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god bless you you may be seated in the name of the lord i'm going to i'm going to reprise a little something that i talked about a while back and we're going to go to the book of titus again peter said this he said that we should be ready to give an answer for what the hope the hope how can you people be hopeful in an era in in which we live we should be ready with an answer because as brother brother brad preached and talked last week we are ambassadors of jesus christ this world we used to sing about this stuff we used to sing our theology it's disappearing from our vocabulary not just i'm not talking about locally but i'm talking about in the religious world it's disappearing from our vocabulary we don't talk about the hope of the coming of jesus christ as much as we should but that's what impels us that's what keeps us going and it should be it should be the very reason that drives us in everything that we do jesus is coming soon he said in revelation behold i come quickly that's an adverb that's how he's going to come but he is coming soon that's when he's going to come so titus says or paul writing to titus says this verse 11 for the grace of god that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust we should live soberly righteously and godly hmm we could take off and launch from there rapture's checklist right there how we should live in this present world soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great god and our savior jesus christ oh i want to see him look upon his face amen it was our hope it is our hope it's the hope of the church to reiterate some things that i said last time uh when paul wrote to the church at thessalonica and you can see let me just lay some things out here my goal in teaching let me let me just give you my philosophy

if i only tell you things that you've heard many times over i haven't taught and you haven't learned right if you go to school first grade two plus two four four plus four eight i go back the next year and they say okay we're gonna start here two plus two is four two four and four plus four is eight say man i i've heard that last year i wouldn't want to go through 12 years of going 2 plus 2 is 4 and 4 plus 4 is 8. and yet we have and this is the challenge that we have to bridge the gap between what you know and what you don't know and my i'm telling you you better hope that we're out of here before the challenge comes to us you gotta you get you gotta take this mark or you're not gonna be able to buy or sell or or do any kind of business at all don't don't look at me like i got two heads it's coming because the word of god says it's coming if if i could i wish i had time to tell you all about the things listen there are things going on in the world today and uh there's this push we know we've heard about one world government and all this kind of thing but but it it doesn't bother me so much what i can see we wrestle not against flesh and blood we're not it's not the things that i can see that worries me so much it's the things that i can't see and the weapons of our warfare if we're not careful we want to tackle people instead of the real forces behind the people there are forces at work in this world today that that are trying to establish a government uh for the world now they've gone from a unipolar type of government where it would have been centralized in the united states to a more uh type of government but it's all going to the bible talks about that that 10 kings are going to arise and they're going to give their power to one they're going to give their power to a a beast so so these things are taking place right now there is in uh abu dhabi there's a community that's being built it's called the abrahamic family center back in 2019 pope francis and the grand imam of islam and a jewish rabbi they all signed a document called the document for human dignity and so due to be finished in 2022 is this abrahamic family center there is a synagogue there is a mosque and there is a christian catholic church all in the same place not a surprise because the bible talks about a false prophet that is going to give power to this image of the beast and and it's going to be a two-headed thing this this beast is going to be one political and it's also going to be uh ecclesiastical it's going to be it's going to be religion there folks it's coming i know we we don't like to look at these things some of us are planning like we're going to be here for the next thousand years it's not going to happen if we you preached a while back it's closer than you think it's closer than you think these things are stacking up and we are now in the bottleneck of prophecy and we're seeing these things toppling one after another as quickly as they can they can come so does it worry us no it should not be a thing of fear to us when we talk about the rapture of the church and the end of all of these things because again i believe that the church is going to be caught away just like the bible said that it would amen

the rapture and the reason we know it is this the harpazo is the the greek term harpazo it means to be caught away we get the the rapture part from the latin term but it means to be caught away and that term is in the bible that we're going to be caught up we're going to be snatched away suddenly hallelujah you're going to get up one morning and you're going to be getting ready for work and you know fixing your hair brushing your teeth getting ready to walk out the door and suddenly brother basil god is a musician and not just a musician he he doesn't play a keyboard he doesn't play the guitar but he does have a trumpet and somewhere there is an angel rummaging through these old closets up there and and it runs across this trumpet and it says on their engraved the trump of god i wonder what will happen if i blow this thing and the lord himself is going to descend with a shout of the archangel and with the trump of god and the dead in christ are going to be raised the reason we know it as a rapture is because we which are alive are going to be caught up with the dead it's all a part the rapture is really a part of the resurrection program i got a lot of things to say if you can listen real fast but the rest of the dead revelation 20 uh verses five and six the rapture is a part of a greater program called the resurrection program the resurrection of the dead and it says this but the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished this is the first resurrection everybody prior to this there were seven major resurrections in uh after the resurrection of jesus christ that took place and you know there were a bunch of people when when jesus was resurrected there were the those that came out of the grave and went into the holy city the bible says well they were just like lazarus and the rest of them they didn't get caught up to heaven they just went ahead and lived their lives it was a resurrection but it was on the heels of jesus resurrection there were a lot of there it's a part of the resurrection program so the first resurrection you don't want to be a part of the second resurrection the second resurrection is when all the all of the unrighteous are resurrected and they're going to stand before the white throne of of judgment and it's unique language that's used in revelation it says it keeps calling them not the living it calls them the dead the i saw the dead small and great stand before him i saw the dead and that's where we were let me take this little sidebar here that's all of us before we came into this thing we were dead in trespasses and sins but you have been quickened and made alive by the power and the spirit of jesus christ and if you've got the power and the spirit of jesus christ living in you you're going to be a part of that resurrection that first resurrection amen blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection on such the second death hath no power but they shall be priests of god and of christ and shall reign with him a thousand years amen

the resurrection was a well-known idea in the old testament it was a belief and a feature of the old testament as well elijah had a resurrection he raised the widow's son in first kings 17. elisha raised back to life the shunamites son so they knew what resurrection of the dead was okay and there's a key term here a moabite remember when elisha was was buried in his sepulchre and and the moabite was thrown in on his on his bones and he came back man that was some kind of power but that was the last miracle of elisha which gave him exactly twice as many miracles which is what he asked god for he wanted twice the power of his predecessor elijah and so in second kings chapter 13 a moabite came back to life when he was tossed in on the bones of elisha this doctrine was stated by job in chapter 19 and verse 26 he said for i know that my redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth this is the hope of every good jew right now they are looking for messiah they're looking for him and though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh i shall see god hallelujah david in psalm chapter 17 said this as for me i will behold thy face and righteousness i shall be satisfied when i awake with thy likeness hallelujah are you getting kind of excited hearing these things listen we should be because we this corruptible flesh is going to be laid aside in favor of something that is far more grand than we can anticipate imagine or even conceive hallelujah i'll be sad there's not a whole lot of satisfied people around anymore you know and they've got a right not to be satisfied because the future just ain't what it used to be amen but david said i'm going to be satisfied when i stand in your presence i awaken your presence and i'm going to awake with your likeness daniel chapter 12 verse 2 he said and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt you want to be a part of the first resurrection not the second resurrection amen

in jesus ministry he introduced his ability to raise people from the dead amen it was a new concept you've got to follow me here the old testament saints believed in a resurrection of the dead at a point in time all of the dead were going to be raised but jesus said i'm going to show you something here i'm not going to raise everybody but i'm going to select some people and i'm going to raise them out from the midst of death and so there was jairus's daughter that he walked into the room and he raised her from death back to life there was the widow's son at nain who he stopped the funeral procession and he raised a child back from death into life and then of course there was lazarus can you imagine what it must have been like for these people at lazarus's tomb they were all weeping they were all crying and and they even made the confession just like an old testament uh believer would oh i know that he's gonna live again on the last day at the end of time when all the dead are raised back to life but jesus said let me stop you right there i am the resurrection and the life don't have to wait for a future time i'm going to do it right now and he he raised lazarus back to life it was a novel idea that was being introduced by jesus not a resurrection of the dead but a resurrection from the dead you follow me out of the midst you know sometimes god's when he delivers us he delivers us from some things meaning from the edge of he doesn't allow us to get into the mess but there are other times when we get into the mess right in the middle of it and he delivers us from out of the midst of the problem or the issue and this was the introduction of the idea which jesus was putting forth not a resurrection of all the dead but a resurrection from the dead and they did scratch their heads and and they said i don't know what you're talking about man can you imagine walking with jesus watching everything he does he even gives you power to go out and heal people and cast out devils and raise people back from to life and and then he begins to teach you these things and you're still like huh what are you talking about the bible says in in mark the ninth chapter that they they did not understand what he was saying and in luke chapter 24 it says then was their understanding opened there's something about this holy ghost i'm i'm glad i've got the map okay i believe in this book right here you ought to be able to take this book and open it up put your finger on a passage and say i believe that and if you don't you fall into the camp of unbelief i'm not talking about i believe part of it the devils believe part of it and they tremble they believe part of they don't believe all of it though satan still thinks he can win this thing he's he's still making an effort to win this thing he thinks he can win this thing because he don't believe this i believe this book right here i believe it and i'm glad for this book it's it's a map of the territory of life but beyond that i've also got a guide that lives within me that quickens this word and makes me to understand what he's trying to tell me in this book so it's not just the book but we have a holy spirit from god that lives within us that opens our understanding to these things we should not be ignorant of what satan's trying to do we should not be ignorant of what's going on in our world today this book will tell us and guide us through this world with the with the the spirit within us leading us

so the resurrection this resurrection became the foundational doctrine of the church first corinthians chapter 15. now if christ be preached now you say i don't believe in all that you know prophecy stuff and you know that's all that's all way out there in the future this is foundational folks if we don't believe this paul's going to tell us here if you don't believe this you got nothing now if christ be preached that he rose from the dead how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead the next verse says but if there be no resurrection of the dead then is christ not risen the next verse says and if christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain so if it comes back to this fact of the resurrection if you can't get past this you can't get past the rest of this story believe me if christ is not risen from the dead this was the impulse this was the the driving force of the early primitive church it was they believed with all of their heart that jesus christ had died and rose again that's why they were willing to step up and lay their lives on the line and say you may take a lot of things away from us but there was a time when he was crucified he was buried but there is an empty tomb he is no longer there and the romans could not prove if they could have proved that jesus you know was dead they would have paraded a body around saying look we got him they had no body he was gone so the resurrection was the primary and foundational doctrine of the early church why because if there is no resurrection there's no remission of sins what is this all about repentance baptism in the name of jesus christ paul tells us what it's about we are partakers in the likeness of his death his burial and then his resurrection which is the holy spirit of god coming to us and living within us that raises us to walk in the newness of life this message carried the early church they believed in christ's imminent return to carry away the church now i don't think that we should get caught up to the point where we become hermits okay back in the early centuries of the church there was a group called the mat weavers okay not not matt weaver that wasn't really their name that's what they did and they they went out into the desert and they would weave mats saying by the time we weave this mat the lord will have returned he didn't come so they begin to dismantle the weaving of the mat and they took it apart and they said by the time we get this unwoven the lord will have return and he didn't come and the cycle started again and that's how they spent their lives weaving mats and taking mats apart believing that before they got this done that the lord was going to come it doesn't work that way jesus said occupy until i come you've got to stay on course and you've got to stay on target amen

paul taught and and i believe that he was one of those that that wanted to stress the imminence of the lord's return he said in first thessalonians 4 15 for this we say unto you by the word of the lord that we everybody say we he included himself in that group we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the lord so they obviously believed that the lord could come at any time we shall not prevent them which are asleep in this event at least in my opinion is recorded in revelation chapter six verse two now again i beg your pardon if you disagree with me that's okay okay but i believe that the rapture of the church takes place i know some believe it it takes place in four where a voice was heard to say come up hither but if you look at what happens in revelation 6 2 the first seal is open there's a white horse it doesn't go anywhere the other horses are in the earth they they're they're standing in the earth the red horse goes out and he's able to take peace from the earth this horse this white horse i got so many proof texts that i can't give you all of them tonight but but white is heaven's color hello 17 times in the book of revelation i'll give you a white stone and a new name they are worth they they'll shall be counted worthy and they will walk with me in white and to them was granted that they would be given white robes and and so 17 times and and in revelation 19 when he when he comes back he's riding on a white horse listen to me when you study revelation revelation is chronological but it's not always sequential okay there there's this aspect of it sometimes things happen simultaneously they don't happen they don't happen uh sequentially so it's chronological it's in chronological order but it's not sequential all the time so so when these things uh when these things and it's a it's an old testament book in a new testament setting it's the only book of prophecy in the new testament okay so it's a throwback to the old testament white this this this white horse some people said well that's the antichrist he's coming and deceiving people no look at the name of the book it's a book of revelation not concealing things revelation it's the revelation of jesus christ so this white horse what does it say about the white horse it says that he has a bow but here's the the part that gets me he went out conquering the first judgment on this world is when god takes this church out of the world and then the rest of the judgments begin to fall on this world the church as far as i'm concerned in my humble opinion the church will not be here and you better hope that i'm right amen second thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 8 when that church is taken out of this world then everybody i don't know that we're going to figure out who the antichrist is and i really don't care i want to be a part of the group that goes first and then shall that wicked be revealed whom the lord shall conceive this is so great you know you know how the lord is going to defeat him he just he just shows up and shines he's going to destroy him with the brightness of his coming hey that's the power that is given to us my wife talked about it in prayer meeting yesterday just show up and shine that's all you have to do that's what the church yeah you hate the darkness just show up and shine you can curse the darkness or you can show up and shine the way he is going to destroy his enemies is he's going to do it with the brightness of his coming he's just going to show up and shine and then when that restraining one is taken out of the midst this unveiling is going to take place there's going to be a man of sin that is revealed and for about seven years you don't want to live through this folks for about seven years he is going to attempt to wreak havoc on the earth he hates israel he hates jerusalem why why is everything you know in a geopolitical world why is everything centered right there it's because it's not because of what we can see it's because of what we cannot see satan hates god therefore the people of god and when god called abraham out and created that nation it's the only nation in the world that has been created by god the land that he gave to to abraham it was a land that was given to him by covenant and it was an everlasting covenant when he gave it to i personally believe that that land where god says i have chosen to put my name there pray for the peace of jerusalem why because that's where god says i have chosen to put my name in that place and so everything is going to focus to and radiate from that little land called israel and jerusalem this man is going to come in he's going to confirm the covenant with many he's going to assure them of of security but he ain't what he's cracked up to be because he is going to turn on them

look at verse 2 thessalonians 2 9 through 12 even him whose coming is after the working of satan with all power and signs and lying wonders verse 10 and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they what received not the love of the truth that they might be say folk we better embrace this with everything that we've got we better hold on to this with all that we've got buy the truth and sell it not don't give it up in the face of a world that's saying men can become women and women becoming become men and homosexuality is all right and and transgenderism is all right and all of these perversions are all right i'm telling you we had better adhere to the word of god somebody said take a stand for something or you'll fall for anything you've got to stand where god's staying i don't want god on my side i want to be on god's side amen so he's going to come with deceivableness of unrighteousness and then the perish because they love they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved verse 11 and for this cause brother let me tell you something politicians can deceive you sales people you know unscrupulous salespeople can deceive you they'll sell you things that they don't have they'll sell you qualities that don't exist and you can be deluded we're all capable of this we all have this inherent ability to be to be deceived but when god deceives you you are sunk when god sends the delusion you are not going to crawl out from under this one and it says for this cause why because they had pleasure and unrighteousness and they didn't love the truth and for this cause god shall send them a strong delusion why verse 12 that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness now i'm going to share you with you again my my thoughts here the world at large doesn't need god to send send them a delusion they're pretty deluded the way it is right now if bruce can become caitlyn and people swallow it down and he becomes the woman of the year them people don't need no delusion not from god hmm if they can package vegetables and tell you it's a hamburger i'm a reformed vegetarian folks don't sell me that stuff well it tastes just like hamburger well i'll have a hamburger then i ate rattlesnake one time they said it tastes just like chicken they brought me my chicken i said it tastes just like rattlesnake hey we we live in a world and and it's not that they listen don't argue with them it does no good pray for him because there's a spirit behind all of this there really is it's like a blind man you can you can pray to anything that you want to in front of him it's not that he won't see he can't see and it's bad enough now but when god sends that delusion it's not going to be to the world i don't believe that the world doesn't need this but people who have known my lord the weight of this falls on me sometimes and i think about people we pray every tuesday sister becky for the people who have been associated with this church we've got a list of names of of your loved ones and my loved ones and relatives and the weight of this just crushes me sometimes when i think about it listen six degrees of separation don't work with hell every one of us is going to have a personal relationship with somebody in hell it should stir us it should move us because when when this happens when the church is taken out of here and god sends this delusion he's not sending it to the world he's sending it to those who did not love what does that mean it means that they had the truth they heard the truth they knew the truth they didn't love the truth those are the people i no longer believe that they're going to be beaten down our doors after the church is gone i think they're going to believe what the rest of the world believes because god is going to send them a delusion that's the only way they can make through this if if they really believed what had taken place had taken place they would be going stark raven mad trying to get out of here

but in closing i got to do this quickly but here's some points to ponder there are people who are banking on after the rapture i'm going to give my life to god there are people who are banking on that because there's preachers out there they're telling people that there's going to be a great revival after the rapture of the church okay i'm going to i'm going to just lay this on you you can sort through it and study it for yourself but there's several points to ponder about that and the proof text that they use is revelation 7 9 uh if you got it up there after this i be held in law a great multitude which no man could number i want you to note that right there now of all nations kindreds people tongues stood before the throne before the lamb clothed white robes palms in their hands go to the next verse and i said to him sir thou he asked who are these that are raided in white robes and he says sir thou knowest and he said to me these are they which came out of great tribulation have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of lamb so you've got these people out there that are teaching this doctrine that there's there's there they are there's a great multitude coming out of the tribulation well that's the case here's some points to ponder god will not use wrath to save people instead of grace if he wanted to do that now my lord i feel i feel the sobriety of this right now is that there's some people that believe that you're going to have a shot at this after the rapture of the church let me dispel that notion for you if god could use wrath he could have shut down the water in noah's day when it got about up to their nose and said okay what do you think now you want to repent he didn't do that done when god saves people it is through grace and mercy and he has to suspend all of his judgments to go seal 144 000 and then once they're sealed he resumes his judgments again because a fountain cannot give forth bitter water and sweet at the same time just ain't going to happen if the church is gone who's going to preach oh there's an angel that flies through heaven yeah he has the everlasting gospel our gospel is a part of a greater gospel the everlasting gospel another thing that just stirs me is that if you believe that find me in the book of revelation where anybody repents and and i know that in a you know a good law court you you can't argue a case from a point of absence of evidence but i never see repentance in the book of revelation and without repentance there can't be any salvation they curse god they hide themselves in the rocks and mountains and dens of the caves they gnaw their tongues with their pain but they do not repent he said i gave them a space to repent and they repented not so how does this group here that people say are going to represent the great greatest revival that the world has ever seen let me just give you this and i'll i'll stop boring you but it says this is a this is a number which no man could number let me explain this it didn't say that it's a group that nobody could count okay if he wanted to say an innumerable company he already said that back in hebrews that we have come into an innumerable company so it's not that you can't count them john he gets as high as 200 million so i don't think he has any trouble with numbers okay so what does it mean when it says that this group here we see the church in several aspects in the book of revelation this is one of them it says this is a group that no man can number remember back in exodus 30 when moses was commanded to take the census number the people of israel okay number them what does that mean not just count them but when you number something god all also put a stipulation on there when you number them you have to redeem them it's going to cost you when you if if you count a congregation you have got to redeem them you got to pay the tax everybody with me because redemption implies ownership if you count them they belong to you but you've got to redeem them otherwise they are not you remember david god says go number the people he did god got angry with him we talked about this why did god get angry with him because he counted them but he didn't redeem them this is a the implication here whenever it uses terms like no man could it means it's a virtual impossibility and what the bible is telling us here is this group is a group that no man could number because no man could redeem them who are these he said you know who they are these are those who have washed their robes in the blood of the lamb they belong to the lamb they belong to him why because listen you go back in revelation and you see them around the throne and they are saying thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof why because you have redeemed us out of every kindred and tribe and tongue and nation and so this number is a number it's not an innumerable company it's just implying that no man was able to number this group because no man could redeem this group save the lamb of god amen

let's stand together i'm going to close with this right here while the world prepares for war we are preparing for a wedding the world prepares for war we are preparing for a wedding for if we believe that jesus died and rose again even so them also will