This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program originally aired on 11/23/22. To listen to this program please click HERE.
Sam Rohrer: There’s perhaps no future event of greater intrigue, I guess, and subject of countless science fiction movies and mystery books than what authors and movie producers refer to as the coming apocalypse, with a world ending war of all wars called Armageddon. The idea of a worldwide calamity so great that destruction and death and misery, with unleashed evil of such proportions that people would actually prefer to kill themselves rather than to go through it but not able to do so, is almost beyond human comprehension. Yet the intrigue surrounding the concept of apocalypse or Armageddon is held by people all around the world.
The unfortunate reality though is that people prefer to view apocalypse and Armageddon as science fiction rather than seriously and real. The sad result is that they falsely shield and delude themselves from considering whether never before seen global destruction in a global war beyond anything this world has ever seen and coming toward us, that why they should actually consider whether they can in any way prepare or escape this time of unfathomable death and misery. So they think about it but they don’t prepare. Yet the Bible being the source of information describing a coming apocalypse or time of tribulation with a global war of Armageddon moves this from the realm of science fiction to absolutely true, unbendingly real, and frankly quickly approaching.
It should cause all people, particularly Christians, to comprehensively understand and passionately respond to what God says will happen as he describes this period of time called the seven-year Tribulation period in very great detail. It’s the focus of an enormous amount of Old Testament and New Testament biblical prophecy, and it’s the subject of our program today, which will be the fourth in a series we’ve entitled God writing History Before It Happens. My special guest again is Pastor Dr. Carl Broggi, senior pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina.
The program today I’ve entitled Prophecy and God’s Plan: Fleeing the Coming Tribulation. Now this program connects with three previous programs on prophecy, which you can find on our website at standinthegapradio.com, or on our app at Stand in the Gap. Now, if you go to our website, you’ll find all three programs with available transcripts for each of them, and I trust that you’ll take advantage of these as they actually are taken, from the beginning if you do that, from number one through, you’ll find a very concise and easy to comprehend understanding of prophecy, its definitions, purpose, the signs that God says that we can see that give us indication of what’s yet to come, and what we should do about it. And with that I welcome right now back to the program Pastor Carl Broggi. Thanks for being back with me Carl.
Carl Broggi: Pleasure to be with you again, Sam.
Sam Rohrer: Carl, on a previous program we’ve defined, you defined, we’ve talked about prophecy simply as God writing history before it happens. We’ve described the importance of preaching and understanding prophecy if for no other reason than it occupies nearly a third of all scriptures, so therefore very important to God. You’ve made it clear that the purposes for understanding prophecy will result in these things. It should cause us to live more holy lives, give us a better God perspective of unfolding global events, motivate us to greater passion to communicate the gospel, and it will accomplish the purpose of prophecy, which as you’ve so well said, to prepare us, not to scare us.
Now the last time you were with me, we talked about understanding the signs of the times. You identified the signs predicting the first coming of Christ and how they were fulfilled exactly to the T. You identified the chronology of events leading up to the second coming of Christ, and the signs which includes the rapture, the time of tribulation concluding with the battle of Armageddon and the return of Christ, and that’s where we’re going to go here right now. So if you don’t mind, I give just a bit of a review, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll get a flavor of where we’re going in the program. You don’t want to step away for even a moment I don’t think today.
So Carl, here we go. To get us going, could I ask you to do this in brief, describe for us the chronology of the key events and key signs that point towards these latter times in which we are living right now, which lead us into the time of tribulation and the second coming of Christ, which will be our focus today.
Carl Broggi: Well Sam, you used a key term, latter times. Because technically biblically we’ve been in the last days since the birth of the church. And so Peter stood up and said, we’re in the last days. But I believe we’re in the latter times now, the last of the last days. So one of the super signs of course would be Israel. Both Moses and Jesus, Moses in Deuteronomy 4 said there’s coming a time when God will scatter you across the nations of the world. Jesus in Luke 21 said the same thing. He said you’ll be led captive into all the nations. But Moses and Jesus also spoke along with prophet Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, that at the end of times, God would gather the Jewish people back into the land. And so we’ve gone from about 20,000 Jews living in Israel in 1890 to now some 7 million. And it’s really a fulfillment of prophecy, and they’re there from over 100 nations today. And so that’s the super sign. That lets us know that events that are happening today are not normal, because for the final phase of God’s prophetic plan to unfold, Israel has to be back in the land.
Add to that some of the other things like the moral climate. The Lord likened the coming of the son of man to the days of Noah, and so we’re living in days of moral permissiveness and lawlessness, and it’s growing. He likened the coming of the son of man to the days of Lot which were days of moral perversion, a growing spirit of homosexuality. And even Paul wrote in 1 Timothy chapter 4, he spoke of the fact that in the latter times, and that’s different from last days. He’s speaking about the end of the age. He said men would fall away from the faith, that is a body of truth we call the Bible. And so one of the marks that were in the end of that timeframe is indeed growing apostasy.
Add to that the rise of Russia is a world power. When C I Scofield wrote the Scofield Study Bible and it came out in the early part of the 20th century, they said, Dr. Scofield, how is it possible that Russia is going to attack Israel? They’re a Christian nation, and Israel doesn’t even exist. And he said, well, I don’t understand how it’s going to happen, but the Bible writes of it and so it’s going to happen. Israel now exists, it became a nation one day. Russia’s become a world power, communistic in nature. And so these are some of the events that are leading towards the last of the last days for the second coming.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, and brother Carl, very quickly in this segment, define quickly if you can, the seven-year tribulation period. Define that. What is that?
Carl Broggi: Yeah, so there’s coming a time, there’s a 70-week prophecy as we call it, unfolded by the prophet Daniel. The first 69 weeks deal with the first coming of Christ. The 70th week, Jews have not only a week of days but a week of years. And so it refers to seven years. And it’s seven years in life, and it’s unfolded by not just Daniel the prophet, but John in The Revelation and Jesus himself. It’s divided into two halves, three and a half years each.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, and Brother Carl, I just have to step in time just because of the break. Ladies and gentlemen, stay with us. You have what it is. We’re talking a seven-year period divided into half, talked about throughout scripture. When we come back, Dr. Carl Broggi and I will go into and now begin speaking about what happens in the first half of the tribulation period.
Well, thanks for being with us today here on Stand In the Gap today. This is another of our continuing of Israel and prophecy update focuses. My special guest today back with me again is Dr. Carl Broggi, senior pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina, and he has a website with so many sermons that you can find, and Q&A that he does on some other radio programs, searchthescriptures.org. Searchthescriptures.org is there and I think that if you were led, you’d go there, you would find a lot of helpful things.
Our theme today is a fourth in a continuing series that we’re calling God Writing History Before It Happens, and our focus today, Prophecy and God’s Plan: Fleeing the Coming Tribulation. So we’re talking about now the tribulation period, which brother Carl just defined briefly. Now going right into this, because we have a lot to go over, in Daniel 9:27 and other places, there are direct references to what Pastor Broggi just mentioned on the other side, the 70th week of God’s unfolding plan of redemption. That’s what it’s all about. The 70th week equates to seven years, and that seven-year period is divided into two halves of three and a half years each.
Now this time of judgment, that’s what tribulation is all about, is unlike anything in history. And though both the first half and second half are intricately connected to each other, they are dramatically and distinctly different from each other with different events and different impacts. And we’re going to begin to look at these now in detail. Carl, in the last segment you gave an overview and a definition of the seven-year tribulation period, which I just did again kind of right there at that moment. But before going into detail on the first three and a half years, can you quickly summarize now the purpose for the overall seven-year tribulation period, and the primary purposes for the first three and a half, and the second three and a half, just to get us started as before we go into the details here of the first three and a half?
Carl Broggi: Well clearly I suppose in one word Sam, you could say salvation. It’s all about salvation. It’s in the midst of wrath that God speaks and gets man’s attention. And so he has in view the salvation of the people of Israel and the salvation of the nations of the world. Jeremiah refers to this period that we call the great tribulation, the time of Jacob’s or Israel’s trouble, and God wants to use it to bring the Jewish people to conversion. Jesus made it very clear in reference to the second coming that he could not come back in the second coming until Israel confessed that he was Lord. He said, “For I say to you, from now on, you will not see me until you say,” and then he quotes Psalm 118, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” And so Jesus came in the name of the Lord, of Yahweh, and the Jewish people during this timeframe are going to confess that truth. They’re going to be converted.
In addition, not only is God interested in the salvation of the Jews but the nation. And so through 144,000 Jewish men who will preach the gospel to the whole world, through two witnesses and even an angel of God, the gospel will go out to every single tribe, tongue and nation. And so Jesus can say this gospel, the kingdom shall go to the whole world, and then the end shall come. Contextually, he’s speaking about what will happen during this seven year period, primarily the first half when the nations of the world are reached and are converted and confess Jesus is Lord.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, all right. What triggers the actual beginning of the tribulation? Many people, I mean some are people saying, are we already into it? You’ve already given a super sign, the regathering of Israel, but is there a specific sign that the Bible gives us that actually would allow everyone who is here to know that that actual period of tribulation has begun?
Carl Broggi: Well after the church is raptured, there’s a period of time that’s undefined in scripture. It could be days, weeks, months, but it appears to be rather rapid. But what causes the clock to tick on the final seven years is a covenant that this one world leader called by 30 different names, most popularly the antichrist, he will sign a treaty with Israel. And you quoted or referenced Daniel 9:27, he, referring to this prince to come, the antichrist will make a firm covenant with the many, speaking about Israel, for one week. But in the middle of the week, in the middle of this seven-year period, a week of years, he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering.
So he’ll go into the temple, he will commit the abomination of desolation. It’s also called the wing of abominations. It’s a dual, there’s two things that he does that will signal to the Jews and to those who are familiar with prophecy that he is not a true messiah. One, he’ll go into the temple and make himself out to be God. Well, Jesus went into the temple, claimed to be God. That didn’t seem evil because it was true of him. So why would they know that this is not true of the antichrist? Because of a second thing that he does, he commits an act of idolatry. His cohort, a second piece called the false prophet, will get men to worship and object, an image of the antichrist. It will actually come alive, supernaturally, miraculously under Satan’s power, and the Jews will know you cannot mix the messiah with idolatry. Those who have not been converted to this time, their eyes will be fully open. They’ll realize he’s a phony messiah and cannot be the true messiah of Israel.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, that’s fantastic. Okay, let’s move right into this. Now, during that first three and a half year, there are a number of judgments called seal judgments. I’m going to ask you to do the impossible, and that is basically give us an overview of what they are, why they sealed judgments, and effectively what they are and what happens through these as these seals are unveiled in this first three and a half years.
Carl Broggi: So John sees this seven-layered seal where only one seal can be opened at a time. And he wonders who’s able to open it, and Jesus, the lamb of God in the throne, he takes the seal and he begins to unfold it. And so there are seven seals, and they perfectly parallel Revelation chapter 6 and 7. So in Matthew 24 Jesus begins to speak of false Christ, in Matthew 24:4 and 5. That is a picture of the first seal of judgment of a man who comes on a white horse of deception. He’s not Christ, he’s antichrist, he’s a fake. Then Jesus speaks of wars and rumors of wars that will be unfolding during his time. That’s when the second seal comes, when a man on a red horse so to speak comes, and there’s war and bloodshed on the earth. Then Jesus in Matthew 24, second half of verse seven speaks of coming famines. That’s the black horse of famine, and it’s so destitute the world that people are struggling just to put food on the table for a single day.
Then Jesus speaks of this vast amount of death. And so the fourth seal is this force of death. Then he speaks of all these martyrs, all these people who are slaughtered for the faith. And likewise the fifth seal, there’s all these martyrs under the altar. Why? Because they would not give allegiance to this false one world religion. And so they confess Jesus is Lord and they’re being executed for it.
Then Luke mentions the gospels don’t contradict, but they complement some cosmic changes in the heavens, not the same ones that will happen even later on under the trumpet in bold judgments or at the second coming, but some things that are happening in heaven. And even so, Revelations 6:12-17 mentions the sixth seal of these cosmic changes. And then that section concludes in Matthew 24 with a worldwide preaching of the gospel. And again, that perfectly fits Revelation chapter seven, where 144,000 Jews become missionaries. They’re superman, you can’t kill them. They have this seal of God on them, and they preach the gospel to the whole world. And because of their ministry, John sees his great number from every tribe, tongue, and nation. And the great commission that we should do everything in our power today to fulfill will be fulfilled during that timeframe. The gospel will go to the whole world, and then Jesus said, the end will come. So this is the first half of the tribulation. It’s bad. It’s nothing compared to what is going to unfold in this second half of the tribulation.
Sam Rohrer: And ladies and gentlemen, we’ll find out that part in the next segment. So stay with us here. Carl, a question for you, because everything we’re describing here pretty much on this program is from an earth view, what someone sees happening here. But something’s also happening in heaven at this point. Tell us briefly what’s happening in heaven during this time of the first three and a half years?
Carl Broggi: Well, a couple things. Number one, we’re caught up. We meet the Lord in the air and we eventually find ourselves at the judgment seat of Christ. It’s the [foreign language 00:18:40]. Word [foreign language 00:18:41] means judgment seat. And the focus of it is not to see if we go to heaven. That’s determined one second after you die based on what you do with Christ. But believers will face the judgment. We like unbelievers are rewarded according to our works. And so if we are yielded, filled with the spirit in eternity, God rewards us for the works that he did through us. And so it’s really the reward seat of Christ.
That unfolds, and then he dresses his bride called the church, making her ready for the marriage of the lamb. Right now we’re betrothed to Christ. We will “be married to Christ.” We will know him in a fuller way, closer way than we could ever, ever, ever imagine. And so we see the robes that are given, they’re referred to as the righteous acts of the saints. Not only are we given robes of righteousness based on the blood of Christ, but then God gives us decorations, I suppose, emblems on the robe. We don’t know how, to reward us accordingly.
Sam Rohrer: And ladies and gentlemen, are you going to be there? That’s my question. Are you going to be there when all these things begin to unfold on earth? Will you be there in the presence of Jesus Christ about to enter into the marriage supper of the land? I hope. Well, your relationship with Jesus Christ is that determination, but down here on earth things are not only bad, they’re going to get even worse. This is the second half of the time called the tribulation period, and we’ll go into those details when we come back in just a moment.
Well, as the entire seven-year tribulation period is marked throughout scripture and can be identified by distinctive signs that indicate those periods of time, and as we know, the entire period of time is triggered by a specific event. So the seven-year period is also marked by a specific event or sign at the midpoint of the three and a half year period. And that is when this false Christ, antichrist is in the temple there in Jerusalem, proclaims himself to be God, and it basically recognizes an idol that is there in the temple which opens the eyes of the Jewish people, who say it’s not possible that true messiah would introduce idolatry. And that is what Pastor Carl Broggi may clear on the other side. Very, very important to understand that.
Now when this event occurs, then God’s pouring out of judgment and his purposes for Israel are quickly culminated. It’s this period of time that becomes the worst period of time in the history of the earth, which the Bible describes as being so severe that if God does not somehow shorten the days, if the days be not shortened, what scripture says, not a single person on earth would be left alive. And it’s this period of time that God actually uses the words to his people Israel, that when they see the trigger event there with that antichrist and the temple occur, that they should flee the coming apocalyptic tribulation judgment. And hence the theme of what the program is today, tribulation and fleeing it.
Now, Carl, will you start by identifying the trigger event marking the clear dividing line between the three and a half years and the second three and a half at the time of great wrath, and why it is? And I’ve already kind of identified it, but build it out a little bit, why and who God tells to flee. Is it everybody in the world? Is it the Jews? Go to that point if you could, please.
Carl Broggi: So here in Matthew 24, they’re asking him questions about the end of the age. And so in verses 3-14, he describes these seven sealed judgements. Then he says in verse 15, “Marking the midpoint of this seven-year period when you see the abomination which was a desolation spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, let the reader understand, those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.” [inaudible 00:23:08] and so on and so forth.
He’s speaking to Jewish people who will be reading through this portion of scripture. The remaining Jews who weren’t converted in the first three and a half years, many are going to be converted because they’re going to see Jesus prophesied this very thing would happen, the abomination of desolation. And so he told us to flee into the wilderness. Many think that they will go to Petra. I couldn’t be dogmatic on that, but I think there’s a good argument for it. I preached the book of Obadiah once and made an argument on that, but in Revelation 12, that is underscored. God is going to supernaturally protect a third of the Jews who are going to survive and go into the coming kingdom age. Two thirds of the Jews are going to perish according to the prophet Zechariah during this timeframe.
And so this is a turning point, and as you said, Jesus said, unless those days have been cut short no flesh could possibly survive, because the tribulation period goes from tribulation as it’s described in Revelation chapter six, to what Jesus now calls great tribulation. It gets far more intense, so intense as he said, no one could possibly have lived through it.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, excellent, excellent. Okay. Now there’s a series of judgments referred to, the first half were sealed judgments. You described them in the last segment. The second half there are trumpet judgments and then some bold judgments. A lot of people say I’ve heard of that, but I don’t know what they are. Can you again do the impossible, without going into super detail obviously, but identify these escalating judgments and what they mean?
Carl Broggi: So unlike the seal judgments where you can only see one seal at a time, each seal is broken one at a time, when you break the seventh seal, contained in the seventh seal are seven trumpets. And in the seventh trumpet we learn in The Revelation are contained seven bowls. So when the seventh seal is opened, you can see all the way to the end. In fact, there’s 30 minutes of silence in heaven. My guess is, is that people’s breath is just taken away when they see the judgements that are going to unfold.
So the trumpets come one at a time. The first sounded, a third of the trees and all the grass is burned up. The second trumpet is sounded, a third of the sea becomes blood. A third of the creatures in the sea die. A third of the ships are all destroyed. Third trumpet comes through the third angel, third of the fresh waters, all the springs are destroyed and made bitter. Fourth angel comes, the sun is dark and the moon, a third of the stars somehow are struck. The next angel comes and before he says it, he says, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Because what is about to happen is even more terrifying.” And so God allows this bottomless pit to be opened up and these demonic beings come out. They torment men. Men will want to die as you noted in the front end of the program, but they won’t be able to. These demons so to speak, will stop them. They won’t be able to take a gun to their head or a rope to their neck. It will be impossible.
Then the sixth trumpet sounds, and again, there’s more judgment. The Euphrates River is dried up and it’s for a coming battle known as Armageddon where the kings of the world will be deceived and they’ll walk up that dry riverbed into Israel. And then the seventh trumpet is sounded, and you know you’re right towards the end, because then it says the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.
Because then what follows in the seventh trumpet are seven bowls. And they are so dramatic. People couldn’t live very long under these seven bowls. Earth is literally crushed. There’s these malignant sores that come on people who worship the image. Then there’s in the next bowl, the second bowl, the sea becomes all like blood. The third bowl, all the fresh waters are destroyed. So we’re going from a third, to the whole world be destroyed. It’s like a [inaudible 00:27:21] being turned up and things are getting worse and worse and worse. And another bowl comes, a fifth angel and things get dark and men gnaw their tongues, and they blaspheme God, but they refuse to repent. And then again, the great river Euphrates, people now march up it. Hailstones come in the seventh bowl and we’re at the end. And so that leads to the battle of Armageddon.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, and that’s perfect. What a tremendous job of putting that together in quick sequence, Carl. But that does lead us to the battle of Armageddon. You wonder, after all of those things, how many men would actually be left and could they actually put together a million man army, which scripture says will come up through that valley. But talk to us about that, because the battle of Armageddon is not the end either. That moves into something else. Put all of that together as we really at this point now complete those latter years we talked about earlier.
Carl Broggi: Well, the demonic forces under the leadership of this unholy trinity lures the kings of the whole world up into Israel. And it’s for what the scripture calls in Revelation 16 the great day of God the Almighty. And so they attempt to actually come against the living God, and God warns in Revelation 19, it said that they might eat the flesh of the kings and the flesh of the commanders. In other words, there’re going to be, there’s going to be this awful bloodshed that’s going to take place, not through man’s hands, but through the hand of the son of God. With a sword protruding from his mouth in judgment, he will destroy the armies of the world. And there’ll be so much bloodshed that the scripture says the blood will be up to the horse’s bridle. If you’ve ever seen a horse running through muddy, muddy land, the mud comes all the way up to the top of the horse, up to the bridle. The ground will be so soaked with blood, the blood will be up to the horse’s bridle, and they continue to go against God, against God, against God, and then Jesus finally shuts it down.
So it’s called the Battle of Armageddon, maybe better the campaign of Armageddon, because there’s a place called Megiddo, [foreign language 00:29:36] Megiddo, the hill or the mountain of Megiddo. And in front of it is the Jezreel Valley that’s 200 miles long. And it’s there that the armies of the world will gather together to go against God’s anointed. But much like in Psalm 2, God looks down, and with a derision, a laugh. It’s just utter foolishness what they’re trying to do to go against God, and they’ll be unsuccessful. And this will lead finally to the second coming of Jesus on the earth.
Sam Rohrer: And Carl, in the last minute I want you to go back, because what you’ve just described, people are listening. If they have not heard it, they say, “Wow, that is apocalyptic.” Well, it is. That’s what it means. Tribulation, period. But it’s unbelievable. We can’t fathom it. But this is what the Bible says, and that’s why you said there’s going to be space in heaven for about 30 minutes because probably all of heaven who evidently is able to watch says, “Wow.” But you said at the beginning of the program that this was not about a hateful God, but this was all about salvation and a God of just, we’ll build it up more in the next segment, but how is this all ultimately about salvation?
Carl Broggi: Well, the scripture says God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And so what we are actually seeing unfold, it’s called the wrath of the lamb, the wrath of God. And it’s a reminder to me that Jesus equally had to bear that measure of wrath for the sins of the world on the cross. And so it’s kind of a final wake-up call. This is nothing compared to the coming eternal wrath, because this wrath is just a number of years. When a man has been in hell a hundred billion years, he will not have one less second to spend there. And again, that’s not God’s desire. He wishes none to perish, but for all to come to repentance. He desires all men, 1 Timothy 2:5, to be saved. But not all will be saved because they won’t respond to God’s warnings during this time.
Sam Rohrer: All right, and ladies and gentlemen, stay with us because it’s important to understand why all this is taking place. When we come back, we’re going to ask Pastor Carl to take and share more lessons, because there are lessons not just for the people living who will be here during the tribulation period, but for us now prior to this time.
Well just a reminder before we go into this final segment where we will take everything we’ve shared today, which is an amazing volume of information on this time period, the tribulation period. Before we do that, I just want to remind all of you again listening, this is the fourth in a series of programs on prophecy that we’re entitling God Writing History Before It Happens, basically a simple definition of prophecy. You can go back and listen to all four of them beginning, I think we did it, we started the first one on August the 23rd of this year.
But you can go to our website, you can find them. If you listen to them in order from that one, two, three to this fourth, all of the groundwork that has been laid will provide to you, I really honestly believe a simple to understand, but yet comprehensive overview of prophecy and what it means, and how it applies to us. We’re going to finish on that application here right now.
Now, the word of God tells us about what is to come. That is prophecy. It tells us how to live. Most importantly, the word of God tells us about our great creator, God. His creation tells us about the fall where sin entered the world, precipitated by a real live devil, but then presents to us God’s marvelous plan of redemption. Really it’s that plan of redemption, which prophecy is all about, and how the justice of God sets the un-altering standard against all sin, and sets the standard for holiness, which is total perfection and impossible for any man or woman ever to attain, thus presenting us with the mercy and the love of God through Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
And that is what prophecy refers to, that lamb of God, the first coming of Christ. But as we have learned, the second coming of Christ we’re talking about today has all to do with him returning the second time, but this time in judgment as the great judge of the universe, as the king of kings and the Lord of Lords, which then ushers in the 1,000 years millennial kingdom where Jesus Christ, God himself will rule physically as the king of the world from the capital city of Jerusalem.
And from all indications, it appears that these days are right upon us. Okay, Carl, you earlier identified the overall purposes for the tribulation period as it relates to mankind generally the character and the nature of God, the furtherance of God’s plan of redemption, and specifically the disciplining and bringing back to him of his nation, Israel. You also described why it was that the Jews, specifically after the revealing of the antichrist in the temple and Jerusalem, that persecution unlike anything in the history of the world began and why God told the Jews to flee. Now, there’s an application though here for all of us on this side of tribulation. Would you please tell us and make some application for what we’ve reviewed today? What should we who are alive today, obviously before the rapture, obviously before the tribulation, what should we take from what we talked about today?
Carl Broggi: Well, that’s a penetrating question, Sam. I think of Moses when he spoke to the Jewish people prophetically, and he said, when you are in a time of distress and all these things come upon you, he’s projecting down the [inaudible 00:35:47] of time to what we’ve been talking about this morning, in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and listen to his voice.
And so God uses tragedy, whether it’s a tragedy that may fall during the tribulation or in someone’s life that’s listening to me, to bring about repentance. On a day when Jesus was asked some questions about the Galileans whose blood was mixed by Pilate, and a day when the Tower of Siloam fell down, and they were so caught up, like, why did these people die? And Jesus said what’s important is death is going to come upon everyone, and we need to repent because unless we repent, we likewise will perish.
And so it should be a lesson to us that God is just, that his wrath is real, he wants us to change our mind about our sin, to see it as abhorrent, and to put our full confidence in his promise that the death burial and resurrection can forgive us, cleanse us, and give us a new life of meaning and a promise of eternal life in heaven. So that’s one of the functions, as the wrath of God reminds us, we’re sinful and we too need to repent.
Sam Rohrer: That’s perfect. Secondly, oh, go ahead. I’m sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead, brother. Go ahead.
Carl Broggi: Yeah, I would also just be reminded by application that the only way we can do that again is through Christ. In The Revelation in the seventh chapter you have all these tribulation saints who are saved. It says they wash their robes through the blood of the lamb, and there’s no other way to get forgiveness but through Christ. The Bible says there’s salvation in no one else. And Jesus said, no one can come to the Father, but through me.
And then third, I’m just reminded when I think of the tribulation that God is just. My wife and I were picked up by an Uber driver in DC taking us to church, and he had Christian music going. And I asked him some questions. I thought, well, maybe he’s a Christian and if he was going to heaven and how sure he was. He said, “Well, let me ask you a question.” He said, “If God is the God of love, which I think he is,” he said, “everyone’s going to go to heaven.”
And I just reminded him that if an injustice was done to him, if someone heard him or murdered one of his loved ones, he would want justice to be satisfied. And he knew that innately, because he’s made in the image of God. Innately, we know God is love, but he’s also just, and His justice is going to be satisfied, either in a substitute that we receive or we will satisfy that justice for all of eternity in a place of eternal retribution that God doesn’t want us to go, but he won’t overlook our sin. It’ll either be punished in a substitute who we receive, but it won’t be overlooked. Because if we don’t receive him, it will be punished in us for all of eternity.
Sam Rohrer: Brother Carl, brings up this question, people listening right now and say, well, this sounds important. And it is, absolutely. There are many who have heard the word. Well, now is the day of salvation. There is an appointed time. The tendency is for the devil just to tell us, oh, put off that decision. Tomorrow, you have another chance. Don’t make big decisions right away. But you’re talking about our eternal life here. Here’s a question a lot of people would have. They say, well, if I don’t get saved now and the rapture occurs tomorrow, that’s okay, because oh, I can get saved. I can get saved sometime later during the tribulation, because we know that there are tribulations saints. But is that true?
Carl Broggi: Well, most people who reason that way do so because they have a love for sin. They love the darkness rather than the light. And so Paul warns in 2 Thessalonians of the deception of wickedness on all who are going to perish, because they did not love the truth so as to be saved. And so for this reason, God will send on them a deluding influence, that they might believe what’s false. God is just. We don’t come on our terms, we come on his terms. I believe he works in the hearts of all men when the spirit comes to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
But we don’t draw ourselves to God. And so Jesus even warned in John chapter 12 of Jews who had seen light, they’d seen miracles, and yet they would not believe that Jesus was Lord, and so he said they reached a point where they could not believe. And what is happening even today, and there’s an urgency to the gospel because God wants us to be saved today. If we tell him no, we’re hardening our hearts. But those who have heard the gospel with clarity and power, and God alone can measure that, prior to the rapture, will not receive Christ after the rapture. They’ll experience the deluding influence of God, and they will believe what is false. And so today is the day to be saved. Tomorrow may be too late. Forget the rapture. We can put the final callous on our heart today where we cannot believe in the parable of the sower and be saved. Satan has given permission to steal the seed that they cannot believe and be saved.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, and brother Carl, our time is up. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you have been moved by what has been said. Do not put off. If you’re a believer, don’t put off a conviction of the Holy Spirit and change sin in our life. Confess it and get ready. And for those of you listening who do not know the Lord, don’t plan on tomorrow being an option. It just simply may not be. Well thanks for being with us today. Go to our website. Listen to this program again and share it. It’s urgent, urgent. standinthegapradio.com. Have a great Thanksgiving Day.
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