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Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Well, if we're to understand the end time events, what are we supposed to understand? Well, I'm going to try to summarize all the Bible prophecy in 25 minutes. For some of you, this is going to be brand new material.
For many of you, it's review. So even if you've heard this a thousand times, think about, would you be able to explain this to your children or a friend who asked you, about the end times? Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress? Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Just before we begin today's message, I want to remind you about the relaxation vacation that we're preparing for you and your family this June. God didn't intend for us to work endlessly without some rest, and I'm going to recommend a tremendous week of rest and relaxation for you, and I promise you'll come home refreshed and renewed. It's the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska, June 15th through 22nd.
In addition to witnessing the great frontier of Alaska, we'll have plenty of fun on board the luxury liner with laughter and musical entertainment as well from recording artist Rebecca St. James, Michael O'Brien, and the comedy of Dennis Swanberg. So please go to ptv.org today and secure your spot on the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska. Well, from the beginning of February until now, I've been presenting a practical teaching series called What Every Christian Should Know, and this exclusive study will crescendo today and again tomorrow with my final message. My message today is called What Every Christian Should Know about the end times. For your benefit, I wrote a bestselling book called What Every Christian Should Know, and I devoted an entire section of my book to the theology of the end times, and I distilled this very difficult topic into what you need to know about the return of Jesus Christ. A hardbound copy of my book will be sent to your home right away when you give a generous gift to support the growing ministry of Pathway to Victory. We'll share more details about my new book and other resources later, but right now let's dig into our subject for today. We're looking at 2 Peter chapter 3. I titled today's message What Every Christian Should Know about the end times. A story on the CNN website immediately caught my attention, and you can understand why in a moment. The article was titled For Some Christians, Rapture Anxiety Can Take a Lifetime to Heal.
Now you're not going to believe this. The story begins, 13-year-old April of Joy had a sense something wasn't right. It was quiet in her Dallas house, too quiet. Her brothers were gone, her parents were gone. On her parents' bed, a pile of her mother's clothes signaled something terrifying.
A joy's mind began churning, trying to remember, trying to make plans. When was the last time she had sinned? Should she refuse the mark of the beast? At least she thought if she was put to the guillotine during the time of the tribulation, it would be a quick death. April of Joy grew up in an evangelical church, surrounded by constant reminders that the rapture was just around the corner.
She was taught to never sin, since it could be the very last thing she did before Jesus returned to the earth. Dramatic rapture-themed books and movies were presented as real glimpses into the end of the world. Now 34, she is one of a growing network of ex-vangelicals who have removed themselves from what they now view as damaging beliefs of some evangelical churches. She runs a popular TikTok account, discussing faith and, among other things, the effects of traumatic religious experiences that can last for years, even a lifetime. Rapture anxiety, as it's often called, is recognized by some faith experts and mental health professionals as a type of religious trauma. Darren Slade, the president of Global Research, has been studying religious traumas across several faiths and denominations for years.
He says, this is a real thing. It's a chronic problem. This is a new area of study, but in general, our research has revealed that religious trauma leads to an increase of anxiety, depression, paranoia, and even some OCD-like behaviors. I need to say this prayer of salvation so many times.
I need to confess my sin so often. Now imagine, he continues, you are taught that at any minute you could be left on earth. What does that do to a teenager who just had premarital sex or even simply took the Lord's name in vain? The article says, experience, like this young woman's, a latent fear of impending inevitable end, are very common among communities of religious trauma survivors.
And on and on it goes. I've just got one question. If simply hearing about the rapture can be traumatic, what do you think it's going to be like for these people when they actually live through the rapture and find out they've been left behind?
I mean, that's the ultimate trauma, isn't it? And yet, that article highlights a basic truth, and that is, differing people have different reactions to the end times. For those who do know Jesus as their savior, the end time events are nothing to worry about.
They represent simply a prelude to an eternity of eternal blessing. But for those who don't believe in Jesus as their savior, they're obviously frightened by the end time. Because if these events are true, they are a prelude to an eternity of suffering. Today, as we come to the end of our series, What Every Christian Should Know, I thought it was appropriate that we look at the 10th historic pillar of the Christian faith, and that is what every Christian should know about the end times.
If you have your Bibles, turn over to Matthew chapter 24 for a moment. Remember, Jesus had no difficulty talking about the end times, no matter how traumatic it was for his listeners. Remember, his disciples in Matthew 24 were walking with him out of the temple, and Jesus said, oh, by the way, this whole thing's going to be torn down one day. And they were frightened.
They said, what do you mean it's going to be torn down? When will this happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? Jesus gave them a very detailed outline of the end time events. God wants us to understand, no, not the exact hour or day, no man knows that, but he wants us to know what we can anticipate in the future. Why is it so important to know about the end times?
Let me just mention three reasons. First of all, the end times are a major thing throughout the Bible. Did you know there are 1,800 references in the Old Testament to the second coming of Jesus? For every one prophecy in the Old Testament about his first coming, there are eight about his second coming. In the New Testament, you have 300 references to the second coming.
23 out of the 27 books in the New Testament talk about Christ's return. If it's such an important topic in the Bible, it should be a subject of our understanding as well. Secondly, understanding the end times helps us interpret and apply the Bible. I'm convinced it is impossible to truly understand the Bible and apply it if you don't understand the end times.
Let me give you two examples of that. Let's just say you're reading through the book of Isaiah in your daily Bible readings, and you get to Isaiah 65 verse 20. It says, no longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days, for the youth will die at the age of 100, and the one who does not reach the age of 100 will thought to be accursed. You wonder, well, when is Isaiah talking about here? Obviously, this isn't now.
Infant death happens all the time, and very few people ever even reach the age of 100. So, it can't be now. It can't be heaven, because people won't die at all at the age 100 or the age 100,000 in heaven. So, when is he talking about? Unless you understand the millennium, the thousand year reign of Christ that we'll talk about in a moment, a time when a partial renovation of the earth has taken place, you'll never understand Isaiah 65, 20.
Or Matthew 25 is a part of Jesus' description of the end times. He said, and the king will say to them, when I was naked, you clothed me. When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was in prison, you visited me. And they will say to him, when did we see you naked?
When did we see you hungry or in prison? Matthew 25, 40. And the king will answer to them, truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of these, you did it to me. And people read that and they think, well, then Jesus is saying, our mission here is to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and visit those in prison.
Is that what he's talking about here? After all, he said, after that, come enter my kingdom that I've prepared for you. So is the way to get to heaven, to visit the imprisoned, to clothe the naked and feed the hungry?
You'll come out with all kind of wrong applications until you understand, again, the context of this passage. Jesus was talking about a future time at the end of the tribulation when he returns to judge, and he is going to judge people who were living during the tribulation by how they treated the 144,000 Jewish witnesses. The evangelists who did suffer, who did go to prison, who were hungry, who were deprived of the basics of life and what Jesus was saying, the judgment of those in the tribulation will be how they treated those who were suffering for the Lord. It will represent how they viewed Jesus himself.
To the extent you did it to the least of these, these 144,000 Jews, you did it unto me. My simple point is you can't understand passages of the Bible without having an understanding of Bible prophecy. And thirdly, anticipating the end times motivates us to live in a God-honoring way. Have you ever heard people say, oh, I don't study the book of Revelation or prophecy? That has no relationship to my life today.
Wrong. Listen to what the apostle Peter said in 2 Peter 3 after he had described the destruction of this present world at the end of time. He said, since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning and the elements will melt with intense heat. In other words, if everything in this world you see right now is going to be burned up one day, shouldn't that affect right now the focus of your life, what you're investing in, what you're giving attention to? If there really is a time that I'm going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account of my life, shouldn't that impact the choices that I make right now?
Abraham Lincoln said in 1858, if you will tell me where we are and where we are going, I can better tell you what to do and how to do it. We need to know what awaits us to make decisions right now that are wise. Well, if we're to understand the end time events, what are we supposed to understand? Well, I've got about 25 minutes left, and I'm going to try to summarize all of Bible prophecy in 25 minutes, what you need to know about the end times. So take your pens, write down as quickly as you can. Here are the events we're to understand. Now, for some of you, this is going to be brand new material.
For many of you, it's review. So even if you've heard this a thousand times, think about, would you be able to explain this to your children or grandchildren or a friend to ask you about the end times? Listen to this with a mind of how to explain this truth to others. Right now, we are living in a period of time we call the church age.
Here's the definition. The church age is that period of time between Pentecost until the rapture, during which Gentiles are invited to participate in the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. Remember, God made a promise to Abraham. It was a promise to Abraham and his believing descendants, the Jewish people who believed. But as we know, the Jewish people rejected the Messiah, the ultimate expression of the Abrahamic covenant. And so what did God do? Did he just write off the Jews and say, you're lost forever? No, he temporarily stopped his dealings with Israel to give Gentiles, people like you and me, an opportunity to be saved.
And that's the period of time we're living in right now. In Romans 11, verse 1, Paul, a Jew himself said, has God rejected his people? May it never be. God's not going to violate his promise.
He hasn't rejected them. But here's what has happened. Verse 25 of Romans 11. I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning this mystery that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. God has hit the pause button in his dealing with Israel, and their rejection means you and I, who are Gentiles, have an opportunity to be saved.
But God will finish his dealings with Israel. He will give them one last opportunity to trust in Christ during a period of time we'll talk about in a moment. But that's the age that we're living in right now, the church age when Gentiles are invited to participate in the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. Now, when the last Gentile has been saved, who is going to be saved, that marks the end of the church age and points to the next event, the rapture of the church. The end of the church age will be the rapture of the church. What is the rapture? It's the snatching away to heaven of all Christians before the beginning of the tribulation.
The key passage in scripture for the rapture is 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 16 through 18. 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.
I was at the cemetery yesterday doing a service. On the rapture day, those graves are going to be opened, and all believers' bodies will be snatched up. And those of us who are alive at that time will be snatched up as well to meet the Lord in the air. Thus, we shall always be with the Lord.
Therefore, comfort one another with these words. Now, people who don't believe in the rapture, Christians, they say, oh, that's just something that was made up in the 1800s. There's no word in the Bible that talks about a rapture.
Yes, there is. It's right here. It's translated caught up. It's the Greek word harpazo. It means to snatch away. Paul used it in 2 Corinthians 12 when he said he was snatched up into the third heaven for a brief period of time.
It is a biblical term. And although there's some similarities to the rapture between the rapture and the second coming of Jesus that happened seven years later, there's also some distinct differences that we will look at as well. Just because things are similar doesn't mean they're the same. My car has a motor, an engine in it. Our washing machine has a motor in it, but they're not the same thing.
I can't wash clothes in my automobile. They're similar, but they're also vastly different. And we'll see in a moment there are some key differences between the rapture and the second coming. By the way, the rapture is the next event on God's prophetic timeline. It could happen at any moment. There are no prophecies that have to be fulfilled for the rapture to happen. It could happen before this sermon is over. And you'd be caught up and the rest of you would be left here with me to go through the tribulation of the rest of my sermon. But no, no, no.
I digress. Now, there are some different views about the rapture. Some people believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. They think it's going to happen before the tribulation.
That is my belief, and I'll tell you why in a moment. Others believe in a post-tribulation rapture. That is, Christians will go through the tribulation and at the end of the tribulation almost concurrent with the second coming of Christ.
At the end of the tribulation they'll be snatched away and they'll come back again with Christ. Or the mid-tribulation rapture that it occurs after the first three and a half years of the tribulation. Now, after the rapture will come the next event, the third event, the tribulation.
Here's a definition. The tribulation is the seven year period that begins with the antichrist when he signs a peace covenant with Israel and ends with Armageddon and the second coming of Jesus Christ. The Bible defines it as a seven year period of time. Now, this isn't the word of God.
This is the word of Robert. But Amy and I were speculating last night about what the rapture is going to leave behind and how will the disappearance of millions of Christians around the world be explained. My belief is the rapture will coincide with some great global holocaust, some great global tragedy that will be used to explain the disappearance of millions of people. And at the same time, that global catastrophe will serve as a catalyst for the immediate rise to power of the antichrist. Right now, 2 Thessalonians 2 says the antichrist hasn't been revealed. But when the restrainer, the Holy Spirit, living in Christians is removed from the earth, then he will be revealed. The world will be in such turmoil, I believe, that countries like the United States of America and others will gladly surrender their constitution in order to follow the lead of this world dictator who promises peace and order out of chaos. I think that's what you're going to see. Otherwise, there's no way to understand how the Bible says he will rise to power without any show of force at all.
People will applaud his rule. That's the tribulation. It's a seven-year period beginning when this great world leader signs a peace treaty with Israel and it ends with the second coming. What is the purpose of the tribulation?
It's twofold. First of all, the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles. Even though those who become Christians will pay a great price to do so, there's going to be a worldwide revival. And it's described in Revelation chapter 7.
John says he saw people from all nations coming to faith in Christ, Jews and Gentiles alike. Verse 9 says they will come from every nation. This is God giving Israel and others one last chance to be saved. This final seven years is called Daniel's 70th week that he prophesied over 2,000 years ago in Daniel chapter 9. Remember the 70 weeks of years, 490 years have been decreed for you and your people.
483 of those years have already passed. There's one seven-year period left and that is the great tribulation. But it will also be a time of the condemnation of unbelievers. God will pour out his wrath in the series of judgments, the seal, trumpet and bowl judgments. God will pour out his judgment on unbelievers. And by the way, that's why I am absolutely convinced Christians will not live during the tribulation.
We will not be here for that period of time. The tribulation, that seven-year period will be the first time in history that the whole world since the flood, it will be the first time that the whole world has experienced God's judgment, his condemnation. And as a Christian, I never need to fear God's wrath or condemnation. Romans 8 one says there is therefore now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus.
We're just getting started with this important study that will conclude on tomorrow's program. And my bestselling book, What Every Christian Should Know, has a full chapter devoted to this topic on prophecy and what every Christian should know about the end times. Look, we live in shifting times when false teachers have concocted some shaky ideas about God in the future. My book clearly explains 10 of the essential doctrines that will keep you standing strong, including important issues such as the doctrine of sin, salvation, and the Bible. Again, my book is called What Every Christian Should Know, and a hardbound copy is yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.
Be sure to reach out right away because this special offer ends tomorrow. And when you respond today, remember that you're accomplishing far more than purchasing a book. Actually, your generous gift empowers us to equip other Christians, just like yourself, with solid theological teaching that keeps them standing strong. Cindy is one of our listeners from Alabama, and she wrote, Pastor, I was saved as a young girl, but strayed in my adult years. I renewed my faith four years ago, and now I'm reading your books and listening to your program every day. At this stage in my life, I want others to have the same peace that comes in our heavenly treasures.
Isn't that great? Thanks, Cindy, for your encouragement. And as you give a generous gift to support Pathway to Victory today, I hope Cindy's comment is an encouragement to you as well. Your gifts are truly making a difference. David.
Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. You're invited to request the bestselling book What Every Christian Should Know when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Call us at 866-999-2965 or visit our website at ptv.org.
And when you give an especially generous gift of $75 or more, we'll also include the complete What Every Christian Should Know teaching series on audio and video discs, plus a study guide to use for personal or group study. Today and tomorrow, though, are the last opportunities to make your request, so please get in touch right away. Call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. You could send your request by mail right to P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. One more time, that's P.O.
Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you back for Part 2 of the message What Every Christian Should Know About the End Times. 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. 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.
