Why the Church Will Not Go Through the Tribulation

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. And again, it's good to have everybody back, and we're going to pick right up where we left off. Time is precious, and turn to Matthew 24 again as a kickoff chapter. Once more, we want to invite our television audience to just be part and parcel of our class. Get a Bible and pencil and paper and take some notes. Only reason we teach is to help people to understand what this book really says. And I've always warned my people, anybody that I teach, be aware of what isn't said or Scriptures that are not used as much as you are of what is said and what is used. Because you can so completely adulterate a good biblical teaching by simply ignoring portions of Scripture. And this is what I find the most flagrant of the things that I read, where they just simply ignore certain portions of Scripture that don't fit their particular teaching. And I hope, and I trust, I'm never guilty of that. So anyway, now if you'll start back at Matthew 24, where we did again last week. But this time we're going to come into the first half of the chapter, because here the twelve have cornered Jesus more or less up there on the Mount of Olives, and they start out by saying, verse 3, "...tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and the end of the world?" The King James is, and I think a better word is, the end of the age, because it's not going to be the end of the world. "...the end of the age. And Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many." Now, I'm convinced that Matthew 24 is totally tribulation ground, but, and I've used the analogy so often in my classes, most of you are probably a part and parcel of a high school drama or operetta or something, and you know the weeks of preparation that went in before the curtain ever rose. There was practicing to be done, there were props to be gathered, there was advertising that had to be done. Everything was building up for the night that you had your curtain rise. Well now, all the things that we're witnessing today, of course there's an increase in earthquakes, there's an increase in perplexity, there's an increase in governmental corruption and ungodliness and wickedness in all places. This is not the tribulation by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the preparation. Everything is getting set. The stage is being set for when the Antichrist, as we pointed out last week, will sign that treaty with Israel, the curtain goes up, and out comes the seven years of the tribulation. So now, Jesus is referring to those seven years when He says, verse 6, "...you shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars. You see that you be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet." Then verse 7, "...nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, famines, pestilences, earthquakes in diverse places." In other words, not just along the fault lines that we know about, but they're going to be everywhere. And then verse 8 is the verse that I want to kick off from. All these introductory aspects of the tribulation are the beginning of sorrows. Now if you have a margin, or if you have a newer translation, I would just almost bet that somebody's got a Bible that uses the word, travail. All these things, the opening stages of the tribulation, are simply the beginning of travail. Now scripturally, the word travail is always associated with childbirth, a woman in travail. Now the reason Jesus uses this analogy is because the earth, you see, has been under the curse ever since Genesis 3. For the last 6,000 years we've been living under the awful stigma of the curse. But we know from Scripture that one day the curse is going to be lifted, and Jesus uses the analogy of the earth being delivered from the curse. And so the whole purpose of that seven years of tribulation, you see, is to bring the earth to the place of delivery. And that's why He uses the word travail. Now that helps you understand then, when you study the book of Revelation detail by detail, that as these seven years progress, just like a young mother approaching childbirth, her labor pains will start gently and rather far apart. But the closer she comes to the hour of delivery, the more intense the pain, and the faster they come. And that's exactly the way the tribulation will unfold. As we get to the end of that last three and a half years, the plagues are going to get so awful, cosmic disturbances are going to get so awful, death is going to be just running rampant, and it's going to be one thing right after another until Christ appears, and then that of course is the delivery. So then, all these things are the beginning of sorrows. Now let's go back then to Revelation. Like I said, this is just a brief overview. I'm in a hurry to get back to Genesis, like I'm sure most of you are. But on the other hand, I don't want to cut this short and leave anyone hanging by a thread. Now back to Revelation chapter 14. Now we know that as we approach the final days of this seven year period, the Antichrist now ruling from the Temple in Jerusalem, will put out a call to all the nations of the world to send their armies to the Middle East, and I look at it as primarily the final effort to get rid of the Jewish problem. And he is going to just simply ask the world to come and obliterate the nation of Israel. And of course it's going to end up a battle against Israel's Christ, but they're going to gather, I think, primarily to get rid of the Jew. And then, just when it seems like the nation of Israel is doomed, oh, then Christ returns from Heaven. And here we pick it up now in chapter 14, beginning with verse 14, and it's the Battle of Armageddon. Now we even see the word used quite often in our secular media, although they don't really know what they're talking about, but it is a scriptural term, and Armageddon simply comes from the village, or the little city of ancient history, by the name of Megiddo. And if you take a trip to Israel, more than likely the tour bus will take you right around the base of Mount Megiddo. It is now just more or less a tale. It's a place where city after city have been destroyed, and you know how they've done all through ancient history. When they destroy a city, they just simply level the rubble and build another one. Another enemy comes in, destroys it and burns it, they level off the rubble and they build another one. And so all over the Middle East you have these mounds, which are called Tells, and all they are are cities that have been rebuilt, and rebuilt, and rebuilt. In fact, the city of Jerusalem, when you walk on the streets of Jerusalem today, if you've got a guide who knows anything at all, he'll probably tell you that the streets of Jerusalem on which Jesus walked are what? About 100-200 feet below where you are walking today, because the same thing has happened. Jerusalem has been destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed and rebuilt. Alright, Megiddo is one of those. It was just an ideal place to build a city in ancient times. It was a good defensible place, it had good food production, and it had water. That naturally made a good place to build a city. So Megiddo sits right on the edge of the plain of Esdalon, which is just as flat as the floor in this building. And it's quite a few square miles, big open area, and of course the armies of the ancients fought battle after battle on that plain. And so all these nations of the world will be sending their armies to that area, and by, I think, a sovereign act of God, they're going to get packed in to that valley, into that very huge flat plain. Now then, verse 14, "...I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle." Now whenever you think of farming nomenclature, what does a sickle refer to? A harvest. It's the clipping of the fruit or whatever. "...And another angel came out," verse 15, "...of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him who sat in the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap. For the time is come for thee to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." Now the Greek actually is a little stronger word. It's more than ripe. It's just almost past harvest time. "...And so he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped." In other words, the sovereign God now is coming into the picture. Verse 17, "...another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, and he also having a sharp sickle. And he came out from the altar, who had power over fire, and cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather. For the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth." Now remember, we're talking in an analogy here. The peoples of the earth that are still remaining, the armies and what have you, are being gathered just like a husbandman would gather his grapes. Now remember, we've got to keep this back in the setting in which Jesus is talking, or which the Scripture is written, when they still gathered the grapes and put them into a huge wine vat. How did they press the juice? Well they walked in them. They would just simply walk, and they'd walk, and they'd walk, until the juice would just finally find its way out, and be drained on the bottom, and then of course they'd catch it in a wine vat. Now this is the analogy. God is harvesting the men, the people of the world into His wine vat. Most of them are going to be congregating of course in the valley of Magiddo. Now verse 19, reading on, "...and so he thrust in his sickle, gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine press, O not a big rock hewn out, not a big cement one, not an oaken one, but the wrath of God." Now you see we're so programmed, and rightly so, that God is a God of love, mercy, grace, and indeed He has been. But the Scripture literally screams at us that that will not always be the case. There's coming a day when God is going to say, Enough! Even as He did with Sodom and Gomorrah, even as He did with the Noach flood. And so He says, Enough! And He gathers them into this great wine vat, and it's the wrath of God. And then verse 20, "...and the wine press was trodden without the city." In other words, up there northeast of Jerusalem. "...and blood came out of the wine press, even unto the horses' bridles, by the space of a thousand six hundred furlongs." That's about 180 miles. Now a lot of people scoff at this. They say, Well how in the world can such a thing be? Well fortunately, since we're not taking this detail by detail, we can jump in on another little aspect of all this, and that would be back in, oh let's see, I wasn't intending to do that. That would be in chapter 16. In chapter 16 of Revelation, the final, final plague that falls upon mankind, as we see it here, verse 21. And I think this plague will be associated with this battle of Armageddon. Now if you can picture, and again I think I can probably put it on the board, from the city of Jerusalem, and of course over here is the Mediterranean Sea, and the mountains of course come up here. But up here is this valley of Esdraelon, going all the way up to Mount Carmel that comes in over there by the port city of Haifa. And this great flat valley, the armies of the world are seemingly going to be directed in from every direction, like I said a little while ago, by a sovereign act of God. They're going to pack them in, almost senselessly. No good general would ever do that, but they're going to. And as they're packed into that valley, then if you'll read chapter 16, verse 21, the final of the plagues, the final bowl judgment. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone, that is every hail stone, the weight of a talent, or if you've got a margin, that's 100 pounds. Now we talk about hail golf ball size, and maybe softball size, and you know what that can do. I mean it can knock out car windows, it can go through house roofs, but see they're still only what, two or three pounds? Can you imagine hail stones weighing a hundred? I mean it'll just crush everything that it hits. But the Middle East is hot, how long will those hail stones remain as ice? Not very long. And so I look at this river of blood as deep as horses' bridles, as very literal, because you see with those millions of men packed into that valley, crushed under these hundred pound hail stones, which immediately begin to melt, what have you got? You've got a river of blood that will be a variable. Now lest you say, hey Lest, you're stretching the point. I remember reading years ago, that I think it was after the battle of Wake Island, when our marines had to go in on the beaches. And I think we lost something like 7 ,000 men on the beaches, and the Pacific Ocean was red as much as 2-3 miles out from shore. Just from 7,000. Now I know that's a lot of precious people, but here we're going to have millions. And then with the hundred pound hail stones, indeed it will be a river of blood running for 180 miles length. Now I like to always go back and tie in the Old Testament as well as the New. Let's get this same picture from Isaiah. Go back to Isaiah chapter 63. So for people who don't like to read the book of Revelation, and they say it's no count, and there's a lot of them, and they say, no use bothering with it, you can't understand it anyway. Well, we'll just go back and see what the Old Testament says, because it says basically the same thing. Isaiah 63. Let's just begin with verse 1. Who is this that cometh from Edom? Now remember Edom is down southeast of Jerusalem. Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bosra? This that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength, I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore, the prophet asked, wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the water? Now can you use a little imagination? You get somebody in there barefooted, probably with shorts, and they trample that wine vat. After just a few hours, what are they going to look like? They're going to be covered with grape juice from head to foot. I mean they're just going to spurt. Now you've got the same analogy here, that when God comes down in His wrath upon those gathered millions of troops in that valley of Esdraelon, in the area of Megiddo, here it is. Verse 3. I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me, for I will tread them in my anger. Now remember, He's not talking about the blood of Calvary here. He's talking about the blood of the wrath that is poured out on His victim. And He said, I will tread them in my anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled, or splattered, is what the Hebrew word says. The blood will be splattered upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. And then look at the next verse. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my Redeemed is come. Now that's the Second Coming of Christ. Now if you'll go back to Revelation once again, we'll get a yet different view of it. Now not so much in wrath and judgment upon the gathered armies of the Antichrist, but now in Revelation chapter 19, we see Him coming in His glory, His power. And never lose sight of the fact that after we have been taken out at the end of the Church age, before the Tribulation begins, and again someone asked me during the last week, are you sure we don't go into the Tribulation? I'm sure. Now a lot of people won't agree with me. But I maintain there is no way that the Church can go into the Tribulation for primarily one reason. When God began to deal with the Gentiles, the first thing the Apostle Paul made clear was, you are not under Law, you are under Grace. And I've always maintained you cannot mix them. Now I've always pointed out, I have already pointed out, that when the Tribulation begins, Israel will be back under the Law. And God's premise still stands, you cannot mix Law and Grace from the front end, you can't mix Grace and Law on the tail end. And so in order for God to deal with Israel under the Law, the Church has to get out of the way. And I maintain that that is probably my best argument, that we will not go into the Tribulation. We have to be out. Several weeks ago, you remember, we used the verse in Romans 11, verse 25, that when the fullness of the Gentiles be brought in, then God turns again to the nation of Israel. That says the same thing. That when the Body of Christ is complete, the last Gentile is saved, God takes it out, and He picks up then where He left off with Israel. All right, now in chapter 19 of Revelation, start at verse 11. "...And I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse..." Now you remember there was a white horse back in chapter 6, but that white horse was the fake Christ, the counterfeit Christ, the Antichrist. But here we've got the truth. This is the real thing. "...And I saw a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called..." Now here are the names of Deity, capitalized, faithful and true, "...and in righteousness he doth judge and make war." That battle we just saw likened to the wine vat. Verse 12, "...his eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood." Now this, I think, is the reference to His own blood, the shed blood of Calvary. "...And he had on a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword." Now always have to be careful when you study Revelation because it is always in symbolic language, but every symbolism has a literal truth. Go back with me, I think we have time. Go back with me to Hebrews chapter 4, because I don't want you to picture Christ coming with an old iron Roman sword between His teeth. The sword is something else in Scripture. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12, a verse that probably most of you know at least partly from memory. For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. So what's the sword? His Word. Oh, when He spoke at creation, what happened? The universes came into being. When He had everything all prepared, and He brought that dust from the ground, and He spoke to it, what happened? Adam appeared. And so it's been all through everything that God does, it's done with the spoken Word. We had an interesting discussion in our class last night, faith cometh how? By hearing, see? Faith cometh by hearing. But we cannot hear until God does what? Speaks the Word. And that's kind of a hard concept for a lot of people to understand, but I try to make it as simple as I can. For example, when did Abraham, or Abram, leave Ur of the Chaldees? When God spoke the Word and said, leave Ur, then Abraham left, and what did God call that? Faith. He believed Him. He told Noah to do what? Build an ark. And what did Noah do? He built it. That was faith. Then along came Moses, and God gave to Moses the Law, and Moses brought it down off the mountain, and he said to Israel, thus saith the Lord. And what did they do? They believed it. And so all the way up through Scripture, when God speaks, that's when He expects us to believe it. Not until. In other words, did Noah jump the gun and start building his ark six months before God told him to? No. He waited until God said it. And so it is in the Age of Grace. God has now told us today to believe that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again from the dead. As soon as God spoke it, what did God expect man to do? Believe it. See? Believe it. And that's where faith comes in. But, you see, you can't believe something until God speaks it. So always remember, it's the Word of God that makes things happen. So verse 12 again. "...the Word of God is quick, powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, the joints and marrow, and is a discerner." All right. Now quickly back to Revelation 19 then. And so verse 15 says, "...out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword," the Word that He speaks. And as He speaks the Word, these millions of troops gathered there in the battle of Armageddon will be zapped. They'll be all done. Satan won't have a particle of power left. It's going to be all over. And then read on, "...and with it he should smite the nations, as they are represented there in Armageddon." Now the question came up, of course, in our break time between our two half hours. Well, are all the areas of the world going to come under these judgments? Absolutely. It is primarily the time of God dealing with Israel, but the whole planet will come under this. Everything. And that's again where you have to understand that Noah's flood was universal. And then Jesus says in His earthly ministry that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man. And so we have that same application, that it's worldwide and that when He comes, even though it's to the Middle East, to the Jerusalem, yet the whole planet will come under this judgment. All right, reading on, "...he'll smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron." Now that sounds like a cruel term, but it isn't meant to be cruel. It means absolute. When He sets up His Kingdom, He's going to rule with absolute power. There'll be no monkey business, there'll be no corruption, there'll be no bribery, there'll be no disobedience. It's going to be an absolute righteous rule. So don't let that term, rod of iron, scare you. "...and he treadeth the winepress," here we come back to that analogy, "...and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and the wrath of Almighty God." And then verse 16, oh how I love it, this is the God that we serve. Listen we don't have to shrink from anybody, because look what He is, "...and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords." Now you can't add anything to that, can you? That is the epitome of His power, and it's coming. And we're going to be part and parcel of it, if we have trusted the Gospel. And we're going to rule, Paul says, and reign with Him. The book of Revelation says the same thing. We're going to reign with Him a thousand years on this earth. Now a lot of people rebel at that, again going back to the little book I read last night. Oh this author maintained that, you know, we're going to come, the Second Coming, and Christ comes and He takes us to Heaven, and then it's all over. Well they have to throw away half the Bible to teach something like that. But we know that when He comes, He's going to be King of kings and Lord of lords, and we're going to rule and reign with Him. 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, OK 74-552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74 -552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer -supported, and your gift is appreciated. 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