1st Thessalonians 4,5 & 2nd Thessalonians 2
David Berg
—The Post–Trib Public Rapture!DFO 151513/4/81
1. PTL! HALLELUJAH! TYJ! AMEN! LORD, BLESS THIS VIDEO & help this little Family here & this team that are helping make it possible. Bless our study of Thy Word tonight‚ Lord, that it may search our hearts & our minds & clarify our thoughts so that we can understand these things‚ that we may study to show ourselves good workmen approved unto God, workmen that need not to be ashamed‚ rightly dividing the Word of Truth." (2Ti.2:15.) So we do ask Thee, in Jesus' name, to help us as we study Thy Word, Lord‚ to understand it, & to help these understand it, about these Last Days, in Jesus' name. Amen. PTL! TYJ! Amen!
2. WELL‚ OUR LAST STUDY WAS ON, AS YOU RECALL, THE 4TH CHAPTER OF 1ST THESSALONIANS, in which we were describing the coming of the Lord, or the Apostle was describing it, Paul, as he writes to the Thessalonicans—Thessalonians as it's called in the Bible—today's Salonica to the North of Athens, Greece, the church there, & telling them how the Lord is going to come.
3. AND I WENT OUT OF MY WAY PARTICULARLY TO EMPHASISE THE FACT THAT WHEN HE COMES HE IS NOT GOING TO BE COMING SECRETLY BY ANY MEANS, but that the whole World is going to know it! For He will come with a lot of noise‚ a lot of light! It will be like lightning shining from the East even unto the West, like continuous lightning! The whole sky is going to be lit up! And there are going to be several big noises! For it said there in Thessalonians that 4th chapter, that the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, & with the voice of the archangel!—There's two big noises! And the trump of God shall sound, there's the third!
4. NOW, I DON'T SEE HOW YOU CAN HAVE THE WHOLE SKIES LIGHT UP, Jesus Himself descending from Heaven with a shout & the voice of the archangel & the trumpet of God & not have the whole World know it! In fact, John later over in the first Chapter of Revelation tells us, 7th verse, "Behold, He cometh with clouds, & every eye shall see Him, & they also which pierced Him"—meaning the Jews. "And all kindreds of the Earth shall wail because of Him."
5. DOESN'T SOUND VERY MUCH LIKE A SECRET RAPTURE, DOES IT?—A secret coming? But that's what the false prophets teach, "a secret Rapture before the Tribulation to whisk you silently, secretly & unobserved out of this World! You just suddenly disappear & nobody knows where you went!" Well, it's just not going to happen that way! Because every place in the Bible that you read about the coming of the Lord, there's a lot of commotion going on, lots of light, a regular light show!—Stars falling from the heavens, sun & moon darkened & whatnot!—Big noises, earthquakes, voice of the Archangel, shout of the Lord, trump of God, all kinds of things!
6. AND THE GRAVES OPEN & THE SAINTS ARISING FROM THE DEAD! All these bodies coming out of the graves!—Not ghosts, mind you now this time, not just spirits, but actual bodies, the new bodies of the resurrected. And we Saints who are alive & remain shall be caught up together with them in the air, right in front of the eyes of the whole World!
7. NOW WHY SHOULD GOD WANT TO MAKE THAT A SECRET? Why should He want to hide that great final triumph of His Bride & His Church as she rises in victory?—Finally out of reach of her enemies in great triumph in the bridal march to Heaven to join her Bridegroom! Why should He want to hush it all up & make it a secret & hide it for some reason? Is He ashamed of it? Is He ashamed of His coming? Is He ashamed of His Bride? Is He ashamed that He's rescuing her right in front of all of His enemies & their enemies? Of course not!
8. THIS IDEA OF THE SECRET RAPTURE BEFORE THE TRIBULATION IS SOMETHING THAT WAS ONLY COOKED UP BY SOME FALSE PROPHETS ABOUT 200 YEARS AGO! Up until that time the Church had never heard of a secret Rapture, never even dreamed of a Rapture before the Tribulation! The Catholic Bible & all the Bibles from the very beginning taught that the Church at the Last Days was going to have to go through a period of terrible Tribulation. Every Prophet of God in the Old Testament taught it. Every Prophet of God in the New Testament taught it, that the Church was going to have to go through the Tribulation in the very End.
9. IT WAS ONLY WHEN THESE FALSE PEACE PROPHETS STARTED PROPHESYING A COUPLE HUNDRED YEARS AGO to tickle the ears of the Church with what they wanted to hear, that they wouldn't have to go through the Tribulation after all—as they'd always been taught & always believed & the Bible had always said—but that now Jesus was going to come secretly‚ quietly & nobody was going to know when He came & no one was going to know when they left!
10. IT WAS ALL GOING TO BE A BIG SECRET & all quiet & done so secretly & quietly & so slick that they used to illustrate that you'd be driving down the street & you'd just suddenly disappear!—And your car went on careening driverless down the street! Well, you're not going to just suddenly disappear, but you are going to leave your car!
11. YOU'RE JUST GOING TO GRADUALLY RISE RIGHT UP THROUGH THE ROOF OF THAT CAR IN GLORY, seeing the approach of your Lord Jesus Christ, & you're going to just sail right on up through the air right in front of everybody, & everybody will know where the driver went! "Where'd the driver go? What caused this accident?" the police will want to know. "Well, you saw where all the rest of them went!" Although I doubt if there are going to be too many who are going to be leaving any particular scene, because He says, "One will be working in the field, one will be taken & the other left. Two will be lying in the same bed, one will be taken, the other left." (Mt.24:40‚41.)
12. SO NOT TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE SAVED. " Strait is the gate & narrow is the way that leadeth to salvation‚ but few there be that enter therein. Wide is the gate & broad is the way that leadeth unto destruction, & many there be which go in thereat." (Mt.7:13,14.) So by comparison‚ the number of saved to the number of unsaved is pretty small. But there's going to be enough of us.
13. I BELIEVE BY THAT TIME PROBABLY STILL SEVERAL MILLION BELIEVERS WILL HAVE SURVIVED THE TRIBULATION & the persecutions of the Antichrist & his orders that no one can trade without the Mark of the Beast in their forehead or their hand‚ & no one can worship anybody else except the Antichrist & his Image.
14. BY THE WAY, WE STARTED TO TELL YOU THE OTHER NIGHT that we heard that someone in the United States had received a check from the IRS, one of these rebate checks, you know‚ refundable taxes or something‚ & at the bottom of the check it said in clear, plain type & print: "Do not cash this check unless the bearer bears this same number either in his forehead or his hand." And the person receiving the check took it to the Welfare office or wherever it was & said, "What is this?" "Oh", they said, "We made a mistake. We're not supposed to use those checks until 1984 or 1986," or something like that!
15.—BY WHICH TIME EVERYBODY WILL BE BRANDED WITH THE MARK OF THE BEAST, 666, & you won't be able to cash any checks or do any business or buy or sell—as God's Word says in the 13th Chapter of Revelation which we'll get to later—without that Mark. And they're already getting ready for it! They've already got 666 on the Social Security cards in the United States that are going to be issued in 1984! Somebody got one of those by accident & returned it. So they're getting ready! It won't be long now!
16. LIKE THE NEWSBOY ON THE STREET WHO KEPT SAYING, "IT WON'T BE LONG NOW!" Everybody always bought his papers because they wanted to see what it wasn't going to be long till! It wouldn't be long now! That was a good thing to say no matter what the news was. I think I remember that he couldn't even read, so that's all he'd say all day long, waving his papers up in the air. Well, I can wave this paper up in the air & tell you for sure: "It won't be long now! It won't be long now!"
17. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE LONG UNTIL THE ANTICHRIST IS GOING TO BE REVEALED, & his seven-year kingdom begun, the last three-&–a-half years of which are going to be the Great Tribulation! But these Pre-Trib Rapturists who teach that Jesus is going to catch His Church out of this World before the Tribulation & you're going to float to Heaven on flowery beds of ease & not have to suffer any persecution, no torture, no tribulation, God's going to relieve you of all that, you won't have to suffer it, are liars! It's not true! It's not according to the Word of God! I'm reading to you from the Bible!
18. JESUS IS NOT GOING TO COME SECRETLY SO THAT NOBODY KNOWS IF HE CAME & WENT & nobody's going to see you leave except you suddenly disappear. It just isn't going to happen that way, because that's not what the Bible says! I'm reading you Bible here! He's going to come with a lot of noise & a light show & fanfare of trumpets & all kinds of racket going on! Tremendous! The greatest spectacle the World has ever seen!
19. THE GREATEST LIGHT SHOW THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN! You know, these hippies & drug-users, they like their light shows to make'm really trip out—well boy, I'm telling you, we are going to trip out on that one!—Right out of this World! Praise God? Hallelujah? It's going to be the greatest light show you ever saw & it's really going to make you trip out, right out of this World! And that's the time when you can finally say: "Stop the World, I wanna get off!" Hallelujah! And we're going to take off to be with Jesus in the air!
20. EVERYBODY'S GOING TO SEE HIM COMING IN THE CLOUDS: Light, trumpet, voices, thunders, earthquakes, noises, dead rising from the graves, the live Saints rising from the ground‚ floating right up through the ceilings & the buildings & the cars & right up into the clouds to be with Jesus! That doesn't sound like a very secret Rapture‚ does it? No! And it's not going to be! Well‚ I'm sure some of you
