Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Lee Brainard: Understanding Opposition To Bible Prophecy, Pre-Trib Rapture

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Lee Brainard: Understanding Opposition To Bible Prophecy, Pre-Trib Rapture · 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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Hey friends, family and Christ, thank you so much for tuning in.
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This is going to be a very important podcast because there's a lot of false teachings
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out there.
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There's a lot of, I don't want to say duct, although there are doctrines of demons.
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But there's just a disagreement and maybe some ignorance in the church about eschatology
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and we're going to talk about that with our good friend, Lee Brainer today.
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I want to direct you to his book, he's an author and speaker.
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And his most recent book, Ten Potent Proofs for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture.
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You can find that over on Amazon.
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His website is soothekeep.info, soothekeep.info, and you can find him over on YouTube under soothekeep
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and watch some of his most recent videos.
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Brother Lee, thank you so much for joining us.
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Good to see you again.
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David, it's wonderful to be with you again and I am very thankful we're taking up the topic.
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We are taking up today the coming of the Lord, the soon coming.
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Yeah, and you know a lot about this and I learned a lot from people like you, brother.
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That's why I have you come on.
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I hope we prayed before we got on that I would ask the right questions.
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Because we're going to talk about the forces that are coming against dispensationalism
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and the pre-trib rapture.
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And before we do that, you recently spoke at two different places.
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Tell us about the conference and tell us about the pastor's subtle.
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Yeah, I spoke at the Prophecy Watchers Conference in Norman, Oklahoma.
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We had a wonderful time.
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I spoke on Gog and Megog and clarified the situation for believers.
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Why Gog and Megog appears at the end of Revelation and not merely prior to the tribulation earlier
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on just prior to the end of this age.
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So that was a blessing to a lot of people.
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I also defended the rapture against the pre-rath rapture.
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At the pastor's huddle, I taught on Revelation 19 through Revelation 22.
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And a lot of the pastors that attended were very encouraged.
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They said, I blew their mind when I talked about how wonderful eternity is going to be.
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So that must be pretty provocative and informative when pastors say you blew their mind.
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So friends, I want to direct you.
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I'm over at the Olive Tree Views website and we couldn't find the exact link.
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So I want to direct you right over to Vimeo, look for Olive Tree Ministries channel on Vimeo.
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And there it is.
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You can find the pastors.
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Huddle, they already have it up.
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My goodness, they're fast.
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So they already have it up and look at all those sessions.
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You can go one by one.
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And if you have any feedback, just let Lee know or let Pastor Josh know.
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But go to Vimeo and look up Olive Tree Ministries, Olive Tree Views.
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You can find all those videos and learn a lot.
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So Lee, let's start with, well, the battle within the church about doctrines, about end times.
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Let's start there and just walk us through some of these bullet points, please.
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Yeah, well, one of the greatest battles that we face today as evangelical believers
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is the battle to maintain a biblical balance when it comes to the first coming and the second coming.
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We have tremendous forces working in the church today that want to marginalize the second
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coming or sweep the second coming under the rug or push it off into such a vast, far
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distant future that for all practical purposes, it's irrelevant.
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But the Bible presents to us the second coming with the same vigorous force that it presents
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the first coming.
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The first coming of Jesus is where God paid for redemption through His Son, Jesus Christ.
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The second coming is where the Lord delivers the redemption that He paid for.
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And if we have Christianity that focuses on the first coming and doesn't have the second
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coming in the mix, we have an unbalanced message.
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A globe has to turn our orbit or rotate on a south pole and a north pole, so does earth,
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so does any star, so does any planet, so does any sun.
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So we need both the first coming, the south pole and the second coming, the north pole
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to have a balanced message of the gospel.
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Okay, you went right to the end.
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One of the takeaways that we're going to hopefully leave people with or you, what you're
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going to present is it will leave people unbalanced if the second coming is left out.
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The second coming is a vital aspect of the message of redemption.
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So let's go to some of these forces that you mentioned and I'm glad to use the word
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forces because this is a spiritual battle, isn't it?
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When a spiritual comes to doctrine, biblically and interpretation, go ahead.
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Yeah, well, it's definitely a spiritual battle.
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A lot of people don't understand.
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They get all tied up in knots and they think we're fighting people against people.
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Really what we're fighting is believers who are more influenced by the Bible and less
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influenced by dark forces, trying to communicate with people who are more influenced by these
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dark forces and we're just trying to encourage our brethren to be more biblical.
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And these dark forces, for instance, are all millennialism which denies that the Lord
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Jesus is going to literally come in the future and literally establish the literal kingdom
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that we see in the Bible and the Old Testament in the book of Revelation and the Gospels and
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the Epistles.
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They look at the kingdom like it's a promised spiritual kingdom that's existing in
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their hearts right now.
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This undermines the authority of Scripture.
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We're fighting forces like post-millennialism which lives in, I call it a daydream, that
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the church has been given the opportunity and obligation by the Lord to establish the
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kingdom on earth right now through the gospel, through basically Christianizing or baptizing
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society to take control of all the institutions, media, education, government, the military,
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etc.
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Well, this is very different from the biblical message.
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We have not been given a message to Christianize the world.
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We've been given a message to call men out of the world.
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Yes.
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Now, this doesn't diminish our obligation to be salt and light and to spread as much salt
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and light as we can, as far as we can, as hard as we can, as fast as we can, but we're
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not going to save the world.
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We're going to save men out of the world.
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The world is headed for judgment.
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So if two follow-up questions, would the new apostolic reformation fall under post-millennialism?
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What you just mentioned wanting to, like, control or establish the kingdom now?
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Well, it absolutely does.
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And it's a variation that's basically a Pentecostal version of it, although Pentecostals
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are not the only ones that adhere to it.
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It's spreading widely through evangelicalism, and it's confusing to a lot of believers because
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they sense that we have an obligation to take the battle to the world, to take the battle
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to society, and we do.
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We have an obligation to spread the light of the gospel, the morality of the Bible, the
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spiritual heavenly-minded vigor of the Bible, to the whole world around us.
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And yet somehow this vision for spreading this light gets transmogrified into a vision
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to somehow transform the world into the kingdom of Christ.
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And this certainly is not the church's commission.
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Yeah.
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I read a lot about being separate from the world and not loving the world, or its influences.
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I want to go back home worth one more step to our millennialism.
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So there are people that really believe with a massive, increasing and intensifying evil
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that's so evident in the world.
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They believe that Satan is bound.
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I don't understand that.
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Can you help me understand that a little bit?
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Yeah.
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Well, it's a double, I guess you'd say it's like a double-minded version of binding Satan
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because how do you explain that the world is just as evil as it was then?
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It's still that evil now.
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There's no difference.
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And yet they have a double mind because they want to give lip service to the scriptures
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that Satan is bound, and yet they're trying to give lip service to their doctrine that
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the kingdom has already come.
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And they know that Satan is being bound as part of the kingdom.
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So they're really struggling and they're really torn.
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As Chuck Bistler used to say, if Satan is bound right now, God needs to find a shorter chain.
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The difficulty that that's going to be faced is this world is insanely wicked.
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The devil is obviously running around like a roaring lion seeking to destroy and damage.
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You can't deny that.
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So whatever this binding is, it means almost nothing.
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So when you track down the most succinct statements from the most savvy theologians in the
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Amalennial camp, they always kind of beat around the bush and they end up saying stuff
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that basically boils down to, well, the devil can't keep us from getting saved.
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Well, that's good.
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I'm glad for that, but that's not binding the devil.
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Yeah.
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Amen, brother.
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So I know we're going to have to move kind of fast on these.
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Go ahead and share some of these other forces that you mentioned.
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Sure.
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Well, we're also facing the theory of preterism, which this says that most, if not all of the
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prophetic material in the Olivet Discourse, that's Matthew 24 and Luke 21.
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And most of the oral, the prophetic material in the book of Revelation was fulfilled in
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8070 with the destruction of Jerusalem.
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And this is mind boggling to me, brother, because the second coming is the Lord crushing
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the armies of the world and delivering Israel, but yet in their version of this supposed
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fulfillment of the Lord's second coming, Israel is crushed.
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And the Roman world is the one that's delivered.
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Kind of confusing to me too, how people can go down these roads and back it up with
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scripture, but that's for another time.
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What about, I mean, one of the biggest problems I've seen recently growing unfortunately
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is replacement theology.
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Where does that fall on these forces coming against the pre-trib rapture?
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Well, basically, replacement theology is going to be one of the backbone issues for everything
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that comes against the full-fledged dispensationalism, whether it's all millennialism, post-millennialism,
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kingdom, dominion theology.
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They are really looking at the fact that the current church has replaced Israel.
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Now, oftentimes they'll say, we didn't replace Israel.
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All the churches just Israel, but Gentiles added and we've dropped the law.
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So it's modified slightly, but the fact of the matter is God made numerous promises
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to the people in nation of Israel, the physical descendants of Jacob, and he will literally
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fulfill those promises to the people in nation of Israel, the physical, literal DNA descendants
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of Jacob.
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And to me, if we're going to go down the path of replacement theology and think the church
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has replaced Israel, how can you trust this God?
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If he set Israel aside and broke his promises to them, how can we trust he won't break his
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promises to the church?
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Yeah, I think you have to redefine the word everlasting in terms of covenants, right?
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Well, it's not absolutely.
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But everlasting is something else that she's, anyway, Lee, unless you want to add another
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one of these bullet points, I think we better jump to what arguments do they use or how
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do they back some of these up?
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Well, this is one of the toughest parts because typically they don't really have strong
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exegetical arguments anywhere.
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They don't live and die like a dispensationalist by thus saying at the Lord, interpreted by
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thus saying at the Lord, they will start with a little passage like the passage on the
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true circumcision, for instance, or on the Israel of God in the Pauline writings, those
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kind of concepts.
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And they're going to jump on these phrases and they're going to say, see this is the church.
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But this is not a strong argument.
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How do you take one or two little proof texts like the true circumcision or Israel, the
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house of God, these kind of stuff in the New Testament, and then say that we're going
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to use these and overthrow all the Old Testament passages that talk about the nation and people
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of Israel in their glorious promises.
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It doesn't really work that way.
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So basically they don't really have strong exegetical arguments.
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It's philosophical presuppositions that start with replacement theology.
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Oh my goodness.
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It's so important, friends, to find if you're not at a Bible-believing church that teaches
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prophecy and the whole Council of God and sound doctor, you got to find one.
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I want to jump to who was Derby because I hear his name mentioned a lot.
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They use his name and it really divides a lot of people because maybe there's confusion
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or some lies about what he actually did.
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Go ahead, Lee.
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Yeah.
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I think Derby has become a convenient whipping post or a whipping boy.
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It's crazy.
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You know, they say, well, Derby invented the preacher of Rapture.
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No, no, he didn't.
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Oh, Derby got the preacher of Rapture from a demon possessed teenage girl.
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No, he didn't.
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Derby discovered the rapture while reading the scriptures convalescing after a horseback
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riding accident in 1827.
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So he was convinced of the preacher of Rapture by reading 2nd Thessalonians 2, 1 through
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3 in the Greek and realizing this plainly teaches a preacher of Rapture.
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Now Margaret McDonald got a preacher of Rapture theory in 1830 and the problem was it's not
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even a preacher of Rapture theory.
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If you read Margaret McDonald wrote, in fact, if you read every prophetic statement in the
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entire Irvingite movement, they taught a pre-Rath Rapture.
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The church would go through three and a half years of tribulation under the Antichrist
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and then have a rapture shortly before a short window of Rath.
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It's very similar to the modern pre-Rath Rapture.
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So this whole idea that Derby invented the preacher of Rapture is really unsound.
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It's just a sound bite, it's not a knowledge of history.
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So who was Margaret McDonald again?
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Well she was a 16-year-old gal, Scottish gal, who was involved with the Irvingite movement
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in the 1820s and the 1830s.
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That was an early proto-Penocostum movement and they received revelations or supposed
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revelations and one of these revelations was the teaching of the rapture after three
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and a half years of tribulation.
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So Lee, how do you respond to some who might say, and this is one of the arguments that
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Bible prophecy distracts from our true mission about preaching the gospel, making disciples.
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How do you respond to that?
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Oh, I love answering this question because the fact of the matter is, a Bible prophecy
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actually is part of the gospel.
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It's part of the good news.
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It's part of the whole redemption package.
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Now if you just narrow down the gospel to the death-barrel resurrection of the Lord Jesus
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Christ, then of course prophecy is not going to be part of that.
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But if you take prophecy in the broader sense, if you take the gospel, the good news in
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the broader sense where we don't just get redemption paid for, we get redemption delivered.
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Well then now the resurrection, the second coming, our reward, our inheritance as sons
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of God and heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ Jesus, the expansion of the Dominion
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mandate from earth to the entire universe, this is a blessing going to be given to the
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church.
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And I don't understand why people are not excited about this.
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There's nothing that's more powerful against the church being influenced by worldliness
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than realizing that we have an absolute infinite reward coming and that the poorest saint in
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eternity is going to be wealthier than all the wealthiest men in the history of the world
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put together.
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You know, I just don't think through the years, especially in the American church that
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prophecy has been articulated properly or emphasized enough, I'm just thinking, okay,
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in layman's terms, let's make a prediction of who's going to win the Super Bowl.
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And let's do that, you know, for, you know, 50 years from now or 100 years.
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And you get it right.
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I mean, am I goodness, how can you not marvel at that?
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But there's fulfilled prophecies that are documented.
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And Jesus fulfilled hundreds and people don't look at that as something that's astonishing.
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I just kind of go, wow, what happened to us?
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You know what I mean?
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Yes.
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And it's also amazing that in the gospel presentations, in the gospels and the epistles
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and everywhere in the Bible, when God presents motives to man, He presents prophetic motives.
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The threat of hell, which is a prophetic issue and the promise of eternal life, which
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is a prophetic issue.
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And then the third most common motive is judgment coming upon the world, which is also
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a prophetic motive.
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And so prophecy is right at the core of the gospel message.
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Okay.
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Lee, we're running out of time as I knew we would.
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It's going to go by quick.
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Let's jump to how the Bible is full of commands and exhortations that will help people really
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get some more Bible verses to help understand this and back this up what we're talking about
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today.
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Yes.
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For instance, in Matthew 13, verses 35 and 36, in fact, I'll go to 37, watch there for
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you do not know when the master of the house is going to come, whether in the evening or
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at midnight or at the cock crowing or at the morning, less coming suddenly, he finds you sleeping.
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And what I say into all of you, I say watch.
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And so we have these watch exhortations throughout the gospels.
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We have Revelation 227 where it says, the spirit in the bride say, come, this is the heart
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cry of the Holy Spirit for the Lord Jesus to come.
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And this is the heart cry of the born again church in dwelt by the Holy Spirit.
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We want to see Jesus.
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But we also see in second Peter chapter 3 where part of our obligation is to look for
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and hasten the coming of the day of God.
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And people might say, well, what does it mean to hasten the coming of day of the Lord?
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Can we make it come faster?
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No, but what it does mean is it can't come fast enough.
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We also see in Matthew chapter 6, Romans chapter 8 and first Peter chapter 1 that we have
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a massive treasure laid up for us in heaven and inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled
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that will never fade away.
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And we read in Romans chapter 8, 18 that our present sufferings are not worthy to be compared
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to the glory that shall be revealed to us.
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Not merely in us is some translation, say, but to us because we not only get the inner
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resurrection glorification, we get to inherit the entire universe with Jesus Christ as
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co-heirs.
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So we have all this watching and looking for this treasure, looking for the reward, looking
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for the coming of the Lord, it's all over the New Testament.
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I don't see how anyone can read the New Testament and not be overwhelmed by these promises
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and these exhortations.
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So Lee, and I wish we could end right there because that is just encouraging, just the
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scriptures you shared, and you just scratch the surface, I know, and I appreciate that
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because you know how the time goes by.
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But do you think one of the reasons that maybe a lot of people don't want to focus more
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on prophecies?
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One of the things you mentioned is the threat of hell and the threat of judgment.
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Do you think that people want to shy away from that truth?
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Well, I think that's definitely part of it.
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People don't like God intruding on their life.
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They're happy living their life the way they are.
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And they'll just shove the Christian message aside, they'll shove the promise of eternal
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life aside, they just shove everything aside.
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But it actually goes a little bit deeper and broader than this because I've just discovered
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that even Christians are comfortable living in this world the way it is.
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They don't want the Jesus of the Bible coming down according to the prophecies of the Bible
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and bringing the second coming of the Bible and the day of the Lord of the Bible and
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absolutely destroying this present world.
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They don't want the world destroyed.
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They wouldn't mind political activism and religious activism cleaning the world up a little
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bit but they don't want the end of the world.
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This is really one of the problems we face in getting the prophetic message just spread
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through the church.
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It's not the message they want to hear.
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They're making the same mistake that the Pharisees made at the first coming.
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The Pharisees had preconceived ideas of how they wanted the Lord's coming to be and they
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were focused on the second coming prophecies and ignoring the first coming prophecies.
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Anything that didn't fit into the second coming, they just shoved it aside.
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Well, we face the opposite problem today.
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The Phariseic corners of the church are very focused on the first coming and they don't
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want the Lord's second coming.
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It's the same kind of problem.
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Yeah, that's fascinating because if we go back to some of the most studied and quote
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educated and religious leaders during Jesus' time, they weren't necessarily looking for
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that kind of Messiah.
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Were they?
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They were not looking for a Messiah that would die for the whole world.
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They were just looking for a Messiah that would come and shed sufficient Roman blood.
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Wow.
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Wow.
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See, that point is really interesting to me and how you drew that comparison to today that
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we aren't looking for.
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How did you say that again because I really liked the way you worded that?
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So a lot of people today, they're not looking for the second coming of the Lord which is
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going to bring in his promised kingdom.
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They're just looking at the first coming and they want their comfortable religion just
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to keep going on indefinitely.
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They want the comfortable world to keep going on indefinitely.
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They'd like to see it maybe cleaned up a little bit religiously politically but they don't
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want it to end.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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And the true believer sees this world for what it is which is a sewer of unbelief and
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when the Lord Jesus Christ comes, he's going to drain the swamp, take the trash out and
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turn the world upside down.
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I like in the notes you sent me.
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You said the first coming of Jesus paid for redemption, the second coming or the return
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of Jesus delivers redemption, that just those two contrasts are just so important.
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Three minutes left, whatever you want to share to continue to further drive home some
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of this and just encourage our audience.
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Yes.
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I would just like to encourage the believers out there.
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I know that some of you in the listening world probably don't really know much what to
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do with prophecy.
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You know your churches don't preach on it.
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Your pastor's not sure what to do with it.
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I just want to encourage you to be a simple Bible reading believer who takes the scriptures
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at face value, who would trust the plane statements of scripture with childlike faith
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and interprets the plane statements of scripture with other plane statements of scripture.
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And just embrace the second coming.
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If you don't get all the details figured out, if you never quite figure out the exact
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order of all the second coming stuff and where the rapture fits, relax.
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Just embrace the general message.
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The Lord Jesus is coming down from heaven.
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He's going to remove all the ungodliness from this planet.
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He's going to remove all the ungodly from the planet.
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He's going to establish a kingdom in righteousness down here and things are going to be good.
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If you just get this part right, you are on the right side of the fence.
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You are going to be where you need to be.
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And it's so hopeful too, I believe.
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But I want, if friends, if you want to dig a little bit deeper, I think if it was in
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the last podcast we did with you Lee or the one before that where we did on your book,
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the 10 potent proofs.
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And friends, go to worldviewmatters.tv, look up Lee, Brainerd.
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And that is what will come up after you get the search.
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Is that it?
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Yes.
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The key biblical proofs for the pre-trip rapture.
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So look at, look that one up because that will explain a little bit about what he talks
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about in the book to reinforce much of what he shared today and what we're talking about.
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Brother, I thank you so much for all you do.
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And friends, the website soothekeep.info, that's S-O-O-T-H-K-E-E-P, also on YouTube.
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And Lord willing, we will continue to do this, keep these conversations going Lee.
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Your voice is important.
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Thank you for all you do, brother.
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God bless you.
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And thank you, David.
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You're most welcome.
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Friends, we've got to continue to encourage our pastors if they are not teaching and preaching
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on Bible prophecy.
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There are different reasons.
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Sometimes fear, sometimes ignorance, they didn't go to the right seminary.
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I don't know.
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But we need to continue to lovingly and respectfully encourage them.
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And if they refuse to do so, I think you know what to do.
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But keep that prayerfully and always speak the truth and love.
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Friends, thank you so much for sharing the podcast.
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God bless you.
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And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.