Shouldn't the Church Have to Face the Antichrist?

Tom: You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to him.

Dave, Search the Scriptures Daily, for those who have joined us maybe for the first time, that’s Acts:17:11These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
See All.... It talks about…

Dave: Right.

Tom: …the Bereans. Now, the Bereans were Jews—Berea, a city in Greece—and Paul went into the synagogue there and he was going to present (or he presented) teachings about the Messiah. And these Bereans, they were commended because they listened to what he had to say, first and foremost, but then…

Dave: It says, “They received the word with all readiness of mind.”

Tom: Mm-hmm. Then they “searched the Scriptures daily” to see if what he was saying was true.

Dave: So he was obviously preaching and teaching from the Scriptures.

Tom: Mm-hmm. And that’s encouragement to our listeners, to not take our word for things, but to search the Scriptures, look to God’s Word.

Dave: If we come up with something that cannot be substantiated from the Word of God, then we’re wrong.

Tom: Right. We’re…

Dave: We’re out on our own, out there on a limb that’s about to get cut off. God has given us His Word, and everything we say, we want it to be based upon His Word, which is the truth.

Tom: If we don’t have His Word, Dave, then we’ve got your opinion, my opinion, and literally billions of other opinions, and we’re in a state of confusion at best.

Dave: Right, exactly.

Tom: Yeah. Well, for the past few weeks we’ve been looking at what’s referred to as eschatology. It’s a study of last things, of those things that certainly deal with what will take place at the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And these issues have to do with His coming, and one of the things that we’ve been addressing here is that the Second Coming is really in two phases, isn’t it?

Dave: Mm-hmm, exactly. The Rapture when He comes for His saints, the Second Coming when He comes with His saints. The Rapture, His feet do not touch the Mount of Olives, and He catches us up to meet Him in the air.

Tom: It’s not just your idea. As we’ve been saying, search the Scriptures if you’ve never heard of this teaching.

Dave: It’s in the Bible. Paul says (1 Thessalonians 4), “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: the dead in Christ will rise first: Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.”

Now, that sounds like He’s taking us off of this earth. And John 14, He says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to go away and prepare a place for you. And if I go away, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also.”

So in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul ends that by saying, “…and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” But at the Second Coming, His feet touch the Mount of Olives. He brings the saints from heaven with Him. He’s coming, not for the church (which He has with Him), He’s coming for Israel…

Tom: To save them.

Dave: …to rescue them in the midst of Armageddon. And Zechariah:12:10And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
See All... says, “…they will look upon me whom they have pierced,” and they will recognize at last this is the Messiah. And, in fact, Revelation:1:7Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
See All... says, “Every eye will see him, and those who pierced him.” So the whole world is going to be confronted by Jesus Christ at the Second Coming.

Tom: And there are many teachings—diverse, even contradictory teachings—about these last times, both with regard to the timing of the events and what exactly will take place. And that’s what we’re trying to get a handle on, what we’re trying to straighten out. Again, not according to Dave’s—Dave has a perspective, I have a perspective, but we hope that our perspective aligns itself with the Word of God.

Dave: If not, please let us know…

Tom: Right.

Dave: …because we don’t want to be going on saying things that are not biblical.

Tom: And in our study of this we’ve been using Dave’s book In Defense of the Faith, not just to give Dave’s opinion, but because over his many years of ministry he’s received many questions with regard to these issues and many other issues that he covers in the book. So it gives us a good source of questions, and these are tough questions.

Dave, we’ll begin with this one. This person writes, “Revelation:13:7And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
See All... says that Antichrist is given authority, and it could only come from God, to make war with the saints and to overcome them. Doesn’t this prove that the church faces Antichrist and goes through the tribulation? If not, who are the saints whom Antichrist kills?”

Now before we address that, let me give the verse that this person refers to. Revelation:13:7And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
See All...: “And it was given unto him [that is, the Antichrist; that’s the reference there] to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.”

Dave: Well, it sounds like Antichrist comes out the winner, but he doesn’t, of course. This is to overcome them physically, not spiritually, because the chapter before, Revelation 12, says, “…they overcame him by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto death.” So, although he killed them, they were the victors. They were following in the footsteps of Christ.

Reminds me of a tremendous hymn, Tom—I don’t remember whether we have quoted it or not on this program, but it would have been a long time ago. Speaking of Christ:

In weakness, like defeat

He won the victor’s crown.

Tread all our foes

Beneath his feet

By being trodden down.

He, Satan’s power laid low,

Made sin, he sin oer’threw

Bowed to the grave

Destroyed it so

And death by dying slew.

So, these are those who, in the Great Tribulation, they were not taken in the Rapture because they were not believers at that time. They were not given a strong delusion to believe the lie because they hadn’t rejected the gospel. And apparently a great company will recognize the truth of the gospel, will believe in Christ, and will be killed for their faith! And this will be a tremendous testimony to the world and to angels.

Tom: Dave, you say, “great company.” Scripture teaches that there will be 144,000—I want to call them evangelists, but these will be those who will be preaching the gospel…

Dave: Mm-hmm.

Tom: …along with the two witnesses, which will be an extraordinary event in the last times.

Dave: Probably people will have copies of the Bible, maybe copies of some books. They will not have all been destroyed by Antichrist who, undoubtedly, will do that. We see a little picture of that in the Soviet Union, in China, and Muslim countries, but these people will have come to Christ.

Now it very clearly says, “If you do not bow down and worship his image, he will kill you.” If you do, you suffer the wrath of the Lamb. You are not a Christian if you do that.

Now, this is going to be really tough, Tom. It’s easy for us to say we believe in Jesus here in America. It doesn’t cost us our lives. There are countries where it costs you your life—in Muslim countries today, for example. If you disagree with Islam, if they have the power—and they are taking that power in many places—they will kill you. Mohammed said to pursue the infidels wherever you find them and kill them. And if a Muslim converts to Christ, to Christianity, or even if he converts to Hinduism or Buddhism, Mohammed said, “Whoever relinquishes his faith, kill him.”

Well, this is going to be true of every Christian everywhere in the world. Anyone who confesses Christ as his Savior will be killed. And yet they will triumph over Antichrist, because “they loved not their lives unto death.” They are demonstrating that Christ has purchased them with His blood and He has captured their hearts. They love Him even unto death, and they are willing to die rather than deny Him and confess that their Antichrist is God. So there is the victory right there. Satan doesn’t have anybody that will do that for him, but the Lord has.

And you know, Tom, as we travel around the world, many different countries, it is so thrilling to see that everywhere our Lord Jesus Christ has people who love Him. Now, how many would be willing to die? Well let’s see, I think they would all say they would be willing. It’s not easy when it actually comes, but it’s happening around the world.

Tom: Dave, this morning I was going through, in my devotion, I was going through Hebrews, and I read again the verse where it says, “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.” And it said—it seemed to me the emphasis there, I don’t have it in front of me, but was because of these times that are going to get tough, that we really need each other.

Dave: Yeah, it says, “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.”

Tom: Right, right. So we do need each other in this. But speaking of that, going back to the question, it says, “Doesn’t this prove that the church faces Antichrist?” So we have to make a distinction here, don’t we?

Dave: Mm-hmm. Well, it only proves that those who believe in Jesus when the Antichrist is here face the Antichrist. Of course, they have to, because he is here at that point. But we looked at verses, 2 Thessalonians 2: You know what prevents him from being revealed in his time, for he who now hinders will hinder until he is taken out of the way, and then shall that wicked be revealed.” So Antichrist can’t be revealed until the church is gone—we won’t go back over that.

But if the church were here, we would oppose him. We would stand up and identify him. We would not allow this man to get away with saying…he’s going to pretend that he’s the Christ, and then he’s going to claim that he is God, and the church would absolutely oppose him. We would all be killed. But the Bible says the gates of hell cannot prevail against the church. Many would be killed. Yes, Jesus said that in John 15, “If you are of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. A servant isn’t greater than his lord. If they persecuted me and killed me, what do you think they are going to do to you?”

We have a problem in America—particularly, we think Christianity ought to be popular, and we try to dress it up in a nice new package that will be appealing to the non-Christian. We’re going to attract them in this way with a false gospel, and that’s not the gospel that Paul preached and that Jesus preached: “Deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow me.”

So we recognize that we could be killed at any time. We are not expecting to be popular in the world’s eyes. But we haven’t faced Antichrist! And that means everyone will be pursued. You do not take his mark, you can’t buy or sell; and we talked about that, I think, last time.

Titus:2:13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
See All...: “Looking for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God our Savior Jesus Christ.” Well, it’s not a blessed hope, I wouldn’t say, if the blessed hope is if you can run fast enough to keep ahead of the world police and eat out of enough garbage pails to stay alive during this period of time, you are one of the few who survives, and—blessed hope!—you’re going to get raptured! I don’t think that that’s the blessed hope.

Tom: Well, the church is called the bride of Christ. Dave, what Groom would want His bride to go through this? It just doesn’t make sense.

Dave: Right, yeah. No, He’s not going to leave us here.

Tom: We have another question along this line. It says, “What about the tribulation saints? How do they get to heaven? Do they have their own Rapture?”

Dave: Tribulation saints…

Tom: Oh, Dave, before you get to that: “saints,” let’s square that word away. Growing up Roman Catholic, to me, saints were just those who lived a holy life, did something miraculous in their lives, and they were then made blessed; and then went through a process of canonization, and then you prayed to them. You picked a saint with regard to—you know, your own patron saint, or the patron saint of this and patron saint of that. So…

Dave: I know Saint Anthony was one of your favorites because you lost so many golf balls.

Tom: Yeah, and…well I won’t get into the prayer, but that’s it—he was the patron saint of things that were lost and so on and so forth.

But the Bible, when I began reading the Bible, I said, “Wait a minute, this doesn’t sound like the saints that I believed in growing up! This just seems like everybody who believes in Jesus Christ is a saint.”

Dave: It means “sanctified, set apart.” And the Bible, the Epistles, are written to the saints—talks about the saints in the Old Testament, those who believe in the Lord. No, that’s a delusion. We don’t even want to take time, I guess, on that, but that’s a tragedy, because it tells people that they don’t have to live sanctified lives. It’s just certain ones that do that, and they’re the saints. No, the Epistle to the Colossians was written to the saints at Colossae. The epistle to the Ephesians was written to the saints at Ephesus. Had somebody voted them in? Had they been canonized?

Tom: These are living—these are living saints! There’s a big change, difference.

Dave: Living people, right. So he has power, authority, to make war with the saints and overcome them. These are saints living on this earth.

Again, Tom, we don’t want to take time, but it is so clear, absolutely clear. Now, how can the pope, how can the cardinals, how can the priests, how can the Roman Catholic Church maintain this delusion? “Oh, there are special people! They get to become saints.” Wait a minute! If you’re not a saint, you’re not a Christian.

Tom: Mm-hmm. John Paul II has canonized more saints than any pope in history…

Dave: Yeah.

Tom: …on the one hand. On the other hand, following Vatican II, there was a scrutiny of some of the saints (saints that we really took to heart) like Saint Christopher, and guess what? He never existed according to the Roman Catholic Church, so he was removed from the ranks.

Dave: For centuries Catholics have been praying to him.

Tom: Absolutely.

Dave: Now here’s a…

Tom: You could go into an elevator in a Catholic hospital, and there would be an image of Saint Christopher so he could ride the—up and down the elevator.

Dave: I saw him on dashboards of so many Catholic cars. And of course, they revised the rules for indulgences. That was one of the things that they did at Vatican II. Wait a minute! The Church revises things? They changed the rule that—it used to be a mortal sin, am I right, to eat meat on Friday?

Tom: Correct.

Dave: What about these guys who are in hell because they ate meat on Friday and then they changed the rule? Does that get them out of there? What kind of a Church is this—it’s infallible and it keeps changing things?

Tom: Well, along the line of eating meat on Friday, many Catholics say, “Hey, it’s not a problem.” It is a problem! If you eat meat on Friday during Lent, or you eat meat on Ash Wednesday, that’s a mortal sin. So they’ve just massaged things around.

Again, these are man-made rules. That’s the problem. Find it in Scripture, which is our biggest concern here. Everything you find in the Catholic Church that’s true to God’s Word, okay, hang onto it. But start going through the process and see how many things not only are not found in Scripture, but are contrary to the teachings of God’s Word.

Dave: Yeah. Okay, well, back to these saints now…

Tom: Right.

Dave: …that are going to get killed. He’s going to make war with them and overcome them.

Tom: Well, let me read Revelation 6: 9-10: “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”

Dave: Yeah. So I think with very few exceptions—maybe no exceptions, I don’t know—those who believe in Jesus during the Great Tribulation will be killed. Now, that doesn’t leave many to Rapture, so a post-Trib rapture is a classic non-event, and that’s very clear. We don’t have to argue that further.

Now, the question was, “When do they—do they get raptured? When do they get…”

Tom: Mm-hmm. How do they get to heaven?

Dave: Right. We have it in Revelation 20. It says, “Those who have been beheaded for the sake of Christ [that would be by the Antichrist] will be resurrected.”

Tom: Dave, you want me to read that? I’ve got it right here.

Dave: Go ahead, mm-hmm.

Tom: “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”

Dave: I mean, they have eternal life but there is a thousand-year reign on this earth. So that’s telling us they are resurrected right after the Great Tribulation at the beginning of Christ’s thousand-year millennial reign on this earth. So they don’t have to be raptured. Christ is now—has come to this earth with the saints. In fact, He has brought the saints…

Tom: So their spirits and souls are in heaven with Him, but they come with Him.

Dave: At the Rapture, He brings the saints from heaven with Him to be joined with their resurrected bodies. At this point, Zechariah:14:4And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
See All...: “…his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives,” and it says, “…the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.” So now we’ve got some other saints up there. Those who were raptured are in their resurrected, glorified bodies in heaven. These have not yet been given their resurrected bodies. So apparently they come too, in their souls and spirits, and then the resurrection, their resurrection. takes place. It says this is the first resurrection—that confuses some people. It’s a continuation or a completion of the first resurrection that began at the rapture.

Tom: Dave, that’s our next question. Nice segue here! I’ll read it: “When speaking of the resurrection of those who believe on Him, Christ said that He would raise them up at the last day (John:6:40And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
See All...,44,54). Doesn’t Revelation:20:4-5 [4] And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. [5] But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
See All... teach that the first resurrection takes place after the battle of Armageddon, and couldn’t this be what Christ meant by the last day? Certainly a pre-Trib resurrection couldn’t be on the last day. In view of such scriptures, how can one reconcile a resurrection and its accompanying Rapture at the beginning of the Great Tribulation?”

Dave: Tom, I don’t know if we’ve got time to deal with that one.

Tom: We may pick up on this last one next week.

Dave: Yeah, I think we need to pick that up next week. But it’s quite clear that there’s a pre-Trib rapture, and if there’s a pre-Trib rapture, then somebody’s been already resurrected. It says, “All who sleep in Jesus [1 Thessalonians 4] shall God bring with him.” The Lord comes down, they’re resurrected, and we know there’s a wedding in heaven (Revelation 19). We know that then saints in glorified bodies come with Christ at the Second Coming, but now we have people who were killed! They have to be resurrected too. So when it says, “This is the first resurrection,” I think we can only understand that as meaning this is a continuation or the completion of this resurrection. That is before the dead are going to be brought the Great White Throne Judgment at the end of the thousand-year reign of Christ.

Tom: So that would be the second death or the—and the second resurrection, right?

Dave: Right, which I do not believe—it’s a resurrection unto life, of course, but it’s a resurrection unto death, so they are still called “the dead.”

But going back to the question, “When do they get raptured?” They don’t get raptured, because Christ has come to this earth now. His feet have touched the Mount of Olives; He’s come to destroy Antichrist, to establish His Kingdom. They are resurrected and joined with their glorified, resurrected bodies on this earth, and they then rule and reign with the church. I believe that these are part of the church, in my opinion.

Tom: And the last day is not a 24-hour time period. It encompasses all that has to take place.

Dave: I believe it’s the Day of the Lord, the Day of Christ.