Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

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Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

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Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day. This Bible teaching program on today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 3

If every prediction Jesus made about the past has been fulfilled, then can't we bank on what he says about the future?

Yes, he can be trusted with the future because he knows everything; he plans everything that is going to happen.

And today we're going to look at how the end times reveal Jesus to be the perfect prophet.

Speaker 4

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, from horoscopes to fortune tellers, people are constantly trying to predict the future. But truthfully, there's only one prophet whose words we can completely trust.

Today, on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress takes a look at Jesus Christ's perfect prophetic record and shares what he said about three future events that will impact every person on Earth.

Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message. Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 2

Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. While there's still space available, I'd love for you to join me on the 2025 Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise. This exquisite journey offers something truly special: the chance to combine spiritual renewal with the joy of travel. For example, picture yourself studying biblical teachings right from where they originated in Rome or from the ancient ruins of Ephesus. Together, we'll explore iconic destinations like Santorini, Mykonos, and Crete, but with a unique purpose—discovering the divine inspiration behind their timeless beauty. The dates are May 5th to 16th, and I would be honored to have you join us. All the details for reserving your spot are found at ptv.

And then, I'm thrilled to tell you about a brand new book I've written for you. Without question, this is one of the most important books I've ever written. My book is titled *Jesus Revealed in the End Times*. You'll often hear me say that Bible prophecy was not written to satisfy our curiosity. The bottom line is, Bible prophecy is all about our reigning king, Jesus. He is our hope. He is our peace. He is our joy. In my book, I show you how his second coming should infuse transformation into every single hour of your life.

I'm going to send a hardbound copy of *Jesus Revealed in the End Times* when you specifically request it and when you include a generous gift to support the growing ministry of Pathway to Victory. David and I will share more details about my book and other resources later in today's program. But right now, let's turn our attention to the third study in my teaching series, which I titled today's message: *Jesus the Prophet*.

Speaker 3

Among the modern day prophets, one of the most popular is a man named Kai Fu Lee. He's a Taiwanese businessman and computer scientist who has written a best-selling book about artificial intelligence. It's called *AI 2041: Ten Visions of Our Future*. In this book, he attempts to suggest what life is going to be like in 2041, a world in which artificial intelligence has changed everything. He predicts that this means the loss of traditional jobs, an unprecedented abundance of goods, exacerbated inequality, an autonomous weapons arms race, and trade-offs between privacy and happiness. Lee predicts that by the year 2041, we'll be wearing contact lenses that record every moment of our day, providing us with an infinite memory repository and digital immortality. Everything you do, every word you speak, every thought you have will be stored and preserved, presumably available to government agencies as well as the curiosity of future generations.

He then talks about the catastrophic dangers of future autonomous weapons designed to search for, engage, and kill people without any human involvement whatsoever. This new generation of weaponry will be generated by AI and quantum computing. I don't know about you, but when I hear that, I want to go hide someplace. Now, the truth is we don't know whether Kai Fu Lee's predictions—any of them or none of them—will come to pass. But there is one prophet who makes perfect predictions about the future. We can trust every word he says about the future. He knows the future perfectly because he has planned the future. And that prophet, the only one on whom we can rely, is named Jesus the Christ, the Messiah.

We're in a series called *Jesus Revealed in the End Times*, and we're discovering that Bible prophecy is not so much about events that will happen in the future. Those are secondary. The real thrust of Bible prophecy is the revelation, the unveiling of Jesus in all of his roles. Last time, we looked at how the end times will reveal Jesus to be the ultimate Messiah. Today, we're going to look at how the end times reveal Jesus to be the perfect prophet. I want us to consider for just a moment Jesus as prophet and his unique identity. In John 6:14, we find this description of Jesus as the prophet who is to come. In Luke 7:16, the amazed crowd said, "A great prophet has risen among us." In Acts 3, we read that Jesus is the fulfiller of Moses' prediction that a great prophet would arise from Israel. Remember that even the opening verses of Revelation talk about Jesus' role as a prophet. "The revelation of Jesus Christ." That's how John begins the letter, the apocalypse, the unveiling of Jesus Christ, which God gave him, Jesus, to show to his bondservants the things that must soon take place.

I want you to also consider the complete accuracy of Jesus' past prophecies. You see, you couldn't be right just most of the time if you claimed to be a prophet; you had to be right all of the time. In fact, if you made a prophecy that didn't come true, you were to be stoned to death. Those were tough standards to live by. But Jesus met those standards. Consider what he had to say about his first coming. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in human form, he made certain prophecies about his short time on earth. I've listed just some of those prophecies that he nailed with 100% accuracy. He predicted that he would be arrested, that he would be mocked and spat upon and scourged. He would be crucified. He would rise again three days after his death. He predicted that one of his disciples would betray him, that Peter would deny him, that the church would arise after his death, that the Holy Spirit would come upon his followers, and that Jerusalem and its temple would one day be destroyed. All of those things have come to pass.

Now here's the point: If every past prediction Jesus made about the past has been fulfilled, then can't we bank on what he says about the future? Yes, he can be trusted with the future because he knows everything. He plans everything that is going to happen. And so what I want to look at briefly today are three predictions Jesus made about the future—his future and your future—that we can bank on and know are going to come true. What are these three future events? First of all, the Rapture; secondly, the end times; and finally, his second coming and kingdom.

Let's first of all talk about Jesus and his prediction about the Rapture. The Rapture, we believe, is the next event on God's prophetic timeline. It could happen at any moment. What do we mean by the Rapture? Some people criticize me for preaching on the Rapture. They say that's nowhere in the Bible; you don't find the word "rapture" in the Bible. Well, even if that were true, it wouldn't make any difference. You don't find the word "Trinity" in the Bible either, but we believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The fact is, the word "rapture" is found in the New Testament. It's found first of all in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. We'll look at the context of this in just a moment. But just notice Paul writes, "Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord." That word translated "caught up" is the Latin word *rapturo*. We get "rapture" from it, but it's a translation of the Greek word *harpazo*, which means to snatch away. There's the word right there. In 4:17, we're going to be caught up, snatched away together with them in the clouds.

Now, what did Jesus have to say about the Rapture? Those of you who've been around here for a while have heard me preach on the Rapture, and you probably heard me make this statement that nowhere did Jesus say anything about the Rapture. Now, I'm going to stand by that comment with one asterisk, one little amendment. There is one verse in which Jesus may be alluding to the Rapture, and it's the verse we're going to look at right now. The context is the time before Jesus was crucified. He said to his disciples in John 13:33, "Little children, I am with you for a little while longer. You will seek me; and as I said to the Jews, now I say to you, where I am going, you cannot come." What do you mean you can't come? Well, you can't come now. To clarify that, when the disciples were upset, he continued in chapter 14 with these familiar words: "Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also."

I want you to underline the words "come again" and "take." Some translations say "receive." When is it that Jesus Christ is coming again to take his disciples? Well, there are really two stages, two fulfillments of that—two different events that share some things in common. One is the Rapture. At the Rapture, Jesus comes again in the air and takes believers, snatches them away to be with Him. We'll talk about that in more detail in a moment. But there's a second stage of the second coming of Christ, and that is his visible return to earth when he doesn't come into the clouds, but he comes to earth. The first time he comes at the Rapture, he comes to take believers. The next time he comes, seven years later at the Second Coming, he comes with believers to the earth to establish his kingdom. So in that sense, this phrase, "I will come again and take you unto myself," has its ultimate fulfillment in the second coming after the Tribulation, but there's a partial fulfillment at the Rapture of the church.

Now, to be fair, if that's all we had in the Bible about the Rapture, that would be pretty flimsy to build a whole doctrine on the Rapture of the Church. But that's not all that's in the Bible about the Rapture. Jesus didn't talk much about the Rapture because the Rapture was for the church age. Jesus' audience was primarily a Jewish audience. That's why when Jesus talked to his disciples about the future, as we'll see in Matthew 24, he started with the Tribulation and then went to the Second Coming and the millennial reign of Jesus and the judgments. He omitted the Rapture because that was a peculiar event for the Church alone. That's why the Apostle Paul is the one who talks mainly about the Rapture. Remember, Paul said in Ephesians 3, "Unto me, Paul, I was given the charge to reveal the mystery." What is the mystery that Paul revealed? That is that the Gentiles would be fellow heirs with the Jews in the promises of Abraham. You see, the idea that Gentiles would be converted—that wasn't new. There was no mystery to that. The Old Testament is filled with examples of Gentiles who became believers. But what was a mystery that Paul revealed was that Gentiles would be fellow heirs with the Jews of the promises of Abraham in different ways, but still beneficiaries of the Abrahamic covenant.

And so since Paul was the one who revealed the mystery of the church age, Ephesians 3, it only makes sense that Paul would be the one to reveal the ending event of the Church age, which is the Rapture of the Church. Now, people say all the time, "Well, I'm a red-letter Christian. I just concentrate on the red letters in the Bible, the words that Jesus spoke." Well, guess what? All the words are important to God. They're all red letters. Paul was just as inspired as Jesus Christ. His words were just as much scripture as those of the Lord. In fact, Peter, who did not always get along with Paul—they had their differences—even Peter referred to the writings of Paul as scripture. And so we can take authoritatively what Paul says about the Rapture. Paul gives us an outline of the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4.

Now he gives us the context, beginning in verse 13. "We don't want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you may not grieve as the rest who have no hope." You see, the Thessalonian Christians believed that Jesus was coming back in their lifetime. Paul believed he would live to see the return of Jesus Christ. But then something started to happen. These Christians had loved ones who were Christians who began to die. They began to despair, saying, "Are they going to miss out on the resurrection when Christ comes back? They've already died." And so Paul reassures them about those whose bodies have fallen asleep. In the Bible, a Christian, when he dies, never goes to sleep. There's no such thing as soul sleep. 2 Corinthians 5:8 says that for a Christian to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. The moment a Christian dies, the moment he closes his eyes for the last time, he awakens in the presence of Jesus, but his body goes to sleep, so to speak. It's buried, it's cremated, it's blown up, it's eaten by the fish—something happens to it, but it's destroyed. It is asleep, awaiting a future resurrection.

Verse 14 says, "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with him those whose bodies have fallen asleep in Jesus." And then he gives us this outline, and notice the five parts of this event. First of all, Christ's appearance will be announced supernaturally. Look at verse 16: "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first." In Jesus' day, when a Roman emperor or general would arrive, his arrival would be preceded by the blast of a trumpet. So shall it be with the Lord. It will be announced supernaturally by the voice of the archangel and by the trumpet of God.

And then Christ will descend from heaven. He will descend from heaven with a shout. He's in heaven right now, building a place for us, the New Jerusalem. But when the time comes for him to return, he will descend from heaven. Thirdly, the dead in Christ will be raised. The bodies of the dead in Christ shall be raised. Who are the dead in Christ? Every Christian who has died since the time of Pentecost and whose body has been buried or cremated or whatever. The dead in Christ will be the first ones who will be raised. And then notice, fourth, believers who are alive will be raptured and changed. If you happen to be among those who are alive during the Rapture, you won't experience death. There's always been a generation of Christians who don't experience death—in the Old Testament, Enoch and Elisha. There will be a generation of Christians who won't experience death at the Rapture. They will be caught up in the air. They will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And whether you are resurrected—your body is resurrected because you've already died—or because you were raptured, as you make your way to heaven, something magnificent is going to happen. 1 Corinthians 15:52-53 says, "We shall all be changed in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye." Now picture that: all of the cemetery graves are open of Christians. They are all rising up. You and I are following behind them if we are alive, and the Bible says in the moment—in the twinkling of an eye—that's not the blinking of an eye; that's far too slow. The twinkling of an eye is the amount of time it takes for light to pass from your iris and your eye to the retina. It's a nano, nano, nano, nanosecond—instantaneously! That's how quickly you're going to receive that brand new body, a perfect body. A body that never grows sick again, never suffers, never dies. That's the promise that we have. We shall be caught up together with them in the air.

And then the best part of this fifth: we will be with Christ forever. Notice this note of joy and encouragement he gave to those whose loved ones have passed away: "And so we shall always be with the Lord." Who are the "we"? He's talked about two groups of Christians: those who are resurrected—they come out of the grave, their bodies—but also those who are raptured. The "we" is all of us. Every loved one you have who is a Christian, you will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. And the second word is "always." You will always be with the Lord and with one another, with your loved ones. No more separation, no more night, no more death, no more mourning, no more pain, for the first things will have passed away. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.

I was reading this week about the first spaceport built in Great Britain for the launch of vertical rockets. It was built on the Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland. As they were building that spaceport, they were involved in excavating the land to make preparations, and they discovered a cemetery that was 4,000 years old, dating back to the time of Abraham. They found it quite interesting, but that didn't stop them from building the spaceport. Today, covering those graves are the launch pads for the rockets. I thought about that and realized, isn't that a great metaphor for what awaits us as Christians? I've told you before about that little plot of land north of here in Van Alstyne, Texas, that has been the site of the saddest days of my life. Our family grave plots are there, and it's there that I said goodbye to my great-grandmother, to my grandparents, my grandfather and grandmother, to my mom and dad. It was a place of mourning. But you know what? It's only a cemetery for a while because what it really is is a launching pad. One day, those graves are going to be opened, and one day my loved ones and your loved ones are going to be taken out of that grave. If we're alive and remain, we're going to be following, chasing after them on the way to heaven, and we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.

How do we know it's going to happen? Because Jesus said it's going to happen, and you can trust him completely. You know, there have been people who have tried to time when the Rapture's going to happen. Some people believe it happened before the Tribulation; some people believe it happens after the Tribulation; sometimes people believe it happens halfway during the Tribulation. I believe in the pre-Tribulation Rapture—that this happens before not problems, but before the great Tribulation. Every Christian has experienced problems and tribulations throughout history, but there's a special tribulation coming that I believe we're exempt from. Why do I say that? Why do I believe in a pre-Tribulation Rapture? I think the strongest argument for a pre-Tribulation Rapture is the promise of God to keep believers from his wrath. We never have to fear the wrath of God. 1 Thessalonians 1:10 says, "Jesus came to rescue us from the wrath that is to come."

Speaker 2

Our time restraints require us to break into the study right now. But please join us again tomorrow so that you can hear the remainder of our study about Jesus the Prophet to listen to these presentations at your own speed and at your own convenience. Did you know that Pathway to Victory offers the full recordings? In a moment, David will explain how you can receive the unabridged audio CDs and video CDs for this new teaching series.

But first, I'm eager to send you a copy of my hardbound book called *Jesus Revealed in the End Times*. It's the one I wrote while preparing this teaching series for you, and though it's brand new, it's already a best seller. In my book, I've identified eight different roles that Jesus fills in our lives. This is important because these titles are often overshadowed by important events like the Rapture, the Tribulation, and the Second Coming. But when we bask in the glory of these eight different roles, we begin to revel in hope and excitement that Christ offers.

You're entitled to request your copy of my book *Jesus Revealed in the End Times* when you include a generous gift to support the growing ministry of Pathway to Victory. I'll make sure that it's sent to your home right away and thank you for giving generously.

Over the past few years, Pathway to Victory has been elevated to a position of prominence on radio, television, and across all digital channels. But this comes with a price tag, and we rely on loyal friends like you to support this ministry of faith. We're deeply grateful for our pathway partners and all who give generously.

Speaker 3

David thanks Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 4

Today, when you support Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift or by becoming a Pathway partner, you're invited to request a copy of the brand new book by Dr. Jeffress called *Jesus Revealed in the End Times*. Go to ptv.org or call 866-999-2965. When your gift is $100 or more, you'll also receive the complete collection of audio and video discs for this month's teaching series, *Jesus Revealed in the End Times*. You'll get that along with the corresponding study guide.

One more time, our number is 866-999-2965, or you can go to ptv.org. You could also send your request by mail. Write to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins inviting you back next time for part two of the message *Jesus the Prophet*. That's Friday here on Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress.

Speaker 1

Comes from the pulpit of the First.

Speaker 4

Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas you made.

Speaker 1

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