Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - John MacArthur - What does the Bible say about the End Times, Tribulation and the Rapture?

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Big Questions, Biblical Answers, is a series that seeks to provide biblical answers to some of the most prominent and fundamental questions regarding God, the Gospel, and the BibleIn this episode Pastor John MacArthur from Grace Community Church answers the question: “What does the Bible say about the End Times, Tribulation, the Return of Christ and the Rapture? ”Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this episode, I sit down with Pastor John MacArthur and ask him what the Bible tells us about the end times, the rapture, the tribulation, and the return of Jesus Christ. Let's dial in. Pastor John, I have an important question for you from the outset here. If you had to choose between In-N-Out Burger or Chick-fil-A, what would it be? I can do a double-double with grilled onions. I mean, that's a big boy meal.

Chick-fil-A is kind of a little less manliness than Chick-fil-A, I guess. The diet of a righteous man. Well, I have another important question for you. And I referenced it in kind of when we were talking about creation in a previous episode, that many people don't understand or have strong convictions regarding the beginning of scripture, and nor do they have strong convictions or understanding regarding the end of scripture. So my question for you is, what is the book of Revelation about?

What is the tribulation? And when in the tribulation, is there a rapture and a returning Jesus Christ? Can you help provide some wisdom for us? Oh, big question. Yeah, yeah. Well, just let's just say this at the beginning. God is very precise.

Okay, God is very precise. He didn't come to the end of the Bible and lose his train of thought. Okay, and then say, I can make up anything you want. So I flew 35 hours one night, day and night, ended up in Kazakhstan, right? I'm in Kazakhstan. It's the first pastor's conference. There's 1,600 pastors jammed into this building, first one in history after the breakup of

the Soviet Union. And they want me to teach the doctrine of the church in six days. So about the third day, the guys call me in and they say, when are you getting to the good part? And I said, what do you mean the good part? You know, I'm working hard to get this stuff across. And they said, well, the part about the future, when are you getting to that? And I said, you know, like when the Lord comes, when are you going to get to that? Because they had very little food. They had big pots out behind the church and it was raining.

So they always had soup because the rain just filled up the soup thing. They'd throw potatoes in and they didn't have much. So they were looking for Christ to come back. So I said, OK, on Friday, I'm going to do that. So on Friday, I said, here's how it goes. It's going to be the rapture of the church. That's an unsigned event. In other words, there's no sign preliminary to that event.

It's going to be suddenly in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, snatching out the church. Then there's going to be a period of seven years of tribulation. Daniel refers to that period, and that period is laid out in the book of Revelation repeatedly, even the numbers are laid out. The events are laid out from Revelation 6 through 19. I went all through that and I said that's going to be followed by the return of Jesus Christ to establish his thousand-year kingdom. And I think it uses the word thousand in Revelation 20 about six times, so it's not obscure. and at the end of the thousand years satan has a rebellion satan's rebellion is is basically ended and then the entire universe

as we know it literally implodes in an atomic implosion and the lord creates a new heaven in the new earth and i unpack that one whole day and at the end of the day, the leaders came to me. No schools, no training. There are no Bible schools in the former Soviet Union. They have no training. And the leaders came to me and said, we believe what you believe. And I said, really? You would have to go to school to get that wrong. It's crystal clear.

You have the church on earth in Revelation 1 to 3. All of a sudden the church is in heaven in Revelation 4 and 5, which indicates the rapture. Tribulation breaks out in Revelation 6, runs to 19. In 19, Christ comes, establishes His kingdom. The kingdom runs for a thousand years, then the new heaven and the new earth at the end of the book of Revelation. That is the simplest book in the New Testament if you're looking for a chronological outline. So somebody's got to tell you it's not true, just like Genesis.

You have to say, oh, no, no, no. The evolution happened in Genesis. Oh, no, no. It can't be that simple. It can't be chronological like the book of Revelation. And yet the book of Revelation starts by saying this. Blessed is the one who reads and understands this book. I'm not that smart. I just took the book, and here are these guys who never had any formal training. All they had was a Bible,

and they could see that. They understood it. Well, what you said, I love, about the earnestness of those pastors in Kazakhstan. They're telling us, tell us about the future, or they're telling you that. What would be... Well... The present was pretty harsh. Sure, yeah. No, and so what would be your, kind of the importance that you would place on even us as believers anticipating a returning Jesus Christ?

I think it's often neglected. We don't pray often and you don't, I don't hear it often. Jesus, come quickly. What is the importance of anticipating the return of Jesus Christ for the life of a believer well I mean we're told to set our affections on things above and not on things on the earth we get to to earthbound and you know I would say that's not always the same in every culture or in every period

of history it's tougher for us because we have so much. If you're living in a mud hut in Africa and you become a Christian, you're going to long for the coming of Christ in ways that we don't because we have too many distractions. Living in this culture, we have to hack our way through to even think about heaven. Heaven seems, how can I say it, not even as good an option as Disneyland because we're so into running from one thrill and one high to another that we don't experience the pains of life. They're basically leveled out in a highly technical culture like ours is and with all the

medical stuff that we've got. And we don't face death. I mean, death is even hidden from us when it happens. So I think it's easy to forget about heaven and become earthbound. For me, the attraction of heaven, I'm happy for the Pearl Gates and I'm happy for the gold streets, but the attraction of heaven is literally a weariness with the flesh. And if you're like 15 or 18 years old, you're not weary with the flesh yet. I mean, maybe you haven't even gotten married and you're looking for the right girl.

Can you define what you mean by that? Tired of the battle with sin, tired not only in the struggle in your own life with it, but tired of the struggle around you with it. Like I'm in my 80s and my ministry hasn't slowed down at all. I'm constantly fighting on all kinds of fronts. You know, it's like Paul said when he referred to Ephesus, he said there's a wide open door and many adversaries.

Paul said at the end of his life, I fought the good fight. I mean, it's a fight. It's a fight. It's a fight. It's a fight against sin in our own lives and weakness and failure. And then in all the people around us, and we're trying to move the kingdom forward one life at a time. And I've even said to some people, you know, you're going to have to reintroduce yourself to me when I get to heaven, because I'm not going to recognize you when you're perfect. But I think there's a kind of time when you just say,

okay, Lord, anytime is fine with me. When the battle's over, you just want to be faithful to the end. I'm thankful it's a reality. Peter says we have an imperishable, undefiled inheritance stored up for us who are in Christ. And we need to- Reserved for you. Reserved for us, yeah.

And that's something that believers need to contemplate and consider and anticipate. And as you said, it's not obscure, it's clear, and it's right there for us in the scripture. So thank you, Pastor John. You're welcome.