Don Stewart - Living in the light of the last days

[Music] do [Music] wow the um it's interesting here about india i've been there twice and what a what a mission field but what a what a dark place that really needs the gospel of jesus christ and i'm sure you're aware they're having a terrible terrible outbreak now of the chinese communist party coronavirus there in india where they're actually the crematoriums are so busy they're telling people to burn people's bodies that died in their backyard because it's so horrible but and so um god bless you for uh sponsoring churches over there it's a great great great uh ministry there i had a tremendous time both times i was there and uh oh lord bless you guys all right you know you guys are one of the first places i spoke to after i've been off for something like 70 days you know with the chinese communist party coronavirus i got it on the second day of december and we told her the story then a lot's happened just real briefly i had stopped doing his channel the breaking news program i did five days a week in world news briefing so i was doing six tv programs a week i'd still do the radio program at james kades countdown to eternity but we stopped doing tv well guess what i'm back on his channel again but not live i'm live but i don't do a live program we've got a program on at seven o'clock um thursday night a half hour program uh actually it's a nine part series i'm doing on the story of joseph genesis 37-50 and so you can tune that in also we're starting another new program they're called today's bible question and i'm going to be doing one of them it's going to be i think four days a week maybe four or five days a week they're doing it with different pastors and i'm going to be doing it on tuesday i believe tuesday's the day it's that's not live we're going to record it but we're going to people text their question and we'll answer your questions there so i'll be back answering questions live and in color with you guys too at least one day a week also to the website educating our world dot com we now have five audio books on the site 30 hours of audio five full books recorded all for free 61 books you can download them all for free we've got 33 books now in print and three more on the way you can check the website again educating our world dot com for all that information we're very very excited about so god's doing some really great things so it's nice to be you know back doing it like i said you were one of the first groups i spoke to after i'd uh got back on that back in the saddle again after going through that uh difficult difficult time now what's interesting here too david asked me to do something on last days and that i've got a talk called living in the light of the last days i want to talk about that then i'm going to leave the time for questions but what's interesting this week i'm actually sitting in for tom hughes who's now doing world news briefing tom's out of town be the first one i've done since uh well since december actually yeah since november actually and so my guest to be joe pedic joe is the pastor of calvary chapel of the harbor and coincidentally enough i'm there i'll be at his church tuesday night i'm there the last tuesday of every month he has a program called vertical view we do where we go over the events taking place i'm going to be doing a whole middle east update this tuesday night calvary chapel the harbor h-a-r-b-o-u-r spell harbor that way and i'll be live and i'll be taking about an hour going through the stories and then the ones we don't get through joel will be with me on thursday on world news briefing and we'll kind of pick them up there because so much is going on gang it's such a great great time to be alive we'll talk about a few of them tonight but maybe you have specific questions so i'll leave about 15 minutes for the questions if that's okay and if you ha and i hope you have some because it's a very very thrilling time to be alive all right and one of the books i've written called um god wants us to know the future it's an introduction to bible prophecy the last question i deal with in the book is how to live in the light of the last days and lessons to be learned lessons that you and i need to learn in light of these last days so how in the world do you and i live with these very very very weird times and that's the only way we can explain it right just weird strange things that are going on what does the lord expect from us what practical steps can we take you know to you know to be successful in these last days so there's a number of lessons there and again we won't get through all of them they're there in the book again it's a free download you can buy the about what's one in print also and also this one's recorded so you can either hear it um it's called god wants us to know the future download the audio for free you can uh you know buy the book or you don't have to just you know download it and read it and print it out anyway number of lessons number one and this is the most important one i can't emphasize this enough lesson number one and if you have your bibles i want you to turn to the 12th chapter of the book of daniel as we talk about this lesson number one is we can understand the times in which we are living we can understand them daniel chapter 12 we're going to find out that we can if we take the time we can precisely understand what's going on right now all right now in the book of daniel the 12th chapter you at the beginning of that it talks about a time of great tribulation or great distress that are going to happen to the people god's people which of course is the nation israel at the time of the end which of course assumes israel will exist at the time of the end and then daniel as this all is wrapping up um he's told this in verse 4 of chapter 12 ezekiel daniel uh there if you hope you just didn't bring the new testament then you're out of luck here okay all right so daniel 12 4 says this but you daniel close up these words and seal the book until the time of the end many will dash about and the knowledge will increase now here's what's interesting daniel as we're going to find out did not understand what they were talking about about certain events at the time of the end so daniel was told to seal up the book and close it up until the time of the end so if you like writing in your bible underline the little word until because we're going to see it again in a minute now it said many will go to and fro that that's a hebrew idiom meaning many are going to try and find out the answer they're going to try and find out what's going on but they will not be able to but at the time of the end the knowledge will increase what knowledge is he talking about he's talking about knowledge of bible prophecy and specifically knowledge about the book of daniel at the time of the end it will begin to make sense previous to that a lot of the things that are talked about about the time of the end will not make sense until you're living there so daniel is told that specifically here so the knowledge will increase knowledge of the bible's prophecy knowledge of the book of daniel believers will understand what's taking place in the last days now what's also interesting here if we keep on reading in verse 6 there's that two heavenly beings are discussing this whole issue and in verse 6 says one said to the man clothed in lenin who was above the waters of the river when will the end of these wondrous events occur daniel 12 6. now it's interesting that the heavenly beings and you know not only there's god of course there's the angels which we're aware but the angels are kind of down they're kind of like the worker bees you've got other uh heavenly beings cherubim seraphim etc that are that god has created and so they are discussing the future they are discussing amongst themselves bible prophecy in fact peter tells us the things that angels desire to look into all the things that were predicted they want to know about the times of the end too so it's not just us even the angels want to know and the other heavenly beings do so you shouldn't feel bad if you're interested in this subject because they are too now here's what interesting they're talking back and forth they don't know because god had included them in so in verse 8 here is one that is mind-boggling daniel said i heard but i did not understand so i said sir what will happen after these things now i want you to appreciate how profound this is daniel the prophet the man arguably who has been given more insight into the future from god more divine revelation than anyone else with the possible exception of john who wrote the book of revelation he was he told us remember in daniel chapter 2 he got supernatural understanding of the dream of nebuchadnezzar he not only knew exactly what nebuchadnezzar dreamt but he knew the interpretation of it the great statue of the four gentile or non-jewish kingdoms that would come on the scene of history uh he he told the dem nebuchadnezzar this is referring to your kingdom you're the head of gold of this great statue there's a chest and arms of silver that's going to be the kingdom that follows you the medes and the persians then the third kingdom the billion thigh of bronze and then that's of course greece and then the fourth one is iron and iron mixed with clay the last of the four empires that's the roman empire and the roman empire will again come back to life be revitalized revived in the last days daniel daniel was given all that okay in chapter seven daniel's given that same thing as a uh the same vision but from god's perspective and in god's perspective it's four great ugly mean beasts you know on the world's perspective these kingdoms these powerful people ruling the world you know this great huge statue from god's perspective these gentile kingdoms are just a bunch of wild beasts that are doing it because the real kingdom is the last one that's coming the fifth kingdom the kingdom of god so anyway daniel's given that in daniel 9 he's given the whole prophecy of the 70 sets of 7 about the coming of the messiah the first time and the second time and yet when we get to chapter 12 what happens he doesn't understand he doesn't get it and here's what he is told now in verses 9 and 10. look at this this ought to help your self-image a lot it says go daniel for these matters are closed and sealed until the time of the end many will be purified made clean and refined but the wicked will go on being wicked none of the wicked will understand though the wise will understand all right look at this carefully it says daniel you're not going to get it these matters include are closed and sealed but here's that little word again until until the time of the end many are going to be purified made clean and refined but notice about the wicked they're going to still go on being wicked and then this line here boy isn't this the truth none of the wicked will understand though the wise will understand what does that mean when it comes time to the last day's events before the fifth kingdom comes the kingdom of god comes to the earth people will not get it the wicked will never not understand what's going on but the wise will understand who are the wise those who read the bible who take the bible seriously who believe god means what he says and says what he meant and those are the ones that will understand what's going on and that's us because we do take the bible seriously that's why we're so excited about all the events that are taking place now let me give you some examples that are taking place right now that uh were seemingly impossible to take place but again here's the whole thing just give it enough time god's word will come about just as he said i got saved in march of 1970 and i started uh doing bible teaching actually in about a year afterwards in the 1970s it was a really interesting time for last days bible prophecy there was a lot of you know was the jesus movement was going on and one of the things that we would talk about as bible teachers although prophecy wasn't a special specialty to me until much later but when we did talk about it one of the the final things that it's going to take place is the ezekiel 38 39 invasion and so what we would do we you kind of you know if you had a blackboard or a whiteboard you'd write on on it okay here's what's going to happen in the last days ezekiel 38 8 at the very last time twice in the same verse it says this there's going to be an invasion of israel led by this ruler named gog gog gog that is the title of this person coming down and he's going to come down from the far north and he's going to invade israel with a collection of nations there and the nations are listed by name the names that they had at the time of ezekiel so what we would do we would say all right gog is he's called the prince of rosh according to scripture uh you know that time is a designation of the nation that was the furthest north from babylon where ezekiel was and the furthest from israel and that is the modern day country of russia it was called russia that time now it's not because the names sound alike people say you only believe it because it sounds like it nonsense rosh was a designation for the country to the far north so he is the leader of this last days coalition now to join him other nations are mentioned including persia persia which is modern-day iran it was until 1935 the name was changed from persia to iran and iran of course is the farsi name for persia and so persia is one of the other nations uh beth togarmah and gomer we're talked about in ezekiel 38 39 you look on a map that is modern day turkey and actually the the area of armenia too turkey and modern-day armenia that area where uh turkey is actually where russia iran and turkey all kind of come together now what's interesting about that that's what the bible said is going to happen so there's a coalition of nations who are going to be anti-israel who are going to invade including russia iran and turkey all right and then they're going to be nations that protest the invasion that don't like what's going on and their name specifically sheba and didan which is you look on an ancient map that refers to where today it's saudi arabia and the gulf states they're going to be part of the force that does not invade now also conspicuous by their absence there's not going to be any problem with egypt being part of the invasion and neither the country of jordan or even syria and so what we would do we would put you know we'd put this so here's what's going to happen here's you know the normal there's got to be some type of relationship that egypt the gulf states have with uh israel because they protest we hear nothing from not a peep out of jordan not a peep out of syria the bad guys working with russia are iran and turkey well here was the problem in the 1970s it was totally backwards to the reality the best friends of israel in the middle east were iran and turkey iran is the country that basically resupplied them during the 1973 war that helped them win the yom kippur war turkey a member of nato was the first muslim nation that recognized the existence of the state of israel and until recently the israelis would take their vacations in turkey now the ones that are were problematic at that time egypt jordan the gulf states they were the ones that invaded at that time and as the you know the 73 war had just happened and so we're doing like in the mid 70s egypt is still at loggerheads uh and so is jordan being part of that with israel so when you put it on the board the reality that's there it's just the opposite of what the bible says so people said wait a minute don't you have this backwards because iran and turkey are the friends of israel jordan the gulf states egypt no they're they're the enemies they're the ones you know they've been involved in the wars doing the invasion and so what do we do we say just give it enough time and it'll turn around here we are in 2021 and guess what it has turned totally around the biggest enemies of israel in the middle east are turkey and iran their normalization their friends now jordan uh egypt egypt made a peace treaty in 1979 with israel jordan in 1994. um donald trump was you know had the united arab emirates bahrain a couple of the gulf states come with normalization of relations with israel in fact there's been a lot of in fact one of the stories i'll be doing tuesday and probably also into a thursday world news briefing on again his channel dot com is that the saudis now are attempting to normalize relations with israel it's not because these arab states love israel it's because they're afraid of iran that's why they're doing this but here's the point the bible said this is going to be the lineup in the last days right but a few decades ago when we're teaching this we have to teach the same thing this is the lineup but the lineup wasn't there so what do you do well you believe by faith that sooner or later the lineup will come about that exactly as the bible says all of it will fall into place so there's a great lesson in all this gang we trust god that sooner or later when he promises you and i something it's going to take place but always in his timing and so what we have is the responsibility to read and teach the word as it is and not to not to as we're going to see here not to kind of um you know say well really does it mean that or you know it's speaking allegorically or something like that no no no so again just give it time and what's really really interesting that one of the stories i've got for a tuesday night there's just been the united states joe biden actually has done something right i can't imag you know i didn't expect that to happen he did something right because no president has done he recognized the the uh turkish genocide of their armenians uh they had the anniversary of that in the early part of the 20th century there was a horrible horrible genocide of the armenian people by the turks and it you know it's just a terrible terrible blight of history and there's never a united states president who recognized that they should have and it was finally biden recognized that and which he did the right he certainly did the right thing in that and erdogan the leader of turkey has now said because of this listen to this this is going to drive turkey closer to who iran and russia that's the two nations he mentioned and that's two of the three well all three the three biggies that are going to invade israel in the last days iran russia and turkey and erdogan yesterday actually today said look if unless america changes their mind and does not you know doesn't blame us for this genocide we're going to be more rushing into the arms of iran and and uh russia which they already have been but anyway you can't make this stuff up this is exactly what we expect to happen in the last days you've got the israelis meeting with the saudis to normalize their relations when again a few decades ago is just the opposite and you've got now these three countries that are part of the invading force working together and they will be working together as part of the last day's invasion so the point is this as we get closer to the time this is what daniel was told we'll understand it'll start to make sense it will understand it's just like in 2011 when the syrian civil war took place something made very good sense that we could never ever figure out pastor chuck and i used to talk about this when we did the world news briefing together for years and years and years uh according to ezekiel when they're invaded in the last days israel is not expecting it and there's going to be a surprise invasion from among other nations russia turkey and iran well how in the world can you have a surprise invasion in the 21st century with the technology we have now you know if we've got all you know all the different satellites looking at the people we've got all this technology the drones in there if somebody coughs in russia or iran or turkey we know they're doing it because everything is is visible if an army starts to mass together muster together it's going to be obvious they're doing it so there's how can you have a surprise attack and that was one of the things that we scratch our heads about but then the syrian civil war takes place in 2011 and in 2013 you've got the islamic state isis joining in in both syria and iraq and at one time had 20 000 square kilometers under their control now to get rid of them because everybody wanted to get rid of them syria had help from who russia iran and turkey with their armies along with the united states we are the champions there to get these people out but what it did though once putin you know he declared it you know there's there's no more caliphate no more isis-controlled areas like they had the 20 000 square kilometers at one time a third of iran and a third of iraq a third of syria were under their control now they're gone but here's what's interesting because of isis being there iran russia and turkey came to that geographical area the u.s left these guys didn't so today if you go to israel you look from a northern border the border of the way up north and golan heights you look into cer into syria or you look into uh lebanon you know what you'll see there you'll see russian soldiers yeah russia's right there they don't have to come all the way from russia they're right there turkish soldiers are there and syrian soldiers are not syrian soldiers what they are are iranian soldiers dressed as syrian soldiers so they're right there right now and it was isis that brought them in there the us left but these other countries haven't so they are now right on the border so they don't have to come hundreds of miles or a thousand miles they're right there how could this be well because the bible says eventually it's going to happen and now we understand how it's going to happen because they're right there geographically again you can't make this stuff up so sooner or later all these things are falling into place but what's great about this gang is a day and age which you and i are seeing it which brings us to our next point here lesson number two we should be thankful and humbled by the privilege of living in these times now here's another lesson we are living in some very specific times very exciting times according to scripture and we should appreciate the fact that we are living there now we're going to look at the words of jesus to his own disciples can you imagine i'm sure you've fantasized about this before i have you ever think of yourself living at the time of jesus you know in the first century when he walked on water did the miracles fed the multitudes and you're there listening and being part of that well every generation from the very beginning from the time of adam on to the time the lord jesus came every generation was looking for the coming of this person this messiah the savior it was the generation the first century that saw him come uh galatians 4 4 it says the fullness of time you know god again visited the world born of a woman born under the law and so jesus came at the fullness of time now so in matthew 13 jesus comments on this in verse 16 and 17 says this he says your eyes are blessed because they see your ears are blessed because they hear for i tell you the truth many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it all right the generation that heard and saw jesus was the culmination of god's promises that were fulfilled at his first coming generation after generation look for his coming didn't see it that generation did in the same way the generation that sees the signs for the second coming of christ we can say the same things about for the last 2 000 years christians have longed to see the days that you and i are seeing have longed to hear the sort of things that we're hearing now setting the stage for the time of the end we are indeed living in a very very very exciting time my wife and i um until three years ago we would go to uh we'll try and get back there thanksgiving time we'd always go to the island of oahu and spend thanksgiving there and one of the places you go to if you ever visit oahu on the north shore is matsumoto's shave ice you have to go there it's kind of like a ritual we always do that's the the hawaiian specialty and stanley there's the masamoto there greeting everybody giving the high five and he he's a good bill clinton he knows how to work the crowd there and that so we go over there and get it but what's what's interesting about this we always do the same thing we get the shave ice we walk across the street there's a very old presbyterian church that has a cemetery with graves from the 19th century people born in 1865 died in 1880 people died in 1865 people died in 1910 and it's interesting to read the gravestones because you read things like looking for the coming of the lord waiting to hear trumpets something like this you know asleep in jesus because these all died in faith just like we read in the book of hebrews the 11th chapter the patriarchs died in faith looking for the promise looking for the city whose builder and maker is god they look for the days that we are seeing right now so if this doesn't help your self-image i don't know what will because for some reason god's chose us to see all these things we are here to be the salt and light in this generation we should be thankful that we're seeing these things and hearing these things says other generations did not our grandparents our great-grandparents they didn't see any of this they saw it by the eye of faith we see it and so no previous generation has and so we are honored to and let me tell you gang we we're humbled by it we should be i'm always humble every time i do a message on the subject and i think about it say god why me why am i here at this time you know i could have been born 500 years ago in in some other part of the world and not being able to see the sorts of things we see so it's very humbling and i'm very thankful very very thing and i never take it for granted and so we should uh take that uh to heart and so we should be excited about the fact that we are here for such a time as this all right a third lesson here and this is very important about interpreting bible prophecy we should interpret the prophetic passages at face value at face value in other words where god says something he means what he says and uh matthew 16 1 to 4 jesus this kind of sets this tone for this it says now when the pharisees and sadducees came to test jesus they asked him to show them a sign from heaven he said when evening comes you say it will be fair weather because the sky is red and in the morning it will be stormy today because the sky is red and darkening you know how to judge correctly the appearance of the sky but you cannot evaluate the signs of the times in other words these were the religious leaders they should have known that jesus was the promised messiah he had their credentials of the messiah he was doing things that no one's else has ever done saying things no one else has ever said he was born in the right family the family of david he was born in the city of bethlehem the promised city where the messiah would be born he came before the temple and the city of jerusalem was destroyed a second time so he's there right on the scene of history isaiah 35 5 the miracles of the messiah are are there in his life and so the religious leaders didn't believe it because they didn't take the prophetic passages at face value what they want to do is spiritualize them now what's been really interesting in the history of the church is the same thing has gone on in the early years of the christian church people were looking for the jews to return to their ancient homeland to rebuild the temple and for all these events that the bible predicted to take place but put yourself in the place now of the people living now the third century the fourth century and then later it hadn't happened it's been 200 years 300 years 400 years 500 years 600 years hadn't taken place so what do we make of the prophecies well they said well now we and saint augustine was the one unfortunately that his city of god helped make this prevalent in the church he said we're not to take these prophecies literally but symbolically so what happened was you know jerusalem represented heaven everything didn't mean what it said it meant okay because it wasn't happening at that time and they figured you know they're getting impatient if god really means this where is it you know where's the jews coming back to the land where's the temple being rebuilt where is all this stuff and since they didn't see it they started taking prophecy not literally but symbolically and that is the problem and like we said when you take it literally you can put a scenario together of what's going to take place in the last days and it's precisely what we see right now now as we've talked to you before here please understand when you look at the whole area of biblical interpretation there's a very simple rule of bible interpretation and it goes like this if the literal sense makes good sense then seek no other sense lest you come up with nonsense okay so if you can take it at face value you should if you read the bible you know you know god's not a bad communicator you know he knows how to communicate to us and he tells us you know that certain things are going to take place and what's been great about it uh in my book the 25 signs were near the end i talk about you know i use the predictions of many bible commentators who live in the last 400 years who took the bible seriously who didn't see any of this stuff but predicted the events would take place just like you and i are seeing today so the point is let's take it at face value because sooner or later just like the whole thing with the countries i mentioned the beginning iran turkey russia coming together in military alliance just the opposite a few decades ago the saudis egypt jordan they're the biggest enemies of israel they're the ones that attacked during these wars you know 48 67 73 but now they have a peace treaty a relationship with them because god said that's going to be the scenario at the time of the end all right so let's again not to uh to take the passages at face value now this next one here is one that i cannot emphasize enough so please please please you need to pay attention the first three but this one in particular we are not to go beyond that which is written not to go beyond that which is written lesson number four paul to the corinthians first corinthians 4 6 i've applied these things to myself and apollos because of you brothers and sisters so that through us you may learn not to go beyond what is written all right i can not even begin to tell you the confusion the mess that so many so-called prophecy specialists have gotten the christian faith generally speaking into by going beyond that which is written and saying things that the bible doesn't say making predictions that the bible doesn't predict and saying this and mostly it has to do with the signs and the heavens the signs in the sky in in this book god wants to know the future you can listen to about an 18-minute answer to the question it's there in the book art will we expect supernatural signs in the heavens during this age and the answer is no we are not and the mistake people make they say well the bible talks about signs and wonders in the sky yeah it does but that's in the final seven year period before the lord returns again context context context it's not going to happen during our age we're not to look for heavenly signs and yet we have that happen a few years ago you may recall there was a fellow that had it all figured out september 23rd 2017 the lord was coming back reminded me of the same thing that occurred in 2011 where the late herald camping said the rapture of the church is going to take place in september of 2011. unfortunately harold camping also wrote a book called 1994 where he figured out christ is coming then that didn't work out so he tried 2011. that didn't work out now this guy's got it figured out the great sign of revelation chapter 12 great sign in heaven is going to take place september 23rd 2017 and we're going to see the rapture of the church second coming of christ or something like that which is complete nonsense uh on many reasons but this was pr predicted at the time by people people were getting really scared really really scared because i think this is going to be the end and so uh uh you know i got to be prepared i i gotta you know be all ready and there are billboards up there about this uh there is a website it sounded like they had a trailer there that it's kind of like the same thing you see for the movies coming september 23rd 2000 sarah seriously 17 is the great sign in heaven as predicted in revelation 12. well it's absolute nonsense because the great sign in revelation chapter 12 was the third woe there that is uh given in revelation and there were two previous woes and the re the will right before that was uh when the two witnesses remember that revelation 11 they come on the scene for three and a half years called down fire from heaven uh they uh you know preach the gospel to the people and the and the spirit of moses and it could be moses and elijah they're put to death by this final antichrist their bodies lion state in the city of jerusalem for three and a half days they come back to life but before they come back to life the whole world rejoices and throws one large party based on that when they come back to life the world is in shock they all see it the world sees it and then they ascend into heaven and at that time the city of jerusalem has an earthquake the ark of the covenant appears in heaven according to revelation 11 19 and all that takes place before the great sign in heaven gang that hasn't happened yet we wouldn't have missed something like that would we that i think we all would have noticed that but these people were saying the great sign in heaven is going to take place well it didn't take place particularly because it is an astronomical basic alignment that happens once i'm told although i've others have told me no it's not the only time it happens and so it's not some great sign it's just uh you know something that happened and somebody figured out that this was it when the lord is coming back the um i was doing a i we did a thing on that with jack hibbs and i doing that first happening now talking about that and then about a week before september 23rd came on i was teaching a class at uh calvary east anaheim and uh i think i was doing a class or some type of study i did we had a q a afterwards and um somebody asked me about the you know the great sign and i i went on to kind of said what i just said to you well afterwards after i said this guy comes up he starts rebuking me how dare you say it's not going to happen it's going to happen this guy's a good brother he's got it all figured out it's going to take place you're telling people that you know god's word is not going to you know come a pass on september 23rd it was about a week away and i'm just listening to him and i said let me ask okay i said i tell you what let's do this how about you and i get together on september 24th and let's talk about what didn't happen the day before okay oh man was he he got mad at me huffed and stormed out but guess what never saw the guy again it didn't take place jesus said nobody knows the day or the hour nobody that's you and i um when i first did this you know i i can't remember if i did this at this person with jack i was i'm tempted to but i don't my wife said don't don't do this even though you're tempted to because these prophecy guys that claim to have all this knowledge they act as though they know something that no one and some have said this yeah jesus didn't know his disciples didn't know but we know now about the time of this guy can you imagine people saying something like that and they do and so my point was let me just go again very slowly and repeat the words of jesus nobody knows the day or the hour i'm going to speak very slow and use real small words okay so you get it nobody means i don't know you don't know nobody knows and nobody does know we don't know now we can know the times and the seasons we see that but the precise day we don't know so don't go beyond that which is written because what it does it causes people to lose faith i did a um thing and i'll close with this we'll have the question and answers next um it was a night i remember what year it was 1979 or 1980 it was a long long long time ago maybe even 78 i was asked to speak at a church a couple hours i won't even mention what city it was in but it was real interesting because they said we got a place for you to stay there's a couple at the church have a very nice home and it was a very nice home and we're going to put you up there but you're going to come in late because you're driving from here and you know what they're going to do they're going to leave the light on for you like motel 6. they're going to leave the light on for you and to make sure you got the right house there's gonna be a note on the door so i don't just you know to start you know you know going up opening doors which everyone's open i'd go in and stay the night which was good so i eventually found it there's a light on the note was there said you go in welcome dawn we'll see you tomorrow your rooms on the far right here's the bathroom blah blah blah they're towels and that you know the whole thing you know that's kind of weird but never happened like i never had that happen before you know it worked anyway come out the next morning greet the people whose house it was anyway i was commenting how beautiful the house was now what a nice place you have here i said do you own it and they said oh no no oh no we wouldn't buy a house right now christ is coming back so soon we're not going to spend our money buying a house this was 1979 gang i wonder what they think now if they're still around you don't know the day or the hour we live each day as though you know we're gonna you know uh we're gonna leave our three score in ten we're gonna live longer you know we plan for the future but we're also ready to go at any time we don't know we you know there were people actually in the early 70s believe it or not we had a thing because people got all excited about christ coming it's called the rapture rush people got married real quickly because they didn't want to miss that and i tell you one of the sad things too remember pastor chuck saying please don't do this people are actually taking out long-term loans thinking they never have to pay it back christ is coming seriously and uh they they found very clearly that that wasn't what was going on but anyway the point is don't go beyond that which is written all right i've got a little bit of time left uh let's see according to my clock here it's 7-eleven it's like the store and so let's uh take it about 19 minutes or so i always love answering the question david's got the microphone there and uh i'm sure david has some questions for me too if nobody else does right dave what was that i'm sure you have some questions for me also right if nobody else does yes okay but i'm sure they do okay well here's how we do this i'm going to give you i'm going to lay it out as uh i've never had this happen before but i learned i learned a valuable lesson i was doing a men's retreat in sierra vista arizona and the pastor there pat lazovich said this okay ask don a question you don't know the answer to okay something you don't know the answer to and i'll try and give the answer all right in other words uh ask something that you want to learn from okay so uh i just want to see a hand we dave will come over to you just the first name of the question okay not everybody at once come on don't be shy there's no stupid question okay we got one all right all right we'll ask the antichrist yes what's your first name damon damon okay hi david what i was told was european background is it european background or yes total european background yeah so non-jewish non-jewish no no okay i've written a a book on the subject called the final antichrist about 400 pages long and what's interesting about no he's not a jew there's two of them the final antichrist the one we think about is a political leader he will be a gentile a non-jew there'll be a religious leader who possibly will be jewish we don't know that or it could be a phony christian some people as say as pope francis this false prophet there well i don't know about that but he sure looks like he's auditioning for the job the way he's acting but this this is going to be a political leader but he's going to be a gentile why every single type of antichrist we find in the bible with the exception of king saul was a gentile or a non-jew go back to nimrod there you got pharaoh you've got goliath you have nebuchadnezzar you've got then of course alexander the great and the and the most precise one is antiochus the fourth epiphanies who lived between the testaments all were gentiles non-jews they're political leaders they did very much similar things and so i'd encourage you to look at the book again you get it for free downloaded we talk about him being a gentile he's going to um come from the the revivals revival of the ancient roman empire i tell you something interesting too on this i was doing a thing in canada about 2019 on bible prophecy conference in british columbia and there was a man on stage i can't remember jack i can't remember his last name but he was absolutely brilliant and the q a was done and he did it with me and i tell this guy was fabulous i let him answer everything first i didn't have much to say afterwards but when asked about this where he's coming from he's the only person i've ever heard say what i believe who this antichrist will be like he will come from western europe and i believe he will be he will come from greece because he will bear be very similar to alexander of macedon alexander the great and this and he says this i thought man somebody thinks the same way i do now we don't know that for a fact he comes out of the you know a revived roman empire but i believe he's got when because alexander is certainly a type of antichrist the brilliance what you did in conquering the world arguably the greatest general military genius the world's ever seen and you know there's very much similar qualities that they have but anyway he's going to come out of western europe he's going to be a gentile a political leader but what's going to be interesting he's going to come out of obscurity at first you're not he's not going to be who you think he is he's not going to be revealed till after we're gone after the church is gone and it's sort of like clark kent turning into superman all of a sudden you know this guy that looks like someone who's a librarian or something like that or the guy that reads your gas meter like someone like that you know who's you know doesn't have a powerful job or a powerful persona all of a sudden boom he's you know leading the whole world and so yeah great question though so yeah he's going to be a gentile he's going to come out of western europe and uh he's going to be a political leader okay great question david you want to comment on that at all uh i have the idea of in daniel 11 kind of the view that he will have some jewish heritage some jewish descent and that that would be part of the great deception even kind of what's taking place today with recently with the jews idolizing this guy claiming for him to be the messiah my take would be that jesus said many false messiahs would come so my position on that would be more along the lines of i won't be here when that happens so i'm really not sure none of us don't know that's true no we won't know no and that's arguable a lot of people do believe he's going to be jewish because he's the messiah but remember the antichrist means in place of or instead of christ in other words he's going to claim to be god the jews don't believe the messiah is god they believe it's going to be a man like moses either to muslims i mean it'll be an affront to them where this man demands worship because muslims only worship allah the jews believe the messiah be a prophet like moses so the fact that he claims to be god is going to be a terrible offense to everyone at that time and so yeah there's there's the argument i give the argument where it could be a jewish messiah in that and and then those i believe he's a gentile because he's in entire instead of christ in the sense that he claims to be god he stands in the temple he's probably going to be the one that helps him rebuild the temple at the time of the end but again we won't be here so that's why it's worthless to try and figure out who he is that's why we don't spend a lot of time doing it but what's interesting though apart from jesus this antichrist gets more air time in the bible than anyone else that's why my books 400 pages long so anyway great question though okay who else we're off to a good start anyone else now don't be shy you're among friends again no stupid question the only dumb que here we go over here the only dumb question is the one that's not asked if you have the question someone else has it too and uh first thessalonians 4 tells us that the dead in christ will be raised first right um what would you say the time frame or the time lapse between the dead in christ and the living being caught up good good question your first name great great okay great question greg um i've written a book called the rapture very creative title great glory said don where'd you come up with that well i don't know take me a long time great on the subject of the rapture actually two of them once another called the pre-trib rapture of the church then also uh another book what happens one second after we die here's what's going on and also a third book a timeline it's called look up a timeline of 50 last days events where we talk about this the next event that on the prophetic calendar is the dead in christ will rise first now there's a couple things that may happen before that but don't have to the dead in christ rise first who are the dead in christ they're not the baptists the presbyterians it's a joke by the way okay the dead in christ no they're they're people who have died in jesus christ right you know who have died believing in him and they're in his presence now they're fully conscious fully aware but they're they're they're in an in-between state uh intermediate state they don't have a body they're bodyless they're in his presence they're you know however that relates in the world of the unseen we don't know angels don't have bodies god doesn't have a body so they have some type of form there but it's not the physical corporeal form like the resurrected body of christ which they promised to get the glorified body so they're there all right at the time of the rapture of the church two things will happen simultaneously number one the dead in christ will rise the bodies that uh you know the the people that are with the lord and their bodies that are in the grave or wherever they're at they will meet and join together and they will receive a glorified body at the same time those who are alive will be caught up to meet the lord in the air and they will be changed now the first group has a resurrected body because they died the second group does not have a resurrected body it's the same body a glorified body because they're caught up and they're still alive for example if the lord jesus would come tonight we trust this whole church would be empty because every one of you has trusted christ and so as fast as you can blink in the twinkling of an eye we would be gone and then our bodies would be changed from mortal to immortal from corruptable from incur to incorruption like that and we'd be immediately in his presence in this glorified state we would join the other believers who just previously received their glorified body again they're in a state of bliss in heaven but they haven't received everything promised they will receive that and that's why paul in first thessalonians 4 18 says comfort one another with these words now someone asked the question this always comes up wait a minute now how in the world can god resurrect the bodies of you know people who have died what about people of you know you know centuries ago and then there's the famous one people ask well what about someone i've heard this a couple of times let's say someone's out in the ocean and he's on a boat he falls overboard okay and a shark eats them okay then someone catches the shark and eats the shark where's the guy's body okay well here's the answer to that god is certainly capable of putting together humpty dumpty in all the parts there however he has to do it the best answer i ever heard was many years ago i was at calvary chapel of ramona my good friend rob hubbard and i was talking on this subject and he's this young guy and i never saw him afterwards i never saw him before i don't maybe his angel came up to give me this information anyway he says does it say somewhere in the bible that god to answer your question of how is he going to put us back together that god collects our tears in a bottle i said yeah it does and he said well he's got our tears he's got our dna then right i said hmm yeah i wish i would have thought of that so i give this guy credit but he he will put us back together look if god can speak and something can come out of nothing with the universe he certainly can put us back together again but to answer your question the dead in christ it's a simultaneous event the dead in christ rise the rapture of the church takes place the new testament church is complete and then this final seven year period begins the seventh week of daniel the time of jacob's trouble where the judgments of god revelation 6 through 18 6-19 then come on the earth great questions all right anybody else here good questions by the way well we got one right here it looks like david right here yep uh in the book of revelation is talking about the um um the great who's this person well who's this uh yeah who is it referring to yes i like to hear david's answer on this now you've talked about thoughts of revelation david and because i'm sure the controversy there who is it talking about there the great prostitute the of babylon and that yeah so i've always looked at that as the false religious system that people will be taken by in the last day so kind of a culmination of kind of what we see today with we know the church is going to be taken up so the true church and true faith in christ will be taken as far as the church is concerned but the false religious system i believe is is that which would be the great deception yeah and it's not just the roman catholic church please many protestants have made the mistake saying this is you know the whole idea of worship of mary the mariola tree the roman church this and that many of you come from that background and maybe some of you are still in it but have trusted christ as savior um let me tell you something the protestant church today worldwide is just as bad if not worse in many instances there was a story about a year ago and again you can't make this stuff up this is not a babylon bee headline or the onion or something like that there is a seminary a very liberal seminary called union theological seminary in the state of new york and they had a chapel service and at the end of the chapel service the speaker called all the people to come up to the stage get on their knees and confess and repent okay not to god there are a bunch of plants that are put on stage and you're you're to confess to nature and repent for what you've done to nature that's where you confess your sins to these plants i'm not kidding you i mean this is how ridiculous the days in which we are living is and so you have the what the archbishop of canterbury he said something this last week too very very woke or camera what exactly was i'll have to look that one up because i want to deal with it this week too it's like oh what it was exactly but basically it has nothing to do with the gospel nothing to do with christ nothing to do with salvation and it's it's all this trendy stuff that's going on in the world you know you want to be popular you want to be accepted by people so you fall into the same category as these others which let me i got time to okay i got let me tell one final story here and it kind of is um it's funny i just was reminded when i said well i've been in washington state the last couple days to get back at midnight last night doing a dom accords there he's speaking a great time in pascal uh kennewick washington doing a series there it's a leadership series i was talking to the pastor stephen i hadn't thought of this story in years but we're talking about how everybody falls in line and like the archbishop of canterbury did with the woke idea you know we're woken up to the truth now and we're all be progressive we'll all be leftist in that and it reminded me of a story of people falling in line that i read in a book in the i believe it was in the 70s i forgot the name but i remember it today coming up a man named philip johnson he was a professor law professor at the university of california berkeley i think it's his name philip johnson and he wrote a book as a creationist he's a lawyer but he gave a case for creation but he talked about like the theory of evolution and it fits today with the the progressive movement how everyone is following the same thing it's a true story this guy in germany uh tells the story of what happened to him he was in an astronomy class there's a group of like 15 guys okay there's an astronomy class they took in germany and so the professor takes them up you know on this mountain for an observing session you know okay i did that when i was in junior college it's great to do you know you know you can look in the telescope and see this thing stars so anyway he gets them there and they go one after one and the professor is pointing out what they're seeing in the sky and they're all going ooh oh great this and that you know until this last guy he's the one who wrote this article and he looks goes i don't see anything what do you mean you don't see anything you know there's nothing there it's just black the professor you're crazy the professor looks it's black he forgot to take the lens cap off the telescope yet 14 guys were telling him how great it looked how wonderful it is how beautiful it was and then it goes it turns out to be you know one of these guys turned out to be a politician one bit you know it's funny how they going on to be something but isn't that interesting they're told what they gonna see what they're gonna believe isn't that the day and age which you and i live it certainly is so anyway bottom line gang of all this is we live in very exciting times but we follow one guide and that's the book the bible and the god of the bible right and he is the one we trust he is the one we follow and we don't follow the crowd we don't follow the time the people of the day we certainly don't follow the people looking through the telescope and saying when there's nothing there but where a lens cap is blocking the view so anyway god bless you and so dave i'll turn it over to you and you can do anybody got there we go one more question one more question we've got time for one more okay yes okay yeah we got three minutes to go i hope it's a yes or no question uh john 3 16. there we go okay hey brother my name is mel hey mel and my question is um in heaven will we recognize ourselves like if we've lost children or great great question mel and i'm gonna give will we recognize ourselves recognize our loved ones i'll give the answer to one of the greatest from the one of the greatest preachers who ever lived the late g campbell morgan he was once asked after a church service by a woman dr morgan will we know our loved ones in heaven and his answer was ma'am i don't expect to be a bigger fool in heaven than i am here right now and i know who my loved ones are right now okay we will know even as we are known first corinthians 13 yes we will know uh people we haven't met before we will be able to remember moses and elijah were recognizing the amount of transfiguration there wasn't a receiving eye they'd have t-shirts on or name tag or anything they you know when they there's that knowledge that's going to be there because we'll have all knowledge now again none of us can comprehend that right now knowing that but i don't know all i'll know you you know me will know the christians that have lived you know all the time the believer since adam that's the wonderful thing the wonderful promise we have in the word of god in it and so yes we will know ourselves with and we will be it's hard to imagine this but we will be sinless we're not great and and and we can't we won't have the ability to sit and someone says isn't that kind of god controlling it yeah i don't want i want that control i don't want to be able to sin anymore because we'll be be just like the lord jesus just like him you

Channel: LivingWayTV

Views: 31,789

Rating: 4.909194 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: V8l7b4LwfoA

Length: 57min 57sec (3477 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021