All right, we're going to continue our study in the landmarks of Baptist doctrine you should have your Study pages there If you are interested in credit for this there's a there's homework that you can do. We are like at the end of this, but we have video documentation of all of the books before this. And you can go through and you can do the homework, we can give you credit for it. And if you want college credit, we could even transfer your credit to Great Plains. You can go out to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and graduate But you gotta you got to do the work to get credit. So we're on page 798 And if I if you have a copy you just have that page so it's kind of easy to find page 798 there If you don't have a copy pastor G has one here for you And we are continuing here. Lecture 1. This is eschatology. Can someone tell me what eschatology is? This is our doctrine series. Study of the End Times or the Doctrine of Last Things. And this lecture is titled the course of this age and we're we're on session eight of this lecture we've we've talked about the characteristics of the last days we've talked about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ the fact of his return the assurance of his return and the nature of his return In fact, we are still talking about the nature of his return. As we discussed that we looked at the fact that his return is going to be a personal return, a bodily return, a visible return, a sudden return, an imminent return, a premillennial return, and a two stage return. Tonight, we're looking at the fact that It is a pre-tribulational return. We're going to look at the the Rapture tonight specifically we've talked about the We've talked about how it's two stages right last week we looked at the fact that there is the rapture and the revelation right when he comes and for his saints the rapture and when he comes with his saints the revelation the rapture is before the tribulation the revelation is after the tribulations it is ushering in the kingdom so we're going to look at the pre tribulational return or rapture as we call it let's pray and then we'll dive on in here it I really do plan on this being short because I'm trying to actually only cover this part the part at the top above letter D. If I can help it, I'm going to try to save letter D there, the details of Christ's return. I'm going to try to save that for um next week but we shall see it depends on if y'all have questions or things to to uh contribute as we go through this so um let's pray lord we thank you so much for your word we thank you lord for the opportunity here to look at the rapture we pray father that you would just speak to our hearts lord help us as we look through here in jesus name amen all right so Pre-tribulational return as I mentioned before we have There's does anybody know what a fundamentalist is All right, so yes, sir Okay, so both of those definitions are are correct depending on the direction you look at. So it's kind of a Kind of like this. If you were to look at three circles, you could see them from three different directions, right? Because we have a three-dimensional world, right? So, we have one circle here. on the outside, we have one circle here on the inside, and I've got one hidden back here behind it, right? Right there, another circle, okay? So, now if you're looking at it this way, now you can't see this one, but let's pretend like these are see-through, and you can see this one back here, alright? So, you can see the three circles that way. Now, if you look at them this way, you have straight line, straight line, and straight line, right? Right. If you look at them kind of this way, you have overlapping circles. Right. There's different perspectives, all still three circles. Now, on on the fundamentalism thing. If you were to look at a and listen, I want to give this disclaimer. We are fundamentalist by those definitions. By those definitions. We are not officially a part of the fundamentalist movement, though, whatever that is. Well, I'll tell you what that is. The fundamentalist movement was a movement back in the 1950s-ish, 50s, 60s, some in the 40s. There was a big popular thing of German rationalism a lot of a lot of so-called Christians a lot of Christianity had been shifting toward liberalism shifting toward looking at the Bible as fairy tales looking at the Bible as Maybe some of it was true. Maybe some of it wasn't. They were picking and choosing what they wanted to believe. And so they were looking at a lot of it as figurative or as spiritualized or something like that. And so in response to that. There was a movement born called fundamentalism. Fundamentalism was not a Baptist movement, although many Baptists were a part of its start. There were also fundamentalist Baptist, fundamentalist Methodist, fundamentalist Maybe. But there were various fundamentalists among different majorly different doctrinal belief systems and the five fundamentals of the faith. Does anybody know what they are. Someone's going to have to look them up because that's that's going to be easier than trying to remember them. One is the virgin birth of Christ. Yes sir. You know that you're talking about Baptist distinctives. The fundamentals of the faith the five fundamentals of faith. Help me out you know. Inerrancy of the scriptures that hold on the inerrancies of the inerrancy of the scriptures that means that the Bible is without error number two. Virgin birth of Jesus Christ number three Substitutionary atonement. That means that Jesus atoned or took care of our sins in our place. He was our substitute. Number four. Bodily resurrection of Christ and number five. The authenticity of miracles and that is biblical miracles, yes. So those were the five fundamentals of faith now. That really, really broadens things a lot. If you were to look at a present day fundamentalist now, now. Based on that definition, we're fundamentalist. We believe those things, however. We don't necessarily because we're Baptist. We're independent. Okay, so that means that we're not a part of whatever other fundamentalist groups there are out there, okay? Now, being, would you say hardcore about your beliefs? I think that probably fits us too. Right. So now the definition of fundamentalism is it is wildly different depending on who you're talking to. There are fundamentalists today that will add a bunch of other things. For example, if you don't wear a suit coat when you're behind the pulpit, you're not a fundamentalist. If you wear jeans in the pulpit, you're not a fundamentalist. I don't know where those things came from. Yes. White, oh, well, oops. If you don't wear a white dress shirt from behind the Pope, you have left your fundamentalist ways. I wear a white dress shirt because I'm a fundamentalist. No, no, I wear, because I'm not a heathen. No, I wear a white dress shirt usually on Sundays because it's, I mean, it's really not white. It's kind of changing colors as I sweat through it and stuff, but no, it's, I wear usually white because it, typically is considered more Less casual, we'll say, we'll just put it that way. I don't always wear white dress shirts, but typically I do. And the other reason I do, and also always wear black pants and almost always wear a black vest on Sundays, and a lot of the time I wear a red tie. Why do I do that? Well, I'll tell you, part of it just has to do with the fact that it's really easy not to think about what matches and what doesn't match when you just wear the same thing all the time. What's that? Yeah, so then there's folks who believe that fundamentalism has to do with extreme beliefs. You say what in the world is fundamentalism have to do with our study tonight? Well, I'm glad you asked through me. So if you were to look at does anybody know what the Major fundamentalist publication is. Today, major fundamentalist publication that would be fundamentalist Christian publication. Anybody know? I'll. I'll give you a hint. The logos right there. Right here. Not not on this him on the on the old one. But no. Nobody knows I've done well. Hey man, I can retire now. So I'll give you a hint. There was a man of. Midian who had a dream. About Gideon. And. Something else. And. that was used to name the publication. They make a newspaper publication that comes out every other month. Man, you guys don't even realize how, yes, you guys don't even realize how glad it makes me that you'd have no idea what I'm talking about. What's that? Nope. Sword of the Lord. Sword of the Lord publication. Yeah. So now you know what I'm talking about. No, I'm not saying that they're like wrong or anything, but Sword of the Lord is typically it is like. What do you call it? It's it's like. Cookie cutter fundamentalist Baptist. Would you say vandalism? Evangelism. OK, it's but it's it's like cookie cutter. Fundamentalist, right? Now, and it's not necessarily just Baptist exclusively Baptist, but one of the things in on the top of their publication is that it says that they are pre millennial. premillennial. Now we talked about premillennialism before. We would identify with that, that we are premillennialist. What that means is we believe that the tribulation and our present day events take place before the millennial kingdom. We believe in a literal physical reign of Jesus Christ on the earth for a thousand years. We believe that that is an absolute literal thing that he is going to rule on the earth for a thousand years and that we are currently living in the days before that. That's what pre-millennial means, all right? We may also cover these other terms like post-millennial and amillennial. A post-millennialist believes that the millennial kingdom has already taken place, and we're living in the days after that. Amillennialists believe that there is no literal 1000 year reign of Jesus. OK, they believe that we're living in the kingdom now and that it's our responsibility to rule for him and. I'll tell you there are some scary things that I have heard from a millennialists I heard as a matter of fact Something on the news on the day after the election from someone who said We've got to get this country back to understanding that there is no separation of church and state that is an ignorant statement absolutely ignorant statement We we as Baptist believe in separation of church and state. Now we do not believe in separation of God and state. Because the fact is the state has to answer to God, but we do believe that it is not. Lawful for the state to control the church and it is not lawful for the church to control the state. There is a separation of institutions in that sense, but there is not a separation of God. being the one that both institutions answer to. Does that make sense so? But a statement like that comes from a theological background of amillennialism, where they believe that we've got to usher in the kingdom of Jesus Christ in our day, that it's that it's our responsibility to run things according to his kingdom. here and now. Some there. There's a lot of that. But anyhow, I'm just setting that up because understanding that when we talk about pre tribulation or rapture, if you're a millennialist or post millennial, you don't Rapture doesn't really even matter at that point. So pre tribulation or rapture when we say pre tribulation or we mean before the seven years of tribulation the prophecy of the 70 weeks found in Daniel chapter nine turn over to Daniel chapter nine in your Bible. Daniel chapter nine. Look at verse number 24. All right. Daniel 924 70 weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish the transgression and to make an end of sins. And to make reconciliation. For iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up the vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. That's a lot of stuff. I don't want to go through all of the information for this, but I'm just going to give you some basics here. 70 weeks are not 70 sets of 7 days. They're 70 sets of 7 years. So those 70 weeks, if you run the calculations, You're going to find that verse number twenty five. No, therefore, and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the prince shall be seven weeks and three score and two weeks. How many weeks is that? Seven and three score and two. How many is that? How many is three score? Sixty. 60 20 40 60 right a score is 20 So 60 so 3 score and 2 That's 62 and then that's 7 weeks before that That's 69 weeks. Okay, so 69 weeks Now there's a reason that it's broken up the way that it is. We're not going to deal with that tonight, but but it's 69 weeks or how many years would that be and No. Back to, back to, back to, back to when we say weeks here, we're talking about weeks of years. So, so it's like we, so if you were to say 69 weeks and you were to calculate how many days that is, and then you make that years. It's four hundred and eighty three years there's a reason for this if you look at a calendar and you look at the time of the going forth. Of the commandment to rebuild to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to Jesus it's four hundred and eighty three years. All right. So that's there's your like he gives us a timeline. Sixty nine weeks. And that's weeks of years. OK. Not weeks of days but weeks of years. That's four hundred eighty three. Years. It says the street should be built again and the wall even in troublous times. Verse number twenty six and after three score in two weeks. shall Messiah be cut off. Now that seven weeks had to do with the actual rebuilding period, right? And then the three score in two weeks is. From the seven weeks to the full 69 weeks makes sense. It says that at that point. Shall Messiah be cut off? But not for himself, why? He's cut off for us. and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary and the end thereof shall be with a flood and unto the end of the war desolations are determined and he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week that's the last week right we got sixty nine that we covered he said how many weeks do you say there were determined no how many how many weeks for summer twenty four No, verse number 24? Seventy weeks. Seventy weeks are determined. And how many weeks have we covered so far? Sixty-nine. So there's one week left, right? One week left. And He says, He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week. and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abomination he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate." Now, if you study through the Tribulation period, which I believe that's the next lecture, the next lecture we'll spend some time on, And we already spent some time on it through the book of Revelation. If you remember over the last five years, we've dealt with that. During the tribulation this 70th week the last week that one week. That's the tribulation period That is we call this the 70th week or the seven the week number 70 of Daniel, right? Daniel's 70th week. So when you hear us say Daniel 70th week or you hear us say the tribulation We're talking about the same thing. Alright, that's a seven year period of time. One week of years. Does that make any sense to anybody? One week of years. Seven years. Yes. If you're looking for other calculations, you have in Daniel chapter 12 and verse number 7. You have mentioned time times and in half. That's 3 1⁄2 years. It's referring to 3 1⁄2 years there. If you want to get even further in that that 3 1⁄2 years is speaking of that first portion and then in verse number 11 it says from the time that the daily sacrifice should be taken away. Which is when? In the middle of the seven years, right? In the midst of the week. He says, "...and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be..." Now, somebody can do the math. "...a thousand two hundred and ninety days." Yeah, three and a half years. Says blesses he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three hundred five and thirty days. But go thy way till the end be, for thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of days." At the end of the days, he's talking to Daniel there, saying, hey, this isn't going to happen in your lifetime. You're going to rest till this time comes, till the end comes. But again just some of these there's. There is. A lot as you study through OK and we're just kind of touching a little bit here and a little bit here and then we'll come back to some of it as we as we go through but the tribulation period. The tribulation period is that seven years. It's also called in another place Jacob's trouble. Now the seven the Daniel seventieth Daniel seventieth week is the whole seven years. So the last three well the last three and a half are considered the great tribulation. No they won't. No they won't be fine. Israel will be at peace during that time. But during that time, the Antichrist is revealed. I mean, so I know a lot of people, though, a lot of people that are mid trib in their theology argue that, well, you know. The tribulation really doesn't start till the middle point. Possibly. Possibly but the Antichrist is revealed when the first seal is open. That's at the very beginning very beginning in Revelation chapter number six They open the seal right the first seal It says and I heard as it were the noise of thunder one of the four beasts saying come and see and I saw and behold a white horse and he that sat on him had a bow and a crown was given unto him and he went forth conquering and to conquer when he had opened the second we're we're looking at was a it's conquering through peace conquering through peace or maybe the bow is some other kind of bow with which he reigns So anyhow there's a whole other thing. He's given a Corona a crown and a bow. So anyhow he goes forth conquering and to conquer and then second seal is open in verse number three. And what is what we see in verse number four went forth another horse that was red. He takes peace from the earth. And it says that they would kill one another and there was given unto him a great sword. And when he had opened a third seal I heard the third beast say come and see. And I'm just kind of skipping along here. Lo a black horse right. And he had a pair of balances in his hand. So you have the Antichrist revealed. You have war. even though he conquers through peace, you have war, and then you have economic collapse. Right you have a pair of balances in his hand and it says in verse number six and I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts a measure of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny and see thou hurt not the oil in the wine. Just so you know a penny was a whole day's wage at that time we're not talking about like our penny we're talking about a penny for them that's a whole day's wage. So imagine. That you have to work an entire day for a measure of wheat. A measure of wheat is enough wheat to make a loaf of bread. Imagine the cost of a loaf of bread being an entire day's wage. No, it's a regular loaf of bread. It's a measure of wheat. For a whole day's wage. Anybody ever heard of what is it Zimbabwe? Yeah, it was a Zimbabwe that had that problem. They had hyperinflation where they would take a wheelbarrow full of money. To get a loaf of bread. Oh, yeah, well and they there was a there was an account of a fella that went to go buy bread and he left his wheelbarrow full of money Right outside of the store to buy the bread and someone dumped the money out and stole the wheelbarrow Yeah. Left the money because the wheelbarrow was worth more. So again, we're talking about a whole day's wage for just your daily bread. Yes, means that the economy of the world is going to collapse at that point. And yeah, so the fourth seal, this is during the first half of the tribulation. Fourth seal pale horse death. How many people die? During that first half It says Says a And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill With sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth Fourth part of the earth. Yeah, one fourth part of the earth. So whatever the population is at the time. Powers given. Unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill. It's it's to kill one fourth of the population. So one fourth of the population if you think about let's no no no one fourth part of the earth of population. So if you have what eight billion people on the planet I don't know how many will be raptured and I don't know how many people will have born before the rapture. I don't know. But it would be two billion people. Yeah. That's a whole lot of people. That'd be like China and India gone. No, they wouldn't have time. And you know, a fourth of their staff would die too. I mean, they're not gonna make any money. It's just gonna be a mess, a nasty mess. And that's during the first half. All I'm doing is answering your question. The first half is no picnic. That's exactly right. When you start talking about the second half and then you start talking about the the the trumpet judgments and the vile judgments. I mean you're that's that's pretty rough pretty rough. So we're we were in chapter six there. Chapter six, yeah, that was all in chapter six. Now there's, chapter six deals with the seals, and then you go into the, the trumpets in chapter, well, chapter six and seven kind of deal with the seals. Trumpets start in chapter eight and go into chapter nine, and then you've got the vials. Oh, they're a little later. Chapter 15 is when they start, or 16 is officially when they, so they're announced in 15. 16, you start the vials there. Anyhow, so. lots of lots of bad things happening during that time but before the tribulation there is the rapture now we we're going to deal with those details as we get into the next section here but I kind of covered the difference between the rapture and the revelation last week I'm trying not to go over all the same things but during this period we're going to see various events take place we're going to have great tribulation on the earth we're going to have the judgment seat of Christ in heaven we're going to we've dealt with. Let's see here I'm just I'm trying to figure out what unit 10 was. This is unit 10, so I believe if I'm thinking about this correctly, we're gonna deal with those two things in more detail in the next lecture. I wish he would title it rather than say unit 10, lecture two. The seven judgments, I think we'll be dealing with those during the judgments as we're talking about the judgments in the next lecture. But the Word of God teaches a pre-tribulational rapture for two basic reasons. First, because the Great Tribulation is specifically in context of the nation of Israel. Right? We have Daniel chapter 12 there, verse number 1, as we were back there in Daniel. So at the time at that time shall Michael stand up the great prince which stand it for the children of thy people whose people Daniel's people right and there should be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time and at that time by people shall be delivered every one of them that should be found written in the book. And then Jeremiah 30 if you want to flip over there. Jeremiah 30 in verse number seven says alas for that day is great so that none is like it is even the time of Jacob's trouble but he shall be saved out of it. We're not talking about spiritual salvation necessarily we're talking about physical and we're not talking about the salvation of every individual. of Israel we're talking about as a nation so the context of the tribulation Jacob's trouble seventieth week of Daniel it's it's always talking about by people Daniel's people it's always talking about Jacob that's Israel it's talking about Israel they're going to be the ones that God is dealing with so during the tribulation we're dealing with God wooing Israel back to himself and protecting them delivering them through the tribulation While at the same time pouring out his wrath on the world That's that's the purpose of the tribulation period. You'll find that all the vast majority of the book of Revelation is about that seven year period. Then the second reason that we believe that the tribulation takes place before I'm sorry that the the rapture takes place before the tribulation is because God promises to keep Christians from this terrible period. In first first Thessalonians turn over there real quick. By the way, there are other reasons as well. And as as we talked about last week, if by the way, if you're going to get on, if somebody is watching this online, and you're going to you want to argue with me about this, watch last week's message before you do. Because I'm not I'm not going over and dealing with everything that we dealt with last week, just so that I can answer questions that people are going to have about this week's message. So um, Let me find it here. I keep going past it. Yeah. Chapter five, verse four. Chapter five, verses four, five and nine. Actually, let's look. Let's start at chapter 4 verse 13. But I would not have you ignorant brethren concerning them which are asleep that you sorrow not even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord that we which are alive and remain under the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. But of the times and the seasons, brethren, I have no need or ye have no need rather that I write unto you for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night for when they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape but ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day. Ye are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken, are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and foreign helmet the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the context of that. That's why I read all the way from chapter 4, verse 13 down to here, because it's the same thing. We're talking about the same thing, the same context. We're talking about the rapture. We're talking about the tribulation. We're talking about the wrath of God being poured out on the earth. All of that is in the same context. Does that make sense? Revelation 3, 10. We have another promise that God gives to a church here He says, Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the earth, to try them that dwell upon the earth. There you go. There's a lot more. We talked about a lot more last week. So you can review the study that page number 797. You can also review the message for that as well. I didn't want to spend tonight rehashing everything that we talked about last week. But we did talk about several things that we talked about last week. Does that all make sense? All right. We're going to cut our live feed and if you're watching online and you want to be a part of the Q&A.