The Pre-Trib Rapture: What Difference Does It Make?

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: Dr. Carl Broggi

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 3/4/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello and welcome to this Wednesday edition of Stand and the Gap Today. And it’s also our bi-monthly edition of Israel: The Middle East and Biblical Prophecy. Now today, I’m glad to have back with me once again, returning guest Dr. Carl Broggi, Senior Pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina. When it comes to Israel and the Middle East, if you’re listening, you’re aware of all of what’s going on. We know that as we speak right now, bombs are dropping. Missiles are flying and this war now underway between the United States and Israel and Iran is spreading as additional nations are continually being drawn in. Enormous economic damage is being created short term and long term as the US and Israel attack Iran and as Iran attacks US military bases and oil facilities and nations the US has sworn to protect. Major international alliances are continuing to change fast.

With the United States, under my observation, becoming, I’m going to say, more and more rejected in what’s taking place, not respected contrary to what’s being reported. There’s a lot happening because there’s a lot of things taking place more than what’s being reported. But while we could talk about what’s happening in the Middle East, I’ve decided to let Monday’s Stand in the Gap Today program that I did with J.R. McGee to just stand sufficient on that topic for the moment. But while speculation is driving considerations of where and how the growing war will end, one thing about which there is no speculation. And that is when wars and rumors of wars continue and Iran and others use the word apocryphal as an example to describe what they say is coming. More and more people are talking about the rapture, literally being said in many discussions I’m seeing in the press and times, Armageddon, as they consider to some extent at least anyways, their own end of life preparation.

So today I decided to pursue the subject of the rapture, its definition and description, its purpose and timing, and the consequences of both believing and not believing in the rapture, specifically the pre-tribulation rapture. So stay tuned. The title I’ve chosen to frame today’s discussion is this, the pre-trib rapture. And then this part of it, what difference does it make? Well, it makes a lot of difference. With that, welcome Carl Broggi. Thank you so much for being back with me. What a topic here to engage today.

Carl Broggi:

It is, Sam. It’s a pleasure to be here again. And let me just say that the rapture is so critical. Some people just see it as a point on a prophecy chart, but it’s a future event that should influence how we live today. It should anchor our hearts in these troubled times that you just described. So it’s really important.

Sam Rohrer:

So let’s get right into it because we have far much more to say than we have time to say. So let’s just talk about some definitions now, which I think is a great place to start. Would you first begin by defining the word rapture? What does it mean to get our handle about the event itself? What is it?

Carl Broggi:

Well, the word rapture, some will say is not found in the Bible and it’s true. It’s not found in the English Bible. It’s found in the Latin Bible that was used for nearly a thousand years. The Latin word was rupturo and it’s defining the word harpazo. We shall not all sleep. We’ll be caught up. The Bible says to meet the Lord in the air. And so in fact, we get our word harpoon from it. So it means to seize, to snatch away, to catch up. And it’s an event in the future for church believers, church age saints, where God will literally, physically, actually take us off the earth and up into heaven. And those believers who already have gone home to be with the Lord, Christ will come back with their immaterial person, reconnect it to the body that’s in the ground. They’ll come up first and those of us who are alive will be caught up to meet them in the air and we’ll be with the Lord forever.

So that’s the rapture. It’s imminent. It will snatch us away up into heaven to the place that God’s prepared for us while an awful period of time begins to unfold upon the earth.

Sam Rohrer:

All right, that is the rapture. Now, I did a little bit of research on this this morning and LifeWave research as an example did. Let me just give you a couple of examples here, ladies and gentlemen. They say roughly 40 to 50% of US Christians, those who profess to be Christians, 40 to 50% of them believe in an end times event that includes rapture concepts. All right. So that’s the group that you’re starting with. Beyond that, people don’t. But here goes further. In a survey of a thousand Protestant senior pastors, that’s what Lifeway says. 36% believe in a pre-tribulational rapture. 25% say the rapture is not literal. 18% believe in a post-tribulational rapture. 4% believe in a mid-tribulation rapture, and 1% believe it already happened. All right. Now that being the case, Carl, these survey results bring up the term tribulation, pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, post-tribulation. So we’ve got to deal with that as we talk about the pre-tribulation rapture.

So please define the word tribulation as well as the pre, mid, post-designations, and throw in this as well because sometimes the word comes up pre-tribulation rapture and sometimes you’ll find the word pre-wrath rapture. Make a distinction comparison of a vote on that as well.

Carl Broggi:

Okay. So the tribulation period called by a number of different titles in both the Old and the New Testament, most popularly the time of Jacobs or Israel’s Trouble because it focuses largely beginning with Israel to purify them, to bring them to faith in the Lord and to make them evangelistic across the planet. But this in the New Testament is called the Great Phalypsis, and it refers to a time of great trouble because God is going to execute wrath upon the earth. God’s wrath is not some emotional irritation where he blows his cork and loses his temper. It’s holy, it’s controlled, and it’s always in response to evil. And in this particular timeframe in human history, it will be an expression of God’s mercy and grace because it will be his final wake up call to the world before we move into eternity future. So there’s a lot of different approaches people have taken to this seven-year great tribulation period.

I would argue for what we call the pre-tribulational wrath or the pre-trib view, which basically says the church will be removed before this seven-year period begins. There’s another view called the mid-trib rapture. And it says that the rapture occurs in the halfway point of the tribulation when the antichrist goes into the temple to defile it. Then there’s the post tribulational view. Post-trib basically says the church, the body of Christ will be here for the entire seven year period. And then at the end of the seven year period will go up and then come back with Christ to the earth. And then there’s another view that you mentioned called the pre-wrath rapture, which basically says we’ll be here for the first three quarters of the tribulation. So about three quarters of the way through the church will be caught up. I would argue for the pre-preview, pre-tribulational, pre-millennial view.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, I know that you have interest in this because all true believers will, and they must and they should. So listen to us as we walk through, because we defined by definition the what of the rapture. Rapture, pre, mid, or post. We’re saying pre, tribulation. Okay, God’s time of judgment. But why is a pretrib rapture so important? We’ll talk about the why when we come back. Well, welcome back to Stand in the Gap. And if you’re just joining us right now, you are joining in a discussion, a conversation that I’m having with Dr. Carl Broggi on our bimonthly emphasis on Israel, the Middle East and a biblical prophecy. And today, picking up on an item, a theme, a topic of importance to … Well, let’s put it this way. If you’re a true believer and this is not important to you, then something’s really wrong.

It is a matter of discussion, what we’re talking about, talking about the rapture. It’s popping up in secular commentaries. It is being a matter of discussion from many, many sides. And everything I’ve heard is partially true, mostly false. I don’t want believers, those listening to this program to be in that category of not knowing what the Bible says. So we’re dealing with this issue. The title is this, the pre-tribulation or the pre-trib rapture. What difference does it make? All right, now we’ll get into further all that. But Dr. Carl Broggi, let’s continue because much of the discussions surrounding the rapture and whether it occurs pre-tribulation or mid-trib or post-trib, as we talked about in the last segment, it centers on the identified what’s because there are the what of the rapture, what it is. And you described it and you defined it. It’s timing and whether it’s for a particular time, whether it’s literal or just figurative, some actually believe that it’s not even real.

All right. Now that being the case, I want to move now to the why of the pre-trib rapture view, because as I learned when I was in office some years ago, when guys got up and beginning to posture on different pieces of policy or their ideas about certain things, I found out, you know what, I can hear what they’re saying, and it could vary all over the place. But once I figured out why, why are they standing up and promoting this or that? Then I can predict exactly what the ultimate what would be. I think the Lord deals the same way. There’s why. He tells us what we need to know and why. So let’s start here. Those who believe in the pre-tribulation rapture of true Christians, as you described, the true church, those of us who do look to places like, well, one Thessalonians five: nine as an example where the apostle Paul says this, “For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” Understanding that this wrath be the seven year tribulation period, God’s plan does not include taking the church through the time of God’s judgment.

That’s part of what those who hold the pretribulation believe, but then why? So here it is the question. What is the Apostle Paul teaching here in this passage and why does it demand a pre-tribulational rapture view?

Carl Broggi:

Well, that’s a fantastic question. And let me just say that we refer to this rapture that’s catching up of the church as the blessed hope. That’s how the book of Titus describes it in Titus chapter two and in verse 14. Well, first he says, of course, that we’re looking for 2:13, for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus. So if the wrath of God, if the tribulation period comes first, there’s nothing blessed about that. But if God sweeps us off of the earth, up into heaven where we’re not here for the tribulation, that indeed is a blessed hope. And as you just said, Paul said in one Thessalonians five, God hasn’t appointed us for wrath, but to obtain salvation. And so Jesus said in the addresses to the seven churches, Sam, when he writes to the church at Philadelphia, he says, “I will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole earth.” By the way, there’s never been a time in all of human history where there’s been tribulation on the whole earth, but there’s coming a time to test those who dwell on the earth.

And this is a promise, not just to the church at Philadelphia, but to all seven churches, he ends their letters with hear what the spirit says to the churches. In other words, not just to Philadelphia, but your church, my church, every Bible believing church. So if a person approaches the scripture with a literal, historical, contextual, grammatical and consistent interpretation, they can come to no other conclusion, but a catching up of the church called the rapture, this translation that is distinctly different from the second coming. When you read about the rapture, all believers are caught up. At the second coming, no one’s caught up. Jesus comes to the earth. We’re caught up to go to heaven. At the second coming, Jesus returns with believers to the earth. At the rapture, there’s no lost people that are judged. The only people who are judged are church saints in heaven where they’re rewarded for their faithful service to the Lord worth the second coming, all the nations of the world are judged.

For the rapture, it’s imminent. It can happen at any moment. It’s a signless event. And so you read the New Testament and there’s a sense of expectation. It could happen today. It could happen in my lifetime, Paul thought. Second coming, it’s a definitive program with all kinds of prophecy that has to be fulfilled first, including the great tribulation. The rapture is not in the Old Testament, and that’s important because Paul calls it a musterian. It was something that was not revealed, whereas the second coming, it’s predicted over and over and over again throughout the Old Testament. The rapture believers only. Second coming affects everyone on the planet. The rapture is before the day of wrath. The second coming concludes the day of wrath. You read about Satan nowhere in reference to the rapture. He’s all over this timeframe known as the great tribulation where he’s even bound for a thousand years.

Christ comes for his own in the rapture. He comes back with his own. He comes in the air. He comes to the earth. He claims his bride. He comes back with his bride. There’s no way you can just read the scripture and come to any other conclusion except that there are two distinct events.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay. Let’s build right off of that because here’s a truth. You referred to it where I read from the first Thessalonians. The Apostle Paul talks about us not being appointed to wrath. Us referring to the concept of the church, and we know if that scripture, the church is referred to as the bride of Christ. So there is the Jesus groom, church, bride, relationship. And I want to ask you to define that a little bit because how can we fully understand the purpose for the church and Christ’s relationship to us if we do not understand what’s involved in the bride in us as a church and the bride groom Jesus Christ relationship. So how does understanding this concept further help us to understand the why demanding a pre-trib rapture?

Carl Broggi:

Well, it’s a powerful picture that the Lord gives where he calls the church, which didn’t exist in the Old Testament. Jesus said in Matthew 68 and 18, “I will build my church,” meaning it didn’t exist. He purchased it with his own blood, meaning it hadn’t been bought or was in existence before. And there’s a number of passages interpreting one another where we can definitively say it started on the day of Pentecost. The body of Christ was formed on the day of Pentecost and the body of Christ is also called the bride of Christ. John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the bridegroom. Mark two, Jesus calls himself the bridegroom. And so we have this picture even of our marriages that are supposed to picture the sacrificial devoted love of Jesus towards us that we’re to have as husband and wife. But he uses this wedding picture, this Jewish wedding picture that demands a pre-trib rapture.

When two people wanted to get married, they were betrayed. They were called husband and wife. Four instances in the Old Testament where people are betrothed and unlike engagement, though they had had no physical relationship, they’re still called husband and wife. Joseph is called the husband of Mary, though they had had no physical relationship. So your betroth during that time, the bridegroom will depart to prepare a place for his bride. Jesus said, “I’m going to the father’s house. I’ll go and prepare a place for you. I’ll come again.” And just before he left, they would drink from a cup and it would seal the agreement. And so Jesus at the Lord’s table had us drink from a cup reminding us that he is going to prepare a place and he’s going to come back. The groom would come with a shofar blown and Jesus will come with the trumpet of God.

He’ll take us to the place where he has prepared for us just as the groom would come and take his bride to the place that he would prepare. And then after the great wedding ceremony, he would come back and Jesus then will come back with us to the earth. So there’s no leakage in that. That’s an hour long message in itself, but it’s a beautiful picture. If the church is Christ’s bride, it would be inconsistent with the character of the groom to subject her to the wrath of God. That’s not his plan. He’s not coming back for some bride that’s been beat up black and blue. He’s coming back to take us to the place he’s prepared so that we’ll have the marriage of the lamb.

Sam Rohrer:

One, he comes back for us as a bride. And the second coming, we come back as his wife, don’t we? Which means that there’s something with the marriage. We don’t have time to complete it, but go as far as you can. There is a marriage. Is it just a picture of something? We know there’s the marriage supper of the lamb. I want you to build this out just a little bit. Why a marriage? Obviously the commitment of relationship and a marriage promise between bride and groom. That’s a part of it. I want you to expand upon that a little bit, Carl. But is there something that happens with the marriage? When Christ comes back for us, is it just a nice thing? Looking forward to the marriage. I mean, all of us, ladies and gentlemen, if you’re a wife, somebody’s been married, you know how special weddings are and marriages are.

Husbands, we know too, but there’s something special about the bride. Well, what is it? And what are we looking forward to? The why. We’ll talk a little bit more about that when we come back in the next segment. All right, Carl, let’s continue this very, very important focus on the pre-trib rapture and what difference does it make. In the last segment, we talked about the passage in Thessalonians where the apostle Paul talks about us, the church, not being appointed to wrath. And then you explained a little further the relationship, the importance of Jesus as the groom in the church, as the bride and the wedding ceremony. And you referred to portions of what was the Galilean marriage ceremony of the betrothal period and the covenant that was given and the promise and the consummating with the drinking of the wine, which happened as a figure of that relationship that Jesus did and his promise that as a husband, he would return for the bride, which obviously we’re talking about that is the rapture.

And I look at this and say, “Boy, isn’t it amazing how there is such deception and misunderstanding?” And I think about this and I want to go further on this, the marriage aspect, but the regular question is if we can’t compare scripture with scripture and come to a clear understanding regarding Christ and the church and the church as the bride of Christ and the marriage supper of the lamb, which deals with Christ and the promises to the church and the bride not being appointed to wrath of the 70th week of Daniel, the seven year tribulation period and Christ’s promise of returning for the bride as he promised. If we can’t understand all of that, how can we understand the ruling and the reigning aspect of the promise that Christ makes? And frankly, any other critical teaching of scripture. To me, I think people take far as too much liberty.

It’s almost like, why did the Lord take so much time to make all of this clear and repeat it if it was, well, make up your own mind and go your own direction? So I just pose that as a general question, but come back on this part now of the marriage, the rapture occurs, Christ as the groom, comes back for the bride groom, the bride, us, the church. All of that happens and then there is something that happens in heaven. There is this marriage ceremony. What’s a part of that? And again, is it just a good idea, a nice idea, or is there something of real significance that takes place in that marriage and that marriage supper of the lamb?

Carl Broggi:

No, there is. There’s great significance because when you think about marriage from God’s point of view, no one is to break that covenant except God himself. What God has joined, let no man break. And what God is going to do in heaven, and he’s going to affirm the commitment that he has to his people. People have asked me over the years, not often, but occasionally Sam, “If when I am in heaven, is it possible for me to lose my salvation when in heaven, just like Satan rebelled and was cast out of the presence of God, could that happen to a believer?” And the answer is no. And one of the ways in which God pictures the permanency, apart from the fact that we’ll eat from the tree of life in heaven is that he uses this picture of a marriage covenant. And obviously the bride and groom are involved in a physical relationship here on earth, obviously not the case, but it is a picture of an exclusive, loyal love that God has for his people.

And so the next event is the rapture. We meet the Lord at the judgment of the just for believers only. He dresses us appropriately in our wedding garb and then the marriage of the lamb happens in heaven and then we come back to the earth. And I would argue that the marriage supper itself happens on the earth where it includes all the Old Testament saints because God doesn’t have two people. Right now he has two programs through two people, but in eternity future, he’s going to have a singular people where we will sit down old and New Testament saints and there’s a number of passages that teach this and will enjoy the Lord’s presence forever and ever. So yes, it’s important because it affirms our eternal security that God has given to us, that it’s an unbroken relationship that we will rest in and enjoy for all of eternity future.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay, great. We could go so much further, but let’s just let that sit for a little bit, ladies and gentlemen I hope that is exciting and instructive to you, but Carl leads to my next question because I’ve said it many times on this program that what a person does and how a person lives is the result of what a person believes. So in regard to the pre-tribulation position of the rapture, it’s amazing to me how many folks I actually run into. Some pastors and Christian leaders, for instance, who say they are pre-tribulation in their belief and their views, but they express as almost a reticence to others speaking too much about the imminency of the rapture, shifting to, well, Christians need to be talking more about the need for national revival and those who are politically actively supporting even the administration policies that are in Washington right now.

One viewpoint that I’ve heard routinely continually comes up is that while of course we look for the rapture, the Bible says that there’s going to be a final great global harvest of souls and that’s not happened yet. So by implication, while we emphasize the rapture, but shouldn’t we be praying for revival more and being more active politically because we want this great harvest of souls to come about and some point to the fact that revival they see is happening and they point to increased Bible sales, example following the murder of Charlie Kirk as an evidence of revival and they say, “See, it’s happening. It’s on its way.” So they say, “Lean a little bit less to enter the rapture and more into doing more here now.” But that’s out there. Would you respond to that?

Carl Broggi:

Sure. Well, there’s a verse that’s often taken out of context. It’s Matthew 24:14. I’ve just turned there and Jesus said, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come.” And they’ll say, “There you have it. Jesus taught that the gospel will spread from corner to corner before he can return before the end will come.” But contextually, this verse of scripture is dealing with the great tribulation period. He’s dealing with 144,000 Jewish evangelists letting scripture interpret scripture, two witnesses and even an angel that will preach the gospel to every tribe, tongue and nation. And that will precipitate the return of Christ to the planet edits the second coming. It has nothing to do with the rapture. Now, if God wants to send a great revival before the rapture, I’ll take it.

But I don’t think that’s going to happen because if anything, what’s going to precipitate the catching up of the church is the coldness of God’s people. The fullness of the Gentiles will have come in. The last Gentile who’s going to be saved will be saved. And God is going to say, “Enough is enough. This church is lukewarm. I’m going to bring them up into heaven and I’m going to switch gears and use the Jewish people to finish the great commission.” And so 2414 of the All of it discourse is in reference to what the Jews will do. So there’s a balance here. I’m not naive. I don’t want to shine the brass on the Titanic, but neither do I want to grease the skids for the second coming to come in. So I am to live like this would be my last day upon the earth, passionately for the Lord, sharing the gospel, doing all that I can.

And sadly, the average Christian is no longer doing that. They’re talking about revival and this great awakening, but they’re not sharing Christ. And the vehicle that God uses to bring people into the kingdom is my voice box and yours and every believer listening to me. And if we’re not doing it, it ain’t going to happen. But if God wants to do that, he can do whatever he wants to do, but there’s going to be a moral laxity at the end of time and God will switch gears, use the Jewish nation as they’re converted to fulfill the great commission that we haven’t done in a couple of thousand years.

Sam Rohrer:

All right. So we have just a couple minutes left. When the apostle Paul told the Thessalonians comfort one another with these words that we referred to earlier, was that comfort because of what? In other words, what was the problem that he viewed the rapture and the imminency of the rapture as being a good thing to which would bring consolation to our souls perhaps? What’s he mean by that?

Carl Broggi:

Question. So when he addresses the issue, I don’t want you to be ignorant, uninformed about those who’ve already died, those who are asleep. It’s not that the church at Thessalonica didn’t believe in the resurrection. That was taught in the Old Testament. It was taught in the Torah, a number of different places of a physical bodily resurrection. What their concern was concerning those who’d already died, when would they be raised? Would we be raised at the same time? Would they miss maybe the millennial reign of the Messiah? When would it happen? And so he wants them to know that actually the first to go up are those who’ve already gone home to be with the Lord, absent from the body, present with the Lord. So he will bring with him those departed saints, reunite their body with their soul that is now in heaven. They’ll come up first and we who are alive will meet the Lord in the air.

Tomorrow I’ll do a funeral. And at that funeral, I’ll use this passage because God says this is a good text to use to comfort one another, that your loved one who is here in this box who in a few hours will be in the ground is going to be the first to come up out of the grave. We will meet them in the air and we’ll be forever with them. And that’s the promise. That is the great hope. And by hope LPD, it means not, well, I hope this doesn’t happen. It speaks of something that is sure and absolute and has a lot more steel and concrete in the word than our English word does.

Sam Rohrer:

Thank you so much, Dr. Broggi, for clarifying that. Ladies and gentlemen, again, I hope that all of these things as we’ve been walking through helps us to understand the rapture, why, the pre, tribulation, rapture, and why it does bring comfort to those who have passed away, To those of us who are still alive, when we come back, we’re going to make some application. How do we live wisely now in these days, those of us who alive and await his return? Well, if we try to bring this focus today, which has been the pre-trib rapture, what difference does it make? We’ve tried to explain, define the terms. What does rapture mean? Harpazo caught away. That was in the first segment. Dr. Carl Broggi, who again has his website at searchthescriptures.org. I know that many of you have communicated to me and you regularly visit that. I know many of you actually will pick up his sermons and I encourage you to do that.

Very, very helpful. But anyway, searchescriptures.org. But this theme today we’ve dealt with is the pre-trib rapture. It’s very, very important for true believers, those who are part of the true church, to understand what Jesus talks about and how then we approach what we say we believe. And that’s the whole point of what difference does it make? We’re going to get into that and I’m going to have Dr. Carl Bergie explain a little bit of that. But one of the applications, if I can put it that way, in a practical, relevant sense, is that for instance, within the evangelical movement generally, there are those that would hold to pretribulation that would be called dispensationalist. That’s a term that would be used, believing that God works in different dispensations, different times, different ways. And the tribulation of the 70th week of Daniel is that last piece. Well, not a last piece, but as a piece that’s coming forth as an example.

There are those who would call themselves dominion theology people. And Dr. Brogan and I’ve talked about that in a recent program. There are many who are now calling themselves Christian nationalists. Sometimes it’s very difficult to get an actual definition of what’s involved. But generally speaking, both those which are actively involved in the political scenes, so you’ll see activism involved in that. But those two groups, Dominion theologists and Christian nationalists as a general rule, generally reject among other things, a pre-tribulation rapture. They tend to be post-millennialists or believe the church must go through the tribulation so as to be a light to the world. By and large, they and their proponents will say that those who believe in the pre-trib rapture are escapists or fearful. I’ve heard even some described as unpatriotic or not really welcome in the debate today because pre-trib pokes, they say, bring a negative political message.

I’ve heard that said, but that’s hardly what the Bible says. Anyway, I’m just going to stop it at that, but point being, we do and live how we believe. That’s the point of trying to deal here. So Carl, I phrased it as we did. What difference does it make the pre-trib rapture? So would you answer that question now? What difference will, should, will a true belief in the pre-trib rapture make in the way a person thinks, lives and conducts themselves in these days, which we would say from the balance of scripture are getting so increasingly close to the beginning of that final 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy?

Carl Broggi:

Well, it has dramatic impact on the believer if we rightly understand the rapture of the church. We’re not TLO Christians. I call them this life only Christians. There’s so many believers who are just living for today and building their next house and their business and going on this vacation and that cruise and all the rest, but they’re not thinking about the next life. And Paul reminds us our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for a savior of the Lord Jesus who will transform the body of our humble state in conformity with that of his own. That’s the rapture. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have responsibility in this life. Paul Jeremiah told those in exile to pray for the welfare of the Babylonian state. Paul exhorts us to pray for kings and all who are in authority over us. So we’re citizens in this life, but our hope is not here.

So Dominion theology says that we’re going to somehow change the whole world and that will usher in the second coming. Nothing could be further from the truth. No, the world is ultimately Jesus promise going to get progressively worse. Paul says it will go from bad to worse. And so we live with a sober expectation and it should produce a sense of imminency in terms of our lifestyle. Paul said to the church at Thessalonica, “Let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.” It should encourage us to pure living. It’s in one John three, where he says, “Everyone who has this hope, what hope, the hope of Christ’s return fixed on him purifies himself.” So if I know that Jesus could come at any moment that he could come today, then nothing prophetically needs to happen. That will impact the things I listen to, the things I watch, the things I say, the people I try to witness to.

It should bring a sense of comfort. You just mentioned comfort one another with these words from one Thessalonians four. So I’m not in a state of panic. I know there’s a God in heaven who’s overseeing what is happening. He promised these things would happen. So I can live with a sense of expectation that we have a sovereign God. And that should really, if anything, it should fuel me to do evangelism. I can’t share with everyone. I was in a store with my wife two days ago and we’re in there all alone and nobody else was present and it was kind of a rainy, cold, wet day. And it seemed like no one was on the main street. And I thought, “Hey, by the way, do you go to church anywhere?” Young college girl, junior in college. No, I don’t go anywhere. In fact, I’ve only been a few times in my whole life.

And so there was a profound opportunity God gave because God sees her soul as someone who’s going to live forever in hell or forever in heaven. And so the believer is to not sit on his hands, but he is to do personal evangelism. And again, this is what the rapture does. It fuels long-term faithfulness to the Lord. It demands holiness of character. It demands that we’re not living for this world only, that we’re not shaped by this world. It keeps us from drifting, a warning that the writer of the Hebrews gives. It keeps us from panic. I’m not panicked over what’s happening in the Middle East. I don’t know if it’s going to turn into World War III, but I know there’s a God in heaven who has a specific plan. And because we know the end game, we can rest in that. And so the rapture is not some form of escapism.

It readies our hearts. And sadly, the people who don’t teach the rapture, they don’t really know what’s going on. They have no framework to give their people to whom they are to minister about the future and what is going to happen and what God promised. And so this is an important, important doctrine that we need to understand and teach and apply to our personal lives.

Sam Rohrer:

And Dust Carl, we have about a minute left. It would be very unusual for us not to close this in prayer. I’d like to ask you to close this program in prayer that the Lord would take what has been discussed and people who are listening can apply it to their lives.

Carl Broggi:

Our Father, we’re so thankful for the promise of it catching up that this world is not the end, that you have a place prepared for us, that you are in control over the affairs of men and nations. I pray that as members of the body of Christ, we would live with that expectation. And I pray for someone listening somewhere in the world today who is uncertain whether or not if Christ came that they would be caught up. Help them to understand that you made a complete and final payment for all of the wrath that their sin deserves. You proved Jesus’s ability to do that when you raised him from the dead, splitting history down the middle, such that anyone who will believe your promise, anyone who will call upon Jesus will instantly and eternally be saved. Help someone today to say, Lord Jesus, save me.

Sam Rohrer:

And thank you so much, Dr. Carl Broggi for being with the ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being with us today. And I pray as Carl prayed that you would be blessed by this, be encouraged by it, to think more biblically all the way through and then we can evaluate what’s happening around us far more clearly. So take this, be motivated, share the gospel with all of those around that God brings into your path. That’s why we’re here. And let us await with confidence and excitement the Lord’s return.