The Rapture Revelation Part 1 with Perry Stone

not just hungry for the word but insatiably hungry for the word because we're about to dive in tonight as you can see from this whiteboard this is going to be less of a church service and much more of a classroom setting and that's why you're here it's because you're hungry for the word our dear friend and special guest perry stone is here in the house tonight and he is here ready with a word ready to teach ready to just deliver something that i know you're ready to receive could you one more time you can stay seated i know you've been up and down but could you help me welcome perry stone to this pulpit as he comes to deliver this world thank you so much for your kindness you may be seated uh i'm going to get started just about immediately after i just make a very few quick comments um i'm very embarrassed because i you know when you don't travel with covet especially the holidays you forget how to pack i forgot my belt pam had to buy me a belt my pants would have fallen down while i was preaching had she not done that and i knew i needed a belt which i'm thankful for my wife buying a belt and then i this is so embarrassing i gained 20 pounds uh because i've not traveled 20 pounds and that's right 20 pounds and the shirt that i picked to wear which is a beautiful robber graham's shirt does not button and i've wore it for several years i'm very embarrassed at that and then i never wear t-shirts because i have i call them scarecrow arms because i never work out you know and uh so i normally would never preach in a t-shirt i would wear long-sleeve sleeve long sleeves because of that so outside of those three tribulation events that have happened in my life today we're going to go somewhere i do want to briefly say before we get started how much i i can't even express with words the appreciation and the love that we have for uh karen and rick and you all may not know this i won't go into the story but we introduced them a long time ago so he owes me she owes me yes uh but let me tell you something about friends you will in your lifetime meet three levels of friends which we won't preach on but you will meet friends who are with you when everything's going great and especially if you have a noted uh voice or ministry they're there you will find out who your real friends are when hell breaks loose on you and uh we've come through hell we're on the other side we're now at the gates of heaven knocking praise god and these two folks stood with me through thick and thin and you are friends man and uh that's that's covenant uh brotherhood sisterhood that's what the body of christ should be about is covenant thank you so much okay now i'm gonna i'm gonna select a subject that is controversial it was not controversial when i was growing up uh when i was growing up uh uh hal lindsey had written a book called the late great planet earth we call hal lindsey the grandfather of the modern day prophecy movement he was the voice sold 17 million copies of that book they did a movie and he believed in what we would call a pre-tribulation return of the lord now as a result of the scofield bible and a result of the dake's bible and a result of these are bibles with commentaries i'm sure you're familiar with and of course the renewal of the prophetic movement in the 1970s there came an interest in a subject of the return of the lord and the phrase that became very common and we'll discuss this later is the word rapture now as time progressed and the churches became larger and a second and third generation came along and also what i call first generation ministers who did not have spiritual fathers but they're good men they love the lord they they love preaching they begin to study more of what we call dominion theology or kingdom theology or a millennialism uh uh millennialism as it's called means no millennial reign of christ and we know in revelation 24 there is a thousand year reign a thousand years is that millennial we talk about but uh that group began to arise and then there was the preterist the preterists believe that most of the scriptures that i would use on the tribulation the antichrist who's coming in the future and the return of the lord were fulfilled about the time of the destruction of the temple in 70 a.d uh the problem you have and i'm going to blow plenty preterism out of the water in one minute the problem you have with the preterist doctrine that there is no antichrist nero was the antichrist there is no uh cosmic signs because josephus tells us there was a star that was like a sword over jerusalem and a comet was seen for one years that's the fulfillment of the cosmic signs and the temple was destroyed and you know fulfilling the words of jesus and the reason that you cannot accept that all those prophecies were fulfilled then is one reason john wrote the book of revelation and mentioned measuring the temple in the future in 95 a.d to 9680 from the isle of patmos preterists believe it all was fulfilled by 70 a.d they say the book of revelation was written before the year 70. two early church fathers prove that domitian was the emperor that arrested john and the mission did not come to power till after nero and so in other words i could stand here and kind of bore you with history and it would be rather boring unless you like that kind of thing just to tell you that preterism falls apart for one reason john wrote the book of revelation 25 years after the destruction of the temple in the year 70. and you'll hear me use the word maybe the apocalypse and that is the greek name for the book of revelation so we have the preterist and then we have the kingdom now dominion people now these are perhaps the most difficult to deal with because a lot of what they teach is good a lot of what they say has factual uh the kingdom and the kingdom is now and i like that it's biblical but what has basically happened in the dominion theology or kingdom now theology is that the the the and i don't want to go into the theological aspect of it it's too it's too complicated to do that but the problem you have with with that is what we call replacement theology is linked to dominion theology or kingdom now theology now replacement theology basically says that the church has replaced israel christians have replaced the jews and that all these preachers like myself that talk go to israel and talk about prophecy it's there's nothing to it because we are the kingdom the church is the kingdom now one chapter in the new testament destroys that theology it's romans chapter 11. because he talks about the gentile tree and the israel tree and all israel shall be saved and blindness in part has happened to israel now if israel is the church then this is how it reads blindness in part has happened to the church until the fullness of the gentiles you got to go there and replace every the word israel for church and everything falls apart in romans 11. so what i am i am a futurist in this sense of the word there have been prophecies fulfilled with jesus first coming dr josh mcdowell listed 39 major prophecies isaiah chapter 53 is one of the greatest chapters in the bible psalms 22 for example that indicate that jesus definitely fulfilled prophecies at his first coming he was to be born in bethlehem according to the prophet he was to be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver by his stripes on his back you were healed he was a sin offering isaiah chapter 53 so there's 39 old testament prophecies that jesus fulfilled at least now we know that's just that's just basic ones or the major ones uh in the new testament and so the interesting aspect is the old testament has 39 books the new testament has 27 books in the 27 books of the new testament according to scholars and researchers ready for this there are 318 verses on the return of jesus i will come again and receive you unto myself the lord will descend from heaven we shall be changed in other words coming of the lord verses resurrection verses coming to rule on earth verses 318. now here's my point to make to you if jesus fulfilled at least 39 major old testament ones why should i doubt he's not going to fulfill the 318 that are still left for him come on somebody give him a hand right now if you agree with that now what i would like to do however to begin this is not key up on the word rapture but let's talk about the the what did the old testament prophets know about what was coming in the future if you read what peter wrote peter wrote that the prophets searched diligently for the time of his appearing in other words it wasn't just the apostles that believed he was the messiah there were old testament prophets that started saying when's it going to happen how is it going to happen and that's why in luke chapter 1 and chapter 2 and you see some other references you have zechariah being told that john the baptist is the forerunner you have uh simeon coming in this old rabbi is saying now i can die i've seen the messiah you have anna who is an old prophetess an older prophetess as well and she's all excited because she has seen the messiah so there's anticipation of with the jewish people that a messiah is coming why was their anticipation because in what we call the old testament the very first prophecy is found in the book of genesis and it is a man by the name of enoch who was the seventh generation from adam and his prophecy is in the book of jude enoch the seventh from adam prophesied of thee saying behold the lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon the earth enoch now imagine this seven generations from adam who lived before the flood who was translated alive into heaven i mean he's out walking with god and never comes back home for dinner all right imagine he is the first man to say the lord is coming to watch this not for ten thousand saints but with ten thousand saints now there's your important point that i want to make he sees the lord coming back then let me just give you a couple more psalms 102 16 when the lord shall build up zion and that actually is jerusalem then he shall appear in his glory now again it doesn't mention he's going to catch people up he's coming to earth the bible says that they shall look upon him who they pierced in the book of zechariah and they shall say where did you get the wounds and he will say in the house of my friends that is another reference to him being on the earth zechariah 14 his feet shall stand that day upon the mount of olives i think this is verse 4 uh which is eastward in jerusalem and the mountain will cleave in two parts one part to the east and one part to the west and there'll be a great valley in between that's the return of jesus to earth to rule and reign now in the book of daniel daniel talks about seeing thrones and seeing judgment and he says there's coming a kingdom of his kingdom there shall be no end daniel chapter 2 this big metallic image and all of a sudden daniel says it's got head of gold chest and arms of silver hips of breasts legs of iron 10 toes of mixture of iron and clay and he says i saw i loved it i felt a preaching spirit coming on he said i saw a stone that was cut out without hands from a mountain that came crashing down on those feet and it all crumbled together and the stone filled the entire earth he talked about perry stone he's talking about jesus right there by the way and so the point the point is that throughout and i'm only giving you a few of these but throughout the old testament this is their concept that jewish people are hearing ready number one there will come a messiah who will be called god is with us and there's even this really bizarre verse in isaiah 7 14 a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they'll call his name god is with us so they're saying to themself okay there's going to come a child there's going to come a son isaiah 53 it's called the suffering servant that's a whole chapter on the messiah okay so here's what they knew they started realizing that if you look at all the prophets and we're talk let's let's take them let's take it up to john the baptist everybody from john backwards all the way to adam if you take the verses they're seeing they're seeing something here and this is what the orthodox jews teach today they saw two men that would be two mashiachs and mashiach is messiah and the word messiah is actually a hebrew word if you take the word that means like an anointed one you know christos in greek is the word for christ and it means the anointed one so the greek is christos the old testament is mashiach and it's one anointed with oil one anointed by the spirit all right so the so the jews then have this understanding two men are coming i'm telling you been to israel 38 times they teach this to this day in uh the yeshivas which are the jewish schools if it's religious school is coming messiah ben joseph messiah ben joseph this kind this coming messiah ben david they call it or messiah son of david they got two men here joseph will suffer as he did as joseph suffered egypt there will come a suffering messiah then they say but this coming messiah son of david david was a warrior king there's coming a messiah that will be a king that will rule from jerusalem so in their concept one messiah dies but one messiah rules and reigns as a king all right oh stay with me we're about to go somewhere so they teach this now why do they teach it because they take all the messianic scriptures and they see that they see isaiah 53 as the suffering servant could that be the messiah suffering so what they have developed today in israel is a doctrine of two messiahs all right so i ask some friends of mine that are very heavy into judaism i said tell me the idea of the suffering they say okay we believe and i believe this is going to happen ezekiel 38 and 39 there's a word called the war of gog of magog it's islamic nations that attack israel on the mountains of israel and on the jordanian side and iran will be involved turkey will be involved i don't want to go through all of libya ethiopia will be involved so in other words the there will be a savior who saves israel a human man inspired of god anointed by god he dies in the war of gog and magog but he has saved the nation of israel now the bible tells you that's not what it says in ezekiel 38 39 it tells you god saves israel that god raises up and an earthquake happens and what looks like a volcanic eruption happens and it's supernatural so that's the messiah that dies and suffers however sometime after that another messiah he's jewish will appear in israel he is a king he's a warrior he's a leader when that happens he will be the messiah that will absolutely make israel the greatest nation on earth jerusalem the capital of the nations of the world and the world will turn from its wicked ways and begin to follow after righteousness now here's where they got it really mixed up ready there is a messiah who did both who has done one of those and will fulfill the other one it is called the lamb of god jesus who the first time came to suffer and the lion of judah who the next time is coming to rule and reign as a military commanding leader monarchy all right and this is why you have the imagery in the bible of the lamb and the lion with jesus you see him suffering in uh was it john 1 27 129 right over there saint john's gospel who is this man he is the lamb of god that takes away the sins of the world he must increase john said but i must decrease and all of a sudden we see in three and a half years later the beating the crucifixion the suffering spat upon mocked all right but then that's him as the lamb that's him as the one who brings a redemptive covenant all right and he's taught he starts telling people repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand so he's not coming to do what the jews of his day thought he would do will you at this time restore the kingdom to israel the disciples asked him another one sent the mama in you know we get mama send mama to talk to jesus and said can i ask you something said who will you let one of my my boys sit on your right hand when you come into the kingdom they're thinking jesus is going to overpower rome this is what the listen this is why the pharisees started rejecting him if you're the king prove it if you're the king show us if you're the king come off the cross see the pharisees secretly were sick of roman control roman occupation roman beating up people romans arresting jews because they were not roman citizens so they'd have this concept if he's the real messiah let him prove it so he rides this donkey in which is a fulfillment of the the prophet of the old testament zechariah your king is coming unto you riding on a cold listen to me every religious jew standing there is pardon me freaking out right now because what they're doing is saying oh my goodness he is the king and that's why they because they know the prophecy he's the king he's writing the cult and the donkey oh my goodness this is it he's about to take the thing he's about to defeat rome and and watch this and then all of a sudden what do the people say hosanna hosanna which means lord save us they believe he's about to take it over there and he don't because he can't appear as the lion the first time he can only i feel the baha'is he can only appear as the lamb who suffers to fulfill psalms 22 isaiah 53 and the bible said they tried to make him a king and he ran away if you be the son of god bow before me and i'll give you the kingdoms of this world even the enemy who didn't know the plan is being used to try to preempt god's redemptive purposes can i tell you this had he become king had he accepted the offer he'd have died like any human king and there would be no redemption that's why he goes and says i'm the lamb i've got to suffer three days they're going they're going to kill me but in three days i'm coming back but i see now thousands of years later when the saints are in heaven john is writing the apocalypse he's writing it in 95 96 80 from the isle of papas but he's looking into the future thousands of years later and he said i heard a voice when they wanted to open a seventh sealed book my god can i just preach here an old sermon they said somebody tell me who's worthy to loose the seals and open the book thereof and they go to adam and say adam you can you open up this book and adam said are you kidding me i'm the one that caused the problem in the first place i fell at a tree with a snake talking to me so they go to noah say no are you worthy you saved the world with eight souls he said yeah but read the rest of the story i ended up naked in the back of a tent drunk and humiliating and embarrassing myself and my family i'm not worthy they go to david and say david are you worthy to unloose the book and david said no sir i'm sorry but i'm not i know he loved me he had a covenant with me and he gave me a kingdom but i killed a man and shut up shed his blood in an innocent blood all because i wanted his wife they can't get him out they can't get anybody worthy out of samson they can't get nobody worthy out of gideon who saved israel with 300 men but he took gold and built an ephd they couldn't get anything out of lot because lot even compromised offering his daughters to a bunch of sodomites they go on to the bible and john says i begin to weep saying we'll never know what's in the book but the angel said hold on john i think we got somebody up here that's worthy watch this and then he looked over and said i saw a lamb that had been slain yes that's how he became worthy because he was the lamb but john didn't leave him as a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes that was bleeding john said but when they announced who he was they said behold the lion of the tribe of judah has prevailed and he is worthy to open the book can i tell you why there's going to be a tribulation why there's going to be an antichrist why because in the end he's got to move from the position of a priest he's been a priest a priest is the lamb ministry a priest offers lambs in the morning and in the evening the priest handles the blood of the temple and for 2000 years he has been a high priest in heaven but i read in revelation 19 that john says but when i saw him on that horse he had a name written that no man knew and they called him king of kings and lord of lords and for him to be worthy to take this planet back for him to be worthy to set up a throne in the city of david called jerusalem for him to be worthy to bind satan for a thousand years he's got to transfer out of being a priest into being a king and in order to do that you've got to have a seven seal scroll which is god's will for humanity and only the one who is worthy to break those seals and bring the judgments on the earth is the only one worthy to rule on the earth he's the only one worthy to tell how it's done and the bible said we shall rule he'll rule with a rod of iron so i got news for you the reason god's raising up this generation is you're not just lamb seekers you're lying slayers you are the generation of the lion of the tribe of judah you are the generation of those that roar the praise like a lion you are the generation of those the lion is the king of the beast and this generation is going to be the leaders of the worship and the praise and the casting out of devils in the kingdom of god somebody give god praise in this house [Applause] now i'm going to jump ahead then come back the reason there is daniel 9 27 matthew 24 revelation 13 revelation 11 a tribulation for seven years divided up into 42 months and 42 months is so that christ will judge this earth for the shedding of innocent blood for mocking the righteous for killing the righteous if you'll go to revelation 17 18 if you look at revelation 6 part of the tribulation judgment is the blood of martyrs crying out for centuries because they said how long oh god will you not avenge us of the blood that we shed upon the earth so it's not just god getting mad at everybody boy god sure is mad right now he's about to bust him he's about to bust somebody that's not what it's about it's deeper than that all that blood from the time of abel can't kill label from then abel's blood cried out read it blood has a voice all these babies they're aborted they've never spoke a word in english but their blood knows how to speak go to genesis and read it and then the cup of iniquity becomes full that's the second part of why all this happens it says that the woman writing the beast who's the false religious system her cup is full full of the blood god said to abraham in genesis chapter 15 he said your seed is going to go to a land for 400 years or four generations but then i'm going to bring them out and i'm going to judge those pagan nations in the promised land because the iniquity of the amorites is not yet full the reason god hasn't judged america yet is he's still got a remnant that knows how to intercede no i'm serious and right when that cup gets full we start oh god forgive us god save us god repent and we're the one come on i'm gonna preach this right here we're the one repenting for the nation and the reason we've not had an earthquake take out the whole west coast the new madrid following hadn't taken out seven states the reason that we haven't had tsunamis yet is there's enough people who know their god who are in covenant with god that are left that know how to intercede on behalf of a nation somebody give the lord a praise i got to catch a breath praise god hallelujah all right now we now go back to the subject of the return of the lord now how do we know he's coming back well first of all we know all old testament verses teach coming to earth right say we say this would be coming to earth they all teach he's coming to earth but nobody it seems in the old testament had a direct prophecy of him coming to get people taking them to heaven first you track it so all these old testament prophets are only seeing one thing messiah is coming when he builds up jerusalem he appears he'll step on the mount of olives you know you know so we see okay this messiah is coming so that came that that began to introduce the teaching of the messiah comes once just to come to earth that became known as the second advent that's the phrase seventh day adventist use that became known as the second coming why would it be a second coming because there was a first coming lamb coming is the first coming lion coming is the second coming you're tracking with me so in other words we everybody started understanding i'm talking about even in the early church and the medieval times and the reformation times they all knew the lord is coming back to earth again yes the lord is coming back remember that song to earth again no i can tell you don't know what i'm talking about karen hadn't sung that one in her lifetime way back in the church got a prophecy days we did we said but watch what begins to happen i'm going to take you to the apostle paul and i'm going to show you when the rapture revelation was revealed and why god never revealed it in the old testament now this is where it gets good first of all if you'd like to write the verses down i'll go pretty fast but i'll give you the reference first then quoted romans 16 25 and while you're writing now unto now to him that is the power to establish you according to my gospel in the preaching of jesus christ according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret from the foundation of the world or since the world began first corinthians 2 7. but we speak the wisdom of god in a mystery even the hidden wisdom which god ordained before the world unto our glory ephesians 1 9 having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he had purposed in himself ephesians 3 and 9 and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in god something god's concealing something here can you see all the verses although god didn't tell adam god didn't tell noah god didn't give it all to any god didn't even tell david so he's saying here all of this stuff i'm about to show you is hidden from the foundation of the world now scholars say that and i've looked at this there are seven that the apostle paul was given seven major mysteries that no prophet of the old testament saw that he made known to the church in the letters that he wrote now we know he wrote 13 epistles and i the dr french eric is the top you know like the number three greek scholar in the world he's a friend of mine so i we differ can you can you imagine perry stone differing with the greek scholar okay i mean really the guy speaks and reads greek but he says that he said he says that uh the hebrews was written not by paul but by someone else but i personally believe that paul wrote it because paul knew all of the customs the temple being a pharisee and i think he wrote it in a higher form than to gentiles can we can we talk a little this is a school when you when you address the gentiles they did not have the knowledge the jews had of the torah and the prophets so you had to address the gentiles on a very basic koine greek level koh name is common greek that's what the new testament's written in but when you're when paul who is a hebrew is addressing hebrews he's going to bump it up that's for example like if i'm going to preach the young people i'll cut up with you and get goofy we'll have a good time but if i'm going to go to uh this has never happened i hope it don't because i would not be interested in going but if i'm going to go to harvard to teach a bunch of christian kids i'm going to go on a whole nother approach you're what you're tracking with me because they're on this certain level that they expect it to be a different level all right and i think you understand what i'm saying gentiles okay now i don't want to spend all my time on who wrote the book of hebrews so there are seven mysteries that paul will reveal to paul here's three of them the church the church's birth was hidden from the foundation of the world and only made known on the day of penalty now jesus remember jesus already said upon this rock i built my church the greek word is ecclesia it's not a new word the ecclesial was the assembly of all the community of greek and the people of greek of let's say in athens they would they would come together and they could make decisions they could remove politicians in a day back then i mean you just go up in the whole city just votes ecclesia they made the decisions they could swim the community so the church is a community that makes spiritual decisions you you track with it's a spiritual ki it's a spiritual community but it has the same authority that the greek people did when they dealt with their government so that's why the word ecclesiastes i used to think it was a new word a long time ago it's not okay so this the gentiles being blessed with a redemption redemptive covenant was also hid from the old testament and i'm going to now now it was revealed in the old testament the light shall come to the galilee which is a gentile area but the jews interpreted that to mean when the messiah's kingdom came so you see and that's why when cornelius is baptized in the holy spirit he receives the gospel they have to go up to jerusalem to explain to the apostles what happened because honestly the devout jews i'm not saying so much in the church but the devout jews did not like gentiles at all and so the even in the church they started arguing over circumcision of the male children eight days old and they said all the adult men who were becoming believers in christ had to be circumcised and they almost listen that almost split the church down the middle so this is why you had paul that become paul became according to galatians the apostle to the gentiles and simon peter became the apostles to the jews because you had to have two different leaders because some of these jews weren't accepting gentiles and some of these gentiles said foolish on you i'll eat meat sacrificed to idols if i want to hey see they weren't perfect back then oh if i could have only lived back then yeah you had your head cut off by 70 a.d too so i mean do you want that you really want that you want you want to be a martyr you know what i'm saying so it's every generation has had their issues now the third thing that's where we're going that was hidden from the foundation of the world that was revealed through to paul is the catching away of the believers to heaven to be with the lord during much of the tribulation period and i can tell you that in revelation 11 18 which is the middle of the tribulation period the judgment seat of christ is happening in heaven and guess who's there you have to be there because you have to be judged and get rewards or get or receive no rewards so by revelation you know by relevant 11 we're already there and you can read that later we may get into that later if it fits so the catching away now i'm going to give you the reference then read it so let's go through this real quick the mystery that god would form a new nation which would be a spiritual nation deuteronomy 32 21 they've moved me with jealousy with that which is not god they have provoked me to anger with their vanities and i will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people i will provoke them to anger with the foolish nation that nation is the church the church in peter peter said the church is the holy chosen generation royal priesthood holy nation moses is prophesying about the church that doesn't exist and the people who would be the believers what they call them christians and antioch christianos the you know the christians that's the greek name that's us all right so the new nation is going to be the church romans 9 24 25 and the reference uh that i mentioned a moment ago is first peter 2 9-10 about the holy nation chosen generation number two gentiles would compose this new nation and new house now i said it wasn't revealed it was hidden and it was revealed i'm going to give you a verse but they the jews misinterpreted it to put it off way down the road and didn't think it could happen that's my point i said i'm going to go here's the verse in that day there shall be a root of jesse which will stand for an insight of all the people and to it the gentiles shall seek and his rest will be glorious okay they said okay yeah when the messiah comes rules on the earth the gentiles are going to accept israel everybody everything's going to be great but when the gentile believers started coming into the covenant they didn't quite understand it all right but it was this is a revelation that paul knew and now the lord shall call thee in righteousness i'm sorry isaiah 42 6 is the next one i the lord have called the unrighteousness and will hold your hand and keep you and give you for a covenant of the people for a light to the gentiles and once again the gentiles would receive this light in isaiah 60 verse 3 then 60 verse 5 and i do want you to you know if you want to write these down these are good to have if it ever comes up again you're in a discussion and malachi 1 you can put mal period to reduce the malachi or to abbreviate it malachi 1 11. after completing the times of the gentiles god will then open israel's eyes to be saved now this is future this did not happen yet the verse is romans 11 25 for i would not have you break ignorant brethren of this mystery lest you be wise in your own conceit that blindness in part has happened to israel until the fullness of the gentiles comes in so when let me say it this way and this is a one-line statement that sums it the church worldwide is predominantly a gentile church in in every nation of the world there are messianic jews but the numbers are not massive they're not into the millions and millions now when christ finishes the church's assignment to preach around the world i'll give you the verse then the end is going to come matthew 24 14 this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come so what we call or theologians call the church age or paul called in ephesians the dispensation of the grace of god we have it now churches are still here i started to say churches are open but some of them aren't you know but you understand churches are here churches are here and you know we still after the cove thing have the opportunity to come together and we can all come together dear lord you know uh when they were at the ramp you know the newspaper got a little negative i said everybody half these people in this ministry has had it i mean really you know most of our volunteers already had it so i'm not going to go there that's just i'm just being a little you know whatever but um but my point is that the church is still here on earth the church is still preaching the gospel we're still preaching the grace of god and the reason of listen to me careful this may come into play tomorrow the tomorrow night the reason that the jesus help me i get downloads while i preach and i just got to be careful cause i'll go off on a rabbit trail and we won't come back um the the reason that judgment has not come you see earthquakes earthquakes famous pestilence and these type of things are signs but they can be selective judgment but you've not seen a major like you know where the bible talks about one-third of the birds trees are destroyed one-third of the ships we've not got to that the reason is because the church is this this is called the dis dispensation of the grace of god the word dispensation in greek is economia and it's where we get the word economy from but a better way of saying it is we are in the distribution of the grace of god we are distributing the message of the grace of god and as long as god is being merciful to forgive people then the tribulation that is mentioned in the bible that we'll talk about will not happen when the church is gone 2 thessalonians 2 talks about this when the restraining restrainer is removed then the man of sin is revealed so we need to thank the lord that we're still in the grace period ah thank you all seven of you that appreciate being in the grace period oh i'm serious i mean it could it could because if god ever lifted his hand or we concluded it whoa you better you better you know excuse me run to the hills i mean you got some hills here so you don't have to run too far but like like us in tennessee we're at the base of the smoky mountains now what i want to show you is this i want to show you why god waited till the new testament till the conversion of paul to reveal what we call the rapture anybody want to go there shout yes this this is really super well my daughter says dad cool as an o word uh but anyway it all old things end up coming back later okay so we'll pretend cool came back let's talk about paul for a moment we'll throw some scriptures out here for you to record he was a jew from the tribe of benjamin romans 11 1. he was educated under rabbi gamaliel who was a leading pharisee that's in acts 22 3. philippians and you can put again if you don't know p-h-i-l dot abbreviate philippians 3-5 he was converted supernaturally while on to on his way to damascus to arrest christians acts 9 5-8 and here's where we start into one of the in fact grant jeffries was a prophetic scholar who had written best-selling books i mean i don't even know how many books grant so grant heard me teach this walked up to me at a conference he said never in my life have i read or heard what you just preached he said that is incredible now i'm not building on me i'm just saying i'm thankful to the lord that this is in the book and we can find it that's what i'm saying but but this this look there my hair's standing up now my hair stands up when i'm preaching back home and my hair stands up and i get those bumps i said it might be braille somebody come up and read it god is speaking to me god is speaking [Applause] i did i just got i just got that how many of you had that happen that shot of the holy spirit kind of hit you there okay here we go i'm going to give you two very significant verses that i want you to write down for later okay write down now galatians 1 galatians 1 15 through 17. just write that down i'll i'll read it to you but i do want you to have a reference point galatians chapter 4 25. now this is to me one of the most interesting foundations to get into because i didn't want to come here and say we believe in the rapture and the rapture is going to happen i want to tell you why i believe what i believe maybe it's apologetic preaching i don't know but i want you know that type of thing all right here we go chapter 1 15-17 when he pleased god who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his son in me that i might preach him among the heathen immediately and by the way he then there is actually a phrase for gentiles that's basically what he's referring to i conferred not with flesh and blood neither went i up to jerusalem to them which were apostles before me but i went into arabia and returned again to damascus now when people read the bible they i did it you'll read right over that and it's very significant arabia so he says okay when i left damascus do you remember the act story they lower him in a basket right then all of a sudden paul disappears well he didn't really disappear because he tells you instead of me running up to jerusalem which had been dangerous it probably been suicidal since he converted those rabbis would have had him stoned as a heretic he goes to arabia now here's my question for you why does paul go to arabia and where is arabia galatians 4 25 for this is hagar in mount sinai in arabia and answers to jerusalem now what he's saying there is here's the nugget mount sinai is in arabia paul goes to arabia now i've tried to get a determination because he spent years in study to acquaint himself with the revelation of christ and the revelations god was given him but either nine months to two to three years there's there's a debate here on how long he's spent in arabia now god help me i feel this morning every time i talk about this so the question is why does paul go to mount sinai in arabia and the answer is that's the mountain moses got the revelation for the torah and moses went up on mount sinai for 40 days remember and rece y'all go see it clicked with everybody right there didn't and received the commandments so paul says this if i'm going to get an understanding of this jesus it might be better for me instead of going to the apostles and trying to hear what they say for me to go where moses went and see if god will visit me how many of y'all would look like to go to mount sinai hang out come on let's do a hangout on mount sinai trip and by the way the saudi government i have a friend who's already been to the saudi government is going to open up tours to mount sinai and when i find it safe i'll go i'm i mean the real deal it's there you can see the split rock you can see the hybrid the different designs on the rock you can see where the water ran you can see where the mountains burnt on top where god came down for real in arabia i have some friends that took pictures in there and came out with them years ago all right let me stay on subject perry stay on subject now here's where it gets really really interesting people have said to me well i don't see anywhere in the old testament where the wrap rapture is mentioned it wasn't because it wasn't supposed to be yet because it could not be revealed till god grafted him the gentiles it couldn't be revealed all right now stay with me look i got five paths i can get somebody pray for the preacher i'm serious because tim you know how it is when you're up here and you start just it opens up all right here we go so paul goes to mount sinai where moses received the ten commandments but the big thing is there was something that happened on mount sinai in exodus 19 which is the picture of the rapture and as as paul is studying this on mount sinai that's when he got the revelation of first thessalonians 4 of the rapture of the church in the area where moses was when this happened now here's what exodus tells us chapter all this is in chapter 19 moses is on the mountain god called israel a kingdom of priests and a peculiar treasure exodus 19 5-6 the elders were assembled with moses exodus 19 7. god said i will come in a thick cloud now hang with me exodus 19 9 and the lord came down in the sight of the people exodus 19 11. the voice of a trumpet wacks loud and long exodus 19 19. look at this one exodus 19 20. and the lord came down and moses went up so paul then gets he's there i believe he's meditating all this in the air and here's what he hears and he writes it in first thessalonians 4 16 17 watch which is the first letter he ever wrote you probably know this from the school here the bible the new testament's not in order romans was not written first then first corinthians the second first thessalonians 54 a.d was the first letter paul ever wrote most everyone agrees on that and here's what now imagine you just heard me read what happened right on that mountain recorded in the torah in exodus 19 and paul hears this for the lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the archangel and the trump of god and the dead in christ shall rise first and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the lord now look at the six things i told you from exodus 19 then go into the new testament and look at every parallel the church consists of kings and priests revelation 1 6 the 24 elders will assemble around the throne revelation 4 4. the lord will return in the clouds what did it say the cloud right the lord came in the cloud exodus 19 on mount sinai the lord will return in the clouds first thessalonians 4 17 the lord shall come down descend from heaven first thessalonians 4 16 the lord shall descend with the sound of a trump did you read where it said and the voice of a trumpet wacks louder and louder and longer i'm going to talk about that in a minute and the saints are going to be caught up to meet the lord in the air first thessalonians 4 17. so in other words he goes to arabia simply to get revelation he knows he is a jew you know as a pharisee you had to study so intent you had to be able to quote the torah by the time you were like i remember the age it's like 20 25 years of age you had the memories that they didn't have tv back then they didn't have all the distractions on social media you just studied and you repeated and you sat down with this in a synagogue and you sat down with your rabbi and i mean they do this hour after hour after day listen i know a god that can quote the entire quran word for word without ever looking at it my dad could quote the entire new testament when he was in his about 30. my mama told me said he used to say no now now i'm going to quote juanita follow me james chapter one and he quoted mama just said this that's right yeah that's right oh you missed that word there that's okay all right let's go back okay my dad could quote my dad all he did he just quoted scriptures all the time you can do it you can look you can you can train your mind to do this so paul knows the torah he knows exodus 19 that god says to him now paul god i feel like i'm going to give you a revelation hid from the foundation of the world that no one has what moses had happened to him is going to happen again because ecclesiastes says the thing which was is that which shall be and there's nothing new under the sun it's going to cycle it's going to occur again this time it won't be moses it'll be the church this time oh god i'm mighty this time it won't just be no okay okay i'm getting ahead of myself jesus help me now he comes back and then later writes his first letter watch where he talks about the coming of the lord in this letter now it didn't have chapters you understand that the scrolls had no chapters those are put in letters so we're going to first thessalonians 1 10 to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead even jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come first thessalonians 2 19 what is our hope our joy our crown of rejoicing even are not you in the presence of our lord jesus christ it is coming first thessalonians chapter 3 verse 13 to the end that he may establish your heart's unblameable and wholeness before god even our father as the coming of our lord jesus christ with all of his saints and chapter 415 and this we say unto you by the word of the lord that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the lord shall not prevent or precede those who are asleep meaning those who have died and then i quoted first thessalonians 5 23 the very god of peace sanctify you holy and i pray god that your whole spirit soul and body be blameless unto the coming of the lord jesus glory to god lord jesus christ okay so we know that happened in arabia correct so watch the book of acts book of acts chapter 7 we have stephen being stoned then we find out that saul of tarsus is holding the coats of the men stoning him then we come over there to chapter 9. and we find saul of tarsus is writing to damascus to arrest christians and a light blinds him he falls to the ground he's converted he's baptized in water this he's a new convert but instead of staying there they try to kill him he's lowered the basket but you then keep continuing when you go from chapter eight which is the rival of samara chapter 9 is paul then you have this gap and you come into acts chapter 10 and you find peter watch not paul where's paul he's in chapter he's the stoning he's in chapter is it seven i think the stoning of stephen he's in chapter nine his conversion he disappears chapter 10 is peter going to a it's gonna get good if y'all don't shout i'm just going i'm gonna do one of those now i won't mess with your mic that way just so you'll know karen i won't let him do it in my place you know so so so here we go ready here we go peter is preaching to a gentile named cornelius and god has to give him this vision of a sheet of unkosher unclean animals that jews won't eat and say arise and eat i can't eat that that's got a pig on it i'm just that's not in the bible i just thought i'd make it more dramatic no god says don't what i clean don't call common or unclean now he wasn't telling him literally to go against his conscience in eating he was showing him that if i clean clint's because he's getting ready to have him go to the house of a bunch of gentiles and here is a really strict jew who really would prefer not to go to a gentiles house are you tracking with me now i don't have time to get into the argument paul and peter had together about the gentiles it god he did i mean they're practically calling each other hypocrites or paul's calling peter a hypocrite all right never mind we don't want to get in we don't want to cause strife among the apostles tonight so here we go now you got to watch this because this is where it gets really interesting they go to an italian man's house named cornelius his whole family is there peter just starts preaching jesus to them right and all of a sudden bam the holy spirit comes out out of nowhere baptizes them in the holy spirit then he says we gotta we gotta baptize him in water now then peter has to go to explain what were you doing at a gentile's house and then he tells the apostles wait a minute god has granted gentiles eternal life what is happening as the first gentile family has just come into the covenant in acts 10 where is paul on mount sinai getting a revelation of the coming of the lord because now that the gentiles are in covenant god can reveal a mystery hid from the foundation of the world and i'm going to explain to you what the lord told me i said god why did you wait he said because if i would have revealed the rapture of i'm going to catch the saints of and you're going to be with me in heaven to jews in the old testament they would have thought it was only for them because remember they took circumcision to themselves and they thought gentiles had to go their way okay and i'm not trying to argue right and wrong who was right and wrong about circa i'm not going to do that but i'm going to tell you god knew i got to hide this thing i'll give you a pattern of it in exodus 19. because i'll give you patterns i'll give you a pattern of the crucifixion when abraham put isaac on that wood on mount moriah in genesis 22. i'll give you a picture of the cross of a snake hanging on a pole that they had to look to to live i'll give you a picture of the lamb in exodus chapter 12 where the blood of the lamb kept the death angel out of the house and where they ate the lamb they got healed i will give you pictures of my messiah but i ain't going to tell you everything and he said i'm going to give you a picture of what it's like when the lord comes down and the man of god goes up and the trumpet's blasting and they go up in the clouds together but i'm going to give it to you but i can't tell you all of it until the moment comes that all the gentiles who will believe in me know that they are welcomed in this covenant and i have a plan for both the jew and the gentile to become one new man now my friend for people who argue with you and say if the rapture was a true teaching why was it never revealed in the old testament that's your answer [Music] okay which brings us to let's let's let's leave the theological aspect of the introduction of where the rapture teaching originated through the revelation of paul and let's talk about today why is it controversial because to me personally having studied this and i have literally 12 hours of teaching on just this subject 12 hours and i'm not bragging it took years and years and years and thousands of hours of study to get that 10 12 hours but i will tell you this why is it so controversial i mean this has always bothered me okay should we not all be happy about this possibility i mean really should we not say if i did not believe in it sincerely if i if i for some reason couldn't see it because there are people that can't understand speaking in tongues and i tell people who can understand i said the best thing to do is put your brain in neutral don't let anybody talk you out of it don't read books against it study it just study and pray okay and the same thing with the rapture teaching i would rather be on the safe side stay with me and believe it perry what if you're wrong no harm done because god will never let me stand before him or christ at the judgment say perry stone i want to have a word with thee you know he's going to talk king james obviously in heaven according to some people um that was not a that was not a blast against king james tran that's why my my study bible it's king james okay but i have a word with me how dare thee that thou stood in the pulpits in america and the world and told people i was returning and told them to repent and live right how dare thee now without naming a name i don't do that i don't get up name names and you know but there was a man years ago who was pentecostal he happened to be in the church of god and he he left and started a very large church and he started the movement in the 1970s i'll never forget it of the kingdom now dominion theology and he was anti-rapture and i just want to say this and i want to say this very cautiously because i have friends i have very good friends who can't see the revelation of it and they live for god and serve god so don't get me wrong with the statement i'm about to make but i will make an observation there are people that i have met or seen and it's no one you all would know let's just make this clear okay just so people don't get crazy on blogs but there are people i've seen karen who do not believe in the rapture and they live any way they want to live they get drunk they go to they go to parties and get dog drunk and they got to drag the preacher out drunk to his house which drunkenness probably says you can't enter the kingdom they they they'll they'll get with every woman that will get with them they will i mean i don't want to go through the list but they just don't live good now here's why the rapture is good for you if we have for we who have this hope do purify ourself okay i mean like it's like oh boy i might not better do that jesus might show up no we grew up that way karen right look i remember i remember and i don't want to lose my track here because this is very important what i'm about to say but i remember that hearing t.l lowry preach anybody remember dr t lowry do you remember him bla i always wear a black suit always had a red towel always had a white shirt cufflinks he was the cufflink king of cufflinks you know and he was dark-headed back then i was 11 years of age and you have to pardon me i cannot talk about t.l without trying to imitate him you just have to do it that's guys that knew him and he's up there at a church of god camp meeting in rural virginia i'm on the back i'm 11 years of age with a bunch of guys and we're really not paying but then he was so anointed i was drawn to the i wanted to hear him he said there are some of you children sitting here that are pastors kids and if jesus would come tonight which he could your parents are going to suddenly begin to leave the ground and you'll grab your father's coattail but your hands will slip like they're filled with grease and you'll fall to the ground and go through the tribulation and be beheaded now look can i tell you that's the kind of preaching me and karen grew up in probably rick i don't know me that was old school heaven or hell turner burn no it was turn or burn it was turn to burn every sunday and you know what was so bad what was so bad and i say this sincerely is they never they they they they they were so strict that they wanted you to live right they wanted to make sure you did the right thing and they and they and they dropped i mean they did away with everything because they want to be right with god but sometimes you just lived under total condemnation now i was a single guy 14 years old and i see a pretty girl and i'd have to look at her with one eye because i feel like if god's going to pluck one out i need at least keep one [Applause] no i mean that's no that's how bad it was i'm like oh okay lord no no you but you okay some of you some of you just acted like you don't even understand what i'm talking about but you do understand i mean really you got convicted with everything you did and some of it was man but a lot of it was the lord it was a mix okay just to be honest it was both some was tradition some was bible we know that now so oh anyway so when tia lowry said that that was my first altar call i mean when he came you better run and they started running i tell you what's a hoot it's when the preachers start running oh my god and the pastors are running oh god forgive me it's like man we're having church tonight are we but but let's go back to the original point how much time do i have by the way roughly somebody's got to give me a a a caboose 30 minutes i don't even know how long i've gone i haven't is that okay cause i do want to put a caboose cause i promise you i could keep you here all night long it wouldn't be good uh you know we'd be sleeping on the floor habits to still be preaching yeah just stay here and wait for the school to start tomorrow why not so what so what so what i want to go back and show you is that that the reason this is fought is confusing to me now before i tell you about the word rapture which maybe i should do that first and say this second i want to point out something to you that came to me that i believe okay in the book of heb the reason i think it's dangerous like if i didn't believe it my attitude should be i don't know if i see that but look if if it happens i want to go and if we're wrong we're just going to have to serve you know if the guys are saying it wrong we're just going to have to serve god make it through it that's the that's the safest way to just kind of okay be neutral kind of put your mind neutral instead of being i mean i've heard people they i've had people write me saying you're going to hell for preaching the rapture christians i've had them write me and say you're a heretic and you're going to burn and you're preaching false doctrine when i say rapture on my television program i get more hate mail from christians than anything i do it's unbelievable my staff won't even show me the email anymore i just have something called fire file 13. i said just put it in 5 13 it's a shredder like a preacher that had a boat named visitation and when he wanted to go fish he said tell the folks i'm out on visitation that might not be totally honest i don't know so um i was reading in the book of hebrews and you'll find this in chapter four and actually it's scattered throughout the book of hebrews where where assuming it's paul he is writing about the unbelief of people and he's specifically dealing with israel and he's saying god brought them out of the of the of egypt into their land but they fell into unbelief then he starts saying you be careful unless you have an evil fart oh go ahead put it on put it on your social media i said it okay i have not seen my wife all right for you preachers this is how to destroy a sermon 101 right here this is how you do it that's how you do it okay let me quote it again the right way because that's the greek word that's mentioned there okay so it's not really i'm trying to preach to you fast i want to say this right be be beware be careful unless you have an evil heart heart heart of unbelief and then he says this then he's i'm going to give you some verses he says then you'll fall short of the promise now 11 times in hebrews he uses the word rest entering into rest entering into rest about 10 times out of those 11 it's the word for uh like chilling out relaxing uh you know what we would say like i'm going to lay down a rest it's kind of that meaning one time he uses the word i think the greek is sabbatismos which is the sabbath so he's basically saying this if you do not if you fall into unbelief you will fall short of your eternal sabbath and i thought okay this is getting heavy and i started reading all the verses about unbelief unbelief unbelief and how the unbelief came from the children of god he's not dealing with sinners he's dealing with israel and he's warning the church you cannot go into unbelief you will fall short if you go and i believe and karen i'm sitting up i think i was i was in the office or a hotel room but i remember when it came to me i'm at a desk i remember that and the lord said son i'm just listening you know he said if you do not believe i can save you can you be saved i said well i can be saved he said no you don't need to hear me if you don't believe it i said sir you can't be saved unless you believe because with the heart you believe with the mouth he said that's right he said let me ask you another question if you do not believe in the baptism of the holy ghost and speaking in tongues can you receive the gift i said you can't receive anything any gift in unbelief he takes me through every blessing that he provides in the bible i'm sitting there just thinking and he says if you are in a belief toward that can you can you experience it what about healing he said if if a man comes through with the gifts of healing and you're sitting there in sick but you said i don't believe in all this what will happen i said nothing he said what happens to people who don't believe in the rapture what happens to people who mock the idea that i could return doesn't matter mid or post or whatever but if they say it's not true i said oh no oh no they endanger themself of not experiencing the blessing because god cannot honor unbelief so my and i tell friends of mine who say i don't know about all that come on perry come on perry you know but and i said listen to me here's the best way to do it when you're talking about it saying i don't have the whole revelation on this i'm not sure about some of the things i hear however i hope it's true don't y'all hope it's true i mean don't you hope that we get out of this thing you know eventually and we're with the lord and we get our rewards and the world can the world can just go through its time frame and then we'll come back and take the whole thing over and straighten it up right that's what that's what will happen so the biggest i'm gonna i'm gonna give you just a few quick arguments of what i hear about when i teach the rapture and this is the most common one we get emails on why does perry use the word rapture when it's not in the bible you hear that's that's that's number one you will hear it all the time i remind them first of all our bible that we read is an english translation from the corner greek and i point out a couple things number one we use words all the time in the church that are not in the english translation the word demon is not in the english translation of the bible it comes from the word possessed evil spirit foul spirit unclean spirit is you won't find we talk about demons demons demons demons that's not a word that's in the bible where does it come from it comes from the greek word for possessed by a spirit i don't want to try to pronounce i can get wrong demonized i think is how it's pronounced demon demon a demon or demon in classical greek was a lesser god the phrase millennial reign will rule and reign with christ for a millennial for during the millennial reign millennials not in the bible 1000 years is but in but in latin thousand years is what millennium you've got decades century millennium et cetera the phrase second coming and second advent the phrase trenton trinity bless the trinity we think about the trinity we preach about the trinity trinity means try unity or three father son holy spirit so my point is that throughout the church we use words that are not in the translation of scripture but we know what they mean because the english word tells you the connotation of what you're talking about if i say i'm in the same in church the trinity you who know anything say oh that's father son holy spirit that's true try unity three three or one see you know so the word rapture is not in the english translation but let me tell you where we where how it was derived the etymology etymology of the word here we go years ago let me go back to the beginning the new testament 27 books are written in what's called coin greek there was classical greek that was konigree culinary is the common greek they wrote it in common greek so that common people could either read it in the language or understand it when it was interpreted very simple okay hang on just think i want to i want to make sure if i want to go in that direction or not okay the greek manuscripts were copied and given to the churches and copied and given to the churches first century second century third century and then the catholic church had a man that was a rebellious priest named saint jerome if you read about saint jerome he was saying that the the goatees of the of the priest looked like goats goats faces and he was just blasting them and they just sent him off you know jerome was jerome got hardcore so they sent him to bethlehem and i've been in the cave where he did this saint jerome wrote it took him years the he took the new testament and translated it to latin and he had jewish people helping him with different words he had people he helped him he wasn't just doing i mean he was not he could speak several languages he actually heard that rome had fallen and this is in the earlier time earlier time and he wept but the roman empire would eventually be no more there's a whole story on that saint jerome was reading first was translating first thessalonians 4 16 17 and it read we shall be caught up together that's greek caught up harpazzo harpazo means to snatch out suddenly snatch out by force in modern greek it would be because i asked a guy who owned a restaurant who was greek i said harpazzo how do you what does it mean he said oh yes he said uh let's say your child is in the street playing and a car is coming and you see danger he's about to get over and you grab him by the hair of the head and yank him back so the ramp is going to be when god grabs you by the hair of the head you better get you you better get you some hair somewhere you know get to get the get the back or get the ear maybe maybe he'll grab you by the ear you know but that's not how he's not going to yet but he's saying that's what the modern word meant right i'm just cutting up with you here so jared pazzo and it's mentioned by the way in four other places paul was caught up to the third heaven the man child uh in revelation 12 was caught up to the throne of god paul was caught up to the third heaven same greek word it means to relocate from one location to another move to get out fast okay so saint jerome says what do i use in latin for harpazzo and there was a word that we get repaired which is rapture and we bring it back over to the word rapture in the english translation which means to be caught up it can be called it can be caught up with joy caught up with ecstasy caught up in a vision caught up in a dream uh caught up from one location to another so he puts that word there so when you hear rapture it is not a word that somebody made up that some people are telling you it is from the latin translation of the bible which became the common translation in the roman church from about the 5th sixth century all the way through and they still in the older churches of europe use the latin if you've ever gone to a catholic church if they're especially the italians i know about the italians because i is one so i said that the way i wanted to by the way so that's where the word itself comes from the importance of it is not the word you use because i can take you to the words to the apostle paul maybe i can do this real quick i can take you to the apostle paul where he said another phrase that is almost never preached on he said but you're coming to mount zion unto the city of the living god the heavenly jerusalem to an innumerable company of angels to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven that means your name's in the book of life and the god of all judges and the spirits of just men made perfect now the fact that he said the spirit of just men made perfect he's alluding to here when the lord comes for the church we all get to heaven we have a glorified body and we're made perfect so he's not necessarily talking about right now he's talking about then and he calls our gathering together the general assembly that's funny we know about that too don't we of the church of the firstborn so general assembly is the greek word panegurus and it means all assemble two words to assemble all and it meant it meant men women children everybody in the community so when a general assembly was called and the church of god church got a prophecy had general assemblies every so many years and all the church families men women boys and girls all came together and this is where they got the word from was from this verse right here then also paul talked about actually let me let me finish my statement here the the the word general assembly panagurus means all in a symbol it alluded to when the greeks assembled at festival events and the games they called themself a cloud of witnesses so when all of them all got together they were the cloud of witnesses watching the games and people run and paul said let us run the race with patience for we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses see some of these things you may not understand you understand the cultural setting of that day and that's one of them which makes more sense okay then there was then paul talked about the gathering together we shall be gathered together okay the greek word for gathering together ii thessalonians 2 1 we beseech you brethren by the coming of our lord jesus christ and our gathering together and i might as well bring this point out now the coming of the lord and the gathering together are two different events the coming usually refers to when he returns to earth the gathering together is when we are caught up to meet him so in other words there is a coming for the saints to go up and there's a coming with the saints to come down and the rapture is the one of which we go up john 14 in my father's house for many mansions if it were not true i would have told you i go prepare a place for you if i go prepare a place for you i will come again and receive you unto myself that where i am that's heaven there you may be also we have to take a trip to heaven i have some friends of mine that believe in the youtube theory we're going to go through the whole tribulation trump's going to sound we're going to a u-turn turn around come back i never understood that why don't we just change this on earth why don't we even have to go up just forget the going-up part someone somebody told me you know kids are so funny they'll say you know i'm really scared of heights that's why the lord said it's going to happen in a moment in the twinkling of an eye you won't even know it's happened till it's happened somebody needs to say praise god for that if you're afraid of heights you understand what i'm saying the gathering together the the the the let me let me read these verses the greek word for gathering together second thorns 2 1 and assembling together in hebrews 10 25 is episode which is a complete collecting which would be alluding to the dead in christ and the living and the jews called this the great assembly so um give me give me a second let me look at this all the people the great assembly procedure all the people both men and women would assemble on the seventh year a platform was set up in the temple area as the crowd and when the crowd arrived the king ascended to the bema or the platform it's what it was called in greek the king handed the torah to the synagogue president who gave it to the high priest's watch he handed the scroll do you remember revelation there's a seven seal book and the scroll is taken out of the father's hand and given to who the high priest who is jesus all the symbolisms here see that you see in prophecy the high priest pastor the king who ascended received it personally read from it this is cool gold trumpets were used on this occasion gold trumpets now there's three kinds of trumpets shofars which are animal trumpets there's two kinds of shofars the ram's horn which is the small one and the antelope horn which is the large one and a shofar is a shofar but different uh jewish groups use different ones some prefer the small but during big festivals they usually use the larger because they're louder you can hear them better all right so far then there were silver trumpets in number 10 numbers chapter 10. i don't want to make another blueprint i'm being very careful number chapter 10 they were two silver trumpets and what they were used for was one was blown for the get to get the camp together assembling the camp and when they blew the second that was weak but when they blew the second one they would march so one was to get them together and the other one was movement all right i got i got i'm going to end this real big in just a minute so hang with me then there is a gold trumpet okay now gold represents deity silva represents redemption so is the trump of god that sounds at the rapture the voice of god which according to the old testament in the book of exodus 19 the voice of god was the trumpet or is there a gold trumpet only god has that's pretty cool to think about but a trumpet's going to sound all right so there are people who have a difference and we're not going to be dealing with this during the study because this gets too deep too complicated too theological and it splits hairs but i personally believe in pre-trib that's just me because i've studied enough and the jewish wedding is the pre-trib picture and that is amazing do you ever see that karen when we did that it is it will just it yeah it's just one of those things like okay this this proves it and we may touch that if we have time tomorrow we may not we don't know but the point that i want to make is that um well you know what i have to do this i have to okay let me save that later because tomorrow's a real heavy one tomorrow's super cool it explains a lot of quick questions but i'm gonna show you something here years ago i did this at ramp five years ago four years ago but i'm going to draw it out and show you something now now this is this is the last thing i'll tell you tonight of course paul said finally my brother and he kept writing so who knows okay there are three festivals i'm gonna put and if i type and misspell i cannot type and talk i can't write and talk at the same time i really can't three feasts that should be plural okay there's actually seven total i'll go over them in a minute there's three feasts that are very significant there's three harvests and if you understand this this will really show you the picture okay first let me talk about the seven feasts and i wish i had take i've taken the time to just write all this all over the board so you can really see it god established seven festivals here's the order passover unleavened bread first fruits fourth one pentecost all right then trumpets then atonement then tabernacles they cannot be broken they must go in that order you cannot put unleavened bread before passover you cannot put pentecost where tabernacles is you cannot they cannot be broken now watch what i'm going to share with you four of those festivals three have happened one we're in now and three have not happened passover is exodus 12 but it's also jesus the lamb dying at the cross at passover the next day he is in the tomb wrapped up that's unleavened bread there's a whole story of unleavened bread he's sinless no leaven then the next day begins well actually this this one is for seven days but then you have first fruits you know when jesus showed himself alive and said touch me that's first fruits okay and i don't want to get into the whole the first rich thing is the whole picture of jesus resurrection all right so you had his crucifixion his burial his resurrection at passover unleavened bread first fruits then they count 50 days from passover and they come to pentecost you know where that one is obviously acts chapter two one through four when the day of pentecost was fully come the holy spirit came right birth of the church pentecost and it happened when on the feast of pentecost now in reality we have been living at pentecost which is a church age we have not entered into prophetically anywhere in history trumpets atonement or tabernacles trumpets a hundred trumpets are sounded and there's only two verses in the whole testament about trumpets call a sodom assembly don't work take a rest and blow trumpets really weird for what it's called the it is the feast of mystery because nobody knows why you're supposed to do it even the jews will tell you we don't know why we're supposed to do it they give reasons then from trumpets 10 days later is atonement atonement is god judging for sin five days later is tabernacles and it's where the jews and gentiles come together in jerusalem have this big whoop celebration it's unbelievable here's the three events that's going to happen ready the rapture the tribulation and the lord coming to set up the kingdom that my friend trumpets is the rapture atonement is the tribulation and tabernacles is the kingdom that's why it's not happened yet because we've not got so the next festival to happen is trumpets which is the trump of god sounding and when that last trump we shall be caught up isn't that great now let me say this to you this is what's important this is this is one of the strongest arguments for pre-trib just like you cannot take the three spring festivals out of order it's you can't have first fruits and then passover death follow you must have crucifixion the lamb buried in the tomb wrapped up the bread from heaven wrapped up in the tomb right you're tracking with me then resurrection and showing himself alive during first fruits because paul said is the first fruits of the resurrection right you can't take it out of order you have to have pentecost after the spirit comes after he goes back to heaven that's what he said i can't send the spirit till i'm gone so we're we're in the flow so the next thing that has to you hear me has to happen you cannot throw a tribulation and then three and a half years later a rapture because if you did that you put atonement first and then trumpets you can only have trumpets next it is impossible to put tabernacles ahead of trumpets meaning you can't have a kingdom now not not ate in the weight we are we are a spiritual kingdom but you can have a king with a with a political kingdom that a monarchy that jesus is going to bring and put it ahead of atonement and trumpets it's impossible god keeps the order the next order is this mysterio behold i show you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall be changed in the moment in the twinkling of an eye at the sound of the last trump for the lord shall descend from heaven with a shout out the voice of the archangel and the trump of god trumpets is next but we haven't had it because we're still at pentecost which is the church age and the outpouring of the holy spirit that's going to happen and when that's done then we have a rapture then you go into atonement which is the judgment where god judges israel for their sin and their iniquity you ready and on the day of atonement every jew will tell you there's three people there's people whose name names are in the books of heaven there are people whose name is not in the book of heaven and there are people that are in between whose name is not in the book and they're not really in and they're not really out and i can take you to the book of revelation and show you after the rapture you got people whose names are going to be put in that book because they're going to die martyrs you have people who are going to not repent at all who are going to die lost and their name will never be in the book and you got the in between who've got to decide and it's in the book of revelation that's the atonement that's the that's the picture of the festival of atonement and the tribulation and then when it's over revelation 19 the king comes back to rule revelation 20 for a thousand years and that's the kingdom where the jews and the jed what does it say about the jews he shall sit on this great shofar and bring his elect from the four corners of the heaven back to the city of jerusalem bring them all back together and the jews and the gentiles read zechariah will celebrate the feast of tabernacles hello kingdom so that's a good that's a great argument if we want to use it i want to argue people but that's a great argument for pre-tribulation but here's the other one ready i just i said i'm going to talk about it but i couldn't help myself all right out of seven feasts there are three significant and it's i'm gonna try to abbreviate this passover unleavened bread and first i'm just gonna put first fruits first fruits all right no no no i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm i'm i'm i'm going i'm going backwards that's what happens when you don't preach in a while during the holidays your brain gets dull passover here we go pentecost and i'm going to explain this in a minute while these are important and tabernacles the and i have all the verses here but to conserve time i won't read them but let me just share this with you these three out of seven it says in exodus every man has to go to attend am i right so this is this is one day but you have to be there with a lamb this is one day you have to count to get there this is seven days right why would god say i want you here at these three why did he say come up to trumpets and celebrate why does he wait to tabernacles um you got passover here but and and you got you know unleavened bread in seven days but why does he say passover he does mention by the way unleavened bread which borders lines this but i don't want to confuse you watch this one two three you know what's significant about these three every one of them have a special harvest connected to it that's what makes them different passover is barley it's the barley harvest that's when you that's when it that's when the barley starts ripening then pentecost is the wheat harvest because if you read what they did at pentecost they took and made two loaves of bread and waved them on the feast of pentecost so the the the wheats ripened by then now by the way this is usually march or april this is usually may or june and this is usually september october so you got one spring early summer and fall it's important too tabernacles is grapes you ready to track with me for just a minute i love you all y'all just pay such great attention you may be bored out of your mind but you sure don't look like it okay i want to show you what's significant about these three barley is the raptured saints wheat is the 144 thousand jews that are caught up in the middle of the tribulation because this feast falls in the middle and the grapes are the people judged during the tribulation at the last part how do i know that here's how i know that ready because at passover the priest goes i'm going to just put these little up like it's grain the priest goes into a field that he has planted outside the eastern gate jerusalem and does what's called first fruits not the feast of first fruits but gets a first fruit of the ripened barley and pulls it out of the field and leaves the rest of the field wonder what that pulling a segment of the ripened barley up refers to maybe it could refer to the rapture that's funny now here's the then then then you have then you have the rest of the field right you have you still have the res you just got you just got this much taken rest of it's still growing okay then for 49 days they'll go and count the omer and pull stalks of grain to prepare for wheat harvest then after 49 days pentecost comes then there's the grape harvest here now what's interesting is how you have to harvest these three barley is a hard grain but wheat is harder than barley okay but oh i look i'm getting i'm going all over the place with this i realize this i'm trying to get this to where i can get everybody to understand it do you know that when they when you read the book of revelation there's 144 000 jews in chapter 7 that appear in heaven in chapter 14 they're on earth in chapter 7 they're in heaven in chapter 14. they have been caught up out of the earth and in chapter 10 of revelation jesus is sitting on the throne with the crown with a sickle in his hand and he's going to the grape harvest called the wine press of the wrath of god to crush the grapes and bring the tribulation on the earth stay with me now okay to get the barley you went to it you cut it down keep throwing it up and the wind blows the chaff away that's what he's doing to the church he's getting rid of the chaff and the wind is the holy spirit however you have to do wheat different that's going to get you right here ready i saw a board with rocks in it i said what in the world is this thing they laid it down and they said what you do is in the old days you lay the wheat down because it's very hard and you get an animal and you stand on the board and that separates the this you know the inside shell from the outside shell really i said what's the board called he said in latin it's called tribulum which is in latin where the word tribulation would root for tribulation notice they don't use the tribulation board for the barley harvest the wind the wind does the job there was a sound on the day of pentecost like a mighty rushing wind and it was the spirit of god so the wind does the separation the spirit of god deals with you the holy ghost separates stuff out of you you don't have to go through tribulation to do it sometimes you might that's the hard way preach i will but there is a tribulation it's the word of matthew 24 it's in the book of revelation the great tribulation that is not here with barley that's here with wheat and that's why there is a separation of the wheat and the tear in the parable i should have just stayed on this all night now it says that in the book of revelation i think it's uh chapter well chapter 10 is the grape harvest but chapter 14 uh 14-16 it says the grapes are thrown into the winepress of the wrath of god that's the greater tribulation the last three and a half months so watch this let's just put up seven years ready seven years okay in those seven years this is my how it interpreted barley harvest is at the beginning wheat harvest revelation 14 is in the middle and the final harvest is at the end it's all in that seven year time frame now here's another cool part i've got to wrap it up i promise some of you haven't eaten all day i know you're suffering right now i can tell by looking at you right watch this watch this there's three parts to this harvest ready first fruits then main harvest and then the the last part is called gleanings this is all this is all in the old testament again i've got all my scriptures here but it would take too much time and you can we can get this to you later perhaps first fruits is not the whole field it is only a small remnant not everybody goes in the rapture only those who look for him shall he appear a second time that's why you need to believe in it that's why you need to serve him every day that's why they keep a repent spirit do the right thing okay but then you have the first fruits then they come along and guess what they do they start harvesting the entire field but the law of god said leave the gleanings in the corners why do you leave gleanings in the corners because when the main harvest is done this is for the stranger and the poor to come so in the process of the book of revelation and the process of the church here's how this works the field is the world you'd agree with me on that from the parables right the field is the world the sower sows the seed the seed is planted to produce the the harvest which is the word of god being preached to produce these are souls in this field are sinners wheat and tear weeds we can be the children of the kingdom but terror is not tears the children of the enemy so the wheat tear grow together until harvest time then i send my angels god says to separate them so when the rapture happens there's a remnant of people off this planet going because they're looking for it they believe it so that's the first fruits this is the law of harvest this is israel's law of harvest and the high priest is the one that gets the first fruits he's the one that takes the sickle or goes out and marks them and pulls them from the ground the high priest but the high priest does not do the main harvest harvesters get the main harvest and that's in the tribulation where the message is being preached and the angels of god are coming down from heaven and preaching and the two witnesses are preaching they're getting the rest of this harvest ready so there will be a main harvest after first fruits is caught up you're tracking with me because there's a whole lot of people in heaven that are martyrs if you read the book of revelation 6 and there's 144 000 people jews from the 12 tribes going so that's that's this is just you know that's one part of it i'm not going to get into numbers here how many this is what then the gleaning of the field is what is left when it says he gathers his elect at the end when jesus comes back the angel blows the shofar matthew says this and they gather his elect from the four winds of the four corners and bring my god and bring them to the city of jerusalem and the elect there and the corners there refer to the jewish remnant that survived the tribulation and that happens not at the beginning not in the middle but at the end of the seven year tribulation period so i'm going to conclude with this i think i've studied hebrew roots of christianity he breaks stuff i've studied with rabbis i've studied their material for years and i'm not saying you should do that because you have to be very careful studying rabbinical judaism judaistic sources or judaism because they get into weirdness if you're not balanced in the word forget it just read books by christians who have studied it for you i'm serious because i've seen people go way out on a deep end with this but if you if you if you don't if you want to understand new testament revelation the foundation will be in the old and so you now begin to see things like this and say oh good it's been there the whole time it's been there the whole time so what we're going to do tomorrow and who's you taking it tim from here you're going to dismiss i know it is i looked at you and it's just like that was a okay perry micah that's really hilarious i'm making some bloopers i need to shut up karen and go home and sleep that's what i need to do that's what we're going to do but i want to say this to you tomorrow night tomorrow night we'll be back and there is a research i did i don't know of that many people that have ever heard this and it is absolutely one of my favorite messages of my entire life and i've not preached it that often and it's going to explain something to you that will make so much sense and so we may end up hooping holland running the aisles tomorrow you never know i do thank you for being here but i know you were probably required to be here maybe and that's a little different but uh i hope you learned something muse it around go back and talk about it talk about it you know throughout the next week and see maybe what you can come up with micah [Laughter] you know they say when you get older you're always reverting back to something so that's funny

Channel: Ramp Church Hamilton

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Length: 104min 29sec (6269 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 18 2021