MORNING MESSAGE: John Cline
Text: 1st Thessalonians 4; Matthew 24:36-51, 25:1-13
Reader: Richard Wallman
What are you doing here? Every Christian was supposed to have been raptured up to heaven a few days ago, didn’t you know? Perhaps we all got “left behind”! In a video shared on YouTube 3 months ago, and since watched by more than 560,000 people, South African pastor Joshua Mhlakela predicted that the rapture would occur on either September 23rd or 24th, dates which coincided with the first days of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. Followers of that pastor sold their belongings, quit their jobs, and waited on a mountaintop to be raptured/taken away to heaven. But it is safe to say they are all still on earth, with money from the things they sold, but, sadly, out of work. I watched another video of his yesterday, and now he is saying the rapture will be on October 6th or 7th! False predictions of the date of the rapture are never followed by apologies by those who made them!
People have been predicting the date of the rapture since at least 1833 when John Nelson Darby, a Bible teacher, published his belief in what he called the “pre-tribulation rapture”, i.e. that before the tribulation which would consume world affairs in the time period before Jesus Christ’s Second Coming, Jesus will come back and “rapture” or take away the Christians. It took many decades, but by the early 20th century and the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible, the embracing of a pre-tribulation rapture occurred, especially among Plymouth Brethren, Pentecostal, and Baptist groups.
In 1988, I received a booklet in the mail from Edgar C. Whisenant, a former NASA engineer, who published a booklet entitled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. He sent them free to 300,000 pastors in North America, but the booklet also sold 4.5 million copies in bookstores. Many people were convinced, and they rearranged their lives in expectation of the appointed date, which was also identified as taking place on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year in September of 1988. Those dates came and went. Dates for end times events can never be known ahead of time, as we will later hear Jesus say.
Following up on Whisenant’s booklet, authors Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins, starting in 1995, produced a series of 16 books in their “Left Behind” book series. 80 million copies were sold, and 3 of them reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Then, five highly successful movies from that series were produced. The consistent theme of the books and movies was that Christians were raptured to heaven before the time of tribulation happened while non-believers were “left behind”, with the people “left behind” wondering, “Where did the missing people go? What’s going on?” After realizing that the rapture of Christians had taken place, and that the “anti-Christ” had taken control of a one-world government, each story ends with some who had been “left behind”, coming to their senses and giving their lives to Jesus. At least the “Left Behind” series did not predict dates or name names for those end-time events!
The word “rapture” doesn’t appear in the New Testament. Not even John Nelson Darby used that word. Instead, based upon the original Greek New Testament, the most commonly used words to describe the rapture is “caught away” or “taken away”. The word “rapto” came from a later Latin-language translation of the New Testament, and from that the word “rapture” became popular. Its omission from the original Greek text should not alarm us for there are some accepted doctrinal words such as “Trinity” which also were not part of the original text, though the concepts were, which makes them acceptable. For example, with the word “Trinity” used as a description of the Godhead, the Three-in-One God, it comes from passages such as Matthew 28:19 where Jesus instructs his followers to go into the world preaching about him, making disciples from all nations, and baptizing them in the singular “name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”. God is thus not a plurality of Gods, but a Triune God, three-in-one, the Trinity. The word “rapture” not being in the original Greek should thus not be a problem.
We will return to the rapture theme later in this sermon but before we do, let’s pick up from where we finished last Sunday as this is a “sermon series”, after all, which means each Sunday will find a sermon which is continued on the next Sunday. Now, Paul expected Jesus to return during his ministry and that expectation drove everything he did in his life. He wrote to the Thessalonian Christians that, because of them and their faith, “You are our hope, our joy, the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes.” (2:19) And he prayed for them, “May the Lord strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.” (3:13) Paul’s belief in Jesus’ imminent returned dominated his thinking.
I well remember two elderly sisters in the first church I pastored in who had grown up as missionary kids. They had been taught that because Jesus could return at any moment, they should never put themselves in any situation where they would be embarrassed if Jesus were to return. One time they snuck into a movie theatre – this was way back in the 1930’s-or-so when movies were comparatively innocent – but any thrill they had of being in that place of “sin” was ruined by their fear that Christ would return and find them there. Thus, they spent the entire movie looking up at the ceiling, fearing Christ would return and come through the ceiling and catch them in their sin of being in a movie theatre. They laughed about it later, but I told them that I appreciated the fact that they were living their lives in the light of Christ’s return. Do we live our lives in such a way? What would it mean to do so? Paul gives us the answer to those questions. We read,
As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. (1st Thessalonians 4:1-6a)
Paul’s directives, he says, did not originate with him but were given through him to the Thessalonians “by the authority of the Lord Jesus”. In other words, Paul’s words were God’s own words, and so they needed to be heeded, with pure or sanctified lives being the way they were to live in the light of Jesus’ expected return. Paul told them to “avoid” or “abstain from” sexual immorality. Their Thessalonian culture, as is true in our culture today, was obsessed with sex and dismissed any restraints on sexual activity. Remember, the Christians in that city had come out of pagan practices and temple prostitution, which was a constant, everyday, reality widely encouraged for all to participate in. But, God, through Paul, had instructed otherwise, for He wanted the Thessalonians – and it is still true for us today – to be sexually pure in our thoughts and actions. Particularly when none of us knows the day or hour of Christ’s return, nor the timing of end-times events such as the rapture. I so appreciated those two elderly sisters living their lives in the light of Jesus’ expected return. So, should we! Paul ends with a profound thought, “that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister”, because inappropriate sexual activity can be self-serving!
The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit. (1st Thessalonians 4:6b-8)
The format and tone of Paul’s two letters to the Thessalonians lead scholars to speculate that certain people had, after Paul had been forced to leave, stepped up and taken charge but, in doing so, they were talking trash about Paul and twisting his words by, for example, telling the Christians that nothing would happen to them – they would be no consequences; the Lord wouldn’t mind – if they returned the sexual activities they had once participated in. But, here, Paul reminds them of what he had said when he had been with them: “Nope. Not true! If God is just, sin must be dealt with.” By doing whatever they wanted, the people had rejected God. That wouldn’t end well for them. The believers were to live in love towards one another, not with lust.
Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1st Thessalonians 4:9-12)
So, with the mindset that Jesus might return at any moment, a Christian, according to Paul, is to live in love, minding their own business, working at a job, and not being dependent upon someone else to provide for them. Paul writes, “If you live in such a way, you may win the respect of outsiders”, i.e., living in that way could make you a fruitful witness for Jesus. Having explained how to live in the light of Christ’s return, Paul turns to that return, the rapture, eternity and heaven, and with the death and the resurrection of Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. (1st Thessalonians 4:13,14)
The Thessalonians had wrongly come to believe that no one in their church would die before Jesus raptured them to heaven, but some of them had, causing distress and confusion amongst the ones left behind. Paul explains that when Jesus died, it was not the end of things for him, for he was resurrected and then he ascended back into heaven, and that those in their church who had similarly died would also have been ascended and taken by Jesus into heaven.
According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. (1st Thessalonians 4:15)
Like the repentant thief on the cross who professed faith in Jesus and to whom Jesus then said, “Today, you will be with me in paradise”, those who had died before being raptured had gone to heaven.
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18)
Now, the language of “meeting” Jesus in the air is consistent with the ancient custom of citizens going out to welcome a king entering their city, welcoming the rightful ruler to the land. The difficulty with the “rapture” as a stand-alone event rather than being part of the Second Coming of Christ is this: the rest of the New Testament consistently describes Christ’s return as a single climactic event, not in a two-stage process of him coming to rapture the church and then later returning in his “Second Coming” to establish his reign on earth. I actually don’t believe this is a doctrine that is one determining a person’s salvation and thus I don’t really care how you view the rapture – as a stand-alone, separate event or as part of the Second Coming of Christ, but the clear teaching of Jesus himself involves a single, visible return. We are going to delve more into this next Sunday so please don’t think that what I have said today is my final word on this topic. We will see in chapter 5 of 1st Thessalonians; Paul teaches more about this topic. But, for our final passages today, let’s turn to Jesus’ own words.
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So, you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24:36-51)
What is Jesus’ message? His return will come suddenly and unexpectedly, “like a thief in the night”, a term that we will hear Paul saying in 1 Thessalonians 5:2. “Are you ready?” That is the question Bob Dylan asked in the 1970’s and that is our question for today.
“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ “Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. (Matthew 25:1-13)
“Are you ready for Jesus to return, either in the form of a rapture or in his Second Coming?” Again, it doesn’t matter to me which approach you take regarding the rapture because the more important question is, “Are you living your life, doing the things you do, in light of Jesus’ anticipated return?” To be honest, I understand the feelings of those who long for Christ’s rapturing of the church or His imminent Second Coming for this day and age is dark, and people fear for their children and grandchildren. But Jesus’ call to readiness demands more than a passive hoping and waiting. We’re called to a life of faithfulness that shows itself in purity, love, concern for others, going about your work, not being meddlesome or lazy, but being actively and passionately concerned to not be doing anything that would result in embarrassment if Jesus were to return.
Former American President John F. Kennedy often closed his speeches with the story of Colonel Davenport, the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives: On May 19th, 1780, the sky of Hartford darkened ominously, and some of the representatives, glancing out the windows, feared the end was at hand. Quelling a clamor for immediate adjournment, Davenport rose and said, “The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore, I wish that candles be brought.” Rather than fearing what is to come, we are to be faithful till Christ returns. Instead of fearing the dark, we are to be lights in this darkened world as we watch and wait. Are you ready? Be ready! Let’s pray…
