imagine the day when Jesus finally returns? In that moment, hundreds of ancient Bible prophecies will be fulfilled, and Christ's power and majesty will be on display for all to see. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress takes us to the Mount of Olives, where Jesus has promised to return one day. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress? Thanks, David, and welcome to a brand new week of Bible teaching on Pathway to Victory. I'm delighted that you've joined us today as we continue a special teaching series called Live from Israel. In 2023, I had the privilege of leading a Pathway to Victory tour of the Holy Land with about 500 of your fellow listeners. We had a fabulous time visiting the historic sites together and reflecting on our Christian heritage. Well, on our return home, I was inspired to create a book for you called The Power of the Cross.
It's a photo album, a coffee table book of sorts, but it's really much more than that. In my book, I've included several of my favorite images from Israel. Each one is paired with storytelling and biblical insights from me about the final week of Christ's earthly ministry. Truly, I believe this is one of the most beautiful books we've ever produced by our team at Pathway to Victory, and I'd like to send a copy to your home right away as an expression of my thanks for your generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. In addition, when you respond today, my book will arrive at your home with another exclusive resource.
It's my illustrated booklet called Three Days That Changed the World. This booklet illustrates the hour-by-hour account of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. David and I will give more details later in the program, but right now I'd like for you to travel with me to a beautiful spot overlooking Jerusalem.
My message today was originally delivered on location at the Mount of Olives. It was January of 1961 when newly elected president John F. Kennedy was in West Palm, Florida for a few days of relaxation before his inauguration, and during that time of relaxation he invited evangelist Billy Graham to come down and play a round of golf with him. The invitation surprised most people because of Kennedy's well-known dislike for the famous evangelist. After they played golf together, they were driving back to the Kennedy compound. President-elect Kennedy was at the wheel driving the Lincoln, White Lincoln Continental, and suddenly Kennedy pulled the car off to the side of the road. He turned off the engine and he said to the evangelist, Billy, do you believe Jesus Christ is coming back to earth one day?
And Billy answered, yes sir, I do. Kennedy then said, if that's true, then why do I hear so little about it today? Go to many churches, many evangelical churches, and you will never hear a word about the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Never a word. They'll talk about relationships, addictions, everything you can imagine, except the most important event in human history, the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. But don't make any mistake about it, Jesus is coming back again. He is coming back to reclaim this earth. He is coming back to judge the unrighteous and to reward the righteous. And the place he is coming back is this place we're standing on right now, the Mount of Olives. And so today we're going to talk about that important event, history's most important event. Listen to the words of Acts chapter 1.
This sets the stage for us. Remember after Jesus arose from the dead he spent 40 days on earth, Luke says, appearing to hundreds if not thousands of people and speaking about the kingdom of God. That was his message. And so when he was getting ready to depart this world and ascend to heaven, they gathered here on the Mount of Olives. And as he was about to leave, the disciples said, Lord, at this time are you ready to restore the kingdom to Israel?
In other words, they were saying, Jesus, before you leave haven't you forgotten something? You said you were going to have a kingdom. You were going to reign over the earth forever and ever and ever and ever. Now if the disciples were wrong about that, if there were no literal kingdom of God coming, this would have been the time for Jesus to clear that up.
He could have said, oh boys, you misunderstood. I wasn't talking about a literal kingdom. I'm not gonna sit on a throne and rule over the earth. I'm talking about when I rule in your heart.
That's what I'm talking about. But he didn't do that. He said to them instead, it's not for you to know the time or the periods that the Father has set by his own authority.
We can't know the date of this. What we are to know, he said, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and all Samaria and to the ends of the earth. He said, I want you to go to the upper room and wait.
Wait till you receive the Holy Spirit. But after he had said this, the Bible says he was caught up while they were watching into the heavens. And while he was going, they were gazing into heaven.
Can't you imagine? Here, this is the place Jesus ascended into heaven. Can't you imagine them watching him closely as he ascended into heaven?
And while they were gazing, the angels said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? For this Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven. How did they see him going to heaven?
They saw him going visibly. Literally, his body was going into heaven. And the angels said, he's going to come back in the same way. Not spiritually, he's coming back into your heart. He is coming back literally and visibly to this earth. You know, people ask me as a pastor all the time about heaven. They say, now pastor, do you think heaven's really an actual place or is it kind of a state of mind? What did Jesus say?
He said, I'm going to prepare a what? A place, topos, for you. That word topos means a geographical location.
Just think about it. Does it make any sense to say that Jesus stood on a literal place the Mount of Olives? Does everybody agree this is a literal place? It's not a state of mind. The Mount of Olives is a real place.
You're actually here. Now does it make sense to say that Jesus was on the Mount of Olives, the natural location, and ascended into a state of mind? Heaven. And then one day he's going to come out of that state of mind to a literal physical location.
No. He's simply changing locations. One real place for another real place.
Another real place for this real place. Jesus is coming back again. That's what the Second Coming is all about. Now let me help set the Second Coming in context for you with Bible prophecy.
We're going to give you a crash course. Right now we are living in a period of time we call the Church Age, the Age of Grace. Right now Gentiles are welcome to come into the kingdom of God. But when the last Gentile has been saved, who will be saved, it will mark the end of the Church Age. And what will mark the end of the Church Age? The next event, the rapture of the church. The rapture is when God takes the church to be with him in heaven. That's the next event that is going to happen, the rapture.
Once the church is out of the way, so to speak, then begins the countdown of the final seven years of Earth's history. It's a time known as the Tribulation. The time of Tribulation will be a time that God, yes, pours out his wrath on mankind. The world is going to experience God's judgment like never before. It's a time of condemnation. But it's not only a time of condemnation, it's a time of salvation. It is the Jews' last opportunity to be saved. God's purpose in this retribution was the salvation of Jews and Gentiles who will be saved during the Great Tribulation.
We talked about it at Megiddo. The end of that seven-year time will be the Battle of Armageddon that we talked about in Revelation 16 and Revelation 19. The kings of the world will assemble there to make war against the Antichrist, but suddenly heaven will open. The Lord Jesus appears on that great white horse and these enemies, political enemies, become united in their desire to defeat Christ. And that's the time Christ appears and we appear with him on those white horses. When Christ comes, he comes back and that is the second coming of Jesus.
He comes back to this very spot, the Mount of Olives. Zechariah 11 talks about there's an earthquake that splits this great mountain into two. And what is going to happen? Christ is going to come and he's going to establish his millennial kingdom. A thousand year perfect reign of Christ.
It's going to happen right there. It's going to be the reign of Christ where that mosque stands. That mosque is coming down.
I'm not supposed to say that. It's coming down one day and there's going to be a temple built there. And Jesus is sitting on the throne of David and is going to rule in perfect righteousness and judgment for a thousand years.
That is the millennium. At the end of the millennium, during which Satan has been bound, he'll be loose for a little while to deceive those who have never come to faith in Christ, those people born during the millennium. And that will be the final rebellion.
God will put an end to it. He will destroy the present heaven and earth. In Revelation 21, John says, I saw the new heaven, the new earth, for the first heaven and earth will have passed away. And that is the beginning of our eternity forever and ever with Christ. Now, that's Bible prophecy in a nutshell. And that's what we have to look forward to. Now, the rapture is the next event to take place. The second coming is seven years later. Many people get those two events confused.
They are similar in some ways, but they are different. And I want to give you eight quick differences between the rapture and the second coming. If you're taking notes, you can write them down.
Here they are. First of all, this is so important. There are no prophecies necessary for the rapture to occur. But there are many prophecies necessary for the second coming. The rapture of the church, your rapture into heaven could occur before I finish this message. There's no prophecy that has to be fulfilled for the rapture to occur.
It is imminent. But the second coming has many prophecies that still have to be fulfilled. And we're seeing those prophecies for the second coming coming together, including the regathering of the Jews here in Israel. That was a monumental thing that happened 75 years ago. It's setting the stage for the second coming.
Now, track with me on this. If the prophecies are already being fulfilled for the second coming, how much more imminent is the rapture that occurs seven years before? Secondly, Christ appears where? In the air at the rapture. We shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. But what Christ returns to earth at the second coming. Listen to Zechariah 14 verse 4, written 700 years before Jesus' first coming. And in that way, the Messiah's feet will stand on the Mount of Olives.
Here we are. The Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem. And the Mount of Olives will be split in the middle from east to west by a very large valley so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. Can you imagine when Jesus' feet touched this earth?
What a cataclysmic event that's going to be. Thirdly, Jesus returns to heaven with believers at the rapture. Christ returns to the earth with believers at the second coming. Remember, we're caught up to meet the Lord in the air and we go to be with the Lord. But at the second coming, we follow on those white horses with Jesus here to earth.
Number four, the rapture is a mystery. It was never mentioned in the Old Testament. Jesus never referred to it once.
Why is that? Because Jesus was dealing with the Jews. His apostles were Jews. For them, the next event was going to be the Great Tribulation, Daniel's 70th week, the time of Jacob's travail. But Paul was the one who revealed the mystery of the rapture because Ephesians 3 says Paul was the one who revealed the mystery of the church.
It only makes sense. If Paul is the one who revealed the mystery of the church, he would reveal that end event that would mark the end of the church, the rapture of the church. The rapture is a mystery, but the second coming is prophesied throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Number five, after the rapture, only believers are judged. We're judged not for condemnation but commendation at the bema seat, the judgment seat of Christ. It's a judgment of rewards that occurs after the rapture. But the second coming, Israel and Gentile unbelievers are judged.
That's when unbelievers will be judged at the second coming of Christ. Number six, after the rapture, there's no physical change in the earth. In fact, after the rapture, things will get worse and worse on the earth. There'll be all kind of ecological problems. Talk about global warming. There's going to be global warming like you've never seen before when the heat of God's wrath is poured upon this world. There's going to be no physical improvement in the earth. But after the second coming, there's a partial renovation of the earth.
There's a partial renovation. Part of the curse is removed. People who survive the tribulation and enter into the millennium, they'll live longer than they do right now because Satan is bound for a thousand years. But after the second coming of Jesus Christ, there's going to be the partial renovation, but even later there'll be a recreation of this present earth. Number seven, after the rapture, Satan continues to work.
In fact, he'll have unfettered access to pour out everything he can imagine on the earth. Satan will continue to work after the rapture. After the second coming, he's bound for a thousand years. And number eight, at the rapture, only believers will see Christ. I don't know how unbelievers are going to explain what happens.
I believe personally it's going to coincide with some worldwide calamity, whether it's a nuclear exchange. There'll be something that will be used to explain, maybe a pandemic, to explain the disappearance and the death of so many Christians. But at the second coming, everyone will see Christ. Philippians 2 says, when he comes back again, I shall see, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Is a literal second coming really that important?
Is it really that important to what we believe as Christians? You know, I remember something. Do you have things you remember in your life that you'll just never forget?
I have a few of those. And one of those events I remember is Easter Sunday when I was a junior in high school. Amy, my wife and I were dating in high school. She attended a very liberal church in the suburbs of Richardson, Texas, where we grew up. And she had a pastor who didn't believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, didn't believe in the miracles, didn't believe in the substitutionary death of Christ, didn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
I don't know what he believed, but he didn't believe any of those things. But I grew up in the church. I now pastor. And on that particular Easter Sunday, I was in my little Volkswagen Bug chugging down Central Expressway to downtown Dallas to the First Baptist Church. And we were so excited because that day our guest preacher was going to be Billy Graham.
Many people don't know, but Billy was a member of our church, First Baptist Dallas, for 54 years. And he was coming back to his home church to preach. And his announced topic was on the second coming of Jesus.
And I was so excited. And so as I was driving down, I turned on the radio and I thought I'd listen to what my girlfriend, Amy, was going to hear at her church because her service was broadcast on the radio. And so I tuned in to listen to that heretic. And his announced topic too was the second coming of Jesus.
And I thought, now this ought to be really good. And so he started talking. I'll never forget what he said. He said, for thousands of years people have been waiting for Jesus to come back again. And he hasn't come.
And he's not coming. The first time Jesus came was when he came to Bethlehem. But the second coming of Jesus is when he comes into your heart. And when I heard that, I thought of the words of 2 Peter 3. Peter said, Know this first of all, that in the last days, mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, saying, Where is the promise of his coming?
For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things remain just as they are. But brethren, don't let this one fact escape your notice, that with the Lord a thousand years is but a day, and a day's but a thousand years. For the Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but he is patient toward you, not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. There is only one reason, ladies and gentlemen, Jesus hasn't come back yet, and that is to give people an opportunity to repent. But just because he hasn't come back yet doesn't mean he's not coming. He is coming. It's important. It is essential that he come.
Why? First of all, a second coming is important for Christ to fulfill the promises of the Bible. For every one prophecy in the Old Testament about the first coming of Messiah, there are eight about his second coming.
And if those prophecies aren't fulfilled, the Bible can't be relied upon. He's coming back to fulfill the promises of Scripture. Secondly, he's coming back to judge unbelievers. Do you look around and say, why does God allow this evil to run unchecked?
No, there's a time when judgment is coming. 2 Peter 3 says, but the present heavens and earth by his word are being reserved for fire, kept for the judgment and destruction of ungodly men. And third, and most importantly, Christ is coming back to reclaim this world for himself. Folks, the world we're living in right now is not the world God intended. God never created this world to include sickness and sadness, heartache, death.
None of those were a part of God's plan. This world is not the world that God intended, but thank God it's not the world it's always going to be. Jesus is coming back to reclaim and recreate this world.
Just think about this. If he doesn't come back, if God were to just say, you know what Satan, you wanted this earth, you can have it. You can continue to be the prince of the power of the earth. I'll let you have the earth, and I'll take heaven. Do you think God is about to do that? God created this world for himself, and God is coming to reclaim this earth for himself. And that's what the second coming is all about. As the angel said, as he looked forward to that last judgment, he said, and the kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Christ is coming back again. You know Abraham Kuyper, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands said one time, there is not one inch of this universe over which God does not say, mine, mine, mine.
This world belongs to God, and the second coming is the time Christ is coming back to reclaim it. You know many years ago, when I first started working with Fox News, one of my first friends at Fox News 10-15 years ago was somebody you all may remember. He was the resident liberal at Fox News. His name was Alan Combs.
He used to be on with Hannity, Hannity and Combs. And he was Jewish, agnostic at best, but we became great friends early on. And he had me on his show countless times, and he would always rip me about my faith and what I believed and certain things I had said and so forth. But he was always gracious and always allowed me to present the gospel.
Whenever I was on his program, one night in New York we were talking about things on his program, and he said, Pastor, I've got a question for you. Do you think you're going to live to see the return of Jesus Christ? And I said, I don't know Alan, but it really doesn't matter. He said, what do you mean it doesn't matter?
I said, at the time I said, I was 53 years old, and I know probably in the next 30 years one of two things is going to happen. He's going to come, or I'm going to go. But I'm going to see the Lord soon one way or the other, and so are you. And the most important thing to do is to be ready. Jesus Christ is coming back again. Are you ready? Are you ready? Even so, as John said, come quickly Lord Jesus. Come quickly.
We don't know the day or the hour, but Jesus is coming back soon, and it's critically important that we get ready for his return. Now, in a moment, David is going to explain how you can receive this special series, Live from Israel, on both audio CD and video DVD. By receiving this eight-part teaching series, you'll be able to experience the setting in which these messages were delivered.
I realize that many in our listening family will never have the privilege of stepping foot into Israel, especially so with all the complication in the Middle East right now. Well, that's one of the reasons I created a brand new photo album for you. I titled this coffee table book, The Power of the Cross. Now, let me clarify, this is not just a picture book. Each image from Israel tells a specific story about the final seven days in the life of Christ, from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem to his resurrection on Easter morning. And with every image, I've offered thoughts, reflections, and biblical insights on why these moments are essential to our Christian faith. My illustrated book, The Power of the Cross, will elevate your celebration of Easter. It's beautiful, which means you can display this book on your coffee table throughout the year.
I look forward to hearing from you today. Just make the simple request that you want to receive my book, The Power of the Cross. A copy is yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. David?
Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. When you get in touch with Pathway to Victory and give a generous gift, you're invited to request, The Power of the Cross, a brand new large print book that outlines the week leading up to the death of Christ, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ. Just call 866-999-2965 or visit our website that's at ptv.org. And when you give $75 or more, you'll also receive a brand new eight-part teaching series called, Live from Israel.
These dynamic messages were preached on location in the Holy Land and they come on both DVD video and MP3 format audio disc. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or online go to ptv.org. If you'd like to write, here's that address, P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. That's P.O.
Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you to join us next time on the Southern Steps of Jerusalem, where believers were first filled with the Holy Spirit. Discover what took place on the day of Pentecost when you join us Tuesday for Pathway to Victory.
Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Imagine waking up to the side of Alaska's majestic coastline or spotting wildlife from the deck of a luxurious cruise ship. Experience these unforgettable moments on the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska with Dr. Robert Jeffress.
Relax with us in Alaska and I guarantee you'll come home spiritually and physically refreshed. To book your spot on the 2024 Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska, go to ptv.org. 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. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in his word. To become a Pathway partner, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click on the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
