Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Terry James: What Does The Bible Teach About The ‘Hereafter’? (REPLAY)
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
- 0:10defending biblical Christianity.
- 0:13No topic off limits.
- 0:16And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
- 0:20Hello friends, family, and Christ, thank you so much for tuning into another episode.
- 0:24Great topic today.
- 0:25We get to look ahead, past all the nonsense, and past the trials of this life.
- 0:31And we get to look at the rapture, we get to look at eternity and heaven, and a lot of
- 0:36good things.
- 0:37We'll be focusing a little bit on a brand new book.
- 0:40It's called Hereafter.
- 0:42And the book is by Terry James and Jonathan Brentner.
- 0:45Now we've had Jonathan on a few times, and we've talked about his articles and some other
- 0:50things.
- 0:52But I don't think we've had Jonathan on since the book actually came out.
- 0:55So now we get to dive into it with Terry James.
- 0:58I want to introduce him right now, and he's this brother I've talked to him many times
- 1:02before.
- 1:03He's an author, a general editor, co-author of numerous books on Bible prophecy, hundreds
- 1:10of thousands, by the way, which has been sold worldwide.
- 1:12He's a frequent lecturer on the study of End Times Phenomena, and interviews with
- 1:17National International Media.
- 1:19He is an active member of the Pre-Trib Research Center study group, and that's a prophecy research
- 1:26think tank, founded by Dr. Tim Lahey.
- 1:30Now if you're not familiar with raptureready.com, go to that website, raptureready.com, all kinds
- 1:38of topics and resources that you can easily click around and find very easy to navigate.
- 1:44I appreciate that very much about websites today.
- 1:48The older I get, the easier to navigate the better.
- 1:51But the book, again, friends, you can get it on Amazon, or you can get it right at the
- 1:54raptureready.com website.
- 1:57And Terry James, brother, great to have you on World View Matters.
- 2:01That was great to be with you again, David.
- 2:04Yeah, it's been a while since we've talked and not on this platform on this podcast.
- 2:08So for those who are not familiar with Terry, his background is ministry.
- 2:12There's a little piece of his bio that says, Terry James has been blind since 1993, due
- 2:19to a degenerative retinal disease.
- 2:22And he uses Jaws, J-A-W-S, which stands for Jobs Accessible Word System, which is voice
- 2:32synthesis.
- 2:33And that enables him to write and conduct business on the internet to edit books.
- 2:38And he's edited several books.
- 2:40So Terry James, tell us a little bit about your background and how you're able to be so
- 2:46incredibly productive and effective in writing and just editing and all the things that you
- 2:52do for the kingdom of God.
- 2:54Well, it's got to be the glory because he's the one that brought me here to this point.
- 3:00I started out as an old advertising public relations guy the way back when I was a youngster.
- 3:06And the Lord decided that, you know, I guess he decided that he's going in a different
- 3:10direction, which the loss of vision helped that in that, and for him, I'm very thankful
- 3:18for the discipline to do that, and I believe it or not.
- 3:25The loss of eyesight for most people would be terrifying, but looking back on it, now
- 3:29I can see that it was something God used to focus me in on.
- 3:35And I've written 47 books, and the reason I know 47 is because everybody always asks me
- 3:42how many books have you written, and I finally looked it up on 37.
- 3:45So, so now that that's kind of my background is an advertising public relations, but lost
- 3:52my sight and lost my mobility.
- 3:54I wasn't a public relations director for several companies, larger companies and so I could
- 4:02no longer move around like I should.
- 4:05So now I'm more or less confined to my office here, which is very good for me.
- 4:11I like that.
- 4:12Well, Terry, it's amazing.
- 4:15It's not surprising, actually, that you'd lose track of the number of books.
- 4:18I'm just looking at your website, now looking over in Amazon, and my goodness, I mean,
- 4:23I've got a bunch of these, the disappearing, your revelations, dark dimensions, the final
- 4:29remnant hereafter, of course, is the new one.
- 4:33I've got deceivers, and that was one that's got various contributors.
- 4:38There's Jacob's trouble.
- 4:39Are you rapture ready?
- 4:42Essays in Apocalypse, and so many others, my goodness, yes, so it's not surprising you'd
- 4:49lose track, but the new book, it's called Hereafter, and I'll just mention the first couple
- 4:55descriptive points in the book title, it says, it's far better than you can imagine.
- 5:02That's the subtitle.
- 5:03Then it says, have you ever wondered what your life will look like in heaven?
- 5:08And it says, in the new book hereafter, Terry, James, and Jonathan, Brentner, explore
- 5:13what the Bible reveals about eternity.
- 5:17So Terry, I know you've written on all kinds of prophetic topics and from just different
- 5:22subjects and you've touched on things.
- 5:24But what made you decide to do this book at this time?
- 5:29Actually, most of my books start begin with a title, but God has always given me titles
- 5:36first for somebody.
- 5:37Some people start different ways, they start thinking on how they're going to write a book
- 5:42or so forth.
- 5:43It's always been with me title.
- 5:44I guess my old advertising days and short blurbs of advertising, copying and so forth.
- 5:50So I was thinking, I'm an old guy, as you know, and I used to listen to Paul Harvey.
- 5:56He was an old guy two way back when he was a radio guy, and people still remember his
- 5:59name.
- 6:00I think great radio broadcaster.
- 6:02And I really enjoyed listening to him and do about 10, 15 minute programs a couple
- 6:09of times a day.
- 6:11And he advertised for a toothpaste, and it's never a good advertising because I came
- 6:16in with a toothpaste.
- 6:17I do remember what he said, excuse me, he says, you want to keep your pearly whites from
- 6:23here to here after, then you need to use his toothpaste.
- 6:28So here after I was thinking about that, I said, that would make a great title for a book,
- 6:32especially since all of our books have really concentrated on the doom and gloom aspects
- 6:39of prophecy by some people's standards.
- 6:42The tough things of Bible prophecy, the judgment and wrath and so forth.
- 6:47But it would be good, you know, now to focus on the hereafter, the life in heaven, the time
- 6:51after this.
- 6:53So I thought the title hereafter would be a good title.
- 6:57And Jonathan Brentner, my co-author, he came up with the title, it's far better than
- 7:03you can imagine.
- 7:04And he just did a tremendous job on this and writing this book, matter of fact, he wrote
- 7:08most of the book, Jonathan another response from most of it.
- 7:12And I added what I could.
- 7:14And so it's been a quite popular book, actually.
- 7:18And now you know the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say, right?
- 7:23Paul Harvey, good day.
- 7:25We didn't miss, we didn't miss a one.
- 7:27We were every day at the breakfast table, my dad would put on the radio and we would
- 7:32hear Paul Harvey.
- 7:33And I would love particularly Fridays after a long week, you know what I would say,
- 7:36good morning, Americans, it's Friday.
- 7:39So Terry James, I want to focus on the subtitle because what you just shared, I think a lot
- 7:45of people can only imagine, right?
- 7:48All of us actually can only imagine what the Bible says about prophecy, about the end times
- 7:55what heaven.
- 7:56So share a little bit more about what is it that we do know?
- 8:00I know we can only imagine what it'll look like and be like, but there is information
- 8:05and scripture about what we get to look forward to, right?
- 8:08Well, here's what Paul, Paul, the apostle said about, he said, he said, I have not seen
- 8:15or heard, nor have it entered into the heart of man, the things God has prepared for those
- 8:21who love him.
- 8:22Now that's saying a whole bunch of stuff right there.
- 8:24Amen.
- 8:25We can't even imagine.
- 8:26It does say though that because we have a spirit within us, we can't get some inkling
- 8:29that what he says is true, that we do have a great and glorious future awaiting us.
- 8:36Now the Bible also says that Paul says, again, he said, we are, we are joint errors with
- 8:42Jesus Christ.
- 8:43Now what does that mean?
- 8:44Well, Jesus, he's literally the creator of all that is, the second, the second person
- 8:51of the God, the son, Jesus Christ, he created all that is.
- 8:56Now if we're joint errors and the Father has given him everything, and so we are joint
- 9:00errors.
- 9:01Now the joint errors, even in biblical terms, mean that you not only, you don't just have
- 9:05a piece like everybody else of the Father's property, you have the entire, the entire state
- 9:10is yours as well as everybody else's.
- 9:13So that's in the heavenly perspective.
- 9:15That's what it would be.
- 9:16We all have equal shares in God's great, great eternity.
- 9:24Whatever that means in the Bible says we can't imagine, but we're going to find out.
- 9:30I love some of the descriptive points to the joy set before us, and without reminders
- 9:37of Hebrews 12 to right, we just celebrated resurrection Sunday a few weeks ago for
- 9:42Jesus, the joy set before him endured the cross, it says the joy set before us strengthens
- 9:47our hearts for the many trials that come our way.
- 9:51That's one of the descriptive points for the book hereafter, and talk to his Terry about
- 9:58that joy set before us, the hereafter, and that will give us perspective when we do go
- 10:05through trials, right?
- 10:06Well, absolutely.
- 10:07I mean, when you know that you, you know, Jesus said, you know, said the world will have
- 10:12you little tribulations, but be joyful because I have overcome the world, and that means
- 10:17you don't become all the tribulations.
- 10:19No matter what Satan and his minions can throw at us, we know that God has our back in
- 10:24our front and every part of us, because we are within Christ, we are in Christ, and from
- 10:30him we derive our strength, and our power, as a matter of fact, that's only strength and
- 10:34power we do have in this fallen world, because Satan is a powerful being, his minions are powerful,
- 10:40but thank the Lord that he has to go through Jesus Christ to get to any of us, and that's
- 10:47just not going to happen because of where God's children.
- 10:51So talk to us about the joyous reunions, and the jubilant celebrations in heaven that
- 10:59will take place after the rapture loosens our grip on the things of this temporary life.
- 11:06Well, Jonathan wrote most of that book regarding that part, and he did a great job, and of course
- 11:10I read it.
- 11:12And it's just marvelous to consider when we leave this world, I believe we're going to all arrive
- 11:18at the same time at the same place, not in front of Jesus Christ, no matter who died when,
- 11:23and during the rapture, I think in some eternal way, outside of time, we will all arrive at that
- 11:29one point at the same time. And at that point, we will all be taken into heaven, Jesus said that
- 11:36let not your heart be troubled. I'm going to prepare a place for you, and if I go away,
- 11:42I'll come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there, you can be also.
- 11:47He's going away to prepare places for us. Well, what does that mean? Well, we know that it's a
- 11:52glorious dwelling place in New Jerusalem that he will be preparing for us. And so the next thing
- 12:01will be to see our Savior face to face, either in the rapture or through the portal of death,
- 12:07either one, and there have been no sting in death, Jesus said, because he's taken all that sting
- 12:13of death away. Of course, the next moment, and I can testify of this firsthand because I died
- 12:20clinically three times on a good Friday of 2011, and instantly was in the presence of heavenly
- 12:28beings. Each time I, each time it happened, I have documentation, hospital documentation on the
- 12:33seriousness, clinically dying for three times. So I can attest firsthand, whether your way believes
- 12:39or not, on being instantly, being absent from the bodies to be instantly and have only presence.
- 12:46I didn't see Jesus, but then I wasn't my time yet. They sent me back. But the next thing,
- 12:51when we do meet with Jesus, is we'll be set before that great beam of seat judgment,
- 12:57judgment seat of Christ, where we will have all of our earthly, the things we've done in this
- 13:05earthly life reviewed. And based upon how we handled these things here in life and they are handling
- 13:11them now, will be our rewards in heaven. Now, this not a judgment for us. Our souls will be in heaven
- 13:18forever. We'll be in heaven forever. But we will be judged on the works. And the works are not
- 13:24and God's great, for God's great glory will be burned up the Bible says. And all that
- 13:29lasts will be like gold, all this left of the fire, holy fire will be like gold. After the
- 13:35beam of seat judgment, we go through this where we will sit down at the
- 13:39upper table of the Lamb, the marriage feast. And with Jesus Christ, who is our bridegroom,
- 13:48the church's bridegroom. And there we will have celebration and reunions. And with all the people,
- 13:54we we've had new here on earth and all of our families. And it'll be a much closer relationship
- 14:00than anything we can imagine. It'd be far more far closer in relationship than it is right now,
- 14:07no matter what the situation was. At the same time, we will know every person who is in God's
- 14:12family, everybody who's ever been saved. We'll know them as intimately and as personally as we
- 14:16know our own family. So that's we can't cry grass, but that's the way that's the way God's word
- 14:22I think defines it. Oh my goodness. It sounds amazing. And that's because it's going to be in the
- 14:28hereafter. And we were talking about the new book, by the way, hereafter in the website, friends,
- 14:33you can find more information on Terry James and a lot of articles and great ministries.
- 14:38RaptureReady.com will be right back on World View Matters.
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- 15:35who might be interested, send us an email. World View Matters at FPEUSA.org. And our producer will
- 15:43get right back to you. Terry James is our guest today author, writer, editor, researcher. Terry,
- 15:49I want to go back to 2011 because I think a lot of people when you shared that and I've heard
- 15:55your story before in more detail than we have time to get into now. But a lot of people are thinking
- 16:01when you were clinically dead, when you came back, when you were able to wake up and be coherent,
- 16:09was there any disappointment on your part with coming back? Can you tell us a little bit more
- 16:15about that? Yes, it was disappointing leaving. I didn't know where I was or exactly what was going
- 16:21on when I was there. Like I said, each time the heartbeat stopped, I knew instantly I could tell.
- 16:27I heard this computer blip. It was like a computer blip. I don't know what that was all about.
- 16:32But instantaneous leaving my heart stopped, I was in the presence of this strong of heavenly beings,
- 16:38of young men and young women. They were handsome and beautiful.
- 16:41Tall and handsome and they were just there bidding me to come to them.
- 16:47And then about the time I started to them, the first time, it was three times that happened.
- 16:52And the first time I started toward them, well, everything started turning dark.
- 16:55And they again, and you know, I'm blind, so I woke up on the gurney blind, of course, dark.
- 17:02And the next time it happened, on the way to the cath lab table,
- 17:06the same blip, the same I was in front of the same group of people.
- 17:10They were even more jubilant, jumping up and down with their hands in the air and smiling,
- 17:15bidding me to come to them. I started toward them again.
- 17:19And as I drew nearer this time, everything started turning dark.
- 17:23And my first thought was, I don't want to leave here. I don't want to leave at this time.
- 17:28But then again, I was on the cath lab table at that time. And the third time,
- 17:34well, instantaneously, my heart stopped instantaneously, so I was in their presence.
- 17:39And we were, I was among them this time. We were running like, and they had their hands in the
- 17:43air and they were looking over at me and smiling and laughing and just a jubilant time.
- 17:48And I was enjoying it. I was running with them effortlessly.
- 17:51I had no sense of body, really just, you know, just like you look at somebody from
- 17:55out of your eyes. Here I am a blind guy, seeing the most spectacular group of young people
- 18:01you can imagine. We're running with their hands in the air and then I then,
- 18:07it's lasted a little longer that time that session did. And then everything started turning dark
- 18:11again. And I was again, I was again on the cath lab table. He had to hit me for about the fourth
- 18:17or fifth time with the DFib battles. And so I didn't, that was the last time that I was in
- 18:25front of those 70 people. But this time really didn't want to leave. And I said, you know, but
- 18:30there I was back on the table again. And they had finished the putting the stand-in and removing
- 18:36the blockage of that left-road descending ventricle order, they call it, at the Whittlemaker
- 18:41Heart Attack. And the doctor said that they never seen anybody live with that much that that
- 18:50deep a sense of medical problem. And they were all amazed. They were so amazed that they gave me
- 18:57the Patient of the Year Award. And as I said in my office here, it's right over there in the corner.
- 19:02They gave me the Patient of the Year Award, the cardiologist did. And they asked me to speak
- 19:06their convention. And I told them about Jesus and about 15 minutes, 10 or 15 minutes, and I spoke
- 19:13to them. And they all applauded. They didn't boo me so long. So they listened and I was good.
- 19:18Fantastic. Patient of the Year Award. And Terry, you got a chance to share it.
- 19:22All I did was live, yeah. I know exactly how you did was live. And wow, I mean, selfishly from
- 19:30the body of Christ perspective, I'm thankful that it wasn't your time yet that God allowed you to
- 19:38come back. And basically because of all the work that you've done, all the ministry, the books,
- 19:42and all the great resources. So I'm very thankful, but I know you probably would have preferred to
- 19:48just stay home. So yeah, let's move on back to the book here after because I love this topic.
- 19:57We talk about culture a lot and all the junk that's going on in our schools, the government and
- 20:03Hollywood, the corporations in our culture. But now we get to talk about the hereafter because
- 20:08there's another book that really gets into some details on it. For example, you and Jonathan
- 20:14talk about, you answer questions like, will we sleep in heaven? Will our immortal bodies possess
- 20:21supernatural abilities in heaven? Do you want to touch on either one of those, Terry?
- 20:26Well, the other reason we know that we will have supernatural ability because it says that we
- 20:30will be like Jesus. We will see him as he is. We will be like him. We'll have bodies like like
- 20:36his body. And he was able to move through walls, we're going to say, be in one place from one
- 20:42place to the other in a moment. We will be much like Jesus in our bodies. And we will have
- 20:48the same bodies here on earth, but much greater. I think goodness thing, much more glorious and
- 20:54perfect. And I've heard it to analyze that our bodies here are flesh, blood, and bone basically.
- 21:00There will only be flesh and bone. I don't know what all that means if I'm a standpoint of how the
- 21:06scholars have parsed all that, but the thing is we will have perfect bodies. We will never get tired.
- 21:13Now I'm hoping that if we want to take naps, we can't because I kind of like my naps now as an old guy,
- 21:19but that my mind will probably change in. And so we'll see.
- 21:25Yeah, that's interesting to think about. But we did celebrate Easter Resurrection Sunday recently.
- 21:31And remember when Jesus returned, when he was actually before he ascended, I should say,
- 21:36he did appear through the walls just in front of his disciples and the doors were locked for fear,
- 21:42the Jews, and Jesus appeared. And so there are some things that are interesting because we,
- 21:48as it says in 1 Corinthians 15, we will get those glorified bodies. So how will we move about
- 21:55in the huge new Jerusalem? That's one of the things that you touch on.
- 22:00It'd be 1500 miles cubed. My goodness. Well, I'm just thinking of each floor and how many
- 22:06billions of people will be in a city like that if God has so arranged. Yeah, 1500 miles cubed.
- 22:14That means you know, why does it is long and as tall as it is, why and everything else. It's just
- 22:22a tremendous amount of no telling no one has called. It's like a giant gleaming jewel coming down
- 22:28from for the darkness of space and so forth. And and everybody will see it at that time.
- 22:35It'll be tremendous and we'll have to. I don't think there's an elevator in the world that
- 22:40I'm moving at the way they do here that could get us around in that city. But I think we'll be
- 22:44able to just by thinking about it. I want to see Todd Strandberg up in on a 15,000 floor
- 22:51or whatever. I'll have to think about it and Todd will have me. I have me a you know,
- 22:58probably a fully cooked meal and everything else ready. Just thinking about it. So so that's
- 23:03what we can look forward to. Unless there are woncovators like Willie Woncovators that go
- 23:08any direction sideways up and down diagonally. I was able to see that movie. Yeah.
- 23:14So Terry, one more question. We've got about four minutes left.
- 23:21The Bible talks about crowns. We Paul says we will receive the crown of life
- 23:27all who long for his appearing. So talk to us a little bit about that. Are we wearing them the
- 23:33whole time in heaven? I know we receive them at some point. Tell us a little bit more about that.
- 23:39Well, of course, that was John. You know, when he first went to heaven in John chapter four,
- 23:44I mean, Revelation chapter four, John was brought into heaven and so forth. And he saw all these
- 23:49crowns that that people had. And we will be giving crowns at the behemoth seat, the judgment seat
- 23:56of Christ. And I think the Bible says that we throw them at or we put them at Jesus' feet
- 24:02because he's the one is deserving and we'll realize there's five crowns that will be offered
- 24:09for different services. And Jesus says that when he returns, he will be wearing many crowns.
- 24:14I believe that's part of symbolic of what we will be crowns that we have earned. And he will
- 24:20he will probably wear those back to earth as we descend to put it into armor. He puts in
- 24:25it armor getting. So yeah, we will receive crowns. And I think Bible prophecy, the reason Bible
- 24:31prophecy is important to the Christian because God equates that with righteousness. Now that's the
- 24:37crown of righteousness, the loving of his appearing. And all people who love his appearing again,
- 24:44we'll we'll receive that crown now. If if Jesus is the only righteousness there is. And so that to
- 24:50me is probably the greatest crown because it's called the crown of righteousness. And so that's
- 24:56the reason Bible prophecy is so important. And I appreciate people like you, David, having
- 25:02having us on to share things of Bible prophecy with believers and nonbelievers who will listen.
- 25:10Well, Terry James, praise God for you and your ministry. And guys, they mentioned are they
- 25:15tackle a lot more in the book hereafter. And just looking at the table of contents, a home just
- 25:22for us, colliding kingdoms, rewards beyond imagination, a wedding and jubilant celebration,
- 25:29joy to the world and to us. And we will inherit a kingdom. Israel's return to glory, a mountain
- 25:36top experience, a king with no equal. We will reign with Jesus kingdom life. Why must Jesus reign
- 25:44for a thousand years and a lot more in the book hereafter again on Amazon or you go to raptureready.com.
- 25:51Terry James, God bless you brother. We hope to do this again. I'm sure we will with all the books
- 25:56you continue to to pump out. So Lord willing, we will talk again in the near future. And thanks, Todd
- 26:01for setting this up for us so we can see and hear Terry. God bless your brothers. Bless you.
- 26:07Thanks Terry. Again, guys, check out some of his books really encouraging, especially
- 26:12this new one as we get to focus on something so much more positive than what our lives are often
- 26:20distracted by here in this temporary place. But thanks again for watching the podcast and for sharing
- 26:26that's so important, guys, because we are limited and shadow band and some noise on Facebook
- 26:31and others. So share a retweet, however that works and whatever platform you're watching and
- 26:36following. Give us a review on the audio platforms. God bless you and as always, keep speaking
- 26:42the truth about things that matter.