Bible Prophecy’s Great Purpose :: By Terry James

One of the falsest and most cutting accusations launched at the belief that the Bible teaches that people can’t lose their salvation when they’re truly born again (John 3:3) is: “If you believe once saved, always saved, you’re saying people can live any way they want without fear of punishment.” Or so the line of condemning criticism goes.

The absolute assurance of eternal security, of course, engenders no such thought within the mind truly regenerated by the saving power of Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches that the Lord convicts His children in their spirits and that habitual, unrepented-of sin will result in severe penalties—even physical death in some cases. The Heavenly Father’s patience is longsuffering, but it is not infinite.

A child of God cannot sin without severe repercussions if repentance isn’t forthcoming.

But that person will never be kicked out of God’s family. Never. Here is God’s own promise in that regard, given through Paul the apostle:

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

A kindred accusation is thrown at those who believe in the pre-Trib view of Bible prophecy, which, of course, is the one we at Rapture Ready and the Prophecy Line blog believe. It is the view that Jesus Christ will call all who are born again to Himself before the Tribulation (the last seven years of history leading to the Second Advent; see Revelation 19:11).

The angry diatribe against the pre-Trib Rapture view—by even genuine Christians in many cases—usually goes something like this: “People like you, who believe that the Lord is going to rapture them before the Tribulation, think you can live however you want, because you think and teach falsely that you’re going to be rescued before God’s judgment and wrath fall, no matter what.”

Non-Christian accusers who castigate those of us who hold the pre-Trib Rapture view have their own version. It goes something like: “Christians who believe like that don’t care anything about making the world better. You even hope for things to get worse and worse. You wish for earthquakes, famines, pestilence, war in the Middle East, and for Armageddon to hurry up and get here so you will go to your pie in the sky and watch the rest of us get ours.”

Although the first criticism is absolutely not true, I have to admit that, regarding the second, too often I’ve sensed—even heard—such sentiments from some who believe in the pre-Trib Rapture. And it is entirely the wrong attitude for the Christian to hold. There are no excuses for wanting the Christ-rejecting world of non-believers to receive God’s judgment and wrath. It is only by His unfathomable grace that every one of us isn’t headed into that time of unprecedented horror.

No matter how—to use Lot’s King James Version word—“vexed” we become by the debauched, debased actions of the lost world around us, our job as Christ’s children—His representatives here on earth—is of a completely different nature than wanting to see them “get what’s coming” to them. The changed nature produced by being born again should make us do just the opposite of wanting them, in our vexation, to get what we see as coming to them.

The Christian whose spirit is attuned to the Holy Spirit’s desire for the lost doesn’t want to see them “get what’s coming to them” either during the Tribulation or upon death. Rather, we want to do all within our power to keep them from having to go through the time of God’s judgment and wrath.

Like God Himself, we shouldn’t be willing for anyone to perish, but we should want everyone to come to repentance. That’s what Christ’s Great Commission to His disciples before He ascended to sit at the Father’s right hand is all about, you see. That’s what God’s love—love that those who have Christ indwelling them possess—is all about. (Read Matthew 28:18–20.)

In the same vein, that’s what Bible prophecy is all about. Prophecy given in God’s Word has purpose—profound purpose. It has at its center the commission from the Lord to warn of God’s judgment and wrath that will come upon all who oppose Him. It isn’t the hatred of God for the lost people of this fallen planet that drives prophecy. It is the love of God that powers His prophetic Word. It must be the Christian’s desire, therefore, to study Bible prophecy and put forth those warnings out of a spirit of God’s love, not through an anger-filled abhorrence of those who are lost.

Christians who do study prophecy—and they seem to be few these days, I’m sad to have to say—are often heard wondering about when Christ will call the Church (born-again believers) in the Rapture. Everything seems so ripe for Him to pluck His people from this sin-darkened sphere.

Nothing and no one can change God’s timing for His next catastrophic intervention into Earth’s history. It will happen exactly on time, as He has determined since before the foundation of this world. However, as believers, we might look to ourselves for the Lord’s—often in our view—delay in calling us, as outlined in 1 Corinthians 15:51–55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18.

Again, the Apostle Peter gave the heart of the reason Christ hasn’t yet raptured His Church:

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

The purpose of Bible prophecy is to show the love of God to a lost and otherwise doomed world. God isn’t willing for anyone to die in their sins, but He wants everyone to accept Jesus Christ as the one and only sacrifice for sin that God will accept.

The Lord is “longsuffering.” The reason, I’m convinced, that the Lord seems so “slack” to many in His coming is because those same people have neglected their duty to share the love of God with the lost—the lost whom God loves so very much that He sent His only begotten Son so they would not perish.

It is well past the time for God’s people to invest in getting the message of the love of God to those who otherwise won’t hear the warning of deadly things soon to befall this Christ-rejecting planet. Considering these times that are so dramatically signaling the coming Tribulation, Bible prophecy can and must be used as a productive tool for evangelism.

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