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1ST THESSALONIANS 4,5 & 2ND THESSALONIANS 2!--The Post-Trib Public Rapture! DFO 1515 13/4/81
1. PTL! HALLELUJAH! TYJ! AMEN! LORD, BLESS THIS VIDEO & help this little Family here & this team that are helping make it possible. Bless our study of Thy Word tonight, Lord, that it may search our hearts & our minds & clarify our thoughts so that we can understand these things, that we may study to show ourselves good workmen approved unto God, workmen that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth." (2Ti.2:15.) So we do ask Thee, in Jesus' name, to help us as we study Thy Word, Lord, to understand it, & to help these understand it, about these Last Days, in Jesus' name. Amen. PTL! TYJ! Amen!
2. WELL, OUR LAST STUDY WAS ON, AS YOU RECALL, THE 4TH CHAPTER OF 1ST THESSALONIANS, in which we were describing the coming of the Lord, or the Apostle was describing it, Paul, as he writes to the Thessalonicans--Thessalonians as it's called in the Bible--today's Salonica to the North of Athens, Greece, the church there, & telling them how the Lord is going to come.
3. AND I WENT OUT OF MY WAY PARTICULARLY TO EMPHASISE THE FACT THAT WHEN HE COMES HE IS NOT GOING TO BE COMING SECRETLY BY ANY MEANS, but that the whole World is going to know it! For He will come with a lot of noise, a lot of light! It will be like lightning shining from the East even unto the West, like continuous lightning! The whole sky is going to be lit up! And there are going to be several big noises! For it said there in Thessalonians that 4th chapter, that the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, & with the voice of the archangel!--There's two big noises! And the trump of God shall sound, there's the third!
4. NOW, I DON'T SEE HOW YOU CAN HAVE THE WHOLE SKIES LIGHT UP, Jesus Himself descending from Heaven with a shout & the voice of the archangel & the trumpet of God & not have the whole World know it! In fact, John later over in the first Chapter of Revelation tells us, 7th verse, "Behold, He cometh with clouds, & every eye shall see Him, & they also which pierced Him"--meaning the Jews. "And all kindreds of the Earth shall wail because of Him."
5. DOESN'T SOUND VERY MUCH LIKE A SECRET RAPTURE, DOES IT?--A secret coming? But that's what the false prophets teach, "a secret Rapture before the Tribulation to whisk you silently, secretly & unobserved out of this World! You just suddenly disappear & nobody knows where you went!" Well, it's just not going to happen that way! Because every place in the Bible that you read about the coming of the Lord, there's a lot of commotion going on, lots of light, a regular light show!--Stars falling from the heavens, sun & moon darkened & whatnot!--Big noises, earthquakes, voice of the Archangel, shout of the Lord, trump of God, all kinds of things!
6. AND THE GRAVES OPEN & THE SAINTS ARISING FROM THE DEAD! All these bodies coming out of the graves!--Not ghosts, mind you now this time, not just spirits, but actual bodies, the new bodies of the resurrected. And we Saints who are alive & remain shall be caught up together with them in the air, right in front of the eyes of the whole World!
7. NOW WHY SHOULD GOD WANT TO MAKE THAT A SECRET? Why should He want to hide that great final triumph of His Bride & His Church as she rises in victory?--Finally out of reach of her enemies in great triumph in the bridal march to Heaven to join her Bridegroom! Why should He want to hush it all up & make it a secret & hide it for some reason? Is He ashamed of it? Is He ashamed of His coming? Is He ashamed of His Bride? Is He ashamed that He's rescuing her right in front of all of His enemies & their enemies? Of course not!
8. THIS IDEA OF THE SECRET RAPTURE BEFORE THE TRIBULATION IS SOMETHING THAT WAS ONLY COOKED UP BY SOME FALSE PROPHETS ABOUT 200 YEARS AGO! Up until that time the Church had never heard of a secret Rapture, never even dreamed of a Rapture before the Tribulation! The Catholic Bible & all the Bibles from the very beginning taught that the Church at the Last Days was going to have to go through a period of terrible Tribulation. Every Prophet of God in the Old Testament taught it. Every Prophet of God in the New Testament taught it, that the Church was going to have to go through the Tribulation in the very End.
9. IT WAS ONLY WHEN THESE FALSE PEACE PROPHETS STARTED PROPHESYING A COUPLE HUNDRED YEARS AGO to tickle the ears of the Church with what they wanted to hear, that they wouldn't have to go through the Tribulation after all--as they'd always been taught & always believed & the Bible had always said--but that now Jesus was going to come secretly, quietly & nobody was going to know when He came & no one was going to know when they left!
10. IT WAS ALL GOING TO BE A BIG SECRET & all quiet & done so secretly & quietly & so slick that they used to illustrate that you'd be driving down the street & you'd just suddenly disappear!--And your car went on careening driverless down the street! Well, you're not going to just suddenly disappear, but you are going to leave your car!
11. YOU'RE JUST GOING TO GRADUALLY RISE RIGHT UP THROUGH THE ROOF OF THAT CAR IN GLORY, seeing the approach of your Lord Jesus Christ, & you're going to just sail right on up through the air right in front of everybody, & everybody will know where the driver went! "Where'd the driver go? What caused this accident?" the police will want to know. "Well, you saw where all the rest of them went!" Although I doubt if there are going to be too many who are going to be leaving any particular scene, because He says, "One will be working in the field, one will be taken & the other left. Two will be lying in the same bed, one will be taken, the other left." (Mt.24:40,41.)
12. SO NOT TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE SAVED. " Strait is the gate & narrow is the way that leadeth to salvation, but few there be that enter therein. Wide is the gate & broad is the way that leadeth unto destruction, & many there be which go in thereat." (Mt.7:13,14.) So by comparison, the number of saved to the number of unsaved is pretty small. But there's going to be enough of us.
13. I BELIEVE BY THAT TIME PROBABLY STILL SEVERAL MILLION BELIEVERS WILL HAVE SURVIVED THE TRIBULATION & the persecutions of the Antichrist & his orders that no one can trade without the Mark of the Beast in their forehead or their hand, & no one can worship anybody else except the Antichrist & his Image.
14. BY THE WAY, WE STARTED TO TELL YOU THE OTHER NIGHT that we heard that someone in the United States had received a check from the IRS, one of these rebate checks, you know, refundable taxes or something, & at the bottom of the check it said in clear, plain type & print: "Do not cash this check unless the bearer bears this same number either in his forehead or his hand." And the person receiving the check took it to the Welfare office or wherever it was & said, "What is this?" "Oh", they said, "We made a mistake. We're not supposed to use those checks until 1984 or 1986," or something like that!
15.--BY WHICH TIME EVERYBODY WILL BE BRANDED WITH THE MARK OF THE BEAST, 666, & you won't be able to cash any checks or do any business or buy or sell--as God's Word says in the 13th Chapter of Revelation which we'll get to later--without that Mark. And they're already getting ready for it! They've already got 666 on the Social Security cards in the United States that are going to be issued in 1984! Somebody got one of those by accident & returned it. So they're getting ready! It won't be long now!
16. LIKE THE NEWSBOY ON THE STREET WHO KEPT SAYING, "IT WON'T BE LONG NOW!" Everybody always bought his papers because they wanted to see what it wasn't going to be long till! It wouldn't be long now! That was a good thing to say no matter what the news was. I think I remember that he couldn't even read, so that's all he'd say all day long, waving his papers up in the air. Well, I can wave this paper up in the air & tell you for sure: "It won't be long now! It won't be long now!"
17. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE LONG UNTIL THE ANTICHRIST IS GOING TO BE REVEALED, & his seven-year kingdom begun, the last three-&-a-half years of which are going to be the Great Tribulation! But these Pre-Trib Rapturists who teach that Jesus is going to catch His Church out of this World before the Tribulation & you're going to float to Heaven on flowery beds of ease & not have to suffer any persecution, no torture, no tribulation, God's going to relieve you of all that, you won't have to suffer it, are liars! It's not true! It's not according to the Word of God! I'm reading to you from the Bible!
18. JESUS IS NOT GOING TO COME SECRETLY SO THAT NOBODY KNOWS IF HE CAME & WENT & nobody's going to see you leave except you suddenly disappear. It just isn't going to happen that way, because that's not what the Bible says! I'm reading you Bible here! He's going to come with a lot of noise & a light show & fanfare of trumpets & all kinds of racket going on! Tremendous! The greatest spectacle the World has ever seen!
19. THE GREATEST LIGHT SHOW THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN! You know, these hippies & drug-users, they like their light shows to make'm really trip out--well boy, I'm telling you, we are going to trip out on that one!--Right out of this World! Praise God? Hallelujah? It's going to be the greatest light show you ever saw & it's really going to make you trip out, right out of this World! And that's the time when you can finally say: "Stop the World, I wanna get off!" Hallelujah! And we're going to take off to be with Jesus in the air!
20. EVERYBODY'S GOING TO SEE HIM COMING IN THE CLOUDS: Light, trumpet, voices, thunders, earthquakes, noises, dead rising from the graves, the live Saints rising from the ground, floating right up through the ceilings & the buildings & the cars & right up into the clouds to be with Jesus! That doesn't sound like a very secret Rapture, does it? No! And it's not going to be! Well, I'm sure some of you will probably throw up to me that Scripture, "But what about the Scripture in that next chapter, there in Chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians?" Just turn the page in your Bible. We were starting to study the 2nd Chapter of 2nd Thessalonians, but there's a little point I want to bring out here in 1 Thessalonians 5:1&2!
21. HE'S JUST BEEN DESCRIBING THE COMING OF THE LORD, as you recall, & he says, "So shall you ever be with the Lord. But of the times & the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." "Aha!" Pre-Trib Secret Rapturists will say, "See there! He's going to come as a thief in the night & nobody's going to know when He came, nobody's going to know when He left. He's gonna steal in & steal you & steal out & it will all be very secretive & quiet!"
22. WELL, THEN WHY IN THE NEXT VERSE DOES HE SAY, "FOR WHEN THEY SHALL SAY, PEACE & SAFETY; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; & they shall not escape." How can sudden destruction come on them & they don't know it? How can sudden travail come on a woman who is having a baby, how can she be having labour pains & not know it? You'd have to be dead or unconscious or something! No, that's not what He means by, "as a thief in the night".
23. HE MEANS THAT THE LORD WILL COME BY SURPRISE! It will be sudden, that's for sure! And it will be a surprise like the sudden coming of a thief. A better word might have been a robber, there's a slight difference. Thieves sometimes do sneak in & out, but robbers, you know, they let you know they're there & they take it at gunpoint! But what he was saying in the 2nd verse here is simply that the Lord's coming will be a surprise to the World! It will be a shock!
24. IT WILL BE LIKE A SUDDEN DESTRUCTION, SUDDENLY, WITHOUT WARNING! Because their false prophets have been telling them all the time: "Everything's peace, now, everything's safety, everything's OK now, you don't have to worry about anything now. We have our government, we have our Antichrist, we have our False Messiah, we have our Superman to run the World now & everything's going to be OK! You don't have to worry anymore, you can be as wicked as you want, sinful as you want!
25. "WE DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD! WE'VE DONE AWAY WITH THE CHURCHES! We've done away with all religions, we've burned their Bibles, we've killed their worshippers & we've stopped all other worship & now there's just one-World religion, the worship of our Superman, the Antichrist, the god-man & his Image in the Temple area!" Well, it's going to be a shock to them, & a surprise, like the sudden coming of a thief in the night! But it doesn't mean it's not going to be observed. It doesn't mean they're not going to see it when it happens at all!
26. FOR HE SAYS, "BUT YE, BRETHREN"--FOURTH VERSE--"ARE NOT IN DARKNESS, THAT THAT DAY SHOULD OVERTAKE YOU AS A THIEF!" In other words, it shouldn't take you by surprise! "Ye are all the children of light, the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness." We're not in the dark, Beloved! We're not in the night on this question, we're not in darkness. We know Jesus is coming, & we know how He's going to come! The Bible tells us plainly, it couldn't be any plainer!--We'll even know when He is going to come!
27. JESUS HIMSELF SAID THAT IN THAT DAY ALL KINDS OF GREAT NOISES & THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN! If you want to look back at that for just a moment with me in Matthew, you can see right in Matthew 24 what we read you before, to make it very clear, Matthew 24:29. Can you see it? Have you got it? Got your Bibles there? You should bring your Bibles to class, that's your textbook. Don't come to school without your books!
28. "IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE TRIBULATION OF THOSE DAYS!" What comes first? Tribulation! See it right there in your Bible? Glue your eyes to that, stay with it, because I've got two or three verses to read here: "Immediately after the Tribulation of those days"--when?--After the Tribulation! Is that clear enough? "Shall the sun be darkened & the moon shall not give her light, the stars shall fall from Heaven." Jesus is speaking, mind you now, can you believe Jesus? "And the powers of the heavens shall be shaken!" Does that sound like He's coming secretly?
29. "THEN SHALL APPEAR THE SIGN OF THE SON OF MAN IN HEAVEN!" Are they going to see it? How can a sign appear if they don't see it? "And then shall all the tribes of the Earth mourn." What are they mourning about if they don't even know what happened? What are they crying about if they don't even know what happened? Huh? What are they mourning about? What are they crying about if it was so secret that nobody knew what happened?--If just suddenly a lot of Christians disappeared & they don't even know what became of them? That's a lot of baloney! That's not the way it happens.
30. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN THAT WAY, JESUS SAID SO RIGHT HERE! Not only that, He didn't say it was going to be before the Tribulation, He said after the Tribulation! Plain as day! The sun will be darkened & the moon not give her light, stars fall from Heaven, powers of the heavens shaken, sign of the Son of man in Heaven, all the tribes of the Earth mourning! My God! What could be more cataclysmic, catastrophic & noisy & dramatic & terrific & more obvious than this kind of coming of the Lord! And it says specifically after the Tribulation!
31. "AND THEY SHALL SEE"--Who? "All the tribes of the Earth mourn"--why? "They shall see"--Who? Just the church? Just the Christians? No! The whole World is going to see Jesus come! Everybody on Earth! It's going to be the biggest Light Show that ever happened!
32. HE'S GOING TO SWEEP RIGHT AROUND THE WORLD GATHERING TOGETHER HIS ELECT FROM THE FOUR WINDS! Think of it! Everybody on every side of the Earth is going to see it happen! Think of that! How do I know? Because on one side of the Earth the sun's going to be darkened! The other side of the Earth, the moon won't give its light! He's going to go right around the World & collect us all! PTL? Isn't that wonderful?
33. "AND THEY SHALL SEE THE SON OF MAN COMING IN THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN WITH POWER & GREAT GLORY!" What good's it going to be if all this power & great glory are going to be a secret & nobody's going to see it? All that secret Rapture, Pre-Trib Rapture is a bunch of malarky! It's ridiculous! It's unscriptural!
34. IT'S A LIE, A DOWNRIGHT LIE THESE PREACHERS HAVE BEEN HANDING YOU ALL THESE YEARS!--Those Fundamentalists & Evangelicals that follow the Moody school of interpretation which came straight from the Brethren, which came straight from a bunch of false prophets in England 200 years ago who began preaching that false doctrine of a secret Pre-Trib Rapture of the Church, secretly caught out by the Lord in a secret coming before the Tribulation. That's a lie!
35. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN THAT WAY! It's going to happen just as Jesus said & just as Paul said, "after the Tribulation", as plain as day! And with all this light show & great things happening, & earthquakes, & earth shakin', heaven shakin', clouds of heaven, seeing the Son of man coming!--In great power & great glory!
36. WHAT GLORY IS IT, & WHAT POWER IS IT TO HIM IF THE WORLD DOESN'T EVEN GET TO SEE HIM IN HIS TRIUMPH?--If the Church doesn't get to enjoy it with Him?--If we as Christians & the children of God don't get to be caught up right in front of them in tremendous triumph & victory over them?--Out of their damned clutches, right out of their fiendish hands & their torturing persecution!--Be caught right out of their hands into the skies to Jesus right in front of them all! What glory, what triumph would it be if they didn't even see it happen? How ridiculous can you get?
37. IT'S SO SILLY TO BELIEVE SUCH A FOOLISH, FALSE DOCTRINE OF THE FALSE PROPHETS who are trying to tickle the ears of the Church with their smoother-than-honey words that: "No, no, God isn't going to let you suffer, you won't have to go through the Tribulation! Jesus is going to catch you out secretly before it even happens!" Well, that isn't so! This is the way it's going to happen, just the way Jesus said it's going to happen exactly! You can read it right there for yourselves! Read the next verse, 31st verse. See what it says:
38. "AND HE SHALL SEND HIS ANGELS WITH A GREAT SOUND OF A"--WHAT?--"TRUMPET!" TOOT-TE-TOOT-TE-TOOO!! It'll be louder than Henry every morning when he gets out there & crows! Cock-a-doodle-doo! He's just got a little tiny trumpet about this big & the whole neighbourhood can hear him! Can you imagine what God's trumpet's going to sound like when dear Gabriel gets up there & blows his bugle?
39. AS THE OLD COLOURED PREACHER SAID, he didn't know how to read very well & he couldn't always exactly pronounce the words right so he said: "And brethren & sistern, when Jesus comes, Gabby's going to get up there & blow that buggle & we's going to rise from the salpuckers!" What he was trying to say was, "Gabriel's going to be up there & blow his bugle, or trumpet, & we're going to rise from the sepulchres!"--Salpuckers! Well, no matter how you pronounce it, it's going to happen!
40. "AND THEY SHALL GATHER TOGETHER HIS ELECT FROM THE FOUR WINDS, FROM THE ONE END OF THE HEAVEN TO THE OTHER!" He's going to gather all the saved together! You know what they try to teach here? "Some of them try to say, "Well, that's just a special elect, just the best of the saved people, just the best church people He's going to take out first." Some of them teach a partial Rapture!--"And the rest of them that were naughty & weren't ready & weren't serving the Lord are going to have to stay through the Tribulation!" That's the way some of them try to explain it: "The elect are just a special elite that are going to get raptured beforehand, & only just a special elect."
41. WELL, I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT THIS WORD "ELECT" HERE COMES FROM EXACTLY THE SAME GREEK ROOT WORD, "EKLECTOS", the same word that "ecclesia" comes from, which means "the called-out ones" or "the separated ones", or the same word that's interpreted in your Bible as the Church, the saved, the Christians, same thing! So this word simply means the saved, His saved, His Church, His Christians, His Children! And if He starts collecting His Children, He's certainly going to collect them all & not leave some behind!
42. WHAT KIND OF A PARENT WOULD THAT BE?! If you saw the storm coming, Beloved, & you ran out there to rescue your children from their play & their work or whatever, what would you do?--Just rescue some of them & leave the rest behind to go through the storm? Or if you saw the war coming & the enemy coming, would you just run out there to grab up some of the kids & leave the rest behind? No sir, you sure wouldn't, would you? You'd go out there & collect them all & make sure you got every one, not one left behind! TYJ! Hallelujah!
43. ISN'T THAT WONDERFUL? HE'S NOT GOING TO LEAVE ONE OF YOU BEHIND THAT LOVES JESUS!--No matter how good or how bad you've been, if you love Jesus.--No matter if you've been faithful or unfaithful, if you love Jesus. No matter if you have even sometimes been wicked, if you love Jesus & are saved & have Jesus in your heart, even though sometimes you've been disobedient, He's going to take you too up to be with all the rest of us. "Some shall rise to everlasting glory, but some are going to rise to everlasting shame & contempt." (Da.12:2.) But we're all going to rise!
44. ALL THOSE THAT ARE SAVED, DEAD OR ALIVE, ARE GOING TO RISE TO MEET THE LORD IN THE AIR IN THE CLOUDS AS HE COMES! Praise God? Hallelujah! That's what it says, plain as day! I read you that Scripture before, but I want to show you how noisy the coming of the Lord's going to be & what a tremendous Light Show it's going to be, with all these tremendous things happening that we read you from the 24th Chapter of Matthew, 29th-31st verse. You can jot it down & mark it. And in that 29th verse it couldn't be any plainer: "After the Tribulation of those days."
45. JESUS SAID IN THAT 15TH VERSE: "WHEN YE THEREFORE SHALL SEE THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place", He said, "then shall be Great Tribulation." "When you see"--in the 15th verse of that same chapter--"the Abomination of Desolation"--that's the Image of the Beast--"spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand"--standing in the holy place.--He says when you see that idol there, that Image of the Beast there in that holy place, He said in the next few verses down, 21st verse, "Then shall be Great Tribulation." And the 29th verse it says after that Tribulation then comes Jesus! Now what could be clearer?--In the chapter of Jesus' Own Words here.
46. IN THE 15TH VERSE OF MATTHEW 24 HE SAYS THAT WHEN YOU SEE THAT ABOMINATION, that idol standing in the holy place.--Then He says in the 21st verse, then shall be the Great Tribulation. Then the 29th verse, "after that Tribulation you'll see Me coming!" What could be any plainer than that? I mean, how could He say it any plainer than that?--In perfect chronological order!
47. FIRST SIGN: THE IMAGE OF THE BEAST, THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION STANDING IN THE HOLY PLACE. That's going to be the first sign that you're right near the end. When you see that, you're only three-&-a-half years from the coming of Jesus! He says then shall be the Great Tribulation! That begins the Great Tribulation, the last three-&-a-half years of man's history, the last three-&-a-half years of the seven-year reign of the Antichrist. And He says after that Tribulation, 29th verse, that then you'll see the sign of the coming of the Lord in the air & all these tremendous things going to happen.
48. WE READ IN 1ST THESSALONIANS THE 4TH CHAPTER & WE'RE GOING TO GET TO 2ND THESSALONIANS NOW I HOPE, maybe before we get done here today! I get so excited about some of these things I get to spouting off & sometimes it takes me a little longer than I figured! Well, we're trying to get you in at least a good one-hour Bible study of Bible Prophecy each one of these sessions. So we're just reading to you from 1st Thessalonians the 5th Chapter, & we had read you the 4th Chapter about how the Lord's going to descend from Heaven Himself with a shout!--The voice of the archangel, the trump of God! All these tremendous noises & sounds that happen right there! Do you want to turn to that a moment & look at it in your Bible? 1st Thessalonians, 4th chapter, & we should be zooming in right on the 16th verse, you got it? I want you to read it again because I'm emphasising a special subject today, & I want you to get it into your head & get it clear & get it straight & never get it crooked again!
49. "THE LORD HIMSELF SHALL DESCEND FROM HEAVEN WITH A SHOUT, with the voice of the archangel, & with the trump of God!" It's not talking about a trump in a deck of cards, but a trumpet! "And the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive & remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air!" There it is again, couldn't be any plainer! Lots of noise, lots of action! Just like when they start making one of these movies: Lights! Camera! Action!--they go--& Crack!--it begins!
50. THE FIRST SIGN'S GOING TO BE THE LIGHTS! And then the cameras are going to start clicking, I'll betcha! What do you bet? All the TV cameras are going to be focused on the skies: "What in the World's going on there, folks, all this great light show & sun darkened & the moon darkened & the stars falling from the heavens & lightnings & thunders & tremendous light show!"--And then somebody shouts, "There's a Man up there riding on a cloud circling the globe, riding on a cloud gathering together people from off the Earth!" Wow! What a show!
51. THAT'S GOING TO BE THE BIGGEST TV SHOW THEY EVER MADE! It's going to be on every TV camera, every TV straight around the World, nobody's going to miss it! And don't you tell me it's going to be secret, that's a lot of baloney! The Bible says just what I've been reading you, just what Jesus says & just what Paul says, & that's the Truth! You can go thumb your nose at those preachers that tell you anything else! It just ain't so! That bad boy, was it Gershwin or who was it who wrote that horrible song: "The things you read in that Bible, they ain't necessarily so!" (It was Gershwin.)
52. I WANT TO TELL YOU SOMETHING, IT IS NECESSARILY SO! The things you read in this Bible, they are necessarily so! But you can tell those God-damned false prophet preachers that what they're teaching you & preaching you about a so-called secret Pre-Trib Rapture: "Sorry, Preacher, it ain't necessarily so!" (Sings:)
"It ain't necessarily so!
The things what they preach in those churches,
They ain't necessarily so!"
Well, I'm not an opera star, & I'm not, was it Gershwin? No! Who was that other guy who sang that?--Sammy Davis! Anyhow, maybe it's just as well to forget it.
53. BUT YOU'D JUST BETTER FORGET WHAT THOSE FALSE PROPHETS OF PEACE & PREACHERS TOLD YOU ABOUT ANY KIND OF A SECRET PRE-TRIB RAPTURE TOO, BECAUSE IT'S NOT SO! I'm reading you the Truth out of God's Word! And now I'm going to give you the clincher if that isn't enough to convince you. Paul, by the way, in this last verse here, 6th verse of this passage we were just studying, says, "Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch & be sober!"
54. SO YOU WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT IT DOESN'T CATCH YOU BY SURPRISE & not doing what you're supposed to be doing, & eating & drinking with the drunken, doing violence to your neighbour & doing things you shouldn't be doing. It would be a kind of an embarrassing time for Jesus to come & raise you from the Earth & meet Him face-to-face in the middle of the mess that you're in!--Huh? Wouldn't you a lot rather be out there witnessing, litnessing, winning souls, preaching the Gospel to the heathen & suddenly see all these things happen? You'll be so happy to meet the Lord, you'll be so glad!
55. YOU KNOW WHAT? THERE ARE GOING TO BE SOME CHRISTIANS & SOME SAVED THAT AREN'T QUITE GOING TO BE QUITE SO HAPPY TO SEE JESUS WHEN HE COMES!--Because they're going to be raised to everlasting shame & contempt! I was reading a new Letter today, "Your Glory to their Shame"--you're going to get it pretty soon. (No.991.) It'll be to their shame but to your glory when Jesus comes. Some people are going to be raised & almost wish they'd been left behind, because they're going to have to face God, face Jesus to their shame, everlasting shame & contempt of others, the others of us.
56. BUT THOSE OF US WHO ARE SERVING JESUS & SERVING THE LORD & LOVING & WINNING SOULS, sacrificing, moving, mobile, strangers & pilgrims, having no certain resting place, sacrificing, exiles, banished, fugitives from injustice, when we see Jesus coming & we know we've been serving Him as faithfully as we can, we're going to be so happy, so rejoicing, praising God, thanking Jesus that He's come to deliver us from all of our pain & our troubles & our trials & tribulation & persecution & torture, imprisonment, death! We're going to be so happy to see Him!
57. ARE YOU GOING TO BE HAPPY TO SEE JESUS WHEN HE COMES? Huh? Are you going to be ready?--Or caught by surprise doing something you shouldn't? You'd certainly be ashamed to face Him then, wouldn't you? You'd even be ashamed to face us if you're picked up by surprise suddenly out of this Earth doing something that wasn't of the Lord, even though you're saved & a Christian. I certainly don't want to have that fate, do you?
58. I WANT TO BE READY TO MEET HIM WHEN HE COMES!--Ready to praise the Lord & welcome Him with joy & be happy that He catches me out of this filthy old World up into His clean skies & heavenly places! Wouldn't you rather be rejoicing & praising the Lord & thanking God that Jesus has come? Or do you want to be hiding your face & ashamed of yourself & afraid to face Him.--Even though saved, you were disobedient & a failure, not working for Him, not doing His will.
59. WELL, WE'VE GOT ONE MORE CHAPTER FOR YOU, & WE'RE TURNING OVER TO 2ND THESSALONIANS NOW, THE 2ND CHAPTER. If all the rest didn't convince you, this ought to! And we're getting back in this one into our study of the Last Days again, what it's going to be like. But we have dwelt now on the coming of the Lord to try to prove to you that it's not going to happen before the Tribulation & it's not going to be any secret!
60. THAT'S WHY WE'VE HAD TO KIND OF JUMP THE GUN & GO A LITTLE BIT AHEAD TO AFTER THE LAST DAYS WHEN JESUS COMES, to prove to you He's not going to come during the Last Days, He's not going to come before the Tribulation secretly, & you're not going to leave here secretly! You're going to leave with a loud noise & fanfare, light show & all kinds of tremendous things happening! And the whole World's going to see you go! The whole World's going to be ashamed & frustrated because you got out of their grasp & you escaped! Jesus came & stopped the World so you could get off, & we absolutely get out of this World! TYJ! PTL! Hallelujah! Isn't that wonderful? OK, 2nd Thessalonians, Chapter 2:
61. "NOW WE BESEECH YOU, BRETHREN, BY THE COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, & BY OUR GATHERING TOGETHER UNTO HIM." Now, notice that verse. When Jesus comes, what's going to happen? We're going to be gathered together to Him. (To Cameraman:) Stay right there on that Scripture, Son, I want'm to keep their nose right in that Bible! They can't read it on my face! They can read it in the Bible & I want'm to remember it & not forget it! He says, "We beseech you by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, & by our gathering together unto Him."
62. HE CERTAINLY CAN NOT POSSIBLY BE TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE BUT THE COMING OF THE LORD, CAN HE? "When we are gathered together unto Him", right? The Rapture! Isn't that the Rapture? Plain as day, isn't it? "That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word"--there are a lot of false spirits around misguiding people too--"nor by letter as from us." In other words, a forged letter.
63. YOU KNOW, AN ENEMY GOT OUT A FORGED LETTER, SUPPOSED TO BE FROM ME!--A confession that I was a false prophet & denying everything I ever taught & saying it was left behind & I was dead, & they found this letter after I was dead, that I was confessing that I was a false prophet & everything I ever taught was wrong & I'm sorry!--A letter supposed to be by me, a forged letter! This damned idiot, demonic Satanic false prophet up in the Netherlands got it out!--I think it was a German at that.
64. AND WE HAD TO PROVE TO TIME MAGAZINE THAT IT WAS NOT OUR LETTER & THAT I WAS NOT DEAD! We had to tell Time Magazine what one great humorist once said to newspaper reports about his death, he said, "The reports of my death are highly exaggerated!" So the false forged reports of my death "as a letter from us", mind you, were highly exaggerated!
65. PAUL'S SAYING HERE, "DON'T LET ANYBODY DECEIVE YOU! Don't let any man or spirit or word or a forged letter, as though it was one of my letters from us, kid you that the day of Christ is at hand. Don't let anybody kid you that Jesus is coming right now!" "What do you mean? I thought we were always supposed to be ready, that Jesus was coming any minute! We've been taught by the preachers for years that Jesus was coming any minute, would come at a moment's notice! Any time, any moment!" Well, that's a lie! That's not true!
66. JESUS IS NOT GOING TO DENY HIS WORD! He is not going to cross over & come contrary to all these prophecies & all the things that He Himself said & the Prophets wrote & the Apostles wrote & that He taught! He is not going to do it. He's not going to break His Word! He is not going to misfire & not fulfil these prophecies, amen? He said, "Don't let anybody kid you! Jesus is not coming right now. He can't come right now!" Paul is saying there are some other things that have gotta happen before He comes, & so he goes on to say what they are:
67. "LET NO MAN DECEIVE YOU BY ANY MEANS, FOR THAT DAY SHALL NOT COME"--WHAT DAY? The day of Jesus' coming! The day of our gathering together to Him. The day of Christ's coming. He says, "That day shall not come except there come a falling away first"--this is the 3rd verse. "A falling away first", that means a loss of faith, a cooling off of the Churches & the Church people.--A Worldliness having entered into the Church & amongst Christians & a falling away of Church attendance & belief & faith & serving God.
68. I DON'T THINK THERE'S EVER BEEN A TIME IN THE WORLD'S HISTORY WHEN THERE'S BEEN SUCH A FALLING AWAY AS THERE HAS BEEN WITHIN THE LAST FEW YEARS! Church attendance has gotten so poor in some churches they've had to close their doors. They've had to close, I understand, about one-third of all the churches in England because of lack of attendance. That's what I call a falling away! A real falling out with the Lord & the Church! There has been a tremendous decrease. The Catholic Church is even having a hard time getting priests. The Methodist Church, the largest Protestant denomination in the World, its numbers are now dwindling, as are the Catholics.
69. THERE'S A GREAT FALLING AWAY TAKING PLACE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD BECAUSE OF UNBELIEF & the false doctrines of evolution, loss of faith in God, loss of faith in His Creation, loss of faith in the Bible. When did you ever see such an age of sceptics & agnostics & unbelievers & just downright atheists against God? A horrible falling away! But the worst & most pitiful of all is the falling away of Christians themselves, believers themselves!--No longer faithful not only in church attendance but no longer faithful in witnessing, no longer faithful as missionaries, no longer faithful in giving, much less Church attendance. "A falling away first", he said.
70. WELL, YOU HAVE WITNESSED IT IN THE LAST FEW YEARS. I've witnessed it throughout my life, a worse & worse & growing falling away of Christians.--Falling out of fellowship with the Lord & His people.--Falling away from His work.--Falling away from the support of His work.--Falling away from fellowship & from all that they should be & do. What a shame & how ashamed they're going to be when Jesus comes! He said there'll come this falling away first, and, get this now, focus in on that 3rd verse:
71. "AND THAT MAN OF SIN BE REVEALED, THE SON OF PERDITION; who opposeth & exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God, showing that he is God!" There it is! There it is! You got it? What's going to happen before Jesus comes? Paul is telling you here just as plain as day! He said, "Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come this falling away first & that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." The son of Hell! The son of the Devil! The man of sin! "Who opposeth & exalteth himself above all that is called God."
72. THIS IS WHAT DANIEL'S ALREADY TOLD YOU, & WE'VE BEEN STUDYING DANIEL, REMEMBER? He said it plain as day, he exalts himself above all gods & tells the World to worship him & his Image. And John tells you the same thing in Revelation the 13th Chapter, that he sets up his idol there in the holy place & commands everybody to worship him, & everybody who refuses to worship him as God to be killed.--So that he as God sitteth in this new rebuilt Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem.
73. THERE AGAIN IS THE PROOF THAT THE JEWS ARE GOING TO REBUILD THE TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM JUST AS SOON AS THEY CAN, as soon as they can be sure it's not going to get blown down or blown to bits or destroyed by another war!--As soon as they're sure it's going to be safe to rebuild the Temple. The Jews, you know, are pretty "pinchy mit die sheckels"! They don't want to lose the sheckels, & they're not going to build the Temple & have it blown to bits!
74. SO THEY'LL FIGURE IT'S SAFE TO REBUILD IT WHEN THEIR COMING MESSIAH, THE ANTICHRIST TELLS THEM IT'S SAFE & he's internationalised the city & made it an open city for all religions & all peoples & tells'm: "OK, now it's safe to rebuild your Temple." And they rebuild it. And just about three years later he's going to declare that he is God & set up his own idol right there in the Temple area, a gigantic Image of himself, & command the whole World to worship it, to worship him!
75. AND THEN HE HIMSELF IS GOING TO GO INTO THAT REBUILT TEMPLE OF THE JEWS, their most holy place in the whole World, & he's going to sit down upon his throne in the Temple of God, saying that he is God! "So that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God!" There it is right there in the Bible! See it? Right there & right there! You're looking right at it! Show that to them again! 4th verse. That's what's going to happen first, before Jesus comes!
76. AND HE SAYS, 5TH VERSE, "REMEMBER YE NOT WHEN I WAS YET WITH YOU I TOLD YOU THESE THINGS?" How could you forget them so soon! "And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time." He says, in other words, the Lord's just holding things back until the Antichrist will be revealed in his time. 6th verse, we're reading it right out of the Bible, keep your eyes glued to the Bible!
77. "FOR THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY"--THAT'S WHAT THE ANTICHRIST & HIS KINGDOM ARE! A mystery of iniquity that's going to be so diabolical, so devilish, so fiendish, that it's going to be a mystery of iniquity! He said, "Doth already work!" Sure, the Devil was busy working in Paul's day, too, wasn't he?
78. "ONLY HE WHO NOW LETTETH WILL LET, UNTIL HE BE TAKEN OUT OF THE WAY." He who now lets the Antichrist forces & the Devilish fiendish forces operate like they do today, God, is now letting them more or less do what they please. He's going to let'm keep on doing that until he be taken out of the way. Now, another meaning of this, you can take it either way, that way, or the original meaning of this old English word "let" was meant to mean "prevent", or hold back. He who now preventeth the Antichrist & the Devil from taking over the World, will keep on preventing it, or withholding it--this flood of iniquity, this flood of evil that's going to take over the World when the Antichrist & the Devil reign as king & as god--until he's taken out of the way.
79. GOD, SO FAR, HAS BEEN HOLDING BACK THE FLOODTIDE OF EVIL & THE FLOOD OF INIQUITY, THE FLOOD OF SATANIC FORCES! He's been holding them back! But one of these days soon the restraining power of God is going to be removed like a dam, is going to be taken away, & a whole lot of iniquity is going to flood the World under the reign of the Devil himself in person, the person of the Antichrist!
80. "AND THEN", HE SAYS, 8TH VERSE, TAKE A LOOK AT IT, "THEN SHALL THAT WICKED"--notice it even capitalises the word "Wicked" because it's the name of this Devil-man, this Antichrist!--"Then shall that Wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth, & shall destroy with the brightness of His coming!" Again it shows that the Antichrist comes first, before Jesus' coming! "Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan." The Antichrist is going to come first, with the workings of Satan.
81. "WITH ALL POWER & SIGNS & LYING WONDERS. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the Truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." That's the Scripture! Does it say it?
82. TAKE ONE LAST LOOK BEFORE I LOOK YOU IN THE EYE AGAIN & TELL YOU, BELOVED, Brother, Sister, or Enemy or whoever you are, or unsaved or poor lost soul, that you had better believe what we've been telling you here from this Book, reading God's Word, Jesus' Words to you, Paul's words to you, John's words to you, Matthew's words.--All these men of God who wrote this book & the things we've been telling you, what God has showed us.
83. DON'T EXPECT JESUS TO COME ALONG PRETTY SOON, ANY MOMENT, & CATCH YOU OUT OF THIS WORLD ON A BED OF EASE & help you escape from the Tribulation & the Antichrist & his forces & the Mark of the Beast & compulsory worship of his Image! I'm sorry if that disappoints you that you might have to live through the Tribulation, but that's what the Bible teaches! That's what the Bible says! That's the Truth! And I have read it to you here tonight from many Scriptures: In the Words of Jesus, the Words of Paul, the Words of John, various ones, the Words of God's Holy Spirit written in His Holy Book!--See there? It's the Holy Bible, plain as day! It says so right here, doesn't it?
84. IT SAYS "HOLY BIBLE", IT'S GOD'S WORD, HIS HOLY PURE WORD!--Not the adulterated polluted word of some of these preachers that try to give you that soft-soap, false peace prophets, telling you "peace, peace", when there is no peace.--"Peace & safety" when there's sudden destruction! Don't believe'm! Jesus said, "Don't believe it, believe what I tell you! (Taps Bible.) This is the way I'm going to come! You'll know it when I come! I'm not going to come secretly, here, there, but the whole World's going to know it when I come, & you're going to know it! And the whole World's going to see you go up & be with Me in Heaven!"
85. AND BEFORE THAT, HE SAID, IS GOING TO COME THE ANTICHRIST & HIS TRIBULATION & HIS IMAGE, & him sitting in the Temple of God, that Jewish Temple over there, & claiming that he's God, & trying to force everybody to worship him as God, the Devil himself in the flesh!--The Devil finally trying to do what he always wanted to do, & be what he always wanted to be, God Himself! And trying to force the World to worship him.--Not voluntarily, but by force! It's all written right here in the Book! We've read it to you & it's the truth!
86. NOW THE REST IS UP TO YOU, ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE IT & RECEIVE IT? If not, He says here that the Antichrist is going to work with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in you, them that perish! Why? "Because they receive not the love of the Truth that they might be saved." Let me tell you, Beloved, if you don't believe what I'm telling you, the Devil is going to work in you too, & not only the Antichrist, with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness!
87. YOU'RE GOING TO PERISH BECAUSE YOU RECEIVED NOT THE LOVE OF THE TRUTH THAT YOU MIGHT BE SAVED! For God is going to send you strong delusion, that you should believe a lie, that you might be damned because you believed not the Truth! That's what God's Word says!--But you had instead pleasure in unrighteousness. Is that what you're going to be? Is that where you're going to be?
88. IS THAT WHO YOU'RE GOING TO BE, ONE OF THOSE WHO REJECTS THIS TRUTH that I've been reading you from God's Word & who refuses to receive it & refuses to believe it, so that the Devil himself is going to work in you just like he does in the Antichrist, just like he does in the rest of the Hellish people of this World who are going to receive his Mark of the Beast in their foreheads or hands & follow the Beast & worship him, & do all kinds of iniquity to God's children, & perpetrate all kinds of horrors upon them!--Atrocities!
89. IS THAT WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN? IS THAT WHO YOU'RE GOING TO BE? Are you going to be one of the Devil's children in that day, one of the followers of the Antichrist?--Because you refused to believe what I'm telling you? You refused to believe God's Word? You rejected the Truth of God so that you became blind & darkened in your understanding, alienated from the life of God & past feeling, as the Apostle says, because you rejected the Truth, you refused to receive the Truth! (Eph.4:18,19.)
90. THEREFORE GOD HIMSELF IS SENDING YOU THAT STRONG DELUSION! God is sending the Antichrist. "Aaaah!", you say, "What are you talking about? God sends the Antichrist?!"--Yes! God is going to send the Devil down here in person to deceive you because you refused to believe God's Word! God is going to send the Antichrist down to you to deceive you further because you refused to receive the Love of the Truth, the Love of God & the Love of Jesus Christ & His Salvation!
91. GOD HIMSELF IS GOING TO SEND YOU STRONG DELUSION THAT YOU MIGHT BELIEVE A LIE--the lie of the Antichrist & his deviltry & his demonic worship & his Image & all the rest! God Himself is going to send you that lie that you might believe a lie, that you might be damned because you believed not the Truth! What else can He do? If you won't believe the Truth, what else can you believe?--Nothing but lies, that's all!
92. YOU TAKE AWAY THE TRUTH & THERE'S NOTHING BUT LIES LEFT, there's nothing left to believe but the lies of the Devil! Well, you didn't want to believe God's Truth. You took pleasure in unrighteousness & believing the lies of the Devil & Evolution & all that rot, so God's going to let you believe it.
93. YOU KNOW WHAT? GOD EVEN SENT EVOLUTION TO TEST PEOPLE'S FAITH, that they might believe a lie, that they might be damned! Because the people who believe in Evolution are the people who already have rejected the Word of God regarding Creation, or they would never believe it! They would believe the Bible & what the Bible says about the Creation of man & the Creation of the World! That's what they'd believe.
94. SO YOU REJECT IT, THEN YOU HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO BELIEVE BUT LIES, the lies of the Devil, Evolution, anti-God, anti-Christ, pride & knowledge of man, to believe that there's going to be peace on Earth under the Antichrist, that there's going to be a Heaven on Earth under the Devil! That's all you'll have left to believe.
95. AND YOU'LL ACCEPT HIS MARK IN YOUR FOREHEAD & HAND IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO BUY & SELL & EAT, & you'll fall down flat on your face & worship his idol, his Image, in order to live! That's what you'll do, that's exactly what you'll do, because you rejected the Truth & you received not the love of the Truth & the Love of God! And therefore He has nothing left for you but hate & deceit & lies & demonic deviltry & cruelty & perdition! Hell! Hell on Earth & Hell hereafter, that's what you're going to get if you reject Jesus Christ & God's Love & His Word!
96. THAT'S A TERRIBLE MESSAGE, ISN'T IT? You say, "That's not a very happy message! Why don't you preach the sweet Gospel of Jesus? Why don't you preach the sweet Gospel, the sweet story of His Love & not scare me like that with all those terrible scary horrible things you're talking about!"
97. LISTEN BROTHER, LET ME TELL YOU SISTER, IF I CAN'T LOVE YOU INTO HEAVEN, I'D JUST AS SOON SCARE YOU INTO HEAVEN! And I'd a Hell of a lot rather scare you into Heaven than love you into Hell! That's the way I feel about it! Amen? PTL? So if I'm trying to scare you out of Hell into Heaven, that's better than trying to love you into Hell, like the Devil wants his preachers to do! Because that's the way it's going to happen. That's what the Bible says.
98. SO NOW OUR CLASS IS OVER, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO CLOSE THE BOOK, RING THE BELL & DOUSE THE CANDLE! It's going to be the end of our little bit of exhortation & exorcism. We're trying to exorcise the Devil out of you, & get God in your heart instead, because that's the way the End is going to happen. Because God said so, Jesus said so & His Word says so, & I said so! Because it's the Truth!
99. (SINGS:) "FOR WHEN JESUS COMES, THE EARTH WILL SHAKE & HEARTS WILL QUAKE, YOU'D BETTER BE READY! When Jesus comes, His face we'll see eternally, be ready! Has your soul been filled with the fire of His Holy Ghost?"--His Holy Spirit of Love!--"Are you saved & ready to meet the Lord of Hosts? When Jesus comes, His face we'll see eternally, be ready!" I do hope you'll be ready! Jesus, help them to be ready by asking You into their hearts right now if they're not already ready. Lord, help them to sing with me that little song:
100. "INTO MY HEART, INTO MY HEART, COME INTO MY HEART, LORD JESUS! Come in today, come in to stay. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus!" Hallelujah! And if you meant that, He has come in, & He's going to make you a new person, a new creature in Christ Jesus, "old things passed away, all things become new" (2Cor.5:17) & you're going to want to tell everybody about Him!--Your family, your friends, your neighbours, the whole World! You'll want to go into all the World & preach the Gospel! (Mk.16:15) That's what you're going to want to do, I warn you--if you take Jesus into your heart.
101. IF YOU'VE TAKEN HIM INTO YOUR HEART, YOU'RE GOING TO WANT TO OBEY HIM! You'll want to love everybody, & tell everybody & shout Hallelujah till Jesus comes! Praise God! OK? I hope this exorcism worked tonight on you, & I hope we cast the Devil out of you & got Jesus in instead. So we've closed the Book & we're going to ring the bell & bring the curtain down now on this lesson, & it's about time to douse the camera! Good-bye! X! GBY! Goodnight! ILY! See you next class, OK? X! Goodnight! PTL! ILY!--Are you ready?
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
