Title: The Gospel
No one can be labeled “good” without being “just” at the same time.
The act of taking away sin is not put into effect at the expense of justice. We can be sorry all we want for our transgressions, and perform all the good deeds in the hope of tipping the scale of right or wrong in our favor, but to no avail will these earn us forgiveness. In the Christian economy forgiveness is not earned; forgiveness is received as a gift by faith.
The gospel message is not about forgiveness per se; it is the good news of the Lord Jesus taking our place in order for him to pay in full the penalty for our sins, so that repentance might be made possible and forgiveness received as a gift.
Title: The sign of your coming
We should rather be asking, “Lord, what would be the reason for your coming?”
While dates are a point of interest, reasons move us to respond to a purpose. A purpose serves as a catalyst to action, and in the case of the imminent return of the Lord Jesus, that action would be a constantly progressing state of preparedness.
Signs and dates would be meaningless for someone who is not consciously looking forward and preparing and so hasten the arrival of the Lord of lords and the King of kings.
The Second Coming of Christ as declared by the Apostle Paul in his Thessalonian Letters is not the ‘Pre-tribulation RAPTURE,’ but His bodily coming at the end of the Tribulation Period.
A Study on the Pre-Tribulation Rapture
(Efren de la Cruz Agbulos, 2000)
significant facts to start with:
(John 17:15,20)
15 I do not pray for You to take them out of the world, but for You to keep them from the evil.
20 And I do not pray for these alone, but for those also who shall believe on Me through their word,
(Isa 26:19-21)
19 But your dead will live;
their bodies will rise.
You who dwell in the dust,
wake up and shout for joy.
Your dew is like the dew of the morning;
the earth will give birth to her dead.
20 Go, my people, enter your rooms
and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until his wrath has passed by.
21 See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her;
she will conceal her slain no longer.
the same word, "PAROUSIA", was used in the
following verses:
matt. 24:3
matt. 24:27
matt. 24:37
matt. 24:39
1 cor. 15:23
1 thess. 2:19
1 thess. 3:13
1 thess. 4:15
2 thess. 2:1
2 thess. 2:8
Paul alludes only to one coming
(colossians 3:4)
Recipients: Mostly gentiles
Purpose of 1 Thessalonians:
1) future of believers who die before Christ’s return
2) time of His return
Purpose of 2 Thessalonians:
1) answer misunderstanding that the Lord had already come
2) give further explanation on his first letter, outlining the events that are bound to happen before the coming of the Lord,
as described in (1 Thess. 4:15-17)
I. Who will come down with Christ at His coming?
1] (1Thess.3:13; 2 Thess.1:7) holy ones; angels
(Zech. 14:5) (Matt. 25:31) (Jude14)
2] (1Thess.4:14) believers who’d slept in Christ
II. Purposes of His coming According to the Thessalonian letters
1] (2Thess.1:6) pay back trouble to those who trouble
the Thessalonians/Christians
2] (2Thess.1:8,9) punish those who do not know God
3] (2Thess.2:8) overthrown the anti-Christ
4] (2Thess.1:7) give relief to Christians, including Paul
5] (2Thess. 1:10) glorified in His people
III. Manner of Christ’s coming
1] (1Thess. 4:14) will come with angels and believers
2] (1Thess. 4:16) ‘come down’ (to earth) from heaven (Acts 1:11)
IV. Action of the saints
1] (1Thess.4:17) meet the Lord in the air, where the “air” is just the place of meeting, a long ways off the ground, because the Lord Jesus Christ is really on His way down to earth
V. Time of Christ’s coming
1] (1Thess.5:4) should not surprise Christians
2] (2Thess. 2:3) will not come until the anti-Christ is revealed
3] (2Thess. 2:7) the ‘restrainer’ should be taken away first before the anti-Christ is revealed.
Talking Points:
1) Paul was referring to only one coming in both Thessalonian letters
2) The difference lies in Paul’s treatment of the subject: in (1 Thess.) the future of believers who die before His coming; in (2 Thess.) that the Lord has not yet come
3) If it were the pre-tribulation rapture, the judgment of unbelievers (2 Thess. 1:6-9) and the destruction of the anti-Christ (2 Thess. 2:8) would not have been the purposes of His coming, since the act of judging unbelievers and the overthrowing the ‘lawless one’ is at the end of the Tribulation Period
4) And Christ would not have come with His mighty angels if the purpose was just to fetch believers (2 Thess. 1:7)
5) (1 Thess. 4:16) refers to a ‘coming down’ from heaven, with the earth as the reference point of Paul (Acts 1:11)
6) If we were on our way up to heaven, Christ would have been the one to meet us, whereas in (1 Thess. 4:17) the believers are the ones to meet the Lord
7) The picture of (1 Thess. 4:17) is that of an Oriental guest being met by the host while still a long ways off. In this case the Christians are the hosts out to ‘meet’ the coming Lord Jesus Christ
8) The sequence of Christ’s coming according to Paul:
a] The ‘restrainer’—possibly an angel or the present world economic and political systems—is taken away first (2thess. 2:7)
b] Then a falling away; then the anti-Christ to be revealed, (2Thess. 2:8)
c] Then Christ would come and all believers to be gathered to Him (2Thess.2:1-3)
If the church were the ‘restrainer’, then that would not be in keeping with the sequence of Christ’s coming according to Paul
9) It is a grave interpretation error to take just two verses (1 Thess. 4:16,17) without considering its place in both letters, which, incidentally, was written just 6 months apart, and claim that it points to the pre-tribulation rapture.
10) The evidence from the 2 letters themselves overwhelmingly prove that Paul was referring to just one coming.
11) And that coming is not the ‘pre-tribulation Rapture,’ since the event stated in Paul’s letters is related to the punishment of unbelievers and the destruction of the anti-Christ which, we all know, cannot happen at the beginning of the Tribulation Period
13) In (Matt. ch. 28), Jesus tells us that He would be with us up to the end of the age. The church will be here up to the end of the age to fulfill the ‘Great Commission.’
14) (1 Corinthians 15:51,52) does not refer to a ‘rapture’ either but to the process of change from a ‘perishable’ body to a ‘imperishable’ body the moment Christ comes down from heaven. It doesn’t refer to any upward flight/movement at all.
15) (Daniel 7:21-25), the Anti-Christ will defeat the saints until the coming of Christ.
16) (1 Thess. 4:16) the rapture was supposed to be secret, but Paul was describing something open and public (Mark 13:26)
17) There is no evidence from Scriptures that the Lord Jesus Christ even hinted to His disciples that they would be caught up in the clouds before His bodily second coming as described in (Matthew ch. 24), among others.
18) (Rev. 19:8,9) The wedding of the saints and the Lamb will occur upon the bodily return of Christ on earth just at the end of the tribulation period, and not in heaven after a pre-tribulation rapture as some groups would claim.
19) (2 thess. 2:2)
Paul equates the return of Jesus in the Thess. letters as the Day of the Lord
20) (1 Thess. 4:15)
The language here seems to indicate a not so common event transpiring, such as a wave of persecution against believers, for Paul to suggest that many believers would die, but some would be left alive unto the coming of the Lord
Texts to consider:
Isaiah 66:15,16
Zech. 14:5
Dan. 7:21-25
Rev. 19:11-15
Matt. 28
Matt. 24
1 Cor. 15:51,52
2 Thess. 1:7
2 Thess. 2:8
1 Thess. 5:2
1 John 2:28
Title: Love your neighbor
It is impossible to comprehend and put into practice this command without first believing in the God of both testaments, and loving the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose Son is Jesus, who is God in the flesh, the God who is among us.
And while it may appear as a separate command, it is not independent of recognition of the sovereign God who demands worship and deserves our unwavering affection.
Therefore any compassion and empathy we might have toward people should only come from a heart that loves God from first to last.