Prophecy and God’s Plan: The Second Coming of Christ

This transcript was taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program originally aired on 3/15/23.  To listen to the program, please click HERE.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello, and welcome to this Wednesday edition of Stand in the Gap today, and this is our monthly focus on Israel and prophecy. Now, today is the seventh in a series that we began many months ago, and I’ve entitled it God Writing History Before It Happens. That’s kind of the title for the entire series. My guest today is my recurring guest that’s been with me from the beginning on this. It’s somebody I’ve come to highly respect. He’s Pastor Carl Broggi. He is the senior pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina. With all the major national and international events converging around us, we see it all. It’s a collapsing dollar. We talked about that issue on Monday on this program, where, actually, a dollar-focused world currency is changing and giving rise to, no doubt, because they’ve already talked about it, a global digital currency from the realignment of the world’s nations as independent sovereign states into more, I would say, congealed, ideologically-driven regional coalitions, from a globally dominated US hegemony to a diminishing us influence. Sad to say, but we can see it.

From a divided Middle East, to now an aligned Middle East, with Saudi Arabia in firm alliance with its enemy, Iran, with China as the king maker of all things, and the security of Israel, and the world’s focus on this little nation moving ahead at lightning speed according to God’s prophetical plan, and with all these things and more, the convergence, and that’s a keyword, the convergence of so many, many of God’s prophesied plans for the end times, the signs that He give us. It’s literally upon us. We can see it with our own eyes, what amazing days in which to live. Well, there’s no more important time to learn, to observe, and to apply biblical prophecy, than today. Now, thus far, just a little bit of history, in part one of this series we’ve defined and described prophecy, its connection to Israel, and identified the next major event as the rapture of the church.

In part two, we identified the signs pertaining to the tribulation period in Christ’s second coming and how to discern those signs. In part three, pastor Broggi and I examined what the Bible says about the church and the church age, where we are right now. In part five, we examined a key point of interest for all true believers, where we looked at the saints and God’s unfolding plan for Bible saints, where we threw in Old Testament saints, church-age saints, tribulation saints, and millennial saints. Then, last month, in part six, we focused on the greatest and the fastest battle of all times, the battle of Armageddon. Today, we’ll focus on the next prophetical event after the battle of Armageddon, and that is the second coming of Christ, and the title I’ve chosen for today’s focus is this: Prophecy and God’s Plan: the Second Coming of Christ, and, with that, I welcome back to the program again, Dr. Carl Broggi. Carl, thank you so much for being back with me again in this most important ongoing series here.

Carl Broggi:

Well, Sam, it’s a pleasure to be here with Stand in the Gap, and these are exciting days to be alive as we witness, right before our eyes, God’s setting the stage for the return of His son.

Sam Rohrer:

And that’s what we want to talk about here, and, boy, what a thing to think about. We’re talking about the second coming today, Carl. So I’d like for you to start by doing what you do regularly when you preach exegetically, and you get into a series, and what I’ve done for a long time on this program [inaudible 00:03:37] and that is to define the terms so that we can make sure that what our listeners are thinking and what we’re thinking are in agreement. Now, that being the case, in addition to defining what the Bible means when we refer to the second coming, could you also define that and describe it in the sense of what the second coming is, and, perhaps, what the second coming is not?

Carl Broggi:

Okay. Well, the second coming, of course, happens at the end of the great tribulation period, also called the time of Jacob’s trouble, and so Jesus said immediately after the tribulation of those days, which he’s unfolded in Matthew 24, and in 25, He said, “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of the sky in great power and glory.” So it’s an actual literal physical return of Jesus, and that’s important because today, in Christianity, people will often use the same terms, but they use a different dictionary to define those terms. I think of a pastor not far from where I’m sitting who said, “Well, Jesus rose from the dead, not literally, but in our hearts, spiritually.”

In the same vein, in liberal Protestantism, even when they cite sometimes the Apostles’ Creed, they’re redefining words, and so the second coming is, “Oh, Christianity has more and more influence. The culture gets better, and better, and better,” and, of course, nothing could be further from the truth, and so Jesus spoke of a literal coming. If you remember, on the Mount of Olives, when He ascended into heaven, the angel said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” Jesus went away literally, actually, bodily, visibly, and the Bible teaches in just the same way, he’s coming back literally, actually, bodily, visibly, and when John has a vision of the second coming, he records in Revelation 1:7, “Behold He’s coming in the clouds.” He’s quoting Daniel, chapter 7, the same section that Jesus quotes in all that discourse.

And then He says, “Every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him, so it is to be, amen.” And so this is an actual event that is going to happen in the future, in Revelation, of course, 20, unfolds for us or Revelation 19, starting around verse 11, all the way through verse 19, unfolds what it looks like He comes back on a white horse. He was called faithful and true, and so He makes a contrast between the two, who, at the return of Jesus Christ, the beast and the false prophet, the antichrist and his cohort, are going to be cast into the lake of fire. They were unfaithful, they were untrue, but he who is faithful and true comes back on a white horse.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay, Pastor Carl, hold that just a moment, because I want to actually to point in here clarification before we build this out more. There are many references in scripture that people refer to as the return of Christ. The return of Christ, is it the rapture of the church? Is it the second coming, which we’re talking about today, or perhaps is both? Can you clarify just a little bit? Is it the same thing? What’s the return of Christ?

Carl Broggi:

So the return of Christ program includes the rapture in the second coming, just like the first coming program included a number of events, His birth in Bethlehem, His being raised in Nazareth, His public ministry in Capernaum, His crucifixion and resurrection and ascension in Jerusalem. The rapture is part of the second coming program, but in the rapture, He comes for His saints to take us to heaven. It’s called in scripture the Day of Christ, whereas, the second coming, He comes back with His saints, He brings us back to the earth, and is part of the day of Lord.

Sam Rohrer:

All right. Absolutely. Excellent. Ladies and gentlemen, you’re listening to Stand in the Gap today. This is Prophecy and God’s Plan emphasis. Today, we’re focusing on the second coming of Christ. My special guest is Dr. Carl Broggi, senior pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina. When we come back, we’re going to go further and talk about the second coming in context. We’re going to put it in a chronological form, so we understand where it is.

In studying biblical prophecy, or, as we refer to it, God writing history before it happens, there are certain truths which should always be remembered. Now, these are just a couple that I’m highlighting for the purposes of the program today. First is that true prophecy always comes true, and true prophets, pastors and shepherds, will teach those who forth tell the word of God. They will teach what God tells us will come to pass, and those who don’t, well, frankly, Jesus calls them higher lengths. Now, false prophets, they there, too. They preach lies and deception, and they are known, in part, because their words do not come to pass, and Jesus warns that in the days in which we live right now, false profits will be on the increase.

Now, secondly, since the Bible’s about 30% prophecy, it is, therefore, very important to God, and since it’s so important to God, it should be important to us, also, and that is why we study, and should study, prophecy. It’s why, on this program, we spend time every other Wednesday on it, specifically, and work it within our various programs, because you cannot talk about headline use without appropriately connecting it to what scripture says. So properly approaching what God tells us about prophecy will then drive us to apply it and to allow it to shape our lives by bringing us into greater commitment to holy living, which should be a result, greater passion for the gospel, which should be a result, and a greater anticipation for Jesus’s return, i.e., that is the rapture of the church.

Now, Carl, since we know that God is a God of precision, and order, and predictability, the chronology of prophetical events reflects, in my opinion, the character and the nature of an orderly God, and we can bank on it because He says it. So as it relates to the second coming, this event which you described briefly in the last segment, would you define, at this point, the macro, the large perspective? And then the next question I want to go to is more of the specific, but in the big picture of God’s plan of redemption, put the second coming of Christ into perspective chronologically.

Carl Broggi:

Well, Sam, in the Old Testament, as you know, the prophets prophesied two comings of the Messiah. First, He’d come as a suffering servant, then He would come as a reigning king, and, very often, in passages like Isaiah 9, Isaiah 61, Daniel 7, all in a single paragraph, or within a few verses, the whole program of God is unfolded. What people didn’t see in the Old Testament that it’s revealed to us under the fullness of revelation in the New Testament is between the first and second communes, there’s a time called the church age. So a baby will be born, the baby’s name will be called Mighty God. That’s the first coming. The government will rest on His shoulders. That hasn’t happened yet. It will happen at the second coming. So right now, God is building His church. The next great event is a rapture. We’ll be snatched up. There’ll be a short period of time, weeks, days, possibly months, and then the antichrist will step on the scene as one world ruler. He’ll sign a covenant with Israel, and it will begin a seven-year period known as the time of Jacob’s trouble, the great tribulation.

Biblically, in both the old and New Testaments, it’s divided into two half of three-and-a-half years, 42 months, 1,260 days. The first half, Israel’s protected. It’s a difficult time, but in the middle of that 70th week, the antichrist goes into a rebuilt temple, He ruins it, so to speak, and then everything gets bad. It gets super bad, and it turns into the great tribulation, and Jesus said in Matthew 24, “When you see these events take place,” that He has outlined in the all of it discourse, “Look up. The time is near.” It’s not here, it’s near. So at the end of the 70th week, because no man can calculate the day or the hour, there’s a brief space of time, and then Jesus literally, physically, bodily, is seen in the clouds. Every eye will see Him, and He’ll come to rule and reign for 1,000 years. At the end of the thousand years, we’ll enter into the final eternal state on a new heaven and a new arch.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay, excellent. Now, that’s the big picture. So we’re in the church age. Christ came, first coming. We are in this, well, it’s about 2,000 years now. We don’t know exactly how long, but the next event is the rapture that concludes this period of time, begins the seven-year tribulation sometime after that, and I want you to go into more detail, concludes with the second coming, and then, as you said, the millennial kingdom goes on the other side, but just for helping people to put the pieces into place here, could you build out just a little bit more in this time of Jacob’s trouble, tribulation period, same thing, two different references. Could you just lay out just a little bit of the events that scripture says will happen? What triggers the beginning of that tribulation? Walk us through of what then will lead us up to the second coming of Christ?

Carl Broggi:

Well, on the Mount of Olive, of Jesus has made a statement about their house being the temple, being left desolate, and then He makes a definitive statement that He cannot come back until you, being the people of Israel, say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” It’s a quote from Psalm 118, a great messianic passage. That’s why God’s not done with Israel. The second coming can’t even happen until Israel acknowledges that Jesus is Lord, and so the disciples ask Him on the Mount, “Hey, what will this look like?” And beginning in 24:4-14, he describes what we call the birth pains. Those are the sealed judgments. It’s not by accident that Matthew 24:4-14 perfectly parallels the sealed judgments in Revelation 6. We’re really, technically, not in the birth pains, but, of course, to have birth pains, you have to have a pregnancy, and what we are seeing today are shadows that are casting a signal on future events.

We’re in the pregnancy, but one of these days, after the rapture, the water, so to speak, will break, and things will begin to go downward. In the middle of that event, the antichrist goes into a rebuilt temple, which requires, of course, Israel to be back in the land, which was one of the super signs of the times of the end. It requires a rebuilt temple, which could easily happen. The second temple took, just the dates you’ve given in Ezra, took three-and-a-half years to build, and that was in his day. They could probably build it in six months in our day, and he’ll go into a temple that’s functioning, he’ll desolate it by claiming to be God, commit an act of idolatry, and then things get super bad, and so Jesus says, again, when you see these things happening, He says, “Learn the parable from the fig tree.” Luke adds, “In all the trees.”

So this is not some unique like thing to a fig tree, where how [inaudible 00:15:22] Israel, and when this happens, 40 years from Israel becoming a nation, and Christ will come back by 1988, the rapture by ’81. He apologized for all of that, thank God, but when you, in the spring up there where you live, see the willow tree begin to sprout buds, you know winter is ending and summer is coming, and when you see the fig tree, and all the trees begin to bud, you know you’re in that final season, and so Jesus, when you see this generation that’s alive to witness the events of the great tribulation, when they see that, know that He is near, right at the door. He’s not here, he’s near, meaning there’s a short timeframe at the end of that 70th week.

It’s immediate, but it’s a month, a week. We don’t know. Again, no one can calculate the day or the hour, and then every eye, unlike in the rapture, will see Him. So, again, in the rapture, He comes in the air, [inaudible 00:16:22] He comes to the earth. He comes for His saints in the rapture. The angels at the second coming come for the loss to remove them off the earth. Jesus comes before the hour of trial in the rapture. He comes after the great tribulation at the second coming. Again, no signs needed for the rapture. It’s imminent, could happen today. All kinds of things have to happen for this second coming, and so, again, two distinct events.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay, excellent. Now, that’s more of the what, and I want to stay on that here for the next minute-and-a-half or whatever, until this segment ends, and that is the what. You’ve already kind of described it a little bit. You described the whats of the tribulation, the judgments that come, the first half, and then they doubly increase after the antichrist reveals himself in the temple and desecrates it halfway through, but a little bit more now about what of the second coming. Build that out just a little bit more of the what, the description of what happens actually at the second coming.

Carl Broggi:

Well, at the second coming, one, the battle of Armageddon is instantly ended. Jesus blows on them, so to speak, and they’re all dead, and there’s so much blood as the horses tramp through the Jezreel Valley, and that whole area will splash up to their bridals. The rest of the world will be judged at that point, those who are alive at the second coming who were not combatants in Armageddon, and they’re really divided into different groups. There’s living Israel and living Gentiles, not everyone in Israel. There’s a text where it says, “All Israel will be saved.” It’s often taken out of context and misunderstood.

He’s talking about all true Israels, all the true Jews, but Ezekiel and other passages separates believing from unbelieving Israel in the second coming. When that is done, then there’s the judgment of the nations, it’s called the sheep and goats judgment, and there are three groups of people in that. There’s the sheep, that represent believing gentiles, there’s goats, that represent unbelieving gentiles, and their judgment is based on how they treated the Jewish people, because how they treated the Jewish people will show whether or not they truly knew the Lord or did not know the Lord. So it’s coming at the second coming for a number of judgments that are going to happen.

Sam Rohrer:

And that is an entirely different subject, the judgments. You’ve touched on it, and, ladies and gentlemen, that is something, obviously, a lot of people are confused about that, but scripture does give us clarity, even on these various judgments. We may or may not touch on that in the balance of the program, but when we come back, in the next segment, I’m going to talk with Pastor Carl Broggi about the why, very important. We got the whats, the events, we can identify them, but why? Why is the second coming so important? Why is what we’ll deal with in the next segment.

Well, if you’re just joining us today, thank you so much for being with us in the middle of the week here on Standing the Gap today. There are so many things that are happening in the news and the world around us that it’s sometimes very difficult to choose what we actually focus on. Now, this one today, this program, is one that we plan ahead of time, and if you listen to the program often, you know that we place the importance of Israel and prophecy, because they are so intricately linked, we place them very, very high on the schedule in our priority, because why? Because God does. 30% of the Bible is prophecy, so that’s why we go there, but I also know, and as you all know by listening to the program, that without the understanding of scripture, there are many things that are happening around us that just otherwise make no sense, and in these days, when the secular world, the demonically driven world, is all about deceiving people, even if so, the very [inaudible 00:20:21] if possible. Well, if they get us distracted and deceived, we won’t be about our father’s business, right?

So we focus on the prophetical in regular fashion to help us understand what God has told us in His word has happened, is happening, and is yet to happen, so that our confidence is strong and our feet unmovable on the word of God, and so that when other people believe and sense that things are falling apart, we can have the confidence that in fact, no, they are falling into place. So that’s why we do this, and so that fits right into the next segment, because what we can define, but knowing what has happened in the past and what will happen in the future is something everybody wants to know. We want to know that. God tells us, but it’s like establishing the facts. In a court case where a person has been charged with some crime. You go there, and what do they do? Well, they try to find out why.

Now, when I was in the legislature in Pennsylvania, I learned that when considering possible legislation, something I was going to have to vote on, for example, or some policy regulation coming out of the governor’s office, or what it might be, that reading the words was very important, the what? But it only told me the what. The more important question I learned to always try to uncover was the why. Why was the person who was putting together that bill, that regulation, why were they doing what they were doing? Now, in a criminal case, that is what, in essence, happens when they try to determine the motive of the allegation. So biblical prophecy’s the same way. There is the what, we just went through some of that, relative to the second coming, but then there’s the why. Understanding God’s reason or motive for prophesied events is what really allows the dots to be connected and understanding, I think completed. So with that basis, Pastor Carl, before you identify the why of the second coming, could you go back, just like we did in the other segment? Identify a little bit of the why of Christ’s first coming, the why of the church age, the why of the rapture, which is a part of the second coming, the return of Christ, as you talked about it, and then we’ll go into the why of the second coming.

Carl Broggi:

Well, the first coming was, of course, to redeem man. Man’s rebelled against God. Sin brings death as a penalty. We can pay it. It would take us an infinite period of time and an awful place of judgment, but Christ, as an infinite person in a finite period of time, accomplished that payment for sin on the cross, and so right now, we are preaching the good news. One of these days, again, the church will be caught up. The church is a distinct entity from Israel. God made promises to Israel in the Old Testament concerning a kingdom, concerning a blessing that they would be to all the peoples of the earth, but when He came to His own, His own received Him not, they rejected Him overall, and so that is going to be fixed during the time of the great tribulation.

The purpose, according to Jeremiah, of the tribulation is to bring Israel to repentance, and that’s why Jesus said, “I cannot come back until Israel says, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,” and so it will certainly be a final wake-up call, too, for the gentile nations of the world. When trials and tribulations come, even today, it either causes us to snuggle close up to God, or if our heart is hard, to repel God, and so the greatest revival in the history of the world, the literal fulfillment of the great commission, where this gospel of the kingdom shall go out to the whole world, then the end will come, will happen during the time of the great tribulation.

If we attempt to do it today, it will be fulfilled in that timeframe, and so then at the second coming, God is coming back to glorify His son, and, indeed, He will, because Him, who was willing to humble Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, for this reason, the scripture says God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that’s above every name, that every single person in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father. So one of the principle reasons for the second coming is the glory of God. God will show Himself, and His holiness, and His grace, and His love, and His mercy, and His wrath, and in His judgment.

Sam Rohrer:

All right, so in the second coming, Carl, at that event, when the Lord comes back, touches down on the Mount of Olives, mountain splits, He sets up His earthly kingdom. A lot of people probably wonder, when they read Old Testament and so forth, but prophecy in the Old Testament, I think in earlier programs we talked about how much prophecy has yet to be fulfilled. It’s actually a lot. Most of what the Old Testament speaks about, which is why the Pharisees of Christ in first coming and the Jews were so off-mark as they were looking for what, ultimately, would be the second coming in an earthly kingdom, right? I mean, they had it wrong on the first part of that. Speak about what scripture prophesies about this earthly kingdom you talk about, and why it’s so important that Christ comes back as king and sets up, then, that kingdom. Why is all that so important to understand?

Carl Broggi:

Again, it’s to the glory of God. He comes the first time as a savior. He comes again as a judge. He came in humiliation, He’s coming in exaltation, He came as a suffering servant, and He’s coming as the sovereign king, and so it’s important for several reasons. One is God is going to prove that He is faithful to His promises. He made promises to Abraham concerning a land of the actual dimensions are given. Israel has never, in their history, experienced the dimensions of the land. They are going to. He made reference into a kingdom, and the kingdom of God is often confused. There’s an aspect of the king where God is in control, He’s reigning above. There is that sovereign aspect of His kingdom. There is this spiritual aspect, where Jesus can say the kingdom of God is within you. When you’re born again, you experience God’s kingdom rule in your heart, but then there’s that aspect of the kingdom that has never been fulfilled. Jesus taught us to pray in what we call the model or the Lord’s prayer. “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” That has never happened, but it’s going to happen.

So God’s going to really prove his promises to Israel that Messiah will literally rule on the earth, just as the angel told Mary at in Luke 1, that your son is going to be a sovereign king on the earth. That hasn’t happened. He is going to show, among other things, His intention for man, what the world should have been like, had not Adam fallen and rebelled. He’s going to prove His promises to the church, that we will reign with Him. He makes promises that we will rule and reign with Christ. We will during that coming Kingdom. He’ll prove the promises that He made to the son that He will exalt Him.

Psalm 2, that He’ll give Him the kingdoms of this world, even in the Revelation, it says, “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our God and is Christ.” That hasn’t happened. It’s going to happen. He’ll answer our prayer that we’ve been praying for 2,000 years, and, among other things, and it’s a whole nother topic, he’s going to really show how depraved man is, because with the king ruling on the earth, not everyone will submit to Him. Many will still rebel, and that’s why the children of tribulation saints born during the 1,000-year reign of Christ, when people, for the most, part live a full 1,000 years, not all will respond, even with Satan bound, no temptation from Him, not all will respond, and when Satan is loose at the end of the 1,000 years, they’ll go against God’s Christ ruling and reigning on the earth. How foolish, but how depraved, what a picture of what we really are by nature.

Sam Rohrer:

So what you’re saying there is so much we could go further. Jacob’s trouble the tribulation period referred to a Jacob’s trouble, you have said clearly, is God’s intent to bring pressure against Israel, where they will ultimately recognize that they rejected Him the first time, but they will accept Him the second time. The other is to put down the kingdoms of this world, man’s best effort at governing men. That’s also a part of the tribulation period and purpose that God’s judgment at Armageddon will manifest, isn’t it? Is that not correct?

Carl Broggi:

That’s right. So it’s interesting when, in the temptation in Luke 4 and Matthew 4, Satan said, “If you’ll bow down and worship me, I’ll give you the kingdoms,” plural, “of the world,” and, of course, he wanted Him to take a shortcut, not to go to the cross. Christ rejected that by quoting scripture. Well, when the antichrist comes, the kingdoms, plural, becomes the kingdom of the world. There’ll be a one-world government, a one-world kingdom, so to speak, and some translations take Revelation 11 and they make it plural. In every Greek text, it’s singular. The kingdom singular of this world, of the antichrist, will become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and again, for this to happen, Israel has to come to faith, and we have dear brothers in Christ who deny the future of Israel, they say the church is the new Israel, and they just have to ignore so much scripture, like Matthew 23:39, “For I say to you, from now on, you will not see Me.” Who is He speaking to? All Jewish people.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay, and hold that thought, Brother Carl. We’re out of time. Stay with us, ladies and gentlemen. We’re going to be back in just a moment as we conclude the program today. We’re going to talk again about now Christ coming back, but who comes with him and why? We’ll talk about that next.

Final segment. Now, again, today, the focus has been the second coming of Christ. This is part 7 in a series that’ll probably go to about 10 overall, I believe, as we’re laying this out on the whole concept of prophecy, defining it, we did that in the first segment, then we walked through the various elements. If you take, and you can listen to this, and you can find all of this on our website, go to StandintheGapRadio.com, and you will find, on the main page, there’ll be a clear header where it talks about the prophecy series. That is what we’re involved in right now. On that site, you can then listen to all the previous programs. There are transcripts available there that you can get to actually read through to help in consideration of it, and what we’ve attempted to do is to take this most important area, and deal with the most important elements and understanding prophets from the standpoint of defining it, why God has given it to us, and then working through the various elements that, oftentimes, is very confusing, and most of the time, it’s confusing because you really haven’t heard very good preaching about it.

That’s the problem. It shouldn’t be confusing, but in these days, so important to understand, because it allows us, as I said before, when all the world thinks things are falling apart, when we properly understand biblical prophecy, we can really be far more confident, and say, “Wow, I’m actually watching the Lord take and put everything into place.” So it’s very critical. So that’s a practical aspect. I’m trying to summarize it here now, but we’ve talked about already the second coming of Christ. The first coming was when Christ came. The second coming involves both the rapture of the church, yet to happen, could be tomorrow, could be today, and then the second coming, a physical returning, where Jesus will physically come in the clouds, people will see Him, the whole world’s going to see Him.

He’s going to physically touch down on the Mount of Olive, right over there in Jerusalem, and there is a direct connection to previous events, as we’ve laid out here. It’s in chronology. The Lord tells us the pieces that will come along, and we’ve tried to deal with now, what are those elements and why? And certainly, the why, among other things, includes the fact that Jesus is king. He’s king of the world, and He will reign forever, and physically. Well, so we’ve talked about some of those things. Now, Carl, as we try to wrap it up here in just a little bit, just to build it out just a bit, Jesus is going to come back in the clouds. You’ve talked about it. That’s what He told His disciples. “As you have seen Him go,” the angel said, “You’re going to see Him come again.” He went up by Himself. When He comes back, does Jesus come back by Himself, and if not, who comes back with Him and why?

Carl Broggi:

No, we come back with Him. So in the rapture, we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, but the dead in Christ rise first. Right now, when someone dies, their spirit goes to heaven, their body awaits the resurrection, the rapture, the Lord solves that. We go to heaven, but we come back with Him. He’s riding on a white charger, and we’re right behind Him, thousands upon thousands of believers who are church saints. He comes back, and at that point, Daniel 12 indicates He raises Old Testament saints. They have not yet been resurrected. They’re not resurrected with the church, because they’re not part of the church. They couldn’t be, because the spirit of God had not yet been given, and the church is the body of Christ, and it’s the spirit of God who glues us all together into one body.

They will be raised. Tribulation saints will be raised at that point, who died during the time of the great tribulation, and then the rest who survive the tribulation, Jew and Gentile alike, will enter into their natural bodies, and as you’ve said, Sam, yeah, the disciples had this you. They asked at the Mount of Olives, “Lord, is it at this time that You’re going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” And that would’ve been a perfect time for Jesus to say, “No, I’m done with Israel. There are apostate people,” but He doesn’t say that. Just as Paul argues in Romans 9 through 11, of God’s unfailing love, “They may have rejected Him, but He’s going to restore them, and as long as the sun, moon, and stars are in the sky, that’s how long God will be faithful to the people of Israel,” and so He will then come and establish His kingdom. He told His disciples, “Truly I say to you, and this, the regeneration, when the Son of Man will sit on His glory throne, you’ll sit on 12 thrones.”

So we speak of the regeneration. That’s the time when the earth is remade after the great tribulation. It’s like a garden of Eden. It’s a picture of what God originally planned, and not only will the apostles, when the Lord speaks to the church at Thyatira, He said, “He who overcomes, and in the revelation, the one who perseveres and overcomes is a genuine believer.” You’re not saved by overcoming, but if you are saved, you will overcome, “And he who keeps my deeds until the end, to Him, I will give authority over the nations,” and then Jesus quotes Psalm 2, which is in reference to Him, and He applies it to the church in Thyatira, and not just to them. Like with every message to the church, who has an ear to hear, let them listen to what the spirit says to the churches. So the fact that Philadelphia will be kept from the hour that’s of tribulation that’s going to come on the whole world, that Thyatira, the saints here will rule and reign, it’s not a promise just to that church, but let him who hears listen to what the spirit says to every church, every born again, blood-bought, congregation of believers. It’s a promise that will rule and reign with Him.

Sam Rohrer:

All right. That is fantastic, and then, ladies and gentlemen, after the second coming, Pastor Carl’s already referred to it, then comes this millennial kingdom of 1,000 years. That will be the next program in the series that we will deal with, and that is that is the millennial kingdom. How long do the people live in that time? What’s it like? Is there basically a new creation? There’s a lot of things that are really special in that time. We’re going to talk about that in the next segment, so you won’t want to miss that, but, Carl, we’ve got about two minutes here. I’d like you to wrap this up by just summarizing it for this perspective. Again, what should be the practical impact of the information that we’ve talked about today? The fact that these prophetical events are happening, the fact that the tribulation period is coming, the fact that the rapture is just ahead of us, the fact that the second coming is coming. What should that create in the heart and the minds of all God-fearing believers who are listening to this program today?

Carl Broggi:

They should be preaching the gospel like never before. Again, the rapture is imminent. The second coming is prophetically driven, but we have witnessed, in our lifetime, Sam, prophecy being fulfilled, the rebirth of Israel, the promise apostasy at the end of time, religious globalism, economic globalism, moral lawlessness, as in Noah’s day, moral perversion, homosexuality, transgenderism [inaudible 00:37:36] I tell people when you go into Walmart in October, and you see the Christmas decorations go up, you know Thanksgiving’s near, because Thanksgiving precedes Christmas. When we as a church see God fulfilling prophecy for the second coming, we know the rapture is that much closer, and time is running out and we need to be sharing the gospel faithfully, consistently, like never before.

Sam Rohrer:

Carl, I want you to summarize this and on one of your last sermons, you said this at the first coming, you don’t want to be left behind at the second coming. You don’t want to be taken out. There’s something significant. You got about 40 seconds here. Put some of that together. Help people to actually consolidate these two events in their mind.

Carl Broggi:

Well, the rapture, the church is taken out, and there’s no opportunity for those who have heard the gospel before in clarity and power to believe, because they will be a part of the diluting influence. In the second coming, Jesus comes back to the earth, and like in Noah’s day, Noah was kept on the earth to walk into a brand-new world and the rest were taken away in judgment. Even so, at the second coming, unbelievers will be taken away, carried away by the angels in judgment, and only believers will be left to enter into the kingdom, and we’ll see next time why that is so significant for a pre-tribulational wrap.

Sam Rohrer:

Thank you, Dr. Carl Broggi. He has a website, SearchtheScriptures.org. You can find a long and lengthy series of much greater detail than we’re going over here on this program at that website. Carl, thank you for being with us. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being with us today. Go back and listen to this entire series, StandintheGapradio.com. Start the beginning, work through to this. You will have a great grasp on prophecy, and you will know that what is happening, literally, things are falling into place.