Jeff Schreve - Sep 11 - 8:30 am

0:00You're listening to the real truth, real love, real hope podcast with Pastor Jeff Shrieve. Jeff's joined again today by his wife Debbie to start a conversation about end times and the rapture, why every generation must be ready, what God wants us to focus on now, and what to expect. Pastor Jeff has served as Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church in Texark, Texas since 2003. He's an author and host of the radio and television programs produced here at From His Heart Ministries. We'll be back at the end of the podcast with information about some free resources that we want you to have to help you in these uncertain times. Now here's Pastor Jeff and Debbie with some real truth and real hope. Hi and welcome to this podcast. I'm Pastor Jeff and this is my wife Debbie. And we're talking today about end times.

1:00You know Debbie I started a series just a few weeks ago at church on 2nd Thessalonians calling it the church in the last days. And the reason I'm calling it that is because 2nd Thessalonians has so much information, just a short little letter, three chapters, but so much information about the 2nd coming of Christ and the things related to the tribulation and the Antichrist and the Battle of Armageddon. So this Sunday we're going to talk about the rapture. I'm calling this message the rapture fact or fiction. Fact. You say it's a fact. Okay, yes. Did you know that I had a conversation a day with a seminary president and I asked him I said, what are they teaching in seminary these days concerning the rapture? And he said most seminaries don't even talk about the rapture. And I thought how amazing as we get closer and closer to the Lord's return, whole seminaries are not even talking about it.

2:00They're not talking about it. And churches are not talking about it. So we talk about it a lot at first Baptist text or canon because it's called the Blessed Hope in the Book of Titus, the appearing of our Lord Jesus in the clouds to come and take us away. Well, in times it to me is such an interesting topic because I think we're you to talk to anybody at any point in history. They would have examples of why at their current time in history they thought it was the last days. And yet here we are still hundreds of years later. We're still experiencing, you know, what are the last days. So what in your opinion makes this the last of the last days, you know, maybe? Well I think that you're exactly right. I think every generation thought, well, I'm living in the last generation. And that's a good thing. The Lord wants us to live like that.

3:01Jesus said at an hour when you think not the Son of Man comes. So the moment you think, well, he's not coming in my lifetime, that's an indicator that he is going to come. And so we always have to live like it perhaps today. It could be today. And if you were living during the first century when Nero was on the throne and he's setting Christians on fire and using him them to light his garden and things like that, you would think this is it. This is it. This is it. And this is it. So it would be easy during that time period to say we are definitely in the last days. And I think Peter and Paul and John, I think all those guys thought that. And then you fast forward to Hitler. And that, you know, and all the genocide of the Jews and you think, well, gosh, you know, if you were living in that time frame, you definitely would have thought that. Right. And I remember reading something in a book about the tribulation period in the Antichrist and it said Satan doesn't know when the Lord is coming back.

4:03He doesn't know when Jesus who's going to come in the clouds, like it says in First Sassalonians 4 and snatch away his church. So he always has to have someone waiting in the wings that can be his man of sin. So I think Hitler was that guy that could have been the Antichrist waiting in the wings but that wasn't the time that the Lord had depicted. So the devil always has to have somebody kind of marked out for that's going to be my guy. Just Judas was a picture of the Antichrist because Judas is the only person in Scripture that says in the John chapter 13, then Satan entered him. And the Antichrist is going to be Satan in the flesh. We have demon possessed people but not Satan possessed people. And so the Antichrist is going to be Satan possessed and Judas is a picture of that. He's going to come against the Lord Jesus Christ just as Judas did leading all the soldiers to arrest Jesus in the garden.

5:03And it's interesting to contemplate that. That at any moment there is somebody that's waiting in the wings ready to go that will burst on the stage. Now we had kind of a taste of that in the meteoric rise of a Barack Obama to the President because he was virtually unknown and then all of a sudden, bam, he's everywhere and he is catapulted into this frenzied appeal and the thousands and thousands of people that would come to hear him speak and things like that. So we got a taste of how one man can all of a sudden just burst onto the scene and people flock to him. Now obviously Barack Obama is not the Antichrist but that kind of picture of somebody just coming out of nowhere because the Antichrist is going to do that. I'm out of nowhere and all of a sudden everybody listens to him and says this guy has all the answers. So we need to follow him.

6:04Right. Well, how do you think in the midst of all of this last of the last days, how should we be living? You know, we don't want to be living in fear. We want to be expectant and... Right. And so we need to be... The two words we use at our church all the time, shine and share. We need to be shining for Christ. We need to be boldly sharing our faith. We need to be living in the light of His return that at any moment the Lord can come back. John says in 1 John chapter 3 that everyone who has his hope fixed on the return of Christ purifies himself just as the Lord is pure. And so the more that you think about man today could be the day that the Lord comes back. The more it helps you to say notice in and yes to the will of God and you want to be found in the Lord, you want to be found walking with Him and walking in the light and being faithful. You know, Bible says that we can...

7:05If we're not walking with Him as believers that when He appears we shrink back and shame at His coming because we know I'm not doing what's right. Right. Doesn't mean that we're left behind. It doesn't mean that the Lord says I don't want you, my family anymore. I mean once you are born again, you're born again forever, once you're His, you're His forever. But we can meet the Lord in shame when we're not walking with Him and He comes back. And that would be a horrible experience to go up in the rapture knowing that I'm in half to give an account of my life to Jesus and I haven't been living for Him. Right. Well, I think to such an encouragement that I've read recently and different things that I've read is that we are living in the days in which we're living because God ordained us to live in them for such a time as this. So it is not by accident that we are living in this generation at this time, amid this pandemic. I mean, that's not an accident on God's part that He is still in control and in charge of

8:07all of that. We can trust Him in that. We don't need to be fearful or a nerve or alarmed because He's got it all under control. Right. And it really is exciting. If this is indeed the last generation and the Lord is coming back in our lifetime, that we get to experience the rapture on this side of the ground. All those who died before us, they're going to go up. They don't miss the rapture. That was Paul's message to the Thessalonians. We don't grieve as those who have no hope. And we know that those who have died, their bodies in the ground, their souls with the Lord, but then they're coming back together and they're going to come out of the grave and be reunited in a glorified body with their soul. Which I think is going to be just a thin body. It's just going to be a fit thin body is what I think. Yeah, it'll be perfect for sure. And so then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with Him in the clouds and thus shall we always be with the Lord.

9:09And that's a neat thing to think about. It's wonderful. And to know that if you really study the Scripture and see that the Lord has not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Thessalonians 5 9, that it makes total sense for God to take the church out of the world before the tribulation period, before He pours out His wrath on the world. Because God hasn't destined His children for wrath. And so while the world is going through tribulation, God's people are in heaven enjoying the marriage supper of the Lamb. It's so amazing the marriage supper of the Lamb when John saw it. He bowed down to worship the angel that showed it to Him. And John knows better than that. But and the angel had to say don't do that. Worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. But John was just overcome with what he saw.

10:09And so we're going to get to experience that. That is just such an awesome thing to allow your mind to contemplate. That's what's in store for the believer. Right. Better to think on that than to think on all that's going on right now. Right? Yes, for sure. For sure. So some people believe that the rapture is coming at the middle of the tribulation. Some people believe the rapture comes at the end of the tribulation when Jesus comes back to set up his kingdom on earth. That's when we're raptured. That doesn't really make much sense to me because we would go up to meet the Lord and then we'd go down because he's coming to the earth. So it makes much more sense for the rapture to come at the beginning of the tribulation. And that's why the rapture can come at any time because there is no sign for that. It's just immediate. And in the moment in the twinkling of an eye, that's when the Lord comes back. And so that's why we need to live ready because that could happen today. And we look forward to his return.

11:11It is the blessed hope of the Christian. We're not looking for the antichrist. We're looking for Jesus Christ who's coming to get us and to rescue us out of this world. So as you see, things getting grim and in the last days, difficult times will come. So it's going to get grim as we get closer and closer to the return of Christ. We're not living with headline hysteria saying, oh, no, what is the world coming to? Live with expectation and hope saying, look who's coming to the world because Jesus is coming soon. Thanks for listening today. Be encouraged. God bless you. Thank you for listening to the real truth, real love, real hope podcast with Pastor Jeff Shrieve. And his heart ministries is here to provide solid biblical teaching that gives real hope in any season. And we created a page filled with free resource downloads, including Pastor Jeff's book,

12:12Life Interrupted, How to Face a New Normal. We want you to have this content now for free. With no strings attached, please just visit from hisheart.org slash new normal and start downloading these free resources today. Now if you like what you hear on this podcast, please subscribe, rate, review and share with others who you might think needed today. This podcast is a production of From His Heart Ministries. Please visit from hisheart.org to find out more about the ministry, including how to sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly email encouragement devotional, wear it soon into our TV and radio programs, get past sermon content and much more. And be sure to listen to the next episode for more ways you can find real truth, real love and real hope from his heart.