The Great Disappearance Interview with Dr. David Jeremiah

What is the rapture? How do you define that? The rapture is a time in the future when the Lord Jesus Christ is going to return not to the earth but to the heavens to receive to himself every single person who has put their trust in him for eternal life.

And before he receives the ones who are on earth, all of those who have died in Christ, who are Christians, they're going to be resurrected. And the Bible says we're going to meet the Lord in the air. Bodies will be reunited with spirits and souls. Christians who are dead will be reunited with Christians who are alive.

And then finally, all of us will be reunited with the Lord Jesus Christ. The great reunion. Amen. 
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 Right. Well, in just a moment, we'll talk with Dr. David Jeremiah who will explain to us that if we pay attention, we can see the prophetic thread of scripture being acted out in real time as we move even closer to the next event on God's prophetic calendar, which is the rapture.

In Dr. Jeremiah's teaching series, he calls this prophetic event the great disappearance. And in this study, he answers questions about the rapture with solid, always biblical truth. We may not know the exact day of the rapture, but we know it will happen. And Dr. Jeremiah wants to make sure that we're all rapture ready for that day.

So with that in mind, please welcome pastor, author, teacher, and my very dear friend, Dr. David, Jeremiah. 
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 Well, it's just lovely to be back in New York. This is one of your favorite places. Yeah. And I wasn't sure what to think when I was coming back here, but you know, I don't know if I'm right.

It feels like New York is back. Yeah. It really feels like that. Maybe not all the way, but sure. A long way more than I thought it would be. I have to tell you and I'm excited for you to know this is one of the most exciting things I've ever read that you have written.

I've read everything you've written. This made me so full of hope and joy. You call this motivational prophecy. What does that mean? Yeah, I did that on purpose, Sheila, because so many people that I know say that prophecy doesn't have a practical application to it. And when they say that, and hopefully you're not one of those who says it, but if you are, stop saying it because you're giving away your biblical ignorance.

It's not true. The Bible is filled with prophecy and almost every prophetic context has within it marching orders, things we're supposed to do. For instance, one of the most famous passages is in John 14 where Jesus is trying to encourage his disciples and he said, "In my father's house are many mansions."

You know that story? But did you ever think about what he said first? Let not your heart be troubled. In other words, if you know what God's up to, you don't have to be upset waiting up at night worrying about what's going to happen tomorrow. God's got this.

He's got this thing in control. Amen. I can imagine many of us thinking, "Well, we're so grateful that you study it and that you learn and we learn from you." But why is it important that we all study prophecy? Well, for one thing, it's 28% of the Bible.

So, if you say, "I'm never going to read prophecy, you just cut out a fourth of the Bible." That's not a good thing to do. Secondly, for instance, take the book of Revelation. It's the only book in the Bible that has two promised blessings. If you read that book, the Bible says you'll be blessed.

And I promise you, you will be. There's a promise at the beginning and the promise at the end that says if you read this book, you will be blessed. How many of you here like to be blessed? You know, so you should read Prophecy for the blessing of it.

And then there's a kind of confidence that you get when you, you know, we know some things people in the world don't know. They're all ringing their hands about what's going to happen. We know what's going to happen. Amen. And the more we know, the more confident we become.

And the more incredibly urgent we become to share with others the truth of the coming of Christ. You call it the great disappearance, but for people who perhaps are not as familiar, what is the rapture? How do you define that? The rapture is a time in the future when the Lord Jesus Christ is going to return not to the earth but to the heavens to receive to himself every single person who has put their trust in him for eternal life.

And before he receives the ones who are on earth, all of those who have died in Christ, who are Christians, they're going to be resurrected. And the Bible says we're going to meet the Lord in the air. Bodies will be reunited with spirits and souls. Christians who are dead will be reunited with Christians who are alive.

And then finally, all of us will be reunited with the Lord Jesus Christ. The great reunion. Amen. Right. We'll be right back with Dr. David Jeremiah. Hi, this is David Jeremiah and I want to take just a moment and tell you about something that's very exciting to me.

I've said throughout my whole life that I believe I would be alive when Jesus came back. Nothing that's happened recently has changed my mind about that. So, more than ever before, I have been so excited to be teaching and preaching about an event in the future we call the rapture.

And I've actually written a book about it called The Great Disappearance. When this book was released, it went around the world and it literally touched over 300 million people through the book itself and all of the resources that went along with it. If you've never read a book that answers the questions about what's going to happen when Jesus comes back, you owe it to yourself to read this book, The Great Disappearance.

One of the bestselling books I've ever written because it's about one of the most important events that will ever occur. Welcome back. I'm Sheila Walsh. I'm here with Dr. David Jeremiah discussing his new prophecy series, The Great Disappearance. What will the moment of the great disappearance, what will it be like?

Well, you know, it's hard to imagine the chaos that will be on Earth. One of my visuals that I'll never forget is the picture of a guy pushing his little girl on a swing and he pushes the swing out and she's on the swing and the swing comes back and she's not there cuz she's gone to heaven.

This is not just some kind of fictional story. This is the truth. This is going to happen. Why will God rapture the church? What is the point of taking the church out of the earth? I think there are a couple of things about that, Sheila, that are important.

One that may not be as obvious. First of all, it's the catalyst that kicks off the prophetic calendar. You know, the rapture is the beginning of the tribulation, Armageddon, all of those things that happen in the future. But secondly, the rapture is the opportunity for God to bring home to himself those who belong to him before all the tribulation takes place on earth.

The Bible says we're not appointed to wrath. We're appointed to the day of Christ. And that's a big part of this book, helping people understand that we're not going to go through the tribulation. The term the rapture, does that ever actually appear in scripture? No. The actual term itself doesn't, but it means caught up.

And that phrase is in the scripture. Caught up is often there in all of the other raptures beside the rapture of Christ. That term is caught up. When Jesus went back to heaven after his time on this earth, he was caught up to heaven. Yeah. So rapture means to be caught up.

To be caught up to heaven. A lot of believers kind of bundle everything together. The rapture, the second coming, the Lord's appearance. How are those different events? Well, here's the way this works. The next thing on the calendar is the rapture of Jesus Christ. The Bible says that's an eminent event, which means nothing has to happen before that occurs.

Uh it can occur tomorrow, but nothing has to happen. It could come It could come. Wouldn't it be cool to go to heaven from this beautiful place? Right. Right. So, so the rapture happens and immediately after the rapture, what happens in the rapture? All the Christians go to heaven.

Where does the Holy Spirit live? In the hearts of Christians. So, what happens to this earth? The Holy Spirit disappears. Do you know what his name is? He's the restrainer. Can you imagine this earth with no restraint and the tribulation will happen? And we'll talk about that, but it's the darkest time the world has ever dreamed of.

Seven years of tribulation. At the end of the tribulation, the Lord Jesus Christ is returning not for his saints, but with his saints. We'll be with him. We'll have been in heaven with him for seven years. The Bible says he comes back with his saints, the saints and the angels.

We're going to be in the great army that returns to the Armageddon. And we don't have to do anything cuz the Bible says all Jesus is going to do is and it's over. He going to destroy him with a breath of his mouth. So, and we're all dressed in white.

You don't go to war and wait, but we're just we're just audience for Jesus in the return. What will our world look like when everyone who believes in Jesus, everyone who trusts the Lord is gone? And what about those who've heard it all but just never bothered making a commitment?

Well, I'll tell you something, Sheila. This is a hard thing for me to say. The world's looking more and more like that every day. Amen. When you take morality out of the world totally and you put the Antichrist in charge and he's Satan's minion, all you're going to have is evil on steroids and it will be awful.

People say, "Well, if you're in the tribulation, you can't be saved." But that's not true. God is going to do something in the tribulation. This is hard to believe. It's going to have the greatest revival that's ever taken place on the earth is going to happen in tribulation.

Let me tell you what's going to happen. I'll just do this real quick. First of all, he's going to seal 144,000 Jewish evangelists. Wow. Now, I don't know what you think about the zeal of Jewish people, but 144,000 of them turned loose on the world with the gospel.

Amen. That's going to make a difference. Listen, he turned the world upside down with 12 disciples. 12 times 12,000 is 140. It's 12 times. You got it. All these Jewish evangelists. And then Moses and Elijah are going to return as the two witnesses and all kinds of miraculous things will happen.

The two witnesses are going to be killed. They're going to be resurrected. They're going to be raptured. And many will come to Christ. Third, there's an angel from heaven who's dispatched to the world with the gospel. How do we balance longing for that day with the call we have to live for Christ today?

You know, that was Paul's issue, wasn't it? He said he wanted to be with the Lord and he wanted to be with them and we all face that. I think you know for me I'm looking forward to going to heaven but in the meantime I'm looking forward to living my life.

Yeah. There's love this story about a little boy who was in a class one day and the teacher said, "How many of you want to go to heaven?" And everybody in the class raised their hand but this little boy. And the teacher walked back and she said, "Johnny, don't you want to go to heaven when you die?"

He said, "Oh, yes, ma'am. When I die, but I thought you were getting up a load for tonight." You know, that's how I feel. You know, I want to go to heaven when the right time comes. But you know what? You can be so heavenly minded you're no earthly good.

My goal is to go to heaven and take as many people with me as I can. That's what I want to do. Stay tuned. We'll be right back to continue discussing the great disappearance of Dr. David Jeremiah. Capture a thrilling glimpse of the rapture in The Great Disappearance: 31 Ways to Be Rapture Ready by Dr.

David Jeremiah. In 31 short, easy to read chapters, Dr. Jeremiah answers questions about the next event on God's prophetic calendar, not with sensationalism, but with solid biblical truth. This is motivational prophecy, inspiring you to live boldly and expectantly in today's world. Request The Great Disappearance by Dr. Jeremiah plus the Perhaps Today bookmark.

When you give a gift of any amount in support of the ministry of Turning Point and if you give $75 or more, you will receive the Great Disappearance study set, which contains Dr. Jeremiah's book, message series, study guide, and perhaps today bookmark, plus Dr. Jeremiah's personal candid interview about the rapture filmed in New York and hosted by Sheila Walsh.

Be rapture ready. Request the great disappearance book or study set from Turning Point 
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 today. Welcome back. I'm Sheila Walsh. I'm here with Dr. David Jeremiah discussing the great disappearance. A lot of people wonder what about, you mentioned this earlier. What about little ones? What about children who are not at the age of being able to understand?

Well, you know, that's a really interesting question, too, because while the Bible doesn't deal with that issue in regard to the rapture, it does deal with that issue in regard to death. What happens to a little one who dies before they can understand the gospel? The the Bible teaches that they go to heaven.

And there are a number of reasons for that and lines of proof which I've outlined in this book. The Bible says Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Isn't that interesting? He loved children.

He had a special place in his heart for children. It's absolutely impossible that a God who was a God of fairness and justice would punish little ones for something they could not even possibly understand. I believe that there's a period of time when a child does not know the gospel.

But then as they get older and they present the gospel and they come to what the Bible talks about as the age of accountability then they become responsible. But until they're responsible they are not held accountable for their sin. They go to heaven. And the greatest illustration of that is the story of David.

One of my great friends uh helped me understand this one day. You remember when uh David committed adultery with Bath Sheba and had her husband Uriah killed. And then in their adultery, Bath Sheba had conceived and she was going to have a child. David was told by Nathan that that child was not going to live and that that child would die.

And the Bible says that David mourned and he grieved and he and he wouldn't eat and he he was in sackcloth and ashes and laid on the floor and cried out to God uh about this child. And then the child died. And the Bible said David got up and got dressed and put on an ointment and went to his house and went back to normal.

And his servants didn't understand it. And they said, "David, what is this about? I mean, while the child was living, you mourned. And when the child died, you got up and went back to living a normal life." And David said, "The child has died. I cannot bring him back to me, but I shall go to him."

What David said is, "I'm going to go and be with my child." Amen. Wow. What will our bodies look like? Will like will we all recognize you? Yeah. You know, that's an interesting thing that when we are resurrected, if if let's suppose that the Lord doesn't come back for a while and we're we're in our graves, the Bible says we'll be resurrected and then we're going to be made like unto the Lord Jesus.

We're going to have a resurrection body like Jesus' body. The Bible says, "We shall see him and we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." What does that mean? You're going to have the same body, but your body is going to take on the characteristics of the body that Jesus had when he came out of the grave.

Let's stop and think about what was that like. Could he eat? Yes, he did. And that'll be great. That'll be great news for some of you. You if you if you can't eat, you don't want to go to heaven. I understand that, right? But here's the thing. He could eat, but he didn't have to eat.

Interesting. He didn't eat because he had to. He ate because it was pleasurable. Number two, he was able to move from one place to another without accessing the ways we travel. Remember, one day he stood in the midst of his disciples in a room where the door was closed.

So apparently, we're going to have the ability to move about in a different kind of way than we ever have. But we're going to be in our same bodies renewed. And the Bible teaches that we will know each other and that we will know even as we are known.

When Jesus came back from the resurrection in his body, everybody knew he was the same Jesus who had been crucified and was placed in the grave on the mount of transfiguration. Everybody knew who they were. It's impossible to believe that our memories will be worse in heaven than they are now.

You know, so when we get to heaven, we will know each other. You talk about the great disappearance, but you also call it the great reunion. What is that? Well, I kind of alluded to that a minute ago that there's a three-fold reunion when the rapture happens. First of all, the reunion of souls and bodies.

If you're a Christian and you die, your body goes in the grave and your soul and spirit goes to be with the Lord. But in the resurrection, your body and your soul and spirit will be reunited and you will be alive in your body, in your resurrected body.

That's the first reunion. Secondly, there will be people who are alive on the earth and people who are in the grave. My parents, for instance, uh James and Ruby Jeremiah are in a grave in Cedarville, Ohio. But in the rapture, I'm going to be reunited with them. They will be resurrected.

If I'm still here, I'll be here. And the Bible says they'll be caught up and I'll be caught up together and I will see my mom and dad. And then the Bible says all of us in that group will meet the Lord. and we'll be reunited with him and together we shall see the Lord and we shall be with him forever.

Amen. Wow. So you teach that after the rapture comes the tribulation. Can you put into words I mean you've done you've done a little of this but what will the tribulation be like? You know the tribulation will be the most awful time. If you read the stories about the rule of the antichrist, you have to take his mark or you can't eat.

You can't buy. Many, many people during the tribulation will starve to death because they won't be able to get food. If you don't have the mark of the beast, you will go to the grocery store and fill up your basket when you get to check out. They won't let you pay and they won't let you take your groceries.

You will not be able to eat. You won't be able to buy. You won't be able to transact business. and hundreds of thousands of Christians who won't take the mark will die from starvation. Many of them will be martyed by the cruelty of the beast. It would be an awful time.

Nobody wants to be in the tribulation. I promise you. Many generations, in fact, even the disciples believed that perhaps the rapture would occur while they were still alive. Why has Christ terried so long? First thing you need to know about that question is God doesn't live on your time schedule.

In fact, God doesn't live on time at all. Time is a creation of God. God is eternal. Did you know he lives in the eternal present? There is no past, present, and future with God. It's all present. Everything in God's life is eternal and it's not impacted by time.

But in order for us to understand it, he said this, just remember one day with the Lord is a thousand years. So people say, why has he been gone so long? Just tell him he's only been gone two days. But number two, I think that we misunderstand. The Bible says God is not willing that any should perish.

And he delays his coming so that more and more of his children can come to be with him. So more more and more people can be saved. He he may be waiting for one of you who's here today. He may have delayed his coming. And I thought about this when I was writing this book.

If Jesus had come a 100 years ago, I would never have met Donna. I would never have had my family. I would never been able to see God work in my life. I would never have written a book. God allowed me to live my life and he's allowed you to live your life.

And so we long for him to come. God is not obligated to come when we think he should. And he doesn't use time the way we do. He doesn't use time at all. And he's waiting until the last person comes to Christ and then he he will come.

In all your years of studying prophecy and studying the word of God, when you were doing this new series, The Great Disappearing, was there anything that was surprising to you? Did you learn anything that you hadn't understood before? I think what's happened to me during this study is my conviction about what's going to happen in the future has been so strengthened.

I know exactly now. For instance, let me just take you through this little scenario. One of the big arguments that people have about the prophecies of the Bible and the rapture is many people teach that the church is going to go through the tribulation and then go to heaven.

Now, the Bible says we're looking for that blessed hope. How many of you know the tribulation is not the blessed hope? Amen. And some of you don't want that. But here's what I learned. The Bible teaches the doctrine of eminency, which means Jesus could come back at any time.

That nothing has to happen before he comes back. It doesn't mean he's going to come back immediately. It just means that nothing has to happen before he comes back. Well, if that's true, then the tribulation couldn't be in between now and then. In other words, if Jesus can come back at any time, you can't say, "Well, Jesus can come back at any time, but before he does, you got to go through the tribulation."

No, you don't. Yeah. He could come back at any time because the tribulation is not about Christians. Listen to me. The tribulation is about the wrath of God against disobedience and rebellion. And the Bible says, "Therefore, if you're in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation. We have not been appointed to wrath, but we've been appointed to Jesus Christ.

We will suffer and we will be persecuted in this world." How many of you know that's true? Some of you are going through it right now. The Bible doesn't say we won't suffer, but the Bible never says that Christians will go through wrath. When you become a Christian, all of God's wrath was taken out at the cross.

And if you have to go through the tribulation, if you have to go through the tribulation to experience the wrath of God, that says that what he did on the cross wasn't sufficient. I know better than that, and so do you. Yeah. And there's not a word in the Bible for the purpose of the tribulation for any Christian.

There isn't any purpose for it. Our sins have been forgiven. Jesus took our tribulation and we're on our way to heaven. Reading through this series, I was impacted by the way the gospel is in almost every single section and chapter. How should our understanding of the rapture impact how we interact with co-workers or family members?

Sheila, one of the things that's been interesting for me is I've preached on the rapture. I've preached on these doctrines of the future and we've never had a Sunday service where somebody didn't get saved. And sometimes many people have gotten saved. If you really understand the doctrine of the rapture and you teach it with meaning and you don't play around and do silly stuff that discounts it its meaning, there's something going on in our world today.

We all know this, that's unique. It's never gone on before. Israel's back in her homeland and a lot of things are starting to happen. And so when people understand that and when they really grip their hearts with the rapture, there's a new motivation for them to become Christians.

Yeah. On behalf of everyone really, we just want to say thank you to you for the way you have devoted your life to digging deep into the word of God. Could you help me thank Dr. 
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 Jeremiah in the great disappearance? 31 ways to be rapture ready. Dr. David Jeremiah presents a fascinating glimpse of hope into the next event on God's prophetic calendar.

Throughout 31 short, easyto read chapters, Dr. Jeremiah offers a thrilling biblical account of the rapture to inspire you to live boldly and expectantly in today's world. My prayer for you as you read this book is that you'll become so thrilled with God's prophetic plan for the future, you'll keep it at the forefront of your mind.

Join me in becoming rapture ready, excited, and filled with a joy that will make others see the hope that's within you. Request the Great Disappearance by Dr. Jeremiah. When you give a gift of any amount in support of the ministry of Turning Point. And if you give $75 or more, you'll receive the Great Disappearance Study Set, which contains Dr.

Jeremiah's book, message series, study guide, and perhaps today bookmark, plus Dr. Jeremiah's personal candid interview about the rapture filmed in New York and hosted by Sheila Walsh. Be rapture ready. Request the Great Disappearance book or study set from Turning Point today.