What Triggers the Rapture? Romans 11:25 Explained Verse by Verse

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, good to have everybody, and for those of you in the studio audience, this is the fourth program of the afternoon, so this is the last one, and we'll be able to head out for home. For those of you joining us on television, of course, this is just the next week's program. We trust that you understand that we do tape four programs all at once. I've rehearsed this over the years, because once in a while somebody will ask me if I only have one shirt. Now I'll grant you, I don't have a lot of them, but the reason I wear one shirt for a month is because we do tape four programs all at one time. We want people to know that. They're all available of course in videotapes, audiotapes, and booklets. You just call and we'll send you the table of contents and whatever information you like to have. I think that's all we have to do for sake of announcement, and we're going to go right back into the study of the Word, because the time goes too fast as it is. Back once again, I hope you don't get tired of hearing it. I Corinthians 15, but only as a jumping off place, because in our last half hour we were pointing out who are the Christ's at His coming, that will be resurrected in the largest part of the resurrection harvest, which remember from the Old Testament economy, was the first fruits, the sampling, and then the main harvest, and then we have the gleanings and the corners. So I teach the resurrection of the just, the believers of all the ages, will be in three distinct separate stages. Christ and those who came out of the grave in Matthew 27, the Church resurrection which will also include the Rapture which we're going to look at now in this half hour, and then if we have time we'll go back to Daniel 12, and we'll see the resurrection of the Old Testament Saints shortly after the Kingdom is established. So let's read I Corinthians 15, for every man in his own order or his own company, Christ the first fruits, which we told you took place back in Matthew 27, and afterward it's been almost 2,000 years, they who are Christ's at His coming, now that is not a reference to His Second Coming, but since Paul is writing about it, it's the coming for the Body of Christ. Now I finally finished my lines up here, I don't know if television people can make it or not, but you want to remember that all the Old Testament promises and the program never considered the outcalling of the Church. It was never in there, God had kept it secret. So all the Old Testament prophecies spoke of the coming of Christ to be their King, and they would have to go through the tribulation, and then they could have the King and the Kingdom. And all the Old Testament prophecies are lined up with that. Psalms chapter 2, Joel chapter 2, Zechariah 14, they all speak of this kind of a timeline. But Israel rejected the King back here, and the tribulation did not come in, they did not get the Kingdom. So instead after having crucified their Messiah, and Peter does not succeed in turning Israel into repentance, God now brings up the Apostle Paul, and this is what we've been looking at for the last 3 programs, and is calling out the Body of Christ, primarily from among the Gentiles. And since it has nothing to do with the Old Testament program, it has nothing to do with the tribulation, because that is tied to the Old Testament primarily for the Jew. So we maintain that the Body of Christ is insulated from God's dealings with Israel either before or after, and consequently this is why I teach the Rapture. The Body of Christ has to be off the scene before God can pick up dealing with Israel. Now always remember that if we could just pull a slight of hand, what I like to do is just remove this section again, and just back this right up to here, or we could just take the Church out and come right back to the Old Testament economy of the coming of the Messiah, the tribulation, the King, and the Kingdom, and so forth. But remember that when Israel rejected it, God went to this, the calling out of the Body of Christ, and it has to be raptured, and then He will yet bring in the tribulation to Israel. Now let's go from I Corinthians back to Romans chapter 11, verse 25, which I always maintain will be the triggering mechanism for Christ's coming for the Church. Now we know there is no time element. We can never say that in 5 years He's coming. I certainly like to think He is, but we can't say that. We don't know if He's coming in 100 years, but we do know that He's coming, and we know that He's going to come the minute the Body of Christ is complete. When the last Gentile or Jew is saved, and the Body is complete, then Christ will come for the Church. Now let's go to Romans chapter 11, verse 25. Romans 11. Now remember He's not writing to just the hierarchy of the Church at Rome, He's writing to the common ordinary believer out there in the pew. Every believer should be aware of these things, and that's why I teach. I don't have to teach the preachers and the seminarians, I want to teach the common people out here in the everyday walk of life. Because God wants every one of us to drop our ignorance, and pick up on the wisdom of His Word. So He says, "...I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this secret." Now I always have to define the word ignorant. When someone is ignorant, it doesn't mean they don't have the brain power. Someone who is ignorant isn't somebody who is incapacitated to a degree. Ignorance is simply a lack of being taught. You know I've used the example, I'm ignorant when it comes to electricity. I know the ramifications of it, but to get right into the details of 3 phase electricity, I'm lost. Why? Because I've never been taught concerning it. I'm sure I could learn it if I had to, but it's the same way with Scripture. Most people are ignorant of the Scriptures, not because they don't have the capacity, but because nobody has taught them. So this is what Paul is constantly advocating, to learn, gain knowledge, and get wisdom from the Book. So he says, "...I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this secret, lest ye should be wise in your own conceit. And here is the secret, that blindness, a spiritual blindness, has happened in part to Israel." Now what's he talking about? Well when Israel rejected the Messiah, why did they reject Him? Ignorance! They didn't know who He was. I've been telling my classes here in the weeknights for 25 years, over and over, and they must get tired of my saying it. Israel should have known who Jesus was. Israel could have known who Jesus was. It was in the Old Testament. Why didn't they? They didn't bother to study. Oh the priests knew it, and they knew the stuff on the surface, but to get right down into the nitty gritty of the Old Testament prophecies. When the wise men came to Herod and asked about the King of Israel, Herod calls up the big wigs of Judaism, and they said, where is this King of Israel to be born? Did they know? No. What did they have to do? They had to go search the Scriptures. Did they find it? Sure! They said, it's in the Scriptures, He's been born in Bethlehem. So they could have known, but they didn't. I just told my class last night, America is no better right now today. Every last person in these 50 states should know that we are in the end time, that we are approaching the very coming of Christ, and the tribulation, and the appearance of the Antichrist in the world government. But do they? No. Most of them don't even know what you're talking about. Why? Because they choose to remain ignorant. They don't have to be, but they are. Now Paul is admonishing the believers at Rome. Don't be ignorant of this fact, that God has literally dropped a spiritual blindness on the nation of Israel. I said on the nation. The individual Jew can still have his eyes open and believe, but nationally they are blinded. In fact here in chapter 11 of Romans, go on up to verse 7, and what then? Now how ignorant? They were looking for a king who would come in with pomp and power and circumstance, probably at least symbolically riding on a great white Arabian steed. But instead their king came riding on a lowly donkey, and they missed it. This our king? No way! Well they were ignorant of who he really was. And so Paul says, Israel did not obtain that which they were looking for. But the election, in other words those few Jews who did believe, they got it, absolutely they did. They've obtained it, and the rest were what? Blinded! And that's the nation of Israel to this very day. They are still blind to who Jesus really was. Now you come back to verse 25, and Paul says, We Gentiles are to understand that this spiritual blindness has fallen on the nation of Israel, and it will remain on their spiritual eyes until the fullness of the Gentiles is brought in. Well what's the fullness of the Gentiles? The Body. So when the Body of Christ is full, then God will take us out of the way, and He will start dealing again with the nation of Israel. Now when I say that the Tribulation is primarily Jewish, here's where I have to go back with you. I want to go back to Jeremiah chapter 30, and of course this is just one verse. There are many, many other verses, but this one is so plain that anybody can comprehend it. Jeremiah 30, ask now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail? And all faces are turned into paleness. Paleness from what? Fear! Oh listen, I've taught it so often. The horrors of the Tribulation are not only going to be physical, they're going to be mental, and it's just going to test men's ability to keep their sanity, because of the horrors that are coming on the earth. And so he says, "...wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail? And all faces are turned into paleness. Alas, for that day is great..." What day? The Tribulation. "...so that none is like it, nor will there ever be in the future a time of trouble like that final seven years." And all the world is getting ripe for it. I told my class the other night, and I don't know what magazine I read it, but I was just skimming through, and when you read of the horrible wickedness and sinfulness and evil that men are practicing, not so much in America yet as in other areas of the world, you wonder how can God put up with it. I couldn't hardly sleep at night to think that men can get so low in their sin. And so yes, the wrath of God is coming on sinful men. He's going to pour it out. In fact I shared with the class the other night, why should this generation have to suffer so horribly when we've had 6,000 years of human history? Well I'll give you the reason. Because there are more people living on the world right now, than have lived all the way back to the beginning. And so the vast majority of the human race will still come under the wrath and judgment of God, by virtue of our numbers. Now read it again. "...alas that day is great, that is in its trauma, and in its suffering, so that none is like it, and it is the time of Jacob's trouble." See that's who God is dealing with. Now you want to remember in all of God's dealing with the human race, who is at the center of it all? It's the nation of Israel. Now remember I always like to go back to Deuteronomy, the 5th book of your Bible. I think it's Deuteronomy chapter 32, and someday I'm going to get caught and won't be able to find my verse. But I'm pretty sure I'm right. Deuteronomy 32, verse 8. And if this doesn't say it, well I can't make it any plainer. When the Most High, now you want to remember that term of deity is always mostly associated with the Gentile. In other words, when you get into the book of Daniel, and you're dealing with Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, the term of deity is the Most High. And here again we're talking about the Gentile nations as a whole, and the term of deity for them is the Most High. And when He divided to the nations, plural, all the nations of the world, their inheritance, and when He separated the sons or the offspring of Adam, He set the bounds or the boundaries, their national boundaries, of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. You see that? Everything that God has done with the human race on this planet revolves around that little nation of Israel. Now most of the world don't want to believe that, and it is hard to believe. How can one little nation of just a few million people be so important in God's overall picture of the billions of the rest of the world? Well it's what He said, that at the core of everything is this little nation of Israel. Now the same way then with the tribulation, it's going to be primarily God pouring out His wrath on Christ rejecting Jews. But the whole world is going to come under the effects of the tribulation events. Remember it's going to be cataclysmic, it's going to be meteorites, it's going to be volcanoes, and earthquakes, and anything of a natural phenomena and a disaster, the tribulation will see it all in magnified portions. Now then what we're talking about though is the Body of Christ, and how it has to be taken out of the way now, before God can pick up and deal with Israel. Now come along with me to I Corinthians chapter 51, because this is still in the whole concept of resurrection. This is the great resurrection day, this is the main harvest. The Old Testament and the tribulation saints will be relatively few in number compared to the number in the Body of Christ. Now lest you think, well there haven't been that many people saved during the church age. Hold it! What about all the little infants that have died, not here in America, but the whole world? Where are they? They're going to be in the Body of Christ. Where are all of the abortions? Where are they going? Into the Body of Christ. So don't think for a minute that the Body of Christ isn't going to be humongous, but remember we're not going to be just confined to the planet when we rule and reign. We're going to rule and reign in the heavenlies. The whole sphere of outer space is going to be our domain. You're never going to feel crowded, you're not going to be like mice in some experiment. We are going to have all kinds of room, and we're going to serve Him with joy unspeakable. Now how is it going to begin? Verse 51. I Corinthians 15. I Corinthians 15. that we shall not all die, but we have to all be changed. If we're not going to die and have a resurrection body by virtue of our having died and resurrected, then what do we have to have? A new body. Now he explains it. Verse 52. I Corinthians 15. In a moment, and that word in the Greek is the smallest division of time, but they can split the second way down. Well that's how quick it's going to happen. In the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. Now this has nothing to do with the trumpets in Revelation. Don't limit God. You know I get so disgusted that people always put God in a box, and in fact they're always putting God in a box. Just because there's a trumpet back in Revelation, they think He's only got one, and He has to use it here too. No, God has all kinds of trumpets, and He's going to use this one for the Church. At the last trump, and the trumpets shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. There's the resurrection of the dead believer, called out of the grave wherever it is, whether it's in the ocean, or in a cave, or whatever. And the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and then Paul adds, and we who are alive shall be changed. Now hold it right there, I think I've got time. Go back a few pages to the right to Philippians chapter 3, and let's qualify that from another portion. Now if you have a marginal Bible, the word is citizenship. We are already citizens of heaven. Ephesians 3. Now it doesn't say we're looking for the King, but we're looking for the Savior. Ephesians 3. Who shall change our vile, corrupt, prone to death body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, the one that he walked for 40 days after his resurrection. And it was so supernatural, remember? He didn't have to go to the door to leave through the wall. He could go through the ceiling. He wasn't limited by time and space. Now listen, that's not gobbledygook. That's Scriptural fact, and that's the kind of a body we're going to have. Now you want to remember, we're limited to the physical aspects of this old planet. But when we get into the Eternal, it's a whole new ball game. And so we're going to have a body like His glorious body, according to working whereby is able also. I'll then come back to I Corinthians chapter 15 for just a moment, and so we will be raised incorruptible, and changed into a glorious body like His resurrected body. And then this corruptible, verse 53, must put on incorruption, and this immortal puts on immortality, and so on and so forth. Now let's move over to I Thessalonians, which of course is to the right several books, go through Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and then you come to I Thessalonians chapter four, and here is the blessed hope, as Paul writes to Titus, that blessed hope of the believer, the soon appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. I Thessalonians 4, beginning at verse 13. And again Paul uses that word, Oh don't be ignorant, don't go through life and not understand these things. Even for believers. You know a lot of believers have no concept of this. But here it is. I would not have you be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep, who have died in Christ. They have been members of the body of Christ ever since Paul first went to the Gentiles. Then he says concerning them who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. I Thessalonians 4, verse 14. And I always tell folks, here are your qualifications for being in the rapture. If you are alive when it happens, and you have believed with all your heart that Jesus died and rose again. See how plain that is? If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep, or who have died in Christ, God will bring them with Him. Now there's another instance where the name Jesus and God are used interchangeably. The God that is coming with the saints is Jesus, and Jesus is the God who is coming with the saints. You see that? You can't switch it. I mean they're the same. I Thessalonians 4, verse 15. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, that is for the body of Christ, we shall not precede or go ahead of them who are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first in resurrection power. When they hear the voice to come forth, just like Lazarus, only they're going to come out in resurrection power, and they're going to be drawn up to meet Him in the air. They're going to go first, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up. Now those are the two words that comprise the cliche word, rapture. Now I know the word rapture isn't in here, but caught up is. It's the same meaning, and we will be caught up with them. They've already received their new bodies coming out of the grave, and we're going to join them, and we're going to meet the Lord and those departed saints in the air, and then Paul says, "...so shall we ever be with the Lord." Let's meet one another with these words. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.