Fact Check: Biblical Promises, Israel, and the Rapture Explained

You that have lost a loved one will know what I'm talking about. Just imagine this for a moment. You could be going

about your business and any given day and suddenly in a moment so quick you can't even measure it by time. You would

be catapulted into God's presence, into their presence and you would be together again. That is a great hope and that is

why we can comfort one another with these words. Today life begins.

This is the day. The day where life begins. heard this story about a couple that

were getting married. So, the groom went to the pastor ahead of time and said, "Pastor, I want to make you a deal. I'll

pay you $100 if you delete that part of my vows where I say that I I I'm I'm going to take

this woman for the rest of my life and be faithful to her and only to her. Just delete that line. I'll pay you $100."

The pastor agreed, or so the groom thought. So when the ceremony began, the pastor locked his eyes on the groom and

said, "Do you promise to obey her every wish, bring her breakfast in bed every morning, and never so much as look at

another woman as long as you live?" Well, the groom had to say yes. He said yes. Afterwards, he goes to the pastor

and he said, "I thought we made a deal." The pastor said, "Your bride offered me more money." So that's

promises easily made, often broken. But the good news is God makes promises. And when God makes a promise, you can take

it to the bank. Promises are a lot like those gift cards. I don't know about you, but I have a little collection of

gift cards that I've never cashed in. I read that there are around $5.8 8 billion dollar in gift cards that were

never claimed. And that's sort of like the promises of God. Someone has said there are 3,000 promises in the Bible to

the believer. I've never counted them all. I know there's a lot, but think of all the promises that God has given to

us that have gone unclaimed like those unused gift cards. So, we want to take hold of those promises. For example, God

has promised that he will never leave us alone. We'll never be alone in life. In Isaiah 41, the Lord says, "Don't be

afraid. I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I'll hold

you up with my victorious right hand." And of course, Jesus said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." And if you

were to do a literal translation, it would go as follows. Jesus speaking, I will never, no, never, no, never leave

you or forsake you. God has also promised to walk with us through the difficulties we face in life. In Isaiah

43:2, God says, "When you go through deep waters, I'll be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you

will not drown. When you walk to the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up and the flames will not

consume you." And of course, Psalm 23 where David writes, "Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of

death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." So no matter what you're going through in life, God is with you. God

will walk with you through it. That's why these are called great and precious promises. Psalm 115 says, "This is my

comfort in my affliction. Your promise gives me life." Here's another promise of Jesus. He promised he will come

again. Jesus said in John 14, "Let not your heart be troubled. If you believe in God, believe also in me. I go to

prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again to receive you unto myself that

where I am, you may be also." Did you know that of the 333 Old Testament prophecies, 224 still await fulfillment

for his return? The New Testament mentions the second coming 300 times about once in every 30 verses. 23 of its

27 books speak of his return. Jesus himself talked about his return at least 21 different times. And in every

reference to his first coming, there are around eight references to his second coming. And we're told over 50 times in

the Bible to be ready. Do you think God is trying to tell us something? You know, there are some people, let's just

be gracious and say they're not very punctual. You know, they're always late and it's was the traffic or it was this

or it was that, my alarm clock didn't go off, whatever. But somehow they're always late. And there's other people

that no matter what are always there on time. Now, when God makes a promise, he's going to be punctual. He'll arrive

at the appointed time. And you can count on it. And there's no better illustration of God keeping his promises

than with his own people, his chosen people, the Jews. One thing is very clear as you read Romans 9 to11 is that

God has a special relationship with the Jewish people. He established his first covenant with Israel through Abraham who

was the father of the Hebrews. And he said in Genesis 12 to Abraham and his descendants, "I'll make you a great

nation. I'll bless you and make you famous and you'll be a blessing to others. I'll bless those that bless you

and I'll curse those that curse you." So much that we have today has come through the Jewish people. Our Bible has been

handed down to us by the Jewish people. Our Messiah was Jewish and came to us through the Jewish people. And God has

promised that he will keep his promises to them and he'll also keep his promises to us. And the Bible says God is not a

man that he should lie. So you can trust the promises of God. My next point is because God kept his promises to Israel,

you can know he'll keep his promises to us. See, I'm not Jewish. I'm a Gentile as probably most of you are. But we have

been grafted into the promises of God. And going back to Romans 11:17, uh, if some of the branches have been

broken off, it says, "And you, though being a wild olive chute, have been grafted among the others, you now share

in the nourishing sap from the olive root." And so I've been grafted in to the promises of God. And it's a

wonderful thing. And you know, I feel that my role as a gentile, but as a Christian more importantly, is is to

support my Jewish friends. Now, some would say, "Well, you only support Israel and the Jewish people because you

want Armageddon to come. Give me a break. Armageddon's going to come when it comes." But what's going to happen in

the meantime is we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And we pray that they can find some solution to what's going on

over there. But then the question arises, does that include support for the modern state of Israel? This promise

to bless those that bless us. Should we support the nation Israel? I believe we should. Why? Because it's the Jewish

homeland. You have to understand the reason there is a modern state of Israel. The Jews fled there after the

horrors of the Holocaust and World War II and built a nation out of the ashes and they want to simply live in peace

and raise their families and enjoy their lives. So when you hear these chants of from the river to the sea, Palestine

will be free. You need to understand what that really means. The river is the Jordan River. The sea is the

Mediterranean. between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is a tiny sliver of land about the size of New

Jersey called Israel. When they're saying from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, they're

effectively saying we don't want Jews here. We don't want a Jewish homeland here. Iran, who is behind pretty much

all the terrorist activity, uh, pointed toward Israel, has repeatedly and openly said, "We want to wipe them off the face

of the map." And I know that you hear today that the Israelis are starving the people of Gaza. Actually, millions of

dollars worth of humanitarian aid has been sent to Gaza. It's intercepted by Hamas and sold on the black market for

hiked up prices. But they've been able to have some success more recently getting a 100 million meals to the

people. So I agree with the statement. Free Palestine. Free Palestine from Hamas. Stop having terrorists represent

you. My next point is God uses us to bless the people who have blessed us. Romans

11:14, Paul says,"I want you to understand that we are here to make the people of Israel jealous of what you

Gentiles have that it might save some of them." Okay, next point. Israel plays a key role in the last days. Look at

Romans 11 again verse 25. I want you to understand Paul writes the mystery, dear brothers and sisters, so that you do not

feel proud about yourself. Blindness and part has happened to Israel and will last only until the full number of the

Gentiles come to Christ. And so all Israel will be saved. There is a spiritual blindness

in general among many Jewish people when it comes to Jesus Christ. However, we're beginning to see a dramatic change. More

Jewish people are coming to know Jesus as the Messiah. God is not done with his chosen people. But there's a problem.

There's a teaching in some churches that is called replacement theology. And replacement theology effectively says

that the church has taken the place of Israel. That we as Christians are now spiritual Israel and his unique

relationship with them is over with. Well, the problem with that is if God's going to break his promises to Israel,

why would he not break his promises to me? See, I believe God keeps his promises

and his covenants that he makes. And it's very clear as you read through Romans 11 and 12 and 13 that God has not

done or really Romans 9:10 and 11 is what I should say. God has not done. In fact, he writes in Romans 11:2, God has

not rejected his people whom he forneew. And one of the signs of the times according to the Bible is Israel would

be reathered to her homeland. In Ezekiel 37, God told the prophet to go to a valley filled with bones, effectively a

graveyard, and God said, "Preach to the bones." Now, I've spoken to some dead audiences, but this uh this takes the

cake. And so, Ezekiel begins to preach to this audience, and now God tells them what it all means in Ezekiel 37:1. And

he said to me, "Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel." They're saying, "We're becoming old, dry bones.

All hope is gone. Now give them this message from the Lord. I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise

again and I'll bring you back to the land of Israel. A sign of the end times, the return of the Jews to their

homeland. And on May 14th, 1948, a modern-day miracle happened against all odds. An incredible opposition. Israel

declared themselves a nation again. and it set the prophetic time clock ticking. And again, I want to emphasize this was

on the heels of the Holocaust. Now, some will say falsely, I might add, that the Jews are colonizers,

uh, taking the land from the indigenous people. The fact is the Jews are the indigenous people that God gave the land

to in the first place. They have maintained continued comm continuous communities in Jerusalem for centuries.

They they purchased malaria infested swamps and built modern Israel. Listen to this. Israel wasn't stolen. It was

reclaimed, rebuilt, and revived by its indigenous people. God gave them the land.

But the Bible not only predicts the reathering of the Jews of their homeland as a sign of the end times, but it also

predicts her isolation from others and the increase of anti-semitism, which is up 900% around the world. We've

seen it in some of our Ivy League universities. You see these massive protests, and this is what amazes me. So

much of this has accelerated after October 7th. You would have thought after that horrible massacre of innocent

Jewish people that there'd be an outrage and people would rise up in favor of their Jewish friends and and nation

Israel. And in some ways the opposite has happened because the people are saying, "Oh, we're more against Israel

than ever." And this Jew hatred is on the rise. But this too is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. God says Israel in

the last days would be scattered. That's happened. God said they would be reathered. That too has happened. God

said Israel will be regaining Jerusalem and be isolated ultimately and ultimately that she would be attacked.

Now that has happened, but not on the scale it's going to happen. Uh because the Bible speaks of a large nation from

the north of Israel that will attack her. And that nation is called Mog. Now, who is Mog? Many experts believe it's

modern-day Russia. I happen to agree with that for the most part. I don't think anyone can say with certainty, but

I think it's very possible. But we know this. There's allies that march with Mog and one of those allies is called

Persia. And Persia was the name of Iran until they changed it in 1935. In other words, God is saying there

would be an alliance between Mog and Persia or maybe Russia and Iran. And so they attack Israel, but when this

happens, and it hasn't happened yet, God is going to step in and intervene on behalf of his people. Ezekiel 38 says,

"When this happens, when Gog attacks the land of Israel, my hot anger will be aroused, declares the sovereign Lord,

and his judgment comes upon Mog and her allies." And God pours his spirit out on Israel again.

But there's something God is waiting for. Romans 11:25, again, some of the Jews have hard hearts. This will last

until the complete number of the Gentiles come to Christ. What does this mean? It means that God is waiting for

the last people to believe for these events to take place. Which would imply to me that walking this earth somewhere

is perhaps a person that is holding the whole thing up. And if that person would just believe we

could all go to heaven. Can you imagine if you were sitting next to him at church? Will you get saved already,

dude? Come on. We're tired of waiting around for you. But then God will pour his spirit out on Israel. What? And then

another event's going to happen that to some is controversial, but certainly isn't to me. I've been talking about it

for 50 years, and many before me have been talking about it for well, go back to the first century. We call it the

rapture of the church. Now, what is the rapture? The rapture is when Christ descends from heaven and we are caught

up to meet him to receive our new resurrection bodies and we're reunited with loved ones who have died in faith

who have preceded us. Now, some would push back, well, the word rapture is not in the Bible. Well, the word Bible isn't

in the Bible. The word trinity isn't in the Bible. And in fact, the word rapture is in the Bible if you happen to have a

Latin translation because rapture from the root word rapturus is simply a translation of the Greek word harpazo

which is used 13 times in the New Testament. So don't get hung up on the word rapture. But the harpazo uh the

great escape if you will, the catching up of believers to see the Lord in the air is spoken of many times in the

Bible. It means to take forcibly to snatch or to catch up. Some would say no, the rapture is a modern invention

popularized by JN Darby uh in his dispensational teaching in the 19th century. Well, no question. Jay and

Darby helped popularize the teaching of the rapture, but this teaching preceded him. Going back to the apostles, we're

reading about what Paul has said about it. In a moment, we'll read another verse where he addresses it as well.

James talked about it. Peter talked about it. John talked about it. And most importantly, Jesus talked about it. And

we already quoted what he said in John 14 when he said,"I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am,

you may be also." There's sort of a Old Testament prototype of the rapture. Remember the story of Enoch. It says

Enoch walked with God and was not for God took him or literally translated him. Enoch sort of had a solo rapture.

So he would walk with the Lord all the time and they were taking one of their walks one day. Maybe the Lord said,

"Buddy, we're closer to my house than yours. Why don't you come home with me today?" But he was just caught up to

meet the Lord in the air. And that also happened to Elijah who was caught up, remember, to a chariot of fire. But

early church fathers spoke of it as well. Irenius spoke about it in the second century. uh Cypion of Carthage

spoke of it in the 3 century. So this is not a new teaching invented by JN Derby. It's a biblical teaching that goes back

to the apostles in Christ himself. And I think it's important to talk about it. You know, we talked about this a lot in

the Jesus movement and we're not talking about it as much today. And I think that's a mistake because we're missing

out on the blessing of this teaching. Why is it important to talk about it? because it brings much needed hope. In

fact, the rapture is called the blessed hope. Uh and it brings comfort. Remember after Paul says, "The Lord himself will

descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, the trump of God, the dead in Christ will rise first

and will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Therefore, comfort one another with

these words." Whenever you see the word therefore, find out what it's there for. Paul's drawing in what he is saying.

Hey, we're going to be caught up to meet the Lord. So, be comforted by this. Why would I be comforted with this? Because

he says, "The dead in Christ shall rise first." You that have lost a loved one will know what I'm talking about. When I

say when someone you care about is suddenly taken from you through death, uh it's devastating.

and you miss them and you think about them constantly and you have experiences and you wish they could be with you at

that moment having that experience with you and and just imagine this for a moment. You could be going about your

business and any given day and suddenly in a moment so quick you can't even measure it by time you would be

catapulted into God's presence into their presence and you would be together again. That is a great hope and that is

why we can comfort one another with these words. And another reason we should talk about the rapture and the

imminent return of Jesus is it motivates godly living. So it comforts us but it motivates godly living. 1 John 3:3 says,

"He that has this hope purifies himself." Sort of like when you look in the mirror and you see a spot or

something else. Oh no, I better deal with this. So, so it has an effect on you. It would be like getting a call or

a text from your friend. They say, "Hey, I'm in your neighborhood. I'm going to drop by your house in 5 minutes." Now,

if you're a guy, you'd be like, "Cool. I'll see you then." If you're a woman, it's a different story. There's going to

be some serious house cleaning cuz you want your place to look just right for your friend that's coming by to visit

unexpected. And so the idea of this is if I really believe Jesus could come back at any

moment, I'm going to want to keep my house clean. I'm going to want to keep my life clean. I'm I'm going to want to

be walking with him and living in such a way where I would not be ashamed of what I am doing if he were to return. So this

is the great hope. CS Lewis put it this way and I quote, "A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not a

form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do." So, it's a good thing to

do. Now, that brings us to the question, when is the rapture? Simple answer, no one knows. No one knows. Oh, I know

they'll write a new book. Oh, I've been looking at the blood moons and the ashes of the red heer and I've cracked the

code and it's going to happen at this time. Nobody knows the day or the hour when Christ will come again. I think one

of the reasons we have pushed back against the teaching of the rapture is because some in the past have engaged in

date setting which is always a big mistake. Someone actually wrote a book in 1988. Some of you may remember this

and the title of the book was 88 reasons why Christ will come in 1988. It was a very popular book in 1988.

Sales kind of dropped off in 1989 because it didn't happen and it wasn't true. So when is the rapture? No one

knows. It could be tonight. It could be tomorrow. It could be in one week. It could be in a decade. I don't know. But

it will happen quickly. 1 Corinthians 15 says, "Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. We will be changed

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised

incorruptible, and we shall be changed." Some people might say, "Well, I'll just accept Christ when the rapture happens."

How fast are you? >> How long does it take an eye to twinkle? That's faster than the blinking of an

eye. You can't even measure it in time. It's faster than a teenager hitting delete history when mom grabs his phone.

These are the jokes people. What do you want from me? But it's fast. And that's why we always

need to be ready because we'll be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Okay. So, in closing, what does this mean to

us? How should this affect us? If you are a Christian, you should be spiritually awake and alert. I love what

Paul says in Romans 13:11. This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is. Time is running

out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believe. The night is almost gone. The day of

salvation will soon be here. Now Paul tells us what to do. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes and put on the

shining armor of right living for we belong to the day. So let us live decent lives for all to see. Don't participate

in wild parties in drunkenness and sexual promiscuity and immoral living or in quarreling or in jealousy. Instead

clothe yourselves with the presence of Christ. I like how the JB Phillips translation puts this final part when he

says, "Let us be Christ's men from head to foot and give no chances for the flesh to have its fling." Be a godly

man. Be a godly woman. Jesus is coming. Let this comfort you. Let this motivate you. Let this wake you up. But one final

thought. If you're not a Christian, this is kind of scary because some are going to be taken and others are going

to be left. Jesus said, "Two will be in a field, one will be taken and the other left. Two will be in a bed, one will be

taken and the other other left." Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord will come. There will be

people that will be left behind and you will face the tribulation period. And it ain't going to be pretty. I can tell you

that. That's why you want to be right with God and ready to meet the Lord. Hi, I'm Greg Lori. I've got some good

news for you. God loves you and God has a plan for your life. Here's the problem. We're separated from God by our

sin because we've all broken his commandments. But the good news is is 2,000 years ago, God sent his son, Jesus

Christ, to die on the cross for your sin and then to rise again from the dead. The same Jesus who died and rose is

alive and ready to come into your life right now. Would you like your sin forgiven? Would you like to know that

when you die, you will go to heaven? If so, pray this simple prayer with me right now. Just say, "Lord Jesus, I know

I'm a sinner, but I believe you're the savior who died on the cross for my sin. I turn from my sin now, and I choose to

follow you from this moment forward." Did you just pray that prayer with me? If you did, God in heaven has heard you.

And let me be the first to say to you, congratulations and welcome to the family of God.