Will Backsliders Be Raptured?

If a person is backslidden, will they go up in the rapture or get left behind? Every one of us has either asked this or been asked the question, let’s find out what the Bible has to say about this important question.

Hey, you guys. Very important question that every single one of us are gonna wanna hear the answer to from the Bible.
If a person is backslidden, will they go up in the rapture, or are they left behind?
Let’s get into it right now.
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Now open your hearts to what god’s word has to say to you. Here is Jack Gibbs.
Hey, guys. Welcome to the Jack Gibbs podcast, and we’re delighted to be with you.
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There was a question that was asked of me sometime back, and, um, it is basically this.
So I had mentioned, uh, about if the lord came back momentarily in the rapture, And if somebody was like the prodigal son, if somebody was like the the, um, backslid and Christian, um, if somebody was like um, someone who is not paying attention.
Uh, even maybe listen, even backsliding back sliding and and living in sin at this moment.
And the rapture happens. Imagine the rapture happens in the next 5 minutes.
And I made the comment that that person will go up. If that person’s born again, listen carefully, everybody.
Number 1, if that person is born again, there’s no script in the bible that says you can be unborn again.
In fact, number 2, there’s overwhelming amount of scriptures that declare to us that once we are truly in fact born again, it means that we’re sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption.
Read the book of Ephesians chapter 1 and 2.
Among other passages of scripture that, uh, correlate with that, meaning this, that once the Holy Spirit, 1st Corinthians 12, takes up residence within the believer.
You’re sealed. That is your marked into the day of redemption.
That is an agreement between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit regarding your entrance into heaven.
So make no this make make no what’s the word state?
Don’t be in a state of confusion over this. Are you born again?
If you’re born again, you have a passion to live for god, And even if you backslide, you’re miserable.
You can’t even sin good anymore. You’re in the world. You’re sleeping around, shooting it up.
I don’t know what the thing is, but you’re you’re you’re angry at He didn’t answer your prayer.
You didn’t win the lotto, so you’re taking that on him.
And you throw down your toys and you walk away like a brat and you’re you’re in the world and you know you shouldn’t be there.
You’re miserable, but you’re miserable also with god and you’re really having a battle You know what’s right, but you’re not doing it, and you can feel it’s the brutal pressure intention of god, the only spirit in his displeasure.
Grieved from the inside out of you that you’re you shouldn’t be in that bar or with that manner with that woman or in that situation.
You know you shouldn’t. Listen. Most likely you are a backsliden Christian. It’s a actual thing.
Paul talked about the Corinthians being backsliden. In fact, 1st 1st Corinthians chapter 5, this this is crazy.
1st Corinthians chapter 5 verses 4 through 6. Text technically, just read 1st Corinthians 5 starting in verse 1.
I’ll just paraphrase. There is pulses. There is somebody in the church there, Corinth.
A young man who is having sexual relationships with his stepmom and you all you guys know about it and you’ve not judged and cast this guy out, excommunicated him.
You’ve got thrown man of the church. Well, I’m telling you something.
I may not be there, but my spirit’s present. And I’m telling you, do this now.
You take this young man. Cast them out of the fellowship of the of the church. Get him out.
Can’t come back on the property. We’re gonna get a restraining order on you.
You get out because you are like leaven. You’re like poison and you know better. Listen.
Pass them away.
And the Bible says right there, put him out so Satan will kill him. Destroy his body.
So that his soul will be saved in the day of the lord Jesus Christ.
Yeah. I know. I can hear you right now saying, wait a minute. Where’s that?
1st Corinthians chapter 5 verse 1 to verse 6.
That guy was so saved but he was so backslidden.
He was thrown out of church, and Paul said that let’s Satan destroy his body so that the guy can be saved.
God and his mercy will actually rescue this guy and people like you, if that’s what you’re doing, he’ll rescue you from your horrible witness by kicking you home prematurely.
Think of that one. Okay. But here’s the deal. Listen to this.
1st, John, chapter 2 verse 28, and now little children. 1st John’s written to believers.
It’s important to know that. Not non believers. There’s no evangelism in 1st, second, or third, John.
It’s all discipleship written to believers that when he appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
Do you know what that verse means?
That means that we need to be living in such a way that when Jesus Christ appears, notice it’s actually not a, uh, coming like the first and second coming.
This is not the second coming of Christ. It’s about the rapture.
When he appears, John chapter 14 verses 1, 2, and 3.
When he appears, 1st thessalonians 413 through 18, okay, when he appears.
You wanna be walking with god in obedience and be confident.
If you’re not, when he appears, you’re gonna be ashamed. You’re gonna be embarrassed.
What’s the word you’re gonna have yoke all over your face? You’re gonna look like a fool.
Does it say there that you’re gonna lose your salvation? Does it say there that you’re gonna have to sorry.
But now you gotta go through the tribulation period to get your salvation back. No. No. Listen.
If you’re a believer and you can live in sin, if you think And there’s a lot of people like this.
If you think that you are a Christian, but you’re living in sin and god forgives you, and you have no hatred for your sin.
Your sin doesn’t make you wanna vomit.
Your sin, you’ve just you just gotten used to it.
You just kinda nuzzled on into it, and this is the way it is. I’m a Christian fornicator.
And that’s that’s just the way it is.
Or I’m a Christian adulterer or I’m a Christian bank robber. I’m a Christian car thief.
I’m a Christian drug addict. I’m a Christian drunk. Uh, and that’s just the way it is.
Guess what? There’s an high probability that you do not know God at all because if you don’t hate your sin because the Holy Spirit hits your sin, If you don’t hit your sin, there’s good evidence that the spirit of god doesn’t dwell within you.
So if you ask the question, do you mean I can be a best in Christian and and just do whatever I wanna do?
And get raptured when it when it’s over, then that’s just what I’ll do.
Uh, a true believer will never think that way. You have to think about that.
By the way, to think that way is a term we’ve used before in some of our broadcast, and that is antinomianism.
It means that I can not only send, but if I sin, then I give god the opportunity to forgive me, and that makes god look great.
So if I sin big, god’s grace is big, so everybody wins.
You know, Paul the Apostle addresses that attitude in Romans chapter 1, 23.
Shall we sin that grace may abound? What does he say? Absolutely not.
Because the scripture makes it very clear that you and I are as children of god, we are haters of sin and listen.
It’s one thing to see the sins in other people and be disgusted by them.
But when we see those same sins in us, it’s actually worse. It’s worse. For us.
And so, listen, it’s very important. Will back sliders be raptured? Yes. They will.
Will they be ashamed when that happens? Yes. They will.
Should a backslider right now repent and make it right with god right now at absolutely right now.
You need to stop what you’re doing. Repent of it. Repent means repent means get away from it.
Repent means turn away from it. It’s a physical action. It’s not just a confession.
Well, I went to confession, and I I told my sense of the pre.
So now that that’s done, I can go rack up some more of the same. You’re an anti communist.
You’re not a Christian. You’re lost. You can’t do that. You can’t go to confession, get washed.
So you think, book of Hebrews, by the way, tells you, you’re not washed.
Read read Hebrews chapter 7, 8, and 9. You’re not washed.
When you confess to a earthly priest to seek forgiveness, the Bible says you’re not forgiven.
I can hear the hate mail now. Go ahead.
You’re gonna write and say, oh, the holy church, the holy church, What what holy church are you talking about?
Holy church? No. The church is a bunch of sinners saved by the grace of god.
There’s no holy Roman Empire. There’s no Pontafis Maximus.
That can absolve you of your sin. Find that in the Bible.
You’ll find the exact opposite. There’s no earthly priesthood that can have your sins forgiven, not a one.
That goes for my Jewish friends also, which you don’t even have a priesthood anymore.
You don’t have a temple. Listen, this all comes down to relationship.
Do you literally absolutely know for sure that god is living inside of your heart and life.
You know, it’s amazing. He’s infinite. Right? He’s everywhere.
There is no place both physical or spiritual where god is not. He’s god.
And yet, how is it that he has chosen to reside within his own children?
Is a mystery we cannot explain?
If you want religion, do not let Jesus in.
If you want religion, do not let the holy spirit take up residence in your life.
If you wanna go play games and send up a storm and have life your way and satisfy all your earthly pleasures and then slap a slap a cross or a or something on, you know, on you as being accepted.
Yeah. It’s not gonna happen. No. Listen.
If you are truly a living new creation in Christ Jesus, You’re living for the life of the spirit, and you’re and you’re producing the fruit of the spirit.
So you cannot be sleeping with that girl or with that guy or doing those things or stealing from the business and call yourself a Christian.
If you backslide, Thank god. That’s for a season. You hate it?
It could very well cost you your life.
Or you’ll come back like the prodigal son in the gospels. I wanna end with this.
So in our our college and career group at Calvary Costa Mesa back in those days, back in the late seventies and eighties.
In our college and career group, which was man, a 1000 plus people, Lisa and I were the only married couple in the entire group.
In fact, when we would go on camps, Uh, I would sleep with the guys.
And she would sleep with the girls.
All the guys on one side of the camp and all the girls on one side of the camp and not sleep with the guys.
And, um, all the guys would always ask me, how can you how can you stand being here with us when knowing that your wife is over there?
It cracked us up. We’d laugh about that for years. It’s so funny.
Uh, but we were the only married couple.
We got married really young and all these college and career age, people around us.
And, uh, one of our really good friends, I’m not gonna say his name.
I don’t want to shame his family. Uh, it’s actually not a shame. It’s not not a shaming.
But it’s to make the point. Um, I’ll just call him. I’ll call him Don.
So Don loved the lord. We hung out together with our little posse. We had our guys.
It was just it was Lisa and it was Julie and all the rest of them were about seven guys were all friends, and we did everything together.
We went camping together. We went witnessing together and, um, everything together. Awesome, awesome fellowship.
We just lived our lives like that. Every Friday night, every Friday night.
It was just written into the code every Friday night at 7 o’clock automatically.
They’d all show up at our apartment.
And they’d bring chips and dip and food, and we would stay up as late as possible.
On Friday night, talking about Jesus, playing trivia, Bible trivia games, having a great time going through the Bible.
My gosh. Those were great days. Uh, they’re they’re not as great as the days are today.
That’s how God works, but they were awesome. But I say that to tell you this.
So, Don, Don came from a life of alcoholism. Um, his dad was an alcoholic.
His mom was an alcoholic. And so Don learned from an early age that when life gets tough, you drink.
That’s what you do. By the way, that’s called learned response behavior.
Growing up as a kid, when you see your parents or the authoritative figure in your life, respond to life’s challenges, you will do the same.
You will do the exact same thing unless something happens unless Christ intervenes.
So what happened with Don is that he was saved out of an alcohol like background and god saved him and Don was awesome.
It’s so incredibly funny. Great guy.
But Don also because he had a rough upbringing, he was all saw a little bit, not too much, but a little bit prone that when he got his eyes off of Jesus like Peter, he would sink into depression.
Not catastrophic depression like we know about these days, but he’d get bombed.
And then he’d say things like, I don’t feel like it. I don’t wanna come on, Don.
Let’s go. We’re with the best of luck. There’s gonna be a great softball game at the church picnic.
Let’s go. I don’t feel like it. And so Don started drinking again.
And we hadn’t seen him for, like, a week.
And then Friday night shows up and there’s no dawn. Has anybody seen Don? No.
We called Don back in those days.
He got a dial the number, no cell phones back in the ancient history, ancient times, and we couldn’t find them.
And it wasn’t until Sunday morning.
I remember when Ralph came into church on Sunday morning, he said and he’s crying.
He said, did you did you happen to We what’s the matter with you? Why are you crying?
And he said, Don got into a head on collision with a telephone pole in PCH.
He was killed instantly. And the police said that he was absolutely intoxicated and the cab was just raking of alcohol.
Every single one of us knew in the moment. Wow. God took him home.
God took him home. He didn’t lose his salvation.
Listen, friend, if you can lose your salvation, you’ve already lost yours.
If you can lose it, you’ve already lost it.
The good news is if you got it, you can’t lose it. Remember that. It’s very important.
So what you wanna do is you wanna be walking with Jesus every day.
And so that when he comes back or when it’s time for you to drop dead, you won’t be ashamed.
It’s very simple. God does not commit any abortions in his family whatsoever. Hope that makes sense.
By the way, I wanna do this right now.
Father, for anyone who’s out there right now that is just struggling with life itself.
They may be able to say right now, I do believe pastor Jack that Jesus died in the cross for my sins and he rose again from the dead, but I’ve been such a terrible witness.
I’ve messed left and right. I hate myself for it. I know I’ve offended Jesus.
I’ve sinned against god, and I I just can’t even stand to look at myself in the mirror Lord, you would say, lord depart for me depart for me if I’m a sinful man.
Listen, my friend, there’s there’s nobody in this podcast right now, um, that would say to you, you know, get out.
But for every true Christian, we would say to you right now, we know exactly how you feel.
We’ve all been there. So I wanna encourage you to come back home real quick.
Takes takes a nano second. I know it feels like the enemy is shouting at you. God won’t have you.
Look at you. You’re a terrible person. God will not accept you back. Satan’s a liar, don’t listen to him.
Go back to Jesus. Come back to Jesus right now and get back on the course and keep your eyes set on the cross.
And god will restore you.
He will restore what the moth and the rust, the alcohol, the money, the girls, the guys, the toys of this world have robbed from you.
And he’ll restore you. And he he loves to do that.
If if you’ve if you’ve prayed that prayer, man, drop drop us a note, we’d love to hear that.
From you. So alright. Until next time, God bless you guys.
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