The Helmet of Salvation (09/16/2001)

Let's have a word of prayer and we'll begin this afternoon's Bible study. Father, thank you for the service today and the touched hearts in our congregation.

Lord, you have certainly gotten our attention. And Lord, we feel that there'd be others of your children all across this nation and across the world that certainly have you sanctified in their heart more than they did the week before.

And Lord, we apologize to you that we're that way, but we are that way.

And you know that. And that's why from time to time you bring things to pass to cross our paths, to cause us to look up and to draw near to you.

And Father, so we have to thank you for everything that's happened in that sense because it's caused us to walk with you more closely and to think of you more often and to speak with one another about you more.

And those are all wonderful things. And Lord, we pray for our nation as it appears that they are turning back to God and yet we wonder what

God they're turning to because we don't know if it's the God of the Sikhs or the God of the

Buddhists or the God of the Mohammedans or the God of the Hindus or some

Jesus Christ that they have fabricated. We don't know who it is that they're turning to,

Lord. But we know that you know. And Lord, help us just to be servants in your hand.

Use us for the furtherance of your gospel and for your purposes in these days.

And strengthen us and make us to be fit for service. Amen. Well, we're going to be in Ephesians chapter 6.

We were supposed to go on into the next book, but I like it to hit where Brother Otis can start the book and give a little bit of the foundation.

So I'd like to go back and hit a verse of mine that was covered, but there's an interesting part of it that relates to what happened this week.

It's the reason I'm going back to it. And before I get into that, though,

I want to share something that I thought was interesting with you that I found. There's a man named

Dr. R. Winston Mazzakis. He's a born -again

Christian. He was born and raised in Greece. And he is the president of the

Institute of Bible and International Studies. And he's written several books, but I found this in one of his books.

He asked the question, is the United States in the Bible? And you've probably heard that asked before and thought about it yourselves.

And he definitely believes the United States is alluded to in the Bible and gives some interesting thoughts about it.

I'd like to share some of those with you. That may be all we have time for, but I hope to get to this verse in Ephesians in a minute.

But if you would turn with me to Jeremiah 49 and verse 28,

I'll show you what Dr. Mazzakis says, what his opinion is about whether or not

America is in the Bible. And maybe the white horse we talked about this morning could be

America. Who knows? If it is, then it has a very prominent position at the early stages of moving into the tribulation.

Now, this study that this man did had to do with the Gulf War, Desert Storm War.

And he points out that Jeremiah 49, 28 through 31, and other passages in that part of the scripture prophesized the

Gulf War. And since the Gulf War included the United States, he believes you can find the

U .S. alluded to in this passage. So let's read it together. It says, concerning, I'm in Jeremiah 49 and starting with verse 28.

Concerning Kedar, which is Kuwait, it's in the area of where Kuwait is.

And concerning the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, shall smite.

Now, remember, Babylon is Iraq. That's where Iraq is now. Thus saith the

Lord, Arise ye, go up to Kedar, that's Kuwait, and spoil the men of the east. Their tents and their flocks shall they take away.

They shall take to themselves their curtains and all their vessels and their camels, and they shall cry unto them,

Fear is on every side. Flee, get you far off. Dwell deep, O ye inhabitants of Hazor, saith the

Lord. For Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath taken counsel against you and hath conceived a purpose against you.

Arise, get you up unto the wealthy nation that dwelleth without care, saith the

Lord, which hath neither gates nor bars, which dwell alone. And what's interesting is he points out the history of Kuwait.

It started out as just desert, and it was a wasteland. And some Arabs from Saudi Arabia heard that the waters, let me think, would that be the, which sea is it that is to the west of Kuwait?

I don't have a map. Would that be the, that couldn't be the Mediterranean. Which sea is that? Maybe somebody will find that for me in a map.

But anyway, there is a sea there, and they had heard, which one? I'm not sure.

Okay. Okay. Anyway, they had heard that there were some very valuable oysters that could be found.

So these Arabs got their tents, and you know, there are people who like to move around anyway in tents and have sheep and so forth.

And so they took their wives and their children and their tents, and they just moved, and they moved over to the coast.

And they began to deal with and sell these. Well, not long after they had arrived and taken that as their own country, and they called it

Kuwait, which nobody cared because it was just desert. So it became their own country.

We discovered oil over there, rich oil fields all over the little area known as Kuwait.

And we went over and we taught them how to drill and how to produce. Well, they made a law in their country that it's okay for any foreign country to come in and do business as long as at least one of the partners and the controlling partner was a

Kuwait resident. So everything that was done there, they put it in their banks, and they got rich, rich, rich.

In fact, they were so rich that this is the law in Kuwait even to this day as far as I know, but I know it was up until the

Desert Storm War, that any young person that went anywhere in the world to college or university, they paid their entire scholarship, the government did, from their oil money.

Every young man that was married was given money to pay for the wedding, a deed to his house or apartment, and monthly income to live off of from the oil money.

And when Iraq attacked and came in and began to destroy and take their things away, all of the key families were over in Europe staying in the most richest hotels in Europe, the most exclusive luxury hotels.

That's where they were hiding away. So they were very, very, very wealthy. And so you kind of see some of this where it talks about this being a wealthy nation, where they dwelleth without care, saith the

Lord, which have neither gates nor bars. They had no defense, no army, nothing like that. So this is a picture.

Now he thinks that the United States shows up in Jeremiah 50 in verse 9, where it says,

For lo, I will raise and cause to come against Babylon an assembly of great nations.

And he says that's like the UN. It's like Bush made a big deal, and we all remember the big deal that was made about how he got this coalition together, all the nations to fight with us so it's not just America fighting.

An assembly of great nations from the north country, and they shall set themselves in array against her, from thence she shall be taken.

Now look at this. This is amazing. Their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man.

None shall return in vain. Remember the smart bombs? It was the first time in history they were ever used, and they could put them through a door this wide in a building from two miles away, put it right through the door of that building.

So it is fascinating to think about these things. Jeremiah 49, 14 says,

I have heard a rumor from the Lord, and an ambassador is sent unto the heathen, saying,

Gather ye together and come against her, and rise up to the battle. Someone went out and gathered all the heathen nations and had them fight

Babylon. Jeremiah 50, 42 says, They shall hold the bow and the lance.

They are cruel and will not show mercy. Their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in array, like a man to the battle against thee,

O daughter of Babylon. 50 and verse 25 says,

The Lord hath opened his armory and hath brought forth the weapons of his indignation, for this is the work of the

Lord God of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans. And verse 26 says, Come against her from the utmost border upon her storehouses, cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly.

Let nothing of her be left. Well, obviously this was not all fulfilled, but it is an interesting allusion to a country far away gathering an assembly of great nations to battle against Iraq.

Jeremiah 50, 41 says, Behold, a people shall come from the north and a great nation and many kings shall be raised up from the coasts.

The coasts would indicate countries that have islands or they're like islands or coastal areas and so forth.

There were over 100 ,000 sorties of our jets in that war, each one letting loose five or six missiles, so close to a million of these smart weapons were exploded on Iraq during this time.

It's his belief that the United States was alluded to as the country that got together this coalition of nations.

Whether that is the United States or not, I don't know, but I felt like it was interesting reading for me this past week.

Now, let's go into Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 16. And I want you to think about the armor that Brother Otis taught about last

Sunday. And all of it makes a lot of sense to me except for one.

And it makes sense to me now, but there was a good while when I struggled with understanding this verse because all of these bits of armor can be put on and taken off and he's exhorting us to put it on.

But that implies you can take it off. You put it on, you take it off. You put it on, you take it off.

The shield is that way, the breastplate, the shoes, all of it.

But now I get down to verse 17. My theology gives me a problem with this because it says, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the

Spirit, which is the word of God. Now, I can see how you can take the sword and lay it down or pick it up.

It depends on whether you want to study it or be lazy and leave it alone for a week, whatever. You can put it down, you can pick it up.

But the helmet of salvation, now, how could you put that on and off if it's true that you cannot lose your salvation?

So to me, that one did not fit. The helmet of salvation. But he's obviously saying take the helmet as if it's not on, take it and put it on, just like all the rest of this stuff that can be laid aside and put back on, laid aside and put back on.

Well, it still presents a problem because the whole allegory, it's like a picture of a physical thing that's supposed to teach us spiritual truth and you picture your armor off over here, and you go put it on.

The last thing you put on before you go out the door is the helmet. And then you come in, you take it all off, and then you put it back on and you go out to fight.

And that's the picture. So the helmet didn't fit until I found this parallel passage, which explains it to me.

1 Thessalonians 5 .8. And really what reason

I thought this was so wonderful for today is that I was studying in this passage for other reasons, because of what happened last week.

And then I realized that this is what we studied last week in Ephesians. But I want you to notice 1

Thessalonians 5 .8, and there's one bit, sometimes when you find parallel passages, what will happen is it's teaching the same thing, but it will give you one more bit of information that you didn't have in the other passage.

Just a little bit more to help you know more what God's talking about. And that's what happens here. It's talking about exactly identically the same thing, but it gives you one word extra that explains the whole thing in Ephesians on this helmet of salvation.

And so 1 Thessalonians 5 .8 says this, but let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith, same thing that's mentioned over there, and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.

Now what word has been added that's not in Ephesians? The word hope. So the armor that you're putting on is not your salvation.

You can't take that off and put it on. You got that on all the time. But what you can take on and off is the hope of it.

And the hope of it is your, is your, the, what's our definition for hope?

It's not, it's not like I hope it'll happen, but it won't. But it's an earnest expectation of a certain future event.

And not only earnest, but excited expectation. Now you can lay that off, because there can be days in your life where you're not thinking about that hope.

You're not excited about that hope. But this week, we are all vividly thinking about that hope.

So we have the helmet on. Last week, some of us did, some of us didn't.

Now we didn't, we were all saved, but we didn't have the helmet of hope on. So it's not a helmet of salvation as much as it is a helmet of the hope that salvation brings.

The helmet of the hope of salvation. It's the hope that's emphasized, because you can't take the salvation off.

But you can take that excited expectation away, because, listen, if you're not thinking about the end times and the second coming and the rapture,

I've read many stories about great preachers that built churches back in the days when people believed in the

Bible, and they built churches that had, I hate to say they built it, God built the church, but they had maybe three, four, five thousand people in attendance hearing these preachers preach.

And they were, they're trying to do, here's what the people always try to do, is figure out, well, what method did he use? They don't realize

God did that. So they try to figure out a method so that I can now go build a big church, you see, so we can read books about how to build a big church.

Well, they've written such books. But it's kind of interesting to read about the churches that grew at the early portions, well, in the early to mid -1900s, when churches were really strong.

People like J. Frank Norris and preachers like that, Lester Roloff, I mean, you, many of you are familiar with some of the names,

Dale Moody, these great preachers, and these, one book said that one of the things that they preached and came back to was the theme of the second coming.

Again and again, every year, at least once a year they would preach on being ready for the

Lord to come back, and it kept the people wearing the hope of salvation, being excited and expecting

His coming. And that's what hope means. It means it's not like I doubt it's going to happen.

It means I'm excited and expecting it to come. And that is the helmet that's referred to here.

And I thought you'd find that interesting. So you might go over to Ephesians 6 and put in your margin there, 1

Thessalonians 5, 8, it'll always remind you what that's talking about. But while we're here,

I wanted to point out some interesting things. Look right up from where we are, straight up the column on the same page in chapter four, starting with verse 13.

1 Thessalonians 4, 13. But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep.

And that's Christian parlance for they've already physically experienced physical death.

That ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. There's your helmet.

See, there are those that don't have this helmet. Many of them in New York City and across the world are walking around like Brenda's song said, how do they make it?

You know, how do they make it? All they've got is a bare cupboard and they're looking in that bare cupboard for all the answers.

What a powerful line to a song. Looking for the answers in a cupboard that's bare. Because they don't have a prayer.

Therefore, they don't have any hope. So here you have people where he says, now listen, don't be like people that have no hope.

When you think about your loved ones who pass away, you're going to mourn, but don't mourn like the lost mourn.

It's a different kind of, you mourn because you're selfish and you miss them. But you don't mourn because you won't see them again, like they mourn.

They mourn like it's the end of all things. I mean, this is the end. They will never be together again. And that's a horrible darkness.

No helmet of hope there. And so they get a dark to the head, to the brain. The devil works on their brain and they get so depressed and get so down, they can't even function.

Well, we're not supposed to be that way. Now look at verse 14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will

God bring with him. Now that's an interesting thought. When he comes back to the earth, the loved ones that you have had who died in Christ will be with him.

So what does that tell you? Were they soul sleeping somewhere? Do you believe in soul sleep, that they died and just lay there in a grave and time passes, but they're not aware of it?

No, they were already with him. They're already with him. And when he comes, they're tagging along.

And they're with him. And it says that very clearly.

Now look at verse 15. For this we say unto you by the word of the

Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming.

Now there is a generation of Christians. And I think we're it. There is a generation of Christians.

And if we're not, at least our children are. And if they're not, our grandchildren will be. But I believe we're it.

There is a generation of Christians that will be alive when he comes.

Now look what he says about this generation. Those who remain unto the coming of the

Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. In other words, you won't go up before they do because they're already with him.

We don't go first, we go second. Because they already have been to the place where they're with him.

And that's what this says. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God.

And if you look at the parallel passage in 1 Corinthians, you might want to mark this in your margin. We don't have time to go over there this afternoon.

1 Corinthians 15, 51, and that whole passage tells exactly the same story.

The only word that it adds is it says, at the last trump is when this takes place.

This passage doesn't say that, but the other passage says, the shout of the voice of the archangel at the last trump.

This one says, at the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Now listen, folks, that's the bodies.

Because their soul and spirit's already with him, came back with him. When he comes from heaven, they are with him.

See, you see that up here in verse 14. Now from a human viewpoint, what you're picturing in verse 16 is their body.

He finds all the molecules that were in it. Doesn't matter if they were in that plane, in the nose of that plane that hit those buildings.

I would say they were vaporized, wouldn't you? You know what? God knows where every atom of their body is right now.

Those searchers may never find them. They may think it's part of the plaster of the cement. But God knows where every molecule of every body of his own children and the lost also were.

And he puts them in a moment. In the twinkling of an eye, he puts those molecules together and those bodies come up to meet the soul and spirit that go with it so that you're one whole person again.

The nice thing is, there is a change in the air. For those of us who are still living, we just simply change in the air.

We don't have to die. 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.

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the

Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Hallelujah. And we are exhorted in verse 18 to comfort one another with these words.

And as you go on in and read this, you find that much of this passage in both

Thessalonians has to do with the people who are here during the last times and telling them how to comfort one another as if they're going through some tribulation.

And I don't know what your view is about when the rapture happens. I know what I've always been taught, but I'm studying to see what the word teaches because I'll be honest, it's never interested me in my whole life.

I've never been interested in that topic, but I'm highly interested. I started studying it a couple of months ago, little by little, and this week that study was highly accelerated.

I don't know about yours, but you may have an interest in it at this point too. But one thing

I find that's very interesting is that much of the Thessalonians and other passages in the Bible, there are things given to comfort one another.

And I don't know about you, but if I was raptured out of here and I was in heaven, I wouldn't have to be comforted. But if I'm here,

I have to be. So that's just a thought. Now, I'm not going to give you a conclusion. And I probably never will.

What I want to give you is the facts. As we go through and we study with a topic where there are so many good people that have different opinions, there are a group of people that believe the rapture happens at the first of a seven -year period.

There's a huge, larger group of people that believe it happens in the middle. And there is a smaller group, probably similar to the number of people that believe in the one at the front, that believe it happens at the end, right at the second coming.

And there's a group that don't believe any of it happens. They're called amillennialists. I can't go with them. I won't give that leeway.

But as far as where you put it, I'm not going to split the fellowship with you either way, because your proof may be as good as anybody's.

But I will give you the facts and expect you to study and decide what you think.

Now, I will say this, when I say don't be dogmatic, that's not to say that I think it's not important to know when the rapture happens, because truth is always important.

I am saying that God may not have revealed that time to people up until now. Because my view is this, if you've got good men who believe at least those three things, you've got pre -tribulation rapture, mid -tribulation rapture, and post -tribulation rapture, and I personally know good men of God who believe all three of those, and they're all walking with the

Lord. Now, if that's true, that means they didn't have a whole lot of light up until now to figure it out, or they'd be in more agreement.

They were going with a little bit of light they had. I think we may have more light even now than we had this time last week.

So you study it. Go back, read the passages, see if you don't see more. But I'm going to ask you not to have a preconceived notion about any of it.

Don't read the footnotes. Don't read the Scofield notes. Don't read your commentaries. The only use that they are is they will tell you where the passages can be found, so go jot that down.

Go to your commentaries, find all the places in Daniel and Joel and all the places in 1

Peter and Matthew 24, and write all those down on a piece of paper. Then throw your commentaries away, and you go to the

Word of God, because you probably have more light than the guy that wrote that commentary right now. And you see what you think, and that's what we'll do together.

Because I think it's very important that if we have words here that are comforting us, that that might mean that we're not supposed to just sit back and say, oh, it don't matter.

We're going to be raptured out of here anyway. We don't have to. There's nothing we need to worry about our children. They'll be raptured out of here.

None of them will be killed for the faith. Can you stand right now and confidently tell me that you know that's a fact and prove it with Scripture?

There's not a soul in here that can do that, because I previewed it, and there's not one. Now, if we're going to go through some tribulation, we're going to need to know how to go through it.

And I believe the Lord has put little bits and pieces of information throughout the

Old and New Testament to help those who are in the last days to do this. Now, wherever the rapture occurs from that point on, we're not going to have to worry about it.

And there is a rapture, and it will occur. And at that point, we don't have to worry about anything, because we'll be with the

Lord as this verse says, so shall we be with Him forever. But we just went through something this week before the rapture, didn't we?

And we didn't miss that one. And that was a tribulation. And I won't say it's the tribulation, because I don't know that we know that.

But we have some information. How do we comfort one another? Well, first thing we do is remind one another that when

He comes, even our loved ones that have gone before us will be with Him. We'll see them again. They'll be with Him at the second coming.

And there will come a moment that if we're still on this face of this earth, no matter what we've had to go through up to that point or would miss later, we're taken out.

And we go up to be with them in the air. And the other passage in 1 Corinthians 15 says we are changed.

Twinkle and I were changed. And the old flesh is gone that fights against everything we would do for God.

Now, I want to show you one other thing, and we'll stop. But you're here. We read this little passage. Obviously, it's about the rapture.

No one would debate this except the amillennialists, and they're wrong. So their debate doesn't count. But as you come into chapter 5, now, that's the context that we're in.

We're talking about these time periods. We're talking about the end times. We're talking about a need to comfort one another with these words as we go through some horrible things and see some terrible things in this world.

And you go into chapter 5. But of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write to you.

So the early believers, they were not as confused as we are about these things. They saw it more clearly, said,

I don't really need to discuss this with you because you understand these things. But you know why God had him discuss it with them?

So we'd have it because we need it. And it goes on and says, For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the

Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child.

And you saw that in Matthew 24 last week. It's birth pangs. That's the way you watch for the signs.

Why would they give us signs if we're not gonna be here? There's another interesting question. Why would you even have them?

So you might say, well, that's for those that get saved in the tribulation. Well, that's possible. But it might be possible that it's so that we right now can see signs when they start to happen.

Many times Jesus said that you are not supposed to be in the dark concerning these things. He said it's like a, it's a tree.

When the trees bud, you know summer is near. And he said, here's the signs you look for. And then he gave us a whole three different chapters in the

Bible. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.

He just, he says, here's how you know. Look for these things. And then we go into Thessalonians. He's naming, the

Lord is giving them to us again. There's a time when peace and safety, you know, there's not, I've heard it again and again on the

TV this week, how, boy, we didn't expect this. We just all went around. We've always gone around the world.

I saw a photographer give a testimony and he's taking pictures in Kuwait. He's taking pictures in Lebanon.

He's been all over the world where these wars were happening. Like back when Lebanon was blasted for a good number of years.

And he's been and took all these awesome photographs for Time magazine. They had him on and he said,

I've never seen anything in all the wars I've taken photographs in, I've never seen anything worse than this.

And he said, but, he said, all of those other ones, I could get on a plane, I could come home to my house in New York City at an apartment there and I felt safe.

He said, I was in a secure harbor. He said, I don't feel that way now. And that's something.

Peace and safety. Then sudden destruction cometh. Now one thing we saw from this little foretaste that we got

Tuesday is how sudden an annihilation can take place. How many of you really thought that anything more than just a hole in that building would be there from that airplane?

Did you really think you would see the building just go and be gone? And then look and watch and say, well that probably won't happen to that one.

Just enough seconds went by for you to think that and all of a sudden it's gone. How many of you really thought that would happen to that pile of cement and steel?

I don't think anybody thought that could even happen. Well you might have thought the top would fall off.

And then you thought well they might have to demolish it because it's unstable but you never thought it was just going to be in a matter of minutes vaporized.

And yet peace and safety and sudden destruction comes. Now here's one thought for you today.

I want you to focus on the word sudden and realize that these things don't have to build up and last over long periods of time to happen.

You can be going to the store, you can be at home with your children, you can be at school, you can be living your life and suddenly the entire world can change today because of nuclear weapons, because now we know because of airplane fuel makes a pretty amazing bomb.

Things can just totally be changed suddenly in an instant. What if they'd had a briefcase in that plane that had a nuclear weapon in it?

Well they'd probably have to detonate it or else it would just blow it up. But if they had detonated it before it burned what would have happened?

You'd have seen probably every building in Manhattan would have had that same result in one instant. And what would you have been thinking right now if that's what had happened?

I mean we thought this was pretty bad, didn't we? But what if every single building on Manhattan Island looked just like those two right now?

Could have happened in just as short a time period and may be the next thing that happens.

You don't know. We just see it coming. We see the handwriting on the wall.

So sudden destruction cometh upon them and even this is like travail.

Now look, God's given us insight here. Those two buildings when they fell was not the end.

It was a birth pain. And I know that some women have a lot of those before they have babies.

Others don't. Fortunately mine does because we had to drive to Fort Worth to have our babies. But she had long periods of time where it took a long time for those to get closer together and harder where the baby could be born.

And you don't know which way this will go but you do know that you're going to see these things happen and the stronger and the more horrible they are and the closer together they happen you can know that the baby's going to be born so to speak.

The baby being born would be the second coming. So there we have this amazing insight.

Travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape. But ye brethren, now look, now don't you find that interesting?

There is a they and there is a ye. Now Paul was addressing these people as if this could happen in their lifetime ladies and gentlemen.

He is not speaking to a group of Jews that got saved in the tribulation period. Are you with me?

I mean you hear what I'm saying if you've studied these things much because that's what's taught is all the stuff that happens to save people in the tribulation is just the ones that got saved after the rapture.

The new ones that got saved. Well Paul is speaking to these people as if this might happen to them.

And he says they shall not escape but ye brethren are not in darkness that the day should overtake you as a thief.

Now does he say you're going to escape the day or does he just say you won't be surprised when it comes? You tell me, which did he say?

That's what he said. So we're going to find as we study that some of the old tried and true doctrines we've been taught by our forefathers and our mentors were honestly taught to us by men who did not even have as much light as you right now have because you are seeing the events.

This was a closed book 100 years ago. You can actually read good Christian people who exhorted their young preachers do not even study the book of Revelation.

It's a total waste of time. You're unspiritual if you study it. As recently as 100 years ago.

And you come up into the 70s and 80s and all these theories were the old theory. The Schofield's the one who popularized the pre -tribulation rapture theory and he was very successful because he wrote a

Bible with all these notes in it. It became very popular and then through the 60s and 70s men like Hal Lindsey and people like this popularized it even more and it became the keynote expected doctrine in most of the conservative churches.

And then Dallas Theological Seminary that was their theory and they put it out all over the world with very well written books and so forth.

So we have that as a background but they had not seen some of the things that you've seen and you'll see some more things that will make it even easier for you to figure out like who's the white horse?

Well I don't know but things can happen to help you figure that out. The Lord reveals things in his own good time.

Okay, now he says but ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief.

You are the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness therefore let us not sleep.

Do you see how all this is talking to us right now? Don't sleep. Don't get so used to going to work coming home taking care of the needs and all this that you don't watch.

For they that sleep sleep in the night and they that be drunken are drunken in the night but let us who are of the day be sober putting on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

Why do you need to do that if you're not going to be here? It's an amazing question to me.

For God hath not appointed us to wrath. Now I have circled on that and I have the word tribulation written there.

Why did I write that there? Because I read that in a commentary. God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our

Lord Jesus Christ and we've been taught that that wrath means you're not appointed to go through the seven year tribulation period.

The verse doesn't say that. The verse contrasts the wrath of God with the salvation of God in the spiritual sense.

It says you're not appointed to hell. That is your hope. Your hope of salvation is that you are going to heaven.

You're not going to come. You might find buildings blowing up all around you if you'd have lived listen, if you'd have lived there if you'd have been visiting there

Tuesday you would have been right in the middle of tribulation. You'd have been going, man, why didn't I get raptured out of here first?

Because to you that would have been the worst thing that could have ever happened in your life. Don't tell me there's anything in the tribulation that's going to be much worse than that.

I mean, slaughter and blood and death and fire is slaughter, blood, death, and fire.

So you'd have thought that was horrible tribulation. But you know what? The ones that were saved, do you know that that could not take their soul from them?

That they found themselves in the twinkling of an eye with the Lord present in His presence immediately and had no fear, had total peace.

And according to what Brother Raymond testified last Sunday they probably had an angel that came and got them out of that fire before they felt too much of it and took them on to heaven.

There were probably angels that appeared to them right in the midst of all that and just carted them off in total peace in a chariot of fire straight to heaven.

We have more trouble with it than they do. Because we look at it with satanic fear of death and the

Bible tells us we should not fear death of all people. He's destroyed the fear of death, the

Bible says. So we've not been appointed to wrath but to obtain salvation.

Well that's obvious by our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us that whether we wake or sleep listen whether we die due to something like that that happens or just because of a heart attack or whatever or whether we are still awake when

He comes we should live together with Him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another even also as you do.

Now I'm going to skip a lot of this and come right down to verse 23. This is an amazing verse in the light of everything that we're studying.

I've always used this verse just simply to prove that man is a trinity he has a soul and a body and a spirit and I never thought of it in the context that it's in.

Never. It's in the context of the people of God who are under tribulation and He says they how's it worded?

They shall not escape but ye brethren are not in darkness which implies you can escape if you know what to do.

Now look at verse 23 in the whole context of this they and ye they are having sudden destruction but you are not in the dark concerning these things.

Don't be in that building. Don't hang out at the shopping malls in the big cities quite as much ladies.

Go to the smaller towns. You know what I'm saying? I'm just saying use good sense

God's given you. You're not in the dark. Don't think for one minute that your life is going to ever return to the way it was last week.

It will not. Every mall you go in every baseball game you go to he's already canceled the basketball game we were taking the young people to.

Everywhere you go where there's a large crowd of people you're going to visualize a terrorist attack on that place and if you're smart and you're not in the dark you don't just keep going to all this stuff as if nothing could happen.

You think about it and you're wise as serpents. And in the context of all this verse 23 says abstain from all appearance of evil and the very

God of peace sanctify you wholly and I pray

God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless excuse me unto the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ. You know what his prayer for them was? That they would make it through tribulation and be preserved when

Jesus sets foot on the earth. That's amazing to me because I never read it that way but I mean that's that's just that's what it says.

And I don't know any other way to read it and then that's what it says. I mean in everything give thanks pray without ceasing rejoice evermore lift up the feeble support the weak be patient toward all men in everything give thanks quench not the spirit despise not prophesying prove all things hold fast that which is good abstain from all appearance of evil and my prayer for you is that not only your soul and body be preserved which already verse 9 promised that verse 9 promised that you're not going to have wrath but salvation but now he says

I hope your body will be preserved too. So that gives me a lot to to study on another level a little bit deeper and I have an interest in this topic for the first time in my life because it seems to apply whereas before I just wanted to learn other things about God.

So we'll study this we're not going to go into an earnest study of this topic for some weeks because we're still in the middle of of some other doctrinal studies such as the omniscience of God but as we get through the omniscience of God and the omnipresence of God and those immediate topics that deal with the character of God probably the next study will be eschatology which is the end things, end times.

All I'm going to do is give you data from the scriptures and ask you to not have preconceived notions because I'm going to tell you something truth will set you free and error, even if it came from sincere, good, godly men can cost you your life from the human viewpoint.

God expects us to walk in truth and to use what he's given us and somehow he works together in all that and we know that he's in control but we are expected we are held accountable and responsible for teaching the truth, studying the truth and knowing the truth and living the truth and if we don't, from our viewpoint we open the door to the enemy.

Do we not? We open our lives and our families and our church to dangers fiery darts from the evil one and such and so forth.

So we need to be right on the as close to the level as we can be on this subject in these coming days and we'll study it together we will not have division over it because as pastor

I won't let it go there. It's not that important to me that you agree with every jot and tittle of what

I think on it I've just already confessed to you today I don't even know about it. I mean I'm aware as you are of it and all of us have read books about it and studied it and read the scriptures but if you're like me you've studied it under the under the suggestions of those commentaries and that's not always the best way to do it.

That's the lazy man way and that's how I've done it on this issue because I wasn't interested in it but let's get our

Bibles out let's look up all the verses and all these different positions are out there if it's the truth you can't shoot it down and if it is you find two or three verses or one verse you shoot a hole in it and think that one we'll go and look at another one.

That's the way I look at it. Truth is truth and we'll just let everything stand on that. But in the meantime be watchful.

Be watchful and keep that helmet of the hope on all the time and never forget what your hope is.

The hope is you're with the Lord instantly. Whether you live or whether you don't you're with Him instantly and let

God remove some of this fear of death that we have where it's not healthy and it's not natural for a Christian to fear death at all.

Jesus nailed that to the cross when He died when He came out of that grave the Bible says He removed all fear of death to those who believe.

So be there that's the hope of salvation the helmet that goes on your head. Now listen it's not automatically there.

The salvation is but the helmet of hope is not so you have to put it on. You have to put all this armor on or you leave yourself vulnerable against spiritual warfare especially in these days like this.

So when you get up in the morning when you're in the shower or wherever you put the helmet on and say Lord I'm in heaven now.

I'm in the heavenlies in Christ. What can happen to me and my family? We're already in the heavenlies. I'm not going to worry about it just lead me to do what

I'm supposed to do today. And even if you faced an infidel with a bayonet that said deny

Christ you would know what to do. And you know what if that happens you will have the grace where you'll say words you won't even believe you could have said that'll be so eloquent and it'll exactly accomplish

God's purpose and you'll either live or die depending on whether He wants you to have a better resurrection or not.

If you die you get a better resurrection the Bible says. And if not you'll know where to hide.

And you know what? He's in control of every bit of it and you're not going to change it anyway. So we can't worry.

We put on that hope of salvation. The helmet of the hope is what'll take us through anything that happens.

And who knows what can happen. Don't you fear for your president when you watch him walking around and you're thinking there's one

I'm going to be hiding somewhere and pick him off and all that. And who...

Brother you're a basketball coach have you ever had a team that didn't have much depth? Did you worry about your star forward?

We don't have much depth in our government right now. So pray for your president.

Well we've got way more to think about than we have time to think this afternoon so let's close in prayer. Father we thank you for your word we thank you that it's always been there for us for almost 2 ,000 years now and it's a complete canonized state and yet you make it alive and your

Holy Spirit teaches it to us day by day as you will for us to learn things. And so on this issue of the end times and what our role is help us to see it far more clearly and to have renewed interest in it because it is your will for our lives.

It's where we are and help us to know how to be light and salt even in days of great darkness and great perversion.