David Reagan - The Rapture, Fact or Fiction?
Have you been told that the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church is a silly, unbiblical concept? Have you been assured that if the Tribulation begins in your lifetime, that you, as a believer, will have to endure all the horrors of it, and that you will most likely be executed by the Antichrist? Well, I’ve got some very good news for you, so stay tuned!
David Reagan: Greetings in the name of Jesus, our Blessed Hope, and welcome to Christ in Prophecy. I have two colleagues here in the studio with me today, Nathan Jones who is our Internet Evangelist, and Tim Moore, who is our Associate Evangelist. They are going to join me in discussing a new book of mine, it is one titled, “The Rapture: Fact or Fiction?” Actually, what they’re going to do is grill me about the book. And that is why I am sitting here in the hot seat between the two of them. Okay, guys, let’s go.
Tim Moore: Alright, it’s about time you’re in the hot seat, Dave. So, tell us why did you decide to write this book about the Rapture?
David Reagan: Well, because I was going through my library one day, and I have all the Rapture books in one area. And I noticed that they fell into two categories, they were either academic, which are badly needed, or they were written for the general audience, but all those written for the general audience seemed to run 450 pages or more; and the average person today doesn’t read that much. So, I thought, hey, why not try to put one together that is 100 pages or less, that just gets right to the arguments for it, the objections to it, and a conclusion. And so, that was my goal to try to put it in simple, understandable, down-to-earth language in 100 pages or less. And it came out to I think 104 pages.
Nathan Jones: You were so close.
Tim Moore: Right.
David Reagan: But that’s with the footnotes, and all that sort of thing, actually the text is less than 100 pages.
Tim Moore: Right, you accomplished your goal.
Nathan Jones: Yeah. Well, let’s look at the third section, you deal with objections 13 in particular about the Rapture. One we get all the time when people write into the ministry that object to the concept of the Rapture is they say, “Well, the word Rapture can’t be found in the Bible.” So, let’s clarify that. I don’t understand why people don’t understand about it. Please explain that.
David Reagan: I tell you; I hear that so much.
Nathan Jones: All the time, the Rapture is not in the Bible.
David Reagan: Over and over, and over. It’s not even in the Bible therefore it is not a biblical concept. Well, it is in the Bible. It is the Latin Bible.
Nathan Jones: Okay.
David Reagan: And people need to understand that something does not have to be in the English Bible for it to be considered biblical.
Nathan Jones: Right.
David Reagan: The King James version for example has been in use since 1611 which makes it 500 years old. But the Bible before that was what was called the Latin Vulgate. Vulgate meaning the common Latin. And it existed 1,200 years. For 1,200 years that was the Bible of Western Civilization. And in 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 17 it uses the word rapture to refer to the fact that Jesus is going to appear and take the Church out of the world.
Nathan Jones: Now, wait a minute. I read that it says, “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.” I’m not reading the word rapture there.
David Reagan: Well, you’re not reading the Latin version.
Nathan Jones: Oh, okay.
Tim Moore: Ah, yeah. I’ve also heard it interpreted snatched away.
Nathan Jones: Snatch away or caught up.
David Reagan: That’s what it means, rapture means snatched away.
Nathan Jones: Okay.
David Reagan: It means taken out. It means caught up. That’s what it means. So, in English we use two words like caught up, or snatched away. And so, since we like to talk in shorthand we just use the Latin word rapture. But you know I grew up in an Amillennial church where we were taught that Jesus was never going to come back and reign on this earth. And certainly, we never heard, I never heard one sermon in 30 years about the Rapture, not one. I had never any idea. If after going to church for 30 years you would have asked what is a Rapture? I would have said a sensation you feel when your girlfriend kisses you, because that is all knew about the rapture. If you had asked me what Gog and Magog was, I probably would have said, “Well, I don’t know I guess it is a name of a comedy team.” I don’t know what. You know it is amazing that I am a Bible prophecy teacher because I was never taught Bible prophecy when I was growing up. And the Rapture was certainly one of the things that was ignored.
Tim Moore: Well, that leads to my question, Dave, you talk about in the olden days people didn’t really emphasize the Rapture, and you had an Amillennial growing up perspective.
David Reagan: Yeah.
Tim Moore: So, some would object that the Pre-Rapture Tribulation, or excuse me the Pre-Tribulation Rapture, I’ll say it correctly, is a concept too new to be true, because they think the Church Fathers didn’t deal with that kind of and idea. But you debunk that.
David Reagan: Yeah, this is one of the major arguments against the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. And let me just let me explain to people who are viewing that what we mean by Pre-Tribulation Rapture is a Rapture of the Church; the Church being taken out of the world before the Tribulation begins.
Tim Moore: Yes.
David Reagan: There are some people who believe it is going to be in the middle. Some people believe it is going to be two-thirds the way through. Some people believe it is going to be the same thing as the Second Coming. But we believe in a Pre-Tribulation; the Church taken out before the Tribulation begins. And yes, people have often argued it is too new to be true because it did not come into being, this concept, until the 1820’s in England with a man by the name of John Darby who began to teach this. So, they say, well it is too new to be true. Well the thing that is interesting about that is that in the 1500’s when Martin Luther launched the Reformation he launched it teaching that salvation is by grace through faith and not by works, because the Catholic church was teaching then and now that it is by works.
Tim Moore: Yes.
David Reagan: But he said, “No, it is not by works, it is by salvation by grace through faith.” When he was called before the Catholic authorities to defend his position the number one argument they use was, “Sir, that is too new to be true. None of the Church Fathers, none of the Popes every believed that so, it is too new to be true.” And his response was, “Well, now wait a minute all the Church Fathers that I know of believed in it.” And they said, “Who?” He said, “Well, let’s say John, and Paul, and Jesus, the real Church Fathers.” It’s true that the Early Church Fathers in the 200’s and 300’s did not talk about a Rapture. But they talked about something else, they talked about imminence. They kept saying over and over the return of the Lord is imminent. Now, in those early years as you well know they didn’t spend a lot of time writing about Bible prophecy. They were concerned about how do you organize a church? How does one church relate to another church? And all those kind of things. So, they didn’t study Bible prophecy in detail. But they did talk about imminence; that the coming of the Lord is imminent. Well, as you well know the only way the coming of the Lord can be imminent is if there is a Rapture that is separate and apart from the Second Coming. Because there are so many prophecies that have to be fulfilled before the Second Coming that we can’t say that the Second Coming is imminent.
Nathan Jones: Interesting.
David Reagan: For example, what prophecies have to be fulfilled before the Second Coming?
Nathan Jones: Well, if we’re talking about–
David Reagan: As long as your arm.
Nathan Jones: Yeah, you are talking about seven years of the Tribulation. The Antichrist has to rise. The Gog and Magog War has to happen.
Tim Moore: Temple has to be rebuilt.
Nathan Jones: The Temple has to be rebuilt. Twenty-one judgments. The Jews have to be expelled to the land. Matter of fact Daniel gave us the calculation to the day that as soon as the Antichrist makes a treaty with Israel that we know exactly 7 years, of 30 days months, equals. So, you can count up exactly when Jesus will return. But, the Rapture, there is nothing related to the Rapture, it is an imminent event, nothing has to come.
David Reagan: So, if you only believe in the Second Coming then the coming of Jesus is not imminent and yet the Bible says it is imminent.
Nathan Jones: Absolutely. Well can I ask you a question about?
David Reagan: Well, let me just add something to that.
Nathan Jones: Okay, I want to ask you about Darby again.
David Reagan: And that is that there is another reason why this particular idea did not develop until later on. Incidentally the defining aspect of any doctrine is not how old it is. It is whether or not it is biblical.
Nathan Jones: Amen.
David Reagan: We didn’t come across salvation by grace through faith until the 1500’s. But there is one thing that we need to understand and that is the Bible itself says that Bible prophecy, end time Bible prophecy will not be understood until the time comes for it to be understood. There is another reason for its late development, and that is that all through the Middle Ages the average person did not have a Bible. You couldn’t afford a Bible. Bibles had to be handwritten. Only the church could afford one.
Nathan Jones: And it was chained right?
Tim Moore: And they made it illegal for people to own a Bible.
Nathan Jones: They chained it to the pulpit.
David Reagan: And then they wouldn’t let the people have the Bible, you know, they said to the people it is for the priest to tell you what the Bible means.
Tim Moore: Exactly.
David Reagan: So, and even if they had Bibles they wouldn’t have been able to read them; the average person in the Middle Ages was illiterate, they could not read or write. So, what it took for the revival of people getting really into the Bible and interpreting it, number one was public education, people had to be educated. Number two was the invention of the printing press.
Nathan Jones: Yes.
David Reagan: And number three was the availability of these Bibles and the freedom to read them in their own languages. That was very important, to get the Bible into the language of the people. And when that started, guess what? People said, “Hey, the Bible says Jesus is coming back. He is going to reign for a 1,000 years. We believe this is going to happen.” “Hey, the Bible says there is going to be a Pretribulation Rapture. We believe it.”
Tim Moore: We believe it. The Bible says it, we believe it.
David Reagan: So, there is a reason why this did not develop until late.
Nathan Jones: What about this Margaret MacDonald? A supposedly a demon possessed girl who was telling John Darby that she had been told by demons or what not, though she didn’t say it was demons, that she was teaching about the Pre-trib Rapture and that’s the source of the Pre-Trib. Where did that?
David Reagan: Did you have to bring her up? Did you just have to?
Nathan Jones: Well, you did bring up Darby, and as soon as you say Darby people say Margaret MacDonald.
David Reagan: I had believed in the Pre-Trib Rapture for probably 15 years before somebody walked up to me and said, “Didn’t you know that started with a little girl who was demon possessed in Scotland?” And I went, “What are you talking about?” So, they handed me a book by Dave MacPherson written in 1973 called, “The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin.” And this is something that this man conjured up that this little girl who was demon possessed came up with this. And he’s written six books on that all of which were the same book, except he changes the titles. So, I got the book I read it. And then there was an appendix at the back that has the vision that she supposedly had. I read the vision. And I read the vision. And I read the vision. And I read the vision. And to this day I read the vision, I have never found a Pre-Tribulation Rapture in it.
Nathan Jones: No, it’s not in there at all.
David Reagan: And there was recently, there was a group in California that presented a four-hour video attacking the Rapture. I mean they were attacking it with everything they had. And in this video they over, and over, and over showed a girl sitting in a rocking chair ranting and raving and saying, “All this started with Margaret MacDonald.” Until they get to the end of four-hours and the guy looked right into the camera and said, “You know we have to say at the end here that actually we can’t really say that it came from Margaret MacDonald because her vision is convoluted, and not really capable of being understood.” Duh. I wanted to yell, “Duh.”
Tim Moore: I think this just proves that people are so misguided.
David Reagan: They’re grasping.
Tim Moore: Yes, they are grasping, but Satan himself wants people to be misled because he does not want them looking to Jesus Christ.
David Reagan: It gives hope.
Tim Moore: It gives hope. And so, he wants them chasing after every other kind of thing instead of focusing on Jesus Christ and His imminent return.
Part 2
Tim Moore: Welcome back to Christ in Prophecy and our discussion of Dr. Reagan’s newest book, “The Rapture: Fact or Fiction.” Alright, Dave, so what are some of the arguments that you would offer that would support a Rapture prior to the Tribulation?
David Reagan: Well, I have a lot, but I’ll just mention two right off hand. One is that the Bible promises that those of us who have put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ are not going to be subject to the wrath of God. The entire Tribulation period is the pouring out of the wrath of God, from the beginning of it to the end of it, and there is no reason for us to be here. We are protected from the wrath of God. First Thessalonians 1:10 says, “That Jesus is coming from Heaven who rescues us from the wrath that is to come.” And there are several verses like that in the New Testament that talk about how we are going to be protected from the wrath that is to come. For example, in Revelation 3 in verse 10.
Nathan Jones: My favorite.
David Reagan: Go ahead.
Nathan Jones: “Because you have kept my command to preserve, I will also keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth.” And that is a reference to the Tribulation, the Lord will keep the Church protected before the Tribulation begins.
David Reagan: That’s right. And then the other one that I wanted to mention is the focus of the Tribulation. The focus of the Tribulation is on the Jewish people, yes, it is going to be on the whole world, but the number one focus is the Jewish people. This is part of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks of Years, in which He is dealing with the Jewish people. And what happened is that at the end of the 69 weeks He suspended it for a period of time, we are in a gap period now. But the time is coming when He is going to start that clock again, and He has six purposes that He wants to accomplish among the Jewish people and He’s going to wrap those up during the Tribulation. He is going to bring about the salvation of a great remnant. Yes, He is going to deal with Gentile nations, but His fundamental purpose is to focus on the Jewish people. I think the Church Age began with an overlap period. The Church was established like in 30 AD and it wasn’t until 70 AD, 40 years later that God poured out His wrath upon the Jewish people, scattered them all over the world and began to focus on getting His message out through the Church. I think we are in an overlap period now, at the end of the Church Age, where God has regathered the Jewish people, got them back to where He wants them to be. And He is ready now to take us out and work with the Jews.
Tim Moore: Focusing in on the Jews.
Nathan Jones: What would you say then, those are two of them, are those the strongest arguments for it, or do you have one you particularly think is stronger?
David Reagan: No. Well, I think the strongest argument in behalf of a Pre-Trib Rapture is immanency. Which I’ve mentioned before but the Bible, again, just says over and over the Rapture is imminent, it is imminent, it says we are to live looking for the coming of the Lord. We are to live with an eternal perspective; we expect the Lord to come any moment. We are to be prepared. It says it over and over. Well, why should I expect the Lord to come any moment if I don’t believe in a Rapture that could occur any moment? If I only believe in the Second Coming there are too many prophecies that have to be fulfilled.
Nathan Jones: Oh, yeah especially in Matthew 24 where the Lord says to, “Keep watch. To keep ready.” You are kind of like a person in a home and you are waiting for your children to come visit you. You put the porch light on. You look. You don’t know exactly when they are coming, but you know they are coming. Whereas the Second Coming you know exactly when they are coming because the events and the dates line up.
David Reagan: Well, let me give you guys a questions.
Tim Moore: Okay.
David Reagan: And it is one that they hit me with all the time, and that is, people will say, “Okay, you say the Church is going to be gone during the Tribulation. Well, how do you explain the fact that all through the book of Revelation there are references to saints?”
Tim Moore: Well, I think, that what we look at in Revelation is in the first three chapters of Revelation obviously there is much focus on the Church, the seven churches.
David Reagan: I’m talking about the Tribulation.
Tim Moore: I know, during the Tribulation. So, in chapter 4 John is called up to Heaven, and it talks about saints who will come to know Christ during the Tribulation period. We know that there will be people who still put their faith in Jesus Christ. They will be hunted out, and many of them killed and martyred by the Antichrist and by his minions. But there will be some who will come to know Christ during the Tribulation. But the Church itself is not referenced again.
David Reagan: So, you are saying that the saints in the book of Revelation, that are referred to during the Tribulation, are people who come to Christ during the Tribulation?
Tim Moore: The ones that are here on earth, yes.
David Reagan: How can they come to Christ if the Church is gone?
Nathan Jones: They can’t, they all are going to die. They are all going to Hell. No, of course not! That is not how the Lord works!
Tim Moore: No, no.
David Reagan: What are we going to do with you?
Nathan Jones: But that’s the argument you get. You are like, well, without the Church they are all going to go to Hell.
Tim Moore: Oh, yeah, as if the Church is the key for anyone’s salvation.
Nathan Jones: Right, how do you explain the Old Testament? It has always been faith in God. And the Lord is going to provide–
Tim Moore: And it the Holy Spirit.
Nathan Jones: Absolutely.
Tim Moore: Who will still be here. Not indwelling through the Church, but there would be no one come to salvation except through the Holy Spirit.
David Reagan: Yeah, but how does the Holy Spirit work in the Tribulation?
Nathan Jones: Well, you’ve got obviously all the materials. Hopefully there is somebody after the Rapture watching this show and say–
David Reagan: They may find this book.
Nathan Jones: –they might find that book.
David Reagan: Hopefully they’ll find this one.
Tim Moore: That’s right.
Nathan Jones: They’ll see the Rapture and say, “You know I heard about that Rapture thing, oh, no.” There is also going to be the two witnesses that the Lord will put into Jerusalem for three-and-a-half-years.
David Reagan: Who the world will hate.
Nathan Jones: And the world will hate, but they will do miraculous things like the Old Testament prophets.
David Reagan: And be calling people to repentance.
Nathan Jones: Tim, you talk about the two witnesses all the time.
Tim Moore: The two witnesses, as well we will have angels that will be broadcasting to the whole earth the Gospel message. And so, we have many ways that the Lord will continue to–
David Reagan: In fact, the wrath of God itself will bring some people.
Nathan Jones: And 144,000 Jewish evangelists.
Tim Moore: Exactly.
Nathan Jones: So, by the end of the Tribulation everybody will know about God. Matter of fact you can hear at the end of the seal judgments they are crying out for the wrath of the Lamb to stop. They know exactly where that wrath is coming from. So, everybody on the planet will know about Jesus or not, there will be no exception; man will be without excuse during that time.
Tim Moore: Amen.
David Reagan: So, that even when God is pouring out His wrath, He is ministering grace in the sense that He is calling people to Jesus.
Nathan Jones: Absolutely.
Tim Moore: Exactly, so. When the Lord sent Jonah to go and preach a message of wrath and destruction to Nineveh there was still an element of mercy, because when they repented the Lord relented. And the same thing happened, of course, Habakkuk wanted just a little outpouring wrath, and the Lord said, “Well, actually I am going to pour out a whole lot of wrath!” And Habakkuk said, “Well, Lord, please in wrath remember mercy.”
David Reagan: And He does.
Tim Moore: He always does, because that is the character of God; even in wrath there is a motivation to want people to return to Him. And so, when we punish our own children it is not for vindictiveness, it is to correct and to restore. God would always like people to be restored to a proper relationship with Him. Many will not, but some will.
Nathan Jones: Now, I love the example that you always use, is that will a man beat up his fiancé for seven years, and then she would be willing to marry him. That is not how God works. Well you can look in the Old Testament. You can see Enoch was raptured before the Flood. You can see that Rahab was raptured. Noah was taken out of the Flood. Then you’ve got Elijah taken up to Heaven. Again, and again there are example of the Rapture in the Bible. There is a rapture in the Bible, right, in the book of Revelation?
David Reagan: Well, I am glad you mentioned those examples because those are very important, you know, when it came to the first time that God poured out His wrath on all the earth with the Flood, He took Enoch out first. Enoch was a Gentile. Enoch was a type of the Church. And He took Noah and his family through the period like He is going to take a remnant of the Jews through the Tribulation. And with Lot, He took the family out before. With Rahab, He took Rahab out before He poured out His wrath. And Peter says in 2 Peter 2:4-9 He says, “God knows how to rescue the godly from Tribulation and to keep the unrighteousness under punishment for the day of judgment.
Nathan Jones: Excellent verse.
David Reagan: So, we have a pattern here that God follows, yeah.
Tim Moore: I like what Nathan just said, there is an example of a rapture in Revelation itself; John is told to come up here, and he was snatched away. Almost using the very same language that we talked about earlier with rapture up to Heaven to witness all the things that will take place.
David Reagan: Yes, and I think that is a type, symbolic type of the Rapture.
Tim Moore: Sure, it is.
David Reagan: Because the first three chapters of the book of Revelation focus on the Church, they are all about the Church. And then suddenly chapter 4, John is taken up to Heaven, a door opens, he goes up. No more mention of the Church until the very last chapter of Revelation.
Tim Moore: When they return with Christ to witness His glorious appearance on earth so He can reign.
David Reagan: Right.
Nathan Jones: Well, I am curious because a lot of people who believe that the Rapture occurs at the end of the Tribulation, what is called Post-Tribulation Rapture believers, they make particular arguments for the Rapture and the Second Coming being one and the same. What are your arguments against that?
David Reagan: Yeah, well, that is what we call the Yo-Yo Rapture.
Nathan Jones: Yo-Yo, okay.
David Reagan: Yeah, the idea is that you take them up to meet Jesus in the sky, and immediately return at the Second Coming.
Nathan Jones: Why won’t that work?
David Reagan: It doesn’t make a lot of sense. But there is argument, there are many arguments against that, for one thing there is no immanency, if you believe in that. Secondly, though, a very important argument I would like for you to explain it and that is where does the population for the Millennium come from?
Nathan Jones: Okay, well let’s back up a little then.
David Reagan: Explain that.
Nathan Jones: I asked you the question but look at that he bounced it right back to us.
Tim Moore: Yeah, he turned right back on you. I love it.
David Reagan: You see good Jewish teachers always answer questions by asking questions.
Nathan Jones: Yes, Rabbi, well you are an honorary Rabbi.
Tim Moore: Rabbi Reagan, here.
Nathan Jones: Rabbi Reagan, okay. Well, we know at the end of the Tribulation the survivors of the Tribulation will be brought into what is called the Sheep Goat Judgment in Matthew 25. The Lord will bring whoever is left, and there is not much, of the people to the Valley of Jehoshaphat and judge them. Those who rejected God, took the Mark of the Beast, they will be considered the goats they will go on the left side. Those who are the sheep they are the righteous; they accepted Christ they will go on the right. They’re the ones that are allowed to go into the Millennial Kingdom, the 1,000 year reign of Jesus on this earth, and procreate and have children.
Tim Moore: In their mortal bodies.
Nathan Jones: In their mortal bodies. And that is an excellent point.
Tim Moore: Yeah, we who have been part of the Church will be translated in a twinkling of an eye and get our glorified body when the Church is raptured, but they will not receive a glorified body.
Nathan Jones: And what did Jesus say about glorified bodies? They are like the angels right?
Tim Moore: Yes.
Nathan Jones: They can’t procreate. And I think that is the biggest argument against the Post-Trib Rapture view is if everybody is raptured to Heaven, and then comes back and there is nobody in order to go into the Millennial Kingdom in earthly bodies, who’s to repopulate the planet?
David Reagan: That’s right.
Nathan Jones: And that’s I think the Achilles heel of the Post-Tribulation argument.
David Reagan: Oh, absolutely, yes. Because you just don’t have a population for the Millennium.
Nathan Jones: You don’t, absolutely. And it doesn’t make sense too, again, why would the Lord leave the Church to be beat up, as some people will say purified. Why does the Church have to purified through the Tribulation?
David Reagan: Well, I am glad you raised that point because that turns the Tribulation into a Protestant purgatory.
Nathan Jones: Purgatory, absolutely, yeah.
David Reagan: Because you are saying the Church needs to be sanctified. The Church needs to be purified and cleansed. So, we are going to go through all this wrath and be cleansed. Listen, the blood of Jesus is sufficient.
Tim Moore: Exactly right.
Nathan Jones: First John 1, right?
David Reagan: The blood of Jesus.
Tim Moore: It covers all of our impurities.
David Reagan: Yes.
Tim Moore: And that’s why when God looks upon any one of us individually or the Church in general He doesn’t see us in our imperfection, in our sin nature.
David Reagan: That’s right. Hallelujah!
Tim Moore: He sees the blood of Christ.
Nathan Jones: That’s a sad thing too to think that the Church needs to be beat up by God in order to purify itself. You know it is a very anger against the Church for being human, for being wayward at time, for working out our sanctification. And to think that God would expect perfection from His Church before He’ll take them to Heaven is not a biblical concept.
Tim Moore: No, it’s not.
David Reagan: Well, I love the fact that one year at our annual conference we had Ron Rhodes speaking.
Nathan Jones: Oh, excellent, yeah.
David Reagan: And Ron was talking about this problem of people believing that the Second Coming was the same thing as the Rapture, and that the Church was going to go through. And he said, “You know when Paul talked about the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4 he ended by saying, “You know bless one another with this. It is a blessing to think about it.”
Nathan Jones: Yes, comfort one another.
David Reagan: Comfort one another. Comfort. He said, “Let’s think about this concept of them being the same thing,” he said, “That means, brethren you are going to go through the Tribulation, you are going to be persecuted, you are going to be tortured, you are going to be slaughtered, you are going to see your children tortured and slaughtered. And then at the very end after you’ve been beat up, and most people have died, the Lord is going to come. Comfort one another with these words.” He said, “Folks, it doesn’t work.”
Tim Moore: That doesn’t work, no.
Nathan Jones: No, the comfort is before God’s wrath.
Tim Moore: Well, speaking of 1 Thessalonians 4, and that is the key passage for the Rapture, is that the only place in the New Testament? We’ve talked about Revelation, the only place that you would point to for the Rapture’s reference.
David Reagan: Jesus talks about the Rapture in John 14, which is one of the great passages where He talks about, “I am going to go and prepare a place for you, and then I’ll come and take you to that place.” Paul talks about the Rapture, 1 Corinthians 15, he talks about how in a twinkling of an eye we will be taken out. So, all through the New Testament there are concepts of the Rapture, yeah.
Tim Moore: Well, I agree that even in the first two sermons that Peter preached he was talking about an imminence of Jesus’ return, and pointing toward that glorious Rapture of the Church. In 1 Peter 1:13 he says, “Prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit. Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” And we are looking forward to that revelation of Him coming for the Church, and then returning in glory.
Nathan Jones: Well, we only have a minute left, so let me ask you a quick question here. As a parent I have a special needs son, I know people have babies and children, we know to be saved, to be part of the Church you have to be saved. Well, what about children who have yet to accept the Lord? What about babies in the wombs, will they participate in the Rapture?
David Reagan: If their mother is a believer.
Nathan Jones: The mother?
David Reagan: I believe that children of believers, now I’m talking about the minor children. The minor children of believers I believe will be taken out in the Rapture. And I go into great detail about that in there. I do not believe that children of non-believers will be taken because there is no example in the Bible of God pouring out His wrath and sparing children of non-believers; its just not there. And so, I think the minor children of believers will be taken out with their parents.
Tim Moore: That is a comfort to many of our watchers I’m sure.
David Reagan: Oh, yeah I don’t think God is going to take out the parents and leave the children behind to be tormented, no that is not going to happen.
Nathan Jones: Okay.
David Reagan: Okay.
Tim Moore: Well, folks that’s our program for the week. I hope it has been a blessing to you, and I hope Lord willing that you will be back with us next week. Until then this is Tim Moore speaking for Lamb & Lion Ministries saying, “Look up, be watchful, for our redemption is drawing near.”