Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Terry James: What Does The Bible Teach About The ‘Hereafter’?

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Terry James: What Does The Bible Teach About The ‘Hereafter’? · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity.
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  No topic off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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  Hello friends, family, and Christ, thank you so much for tuning into another episode.
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  Great topic today.
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  We get to look ahead, past all the nonsense, and past the trials of this life.
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  And we get to look at the rapture, we get to look at eternity and heaven, and a lot of
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  good things.
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  We'll be focusing a little bit on a brand new book.
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  It's called Hereafter.
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  And the book is by Terry James and Jonathan Brentner.
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  Now we've had Jonathan on a few times, and we've talked about his articles and some other
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  things.
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  But I don't think we've had Jonathan on since the book actually came out.
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  So now we get to dive into it with Terry James.
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  I want to introduce him right now, and he's this brother I've talked to him many times
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  before.
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  He's an author, a general editor, co-author of numerous books on Bible prophecy, hundreds
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  of thousands, by the way, which has been sold worldwide.
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  He's a frequent lecturer on the study of End Times Phenomena, and interviews with
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  National International Media.
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  He is an active member of the Pre-Trib Research Center study group, and that's a prophecy research
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  think tank, founded by Dr. Tim Lahey.
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  Now if you're not familiar with raptureready.com, go to that website, raptureready.com, all kinds
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  of topics and resources that you can easily click around and find very easy to navigate.
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  I appreciate that very much about websites today.
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  The older I get, the easier to navigate the better.
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  But the book, again, friends, you can get it on Amazon, or you can get it right at the
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  raptureready.com website.
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  And Terry James, brother, great to have you on World View Matters.
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  That was great to be with you again, David.
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  Yeah, it's been a while since we've talked and not on this platform on this podcast.
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  So for those who are not familiar with Terry, his background is ministry.
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  There's a little piece of his bio that says Terry James has been blind since 1993 due to
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  a degenerative retinal disease, and he uses Jaws, J-A-W-S, which stands for Jobs Accessible
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  Word System, which is voice synthesis, and that enables him to write and conduct business
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  on the internet to edit books, and he's edited several books.
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  So Terry James, tell us a little bit about your background and how you're able to be so
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  incredibly productive and effective in writing and just editing and all the things that you
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  do for the Kingdom of God.
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  Well, it's got to be the glory because he's the one that brought me here to this point.
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  That started out as an old advertising public relations guy the way back when I was a
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  youngster.
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  And the Lord decided that, you know, I guess he decided that he's going in a different
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  direction, which the loss of vision helped that in that, and for him, I'm very thankful
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  for the discipline to do that.
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  I believe it or not.
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  The loss of eyesight for most people would be terrifying, but looking back on it, now
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  I can see that it was something God used to focus me in on.
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  I've written 47 books, and the reason I know 47 is because everybody always asks me how
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  many books have you written, and I finally looked it up on 37.
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  So now that's kind of my background as an advertising public relations, but lost my eyesight
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  and lost my mobility.
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  I wasn't a public relations director for several companies, larger companies and so I can
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  no longer move around like I should.
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  So now I'm more or less confined to my office here, which is very good for me.
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  I like that.
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  Well, Terry, it's amazing.
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  It's not surprising, actually, that you'd lose track of the number of books.
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  I'm just looking at your website, now looking over at Amazon, and my goodness.
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  I mean, I've got a bunch of these, the disappearing, your revelations, dark dimensions, the final
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  remnant.
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  Hereafter, of course, is the new one.
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  I've got deceivers, and that was one that's got various contributors.
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  There's Jacob's trouble.
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  Are you rapture ready?
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  Essays in Apocalypse, and so many others.
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  My goodness, yes, so it's not surprising you'd lose track.
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  But the new book, it's called Hereafter, and I'll just mention the first couple descriptive
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  points in the book title, it says, it's far better than you can imagine.
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  That's the subtitle.
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  Then it says, have you ever wondered what your life will look like in heaven?
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  And it says, in the new book Hereafter, Terry, James, and Jonathan Brentner explore with
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  the Bible reveals about eternity.
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  So Terry, I know you've written on all kinds of prophetic topics, and from just different
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  subjects and you've touched on things, but what made you decide to do this book at this
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  time?
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  Actually, most of my books start begin with a title, but God has always given me titles
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  first for somebody.
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  Some people start different ways, they start thinking on how they're going to write
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  a book or so forth.
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  It's always been with me title, I guess, my old advertising days and short blurbs of advertising
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  copy and so forth.
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  And so I was thinking, I'm an old guy, as you know, and I used to listen to Paul Harvey.
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  He was an old guy two way back when he was a radio guy, and people still remember his
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  name.
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  I think great radio broadcaster, and I really enjoyed listening to him and do about ten
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  or fifteen minute programs a couple of times a day.
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  And he had the, he advertised for a toothpaste, and it's never a good advertising because I
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  can't remember the toothpaste, but I do remember what he said, excuse me, he says you want
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  to keep your pearly whites from here to here after, then you need to use his toothpaste.
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  So here after I was thinking about that, I said that would make a great title for a book,
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  especially since all of our books have really concentrated on, you know, the doom and gloom
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  aspects of prophecy by some people's standards, the tough things of Bible prophecy, the judgment
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  and wrath and so forth.
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  But it would be good, you know, now to focus on the hereafter, the life in heaven, the
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  time after this.
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  So I thought the title hereafter would be a good title.
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  And Jonathan Brentner, my co-author, he came up with the title, it's far better than
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  you can imagine, and he just did a tremendous job on this and writing this book.
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  As a matter of fact, he wrote most of the book, Jonathan another response from most of
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  it, and I added what I could.
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  And so it's been a quite popular book actually.
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  And now you know the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, right?
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  We didn't miss, we didn't miss a one.
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  We were every day at the breakfast table, my dad would put on the radio, and we would
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  hear Paul Harvey.
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  And I would love particularly Fridays after a long week, you might have to say good morning
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  Americans, it's Friday.
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  So Terry James, I want to focus on the subtitle because what you just shared, I think a lot
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  of people can only imagine, right?
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  And all of us actually can only imagine what the Bible says about prophecy, about the
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  end times of what heaven.
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  So share a little bit more about what is it that we do know?
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  I know we can only imagine what it'll look like and be like, but there is information
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  in Scripture about what we get to look forward to, right?
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  Well, here's what Paul, Paul, the apostle said about, he said, he said, I have not seen
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  or heard nor had that entered into the heart of man, the things God has prepared for those
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  who love him.
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  Now, that's saying a whole bunch of stuff right there.
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  Amen.
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  We can't even imagine.
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  It does say, though, that because we have a spirit within us, we can't get some inkling
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  that what he says is true, that we do have a great and glorious future awaiting us.
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  Now the Bible also says that Paul says, again, he said, we are, we are joint errors with
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  Jesus Christ.
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  Now, what does that mean?
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  Well, Jesus, he's literally the creator of all that is the second, the second person
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  of the God, the son, Jesus Christ, he created all that is.
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  Now, if we're joint errors and the Father has given him everything, and so we are joint
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  errors, not joint errors, even in biblical terms of mean that you not only, you don't just
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  have a piece like everybody else of the Father's property.
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  You have the entire, the entire state of yours as well as everybody else's.
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  So that's in the heavenly perspective, that's what it would be, we all have equal shares
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  in God's great, great eternity.
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  Whatever that means, and the Bible says we can't imagine, but we're going to find out.
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  I love some of the descriptive points to the joy set before us, and without reminders
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  of Hebrews 12 to right, we just celebrated resurrection Sunday a few weeks ago for Jesus,
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  the joy set before him endured the cross.
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  It says the joy set before us strengthens our hearts for the many trials that come our
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  way.
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  That's one of the descriptive points for the book hereafter, and talk to his Terry about
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  that joy set before us, the hereafter, and that will give us perspective when we do go
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  through trials, right?
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  Well, absolutely.
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  When you know that you, you know, Jesus said, you know, said, the world will have you
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  will have tribulations, but be joyful because I have overcome the world, and that means
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  you don't become all the tribulations.
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  No matter what Satan and his minions can throw at us, we know that God has our back and
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  our front and every part of us because we are within Christ, we are in Christ, and from
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  him we derive our strength, and our power as a matter of fact, that's only strength and
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  power we do have in his fallen world, because Satan is a powerful being, his minions are powerful,
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  but thank the Lord that he has to go through Jesus Christ to get to any of us, and that's
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  just not going to happen because of where God's children.
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  So talk to us about the joyous reunions and the jubilant celebrations in heaven that
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  will take place after the rapture loosens our grip on the things of this temporary life.
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  Well, Jonathan wrote most of that book regarding that part, and he did a great job, and of
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  course I read it in depth, and it's just marvelous to consider when we leave this world.
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  I believe we're going to all arrive at the same time at the same place, not in front of
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  Jesus Christ, no matter who died when, and during the rapture, I think in some eternal
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  way, outside of time, we will all arrive at that one point at the same time, and at that
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  point we will all be taken into heaven. Jesus said that, you know, let not your heart
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  be trouble. I'm going to prepare a place for you, and if I go away, I'll come again and
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  receive you unto myself, that where I am there, you can be also, he's going away to prepare
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  places for us. Well, what does that mean? Well, we know that it's a glorious dwelling
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  place in New Jerusalem that he will be preparing for us. And so the next thing will be, we'll
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  either see our Savior face to face, either in the rapture or through the portal of death,
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  either one, and there have been no sting in death. Jesus said, because he's taken all that
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  sting of death away. Of course, the next moment, and I can testify of this first hand, because
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  I died clinically three times on a good Friday of 2011, and instantly was in the presence of
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  of heavenly beings. Each time I, each time it happened, I have documentation, hospital documentation
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  on the seriousness, clinically dying through three times. So I can attest first hand, whether
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  in a way, believe it or not, on being instantly, being absent from the bodies to be instantly
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  in the heavenly presence. I didn't see Jesus, but then I wasn't my time yet. They sent me
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  back. But the next thing, when we do meet with Jesus, is we'll be set before that great
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  beam of seat judgment, the judgment seat of Christ, where we will have, we will have all of our
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  earthly, the things we've done in this earthly life reviewed. And based upon how we handled
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  these things here in life, and they are handling them now, will be our rewards in heaven.
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  Now, this is not a judgment for us. Our souls will be in heaven forever, we'll be in heaven forever,
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  but we will be judged on the works, and the works are not in God's great, for God's great glory,
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  we'll be burned up the Bible says, and all that lasts will be like gold, all this left of the
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  fire, holy fire will be like gold. After the beam of seat judgment, we go through this where we
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  will sit down at the upper table of the Lamb, the marriage feast, and what Jesus Christ,
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  who is our bridegroom, the church's bridegroom, and there we will have celebration and reunions,
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  and with all the people we we've had new here on earth and all of our families, and it'll be a
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  much closer relationship than anything we can imagine. It'd be far more, far closer in
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  relationships than it is right now, no matter what the situation was. At the same time, we will
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  know every person who is in God's family, everybody who's ever been saved, we'll know them as
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  intimately and as personally as we know our own family. So that's we can't cry grass, but that's
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  the way that's the way God's word, and I think defines it. Oh my goodness, it sounds amazing,
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  and that's because it's going to be in the hereafter, and we were talking about the new book,
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  by the way, hereafter in the website, friends, you can find more information on Terry James,
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  and a lot of articles and great ministries. RaptureReady.com will be right back on World
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  who might be interested, send us an email. World View Matters at FPEUSA.org, and our producer will
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  get right back to you. Terry James is our guest today author, writer, editor, researcher. Terry,
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  I want to go back to 2011 because I think a lot of people when you shared that, and I've heard
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  your story before in more detail than we have time to get into now, but a lot of people are thinking
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  when you were clinically dead, when you came back, when you were able to wake up and be coherent,
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  was there any disappointment on your part with coming back? Can you tell us a little bit more about
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  that? Yes, it was disappointing leaving. I didn't know where I was or exactly what was going on
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  when I was there. Like I said, each time the heartbeat stopped, I knew instantly I could tell.
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  I heard this computer blip. It was like a computer blip. I don't know what that was all about,
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  but instantaneous leaving my heart stopped. I was in the presence of this strong of
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  heavenly beings, young men and young women, they were handsome and beautiful.
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  Tall and handsome, and they were just there bidding me to come to them.
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  And then about the time I started to them, the first time, I was three times that happened,
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  and the first time I started toward them, well, everything started turning dark, and they
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  again, and you know, I'm blind, so I woke up on the gurney blind, of course, dark.
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  And the next time it happened on the way to the cath lab table, the same blip, the same I was
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  in front of the same group of people, and they were even more jubilant jumping up and down with
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  their hands in the air and smiling and bidding me to come to them. I started toward them again,
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  and as I drew nearer this time, everything started turning dark, and my first thought was I don't
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  want to leave here. I don't want to leave this time. But then again, I was on the cath lab table at
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  that time. And the third time, well, instantaneously, my heart stopped, instantaneously, so I was in
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  their presence. And we were, I was among them this time. We were running like, they had their
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  hands in the air, and they were looking over at me and smiling and laughing, and just a jubilant
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  time, and I was enjoying it. I was running with them effortlessly, hadn't no sense of body,
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  really just, you know, just like you look at somebody from out of your eyes,
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  here I am a blind guy, seeing the most spectacular group of young people you can imagine.
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  We're running with the hands in the air, and then it's lasted a little longer that time,
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  that session did, and then everything started turning dark again. And then I was again on the
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  cath lab table. It had to hit me for about the fourth or fifth time with the DFIB paddles.
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  And so I didn't, that was the last time that I was in front of those 70 people. But
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  this time really didn't want to leave. I said, you know, but there I was back on the table again,
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  and they had finished the putting the stand-in and removing the blockage of the left
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  trod descending ventricle, whatever they call it, at the Whittlemaker Heart Attack. And the doctor
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  said that they'd never seen anybody live with that much, that deep, a sense of medical problem.
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  And they were all amazed. They were so amazed that they gave me the Patient of the Year Award,
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  and as I said in my office here, it's right over there in the corner. They gave me the Patient of
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  the Year Award, the cardiologist did, and they asked me to speak to their convention.
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  And I told them about Jesus, and about 15 minutes, 10 or 15 minutes, and I spoke to them,
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  and they all applauded. They didn't boo me so they listened, and that was good.
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  Fantastic. Patient of the Year Award. And Terry, you got a chance to change.
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  Oh, I did, I did, I did, I was live, yeah.
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  I know exactly how you did was live. And wow, I mean selfishly from the body of Christ perspective,
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  I'm thankful that it wasn't your time yet that God allowed you to come back.
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  And basically because of all the work that you've done, all the ministry, the books, and all the
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  great resources. So I'm very thankful, but I know you probably would have preferred to just stay
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  home. So Terry, yeah, let's move on back to the book here after, because I love this topic.
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  We talk about culture a lot, and all the junk that's going on in our, the schools, the government,
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  and Hollywood, the corporations in our culture. But now we get to talk about the hereafter,
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  because there's another book that really gets into some details on it. For example, you and
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  Jonathan talk about, you answer questions like, will we sleep in heaven? Will our immortal bodies
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  possess supernatural abilities in heaven? Do you want to touch on either one of those, Terry?
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  Well, the other reason we know that we will have supernatural abilities, because it says that we
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  will be like Jesus. We will see him as he is. We will be like him. We'll have bodies like his body.
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  And he was able to move through walls, we're going to say, be in one place, from one place to the
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  other in a moment. We will be much like Jesus in our bodies, and we will have the same bodies here
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  on earth, but much greater, I think, than this thing, much more glorious and perfect. And I've
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  heard it to analyze that our bodies here are flesh, blood, and bone, basically. There'll only be
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  flesh and bone. I don't know what all that means, if I'm a standpoint of how the scholars have
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  parsed all that. But the thing is, we will have perfect bodies. We will never get tired. Now,
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  I'm hoping that if we want to take naps, we can, because I kind of like my naps now as an old guy,
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  but my mind will probably change in. And so we'll see.
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  Yeah, that's interesting to think about. But we did celebrate Easter Resurrection Sunday recently,
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  and remember when Jesus returned, when he was actually before he ascended, I should say,
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  he did appear through the walls, just in front of his disciples, and the doors were locked for fear,
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  the Jews, and Jesus appeared. And so there are some things that are interesting, because we,
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  as it says in 1 Corinthians 15, we will get those glorified bodies. So how will we move
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  about in the huge new Jerusalem? That's one of the things that you touch on.
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  1500 miles cubed, my goodness. Well, I'm just thinking of each floor and how many
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  billions of people will be in a city like that. If God has so arranged,
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  yeah, 1,500 miles cubed. That means you know, why does it is long and as tall as it is,
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  why and everything else. It's just a tremendous amount of no telling. No wonder it's called. It's
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  like a giant gleaming jewel coming down from the darkness of space and so forth. And everybody will
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  see it at that time. It'll be tremendous. And we'll have to, I don't think there's an elevator
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  in the world that I'm moving at the way they do here that could get us around in that city,
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  but I think we'll be able to just by thinking about it. If I want to see Taj Strenberg up in on
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  the 15,000 floor, whatever, I'll have to think about it. And Taj will have me, I have me a,
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  you know, probably a fully cooked meal and everything else ready, just thinking about it. So that's
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  what we can look forward to. Unless there are wonkovators like Willie Wonkovators that go any
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  directions sideways up and down diagonally. I was able to see that movie. Yeah.
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  So Terry, one more question. We've got about four minutes left. The Bible talks about crowns.
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  We, Paul said we will receive the crown of life all who long for his appearing. So talk to us
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  a little bit about that. Are we, are we wearing them the whole time in heaven? I know we,
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  we received them at some point. Tell us a little bit more about that.
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  Well, of course, that was John. You know, when he first went to heaven in John chapter four,
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  I mean, Revelation chapter four, John was brought into heaven and so forth. And he saw all these
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  crowns that that people had. And we will be giving crowns at the behemoth seat, the judgment seat
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  of Christ. And then I think the Bible says that we throw them at, or we put them at Jesus' feet
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  because he's the one is deserving and we'll realize there's five crowns that will be offered
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  for different services. And Jesus says that when he returns, he will be wearing many crowns.
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  I believe that's part of symbolic of what we will be crowns that we have earned. And he will,
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  he will probably wear those back to earth as we descend to put it into armor. He puts in
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  an armor getting. So yeah, we will receive crowns. And I think Bible prophecy, the reason Bible
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  prophecy is important to the Christian because God equates that with righteousness. Now that's
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  the crown of righteousness, the loving of his appearing. And all people who love his appearing
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  again will will receive that crown now. If if Jesus is the only righteousness there is. And so
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  that to me is probably the greatest crown because it's called the crown of righteousness. And so
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  that's the reason Bible prophecy is so important and I appreciate people like you David
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  having, having us on to share things of Bible prophecy with believers in and nonbelievers who
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  will listen. Well, Terry James, praise God for you and your ministry and guys, they mentioned
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  are they tackle a lot more in the book hereafter and just looking at the table of contents,
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  a home just for us, colliding kingdoms, rewards beyond imagination, a wedding and jubilant
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  celebration, a joy to the world and to us. And we will inherit a kingdom. Israel's return to glory,
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  a mountaintop experience, a king with no equal. We will reign with Jesus kingdom life. Why must
• 25:43
  Jesus reign for a thousand years and a lot more in the book hereafter again on Amazon or you go
• 25:49
  to raptureready.com. Terry James, God bless you brother. We hope to do this again. I'm sure we
• 25:55
  will with all the books you continue to to pump out. So Lord willing, we will talk again in the
• 26:00
  near future and thanks Todd for setting this up for us so we can see and hear Terry. God bless
• 26:04
  you brothers. Bless you. Thanks Terry. Again guys, check out some of his books really encouraging,
• 26:11
  especially this new one as we get to focus on something so much more positive than what
• 26:18
  our lives are often distracted by here in this temporary place. But thanks again for watching
• 26:25
  the podcast and for sharing. That's so important guys because we are limited and shadow banned
• 26:30
  in some ways on Facebook and others so share a retweet however that works and whatever platform
• 26:35
  you're watching and following. Give us a review on the audio platforms. God bless you and as always
• 26:42
  keep speaking the truth about things that matter.