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Where are we in light of God’s plan and in His time? What does today’s news say about what God previously said will happen? A lot – not in terms of marking the timing, but in terms of showing that humans are depraved and consistent in their evil deeds throughout history. The rapture could always have come at any time. Are we very far along in His plan for the Church Age? Yes, because we know that we are 2,000+ years further along than when Paul said the rapture is imminent, and thus, 2000 years closer to that amazing day.

The end time Doctrine of Imminence is explained thus:

The New Testament is consistent in its anticipation that the return of Christ might occur at any moment. That pervading perspective of imminence prompts three questions.

The first question pertains to whether the Tribulation will precede Christ’s coming for the church. The answer to that question is that it will not because the church is never asked to look forward to the tribulation, but they are asked to look forward to Christ’s coming.

The second question revolves around how the return of Christ could have been imminent in the early church. The answer here is that no one but the Father knows when the coming will occur, so that Christians including the early church must always be ready.

The third question asks why Christ’s imminent return is so important. This answer relates to the motivation it supplies for believers to purify their lives and thereby progress toward the goal of sanctification and Christlikeness. The threefold call of the imminence doctrine is to wake up and obey right now, to throw off the works of darkness, and to put on the garments of holy living.

When the rapture happens, the snatching up of all true believers, it closes the Church Age. This then opens the door to the last 7 years of time outlined for the Jews & remaining non-believers. It will be a time when Jesus brings the earth and its dwellers under His subjection by judging sin. Remember, when the Tribulation (last 7 years) is concluded, Jesus will be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. New Jerusalem will have descended, and Jesus will physically and presently rule the people and they will worship Him. (Psalm 2:9; Revelation 19:15-16; Isaiah 45:23).

Today, the Tribulation has not begun yet, though for many who are persecuted, it may feel like it has. It certainly felt like it to the Thessalonians, who asked Paul that very question. Paul replied with an explanation that the Tribulation will not begin until certain other things happen in a certain sequence. (1 Thessalonians 5:1–9).

In fact, that time will be so distinctive that many of the people who are left behind will know that it is the time spoken of by Jesus, who prophesied, “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.” (Matthew 24:21; Revelation 11:13, Revelation 16:9). If you think about that deeply for a moment, and compare it to some of the worst times we’ve ever had on earth till now: for example, Russian pogroms, Cambodian Killing Fields, the Holocaust, Gettysburg, Medieval times bubonic plague, and then roll them ALL into one, the Tribulation will make them all seem like a picnic./ That is hard to believe but it’s true.

Verses that support the doctrine of Imminence and are further explained in the above article are-  James 5:8, James 5:9, 1 Peter 4:7, Hebrews 10:24–25, 2 Peter 3:11, 1 John 3:2–3). The article also goes on to explain why the rapture will precede the Tribulation, giving biblical support, of course.

Our goal each day is to pursue holiness. The Spirit’s sanctifying work goes on, whether the rapture will imminently happen in the next second of time, or in another thousand years. Our task is to be ready. One way to be ready, and to aid the Spirit in His work, is to eagerly anticipate the Lord’s return. Our eagerness prompts us to holiness, for, when He comes, do we want to be engaging in sin, or pursuing purity? His soon appearing is a catalyst for us to be doing good when He calls.

The hope of Christ’s imminent return is therefore the hinge on which a proper understanding of sanctification turns. Source

I pray you read the article Is Christ’s Return Imminent? linked above or below, study these things, pray for His return, and that you are as eagerly awaiting his return as I am and all the others who are alive or asleep. What a day that will be!

Is Christ’s Return Imminent?

Other Resources

The Rapture: What is it? Who will it affect? When is it most likely to take place?

Why I Believe in the Pre-Trib Rapture 

Phil Johnson posted a quote by Vince Havner the other day. Here it is:

“If they had a social gospel in the days of the prodigal son, somebody would have given him a bed and a sandwich and he never would have gone home.”

That resonated with me because I’d just an hour before finished listening to Tom Pennington’s sermon at Shepherds’ Conference 2018 about the Mission of the Church. He opened his sermon with refuting the social gospel AKA social justice, and went on to convincingly and convictingly exhort to his listeners about our true mission. Matthew 28’s passage known as The Great Commission is our true and only mission.

Tom Pennington asking about the Social gospel AKA Social justice AKA Missional:

Instead of social gospel the new label became social justice. Its rebranding of liberal theology remains. The priority of social justice has become extremely popular even among those under that broad term evangelicalism.

The question is this, is this redefinition of mission a biblical redefinition? Or, is social justice either the church’s primary mission, or part of the church’s primary mission? What does the scripture say?

Pennington went on to read the following passage, stating that nowhere in scripture is our primary mission clearer.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:16-20)

Here is GotQuestions with a definition of The Social Gospel:

The phrase “social gospel” is usually used to describe a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that came to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Those who adhered to a social gospel sought to apply Christian ethics to social problems such as poverty, slums, poor nutrition and education, alcoholism, crime, and war. These things were emphasized while the doctrines of sin, salvation, heaven and hell, and the future kingdom of God were downplayed. Theologically, the social gospel leaders were overwhelmingly postmillennialist, asserting that Christ’s Second Coming could not happen until humankind rid itself of social evils by human effort.

Another explanation I liked as to what the Social Gospel is comes from a secular Australian website I’m unfamiliar with, called The Conversation:

The social gospel’s origins are often traced to the rise of late 19th-century urban industrialization, immediately following the Civil War. Largely, but not exclusively, rooted in Protestant churches, the social gospel emphasized how Jesus’ ethical teachings could remedy the problems caused by “Gilded Age” capitalism.

Movement leaders took Jesus’ message “love thy neighbor” into pulpits, published books and lectured across the country. Other leaders, mostly women, ran settlement houses designed to alleviate the sufferings of immigrants living in cities like Boston, New York and Chicago. Their mission was to draw attention to the problems of poverty and inequality – especially in America’s growing cities.

Charles Sheldon, a minister in the city of Topeka, Kansas, explained the idea behind the social gospel in his 1897 novel “In His Steps.” To be a Christian, he argued, one needed to walk in Jesus’s footsteps.

The book’s slogan, “What would Jesus do?” became a central theme of the social gospel movement which also became tied to a belief in what Ohio minister Washington Gladden called “social salvation.” This concept emphasized that religion’s fundamental purpose was to create systemic changes in American political structures.

So that is the social gospel. I don’t know who said it first, but the phrase goes something like this: “If you have to put any adjective in front of ‘gospel’ it ceases to the the Gospel.” The phrase refers to newly coined movements like ‘prosperity gospel’, ‘social gospel,’ ‘health-wealth gospel” and the like.

With that foundation laid, the clarification I saw from Phil Johnson follows-

“I was surprised at the number of people who seemed confused by the Vance Havner quote. Here it is again, with an explanation.

The social gospel is not Christian altruism. For a great sermon on The Prodigal Son and how caring for his immediate temporal needs would not have helped him, HB Charles explains well, here.

For a great sermon on the actual mission of the church, Tom Pennington convincingly brings it home powerfully at this year’s Shepherds Conference as already mentioned, here.

As Mr Pennington said, a refutation of the social gospel/social justice/missional is not a call to ignore needs of the people around us. Christian charity meets people’s needs. But as far as a heavy emphasis and/or a reorientation of our mission toward Christian acts of charity with intent to bring economic justice or material harmony to the world? No. Just no.