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Pastor David Mitchell
Hello, Park Meadows. How are you doing today? Good to see all of you. I'm like Dave, I wish we could do our normal hugs and everything, but that'll come soon. I'm hoping that this virus hates heat, and boy, Texas will have some of that pretty soon.
We ought to be clear if it does hate heat, right? Welcome to all of our Tradeway friends out there too. You guys, it's just so amazing to have you be able to be with us, and it's like so many of us have said, every time bad things happen, the Lord just turns that into something good for those who love him, and who are called according to his purpose.
He just made it possible for it to be easy for you guys to meet with us. I know when you fly into Dallas for meetings in the old days, you'd come down, of course, Canada and come to church, and that's hard to do, and this is easier.
So we know though that you're giving us your precious time and stuff, so we thank you for that. So great to have you with us today. I'm going to see if I can share my screen here and make my technology work, which is always kind of interesting, but I think I can do it.
Just give me a second. All right, can you see my screen, Dave or Ben? Yes, we can. We can see it. All right, good deal. Okay, very good. All right, well, this is where we've been hanging out in Romans.
We're going through the book of Romans verse by verse, and if you've been visiting with us, if you visit once, you're not a visitor anymore. We can see you're part of the family. So you know that we might hang on to a word for a week or two, so we don't go fast.
We go slow. And the section that we've been in is Romans 8 .23 through 25, and I just put this one verse up by way of review in 8 .23, and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body.
And I've talked about in the last few Sundays, it surprised me to realize, and I don't know why I never realized it, but I never did, that right here in the middle of Romans chapter 8 is a rapture verse.
It's talking about the rapture of the church. And I mean, I've just never thought about it, but the adoption and the redemption of the body is a reference to the physical body that is changed in the air at the rapture.
And if you read verses 24 through about 25, they talk about all of creation is also groaning because when Adam and Eve sinned, the world was cursed, humans were cursed, the whole kingdom. Everything in God's creation was put a little bit out of order by that or a lot.
We don't know how much do we, but a lot out of order. And the beautiful thing is John 3, 16 says that Jesus came to die for the cosmos. In the Greek, it means the orderly arrangement or the orderly creation of God, not just us, certainly us, but not just us.
He died to put everything back in the right state. And by right of conquest, he took back the dominion over the world from humans that Satan had taken away in the garden. Adam and Eve were given the dominion of God's creation and the dominion over that, and Satan took it away by right of conquest, and Jesus took it back by right of conquest when he raised from the grave, did he not?
So this is the passage we're in, and it was a bit of a launching pad to go out and talk about the end times and the rapture a little bit because that's what we do. When we see major Bible themes as we're going verse by verse through any book, we will jump out and look all around and look at all the supporting passages and parallel passages and chew on that for a while.
So that's kind of what we've been doing here, all right? So also, we talked recently about the fact that there are exactly two resurrections taught in the Bible. So that's one of the things we talked about the last two Sundays.
Jesus called them the resurrection of life and the resurrection unto damnation. And so Jesus talked about two resurrections, and Daniel spoke of it, and Paul speaks of it. So we talked about that. And here in 1 Thessalonians 4, about verse 16 through about chapter 5 and verse 11, we see here this beautiful passage we talked about.
Now, today, I just popped up this little part here about the rapture. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Now, what you notice that the Scripture says very clearly that the resurrection has to take place before the rapture, not after it. There is a...and I don't want you to get emotionally attached and upset at me, but there is a false theory that teaches that the rapture happened seven years prior to the second coming.
It's not taught in the Bible. It's taught in a lot of books, and I've read the books and believed it all my life until just maybe a decade ago. It's what I grew up believing, and even my mentors believed it.
But I'll tell you this, Brother Otis Fisher changed his viewpoint before he went to heaven, and he and I studied it together on our own rather than just taking our mentors from the past, taking their words for it.
And guess what? The Bible doesn't teach that theory. We all wish it did, but it doesn't. And so it's interesting here because it's very clear. It says, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
That is the rapture. But look at verse 16. It says, for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump, that's the last trump, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then they which are alive and remain, that's us if we're still here, which I think we will be, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord, and so shall we ever be. Comfort one another with these words.
And the scripture, the Apostle Paul also says in another place that we shall not precede them, which means we can't go up before them. They go up first, but we're going with them. So as they rise from the grave and their bodies are glorified and put back, every molecule put back and made perfect and glorified, we're coming right up with them.
Just, I love the word nanosecond. So a few nanoseconds after they come out of the grave, we come up with them, and we're changing the air, and we all meet the Lord together in the sky. And that's the rapture, and it happens at the second coming when he comes back.
That's when this happens because it has to happen after the resurrection or at the resurrection. And so many people miss these simple Bible facts because we've read so many books. And I challenge you, you know, it's great to read books, helps us find all the verses and know the topics and all that, but we've got to be adults, ladies and gentlemen.
We've got to realize that the word of God is the true authority. The other books are just humans, and they make mistakes, and most of the time, they don't even mean to. And I don't think Dwight Pentecost was a bad person.
My mom got to meet him once, and she thought he was a really nice guy. But he got some of it wrong in his thing we call the Bible of the second coming, things to come. It's just, it's off, okay? And I don't think he meant to be wrong at all, and don't criticize him even because you look at us, we've seen so many things happen from the time he wrote that book until now.
So many signs that the Bible talks about that will happen or happening that had not even happened yet. And so we have more light on the issue than he did, even though he's a great scholar, we have more light than he did.
So we're going to see it open up. And I just, what I exhort you to do is go to the scripture and don't read anything into it. Let it speak to you. Don't take the books you've read. See, I had a friend challenge me with this, is what changed me.
It's not what he said that changed me, although it's the study that I did because of what he said. He said, I want to ask you to do two things for me, David. Number one, answer this question, how many last trumps can there be?
Because that's when the rapture happens. And I said, that's fair enough. And he said, number two, I want you to pray about letting Jesus Christ chronology of the end times be more important to you than the books you've read.
And I said, that's fair enough too. So for the next five years, I got an interest in this topic for the first time in my life. And that was maybe a decade ago now, I don't know. But so I don't believe the same way as I did after studying it on my own, looking at the Bible and what the Bible says and trying my best to divorce myself for any presuppositions that any human put in my mind about it.
And man, when you do that, that sets you free. You just let the Bible speak. This scripture says the rapture happens after the resurrection. And we've already studied for two weeks now that there's only two resurrections.
And the guys that write the theory, of course, they create a bunch of resurrections that are not in the Bible. And we talked about that last time too, if you want to go out to the archives at Park Meadows, be sure you put Park Meadows Church or else you'll end up at Park Meadows in Waxahachie.
That's not our church. So ours is parkmeadowschurch .com. You can get the past messages and see where we talked about these two resurrections and prove that the scripture doesn't teach but two. It only teaches two.
The first one is at the end of the church age, and the second one is at the end of the 1 ,000-year millennial kingdom. So all of that's there for you if you want to go listen to it. So the rapture happens as part of the first resurrection, and the raptured people cannot go up prior to the resurrected people who had passed on before them.
The two go up together, and that's what we've been talking about. So the raptured ones are following along with the resurrected ones at the same time. It's not seven years prior to that, it's at the same time.
So we have to rethink things, but it's good because think about it, if you were the devil and you love slaughtering Christians and Jews, the best lie you could tell is, hey, you don't need to prepare or worry about it, you're not even going to be here.
And then have theologians teach that and put it in Bibles, like the Schofield Reference Bible and all that. And I love the Schofield Reference Bible. I use it all the time. I just discount that part because it's wrong.
His notes are not inspired, right? Just the scripture is inspired. And so then we saw this part here, we talked about a little bit last time, 1 Thessalonians 5, 1, talks about the times and the seasons, and we're not ignorant of these things.
And even though it says he will come as a thief in the night, the truth is he's not like that to us because verse 4 says, we're not in darkness concerning these things, lest it overtake us as a thief.
We know the signs, we know the scripture. So we know when the trees start to bud, summer is near, right? The lost world has no clue. They're going to be saying, peace, peace, and safety, safety, and then it's going to come upon them, but it won't be that way for us.
Therefore, let us not sleep. And so what that's talking about is we have got work to do. Even though we see these signs, and I think the coronavirus is a sign. I mean, no doubt in my mind, Jesus talks about pestilences.
Now, we've always had them. We've always had earthquakes. But he says it's like the beginning of sorrows. It's the birth pangs. It's like they get closer together and more of them and stronger, and then the baby's born.
So don't discount the signs that you're seeing. There are more earthquakes now killing more people than ever. I've done the study myself. I looked at the data. It's a fact. There are more deaths to earthquakes than ever before.
And this virus is different than anything in my life or my 90-year-old mom's life. That spans a lot of time. We've not seen anything like this, and here we are. So we don't want to discount the signs.
And so then here's where I want us to go for today. All that was review, and that's less review than I usually do. So those of you that are here for the first time, you know right where we are. But here's where I want to put us today.
Now, look at this. In the book of Revelation chapter 19, verse 6, and I struggled with what I wanted to preach on today, what I thought the Lord wanted me to preach on. I've got a Word doc right behind this PowerPoint that where it's an overview of the book of Revelation, and I was just rereading it this week.
I wrote it many years ago after I first did my first study on this topic. Maybe a year into that study, I wrote this, and it was totally different than anything I'd ever believed before, but it's very strong.
I said, man, that's good writing. I wrote it when I was quite a bit younger, but I'm thinking, wow, you know, I saw that, you know, more than 10 years ago, and I haven't changed my mind on it since then, and I might pull...if we have time, I'll pull some of it out and read it with you, but it addresses this concept that people, these false teachers say that in the book of Revelation, after you get past about chapter, I think it's right in chapter 4, that the church is never mentioned again, therefore, it's raptured at that point.
That is, number one, terrible logic. It's a logical fallacy to ever prove a negative. You can't do it. Like to say, oh, since the word church is not in there, then the church, it won't be here. You can't prove anything that way.
That would be like saying the word rapture is not found anywhere in there, so it doesn't happen. And by the way, the word rapture is not found in there, and it does happen. So that's terrible logic, and besides that, the church is all through the book of Revelation, and the book was written to the church.
It wasn't written to Jews, and the dispensationalists who come out with this theory say, oh, all of this is Jewish material. Well, okay, you can believe that, but you're going to, you know, you're going to find out that you're wrong, and I hope you don't become one of the ones slaughtered by the devil and the antichrist because you didn't prepare.
I sincerely hope that. So let's look at this. I want to ask you, I want you to get you thinking because I'm not here to convince you, I'm here to get you to study. That's all I'm here for. If I can get you to go spend a year or two or five studying this like my friend made me do, and he didn't even debate me, he said, I'm not going to debate you, little brother.
He was like 6 '7", so he called me little brother. He said, I'm not going to debate you, little brother. Just want to ask you two honest questions. How many last trumps can there be, and would you let Jesus' chronology in Matthew 24 be more important to you than the books you've read?
And I said, yes, and it ruined me because I had to study. Now I had to study for five years after that, on and off. So I hope to do that to you today. Just trying to get you to question some of the junk that humans have taught you, some of the denominational stuff, and your denomination is not true.
Keep all the true stuff. Keep all the truth that you got from that, but be free enough to say, hey, that's human, that's not God. That did not come from God, and I'm not going to believe that anymore.
You can do that. The Holy Spirit's your teacher, not any man. 1 John says, you have no need than any man teach you. You have an unction from God. So you got the Scripture, which is the water, and you got the Spirit, and that's the Holy Spirit, and that's the two things you need.
I'm not discounting that God gives humans teachers and pastors as gifts to the church, but if they vary from Scripture, then you need to correct them nicely in private, I believe, and ask them to re-examine and show them where they're wrong, kindly, and ask them to get up and apologize for it.
If they won't do it, go somewhere else. That's what I think, or else, you know, unless God keeps you there to keep working with them, that's okay, too. So now I want to ask you an honest question here.
Revelation 19, verse 7. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. Now, if you go look at that in the Greek, that is in the active voice, not passive.
That tells us a lot. Greek is like math. It'll resolve a lot of arguments because it's like you can't mess with it, and usually, you just can't, and sometimes, if you think you can mess with it, then you got to look at the context, and then that fixes the problem.
But in this passage, it's talking about the church being the bride of Jesus Christ and Jesus the groom, and he's coming back for his bride, right? And he says, when he comes, the bride will have made herself.
Now, if that was God doing it to you, it'd be passive. If we were talking about what we call positional righteousness, you know what? Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for everyone here.
We just ask you to bless this time, make sure and keep complete control of the speaker, and help me speak only the truth from the Word of God, and let our hearers out there be guided by the Holy Spirit, and we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen. Now, think about this for a minute. If this, we're talking about positional righteousness, which that happens by imputation. We've talked about that so many times. That's what saves us, actually, is the doctrine of imputation.
What it talks about is that when Jesus was on the cross, God took all the sins of his people, Old Testament and New Testament, all the way out to the end of the millennial kingdom. Everybody's sins that belonged to him, not the whole world, but the elect, the people that belonged to God, he took their sins and put them in the body of Christ, and he died in their place as their substitute and paid the sin debt for them.
Now, when that happened, then God took the, that's called imputation, because God imputed our sins to him. He took, that's an accounting term. It means he took our sins from us, and he debited our bank account, took the sins out, and he credited Jesus' bank account, put our sins in his account.
Then he took Jesus' righteousness, and purity, and goodness, and holiness, and he debited his account, took it out, and credited our account, put it on us, and God sees us as dressed up in Christ. He sees us as perfectly righteous, and that's why we're saved and going to heaven, because there is no sin in heaven.
That's called imputed righteousness, and it's called positional, which means no matter what you do, you cannot change your position. God is your father, you're his child. He doesn't disown his children.
You can't lose your salvation. You have positional righteousness. But I'm going to tell you something. Anytime you find that talked about, it's in the passive voice, which means someone bigger and greater than you did it to you.
That has to be God did it to you, but this is in the active voice. So this is not positional righteousness. This is called experiential, or some call it experimental righteousness. I like experiential better.
The theologians use experimental. I don't like that. Sounds weird. So experiential righteousness. This means it's you trying to live right. Now, I understand we still have the old man, and so we fail, but you know what?
That's part of God's plan. So we have to just 1 John 1 9 tells us if we will confess. It doesn't say ask him to forgive you. You're already forgiven. It says confess. That means agree with him that it was wrong.
Get the difference. It's very important. Confess your sins, and he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's even the ones we don't even think about.
That's a promise. It says he's faithful, which means he'll do it every time, and he's righteous, which means because his son died for you, it's right for him to do it. It's just because his son paid the price.
It is finished. It is paid in full, Jesus said before he died. The finished work of Christ is so awesome, and it gives us that position of righteousness. It gives us our very salvation, but he then says, be ye holy as I am holy, doesn't he?
We're supposed to try to live right. Now, God knows that this treasure is in earthen vessels, and he gets the glory from that. It's his wisdom that made it this way. Listen, if you worry about your salvation because you did some kind of sin this week, and you said, man, if I'd have been saved, I'd have never done that.
That proves your salvation. You know how I know? Because goats don't ever think that way. Only sheep. Only sheep think that way. Sheep know when they're dirty. Goats don't. They like it. They're like pigs, all right?
Now, I don't know who the sheep and the goats are. Usually, I can tell sometimes, and so can you if you admit it. Well, maybe not a goat. Maybe it could be a lost sheep, someone that's not saved yet because they look just like goats to us.
But you know what I'm saying. The Holy Spirit tells your spirit you're saved, and the Holy Spirit in you can tell. If you hang around with someone long enough, you can sense if they're a brother or not.
I mean, we here on this together today can sense it. By reading the words we say to one another for one thing, we can sense it pretty well. Not perfectly, maybe, but pretty well, all right? So now, here we see the Lord telling us that the bride will make herself ready.
Now, it's not perfect in the sense that we're still in the old flesh, but the more we grab Jesus' hand and we walk throughout that day filled with the Spirit during those moments, we do not sin. The book of 1 John says we cannot sin because that's the new man connected to the Holy Spirit, and they become one spirit, the Bible says, and you now have the word written in your heart, and you walk right.
But then when we let go of the hand, we can sink like Peter did into the water, right? In the flesh, we can sink. So that is the life we've been given to live. Don't get so upset about it when you're not perfect.
God made it this way, and He likes it this way because He, guess what? When you do finally get it right, He gets all the glory. Because you know, like you know as well as I do that our righteousnesses are as filthy rags compared to God's righteous, and when we do finally do a good work, and it was the Holy Spirit that led us to do it, you know, God gets the glory because we know in our old nature, we never would have done it, right?
So it's all on purpose, and you just get your first John 1 night, and you get up, and you go again, and you try to live right. Now, this is saying that by the time Jesus comes back, the church will have made herself ready in the active voice.
She will be being holy for He is holy on purpose by trying to do it, and that's called experiential righteousness, and you can't do it on your own. You can only do it sum, in the Greek that means with, together with Christ.
You can only do it holding His hand, but she will be practicing holding His hand more than the church has ever done before, and you look at the state of the church right now, she's better than she was before the coronavirus, right?
But I want to ask you this question right there. If you look at the state of the church prior to the coronavirus, would you say we were the strongest church in church history or the weakest? What would you say?
Chat me out a little bit here, Dave. If you're there, tell me what they're saying. I want to know what you think. Is the modern church today the strongest church in the last 2 ,000 years, or are we the Laodicean church?
Everybody's saying that they're weak, the weakest, lazy. Okay, so I agree with you.
So here we are in the weakest state the church has ever been in, in the history of the church, and we're going to make ourselves ready? Now, I understand positional, and I've got that, and you've got it, and praise God, because we'd go flat to hell if we didn't.
And what we do can't change the fact that positionally in God's eyes we're perfect, because He sees Jesus when He looks at us. I understand all that, but this isn't talking about that. This is saying the church makes herself ready for Him to come back.
Now, how in the world is the weakest church in the world going to do that? Please shoot me some answers. What do you think would have to happen to cause the modern church to become strong? Shoot me some answers.
I just want to hear what you think. Trials. Yeah, somebody said revival, but I'm talking about way before revival happens, because revival doesn't just happen. What is it that would cause that?
Persecution of some kind, troubles, repentance, purification. But what causes the repentance?
So, that's the result. I want to know what the cause is. Lots of people are saying troubles. Persecution, trouble, tribulation. You know, that is what causes it. Now, I understand somebody said Holy Spirit.
We know that. We can't do anything by ourselves. So, you know, without me, you can do nothing, Jesus said. So, you're right. Holy Spirit, yes. But what is it? But the church has the Holy Spirit, right?
We're indwelt. So, that hasn't done it. The Holy Spirit, you know, because is it possible for us to quench the Holy Spirit? Is it possible for us to totally just block him out? Absolutely. We can do it individually as a church.
So, the right answer is tribulation, trials, trouble. It's been true for every era of the church and every time there's ever been great revival is because there was great trouble. Even in the Bible times when you see folks on ships going out to make money for their family and God brings a storm and it wasn't the devil that did it.
It was God that did it. Why? Because then they started praying. They weren't praying before that. Why? Because that's our nature. So, it's going to take tribulation. So, this idea that the church will be removed from the earth before the tribulation starts is nuts.
There's no way in the world that can happen and the church make herself ready. It won't happen. It hasn't happened. It won't happen. So, she's going to have to go through some tribulation to make herself ready.
Now, that's a logical argument I just made and I can't prove that in and of itself, but it's not a bad logical argument because it's been true throughout 2 ,000 years of church history and you'd go check that out.
Read Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Folks that think that God promises he won't let his church go through tribulation, read Foxe's Book of Martyrs. The church has gone through horrible tribulation in every age and still is in Africa and Iraq and Iran.
Right now, they're being slaughtered. In Egypt, right now, they're being slaughtered. That's nonsense to say God won't let his church go through tribulation because he always has and he will and he says in the time of the seven-year period, there are Christians that will have their heads cut off and it's in scripture even though these scholars say the church is not found after chapter four.
Yes, it is. It's found having its head cut off and their brothers in heaven are watching it and complaining saying, Jesus, how long, how long, how long will you wait before you put your wrath on these people that are killing our brothers?
So, it's all concocted and it doesn't fit. I mean, when you tell a lie, there's so many holes in it, you can't cover them all up. You just can't. You just can't do it. All right. So, this is very important that we see and these little things like this, I mean, they help you wake up to the fact, wait, you know, that theory just may not be true because look, this right here won't work.
This won't work under that theory. And to her, it was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen and clean and white for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. So, now you see, now you see your experience, now you see your positional righteousness too, but she made herself ready.
You can't discount that. And he said unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb, and he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. Now, when we go into Hebrews chapter 5 verse 8, it says, Though we were a son, yet learned, though he, this is speaking of Jesus, though Jesus were a son, yet learned he the obedience by the things which he suffered.
Now, if the Son of God, the God-man, Jesus Christ, learned obedience by suffering, why do we think the church doesn't have to suffer? None of that, none of that fits what the Bible teaches. And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.
That word obey actually means to complete and to be complete in him. It doesn't mean you're saved by obeying. That's not what it means at all. So, you understand that. So, now we have a bit of a problem with the theory is that the church is going to make herself ready.
What's going to cause that? And I understand it's going to be the Holy Spirit. It's going to be God who brings all these things to happen, but it's going to have an effect on the church, and she is going to become experientially righteous.
She is going to, like, she's going to throw her toys away. She's not going to be so interested in the toys and the worldly things. She's not going to be so interested in corruption and explicit sex and immoral sex, that is.
And all these things that Hollywood's putting out there, everything that sort of catches the attention of the church, she'll lose her interest in any of that by the time this, the Lord comes back. The scripture says so, and she will.
All right. Now, let's go into Matthew 25 for a moment. Verse one says, then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins which took their lamps. Now, this is Jesus Christ speaking, and he's telling them what it's going to be like when he comes back.
Okay. These ten virgins took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. That's Jesus, right? So, we're talking about the second coming here. Five of them were wise, and five were foolish. So, we understand that Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven included good fish and bad fish.
It included wheat and tares. And here it includes foolish virgins and wise virgins. And they're all going to church together, and the bigger your church is, the more you're going to have tares in there with you.
Park Meadows is a little bitty country church, and it's a little bit easier to know your brothers and sisters, and that's a blessing. And we're thrilled to be able to grow by having you guys with us. I mean, that's awesome.
But, you know, that's how Jesus says it is. And he said, look, don't try to separate those yourselves because you might damage a wheat. And he said, I am charged by the Father to not lose one wheat. No man comes to me, but that the Father draws him, and of them I will lose nothing, Jesus says, but shall raise it up in the last times.
So, he can't lose one bit of wheat. So, he doesn't want us trying to weed the garden. He said, my angels will do that at the end of the age. They will separate the wheat from the chaff and so forth, right?
So, here we see another way Jesus groups them, the wise virgins and the unwise virgins. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps, and while the bridegroom waited and tarried, and that's how we feel, like we say, Jesus, why don't you just come on back?
Because I don't want to die physically. I want to go up in the rapture. I don't want to see anybody I love die physically. Starting right now, including my 90-year-old mom, I want you, mom, I want you to be here when the rapture happens, and I think you will be.
So, keep pushing, all right? But while the bridegroom tarried, they slumbered and fell asleep, kind of reminds me of the apostles while Jesus was praying. That's kind of our nature, but watch this. At midnight, there was a shout, and that would be typified as the last trump in the book of Revelation.
And behold, the bridegroom cometh, was what the shout said, the announcement, the last trump. Go you out to meet him. Well, you better be ready when that happens, right? Okay, and your neighbors, they need to be ready when that happens.
Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish one said to the wise, give us some of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. And the wise said, not so, not so, lest there be not enough for us and you, but go you rather to them that sell it and buy it for yourselves.
And so, that's what they went and did. And by the time they came back, look what happened. While they went to buy, the bridegroom came. Jesus came back, and they weren't ready. And they that were ready went in with him to the marriage supper, and the door was shut.
That's definitive. And afterward, they came, the other unwise virgins saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. See, they knew his name, but they weren't genuine believers. They were false believers. And he said unto them, verily, truly, I say unto you, I know you not.
See, people don't get saved because of what they do. They get saved if Christ knows you, because that word know in the Bible means with affection. Did he know you before the foundation of the world as his own or not?
And if you're sitting out there today and you say, well, I might as well do nothing then because I don't know if I'm elect or not. Listen, if you're concerned about your soul, if you're concerned about heaven and hell and things like that, you are not a goat, all right?
They don't care. At worst, you're a lost sheep, and every lost sheep comes to Christ because the Holy Spirit will tag you one of these days and wake you up. And if he's working in your heart, just don't resist, all right?
Just don't resist. Do not worry about this thing about whether you're elect or not. That doesn't even matter to you. What matters is, are you concerned about it? Do you sense the voice of the Lord saying, you better get ready?
Brother David is talking about a time when it's just going to be some kind of trumpet sound and it's over, and if I'm not belonging to the Lord, I'm not going up. I'm staying here for the very end of the tribulation, which is the worst part, the battle of Armageddon, and the blood will be so high, it'll be to the bridle on a horse that high in the valley of Megiddo.
And listen, if he's tugging at your heart, just listen. It's all you have to do. Listen. In the Old Testament, when they went out and the snakes were killing everybody because they had sinned against God and Moses, and they held up the serpent, which pictured our sins on the body of Jesus, all they had to do was look.
Just look and be saved. There's no works involved there. It's all, it's just faith. So you just need to yield to the Lord in the sense that you know you're not God, but you know he is, and you won't even do that if the Holy Spirit hadn't already shown you that, and if he has, he's already called you.
You're already regenerated, or you wouldn't be thinking that. And so part of what you'll do is all of these wonderful effects of the things that the Holy Spirit does to you and gives you gifts, such as the faith of Christ.
He gives you the change of mind. That's called repentance. He makes you change your mind about who God is. It's like, I'm not God. He's God. That's repentance. And all these thoughts come into your mind.
That's not natural. That's the Holy Spirit calling you. And he regenerates you while we were yet in our sins, hath he quickened us? He brought us to life from death. He did. We didn't have anything to do with it.
He did it. While we were still dead, he did it. So regeneration is of God and God alone, and it was made possible by the blood of Jesus and the blood plus nothing. And Jesus sprinkled that blood at the mercy seat in heaven, and he sends the Holy Spirit to sprinkle it on you and me individually, and that's when we're saved.
And that's a spiritual thing that happens invisibly, but you feel it the minute it happens, and it doesn't have anything to do with going down an altar or telling some preacher a prayer formula. If you're feeling it right now, you're saved, okay?
If you have the Holy Spirit who woke you up, and these things are important, and you want to be ready, and you want to have the oil, then the Holy Spirit is the one who is the oil. And when he comes into your heart, he will live there till the Lord comes back.
So you will be ready. Just look, it's like a groom and a young virgin, and the man pursues her. She doesn't even notice him at first. And the man pursues and pursues and gives her chocolates and candy and jewelry, and all of a sudden she notices him and responds, right?
Jesus is the groom. We're the church. You're the bride, okay? And he has been working your whole life through people, through radio messages, through Bibles, through who knows what, and certainly through the Holy Spirit.
And if he's wooing you, all you have to do is what the bride does. You just respond, and you receive all of this as a free gift. You can't do anything. It's just yours, and you just receive it, and you bask in it, and you find yourself his.
You find yourself his. It's like being born again, Jesus said. The baby has nothing to do with its birth. In fact, it's the problem. It has nothing to do with helping the mom give birth. It's all of the parents, just like salvation is all of God, our parent, right?
It's all of the parents, and that baby all of a sudden is born, wakes up, and he's in the family, and he can never be not part of the family. He can't do anything to lose his birth into that family any more than we can lose our salvation, because we didn't do anything to get it, unless you accepted false doctrine.
True doctrine says it's a gift, a free gift, and you just find yourself born. Now you're his. Now start living right, and that's what we meant by the church making herself ready. Want to be better. Want to be more pure.
Strive to be a better man. Strive to be a better woman or a better teenager, and do the best you can with the equipment God's given you today, and that's what he asked us to do. He does not ask us to save ourselves or to keep ourselves saved, because we can't.
It's all the work of Christ, and listen, he's the shepherd, you're not, and do you know that if you lost your salvation, it's he who would answer to God for it, not you, because he's the shepherd. I want you to think about that.
I was a shepherd. I kept my grandfather's cattle, and the bulls would get out. Can you imagine me? And he was a rough oil man, not the bull, but my grandfather. He was a rough oil man, and he cussed all the time.
Can you imagine me coming and saying, Papa, your bull's out, and he says, well, did you go get it? And I say, nah, he just exercised his free will, and he's gone now. You would hear some cursing. He would say, go get the bull.
Why? Because I'm the shepherd. It's my responsibility to keep him in the pasture, not the bulls. Think about that. It'll change how you think about salvation, I promise you. Jesus is responsible for you, and of them, he will lose nothing.
I diverge a little bit, but I think the Holy Spirit diverged me, okay? So, here we see the bridegroom comes, and I like this in verse 9 where they said, not so, lest there be not enough for us and you.
So, they went out to buy it, and while they did, the wise virgins were brought into the marriage supper, and they were some of the guests, you know, and they're brought into the marriage supper, and the door is closed, and when the others come, they're not allowed in because Jesus never knew them.
They were never elect. They were never part of it, and they never will be, and there are people like that, and the Bible teaches that there are. If you haven't seen that, then go study. All right, verse 13.
Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man will come. What a passage of Scripture. Now, let's go out to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, kind of in that area we were in at the end of our time together last time.
And let's pick this up, and we kind of stopped with verse 8, and I came into verse 9 and 10, and I might have mentioned it, but I want to go into a little more detail here because you have to attack the arguments of these false teachers.
You just have to, and I hate doing it because it's a waste of time because you can't argue with ignorance, and they're not, then they cheat. They don't argue fairly. I was just reading one on the internet this week where this guy was arguing for why the rapture had to happen seven years before Jesus came back, and his arguments to me were childish because there were logical fallacies.
I studied logic in college, and if you didn't, I would advise get an online course on logic under the philosophy department of any college and take it. It is so helpful because God said, come let us reason together, and if you don't know how to reason, you can't do that.
So these guys, they will try to prove the negative. They'll say, well, the word church is not anywhere after chapter 4 in Revelation, so the church can't be there. The rapture must have happened there.
And they totally get it wrong because someone else taught them to say that, and they're just regurgitating what their seminary professor taught them. I know because I've been there and done that. You have no freedom when you're still in that stage.
You got to grow up, be an adult, and ask the Holy Spirit, be my teacher. I trust you. I'm going to read this and just let it say what it says. Now look at this. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is one of the key. There's only about five, well, maybe more than that. Five, six, seven, eight, depending on what book you read, proofs that the rapture happens at the front end of the seven years.
And they're not proofs. They're false arguments. But my point is there's only a handful of them. This is one of the biggies. They'll say, well, look, God says He hadn't appointed us to wrath, so we can't go through the tribulation.
That is such a trick, such a trick of poor Bible exegesis, all right? Because, number one, the word wrath doesn't mean tribulation. It means wrath, okay? Number two, right here in the very, if you just look at the context, look at the context, this phrase, not appointed to wrath, look at the very next in the same verse, but, so here's a contrast, right?
So you got the wrath, which is something, and they say it means the tribulation. But then in the very next thing, you've got the opposite of it. Well, if the word means tribulation, then the next thing would have to be something opposite of that, which would mean like safety, or not going through pain, or not being slaughtered.
But that's not what it says. It talks about being saved and going to heaven. So the opposite of going to heaven is going to hell. So wrath means hell in this context. God has not appointed us to go to hell, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.
What does that have to do with the tribulation period? Nothing. And it's one of their five strongest arguments. And if you go through, every argument that they have will fall just as easily as that one.
Everyone will fall just as easily as that if you use the 10 rules of proper Bible interpretation. Jesus died for us to save us and to keep us from hell. Verse 10 says, who died for us that rather we wake or sleep.
So look, if you're going through a tribulation, you might sleep, you might be killed. That means sleep means die physically. You might die. It doesn't say God protects you from that. What it says is he protects you from going to hell when you die.
That's what this whole passage is about. Now, what's interesting is this is in a bigger context of tons of places where the Apostle Paul is comforting the church, which is likely to go through tribulation.
Now, what's interesting is every generation felt like they'd be here for the second coming in the rapture, including Paul. He was talking to this church, telling them how to prepare for the tribulation period and the second coming and rapture at the end of it.
And he talks about the rapture in 1 and 2 Thessalonians. So he's telling them to get ready because before the rapture happens, you're going to go through tribulation. Get ready and be comforted one another by the fact that you know what?
They can't take your salvation away. That's what this is. They can't take that away. They can kill you, but they can't kill your soul. So don't fear it all that much. Look beyond the trouble. Look beyond the tribulation.
Look beyond the pain and suffering and disease and earthquakes and all that and look to the time when we're all together raptured and we're with Him in the air in a glorified body that nothing can kill ever.
They will never have pain or suffering or crying or sorrow. Look to that and you can get through this. This whole passage is saying that. It's the opposite of saying that God will protect us from the tribulation.
No, He will protect us from hell, though. Wherefore, comfort yourselves together. Why do we need to be comforted if we're not going to be here? The whole thing is Paul comforting the church because of tribulation that we're going to go through.
Edify, build one another up even as you do. So verse 9, there is a common proof text for the pre-trib rapture theory. This is out of context. In fact, proves the opposite. Okay, so now that one's down, right?
It is not saying God will never allow His saints to go through tribulation. It is saying He will never allow His saints to experience hell. For God has not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation.
First, logically, the end of the verse speaks of obtaining salvation, which is the opposite of being appointed to wrath or going to hell. So wrath is the opposite of salvation is sentenced. So it is not speaking of tribulation but of hellfire.
The opposite of heaven. Second, look at how scripture uses the word wrath. Does it mean tribulation or does it mean wrath and hell? Well, let's look at a few places. Look at John 3, 36. He that believeth on the Son has everlasting life.
I love that. It doesn't say you'll get it when you die. It says you got it now. You do realize if you're born again, you're already living eternal life. So, I mean, tribulation is frightening, but it doesn't scare me that much.
I'm already living eternal life. Jesus said, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Never means never. I'm already living eternal life, but look at the rest of it. And he that believes not.
So if, listen, a natural man can't believe. And the modern gospel is predicated upon him believing. He can't believe. It requires a work of the Holy Spirit, a miraculous calling. It's called the effectual calling.
It requires a miraculous calling and an awakening that only the Holy Spirit can do to a person. And he only does it to the ones that the Father sends. And that's why Jesus said to Nicodemus, who had trouble with this, just like everybody today does, he said, it's like the wind.
It goeth where it listeth. Being born again is like the wind. You can't tell where it came from, where it's going. You can't control it. It goes where it wants to go. And the Holy Spirit wants to go where the Father sends it.
And Jesus understands the same information. He said, I never do anything or say anything the Father hasn't done. God is one. And he knows who his kids are. And he's going to get every single one of them and save us from this fallen race.
And listen, God did the universe and himself and the human race a favor when he said, look, the race is rotten. It's gone. I should destroy it all, but I'm not. I'm in my grace and mercy. I'm going to save a little remnant of it.
And I'm going to send it into the kingdom period for a thousand years. And they're going to repopulate the earth so that the human race is not lost. And that's John 3 .16 right there. All right. So, he that believeth on the Son has everlasting life.
He that believes not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Now, what do you think the word wrath means in that sentence? What do you think it means? It's clear what it means. It's hell.
If you're not a believer, you're not going to have everlasting life. You're going to go to hell. That's what wrath means. Now, look at Revelation 14 .9. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and the prince of the lamb forever.
Now, what does that sound like? Sounds like hell to me. So, that's what wrath is. Now, I will grant you there might be a couple of places in the Bible where wrath just means the anger of God in general, but you can tell that by the context.
When you're looking at a context where it mentions salvation as the opposite of the word wrath, it's talking about not so much in general God being angry, but the result of his anger towards sin, and that is hell.
Hell was created because for Satan and for all that fall into his trap. And it really, it wasn't made for us, and it certainly wasn't made for the elect, and Jesus wasn't going to let us fall there because he died for us.
But my point is, wrath does not mean tribulation. It's not saying he'll save you from tribulation. First Thessalonians 5 .11, wherefore, comfort yourselves together because of these things. Why do we need to be comforted if we're not even going to be here?
All right, so as we suffer persecution and endure tribulation, all right, and then we can take comfort in the fact that we are saved and will never experience separation from God ever. That's the great comforting factor that Paul gives the saints that are about to go through tribulation, and the fact of the need of that comfort implies that we do go through tribulation.
This is why Paul comforts us. We are comforted by the fact that we are saved from wrath, from hell, but we're still going to go through tribulation, and therefore, we need to be comforted. And the word comfort, I don't know how many times it's found in Paul's writings to these saints and to us who actually may be in the terminal generation.
So wrath means hell. Look at Romans 5 .8, but God commendeth his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by Jesus' blood, plus nothing, I like to say, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
What does wrath mean there? What are we saved from? Yeah, God's anger, but what's the result of that? Hell. So for if when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
So when you see the word wrath contrasted with saved, it means hell. Wrath means hell. It's the opposite of salvation or heaven. So these things are not difficult to see the error in these people's logic.
It's their presuppositions are false. Then they can be pretty logical, and it leads to a false conclusion, and you just have to go back and reexamine the presuppositions. Their presupposition was there that wrath equals tribulation.
That's false. So then when they take you down the road and say, well, see, it proves you won't be here. That's a false conclusion because the presupposition was false based on a false definition of a word.
They'll do it. It's very tricky. They'll slip it through maybe in the preface of their book, and you'll buy into it, and then the whole book's logical, so you buy into the false result. So have God's people ever suffered tribulation?
Will they again? Well, look at Hebrews 11, 35. Women received their dead, raised to life. This is talking about throughout the history of God's people, and then it talks about the future some too. Women received their dead, that's past tense, raised to life, and others were tortured.
So God would let his people be tortured back then, but we're so wonderful in the modern church that he won't let us go through anything like that, right? Because we're pure. We're different. We're a better church than the church ever was.
See how fallacious that argument is? It doesn't even make sense, but we never take time to think it through. We just read the book and accept it because we're not that interested in the topic. If you ever get interested in the topic, you will search it out in the Scripture and see what Scripture says about it.
It takes lots of hard work and time, but fun work. Women received their dead, right? And then others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. There's a promise.
If you do go through the tribulation and get killed, you'll have a better resurrection than those of us who hide in the cave like I plan to and don't get killed because I plan to be prepared as I can be with my family.
My little grandbabies are going to be with me in a cave somewhere. We're not going to be in a city. We're not going to be sitting around a city or anywhere in a country where they've got technology to find us.
And others had trial and cruel mockings and scourgings, yay, moreover, bonds and imprisonment. Does that sound like they were freed from, that God wouldn't let them go through tribulation? Listen, God said He won't let you go through wrath, and He didn't let these people go through wrath because that means hell.
He saved them. They're with Him now in glory. He kept His promise, but He didn't promise them they wouldn't go through tribulation because they did. Cruel mockings and scourgings and bonds and imprisonment.
They were stoned to death. They were sawn in half. They were tempted. They were slain. They were tested is what that means. They were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins.
Guess what? Some of them had to go find a cave. Being destitute, afflicted, tormented. Of whom the world is not even worthy of these people, God says. The Holy Spirit said that. And they wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and in caves of the earth, but oh, God won't let that happen to the modern church.
So we've written books to prove it. We'll be just mysteriously, invisibly, and quietly taken out. You know, there's not one place in the Bible where it talks about a mysterious hidden coming of Christ.
In the Bible, it says he comes as a lightning from the east to the west and that every eye shall see him when he comes. It doesn't say it's a mysterious hidden thing that happens ever. There's no mysterious hidden.
In fact, he says there will be false prophets in the end times that teach that I've already come and I'm out in the desert somewhere. I'm in an inner room. Don't believe him, he said, because when I come, I come as a lightning from the east to the west and every eye will see me.
That's how he comes, and there is no secret coming of Christ prior to that listed anywhere in the Bible. Only through false arguments and bad logic can they try to prove it. So look at this. We're just hitting on one of their proofs, this fact that God will keep us from wrath trying to make that mean from tribulation.
Well, the world is not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and in caves, and these all having obtained a good report through their faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
You know what? These Old Testament saints that looked for the truth, kind of the same kind of truths that Paul taught that they didn't really see yet. They couldn't see it until Paul, until the Holy Spirit gave it to the apostle Paul.
And even the early New Testament saints that died, they have not seen all that there is to see. Like those of us who live in the end times, we will see it from a different vantage point. And Daniel was told by the angel that even the things that he saw about the end times, he said, cover them up and keep them hidden until the end times, and then we'll open them up.
So you'll start to see more and more as time goes by. That's what we have that they didn't have. So they weren't made perfect. That just means they weren't mature in their knowledge. And by the way, I said earlier, I want to tack it on in case you're here for the first time, I'm not looking for the cave right this minute, because Jesus, what we covered maybe three Sundays ago, he said, look, you're going to see earthquakes.
You're going to see wars and rumors of wars. You're going to see pestilences like the coronavirus. He said, be not worried. These things must come to pass. The end is not yet. You see, we still have work to do.
So, but as we work and we prepare, and one of Tradeway's missions is to help you prosper so that you can prepare. We want to give you tools to help you prosper because it takes money to buy things that you need to prepare your family for some of this stuff.
And when you see something mysteriously happens to one of the two mosques that's on the Temple Mount and is in Jerusalem, then you might want to get real serious about getting ready to find some place to go besides the city and some place to go where they don't have so great technology, heat-seeking stuff to find you and all that.
So, until the point when they start building the temple, you know, you still have work to do, but if you see that starting to happen, then you need to be concentrating on what you're going to do at that point.
So, I don't want you to get overly upset right now. I don't think we're there yet, right? The coronavirus is just one of the things that Jesus said these things must come to pass. It's leading up to it.
It's getting us ready to think about getting ready. That's what it is. Chapter 12, verse 1 says, Wherefore, seeing also we are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that sets before us.
Doesn't that sound like the church getting ready? The church making herself ready. We're supposed to be doing that now. We're supposed to be starting to do that now. What about Fox's Book of Martyrs? That blows the theory right there about God protecting us from tribulation.
That's just never happened in any era, and he never made that promise. That's something men concocted. There is much warning given to the saints that they must suffer and endure until the end all through Paul's writings, all through everything Jesus said.
Second Timothy 3, verse 1,. This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. Well, why do we need to be warned about that if we're not going to be here? Why? This is written to the church, not to the Jews as these hyper-dispensationalists try to say it's all Jewish material.
No, it's not. It's Christian material. Now, I know Jews are saved just like we are, though. We're all one church. Know that in the last days perilous times shall come. Men will be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedience to parents.
Now, that's a sign that never happened before because all I got to do is go and look at my dad's day and hear how his dad used to spank him with a razor strap. They didn't have a problem with disobedience.
But now we got kids sitting in school have to take medicine for it. That's never happened in the history of the world, never in the history of the world. That is a sign of the end times. It never happened before.
It only happened now. My grandmother thought she's going up in the ratchet, but that sign hasn't happened yet in her lifetime. You did not see a prevalent disobedient to parents where everybody knew it's a problem like now.
That had never happened yet, but it has now. Unthankful, unholy, without natural affection. Do we see that everywhere now? Truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent. That means they come at you and you say, hey, don't kill me.
I got a wife and kids and they don't care and they kill you anyway. They're going into schools and killing people. They're totally just won't listen to anything. They're fierce. They're despisers of those that are good.
Traitors, heady, high-minded. Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. The modern church has a bit of a problem with that. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away.
That kind of tells us who to go to church with, I think. What is the context of this passage? Oh, interesting. Paul is teaching a young preacher how to live and how to preach and preparing this young preacher named Timothy for something.
What's he preparing him for? Well, the context, let's go back a little bit. Go back to the book of the first part of this book that we're reading. Let's see the context. Second Timothy 1 -7, for God has not given us a spirit of fear.
Why is he talking to this young preacher about not being fearful if he's not going to face some tribulation? Paul is preparing his generation to go through the tribulation period and all the way to the second coming.
Every generation has believed it would happen in their generation. So, the power and love and a sound mind is the spirit he's given us. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.
That doesn't sound like Paul is teaching that God is going to save us from affliction, does it? He said, be a partaker of it gladly. As Christ suffered, we shall suffer. Christ, who has the power of God, has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, that's sovereignty of God, that's election, which was given to us.
That's a gift that the Holy Spirit gave you when he regenerated you and everything that happened after that was in effect. All the stuff you thought you did to save you, all that was in effect. The cause was this.
According to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us as a gift in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing. Tell me Paul's not right about the second coming and the rapture happening.
Get ready for it. Prepare for it. Don't be ashamed of the gospel. Be willing to be a partaker in the afflictions, the same as your leader Jesus went through, and now is made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to life through the gospel again and again and again.
The great comforting factor for people who are about to go through tribulation is, guess what? You are saved forever. You have eternal security. Your soul cannot be touched by these people or these things.
You are going to be with the Lord forever because of what Jesus did for you, and remember that as you move toward the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death. You don't need to be afraid.
You don't need to be afraid of man who can touch your body, but he cannot touch your soul. Don't fear man. That's what he's telling them again and again. Whereunto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles, for the which cause I also suffer these things.
Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know who I have believed in, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him. That's eternal security. Against that day, what day is he talking about?
What day is that day? He's safe. He's protected. God's going to keep his soul. God's going to keep his eternal security safe. Hold fast the form of sound words which you have heard from me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus.
That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwells in us. All of that exhortation was to a young man that Paul thought likely could be about to go through tribulation, seven years of it, and then be ready when the Lord came back.
Listen, it's just so clear. What are the elements? Exhorted not to fear. Not to fear what? Prepared for affliction. Reminded that we are saved no matter what happens. Reminded that we cannot lose our salvation no matter what happens.
Even unto that day. What day? So apparently, Paul thought there's a great likelihood Timothy would still be there through that whole entire seven years, all the way up until Jesus came back, and he needed to prepare this young man, just like I want to prepare you, okay?
And it's the same Holy Spirit that leads me to want to do that. Then he says, hold fast. Why do we need to hold fast the truth? Because in the last days, there are so many false prophets on the radio, TV, internet, everywhere.
As fast as we can tell the truth, they come out and tell lies, and they come up with concoctions like this theory, and then you've got to spend half your life showing where their fallacies are, when you could be out doing other things, perhaps.
Keep the message that's been committed to you. Keep it. Don't let anything happen to it. So you see this entire passage of Scripture is preparing people for something that a certain, relatively small group of theologians said will never happen because we won't be here.
2 Timothy 3 .12, yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Does that sound like God's not willing to let us go through wrath? Yeah, he won't let us go through wrath, but does wrath mean persecution and tribulation?
No, it's a whole different word. He never said that he wouldn't let us go through this. In fact, he says you will go through it. Do you see the contradiction between this and the theory? And theories, if they're falsehoods, the truth will just shine a bright light on them.
But evil men and seducers will get worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. When? When does this happen? This is end times material. But continue you and the things that you've learned and you've been assured of, knowing of whom you learned them from.
So while you're going through this and you're being persecuted, you're going through tribulation, false prophets are telling everyone you're a liar and you're crazy. You need to continue with the things you learn and keep telling the truth.
And from a child, you learn these things. And where'd you learn it from? There's the key. There's the only authority, the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
You could not have been saved without the water and the spirit. The water is the word and the spirit is the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit gave you the faith of Christ. And then you came right in and reverberated with that.
And the rest is history. You're saved. And all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And what's the use of it? Look at this. Oh, we're not going to be here. Well, what if we are here? We're going to need to be prepared.
We're going to need to be thoroughly furnished. But all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
This whole passage, rather than teaching that the church will be gone already, is teaching the church to be prepared to suffer in the last days. When will these evil men and seducers grow worse and worse?
In the end times. We're exhorted during these times to continue in the things that we've learned. We have a Bible. Here it is right here. I mean, sometimes it's got to have a little duct tape put on it.
You know, I've had that since I was a very young man. I'm not young anymore. But that is our power, is the Word of God, is the sword in our hand that we battle with. And we have the Bible, so we are thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
Sounds like we're being prepared for something here on earth, doesn't it? And I'm going to leave you with that thought. And I hoped to finish this up today, but I didn't. But we'll have, Lord willing, another time together.
Dave, I'm going to turn it back over to you, my man.