Messiah: Signs of His COMING, Not RAPTURE. Matthew 24:3

Where in Matthew chapter 24:3 ^NASB "As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, 'Tell us, when will these things happen, and what {will be} the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?' ”

So what were going to get to this morning, I hope and pray is, is this talking about signs of His coming, or signs of the rapture? Are these things the same, or are they different? And that's crucial for understanding what Jesus says in this chapter. There's a lot of debate, even among dispensational futurists about how to interpret aspects of this passage. That's why I'm taking my time to slowly, carefully lay out the parameters of why I believe what I believe about this particular passage.

We need to understand the difference between the coming of Jesus and the Rapture. We will get into some new material there. We address the question what's the significance of the temple because the context here is Jesus announcement that the temple was going to be destroyed. Matthew 23:38, "See your house [that's the word for temple] is left to you desolate. This is announcing the destruction of the Temple. Then in 24:2 He said, "Do you not see all these things? ..." —pointing to the buildings of the temple, not the retaining wall that was built around the foundation. "… not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down," indicating a complete and total destruction.

Those temple buildings that they're looking at would be destroyed. That is covered in Luke chapter 21, and the near fulfillment deals with that specific part that relates only to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70. It's the fulfillment of that as a near prophecy that validates what He is saying about something distant in Deuteronomy chapters 13 and chapter 18, the criteria for evaluating a prophet were laid down. One of those criteria is that hundred percent of what they say is to come true. If only 99.5 per cent came true then they were to be executed because that was not the voice of God, they were not speaking from God. A hundred percent had to come true. Secondly, their prophecies that were beyond their lifetime would be validated by what they said that could be demonstrated to be true within their lifetime, often within a very close period of time. That's the significance of these temple prophecies and it also indicates something else, and that is the divine judgment that God is bringing on the nation.

There was a second question addressed and this was in fulfillment of prophecies that God gave as promises of judgment as well in the Mosaic law: that if Israel obeyed, they would be blessed; but if they disobeyed then God would bring judgment upon them. There were five series or cycles of judgment or discipline that God outlined in the second part of Leviticus chapter 26, ending with the most intense form, which is that God would destroy their temples, destroy their cities, destroy their presence in the land and remove them from the land. This is announced in Leviticus 26:30 through 33, "I will destroy your high places cut down your incense altars and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. I will lay your cities waste bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas." This is directed toward Israel as God's covenant partner. It doesn't apply to the United States or France or Germany or to China or Japan or anybody else, because no other nation, no other people in the history of mankind has a contractual relationship with God, to be His people. This is only an announcement that God would remove them from the land.

If God were to remove us from America, that's no punishment because we just got here late and it's not historically our land. We have no right to it other than conquest. Israel has a right to that piece of real estate. They are the only people in the world who have a title deed to their piece of land based on a contract from God; nobody else does. So being removed from their land has significance because that is a special piece of real estate that God gave them as a sign of his blessing.

Verse 32 goes on to say, "I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you. Your land shall be desolate in your cities laid waste". This happened twice in history first time in 586 BC when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, invaded into the southern kingdom and conquered it, and destroyed the temple, the first temple, and destroyed Jerusalem. Then it happened a second time in AD 70. That was the near fulfillment that's described in Luke chapter 21:20ff. But in the context of Deuteronomy God promises that there will be a prophet that He will raise up, a prophet like Moses, and if the people accepted that prophet God would bless them. But they rejected that prophet and they would be held accountable for it. And Jesus is the fulfillment of that profit prophecy; He is the prophet. He is a prophet like Moses; He is greater than Moses. And when the people rejected him that would bring divine discipline; it would bring the judgment of AD 70.

The third question is, how many questions are the disciples asking? This is fundamental to just being able to understand the passage and what is going on here and in Matthew 24:3 Jesus is on the Mount of Olives looking across the Kidron Valley at the Temple Mount and He is asked this particular set of questions.

You read in different places, two, three or four questions. And while some dispensational futurists, like a well-known professor from Grace Seminary at one time out of Alva J. McLain, in his great book The Greatness of the Kingdom, a tremendous in-depth study, sees a total of four questions. Some see 3 questions, such as Dr. John Walvoord, who was the president of Dallas theological seminary from the death of Lewis Sperry Chafer until his retirement in the in the late 80s. Many believe that Walvoord was the greatest of prophecy scholar (whether they agreed with him or not) in the 20th century, and his views and his teaching on prophecy was profound and impacted the thinking of many of the people that you know, that you have heard teach, many of the pastors that you've heard and well-known individuals, some of whose names are mentioned as we as we go along. Walvoord thought there were three questions.

Most people agree that there are two, but they agree that there are two for different reasons. You will hear some say that there are two because of a rule in the Greek: that when you have a reconstruction where you have a one definite article you have an article in the Greek and then it's followed by two people or two things, then these should be viewed as being identical or the same thing. So they would view sign of your coming and the end of the age as being the same thing. Actually the way most people apply it are wrong in their application of the Granville Sharp rule, although in this kind of construction it is assumed by—and I refer to Dan Wallace who was a classmate of mine at Dallas seminary and is well-known professor of Greek at Dallas. He did his PhD dissertation on the Granville Sharp rule and he is the "go to" living expert on the Granville Sharp rule, and even he says, even though this doesn't fit Granville's observations, that it should be related to a person, that in a number of instances in which it still shows not identity between two things, but an extremely tight close relationship between two things. So that the sign of His coming isn't equal to the end of the age. Those are not interchangeable terms, that they are so closely connected that one is inseparable from the other. Jesus coming is what brings the end of the age.

So that would indicate that there is one question: When will these things be? And that would be what He announced about the destruction of the temple. That answer is what is recorded in the Gospel of Luke. And then the second question has to closely connected parts to it, and that is, What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?

First of all we need to observe that He is talking about the sign it's a singular it's not a plural. This is not the "signs of the times". It always irritates me. It's like somebody's fingernails on a chalkboard. When I hear them put esses on the end of certain things in Scripture, like the book of Revelation. The first verse of Revelation says, "The revelation (singular) of Jesus Christ. It is not the revelations of Jesus Christ. But you often hear people say that, and that's incorrect. We often also hear people say, what are the signs of the times? They make it a plural, and it's not. The sign here that they're asking about is "the sign of your coming and the end of the age".

Another thing we need to pay attention to is the meaning of "your coming", that is, the coming of Christ. It's a Greek word, PAROUSIA, which just means the presence. It is the presence of Christ; it is not just His arrival. We think often of the second coming, but it's His presence on the earth, so that term there really indicates something distinctive, and we have to take this back and understand it a little bit in relation to what Matthew is teaching.

What is the theme what's the main idea? What is Matthew talking about in the Gospel? He is talking about the announcement, the presence and the coming of the kingdom. Everything he says in the Gospel has to be interpreted in light of the fact that he is talking about the kingdom. He's not talking about your spiritual life is not talking about the church. The church isn't even in view here. He uses the word church twice only once, I think is technical for the church, the word EKKLESIA, another time, but I think there it just a general meaning of assembly: that when somebody offends you, you're supposed to go to them one-on-one and talk to them about it, reconcile. If that doesn't work, you go with the witnesses, if that doesn't work then eventually you would go and take it—not to the church, which wasn't even in existence then—he's talking to the disciples about how you handle this in a particular situation. And it really involves somebody who's opposing them in the gospel, but that's another issue.

But when he talks to Peter and he said, "On this rock I will build my church". That's the future tense. That is a technical use. But He says nothing about what it is. He never ever gives anything about the church.

Matthew therefore is talking about what Israel should expect in terms of God's prophetic promises to Israel and the coming of the messianic promise. That is critical--the coming of the messianic kingdom. They viewed that they were living in the present age and that that would end when the Messiah came, and then the messianic kingdom would come.

When we look at look at this and we have the issue of "the sign of your coming". That is going to be clarified in the context. I'm finding more and more as I study the Bible that most errors develop out of a failure to be consistent in understanding the context. The word sign is used another time in Matthew chapter 24. You would think that if it's used at the beginning and then it's used again a little later on, the people would think that they connect. They do connect. That question is, what's the sign of your coming? And in Matthew 24:30, 26 verses later, Jesus says, "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven". Don't you think that maybe the sign of the Son of Man in heaven is the answer to the question? Everything else is just setting the stage.

We live in a world today, when people want an immediate answer. They usually don't like my style of teaching because I don't give immediate answers. If you want to answer the question here you have to go back and start with some of the preceding information so you can properly understand both your question and the answer. So verse 30 says, "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, 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". It fits my thesis that the coming of the Son of Man is His presence on the earth, and the sign that immediately precedes it is His coming in the clouds of heaven to the earth. This preconceived notion that the disciples have at this time is very clear. They are thinking in terms of the kingdom. It's all about the kingdom.

What's the last question they asked Jesus before He ascends in Acts 1:6. "Is it now that you are going to establish your kingdom for Israel?" Everything here has to be understood. They haven't been told anything about the church. Remember, this is on probably Tuesday or Wednesday, and it's the last thing that Jesus says to Israel. He's not going to talk to them about church age doctrine until they are in the upper room discourse, the night before goes to the cross. So this is all about Israel.

So Luke in 21:20-24 answers the first question, so it was recorded for us. Matthew doesn't answer it, and one objection that has been raised is, why doesn't Matthew answer it? Why does he record Jesus if it's as if He just ignores it? Well, he doesn't just ignore it. Luke gives us gives us the answer, but the reason Matthew doesn't record that is that it doesn't fit Matthew's purpose for his Gospel. Matthew is writing about the kingdom, he's not writing about that judgment in AD 70, he's writing about what is going to happen before the kingdom comes, so you know that the kingdom's presence is at the door. That's important. These writers of Scripture write very economically and they write in terms of their purpose, they don't write to tell us everything there is to know about the subject. We often think the Bible ought to tell us all that we want to know, and it's going to tell us what we need to know.

So what we've seen here is that Jesus is talking to them as Jews. They are believers, and He is talking to them about Jewish prophecy and its fulfillment in relationship to the kingdom . The Olivet Discourse is the last thing Jesus said to the Jews about Israel, and nothing in the Olivet Discourse is about church age believers or has direct application to church age believers. That's fundamental to properly understand this because, as we will see, a lot of people want to see something in here related to the church age. And while that may not necessarily be so bad in and of itself, it has a lot of implications for other teaching that really gets off-center okay.

The fourth question is just what you need to know in order to have a little understanding of some vocabulary that I'm going to use on occasion as we go through some of this. The question is, is this going to be fulfilled sometime in the future? Is it all going to be fulfilled at some time in the future? Was it fulfilled in the past? At some time in the past was all of it fulfilled in the past, or is it in process of being fulfilled in the present?

Now that's really important because if you are of an amillennial persuasion, which means you don't believe in a literal future thousand year rule of reign of Christ on the earth, then you probably think that most of this was fulfilled in the past. If you are a post-millennialist and you believe that Jesus is going to come back at the end of the millennium, that the church is to the Holy Spirit is going to eventually make this world better and better and better until the kingdom is brought about, and then Jesus comes at the end of the millennial kingdom, then you to believe that most of this was fulfilled in the past. A lot of scholars through most of church history think that it is being fulfilled in the presence of any given time. You will find people say, "Look at this world event; this fulfills this particular prophecy", and so they're trying to fit current events into the prophetic timetable. That's called historicism, the idea that that this is fulfilled throughout history.

And part of the problems the results of historicism was that, for example in the early 1800s, there were a lot of sects that came along based on the idea that they could predict the day that Jesus would come, and so they would go sit on a mountaintop somewhere with all of their followers and put on white robes, and would wait for Jesus to come. They would sell all their possessions, Jesus is coming back and then He wouldn't come back. And it created such problems in a lot of American evangelicalism in the late 19th century that when dispensational theology came along said, no you can't date set Jesus' coming back; it's imminent, nobody knows when it's going happen, it's immanent, that people welcomed that because they were tired of all these people talking about Jesus coming back tomorrow, so you better get ready.

Those are the three views; they had technical terms. Just remember, past, present, future. The past: those who believe that all of this prophecy, all of Matthew 24, and most of Revelation 4 through 19 has already been fulfilled. Jesus has already returned. Did you know that He came in the clouds in AD 70. The clouds of the clouds of judgment in their view, and when God brought judgment on the temple, God came in judgment. So the second coming has already happened. Some of these people, the strict preterists, believe that we are in the kingdom.

Historicism is the idea that that most prophecy, including all of Matthew 24 and Revelation 4 through 19, is being fulfilled. Thus, I can look out there and I can see wars or earthquakes or famines. I can see Jesus coming is getting closer, it's a sign it. I can pinpoint it and it's getting closer and it's getting closer and we can pinpoint the date.

We don't believe that, we believe in the third view that's called futurism. Futurism is that most prophecy, including all of Matthew 24 and Revelation 4 through 19, will be fulfilled in the future, and that's called futurism and we hold to dispensational futurism. The problem is that in the development of the understanding of dispensationalism, early dispensationalists, even up to the late 20th century, were coming out of a theological context of historicism.

Now picture somebody crawling out of a mud pit and they've got on a complete set of waders. And as they come out of that mud pit what is attached to their waders? Mud. Theologically that illustrates if you're coming out of a context where everything you're reading and everything that is still in print, and all the commentaries you are exposed to are historicists, and even though your futurist because you're coming out of that mud pit of historicism, you still have bits and pieces of that mud attached to your thinking. And that's true for a number of futurists. There they see elements of today in Matthew chapter 24. I believe that is inconsistent, and that is not true consistent futurism.

Jesus died in A.D. 33, judgment came in AD 70 when the temple was destroyed. We are in the church age that ends at an unknown time in the future with the rapture of the church. That will be followed by a seven-year period known as Daniel's 70th week, known as the Tribulation. It is divided into two periods of time, 3 1/2 years each. That ends with the second coming of Christ when he inaugurates his millennial kingdom. That's the timeline.

In historicism, all through this time prophecy is being fulfilled; it is just ongoing. There are always times when you can look out there on some historical event. You can see Napoleon's invasion of the Middle East, you can look at World War I or World War II, and you can say that's a sign.

You often hear people like Hal Lindsey, John Haig and many others who say there has been an increase of earthquakes in the 20th century. That means Jesus is coming back! This is very popular. It is an urban myth, but it's a very popular urban myth. In fact, even when the data is given to these people who espouse it, they say, well that can't be true because even that those who did that data are uniformitarians and they're influence by evolution, so you can't accept their data. The authority on this is a guy named Steve Austin and he's no evolutionist or uniformitarian, and he has written extensively on this topic.

All right, futurism. There is a period when there's no prophecy being fulfilled whatsoever, and it goes from the time of Jesus, outside of the judgment, but the time of Jesus all the way to the Rapture. After the rapture you start getting the fulfillment of Matthew 24 and of Revelation 4 through 19.

Preterism sees all the fulfillment of Matthew 24 and Revelation four through 19 happening between the cross and AD 70. Then there is no prophecy being fulfilled, just a wee little bit around Revelation 20 that is being fulfilled in the future. And then of course because they're amill post-mill is no literal thousand-year rule or kingdom, something like that.

Just to give you terminology, historicism and futurism are the main things you need to understand. What did the disciples know? I mean from their understanding of the Old Testament what should they have been expected to know? The first thing they would have been expected to know is that they were living in the times of the Gentiles. Daniel chapter two and also in Daniel chapter 7 describes a sequence of kingdoms that would come that would dominate Jerusalem and dominate Israel. Now because the church was a mystery—that is something unrevealed in the Old Testament—it skips over it, its silent about the church. We see a gap but it wouldn't have been clear to them at all. We have the first kingdom was Babylon, as represented by the gold head in the statue, followed by the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, represented by the silver chest, and the two arms representing the two kingdoms came together the Medes and the Persians. That is followed by the waist area of brass, which represents the kingdom of Greece; then the iron legs, which represented represents the kingdom of Rome. Different people use different dates for the fall of Rome. I'm using the fall of Constantinople in 1453 as the last dying gasp of the Roman Empire. And then it's revived as iron and clay in the feet, and the ten toes represent 10 nations or entities that will come together in this end time Empire.

That's one element. They would understand their living in the times of the Gentiles until the Messiah comes. In Daniel chapter 9 we have a detailed prophecy called Daniel's 70 weeks, covering a period of actually 490 years. But it ends at the 483rd year, and then there's clearly a gap. At the end of the 483rd year, the Messiah is cut off, and then the Prince of the people was to come destroys the temple. That was fulfilled in AD 70, and sometime after that, an indefinite time, we have the 70th week, or a seven-year period, and this represents the Tribulation. It is for Israel because the beginning of the prophecy in Daniel 9:24 God says to Daniel, "These 490 years are for you and your people and your city." Daniel is Jewish so it's about him and the Jewish people, and it's about Jerusalem; it's all about Israel. It's not about the church so something has to happen to remove the church from the earth before God shifts his focus back to Israel. I think that's one of the strong arguments for a pre-tribulation Rapture, the church will not be here.

Messiah returns at the end of that seven-year period which is split into two, 3 1/2 year periods and what happens in the middle is the desecration of the temple. The prince who is to come will put up an idol to be worship. He ends the daily sacrifices and he's going to be worshiped as God. This is called the abomination of desolation. Jesus refers to this in Matthew 24:15, "Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel". Jesus is clearly in verse 15 talking about the abomination of desolation, and that's in the midpoint.

One of the issues is, to what do verses four through 14 refer to? Do they refer to any part of the present church age? There are number of dispensational futurists who have believed that. Or is that totally in the future as well, and is that part of the first half, and the second half beginning in verse 15. There are those who take that view. I think there are weaknesses there. Generally I believe that all of this from four through 28 is talking about the Tribulation period but we have to understand its breakdown.

I believe that the first 3 1/2 years of Daniel's 70th week are referred to in verse eight as the beginning of sorrows, that what happens from verse four to verse eight is not trends in the present church age, but that it refers to future events in the first half of the Tribulation. That's the beginning of the labor pains. The labor pains do not last throughout the whole church age. That would be like saying labor pains last throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy. It doesn't fit the analogy, the labor pains just come at the end.

The second 3 1/2 years of Daniel's 70th week are then described in vv 9-14 in a summary fashion, and then verses 15 and following give more specifics. What is important is to look at the word "then". It always indicates in this chapter what happens next. "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you". In the first half of the Tribulation (The first 3 1/2 years) Israel is under a peace treaty with the Antichrist and he has guaranteed that they will have peace. That's not a guarantee of worldwide peace. I think Dr. Walvoord, Dr. chafer, Pastor Thieme, Hal Lindsay, yada yada yada, all made that mistake. They assume that the peace treaty meant the first half of the tribulation was a period of cold war and world peace. It doesn't fit; that dog doesn't hunt, and so they interpreted the first 14 verses as being trends of the church age.

If you've been reading and studying Matthew at all you have to understand that nothing here is about the church. It's about Israel; it's all about Israel. Matthew chapter 24:4-8 talk about the beginning of sorrows. Those are the increased signs. We have been having famines and wars and pestilences, and diseases since the fall of Adam. How are the wars and the earthquakes and the famines and pestilences and everything today any different from what was going on Jesus time, or in 500 BC or in a thousand BC? They're not. How can they be signs? A sign is something that is significantly distinct. What this is talking about when we look at Revelation is worldwide cataclysmic events, an earthquake that's 7.2 on the Richter scale, but an earthquake that is 15 on the Richter scale and rocks everything in the world. That's a sign; that's what's going on here.

Then what you have in verses nine and following is that Jesus is talking to the disciples as Jews. "Therefore, you will be you will be given over to tribulation and they will kill you and be hated by all nations for my namesake." That can't be in the first half of the Tribulation because Jews are under the protection of this covenant. This is what happens in the second half. "Then they will deliver you to tribulation". This is what Daniel 12:1 talks about: "At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people, and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation". It is a one-of-a-kind situation. World War II is going to look like backyard fight between a couple bullies. This is going to be a true worldwide conflagration, "such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time and at that time your people shall be delivered". That's the end of that period; Israel is delivered.

It is spoken of in Zechariah chapter 14. "Behold the day of the Lord is coming"—this whole period is called the day of the Lord. It's a time of judgment, the seven-year period—"Your spoil will be divided in your midst, for I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem, the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the cities are going to captivity, but the remnant of the people, shall not be cut off from the city". That's going to happen in the Tribulation period. Does it end with the total destruction of Jerusalem though? That's what happened in 586 and in AD 70.

Then, in Zechariah 14:3, "Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle, [4] in that day his feet will stand on the Mount of olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west making a very large valley, half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half to the south."

There's a fault that runs to the Mount of Olives. And this is what Jesus is talking to his disciples about. And what are they thinking of? They are thinking about the end times, and He is telling them. They were sitting right here on the Mount of Olives thinking about Zechariah 14. This is where this is going to split right here where they are. So there on the spot thinking specifically about the Scripture and that this will be when the mountain splits than then they'll flee.

Zechariah 14 says that this is a time when God will rescue his people. And then in that day waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half toward the eastern sea, the Mediterranean, and half towards the western sea. So the Med and the Dead will get fresh water from the Mount of Olives. So the answer to the fifth question.

Now the sixth question is when they ask for sign or signs, is that important? I think it is. This a very brief question and answer. "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven". Jesus is answering them. The sign is not the earthquakes; it's not the war's, not the famines. Don't get sucked into reading the Midnight Globe in the National Enquirer. They give you all these reports that Jesus is coming back because of the some big earthquake that happened. And don't listen to Hal Lindsay, or Dave Hunt used to do this, and others. That was historicism that leaked into their system. If these are signs that are happening in the church age, then that's what would be said. But it doesn't say anything in the text about the frequency of earthquakes and that they're going to get more and more frequent and more and more difficult. It just said that you're going to see earthquakes, and all these things are described in Revelation. So the sign is His appearance in the heavens. That's what that context tells us, not all of these ancillary events that are happening during the Tribulation. The sign is his appearance in the heavens.

And then to come to the last question, the seventh question. And that is the important question of distinguishing between His coming, his PAROUSIA, His presence on the earth and the Rapture—between the presence and the Rapture. What are the disciples really concerned about here? It is what they asked in Acts 1:6: "Is it now that you can establish your kingdom for Israel". There still thinking in terms of that kingdom; they're not thinking about church age doctrine. They haven't heard, John 13 John 12 through 17 yet, they don't know anything about Romans or first Thessalonians, or second Thessalonians, and Revelation. All they know is what is in the Old Testament.

So I have 17 points of distinction between the Rapture and the Second Coming. I am concerned that you recognize and are overwhelmed by the data; these are not the same thing.

First of all, the Rapture is not predicted in the Old Testament. It is called the mystery in the 1 Corinthians 15:51, which means something that has not yet been revealed. It is never mentioned. Why? The church is a mystery in the Old Testament. But that coming is predicted often in the Old Testament, and it is also mentioned in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. So rapture is a mystery; Second Coming is not.

Second, no prophecies or signs must be fulfilled before the Rapture. It is a called the sign-less event. 1 Corinthians 15:50-53 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16. The second coming, on the other hand, follows many definite signs, including the seven-year Tribulation, and many of these events are described in Matthew 24:4 -31.

Third, the Rapture is imminent, which means at any moment. That means nothing has to happen before it happens. It could happen in the next five minutes. It could happen in the next five days, in the next five years. We have to constantly be ready. The second coming, on the other hand, is not imminent. It takes place at the end of the Tribulation, Matthew 24:29-31.

Fourth, the Rapture is heralded by a shout, the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God, according to 1 Thessalonians 4:16. Then the dead in Christ rise first, we who are live and remain are caught up together with them in the clouds. At the Second Coming multitudes of saints and angels, the hosts of God, the armies of God—church age believers and angels—return with Christ, Matthew 25:31; Revelation 19:14. The Rapture occurs before the day of wrath and the Second Coming, concludes the day of wrath. That's an important distinction.

At the Rapture, Christ comes in the air. He doesn't come to the earth; his feet do not touch down on the Mount of Olives. In the second coming He comes to the earth. He leads the armies of Israel against the Antichrist, and He marches up on the Mount of Olives and thus fulfilling what's in Zechariah 14.

In the Rapture Jesus Christ comes for His own, the church. He comes for his bride. But we return with Him at the Second Coming. He comes with his own Therefore, the Rapture is for believers only, doesn't affect anybody else. Believers are caught up to be with Him in the clouds. But the Second Coming affects everybody because He ends the war; He shuts down human history. There are judgments, and He establishes His kingdom.

Ninth: At the Rapture we have the translation of all believers. They instantly receive their resurrection bodies as they are resurrected or raptured to be caught up with Him in the clouds. But at the Second Coming there is no translation. Those who are believers who survived the tribulation don't get new mortal bodies at that time; they will continue in their mortal bodies. This is what is developed in the next point.

Translate saints then go back to heaven. Jesus said, "Where I go I will prepare a place for you and where I go, that you may be with me also". That's in heaven, not on the earth. So we are taken to heaven, John 14:2, 3. In the Second Coming translated saints return to the earth, Matthew 25:34. We've already received our resurrection bodies. We come back with him to the earth. At the rapture Christians receive a glorified body, 1 Corinthians 15:50-53, but at the Second Coming believing survivors of the Tribulation remain in their mortal bodies to enter into the earthly kingdom, the messianic kingdom, Isaiah 65:20 and Matthew 25:31-34.

At the Rapture there will be no divine judgments on the earth. It is not specifically associated with judgments. Those come in the Tribulation. But at the Second Coming it concludes the judgments that have been carried out in Revelation 6 to 19 in order to be able to establish a righteous kingdom. So no divine judgments associate with the rapture, but they are concluded by the second coming.

Church age believers will then be evaluated at the judgment seat of Christ following the rapture, but at the what follows the second coming is that the nations, the Gentiles, are judged according to Joel 3:2ff and Matthew 25:32. So those are two distinct events.

At the Rapture, Christ claims the church for his bride, Revelation 19:7-9, and then at the second coming He returns with his bride to establish His kingdom.

There's no reference to Satan at all at the Rapture. Anything related to Satan subsequent to the Rapture is not related to the Satan or to judgments, but when Jesus returns He will bind Satan for a thousand years, according to Revelation 20:1-3.

At the Rapture only his own will see Him and but at the Second Coming every eye will behold him. They will look upon He who they pierced.

After the Rapture, the Tribulation begins. It doesn't begin the Rapture. There are some people who teach that, and that leads to some distorted understandings of the second half of Matthew 24. But Daniel chapter nine makes it clear that what begins the tribulation is the peace treaty that the Antichrist signs with Israel. That may come two days, three days two years, five years after the Rapture—just as the cross occurred 50 days before the beginning of the church age. Christ was the end of the law in April of 33 but it wasn't until towards the end of May that you had the beginning of the church. And so you have a transition period between the Rapture and the beginning of the Tribulation, we don't know how long that will be.

When the Second Coming occurs there is also a transition, and then the kingdom will be established.

So when we look at these things we understand that there are these various distinctions. What is in their mind is that the kingdom is going to come. That's the background. This is about Israel; it's about Jewish believers being prepared for what will come. And for the apostles being able to proclaim the truth about what will come. It's not related to the church.

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