Sermon For Sunday January 24, 2010

THY WORD IS TRUTH

John 17:17

“Signs Of The End Of The Age?” Part 2

Last weeks sermon was on the end times

Prophesy that is so popular on television and the subject of a book series called “Left Behind” by a man names La Hay and I am sure he is a good Christian but he has made a lot of money and attracted a lot of attention based upon I my opinion a misreading of scripture and not just one but many scriptures.

And that is why I have rededicated my ministry this year as one of my New Years resolution to the truth of the bible and to the truth of the gospel.              

        Today in the second sermon in this series where we will examine the modern biblical interpretation of the church being removed from the earth before the wicked and unrighteous people in a rapture, which comes from the Latin word “rapere” which means to “snatch” or “take away”. 

And since the original text of the New Testament was written in the Greek so any words taken from Latin roots are at the very outset suspect as being not inspired by the Holy Spirit.

All original greek scripture is God beathed but translations into Latin made by the early church father Jerome born in 342 AD were never identified as inspired.

And all claims that subsequent translations to the origina autgraohs i=od scripture which are not with us are inspired are false for the Holy Spirit is the source of Gods word and this is affirmed by Christ himself but explicitly state by Christ Apostle Peter in 2 Peter 1:21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit

Today we will look at this modern interpretation of the rapture which is being taught as if it was taught as doctrine in the first century church by the Apostles. 

The rapture had it origin in a chruch in Scottland in the late 1800s.

We repeat the Apostle creed every Sunday as believing in the resurrection of the body meaning every human body.

It is strongly implied that both the righteous and the righteous will be raised at the same time in the resurrection at the end of time when the Lord returns in power and glory.

And there are two scriptures that must be brought together and compared when this great event happens.

 There is a loud noise like the blowing of a trumpet and a shout.

And there is a change that takes place both in those living and those who are dead.

And the scriptures talk about the dead in a very euphemistic way. 

And so there is no miss understanding here what to I mean by the word euphemistic way? 

What is a euphemism?

A euphemism is a way of sugar coating an ugly word like the word “dead” or death.

Many times we don’t use these words but substitute and kinder or gentler phrase that means the same thing.

We euphemistically refer to some one who died as having "passed away". 

Pasted away is a eupenism for death.

And in the scriptures and Jesus of Nazareth did the same thing by referring to those dead as “being asleep”. Jesus use this phrase as a euphemism for death.

And if there is a resurrection and a raising to new life then this is a good euphemism since all the dead in Christ are a waiting an awakening to new life. And as Jesus promise this new life will never end.

So let us look at some the scriptures that says this!

What does Jesus say about his friend Lazarus in chapter 11 of the gospel of John?

Starting a verse 4, and we learn when Jesus was told that Lazarus was sick her says this:

4 When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."
5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
6 Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.
7 Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."  
8 "But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?"
9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light.
10 It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light."

And then Jesus refers to Lazarus as if he were asleep rather than dead.

11After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."  
12 His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better."
13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
14 So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead,
15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

        But As I have said many times before, if God the Father or his Son Jesus is going to tells us something important, they will not say it just once.  

So a scripture that appears just once in the bible is not important enough to raise it to the level of a major doctrine or teaching.

Are there other places where the resurrection is referred to as someone who is just asleep and would be awakened? 

And where should we look?

Yes, the words of the Apostle Paul and his words about the Resurrection.

Remember the Resurrection chapter of 1 Corinthians Chapter 15. 

And here are Paul's words:

50 I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—
52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed”. 

And there are the words of the returning of the Lord and the trumpet of God and the flashing of light.

Doesn’t that sound familiar?

Where have we seen these symbols before?

What did Christ say about lightning when he returns and the lightning will be from one side of the sky to the other. 

Remember the reading from Matthew 24 last Sunday.

But this time I will select from that passage the description of the event from Jesus of Nazareth’s words from the NIV translation and especially notice the timing. 

And here is the quote from Matthew 24:29

29"Immediately after the distress of those days "

The King James translation says "immediately after the tribulation of those days". 

The NIV version has trivializes the time of the event and minimized it because the translators pf the NIV do not believe the church will go through the tribulation. 

The phrase “the distress of those days” is simply not equivalent to the “Great Tribulation” that Jesus described to his disciples in the King James version!

And I believe this is a major error in translation! 

And the reason is the idolatry of the modern mind which looks inwardly with pride that God would not put His chosen people through a great tribulation. 

How self-centered and prideful is that "notion!"

But God put the original "CHOSEN PEOPLE", the Jews, into slavery not only once in Egypt but a second time in Babylon 900 years later so should we suppose for even an moment that God Almighty would not put his adopted chosen people (we gentiles) through the same sort of test of faith in a tribulation!

These modern Christians believe in a pre-tribulation rapture and not a resurrection like Christ had with His curcified body and like all of Christianity has believed in for 20 centuries. 

To believe in a rapture is to deny that we are to have our own resurrection.

This denies the purpose of Christ's resurrection which is to lead the way to our own resurrection.

And it negates the "Resurreection" Chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul talks about how we shall be raised incorruptible!

It does not say we shall return with Christ "incorruptable" as these proponents of the "rapture" imply!

Is it not amazing how so many want to rewrite the word of God to make it say what they want it to say!

But lets pick up on Christ’s words from the NIV:

"29 the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'
30 "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.
31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

But where else in the scripture do we hear of this event!

It comes to us from the Apostolic teaching of the Apostle Paul. Where else in scripture would we see these same thing happening. 

It was from the New Testament reading today from 1st Thessalonians.

 Notice how similar this picture is so similar to 1st Corinthians 15 and  Matthew 24.

All three scripture describe the return of  Christ at the end of age.

1 Thessalonians:
“13 Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.
14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
15 According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
18Therefore encourage each other with these words.

But how can these words be so misinterpreted as a rapture of the church rather than by the general resurrection of the dead that Christ talked about in Matthew 26 when he comes like the Son of Man in the clouds with great power and glory. 

This is the same event is it not?

I contend that it is the same event!

There is the sound of a trumpet and the shout of the archangel. Christ says it is a world wide event in the sky as far as the east is from the west. 

It clearly is understood by Paul using the word “sleep” the same way that Christ had used to refer to the dead. 

        And so we find that the rapture is really and always has been the resurrection. 

The :resurreection of the body" is a major tenet of the Christian faith and has been for 20 centuries of the church's existence!

Presbyterians have been repeating this tenent of the faith for 500 years of the reformed faith in the Apostle Creed that every Presbyterian says every Sunday morning!

We believer in "the resurrection of the body" and that is the correct doctrine and the tenet of the Apostles Creed. 

And the symbols of sleep, the trumpet and the shout and the flash of light are to jog our memories as to being references to the same "big sky event" of the returning of the Lord and the end of the world.

There will be a change as fast as a twinkling of an eye and we will not have perishable bodies any more.

Our bodies will now be imperishable and then we will rise and meet the Lord in the air. 

But those living will not be the first to rise. 

As it said on the New Testament reading this morning “the dead in Christ will rise first” and then the living will be changed.

And what does that imply?

It implies that some who are not in Christ that will rise later. 

Otherwise why would Paul make the distinction that those in Christ will rise first if there were not those who would rise second.

Those who do not belong to Christ!     

This preceding of the dead in Christ rising first blows up the “rapture” as untenable and as a miss-interpretation of scripture. 

There is no a taking of the church away but a taking of those who are sleep in Christ and those living when Christ returns and both will be taken to be with Him for they are the church!

But, what about the wicked?  Where do they go?

Not to meet the Lord in the air to go with Him but they do go somewhere don’t they? 

And where does it say where the wicked and unrighteous go in the bible. 

In the Book of Revelation we read this.

But before we go there just one last thought about the rising of the dead.

The scripture read “the dead in Christ shall rise first”.  Who will rise after them. 

The answer is, “those who are not in Christ” the unrighteous, the wicked, the lost. 

So from the book of Revelation and here are the words, “

11Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.
14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.
15 If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. 

That’s right those who are not "in Christ" suffer a second death!

Is it important to be “in Christ” or not?

So it is clear from a careful reading of Scriture that both those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life and the wicked are resurrected.

But only those “in Christ” are given eternal life with Christ. 

Let me close in prayer:

Sermon For Sunday January 03, 2010

THY WORD IS TRUTH

John 17:17

“Signs Of The End Of The Age? Part 1”

 We have had this week a large earthquake on the Island of Hispaniola.  The western half of the Island is the nation of Haiti.

And it appears as if there maybe as many as 100,000 thousand dead for there are reports on the news

Friday night that 40,000 bodies have already been buried.

And it immediately made me try to put this terrible tragic event into perspective.  Just how strong was this earthquake compared to others we have had in history and in past history. 

The initial reports were a 7.0 on the Richter Scale.

The Richter scale is a logrhymic scale so the first number on the scale is 10 times the force of the next number.

In other words a 7 on the Richter scale is ten times stronger than a 6 magnitude quake. 

But for most of us that does not help us much understand just how strong one earthquake is from another.  So to get a comparison we might go to the Internet to find something to get the clear in out minds just how strong one earth quake is versus another.

 And I found a fact about earthquake that was healpful ion this regard.

When I looked up the word Richter I found a good comparison that jumped out at me.  The webpage made this statement. 

An earth quake of 5.0 on the Richter scale releases as much energy as the atomic bomb exploded over
Heroshima Japan in WWII. 

And this quake in Haiti this week was a 7.0 so it was 100 times more powerful than a nuclear exposion.

And then the Richter scale was laid out like this.

A 4.0 quake is widely felt and is strong enough to crack plaster.

A 5.0 is strong enough to damage chimneys and weak building.

A 6.0 is strong enough to damage average buildings.

A 7.0 earthquake is strong enough to damage well built buildings.

An 8.0 quake will damaged reinforces well built structures.

And a 9.0 will have flatten all structure in a widespread area.

        So the next question is how does this quake stand up in comparison to other earthquakes in human history.  Have there been 8 and 9 magnitude quakes strong that the one in Haiti in modern history. 

The answer is yes. 

 There was a 8.0 quake in Chile in 1964 but it was not a deadly as this one. 

Even a small earthquake a 5.0 is deadly is the epicenter is near a population center.

So the most deadly modern earthquake happened just a few years ago in Indonesia and it happen on the day after Christmas in 2004 and more than 250 people were killed in the Tsumami that it cause. 

So what about the strongest and most deadly earthquake ever recorded?

That happened in on January 23, 1556 in China and was 8.0 (but that has to be estimated because the Richter scale was not in existence yet) and it killed 800 thousand people. 

The highest death toll is the 230 thousand death toll of Jan 26th 2004.

        The earthquake is as old and as deadly as a devastating as far back as human history goes and is well documented in the bible and in the days when Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth.

And we hear Jesus this morning in the New Testament reading from chapter 24 of the gospel of Matthew answer a question that one of his disciples asked him when they were gathered on the steps of the Temple.

The beautiful Temple remodel by Herod the Great just before Jesus was born.

And Jesus said that this temple would be destroyed and not one stone would be laid upon the other. 

This prophecy of Jesus came to pass just 37 years after his death on the cross in AD 70 when the emperors son Titus burned Jerusalem and tore down th temple and over 1,000,000 Jews were put to death by the sword according to the Jewish historian Josephus who was an eyewitness to this event.

 But after Jesus says that not one stone of the temple would be left upon the otherm Jesus and his disciples had arrived on the Mt of Olives and the disciples came up to him privately asking, “Tell us, when shall these things happen and what shall be the sign of the coming of the age.

The New International Version translates this question as “What will be the sign of the coming of the end of the world?”

And this is a big question of life for anyone.

 It is like on of the other big questions of life like what happens after I die or why am I here and what is my purpose in life. 

What is the meaning of life and how did this earth an all of nature happen.

So the disciples must have eagerly anticipated Jesus answer for they had seen his power over nature by calming the storm and walking on water. 

And we hear from the reading this morning Jesus answer. 

And these are his words, “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many shall come in my name, saying I am the Christ; and shall deceive many.  And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars… for nation shall rise against naton and kingdom against kingdom and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in many places…. And later he says many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

And the modern translations like the NIVsays: “

12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. The King James says, “Because of the iniquity of those time the love of many will wax cold”.

Regardless, both phases are not well understood by the modern mind. 

When is the last time you heard the biblical word iniquity in comversation?

And let me know when you heard the word “Wicked” spoken in every day conversation.

Both are very old fashioned words because the world view of many modern Christians is that human beings are basically good and when we do bad we are either mentally ill or have made a mistake.

The concept of "sin" is obscure and a mystery to the modern mind.

Sins become mistakes or bad choices or are due to illness that any one can fall into!

But Jesus is not done describing the end of the world!

He says when the end of the word will come about in his next sentence. “But he who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all the nations; and then shall the end come.

So Jesus acknowledges that there will be an end of the world. 

And Jesus quotes that when an abomination of desolations appears in the temple and desecrates the Temple as spoken about by the prophet Daniel then:

Let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything form his house. Neither let him who is in the fields return back to take his clothes.
But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that are nursing children. 
But pray that your flight might not be in winter or on a Sabbath day for there shall be a great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be but for the sake of the elect’s sake those days will be shortened. 

Jesus tells us that the church or the "elect" are on the earth and going thorugh the great tribulation and becasue they are going though the tribulation the trubulation is shortened!

In Jesus words, "there is no rapture of the chruch".

And later in the passage Jesus says, “Just like the lightning comes from the east and shine in the west shall the coming of the Son of Man be".

(The son on man is also from the prophesy of Daniel and Jesus refers to him self of 70 times in the gospels as the fulfillment of the Son of Man prophesy of Daniel 7:14). 

Jesus is talking about his second coming after his death. 

And then we come to his words that are removed from the modern translations like the NIV.  The King James gives exactly when the tribulation will happen and who will be in it.

 Here are his most misunderstood word perhaps in the whole bible!

“IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE TRIBULATION OF THOSE DAYS.” (KING JAMES). 

What will happen?

Jesus continues, “The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give it’s light and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be shaken and then the tribes of the earth will mourn for they will see the Son Of Man coming on the clouds of heaves with power and great glory.”

And so Jesus describes in gruesome detail what will happen at the end of the age but does that help us with the interpretation of the current age. 

Many modern interpreters of unanswered biblical prophesy would have you believe that these are the birth pangs and the great tribulation is just around the corners for we have the earthquakes and the pestilence and the wars and rumors of wars that our Lord spoke of right now.

But we have always had those conditions on the earth thorough out history since the cross and resurrection.

What about the black and bubinic plauges of the middle ages.

The aids epidemic is real and has caused thousands of orphans not only in Haiti but thorugh out the world especially in Africa where millions have died from this terrible pestilence but it pales in comparison with the black plague and the bubonic plague of the middle ages and around two centuries before the Reformation of the Church.

So antibiotics and other drugs have made these plagues an non treat but there is not antibiotic effective against viral diseases. 

 But we could focus on when the end shall come according to Christ. 

Many biblical scholars do not go back to the original Greek and take their biblical research to the Latin translation of the Church Father Jerome. 

Jerome translated the New Testament from Greek in to Latin and that bible is known as the Vulgate. 

And we have scholarship in the their self-center humanistic way translating the gathering of the elect as the gathering of the church and a concept called the "Rapture" of the church before the tribulation and some have splintered away and interpreted the rapture of the church in the middle of the tribulation.

As I said before word rapture is a modern word taken from a vision of a woman named MacDonald in Scotland in the 1800s. 

But the King James version makes it clear and tells us when it will happen amd the taking away of the chruch is at the "Resurrection of the dead" that all the disciples of Christ belived in.

It will happen after the tribulation so the church will go through the tribulation and Jesus reinforces this with "if these day were not shorted no flesh would be saved." 

 Let Me Close In Prayer: