00:00Now, we have a few issues in the church about this, and one of the big issues concerns the issue of the rapture of the church.
00:09Now, if you look at a number of passages in the scriptures, you can see that there appears to be two stages to the second coming of Christ.
00:16Actually, this applies to whatever position you take on this subject.
00:21First, he comes as a thief in the night to take the believing Christians to himself in the event which we call the rapture of the church.
00:28Then he returns with the saints to the earth and sets up his millennial rule on the earth.
00:35Actually, all of those, whether you take the pre or the mid or the post-tribulation, those are all two stages of the second coming.
00:43The difference is, is there a difference between the timing of the rapture, does it come before the tribulation, does it come in the middle of it, does it come at the end of it?
00:54Either way, Jesus is going to take the believers out first, then he'd come back with them.
00:58Whichever view you have, that's actually the procedure.
01:02The question is, is there a difference between those two events?
01:06That's the subject we're going to look at today.
01:09So when we look at Bible prophecy, we can see that there are these three possibilities.
01:14There's the rapture of the church, the time of the great tribulation on earth prior to this,
01:19and the return of Jesus Christ to the earth in power and great glory.
01:22Now, if you look at the average church, in theory, every church believes the last one.
01:30Because they have creeds which say he should come again in power and great glory to judge the quick and the dead.
01:35Part of the Anglican creed, part of the creeds of the churches.
01:39I'm not sure if it's even part of the Catholic creed.
01:40I don't know, I don't know that one, but it's possible.
01:42Basically, in principle, all Christians believe that Jesus will come again in power and great glory.
01:48In practice, you'll find that the idea has been pushed out by most of the church.
01:54And you'll find that they don't really want to believe the great tribulation is going to happen.
01:58Some people actually believe it's already happened, which is a bit far-fetched, from my opinion.
02:03And people are sceptical or dismissive of the idea of the rapture of the church.
02:08Now, we're a Bible-believing church, so we believe that if it's in the Word of God,
02:12either it has happened, or it's happening now, or it will happen.
02:17And since the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, affirm the Second Coming,
02:21or in the Old Testament it's called the Day of the Lord,
02:24we believe that that is going to happen.
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