T.A. McMahon & Thomas Ice (Part 2) | thebereancall.org

T.A. McMahon & Thomas Ice (Part 2)

December 12, 2014
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Program description: Is the church ill equipped to handle the Tribulation? Who will populate the Millennium? In this week’s program, T.A. and Tommy Ice respond to the trailer of the documentary Left Behind or Led Astray? by Good Fight Ministries.

Gary: Welcome to Search the Scriptures 24/7, a radio ministry of The Berean Call featuring T.A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael. We’re glad to have you with us. In today’s program, Tom concludes his conversation with Tommy Ice, executive director of the Pre-Trib Research Center. Now, along with his guest, here’s TBC executive director Tom McMahon.

Tom: Thanks, Gary. The topic for this program – this is actually our second session speaking with Tommy Ice – and the topic is the timing of the Rapture of the church, and we’re going to be talking about a documentary that’s not out yet. However, there is a trailer that’s on YouTube, and it’s being sent around causing great…well, it’s upsetting some people, and I think rightly so, because the trailer, at least – and I’m sure there’s more of it, a lot more, in the documentary – claims that the Pre-Tribulational Rapture of the church is a false teaching that will leave the bride of Christ unprepared to go through the Great Tribulation.

And, as I said, I’m speaking with Tommy Ice. He’s the executive director of the Pre-Trib Research Center, which produces a newsletter and hosts an annual conference that focuses primarily on biblical prophecy.

Tommy, again, thanks for coming back and dealing with this issue on Search the Scriptures 24/7.

Tommy: Well, I’m happy to be with you again.

Tom: Tommy, I want to get right into the trailer. It was produced by Good Fight Ministries, and they claim that it’s not ready yet, but as I said, the trailer issues – well, throws down the gauntlet with regard to the timing of the Rapture, and their view is the Rapture will take place at the end of the Great Tribulation. In other words, the bride of Christ – the body of Christ – will go through the Tribulation. And one of the things they say, and very dogmatically, is that – well, for example, one of the men who is featured in the trailer, at least – I’m sure the documentary – is Joel Richardson, and he chides believers (or, actually, pastors, shepherds) for not preparing their sheep…not preparing them to go through the Great Tribulation. Now, Tommy, what do you say to that?

Tommy: Well, I would say that same thing the Apostle Paul told the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 when he said – when he had to leave them, he says, “I am committing you to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.” And the Word of God taught the whole counsel – the Word of God, as he also referenced in that passage, is able to equip somebody to deal with anything that they may as a believer be faced with.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: And we’ve seen millions of Christians already die during the church age, so we’re supposed to be prepared for that in a certain way. What is different about if a person has to be persecuted in the Tribulation? Well, the difference is that that is said to be the wrath of God.

Tom: Exactly.

Tommy: But people who become believers after the Rapture are certainly – many of them are going to die, and as a result, they’re the ones that are going to have to traverse the Tribulation, so to speak. But the church has been promised specifically to be kept from the hour of testing – that hour which is about to come over the whole world, Revelation:3:10. Everyone agrees that that refers to the Tribulation period. We’re going to be kept from that time period.

Tom: Right.

Tommy: The reason is because the Rapture is the mechanism that Christ revealed in John 14 in the Upper Room Discourse right before He died. And Paul then expands upon it in the Thessalonian epistles, especially, and other epistles, because he was the apostle to the Gentiles, and he was given these mysteries, these new revelations, that relate to the church age. And the fact that we are told repeatedly in the New Testament epistles to wait for His Son from heaven, whereas people in the Olivet Discourse, for example, where it talks about the Second Coming, they’re looking for signs and things like that, because there are going to be signs that lead up to the Second Coming. So there are two separate comings: one to take the church out so that God can finish the 70th week of Daniel…

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: …and that’s a purpose, whereas if the Rapture, which is clearly a separate event qualitatively when you look in 1 Thessalonians 4, for example, and nothing in 1 Thessalonians 4 compares to Second Coming passages like Revelation 19, Matthew:24:29-31, or Zechariah 14 where He puts His – comes down to planet earth…

In fact, in Revelation 19, the bride, who’s already in heaven, makes herself ready and returns with Christ at the Second Coming, and so how’d they get there? Well, you know, they were taken up and resurrected – dead believers were resurrected, and living believers were transformed, translated into heaven and given new bodies in a moment of time without dying, and the church experiences the Bema Judgment, and therefore has made herself ready and returns victoriously with Christ, because we’re going to be at His side. And those are qualitatively two separate events…

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: …and therefore, they’re separated by at least seven years of the Tribulation period.

Tom: Yeah.

Tommy: I think there’s going to be an interval of days, weeks, months, or years between the Rapture and the start of the Tribulation, so it’s going to be seven plus years between those two events.

Tom: Mm-hmm. Tommy, when you use the term “qualitatively,” let me apply it to something that you – well, that you mentioned: sometimes our mindset with regard to persecution, suffering – I mean, we have the history of the church. We have the Book of Martyrs. We know that the church, starting at Jerusalem, was persecuted. You know, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, so we have those kinds of things.

But qualitatively, Tommy, they have no – I mean, they’re so far…they’re so different than what will take place during the Tribulation. I mean, just even a cursory reading of Revelation says, “Whoa, wait a minute! This isn’t just those who have not taken the mark of the beast, and they’re going to be persecuted, and they won’t be able to, you know, buy or sell or eat, you know, whatever, there’ll be cataclysmic events!” You know, the whole earth is basically, you know, not completely destroyed, but man! So qualitatively, there’s a huge difference.

Now, my question is – and you know, I’m just laying this out – what is it that a believer can learn or do to get through all of these things? How do you prepare as a shepherd – because that’s their complaint – how do you prepare, as a shepherd, prepare your sheep for going through what’s spelled out in the Book of Revelation? You know, to me, it’s really absurd.

Tommy: Well, also the fact that because of pre-tribulationalism, those are going to be mostly new believers…

Tom: Yes.

Tommy: …and some will have a Bible background, but they’ll have supernatural leadership, you know, that we don’t have. They’ll have the 144 thousand Jewish witnesses that are going to be, you know, leading them and evangelizing them. I mean, even right before the midpoint of the Tribulation, there’s an angel that preaches the gospel to every person on the planet.

Tom: Right. Mm-hmm.

Tommy: But it talks about the faithfulness of believers during the Tribulation, and how, you know, they’re willing to die, because Christ died for us. And that, like in Revelation 19, that the martyrs have been relieved from, you know, the persecution and torment that they’ve experienced by being resurrected at the Second Coming, and therefore they’re in heaven rejoicing…

Tom: Right.

Tommy: …with the Lord. But these are just two separate events. Just like people at the first coming of Christ, one of the reasons the Jewish people rejected Him is He didn’t come in the way they thought He would, and even though some Jews at the time of Christ believed in two messiahs – Messiah ben-Joseph, the suffering Messiah, and Messiah ben-David, the victorious one – they did not realize that He was going to be one Messiah that comes twice, you see? And that was an important factor in them rejecting Him, because He did not come and set up the kingdom of God like they had thought He would.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: And the secret is that Messiah’s career has two phases: His first coming in humiliation, and His second coming in glory and victory, you see? And so, just as we learned that in the New Testament, in the same way, once He reveals the New Testament, there is going to be two future comings, you see? The Rapture to take the church away, for believers…

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: …at the Second Coming, yeah.

Tom: Tommy, even with these different views – we talked about this last week – they are all views, even though we think that the position that those who take with the post-trib and pre-wrath and all of that, you know, has huge problems with it. But at least they’re claiming that there’s going to be a Rapture of the church.

Now, here’s my question: if the Rapture takes place at the end of the Great Tribulation, all right… You know, I remember our buddy Dave Hunt said, “Well, that’s going to be a classic non-event. Who’s going to be left to be raptured?”

Tommy: Right!

Tom: But I want to take that maybe a step further, and I think you’re the only guy, Tommy – not that it worried me – but when I thought about this, I checked it out a little more, and you’re the only guy I’ve found that wrote about this. Now, when the Rapture takes place, if (according to their view) at the end of the Tribulation, aren’t all believers – we established this last week – aren’t all the believers who are on the face of the earth, okay, removed from the earth…

Tommy: Yes!

Tom: …in a Rapture?

Tommy: Yes, exactly.

Tom: Okay.

Tommy: In other words, at the Rapture – say, Ground Zero – at that moment, there’s not one believer left on planet earth.

Tom: And we’re not just talking about Gentiles, we’re talking about the remnant, the Jewish remnant, right?

Tommy: Well, it would be if…

Tom: Okay, if – I’m just going on their view, okay? We’ll take it… So, here’s the problem: who then is going to populate the earth?

Tommy: Yeah, exactly, because other passages like Matthew 13 and Matthew 25 teach that all unbelievers will be prevented from going into the kingdom.

Tom: Bingo!

Tommy: They’re going to be killed.

Tom: Absolutely.

Tommy: And therefore, you would have nobody in their mortal bodies to populate the Millennium, which the Bible makes it clear that people are going to be giving children – or birth to children, and dying, and stuff like this even in the Millennium, so you have to have people there, and they don’t have a problem.

Another problem related to that is why have the sheep-goat judgment in Matthew 25…

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: …to separate believers from unbelievers – to separate the goats to prevent them from going in – if you have the Rapture occur in conjunction with the Second Coming? It doesn’t make any sense.

Tom: No.

Tommy: But pre-tribulationalism makes perfect sense. It allows for all believers to be renewed as God’s promise says, and secondly, time to have people start becoming believers during – even before the Tribulation starts in that interval, and then throughout the Tribulation. And so therefore, you have a repopulation of believers. Those who survive – Jew and Gentile who survive – who are believers will go into the Millennium and populate. No problem.

Tom: Mm-hmm. Now, Tommy, we don’t pay our guests, but I’m going to give you an opportunity to make a little money here: the trailer that we’re talking about – that is Left Behind or Led Astray? – issues a claim…well, it makes an offer: it says it will give $10,000 to anyone who can come up with the verse that establishes the pre-Tribulation Rapture. Now, Tommy, is that a trick offer, or are you about to cash it in?

Tommy: Well, I think I can come up with a single verse, but they’re going to – you know, they obviously have the $10,000; they’re going to be the judges, and no matter what…

Tom: [laughing] Right!

Tommy: …you come up with, they’re not going to accept it. Now, what’s interesting is a number of years ago, a guy paid – I forget how many…I think it was $5,000 to anybody who could come up with a Pre-Trib Rapture view before Darby, and some guy did, and he paid up, believe it or not!

Tom: Mm-hmm. Wow!

Tommy: At least he was honest, but then he did not renew his offer again. But I believe 2 Thessalonians:2:3 is just that verse, because it says in 2 Thessalonians 2, “Now we request you, brethren,” this is in verse 1, “with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him.” In other words, episunagoge, a Greek word that we get the English word “synagogue” from, and the assembly or gathering of people; and obviously, “in the air,” I think that refers to the Rapture, “that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure, or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter, as if from us, to the effect that the Day of the Lord has come.” The Day of the Lord clearly throughout the Old and New Testament refers to the Tribulation period…

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: …primarily. There may be an instance or two where it refers to the Millennium, but it clearly is they thought they were going into the Tribulation. So there’s the Tribulation period being spoken of. And he said in verse 3, “Let no one in any way deceive you, for it,” referring back to the day of the Lord, “will not come unless the…” my New American standard says, “apostasy,” the King James says, “falling away comes first.” And the Greek word there is apostasia, and over a dozen translations all the way back to Jerome in 399 with the Latin Vulgate translate that word – it’s translated apostasia or “falling away” as “departure.” And when you look at the extra-biblical Greek meaning of this word, the second word listed in Liddell and Scott, which is the mother of all Greek lexicons or dictionaries, list the word “disappearance.” And so the question is, is he referring to a physical departure, which, if he were, then he’s referring to the Rapture, and that would be saying, in other words, you know you’re not in the Tribulation, because the disappearance has not occurred.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: And everybody translated that word apostasia as “departure,” which is an excellent translation until you had the 1600 King James come along, and they were in a fight with the Catholics again, and the Douai version in 1583, which was the first English translation of the Bible by the Catholics, translated it “revolt.” In other words – and they took it to refer to the revolt of the Protestants against the Catholic Church. So you had the Protestants and the King James countering theirs by introducing a whole new translation, and that is “falling away,” or, in other words, they took it as an abstract departure or apostasy from the faith.

Well, if this had been translated properly as “departure,” then it would be clear that the Rapture would certainly be a possibility if he’s talking about a physical departure. And I think he is, because he goes on and talks about how he wrote about them in a previous letter or epistle, and he never talked about apostasy, he only talked about the Rapture and the Second Coming, you see?

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: And so I think this is a passage that teaches that this is a physical departure, and therefore it’s a passage that says we’re going to be raptured or, as it says up here, “gathering together to Him,” we’re going to be taken up into the air to be with Him before the day of the Lord, the Tribulation.

Tom: Mm-hmm. Now, Tommy…

Tommy: I don’t expect to receive a [unintelligible]…

Tom: No, I was just going to say, don’t wait for your check to be in the mail. However, you know, the thing that concerns me about that is you offer this, and then you say afterwards, “Nobody has yet collected.” Well, that could be in the, you know, in the mind of who’s signing the check.

Now, however, and I want to talk about this: now, we believe in, you know, the objective Word of God. We believe in literal interpretation. But when we look to Scripture, yes, we want the verse. We want to see the verse clearly, objectively, and so on. But we also believe in extrapolation. In other words, number of the doctrines – you know, I think you mentioned this before we started recording; we were talking about something like the Trinity and so on. You can’t find that term. But we find so many other verses that we can put together that form a clear doctrine.

Now, the part that we don’t want to go – we don’t want to go beyond that to speculation. So we can accept, you know, what a verse says clearly and distinctly, but we can also extrapolate a number of other verses to put together a solid teaching, a solid doctrine of the church.

Now, it’s speculation where we draw the line. Would you agree with that?

Tommy: Yeah, in fact, you have to do that in order to make Scripture not conflict with Scripture.

Tom: Right.

Tommy: In other words, our attempt is to interpret Scripture with the assumption that it makes sense and there are no internal contradictions.

Tom: Right.

Tommy: And therefore, for example, we were talking earlier about populating the Millennium. If you take that view that the Rapture occurs in conjunction with the Second Coming, it doesn’t harmonize. You see what I’m saying?

Tom: Mm-hmm. Sure.

Tommy: You’ve got a problem, because other passages say that they’re going to be – after the Second Coming, there’s going to be a sheep-goat judgment, and they’re going to be separated out; and that the sheep go into the Millennium in their mortal bodies, you know, and you have all these Old Testament passages that talk about it. So you have to harmonize this.

Tom: Right.

Tommy: So you have the Rapture being introduced by Christ. It’s explained qualitatively, the nature of the Rapture, in 1 Thessalonians 4 in a very extensive way. And then you compare that with Second Coming passages, and you see that nature, or quality, of the two events are very different.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: In fact, in their writings, you know, I often list 13-15 differences between the Rapture and the Second Coming.

Tom: Yeah. Now, Tommy, correct me here – let me just interject this, because we’re kind of running out of time: the Thessalonians – when Paul’s writing to them, they’re concerned. They’re going through tribulation, and they can’t understand that this is happening. Now, wait a minute! If they were post-tribbers, why would they be so excited? Now, all I’m doing here, folks, is extrapolating. Just as Tommy mentioned, I’m looking at something that took place among the Thessalonians, and it fits with a Pre-Tribulation Rapture.

Tommy: It sure does. It really does.

Tom: Yeah. Now, Tommy, in the few minutes we’ve got left – I had down here five…I was going to have you give the top five apologetics for the Pre-Trib Rapture. We’ve got four minutes – how many can you give us in that time?

Tommy: Well, number one is literal interpretation.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: You have to interpret literally. You have to believe in premillennialism, as I said, otherwise if you’re amil or postmil, you know, it’s not possible. You have to be what’s called a futurist as opposed to a historicist or a preterist – in other words, a preterist thinks it all happened in the past; a historicist, which many have been – like Martin Luther and others – believed that the events of the Book of Revelation are occurring throughout the church age. So if the Tribulation started in the early church, then obviously we weren’t raptured before the Tribulation if that’s true. But a futurist sees the Book of Revelation, once you get to chapter 4:1, as future, and therefore prophecy as a whole is future.

And those are issues that you have to settle before you get to talking about the timing of the Rapture, and we believe that it starts with seeing two separate events, as I’ve already talked about: the Rapture as an event that doesn’t involve judgment and He comes for His people; whereas the Second Coming, He comes there and He judges and there’s all kinds of blood and guts, and Satan’s bound, and all of these things, and they’re all missing from Rapture passages. The Rapture is said to be an event that could happen at any moment, so we’re constantly waiting for it, and the Second Coming is going to be preceded by all these dozens of prophetic events that are going to lead up to it.

And so then you have the fact of imminence, that the Rapture could occur at any moment, and there’s about eight or nine of these passages, you know, “looking for the blessed hope and appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Well, if events had to precede that, and if you’re post-tribulationalist, for example, and events will precede that, then you cannot have Christ coming at any moment, see?

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: In fact, Matthew:24:29 says, “After the Tribulation of those days.” You know, after the events described in Matthew:24:4-28, the Tribulation of those days, then Christ returns. So that’s referring to the Second Coming of Him coming to planet earth, okay? And where His imminence means that that’s why we’re to focus our hope, as the New Testament says, completely on Christ at His coming. And so the doctrine of imminence, that Christ could come at any moment, can only be held by a pre-tribulationalist.

And then you have the promise to be kept from the hour of testing, or from, you know, the Tribulation itself.

Tom: Right.

Tommy: The time of wrath’s in 1 Thessalonians:1:10. He says, “How you turn from idols to serve the true and living God,” talking to the Thessalonians, “and you wait for His Son from heaven to be raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us,” or rescues us, “from the wrath to come.”

Tom: Right.

Tommy: And the word “wrath” used almost always refers to something that happens in history. In other words, it’s not referring to hell. There are other words that usually describe that. And then you have in 1 Thessalonians:5:9, for example, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And you have in Revelation:3:10 where He says that, “Because you have kept the word of My perseverance,” in other words, during the church age, “I will keep you from the hour of testing.” So the purpose of the Tribulation for Gentiles is to test them, that hour which is about to come up on the whole world, see, not just the Philadelphia church or Philadelphia area, but the whole world to test those who dwell upon the earth.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Tommy: And that phrase “earth,” that’s the first of eleven usages in the Book of Revelation, and it comes out of Isaiah 24 and 26. It’s called “Isaiah’s apocalypse,” 24-27, and it’s all about the judgment of the Gentiles there, you see? And…

Tom: Tommy, we’re about out of time here. Let me just close us with this.

Tommy: Okay.

Tom: Tommy, I’m thinking about 2 Timothy:4:7,8. Well, you know, Paul begins with, “I have fought a good fight.” But he finishes those verses with, “that the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me in that day,” talking about a crown of righteousness, “but not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.” And that’s our… that’s what this program and the program – the first part of the series, that’s our heart. We want people to know what the Scripture says, to abide in God’s Word, and be fruitful and productive. But be Bereans. Search the Scriptures to make sure what you’re believing – what you’re doing is true to the Word of God.

Tommy, thanks again for being with me. We’ll do this again, because it’s a subject that’s not going to go away.

Tommy: That’s for sure. In fact, my ministry is making a video in rebuttal of this.

Tom: Okay. Now, Tommy, just tell us about – just give us the website for the pre-Trib study group, and…

Tommy: Yeah, our website for the Pre-Trib Research Center is www.pre-trib.org. And thanks for having me on! In fact, these are the kind of issues that I like to deal with.

Tom: Yeah. Thanks again, Tommy.

Gary: You’ve been listening to Search the Scriptures 24/7 featuring T.A. McMahon, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. We offer a wide variety of resources to help you in your study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials and a free subscription to our monthly newsletter, contact us at PO Box 7019 Bend, Oregon 97708. Call us at 800-937-6638, or visit our website at the bereancall.org. I’m Gary Carmichael. Thanks for joining us, and we hope you can tune in again next week. Until then, we encourage you to Search the Scriptures 24/7.

Program Number: 
1450

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