With things happening in Israel right now, there are a lot of Christians talking about the End Times. This happens to some degree every time there is a conflict in Israel, and I’d like to share some of my thoughts about this, to try and provide some guidance. Rather than my normal sermon format, I’m attaching some notes below that are a little bit rough still, along with an audio file with some of my thoughts.

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HOW SHOULD WE THINK ABOUT THE END TIMES?

I want to make something really clear: I trust the scripture absolutely. But with regard to the end times, I am not nearly so certain about my own understanding of it, my own interpretations of it. I think that kind of humility about our own interpretations is important when we talk about things like the end Times. So hear me say it clearly: I could be mistaken. Please consider the possibility that other viewpoints might also be mistaken.

It is good and natural to desire the return of Jesus. His return is the substance of our hope. When he returns, it means that the new creation will soon appear, and we will be freed from sin, sorrow and death. All Christians ought to desire it. If we don’t eagerly want Jesus to return, it might even be a symptom of a spiritual problem. Perhaps we don’t really believe in it.

However, it seems to me that some people misdirect their desire for the return of Jesus. They spend much of their energy trying to figure out when it might happen. It becomes an exciting puzzle that they are trying to solve. It’s understandable. When you want something badly, you want to know that it might happen soon. It’s hard to not want to figure out when you’ll get it.

However, Jesus did not tell us to eagerly desire to solve the puzzle of when he would return. In fact, he said almost the opposite. He said no one will know. Several times, and in several ways, he told us that we cannot solve this puzzle. He never encouraged us to try.

Instead, Jesus tells us to direct our desire for his return in two ways:

Let it feed our hope

Let the fact that we won’t know the day of his return lead us to live faithfully ready at all times. The parables of the ten bridesmaids and the talents are making exactly that point: Every day, live in such a way that you are ready for him to return.

44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 47 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know 51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24:44-51, ESV)

At the conclusion to the parable of the ten bridesmaids, which Jesus told as part of his teaching on the End Times, he said:

3 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Matthew 25:13, ESV)

Likewise the parable of the ten talents, and the sheep and goats are about being ready for Jesus’ return by living faithfully at all times

WHAT IS THE RAPTURE?

There are a few Bible verses that seem to say that when Jesus returns, those believers who are still alive will not have to die, but they will be brought into his presence and transformed. Sometimes this is described as being caught up into the air. This is often called the rapture.

Some Christians think that this “rapture,” this event of being taken up in the air to be with Jesus, will occur before Jesus actually returns. They think that suddenly all the Christians alive at that time will either vanish, or perhaps be visibly lifted up in the sky. They will go to be with Jesus, leaving behind those who do not trust Jesus. After that, they say, there will be seven years of great trouble and hardship on earth (sometimes called “the Great Tribulation”), and only then will Jesus actually return. In theology, we call this idea “the pre-tribulation rapture,” or the “pre-trib rapture,” for short (we theologians are a cool bunch, with our slang and all).

This idea – the pre-trib rapture (which most people just call “the rapture”) – is the main thing that most people have heard about the end times. Most people think it is gospel truth. You might be one of them. Probably, everyone you know thinks this way. Pastors and other people you trust have told you this is what the Bible teaches. Maybe you’ve seen the Left Behind movies, or read the books. It might feel like you know this is true. I have met people who were deeply blessed by the Left Behind materials, and I’m grateful that God used them in that way. I don’t agree with everything in them, but I recognize that they are the work of dear fellow-Christians.

So, I understand that the “pre-trib rapture” is a dearly held belief. I realize that it will upset a lot of people to hear anything different. Before I go any further, let me ask you this: Do you really want to know what the Bible teaches?

Now, I don’t mind if you disagree with me, especially if you have really good reasons from the Bible to do so. I certainly could be wrong. In fact, I will be overjoyed if it turns out I am wrong. So, I’m happy to continue in fellowship with anyone who disagrees with me on this. I don’t think this issue is a good reason for Christians to separate from one another.

If I don’t think this issue is big enough to make us separate from other Christians why am I teaching on it at all?

In the first place, consider this: If you believe Jesus will take you away before things get really bad, and then things do get really bad, and you’re still here, what will you think? You might think you were never a real Christian at all, and experience terrible doubts about your salvation. Perhaps you might even believe you are destined for hell. Or you might think none of it was true in the first place, and lose your faith altogether.

On the other hand, if you believe, like me, that some Christians will have to go through the great tribulation, and then you get raptured away instead, where is the down side? As I said, I would be overjoyed to find myself raptured before the great tribulation.

In other words, I think it is far better to be prepared to suffer for the sake of Christ. As it happens, there are many, many verses in the Bible that tell us we should be prepared to suffer as followers of Jesus, whether or not we experience the Great Tribulation of the end times. So, on the whole, if we are going to be wrong about the rapture, I think it’s better to be wrong by believing as I do, and be ready, than wrong the other way, and be unprepared for terrible suffering. One of the main points of Jesus’ teaching on the end times is that we should be ready, living faithfully at all times, because we won’t expect it when he shows up.

Secondly, I am teaching on this because I want to share what I believe the Bible actually says about the issue. It’s OK to disagree, and it’s also OK to have a firm opinion, while we deal with our disagreements in love and grace.

All right, let’s dive in.

In the first place, this teaching about a pre-tribulation rapture – a rapture that occurs some time before Jesus returns – was not common at all until the mid 1800s. In other words, for about seventeen-hundred years, hardly any Christians thought that the bible taught this. This is actually quite important. To say that the pre-trib rapture is correct, you must assume that most of Christians throughout most of history just absolutely missed it. You need to believe that only after 1700 years did some people get smart enough to see what the bible really teaches about the end times. It also means that the Holy Spirit allowed virtually all of God’s people to be in error for all of that time. That’s quite an idea. It could make you question whether we can trust anything we think we know about the Bible, because maybe Christians have got everything wrong all this time.

Even the word rapture doesn’t exactly come from the Bible. It is an English translation of a Latin translation of a Greek word from the New Testament. In other words, “rapture” is a translation of a translation. It is not the best translation directly from the Greek. I’ll keep using this word, however, since everyone knows what I’m talking about when I say it.

Most pre-tribulation rapture people have detailed ideas about the end times, and they are pretty confident that they know how it goes. They take parts of Daniel, and of Zechariah, little pieces of the gospels, one two pieces of the letters of Peter and Paul, and put it all together with the book of Revelation. They do not take these verses in context. They don’t consider the books as a whole. Instead they take verses out of the context in which they were written, and add them to other verses taken out of context, and then come up with their detailed plan for how the end times are supposed to go. They also often ignore the type of genre in which those verses are written, and take many things literally when some of them were probably intended to be metaphors.

That is the part that I believe is a bad way to study the Bible. If we used the Bible like this for other subjects, we could make it say all sorts of crazy things. In fact, when people start cults based on Christianity, this is how they treat the Bible, and those cults often start with strange new teachings about the end times.

Let’s look at two important “rapture” verses:

51 But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed! 52 It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed. 53 For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies. (1 Corinthians 15:51-53)

It says here that first, those who have died will be raised to life, and then the living will be transformed. In other words, the rapture happens after the resurrection.

You might argue that the verse above is not about the rapture, because it only talks about the transformation of our bodies, but not about being caught up in the air. So then, read this:

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)

When it says “those who are asleep” it means “those who have died.” Just as these days we use “passed away” as a euphemism for dead, so in those days, the expression was “fallen asleep.”

So this is all quite clear. First, the Lord will descend with great fanfare from heaven. Then the dead will rise. Then, those who trust Jesus and are still alive will be “raptured,” along with those who have just been resurrected. Again, the resurrection of the dead will occur before the rapture. It happens at the moment that Jesus himself is descending from heaven with a loud cry and trumpet blast. In other words, it happens while the whole world witnesses the return of Jesus.

Jesus also makes it clear in Matthew, that the rapture happens at the moment of his return:

29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31)

It’s actually quite straightforward: The elect (those who trust in Jesus) will not be gathered up (raptured) until:

a) After a time of tribulation (verse 29) and

b) The sun and moon are darkened

c) The dead are resurrected

d) Jesus appears in the clouds, visible to all people in all his power and glory.

In other words, as we have already seen, the rapture happens at the same moment that Jesus returns to earth in power and glory.

A DETAILED LOOK AT ONE BIBLE TEXT (MATTHEW 24:3-44)

(Mark and Luke have very similar passages)

Here is the most clear and complete teaching about the end times given by Jesus while he was still on earth:

³ As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” ⁴ And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. ⁵ For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. ⁶ And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. ⁷ For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

So, in the first place, we need to guard against being deceived. Many people will claim the end is about to come, but we should not be alarmed, or led astray. Wars, natural disasters and so on are only the beginning of the birth pains. They are not the end. If someone says “This war in Israel means the end is near,” they are not paying attention to what Jesus actually says. He says wars will happen, but they do not mean the end has come.

Some people may not be aware of it, but Israel has been involved in many wars and military actions since it became a modern nation in 1947. The website Jewishvirtuallibrary.org documents twenty-two major military actions during that time. I’m not judging Israel for it – I believe they’ve been attacked every single time, and they’ve defended themselves, as they certainly have a right to do. However, every time there is a conflict in Israel, many Christians claim that the return of Jesus is imminent. The people claiming that have been wrong every time – twenty-two times – so far. Why do we still pay attention to them?

Let’s continue with the words of Jesus:
⁹ “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. ¹⁰ And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. ¹¹ And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. ¹² And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. ¹³ But the one who endures to the end will be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Jesus says that we will experience tribulation before the end comes. Many awful things will happen while disciples of Jesus are still alive in the world. It does not say that we will be “raptured out” before bad troubles begin. It does not say we will be raptured out before the wars and natural disasters. Instead, it calls us to endure until the end. It also says the gospel must be proclaimed to all ethnic peoples (that’s the Greek meaning for “nations”) before the end will come. We can’t do that if we are raptured away. There is no need to “endure until the end” if we will be raptured away.

¹⁵ “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷ Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, ¹⁸ and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. ¹⁹ And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! ²⁰ Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. ²¹ For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. ²² And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

Most Biblical prophecies contain layers. For instance Isaiah prophesied about the return of the Jewish exiles to Jerusalem after they were in Babylon. This happened in about 517 BC. Mixed and jumbled with those same prophecies are things about the first time Jesus came into the world, and also (we think) about the end of the world, when he will return.

Joel 2:28-32 is a prophecy that was fulfilled by the coming of the Holy Spirit on all who trust Jesus (Acts 2:14-21). However, also jumbled in with Joel 2 are prophecies about the return of the Jewish people from exile in Babylon that was fulfilled in about 517 BC, and, as far as we can tell, prophecies about the very end of the world.

So, in Matthew 24:15-22, Jesus is probably talking about several things. First, it is almost certainly a prophecy about the Jewish-Roman war of 70 AD (roughly forty years after Jesus). The temple was desecrated at that time, and it was probably the most horrible slaughter in world history until the first world war. In fact, Jesus’ prophecies here are so right on about that war that it makes unbelieving scholars think the gospels could not have been written  until after 70 AD., because they don’t believe Jesus could have predicted the future so accurately.

Part of this prophecy may also be about the end of the world and the return of Jesus.

Jesus says the days of tribulation will be cut short “for the sake of the elect.” The “elect” are those who belong to Jesus through faith. He does not say the elect will be “raptured out” before those days. Instead he says the suffering won’t last as long for everyone, for the sake of the elect.

Some people might say that “the elect” means the Jewish people, whom, they say, will remain behind after the rapture. However, in the New Testament, the Greek word “elect” is never used to refer specifically to the Jews or people of Israel. It is always used of all those who trust in Jesus, whether Jews or Gentiles.

²³ Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. ²⁴ For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵ See, I have told you beforehand. ²⁶ So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. ²⁷ For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ²⁸ Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

Here we see again a warning against being deceived about all this. He says that false prophets and false miracles will be used to try and deceive the elect. That means the elect (in other words, believers) will still be in this world.

He also says that when Jesus returns, no one will miss it. It will be obvious.

²⁹ “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ³⁰ Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹ And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

All of this happens after “the tribulation of those days.” Once again, we see that the return of Jesus will be completely obvious. Everyone will see it and know it. As Jesus is returning in power and glory – after the tribulation, after the sun goes dark – he will send his angels to gather the elect – those who belong to God through faith. This is the “rapture,” and it doesn’t happen until the very end, until everyone on earth sees Jesus returning.

³² “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. ³³ So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. ³⁴ Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. ³⁵ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
³⁶ “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

The lesson of the fig tree is that we can recognize the signs that his return might be likely. The generation that Jesus spoke to didn’t pass away before the fulfillment of his prophecies about the Jewish-Roman war.

Again, however, NO ONE KNOWS WHEN JESUS WILL RETURN, NOT EVEN JESUS KNEW WHILE HE WAS ON EARTH.

 ³⁷ For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸ For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰ Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. ⁴¹ Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. ⁴² Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. ⁴³ But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴ Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Verses 40-41 are often used as “proof” of the pre-trib rapture. However, such a thing is not at all clear from these verses alone. It might be referring to the rapture at the moment Jesus returns, but it is certainly not proof that for those who aren’t raptured, life will continue on normally for a while.

Jesus says it will be like the days of Noah, which is to say, life was going on as normal, and then suddenly the flood came and destroyed the world. So, life will be going on as normal, and then suddenly Jesus will return. The main point here is obviously that the end will come as a surprise.

Jesus compares it to Noah’s flood. Think about the days of the flood. It wasn’t that the flood came, and some were saved from it, while others continued on with their daily lives for seven more years. No, the flood came suddenly, and then it was too late to get on the ark. Those who trusted God’s word through Noah were saved. Those who didn’t were lost in a moment.

So, if “one was taken…etc.” does refer to the rapture, there is no reason it should not mean that one is taken up to be with Jesus as he returns for the final judgement, while the other is left to face that judgment alone, since he doesn’t belong to Jesus. There is nothing here that suggests that some people are taken up to heaven seven years before Jesus returns.

Once again, however, the main point for us is not about when the rapture, and the return of Jesus will happen. The main thing is for us to be living faithfully, ready, if necessary, to suffer for the sake of Jesus, and ready at all times for him to return. Let’s dedicate our energy and effort to that, more than to trying figure out something that we already know ahead of time we will be unable to discover.

Once again, I hold my own interpretations fairly loosely. I could be wrong about some of this, and I will be delighted if I am wrong about when the rapture happens. But I do think it’s important to consider the perspective I offer here, because it often does not get much of a hearing in Christian circles.