If there is one topic that I used to avoid the first 15 years of my public ministry, it would be the end times. I never really knew what to think of it. I still remember that there was an older American gentleman who used to attend our church at that time, who would always go to the “prophecy conferences” in the US.
He once sat me down and tried to talk me through his perspective of the end times, which would be the typical dispensational view with a pre-tribulational rapture and a millennium that is still to come. I remember that I once prepared a sermon series from this perspective. But it never really sat well with me.
And then a few years ago I was introduced to Dr. Michael Heiser and his book The Unseen Realm. He doesn’t really have a clear eschatological view, at least not one that I could find in his books. But there was one phrase that I remember to this day: “Are you a splitter or a joiner as it relates to Biblical prophecy?” His point was that it makes more sense to be a joiner, to see the rapture and the return of Christ as one event, instead of two separate events. That made total sense to me when I looked back about the prophecies relating to Jesus’ first coming. The Suffering Servant ended up being the same Person as the Davidic Messianic King.
So I became a joiner. But I still had no clue what to really believe about the end times. The basic thought I clung to was that there will be a rapture, but it would happen at the same time as when Jesus returns: it is one event. When he appears on the clouds, we will meet him in the air, and then we will escort him back to earth, which is his rightful possession. He is the King, after all.
The rapture would be very similar to what happened with Jesus’ triumphal entry. When he came to Jerusalem, everyone walked out of the city to greet the King, and then escorted him back into the city. This was normal practice in the Ancient Near East when a dignitary would come to town.
Obviously, the events happening at the end of this age and the age to come are so much more elaborate than just the rapture and Christ’s return. So the Lord connected me with two amazing networks. One is called Tikkun Global, based in Israel. I have been learning a lot from Asher Intrater and Ariel Blumenthal. The other network is called Frontier Alliance International. They have a whole series of Bible studies called The Rapture and the Endurance of the Saints, which discusses all arguments that pre-trib teachers are using, and explains how they are not founded on the Bible in its own context, nor early church traditions.
This past Sunday I shared a message at Celebration Church Hilversum and connected the three – or actually four – fall feasts or mo’edim (appointed times) with the end of the age and the return of Christ:
- Yom Teruah (Feast of Trumpets, mistakenly called Rosh Hashana now)
- Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)
- Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles)
- Shemini Atzeret (the Eighth Day)
Here is the video:
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