Chris Katulka: Thank you for joining us for The Friends of Israel Today. I'm your host and teacher, Chris Katulka. Foiradio.org is where you need to be. Actually, it's a great place where you can connect with us. We have nearly a decade of biblical content on this site with great teaching and various interview guests talking all about Israel and the Jewish people from a biblical perspective. Again, visit us at foiradio.org. Today we have Dr. Mike Stallard in the studio to talk all about a recent article that he wrote for Israel My Glory magazine called “The ‘Peace and Safety’ Test.” That's right. This is an Israel My Glory In Depth episode where we feature our most recent issue of Israel My Glory to connect you to the publications of the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. Today Mike's going to talk about the prophecies of 1 Thessalonians 4-5 to help give us a better understanding of this phrase, the Day of the Lord, and how it supports a pre-tribulational rapture. You're going to want to stick around for that.

In the news, The Jerusalem Post reports that the Palestinian Authority has approached the Trump administration regarding its willingness to change the pay for slay system for Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorist acts. This comes after Palestinian concerns that US courts will impose heavy fines of about $200-300 million on the Palestinian Authority following lawsuits filed by families of terror victims. 

Well, here's my take. Diplomacy in the Middle East has changed dramatically with the Trump administration. It's no longer placating governments that encourage terrorism like the Palestinian Authority or even Iran. The new White House knows the Middle East mindset. You hit them in the pocketbook to get them to change.

Chris Katulka: Hi everybody. I'm Chris Katulka, host of the Friends of Israel Today radio program and editorial writer for Israel My Glory magazine. Today we have Dr. Mike Stallard who's going to be talking about his most recent issue in Israel My Glory, which highlights the Day of the Lord, a very important phrase when it comes to biblical prophecy. Now, in a moment I'm going to share with you how you can get a one-year, free subscription to our award-winning Christian magazine, Israel My Glory. But before we get to that, I'd like to introduce my friend, Dr. Mike Stallard. Mike, great to have you.

Mike Stallard: Thanks for having me, Chris. Glad to be here.

Chris Katulka: Alright, so we're talking all about the Day of the Lord. And the Day of the Lord, this concept, this phrase, a very prophetic phrase that kind of varies across scripture. So could you give us a clear definition as we get started for the Day of the Lord, to lay a foundation for our conversation?

Mike Stallard: I think we start out with the fact that it is a concept more than a specific time everywhere it's used in the Bible. The concept is that God is breaking through in history to judge. Now, most of the time it refers to, if you look up all the different uses of it, it refers to judgment on Israel, judgment on the world, and the restoration of Israel. Those three things kind of come together in the context of its usage most of the time, but not always. But the concept is there all the time, God breaking through in history to judge.

Chris Katulka: Why would God judge? That's a question I have. Is there a reason God's judging that would lead to this Day of the Lord?

Mike Stallard: Well, it depends on the context. Is it a judgment upon Israel back in the past when Israel did things wrong and God would break through in history to judge them like in the Babylonian captivity, et cetera, those kinds of things? Obviously it would be a temporal judgment in time for them, not an in-time judgment, but sometimes in the prophets it refers to an in-time judgment where God's coming to judge and Israel does have to be cleansed in the end for it to receive its kingdom.

Chris Katulka: Okay, so that lays a great foundation. You said the Day of the Lord is a moment where God breaks into time and history and space and sin, and he judges ultimately, the point of judgment, that's either happened in history or will happen in the future. Is that a good idea of it?

Mike Stallard: Yes, exactly.

Chris Katulka: Okay, good. So in that concept, let's go to this concept of the rapture because this is really a hot topic to talk about, the rapture. Some believe in it and some actually go as far as to call it biblical heresy. So those who don't believe in it, Mike, will often say that the rapture isn't even in the Bible. That word's not even in the Bible. So is that true and what is the biblical basis for the rapture?

Mike Stallard: Well, I don't let people get away with saying the rapture's not in the Bible or even that the word is not in the Bible. Certainly the English word rapture is not in the Bible, but the word, the Latin word from which we get the English word rapture is in the Latin translations and it's really a translation in 1 Thessalonians 4 when we are caught up to be with the Lord in verse 17, caught together with them. That's the word, and it is in the Bible. It's a very biblical concept. So at some point in time, God's going to take church age believers and catch us up to be with him. That's the rapture, the catching up.

Chris Katulka: So there's the Latin word, which I think is where that comes from, right? I think rapturo and the Greek word is harpazō. So it's really just a translation. Rapturo, which is for the rapture, is a Latin translation that comes from the Greek for “caught up.” Is that essentially where we get the word from?

Mike Stallard: Yes, you should be teaching this session.

Chris Katulka: No, but I think it's good for our listeners to know that it's… I'm sure people are looking around in their notes going, “but there is no rapture.” But it actually comes from that Latin word.

Mike Stallard: Yes.

Chris Katulka: So Mike, for those believers who do believe in the rapture, really there's a big debate on the timing of it. When it would happen. So why is the timing of the rapture a significant point of debate among Christians and what are the primary views that are going on with the rapture?

Mike Stallard: Yeah, the rapture doctrine is more difficult to discern reading the Bible than say premillennialism versus amillennialism. And that's a more of… the premillennial versus amillennial debate is a much more serious one. It involves whether or not you believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible and accept the promises to Israel. For the rapture debate, it's different. It's like an in-house debate among cousins who are all pre-millennial and we're trying to figure things out in the text. And those who hold to a pre-trib rapture I think have the higher ground because the exegetical information in the Bible as we go verse by verse, seems to support a pre-trib rapture. So that's why I hold to it and believe it very strongly.

Chris Katulka: Can we go back? So you have these words, you said “pre-trib, pre-tribulational.” In your article you have other ones like “post-tribulational”, “mid-tribulational” raptures. Can you give some definition?

Mike Stallard: Let's walk through that.

Chris Katulka: Yeah. Can you walk through each one of those because that's going to really come down to how we see what's going on here in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Thessalonians 5.

Mike Stallard: Okay, well let's start with tribulation. That's a seven year period at the end of history, right before Jesus comes to set up his earthly kingdom, that tribulation period. If you're pre-trib, pre-tribulational, that means the rapture happens before that. Then there's the mid-tribulational view. The rapture happens at the midpoint, halfway through or roughly halfway through. Then there's the pre-wrath rapture view, which is the view that somewhere within the second half of the trib, the rapture's going to take place. And then there's the post-trib view that the rapture happens at the end of the seven year period. And then, we can't leave them out, the partial rapture guys who have it both ways. They have some go at the pre before the trib and some come and go up in the rapture at the end of the trib. So you have all those different views and they're trying to sort through all the things that they see in the Bible.

Chris Katulka: Are there good arguments for all of these views? I know that, like you said, you believe the greatest argument is for a pre-trib, which means that prior to the tribulation, the church is caught up and then we enter into that seven years of judgment that takes place. It seems as though… are there good arguments that the other ones have, but the pre-trib view is the one that really carries the most weight?

Mike Stallard: Well, I think that's one way to say it, and I think certainly all those proponents of those views would think they have good arguments or they wouldn't hold those views. Some of the views, like partial rapture, I don't think is a strong view at all. After all, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that “all of us will be changed in the twinkling of an eye. “ All of us. And he's talking to the Corinthians who are the poster children for how not to do church, and so they're not spiritually ready. So the partial rapture view doesn't really stand on really strong grounds in my judgment, and they're very few Christians who actually hold to that view. So some of them are stronger than others, but I certainly believe the pre-trib rapture is the strongest one.

Chris Katulka: When we think about the pre-trib rapture, it really is interesting because it's going to play into how we understand the Day of the Lord as we see 1 Thessalonians 4 lead into 1 Thessalonians 5. So not long after Paul mentions the rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4, all of a sudden he's talking about the Day of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians 5. So I know many want to see the events that take place between these two chapters as the same. They want to kind of cram them together. But you argue that 1 Thessalonians 5 and the Day of the Lord actually support a pre-tribulational rapture view. Can you share about that?

Mike Stallard: Well, the starting point would be the first words of chapter five, “But concerning,” as I'm reading the New King James here, “But concerning the times and the seasons.” And the words for, “but concerning” in the Greek peri de means “the next thing,” but the outline of 1 Thessalonians is chronological. You go back to 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, and it gives the outline and it's chronological for the whole book. That's the way Paul set it up. So 1 Thessalonians 4, the rapture, comes ahead of, in time-wise, when it says “but next” is the next time thing. So the rapture is followed by whatever the Day of the Lord is. So now the debate shifts to what is the Day of the Lord here? Is it just the events of judgment of the Second Coming? Is it the last half of the trib, which some call the Great Tribulation? Is it the full seven years of the trib, just what is it? 

So we have to look in the context to decide what that actually means, and that leads us into verse two and the “peace and safety” statement. It does say, well, verse three and verse two, it does say this is going to come as a thief in the night. And it comes…so it's something that comes suddenly unannounced upon unbelievers who are in darkness. But he says to you, “brethren, you're not in darkness, so this time is not going to overtake you.” That's a hint there that this time is not going to be something that they will have to be judged for. So I think you see that there. And then verse three is the key, “for when they say ‘peace and safety,’ then sudden destruction comes upon them,” that is unbelievers, “as labor pains upon a pregnant woman and they shall not escape.” So they get the earth dwellers as Revelation calls them, get the exact opposite of what they were expecting, and they're expecting peace and safety. So their positive expectation is destroyed by God's bringing in of the Tribulation period. And that “peace and safety" statement helps us, through the process of elimination, prove that the pre-trib rapture has the higher ground here. Because if you are, let's say you assume that the post-trib rapture is true, so you're going up in the rapture at the end of the trib and then you come right back down to earth to start the kingdom, or the people right before that on the earth are the unbelievers crying out “peace and safety,” and they're right in the middle of the battle of Armageddon.

So that's not really a time of peace and safety. It's hard to visualize what that would look like. And the same way when you look at the pre-wrath rapture folks, and you'll have the rapture sometime in the last half of the trib and in their scheme right before that, they're toward the end of the seal judgments in their scheme, and the seal judgments contain war and other things. Second seal is red, the red horse for war. It's not a time of peace and safety. Now, the mid-trib guys, right in the middle, are going up in the rapture, right? Then what happens right before that based on Daniel 11, the battle of the king of the north, king of the south. Time of war. And then you have, you're still in seals, you got time of war, got all kinds of trouble on earth. It's not a time of peace and safety. Interestingly, the only view that can tie itself to a time of peace and safety is the pre-trib rapture because in Daniel 9:27, there's a peace treaty between the Roman prince who's the antichrist in Israel. And so there is a peace treaty at the beginning of the trib. In fact, it launches the trib.

It's the beginning point of the seven years, and the pre-trib rapture happens before that. And so the people before that have a way scripturally to say there's a time of peace and safety. So they believe that they have it, but then it doesn't happen for them because of the destruction of the tribulation period. So the pre-trib rapture handles the peace and safety statement in 1 Thessalonians 5:3 better than all the other views.

Chris Katulka: And this is why you call your article “The ‘Peace and Safety’ Test,” because it's a test on whether or not the pre-trib rapture holds water in relation to these two chapters playing against one another.

Mike Stallard: Yeah. What that does, it tells us that the Day of the Lord, wrath of God in verse two is the full seven years.

Chris Katulka: Yes. And this is something I want to talk about for a moment because one of my verses that I like to remind people of for a great argument for the pre-trib rapture is 1 Thessalonians 1:10, which talks about the fact that Jesus is coming and Jesus our salvation is what delivers us from the wrath to come. And so there's the idea that we have been delivered. We're not meant for the wrath that's coming in the future. This is where people get into that debate of what that wrath particularly is. You're arguing that the wrath that's mentioned here in 1 Thessalonians 1:10 is the full seven year tribulation period.

Mike Stallard: Yes. Now, it also, some people think it's just talking about hell, the wrath of hell, and I'm not sure I buy that, but I do know the exemption is given for us in verse nine, “for God did not appoint us to wrath,” but then it says, “but to obtain salvation or deliverance through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Certainly the church age believers have to be saved and not on their way to hell in order to be delivered from this earthly time of judgment, the Day of the Lord. And in these passages, and even in Second Thessalonians, the Day of the Lord stuff comes right out of the Old Testament. So Paul, who's steeped in the Old Testament would understand that and would be passing that on. He's talking about this earthly judgment that involves Israel and the nations.

Chris Katulka: And this is that seven year period that makes up Daniel's 70th week. 

Mike Stallard: Exactly. 

Chris Katulka: That's what's really important here. 

Mike Stallard: Exactly. 

Chris Katulka: God begins to turn his focus back to Israel now in this final week that's mentioned in Daniel chapter 9.

Mike Stallard: Right. And the “peace and safety” statement ties us back to that Daniel 9 passage.

Chris Katulka: Okay, so this is something I want to bring us back to then because as we think about the fact that Daniel 70th week that's mentioned in Daniel chapter nine is a refocusing of God back to Israel, his attention back to Israel. So at the Friends of Israel, we value a pre-trib rapture. We esteem the belief that the church will be raptured prior to the seven year tribulation period. How does this position, why is it so important for us to hold this as a ministry that loves Israel and the Jewish people? Why is the value there at the Friends of Israel to maintain that doctrinal distinctiveness?

Mike Stallard: Well, the main value is we're following the Bible line by line, trying to figure it out following grammatical, historical, or sometimes called literal interpretation. So we are defending our interpretive approach, how we read the Bible everywhere. For example, in Amos 9, it says, Israel's going to be in the land one day never to be taken out again. But we accept that at face value, just like we take the end of Romans 8, “nothing will separate us from the love of Christ.” We take that literally. Well, we take that God has a plan for Israel, literally. Well, when we come to the rapture question, we're walking through the text, taking it literally at face value, trying to figure out all these things like, what does the “peace and safety” statement mean? And so I think the number one thing is literal interpretation. Now, it also fits…it's a correlation argument, it's not a proof argument so much. The distinction of Israel and the church, I don't like to use the distinction between Israel and the church as a logical argument for the pre-trib rapture. I don't think that's the theological argument. I don't like that. To go that way. It fits and that's important. It needs to fit. So it's a correlation argument. But God, I think just sovereignly has chosen that the church is not going to be part of this time. And he gives his promise here in a couple of places. But this one here in 1 Thessalonians 5 that we're exempt from that time.

Chris Katulka: I always like to tell people that we like to use the word as Christians, which I've used before. I'm saved. I am saved. And people might say, oh, well, “yeah, I'm saved from my sin.” Well, you're forgiven of your sin, but you're saved from the wrath that's coming. That's what you've been delivered from. As Paul writes in Romans chapter two, that the world is storing up, the stubborn heart is storing up wrath for the day of wrath that's coming, the one that we've been talking about. The believer who has placed their faith in Jesus, indwelt with the Holy Spirit, sealed to the day of redemption. That individual has been saved from the wrath that's coming. And so I think it's a great reminder as we think about 1 Thessalonians 4, the rapture of the church, 1 Thessalonians 5, the Second Coming, essentially the Day of the Lord, the judgment that's coming, and the Second Coming, that there is a distinction there. They don't mesh together. They are separate. Is there a final word that you'd like to leave with believers in an application that when they see this, they can take home and understand, “wow, this really is important to me as a believer, understanding the distinctions between these things?”

Mike Stallard: Well, it's important when I talk about the word save. We're saved from all of this, all of the above. There's many senses to salvation. I'm saved from the penalty of sin. I'm saved from the power of sin today. I'm going to be saved from the presence of sin in the future. And of course, I'm saved from that wrath to come. I'm saved from hell. I'm just saved from all of it. I mean, God's plan for salvation is far beyond what we normally think. So I want to start there. But in terms of the rapture, the practical implications of that is the rapture can happen at any moment. “I'm not waiting,” as one scholar wrote a book called First the Antichrist. He's not waiting for Jesus, he's waiting for the antichrist.

There's a different mindset for that. I'm waiting for Jesus. I'm waiting to see the Lord. And I don't look at Christians as unspiritual if they disagree with me, but there's something, an urgency that produces in us in terms of evangelism, in terms of outreach. It's going to be much…there'll be many people who will come to the Lord after the tribulation starts and after the rapture, in my opinion. But it'll be much harder, I think, and it'll be a horrible time for them to have to endure. But I think we want to try to get as many people to come to Christ now before the rapture happens, and then when the rapture happens, what happens? We're glorified. And if we die, we're raised from the dead. We have our resurrection, glorified bodies, and so I think it'd be really good for us to reach as many people as we can before it's too late.

Chris Katulka: Dr. Mike Stallard, thank you very much. Hey, listen, if you are not a subscriber to Israel My Glory magazine, now is your opportunity to get Mike's article, “The ‘Peace and Safety’ Test,” along with many others with a full year subscription of our award-winning Christian magazine, Israel My Glory. It's really simple. All you have to do is go to israelmyglory.org/subscribe. It's really simple, israelmyglory.org/subscribe. And there you can get your one year free subscription to Israel My Glory magazine. And hey, listen, if you get the digital version, not only do you get the one year free subscription, but you also get more than 40 years of Israel My Glory content right at your fingertips, on your tablet, your phone, your computer. I hope you go to israelmyglory.org/subscribe.

I want to thank Dr. Mike Stallard for being with us on the radio program today, and I want to thank you for listening. Again, just a fresh reminder, if you would like a free one year subscription to our award-winning Christian magazine, Israel My Glory, you can go to foiradio.org and there you can sign up if you've never subscribed to Israel My Glory before. We want to give you six free issues of our award-winning Christian Magazine, Israel My Glory. That's foiradio.org. Next week, we're going to be looking at Leviticus chapter 8, the moment that Moses ordained Aaron, the high priest, to serve the people of Israel and what that means for us as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. As mentioned, our web address is foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org. Our mailing address is FOI Radio PO Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey 08099. Again, that's FOI Radio PO Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey 08099. You can call our listener line. That number is 888-343-6940. Again, that's 888-343-6940. Today's program was engineered by Bob Beebe. Edited by Jeremy Strong, who also composed and performs our theme music. Lisa Small is our executive producer. Sarah Fern is our associate producer. Steve Conover, the executive director of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. And I’m Chris Katulka, your host and teacher. The Friends of Israel Today is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. Passion for God's Word. Compassion for God's Chosen People.