(Ver 1.2)  This is a basic rebuttal to a man who left me a very ignorant comment on one of my posts.  He was adamantly opposed to the concept that Jesus could possibly come back and catch His church up before the tribulation occurred.  He basically took some verses out of context and gave them some natural interpretations to justify his ignorant position and beliefs.  I have learned not to reply to my critics and their hateful words because they are not interested in getting help or learning the truth.  I may read their comments to see if I can learn something, but I then delete them and move on.  So if you want to leave me a hateful bunch of reasons of why I’m wrong, please do not waste either of our times.  So today’s lesson is not for my commenter but, only for those who are willing to hear the truth and to change.  That is what makes me different than my commenter, I am perfectly willing to change if anyone can give me spiritual Bible verses that say I am wrong, and then I will change very fast.  What this man was guilty of is an attempt to put his limitations and definitions on what God can do.  It is very clear to me that God will never violate His word.  You can always count on the fact that God will do whatever He says.  However, it is also very clear to me that there are many people in the world who do not understand God’s word so they have come up with erroneous conclusions that put limitations on what God can do in their mind.  It is interesting to note that God is not limited in His ability to what you have in your mind and what you think that He can do.  Your interpretation of God’s word does not limit His ability to do what He said He would do.  Your wrong interpretations of His word will only affect you personally and what He will do for you and it will have no effect when He comes to rapture me out of here in a very short time from now.  I am going to start by giving you his main scripture that this man said was proof for why Jesus could not come back before the tribulation ended and then hopefully show you how narrow minded and blind his argument was.

Act 3:21  Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

According to my very ignorant commenter, he claimed that this verse says that Jesus has returned to heaven and must remain there until the time when all things that have been written about have been completed, fulfilled, accomplished or performed.  In other words according to him Jesus cannot ever come back to the earth to rapture the church before the tribulation because every prophecy has not been fulfilled in his mind.  I wonder who died and made this reader God.  Clearly he acts like he knows more than God when he can tell God what he can do and what he can’t do.  Clearly he does not know how to read the Bible and see that Jesus has already been back to the earth several times since ascending into the heavens and being seated at the right hand of Majesty.  He is attempting to put God into his little box and God is not interested in his mindless interpretations.  According to my reader he saw where Scofield said that Israel must be restored to the seed of David before Jesus returns.  Therefore he has concluded that a pre-tribulation rapture of the church is impossible without understanding that the Seed of David has already been restored His Kingdom.  I went and reviewed Scofield’s notes on the subject and I do not have any idea how this man came to his conclusions based upon this information.  It is very clear to me that he is thinking of spiritual things in the terms of natural interpretations, definitions and realities and not seeing that they have already been fulfilled in Christ.  Let’s go back and see what God said to David:

2Sa 7:16  And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.

The basis of the Davidic Covenant is established when the prophet Nathan comes to speak to David in 2 Samuel 7.  You can go and read the entire chapter if you like.  I just want to focus in on one verse for now and this occurs in verse 16.  God says to King David that He will make David’s house and kingdom an eternal everlasting one.  Since David died physically and has not been resurrected, God was obviously not speaking to David who was incapable of fulfilling this prophecy.  In fact there were no sons of David who were ever capable of fulfilling this prophecy until God became his son in Jesus.  If you understand the genealogies of Jesus given to us in Matthew and Luke you know that these are two different ancestries of two different people.  If you do not know this you better go and study it again in detail.  Both lineages go through David, but after David the one in Matthew is through David’s son Solomon and the other one in Luke is through David’s son Nathan.  So it is very clear that they are not the same person who comes to the end of this list.  Both do not end up at Jesus, only one does.   So how do you resolve this problem?  You have to realize that the genealogy in Matthew is that of Joseph and the genealogy in Luke is that of Mary the mother of Jesus and I do not have time to prove this to you in this lesson.  Use your brain and read it and hopefully you will see it.  What we understand from the Bible is that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, so in order for Jesus to be born a physical son of David his physical mother must have been a daughter of David.  This is the only way the Davidic covenant would ever be fulfilled eternally.  Jesus Christ is the only son of David that is alive today to take his father’s throne and since Jesus is eternally alive His kingdom is also eternal.

What I am going to do now is to change subjects for a bit to show you that Jesus is not limited to the words of an ignorant commenter to what He can do.  According to my commenter, it is not possible for Jesus to return to the earth because we read in Acts 3:21 that heaven has received him until all things have been restored in the earth.  It is very obvious to me that my commenter is expecting an earthly Kingdom to be reestablished like David’s kingdom and that only this would fulfill the prophecy in his mind.  However, Jesus is not limited to your interpretation of the scripture, so He can return to the earth as often as he likes and you can’t do anything about it.  Let’s look at a couple of examples in the Bible where it clearly tells us that Jesus came back to the earth after being seated in heaven:

Act 9:17  And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.

Uh oh?  What did this verse say?  Did Jesus appear to Saul on the road to Damascus?  Didn’t Jesus know this was not permitted according to my deceived commenter?   I guess Jesus didn’t read Scofield commentary and decided to show up and talk with Saul anyway.  This verse also says that Jesus was the one that sent Ananias personally to Saul.  How did Jesus accomplish this while being in heaven?  Apparently Jesus appeared to Ananias and told him to go to see Saul.  You can read this in the surrounding verses of chapter 9 how that Jesus appears to Ananias in a vision.  What is a vision?  A vision is the appearing of Jesus in a spiritual form on the earth where a man is permitted to see him spiritually.  Maybe you do not understand spiritual visions because you have never had one.  So that is probably the most difficult obstacle for you to overcome.  You need to learn about what visions are and how visions occur using the Bible.  I wrote a Bible lesson about this subject so you should go and read that if you want to know if they are “Real or Fantasy”.  Here we have a verse that says very clearly that Jesus appeared to two different people on the earth after going back to heaven and you will have to ignore them completely to hold on to your deceived ideas of what Jesus can and can’t do in the earth before the tribulation occurs.  Here is a much more detailed account of the appearing of Jesus to Saul on the road to Damascus and you should pay close attention to this story to see if God is saying this is the way it happened or not:

Act 26:12  Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests,

We can definitely see that Paul is describing his journey and the reasons behind the journey.  Saul was given authority of the chief priests to persecute the church of Jesus Christ.  That is what he intended to do when something happened to interrupt his plans:

Act 26:13  At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me.

A very bright light shines from heaven into the natural realm on the road to Damascus and Saul and his traveling companions see it.  This light is compared to the light of the sun.  Of course Jesus is called the Sun of Righteousness in Malachi so this is not uncommon to describe the appearing of Jesus as being a very bright light from heaven.  In fact if you look through your Bible you will see that Jesus is described to be either light or various synonymous terms for the sun around ten times just in the New Testament.  If you do not know where these verses are you can check out my post on the “The Names, Titles, Symbols of Jesus”.

Act 26:14  And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

You see in my Bible, the words of Jesus are in Red Ink so that they are easily recognizable.  If Saul is on the earth on the road to Damascus, how is it possible that Jesus can appear and speak to him, since Jesus is obviously not permitted to come back to the earth until the restoration of all things be accomplished?  Wow, I wonder how stupid you have to be to come up with some of these false teachings.  People really need to open their spiritual eyes and see what the Bible actually says before they open their mouths and prove how ignorant that they are.  It is very clear to me that my commenter has a scriptural dilemma to resolve; a conflict of monumental proportions.   Either the prophecies that he says have not been fulfilled and God is a liar or the prophecies have been fulfilled in the spiritual realm.

Act 26:15  And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.

This verse must baffle the minds of many of the mindless deceived people in the world.  Saul was persecuting the church and Jesus says he was persecuting Him personally.  How is that even possible?  If you think only naturally it is not possible, but if you begin to think spiritually it is very possible.  You see the problem is when people do not see things spiritually they are limited to their natural view points and these are clearly not what God intended for us to use.  The Bible clearly says that the people in the church are the “body of Christ” and members in particular (Rom 12:5, 1 Cor 12:27, Eph 4:12, Eph 5:23).   Just as the human body is made up of millions and billions of individual cells, God is saying my spiritual body is made up of millions and billions of individual people.  I’m about to blow some of your minds with my next statement of revelation so get ready for a new bomb shell.  You can clearly see according to the Bible that Christ has NEVER technically left the earth fully yet!  As long as the church is here Christ is here since we are His body and He is our head.  So obviously my ignorant commenter is just a bit confused and does not know what he is talking about in this instance.  If Jesus never left the earth then it is perfectly legal for Him to return anytime He likes for any reason He likes and this would include the rapture of the church, His body.  When the church is raptured and only when the church departs the earth has Christ fully left the earth.  However, it is more complicated than that since even after the rapture occurs more people on the earth can become Christians also and choose to believe.

Act 26:16  But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee;

So according to the words of Jesus himself, He has appeared to Saul to make him a witness to the truth.  Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus would do this with everybody on the earth?  However, there is no Bible verse that says He will do this so do not pray for Jesus to come and appear to you, for more than likely your prayer will be answered by Satan and not God.  You can clearly see in this verse that Jesus is saying that He has appeared to Saul for a specific purpose and then in the final statement of this verse Jesus claims that He will come back to teach him more things in the future.  The statement that Jesus made goes from present tense to future tense and it is very important for you to see this.  Jesus is able to appear to anyone that He wishes at any time.  It is His choice to do this and not yours.  I have heard more than one modern minister say that Jesus appeared to them in a vision and that He taught them something very important to tell us.  So if Jesus wants to come back to the earth, He is not going to check with you and see if it is OK for Him to come.  Get it?  He is the head of the church and not you!

Act 23:11  And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.

Here is just another Bible example of how Jesus came to Paul and appeared to him on the earth without asking for anyone’s permission.  Please understand the precedence that is being established and is presented to you.  If the Bible records these specific instances where Jesus appeared on the earth after His physical ascension into heaven, then there is absolutely nothing stopping Him from coming to rapture His church body out before the tribulation has started.  This is really not rocket science but you do have to have the eyes that see spiritual things.  You do understand that Jesus does not have to set foot on the earth to catch His church up to where He is, don’t you?  So technically speaking the rapture of the church is not Jesus setting foot on the earth at all.  We are going up to meet him and he doesn’t have to come down to get us.  Therefore, your argument for no rapture is purely fictional rhetoric.

So back to the Davidic covenant; let’s return to this and see what else the Bible says.  We know that Jesus Christ is called the son of David in Matthew 1:1, 9:27, 12:23, 15:22, 20:30-31, 21:9, 21:15, 22:42-45, Luke 1:32, Rom 1:3, 2 Tim 2:8, and Rev 22:16 to name a few of the verses that reveal this information to us.  Then you can read in Revelation 1:8 that Jesus says “I am alive forevermore”.  So clearly Jesus has been resurrected never to die again.  Based upon these scriptures Jesus certainly qualifies to be the eternal ruler of his father David’s throne which was prophesied in the Old Testament.

Luk 1:31  And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.

Luk 1:32  He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

Luk 1:33  And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

What we must do after reading this angelic prophecy given to Mary about her coming son Jesus is determine if God is declaring a natural kingdom or a spiritual kingdom.  There are obviously many Christians who do not understand that there is a difference and this is their first mistake.  What these Christians do is to think naturally first, without considering or finding out if there is any other way that this prophecy could be fulfilled in the spiritual realm.  For example, in many of my Bible lessons I have taught you that the Bible declares that there are three different cities named Jerusalem.  So when you read a prophecy of Jerusalem you must determine which city is being spoken of.  I guess this concept blows the mind of many people and they are just not making the connection.  I believe that they are having trouble making the leap from natural into spiritual things.  There is only one city in the natural named Jerusalem in the Bible and this is all they can wrap their minds around, but the Bible teaches us that there are two other cities in the spiritual realm called by the exact same name.  This makes correct Bible interpretation infinitely more complex.  By assuming that a scripture is speaking of the natural city you are more than likely missing the truth.  You see we can find many verses in the Bible that reveal there is a major difference between these two realms.  For example, read Matthew 5:34 and 23:22 to see God’s throne being described as a place in heaven.  This is clearly a spiritual location, a spiritual throne and a spiritual kingdom based upon the fact that God is a spirit (John 4:24).   If you can see the existence of parallel realities in the Bible you will be far above the capabilities of many people who read the Bible using their natural one dimensional mind.  I guess I need to do a Bible teaching on the reality of the spiritual nation of Israel.  I have avoided this subject because of the potential controversy that it can stir up.  You see I have read other people’s blogs after they have written about spiritual Israel and they are attacked vehemently by narrow minded spiritually blind people who cannot see the truth and what the Bible says.  Let me ask those who fight this Bible subject so enthusiastically if there is like the Bible says a spiritual city called Jerusalem, what is it the capital of?  We can clearly understand that natural Jerusalem was and is the capital city of the natural nation of Israel here on the earth.  Can you not think logically enough to conclude that a spiritual nation of Israel must exist if God names his new heavenly city Jerusalem in Revelation 21?  I mean come on and use your brain.

I guess I have gone long enough in today’s lesson.  I have not fully covered the subject about the Davidic Covenant and there are many other scriptures that we could add to this discussion.  I want you to think with me if God tells David in 2 Samuel that his kingdom will be an eternal one, what do you think that implies?  To me it is obvious that it is not a natural kingdom here on this earth.  There are many Bible verses that say that Jesus will come back and establishes a 1000 year reign of peace on the earth.  This is God’s day of rest prophesied from Genesis 1.   I think that there are some confused people who are expecting Jesus to set up His eternal kingdom in this 1000 year time frame and that is why they say that the rapture cannot take place until this happens.  However, this is just more misguided interpretations of the Bible while they clearly are not looking for the real answers.  Did you know that the 1000 year natural reign of Christ is not forever?  I mean think!  It clearly only lasts a 1000 years and then what?  The Bible tells us that Satan will be released from the pit to deceive again.  So everyone who is born during the 1000 years of the righteous reign of Christ will be given the opportunity to make a choice and to be deceived like we have all had these same choices to make.  There is an eternal Kingdom of God and the Bible says it is in me right now.  Jesus clearly taught us where His kingdom was located when He said “the Kingdom of God is in you” (Luke 17:21).   So men are looking for external things while God has established His kingdom on the inside of us in a spiritual realm you cannot see.  Either change your perspective to see the truth or choose to remain in your deception.  Thanks for reading my Bible lesson on the Davidic Covenant and why the rapture can take place at any time.  God Bless!