Now, we were talking about Revelation Chapter 3 and verse 10 because this verse is probably debated about as much as any verse that has to do with the time of the rapture of the church, and I want you to turn to it with me for just a moment. And then at the conclusion of the tribulation period, the Lord will return to the earth and will bring about his kingdom. The church meets the Lord in the air, returns with him to heaven, and is there with him while the judgments are being poured out upon the earth, upon both Gentiles and Jews. That is, that it occurs at the beginning of the seven-year period of the tribulation.

The Lord then returns to the earth to establish his kingdom of a thousand years.ДЄnd then by far the great majority of premillennialists hold that the rapture of the church is pretribulational. We should have put three-and-a-half years here in order to go with the three-and-a-half on this part of the tribulation, dividing it in half, so that the rapture takes place in the middle of the tribulation, the church returns to be in the air with the Lord or in heaven with the Lord until the three-and-a-half years of the latter part of the tribulation is finished. Then there are some who hold that the rapture and the resurrection of the church takes place in the middle of the tribulation period. That is a view held by some outstanding scholars, a minority view but nevertheless held by some important men. So that the rapture will be and our Lord will be involved in a kind of procession like this: he will come to the air the church will be caught up to meet him in the air the dead in Christ shall be resurrected given bodies like his body we, who are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them they shall return with the Lord and almost immediately return to the earth at his Second Advent, at which time he will establish the millennial kingdom. We attempted to show that there were three prevailing views with reference to the rapture and the tribulation, that there are individuals who hold the view that the rapture of the church, the resurrection of the church may take place take at the same time, will take place just before our Lord returns to the earth to establish his millennial kingdom. We discussed the debated views of the tribulation with reference to the rapture, and specifically we were discussing questions such as when does the rapture take place with reference to the tribulation. We pointed out that the Messianic kingdom is future, that the Second Advent is premillennial, that the tribulation is future, that the tribulation is premillennial and preadventist, and the rapture is premillennial. As I remember, we discussed, first of all, the premillennial order of events.

Remember that in the last hour, the subject was the Church and the Tribulation, and we sought to discuss the question of the time of the rapture of the church and the resurrection of the church with reference to the tribulation period of the future. And as I mentioned at the concluding, at the conclusion of the hour, we were not really able to finish the exposition and interpretation of Revelation Chapter 3 and Verse 10, and I want to do that for a few minutes before we go into our subject. Last time we were looking at the Church and the Tribulation.

On the judgment seat of christ