Often you hear preachers talking today about another possible “great awakening.” This kind of spiritual speculation clouds the clear teaching of Scripture concerning the imminent return of Christ and brings confusion. Perhaps it is in the spirit of 2 Pet 3:9 that there is talk of this, but did you know that by making those kinds of irresponsible statements, they are leading people to believe that men of God are looking for a great spiritual awakening rather than looking for the imminent return of Christ or the rapture of the Church? So, what is wrong with that? It undermines the biblical teaching of the imminent return of Christ. Will believers be looking for Christ’s return if there is yet a spiritual awakening to come? You know they probably won’t.
You will not find the word imminent in the Scripture any more than you will find the word rapture or millennium. It comes from a Latin word literally meaning “hanging over your head” or “looming overhead.” But this descriptive word or concept or idea is expected to play a very active role in the daily routine of believers, patterning their life after Christ since the first century.
What does the teaching on the imminent return of Christ offer for the believer? (1) It provides hope, which is always a positive expectation in the NT. (2) It gives a positive purpose to living a purified life every moment of every day (1 Thess 4:7; 1 Jn 3:2-3). (3) It poses a negative incentive for the believer to avoid any embarrassment of not being ready when Jesus does return (1 Jn 2:28).
When talking about the imminent return of Christ, we are not referring to the second advent of Christ or His second coming. The first and second advents have one very important element that they share in common; Jesus is literally on the earth. The first coming was Jesus’ incarnation, being clothed in the flesh in the womb; He literally emerged through the birth canal of a virgin by the name of Mary. The second coming of Christ will take place after the conclusion of the seven years of tribulation, and Jesus will come down and literally reign on the earth for a span of one thousand years (referred to as the millennium) from Jerusalem.
The imminent return of Christ or the rapture (1 Thess 4:17) will take place before the antichrist makes a pact with Israel for seven years or breaks his peace accord 3.5 years later (Dan 9:27), referred to as the time of Jacob's trouble (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1) or at the end of the seven years of tribulation. Not all evangelicals subscribe to a pre-tribulation rapture viewpoint, however; there are at least four major views of the rapture of the Church that I’m aware of:
Pre-tribulation: The Church is raptured before the seven-year tribulation period. There is a non-biblical spin-off of this view called the partial rapture theory that maintains that only the faithful at the time will be raptured.
Mid-tribulation: The Church is raptured in the middle of the seven-year tribulation period.
Pre-wrath tribulation: The Church is raptured between the middle and the end of the seven-year tribulation.
Post-tribulation: after the seven-year tribulation the surviving Church is migrated into the Kingdom
Now, what is important to understand concerning these various views is that only the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ fits with a pre-tribulation rapture. Keep in mind that the literal meaning of imminent, “hanging over your head” or “looming overhead” indicates that there are no signs, no indications, no intimations, and no heads up of Christ's return for His Church; and nothing needs to be fulfilled Scripturally. Jesus will come at any moment, with zero warning. No one will be saying, “We don’t have to worry about Jesus coming back until there is a spiritual awakening or whatever.”
Except for the pre-tribulation view, all the other views above require something to precede it. Therefore, supporting any view other than a pre-tribulation rapture viewpoint destroys the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ, and it is, admittedly, nonsensical for anyone who holds to a pre-trib rapture view to speculate that there is something, like, a great awakening coming! The only thing coming down the eschatological pipeline is the rapture.
Why would the Holy Spirit be telling men of God something that runs contrary to the teaching of Scripture? “Thus says the LORD, tell others a spiritual awakening is coming before the rapture!” Are you kidding me? If it happens it was going to happen in the pipeline before the foundation of the world. God would not reveal such a thing because the focus is to be on His imminent return since the first century! The whole concept behind imminent is the elements of being unknowable and yet looming.
Obviously, a spiritually discerning believer can see things shaping up for the advent of the antichrist. What this means to me is that the window is shrinking between the rapture and the genesis of the trib period. I don’t see how it can prolong much further since Israel has come back into existence as a nation in May of 1948 since 70 A.D., but God is sovereign and all-knowing who does not work on our time schedule (cf. Psa 90:4; 2 Pet 3:8). The antichrist cannot make a pact unless the nation of Israel is in existence.
Anything that comes between now and the rapture destroys the idea of the imminent return of Christ. It makes no difference if you throw in a great awakening, mid-trib rapture, between mid-trib and the end of trib rapture, or whatever; they all make the return of Christ non-imminent or target specific. <><
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