Final Encouragement and Closing Thoughts

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Matched with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com. Save $80 with code Space80 at talkspace.com. Mom, can you tell me a story? Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car. Was she brave? She was tired mostly, but she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required. Did you have to find a dragon? Nope, she bought it 100% online. From her bed, actually. Was it scary? Honey, it was as unscary ing could be. Did the car have a sunroof? It did, actually. Okay, good story. Car buying, you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on Car vana. Delivery fees may apply. Everyone, before we get to this week's show, this is just your weekly reminder to please continue to pray for my wife Lindsay. She is battling breast cancer right now, and we're praying for complete healing in Jesus' name. Thank you. Merkel media , media, media, media, media . This was all circulating around the base that a giant had killed, but no one was supposed to talk about it. I saw three long bony fingers reach up underneath the door curl up to grab it and then disappear when he came over to Nick dude he slithered over to me And this giant comes out of the cave and they're all frozen And he starts running and firing at this giant. Well the giant move , he's got a spear in one hand and he's running really fast. It spears Dan and holds him up like this. Somebody else, shoot him in the face, shoot him in the face. They basically the count potato . Doc person , got faster, got spoken when he got about 15 yards away from me. I raised that 12 days and I blow this hat off . I feel something pulling at my leg and I look over and there are two small gray hits of teeth pulling at me and they're literally I'm getting pulled off the bed . I reached my hand into this bush and I touched air. Couldn't breathe, and I couldn't move. Cause I know I'm seeing a monster . Welcome to the show, everybody listening to the Confessionals Podcast. I'm your host, Tony Merkel. Thanks for being here. If you got something you want to talk to me about, go ahead and shoot me an email. My email address is contact at the confessionalspodcast.com. That's contact at the confessionalspodcast.com or go to the website theconfessionals podcast dot com hit the contact section and you can reach that way as well. Other words from me just get a hold of me. If you want more shows on a weekly basis, we got you covered every Thursday we come out with a members exclusive episode available on the website and our exclusive members app. It is a social media platform where we house our membership content on it. So please, if you're interested in that, go to the confessionalspodcast.com, hit the join button, become a member, and get access to all the extra content. Also, friends, Merckmerch.com is where you can get your Merkle Media Apparel, hats, t-shirts, hoodies, all available right there at merckmerch.com. Now, today we have John Bevere coming in studio and he actually swung through. It was not a long stay. In fact, I think from the time that he walked in the door to the time that he walked out of the door was an hour and a half. So this conversation was a little bit shorter than normal, but he told me that he'd be very interested in joining us again for a longer con versation, but today we go on a deep dive into biblical timeline surrounding the return of Christ, discussing why John believes humanity is living in the final generation before Jesus' return. He carefully avoids setting exact dates, but points to prophetic patterns involving Israel becoming a nation in 1948, the reclaiming of Jerusalem in 1967, the hundred-year generation concept, and the idea of 2,000-year biblical ages leading to a possible fulfillment window between roughly 2026 and 2075. Throughout this discussion, both of us emphasize the purpose of studying these timelines is not fear or obsession with predictions, but creating urgency for believers to live holy lives, preparing spiritually and remaining expectant for Christ's return without falling into deception or complacency. Let's get to this conversation with John right now. John Bevere here on the confessionals. How are you, sir? Tony, I'm doing good, especially now that I'm talking to you. Yeah. Thank you for what you're doing. Yeah. Absolutely. You are absolutely bringing something in the body of Christ that is so needed and you're doing us so well. So thank you. I appreciate it very much. Um I I was looking at some of the stats on you earlier uh in twenty-five books. I I have I have my first book coming later this year and I was like, I don't think I have another 24 in me. So I didn't either. Oh, it's every book I write, I think, okay, this is the last one until the Holy Spirit starts dealing with me. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess it would have to be a God thing for me to write another one because I was like, this is exhausting. It is. Yeah. But it's also so exciting because it's such a unique way to meet the Holy Spirit. Like every book I've written, one third I've never heard, at least one third of the book I've never heard preached, heard somebody else talk about he reveals it by revelation and it's such a wonderful way to meet with God. Yeah, I I uh I have been going through a very similar situation where recently I left my Bible in the back of my truck when I left church and it's gone now. And so I had to get a new Bible and I'm making new notes and I'm noticing that as I'm reading through it, I'm like the Holy Spirit's revealing new things to me. And I'm thinking, wow, this is my favorite book to read. Yeah. Well, that's a good thing. And it's been forty-seven years, and I still love it just as much. Yeah. So I mean, you've been in ministry for over forty years, right? Forty-three years, yeah. This year. Uh June 20th is 43 years. Wow, that's seasoned. That's real seasoned. Oh, I'm more in love with Jesus today than I was when I started. And more passionate . Yeah. Well, I mean, that's great. I I I people like me follow in the footsteps of people like you. And so it's really exciting to be walking in the footsteps of somebody who's still so energetic and so excited about their walk with the Lord. Even the church that I'm in, there's the it's majority older people that it's seasoned in the faith. And seeing them worship on a Sunday morning so excited about the Lord, that I was like, that's when I was like, this is the church we're going to, you know, because I need people like that around me, you know, to learn from . Uh, you just came out with a new book, The King is coming. Yes. What spawned the book? Oh my gosh. It's the subject I avoided for four decades. Okay. No kidding. People would ask me, Do you preach on the second coming? I'm like, no, not called to. And it's because I thought preaching on it would make lazy people or argumentative people or escape mentality people. And I didn't want anything to do with that. I wanted to see disciples made of Jesus Christ. And in 2021, the Spirit of God started dealing with me. He started drawing me in. Now I thought I was just going in be fore me personally. And I didn't spend hundreds of hours. I spent thousands. Jeez. And I mean, really dug in. And what I noticed was quite the opposite. I actually became more passionate about winning souls and about ministry than I was before. Now I was passionate, but I'm like 10x now. And my family started making comments like, Dad, you don't get upset as easily anymore. You know, because you know, being a leader, sometimes you're a little forceful and you have to repent to your like my staff, we have this joke, um, the two AM emails, because I said, guys, I don't have a boss, so I tell the Holy Spirit, don't let me sleep at night if I talk to my staff in a harsh way. And I and I said, guys, I'm sorry about the two AME emails. And they laughed, but I haven't sent a two AME email in a couple of years. And and so Lisa, my wife, started calling me her favorite husband. I'm like, what does that mean? And she said I like the 2.0 version better than the 1.0. So I realized Tony, the very opposite of what I thought was going to happen happened. I became more passionate. And so I started thinking about this. When you're at the end of a race and you see the finish line, that's when you run the fastest. I mean, you're in a 5K race, 5,000 meters. But when you see that finish line at the last hundred or two hundred meters, you're sprinting now. Yeah. And that's the way God designed it. That's why you want the 12th century to be urgent about his coming, the 14th century. But now how much more us that we are in the season of his coming. So being concerned with all the stuff that concern me, you know, date setting and all of that . I mean, we bought hook, line, and sinker eighty eight reasons why Jesus come back in nineteen eighty eight and it came and went and I saw the fallout. So I said, All right, God, uh you've got to help me with this. Because even my wife said, Are you sure you want to write on this? I said, The Holy Spirit's just compelling me. And so the Lord put in my heart, go back and look at the first coming. Was there ambiguity? Was there controversy? Was there mockery? Yeah, there was all of that. Who were the ones that got a right on the first coming? Who are the ones that got it wrong? And what's the difference? So I the obvious. Okay, let's go to the obvious guys. Yeah. The Pharisees. Of course. Everybody wants to throw stones at the Pharisees. But let me say this: you had to memorize the first five books of the Bible and speak it out from memory to become a Pharisee. How many ministers, Tony, would we have today, if we had to memorize Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and Acts and recite it. Honestly, that's not many. So these guys are diligent. Yeah. But they can't recognize God manifest in the flesh when he's raising the dead at thirty years of age. But then I go back and I look at the Essenes. Now we learned about the Essen es in 1947. It began when we discovered the caves of Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Who were the Essene communities? They saw so much corruption in Israel's spiritual leadership that 150 years before Jesus was born, they went out into the desert, into, and they called it Qumran, and developed this community. Now, they were serious about the word of God. They were serious about the ancient church fathers, or excuse me, the ancient Jewish fathers. So they preserved their writings, they studied their writings, they inquired. They were like the prophets of old who Peter says in 1 Peter 10 and 11, he said they searched and inquired diligently about what manner or what manner of time Messiah was coming. They're the same way. So a lot of scholars believe John the Baptist was in a scene. He's in the deserts until the day of his manifestation. That's a good point. But more scholars believe that this guy Simeon is in a scene. Now who is Simeon? He's found only in one gospel, and I'm gonna set this up. You got a teenage to young 20-year-old couple coming to the temple from another state. They come from Galilee down to Judea, to Jerusalem, where the temple is. Now, the temple is not one building, it's buildings, Tony. Herod so enhanced it. And our cathedrals today, you may have one or two people in the cathedral on a Wednesday. You go into the temple. Back in the days of Jesus, there are mobs of people every single day. So this virtually unknown couple comes with a 40-day-old baby. They walk into the temple. This guy, Simeon, does a beeline right towards him , grabs the baby, holds it up, and cries out the Messiah. Blows Mary away. Okay. Now, what is it about this guy? First of all, he's got a relationship with the Holy Spirit. So important, but why It says there was a man in si uh in Jerusalem named Simeon who was righteous, devout , and eagerly waiting for the coming of Messiah. Three things. Righteous. What does that mean? He acted out of a constitutionally just character. Devout, it means this is literally the way it's divine uh defined, one who takes the word of God seriously. So he's not just going, Oh, when Messiah comes, he'll come. He was diligently seeking like the whole scene of community. Which by the the way, Essenes predicted to the week, to the week, Jesus would ride into um Jerusalem on a donkey 150 years before Jesus was born. We know that from their writings from the caves of Qumran . All right. So now here's the big one. He was eagerly waiting for the coming of Messiah . He puts down he he lets go of the baby into in in back to Mary's arms and another woman walks up or a woman walks up named Anna. She's been praying for 80 years in the temple. Okay? I'm interested. Any woman that spends 80 years praying and fasting during periods, what does she have to say? Yeah. She talks about the child, not to everybody in the temple, everybody who was eagerly waiting the Messiah. It's the same Greek word. The Greek word is prostectom y. So prostectomy for Simeon, prostectomy for Anna. So now you come to what Jesus tells you and I to do for a second coming. Luke 12, he said, stay dressed for service , keep your lamps burning, and you be like men who are eagerly waiting. I'm putting in the word eager. Eagerly waiting, it actually says waiting for their master to return. It's the same Greek word prostectomy. Wow. Okay? Now, what's the definition of prostectomy? To remain. Not visit. Remain in a state of expectancy. Stay dressed for service, stay , keep, keep, remain. Are you seeing the theme? Yep. All right. Now we look at these three things that Jesus tells us to do and we see striking similarities to Simeon. It's amazing. Three and three. Okay, again. Let's talk about the eagerly waiting. Just really quick. I've read my Bible for 47 years, my favorite book in the world. I've never noticed until late last year how Paul writes to the Corinthians, chapter one, verse seven, as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus, Paul writes to Timothy, second Timothy, he said, The crown of righteousness is not only for me, but for all those who are eagerly waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus. Hebrews nine says Christ will come again, not to save us from our sins, but to bring uh uh but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for his return. Ha! That's just a couple of them. So how do you get eager ? I mean, think about are you married? Yes. When you were engaged, when I was engaged, my gosh, I was engaged four months, far too long. Far too long. Okay. Absolutely. I mean, man, oh man, I don't believe in long engagements. And if you just give me, you give me one minute, I'm talking all about my wedding day and my bride. All right, I am so eager. I'm counting the days. And I remember the last two months she was back in Indiana and I was in Dallas. And the a day seemed like a week, a week seemed like a month, a month seemed like a year. Yeah. Because I was so eagerly anticipating that wedding. Same thing for those of you, maybe you're not married. Think about when you were a kid and your mom and dad set up the Christmas tree, right? Yes. Now you're five years old. You can't you're talking, you're counting the days. When's it coming? When's it coming? Okay. So you remain in that state of expectancy both for the engagement and waiting for the Christmas tree. Well , what What causes us to be eager? It's when we set our sights on a very happy thing that's coming in the future. Paul said, Since you're raised with Christ from the dead, Colossians 3, 1, set your sights on the realities of heaven, not the things of this earth. Okay, what the key word is set. I drove today three hours to be with you, right? Hey, you got some pretty mountains around here. Did my eyes not go off to the mountains? Sure, but they went back to where they were set. Did my eyes not go down to the dashboard? Sure. They went back to where they're set. Okay, think about a thermostat. Remember when we had the zero degree temperature in January? Yep. Open the front door in 10 minutes, your house has dropped 20 degrees. Close the front door, it goes back to where it's set. So the thing we all have to ask ourselves is when our minds not re'quired at the task in front of me. My pickleball shot, my golf shot, my job, where does my mind go? It goes to where it's set. So ask yourself, does your mind go to the NBA playoffs? Does your mind go to how many posts you had on Instagram yesterday? Does your mind go on the girl you're interested in? Or is your mind go on the realities of heaven? Now, this is really important because Paul makes the statement in Philippians, he said, Th areere many, and he said, I'm saying this with tears, whose behavior shows that their minds are set on things of the earth . Behavior shows where their mind is set . You ever wonder why you meet people and they're they're Christians, but they're struggling with pornography, they're struggling with substance abuse. Where's your mindset? Where's your focus? Because your behavior behavior will show where it's set. Did you know what he says in the very next verse? Philippians 3 20. He said, but we are those who are eagerly waiting for . And all of a sudden I'm going, okay, I get it. So now here's the big question. Yeah. Why is eagerly waiting for the return of Jesus so very important ? There is a reason I've just taken all this time on your podcast to develop this. What is the big why ? If you look at John, John saw the whole book of Revelation, but John writes in first John three, two and three, he said Christ, when Christ appears, we will see him just as he is because we're going to be just like him. And all who have this eager expectation purify themselves even as he is pure. Wow. There is a power in that eagerness to purify ourselves. Notice it does not say God purifies us. Purify ourselves even as Jesus pure. What does Revelations 19, 7 and 8 say? The marriage of the Lamb has come and the bride has made herself ready . Okay, to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen. It's the righteous, obedient acts of the saints . We lack the power to purify our And Jesus mirrors this. You know what? Jesus talks all about the second coming in Matthew twenty four. I mean, this is what we call um what it's the olive it discourse . They say what's going to be the sign of your second coming, and they say the end of the age and also the destruction of the temple. He answers. He talks about wars, rumors of wars, right? All that pestilence, famine. Right. But then he tells a parable . And in this parable, you know what he says? If the servant says in his heart, my master delays his coming, he'll begin to party and get drunk and beat his fellow servants . In other words, Jesus is saying when you put off his second coming, you delay it, you now will not have the power over the the dictates or the appetites of your flesh, and you begin to party. You begin to get drunk. And what does it mean, beat your fellow servant? It means you become a keyboard warrior on their posts. You are offended with them. You refuse to forgive them. You gossip about them. You slander them . That's what happens when we put off. We don't have the power to purify ourselves even as he is pure. That's why that one is so important. Wow. 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Quince goes way beyond clothing, custom upholstered sofas, ceramic cookware, premium. bedding It's the kind of brand you end up recommending to everyone for everything. I, for one, love Quince. If you look at my Facebook profile picture, there's me wearing a tan coat, outer coat, shirt coat thing. I don't know what they're called, but it's awesome. It feels great and it's quince. Listen, friends, elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/slash Tony for free shipping on your order and 365 da y returns now available in Canada too. That's Q U I N C E dot com slash Tony for free shipping and 365 day returns, Quince.com slash Tony. So the eager expectation purifying us, the it's I I imagine the I mean I don't know the logistics of it, but it feels like your eager expectation opens up a door way for the Holy Spirit to come and truly massage your heart and make it what and mold it what he wants it out out of it to be. He's talking about is his bride, his wedding. I just had a team member get married last week. It was so funny. He's on our camera crew, and I just said, he just lit up like a Christmas tree. And then he started talking. Was he looking at other girls? No. Um, when I'm engaged, it's so easy not to look at any other girl. I am so fixated on the girl I'm marrying. That's the kind of purity that it produces. We're so excited about our wedding day, our groom coming. See, this is why I think I said to this to you before we started the podcast . The first thing I realized is our paradigm is all wrong when it comes to the second coming. We think judgment, fear, all those things . His return isn't an event . It is the wedding of the ages. It is a groom that's so deeply in love with his bride. Think about it. He was beaten for like 10 hours by four regiments of soldiers. His face didn't even look like a human being by the time he was done . I have held a scourge in my hand and just the weight of the scourge dug into my skin. There was a left hand and a right handed literally stripping off all skin muscle and down to the very backbone and hip bone , because they tie him naked up to the block. They're shoving thorns into his head, and it's not just a crown, it's a whole helmet of thorns. He gets nails. He can call for twelve legions of angels at any time and get out of this. But for the joy set before him, what's the joy? His bride. So the second coming is him waiting for dad to say, go get your girl . And a lovesick bride that's waiting for her groom to come back. Now, when you have that kind of eager anticipation about your wedding day, the allure, the alluring power of the world loses all power . Just like it loses all power when a guy's engaged to, you know, or a girl's engaged to her , it loses its power. That's the way God created our being, our soul. What we fixate our sights on or what we think about, and what we think about is the direction we go. And that's why Paul said, set your sights on the realities of heaven, think about the things of heaven, not the things of the earth. Then you look at the other whose behavior shows that their minds are set on the things of this earth. I mean, it's all right there. I didn't see this for 4 7 , 46 years. I've been a believer, 47 years, 46 years until just the end of last year. I'm like, oh my goodness, this why does God want the 12th search century church so eager about his return? Because look, Jesus says in the first century, I'm coming soon. Three times in Revelation. Peter says, The end of the world's coming soon. Paul says, Jesus is returning soon. James says, Jesus is returning soon. Well, is God deceiving us? No, he's protecting us because he knows in that eager expectation there is the power to walk away from the allurements of the the alluring power of the world. So is God lying to us? No, because Peter said, hey, there's gonna be mockers and scoffers that rise up in the last days and they're gonna say, where's the promise of his coming? Because ever since the fathers fell asleep. Eytverhing remains the same as from creation. Well, are these atheists? No way. Atheists don't call church fathers fathers. Atheists don't call creation creation. They call it evolution. He's talking about literally there's gonna be mockers in the church. They're gonna say, come on. They said it in the twelfth century, the fourteenth century, the sixteenth century. What makes us any different? And Peter says, but you must never forget this one thing. A day with the Lord's a thousand years and a thousand years is a day. Another one is one of God's days is a thousand of our years. In other words, how old are you, Tony? Forty. Okay, you're not even an hour old yet. You divide a thousand by twenty-four hours and you know what you get one hour is forty two point six years.. Jeez Okay, I'm just I'm getting close to an hour and a half. A newborn. Okay. Think about when I was engaged to Lisa. Remember when I said that two months she was up in Indiana? I called her two days before I flew up for the wedding. I said, baby, I'm gonna see you so on . It was soon compared to the two months. So God is not deceiving us. It really is soon when you look at it in the scope of eternity. However, more than not deceiving us, what was more important to God , I believe, is protecting us. Because when we stay in that place of expectation, it gives us the power to walk away from the pulling power of the world to pull us away from our groom You know, uh, so you're drawing a great picture of the the bride, the groom. Uh even I was just talking to Derek this morning about how the very first thing we see Jesus do in his ministry is at a wedding celebration. And it's just like this mirroring throughout his his ministry from beginning to literally the end when he comes, it's about the bride and the bridegroom. Uh and we're here to eagerly anticipate the return and to be looking for his arrival. Um, there's a lot of people that get very nervous about that idea of talking about um any kind of dates or uh plans on planning on the return of Christ. You know, you mentioned about 1988 earlier. I growing up, you know, my entire life, growing up, I heard people say it's it can't be much longer. It can't be much longer. And I got numb and calloused to it for a long time and I was just like, what as did I you know? And and and even in the in the earlier stages of the show, people would ask me, You should got you gotta do a show on on the the rapture. And I was like, I'm not interested. I wasn't interested. And all of a sudden now I've done several. And it's because it my my heart's been softening to it. But the there's this constant fear of date setting. And you do kind of tackle it a little bit, but you're not date setting in the book. Jesus said we would not know the day or the hour. Angels don't even know it. Jesus doesn't even know it. Only the Father. The Trinity obviously had this arrangement where only the Father knows. Okay? Which mirrors the Jewish wedding, by the way, and that's a whole chapter in the book. I I read three books by two of them by uh Jews that weren't even believers yet, um, but the weddings of Jesus Day in that time period. The groom would go away after the ketubah was signed and the bride price was set, and he would build a room off his father's house. And it wasn't until the father said to the groom, Go get your girl, that he did the torchlight procession, which is where the parable of virgins comes from . So it mirrors it. And Jesus said, We would not know the day or the hour, but we would know the generation. In fact, he said, Assuredly, I say to you, heaven and earth can pass away, but my words won't, when he talks about that generation not passing until every one of these things come to pass . That's serious. Now let's look at his first coming. He looks at Jerusalem and says, The time is coming, Rome's gonna s he didn't say Rome. He said the armies are gonna stand around you, they're gonna build an embankment, and they're gonna tear every single stone down because you didn't recognize the time of your visitation. So there's actually he faulted them for not understanding the time and the season. We are expected to know the times and seasons the Father wants us to know. There are some seasons and times that the Father keeps in his own authority. We're supposed to know the season or the generation of his return. Now, I can come at it from different angles and we always arrive at the same place . First of all, what is a generation? Nelson's Bible dictionary defines it as the a time period in which a given people will live on the earth at the same time . If you look at m most people that live a very full life or 90 or 100 when they leave, a generation can be 20, 40, 70, or 100 years in the Bible. I believe it's a hundred years because you still have World War World War II that's alive today. That was eighty-five years ago. And they were fifteen to twenty when they were fighting. So it's a hundred years. All right. Israel becomes a nation in nineteen forty-eight. They take Jerusalem. Remember J,esus said the Gentiles will trample down Jerusalem until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. Paul said, when the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled, all of Israel is going to be saved because God's going to turn his focus back on that 70th week, that seven-year period, where all of Israel is going to be saved. Two-thirds of them would be killed by the Antichrist. Only one third will survive. Zechariah makes that totally clear. So we know, we know that 1967, they get control of Jerusalem. You had 100 years, you're at 2067. Now let me come at it another way. The early church excuse me, the early early Jewish and the early church fathers all taught. Not all. I gotta make sure my words are right. Many taught. Mankind have 7,000 years on the earth. There are some really brilliant scholars out there. They're far smarter than me. And they have determined from the book of Jasher, the book of Genesis, the Book of Numbers, all these books that Adam was actually created in 3925 BC. You add 2,000 years for the first age because the Jewish fathers taught there would be four ages. Three would be two thousand years each, the age of chaos or gen or creation, the age of law or Torah, and the age of grace. And the Essenes actually wrote this 150 years before Jesus was born. All these would be 2,000-year periods. Then you would have the thousand-year age, which is called the messianic reign age. So just as God had seven days of creation, there's seven thousand years, because a day with the Lord is a thousand years. This is what Peter said. Do not forget . So if you look at Adam to Abraham, it's two thousand years. Abraham to Jesus, it's two thousand years. Jesus, resurrection . Well, Jesus resur was raised from the dead in 32 AD. Most believe, some say 33. I think it's 32. We are seven years away from that second day being completed. Now let I I I want to make sure I I I make this really clear. The Essenes always taught that in the last Jubilee of an age, most prophecies would be fulfilled. So if Adams created in 1925, you add 2000 or 3925, you add 2,000 years, you're at 1925. Add 2,000 more years where you're at 7 5. 75 AD, right? From 1925 BC at 2,000 years, you're at 75 A.D. Mm-hmm . When did Rome destroy the temple? They destroyed it in 70 AD, Titus. Okay. That was what Jesus said the armies were going to surround you. Jewish people were dispossessed between seventy AD and the last temple, there was a second temple built in Egypt, was destroyed in seventy-two AD . So all the law is finished. There hasn't been an animal sacrifice. So even though Jesus is raised crucified and raised from the dead, there's a time period, an overlap period. Is the same gonna happen here? Is there an overlap period? I'm not gonna go that far to say that because I'm gonna be very careful with what I say. But I do know 2067, I can be pretty sure he'll return by then. Remember, we'll know the generation, we'll know the season. Now let me show it to you a second way. If you go to the book of Hosea, Hosea writes at the end of chapter five. He said, The Lord is going to tear the Jewish people like a lion. He's gonna tear them. Well, if you look at what happened in 70 AD, that's exactly what happened. I mean, do you know Titus killed some say six hundred thousand, others say a million Jews when he finally broke down that wall and they disemboweled them because they were swallowing their coins and the Romans sir heard about it, so they started dis it was a massacre. Then they pulled every stone down because they knew the Jews hid gold inside the walls. Every single stone, just as Jesus said. All right . That happened in 70, right? And then Hosea says, Once I tear them, I will return back to where I came from . Jesus came from heaven and he returned back to where he came from in that last Jubilee. Okay? Mm-hmm. Are you following me? Next verse is Hosea 6:1. It says, Come, let us return. This is speaking to the Jewish people. Let us return to the Lord. Remember I said the time of the Gentiles will be filled, all of Israel will be saved. Come, let us return to the Lord, for he has torn us, but he will heal us. He has bound uh he has bruised us, but he'll heal us up After two days, he will revive us. After two days, the day with the Lord's a thousand years. So you go two, you go two thousand years from 70 AD and you come to 2070 . So I am saying between 2026 and 2075, which is the last Jubilee of this age I believe we're going to see our Lord return and set up his kingdom. And I can say that with utter confidence because the scripture says that. That's not my mathematical. This is what the scripture states. And Jesus put a pretty strong statement on it: that generation won't pass until everything is fulfilled. So I believe we're in the last 50 years. That's why it makes me so much more urgent, yeah, to make disciples of all nations. When you start when you start seeing it that way and you start living that out, it I don't I don't see how it can't make you urgent in the in the mission that has been laid before you. Uh we have a whole world of adults that were born in the year 2000. We're talking about literally within their life the young adults that are hearing this right now, literally in your lifetime, this is when it's gonna happen. And so because of that, you need to have that urgency and that expectant uh to be expecting the return of Christ. But they have to have the long game in mind too. They have to in they have to remember this is an endurance run, not a sprint. So it may be 2068, 2070, 207 2. It may be towards the end of their life. So they better be sprint ing their whole life. You start selecting dates and you now stop paying your mortgage, stop paying your credit card, stop going to the gym, you start eating anything you want because somebody has done something erroneous, which absolutely should never be done, is they've set a date. So there's gonna, I just feel in my heart, there's gonna be people come along, say, okay, 2032, we're out of here. 2029 , we're out of here. Whatever. Don't listen to this. In my mind , what we are taught by scripture is to plan like he's not coming back for 200 years. So I'm I I know where one of my grandsons is going to school. I know what he's gonna do. I mean, we are planning at Messenger to be a multi-generational ministry, but we live like he's coming back today. What does that mean? Urgency and god ly. Why? Because there's one description of the church. One, only one, he's coming back for a holy church without spot or ankle. In other words, she's not a church that's sleeping with the very things that drove the nails in Jesus' hands. We have so many believers today that think they're believers, but they're really not, because they're still flirting with, giving their phone number to, sleeping with the very things that drove nails in Jesus' hand and they have no conviction about it. Now, I'm not talking about people who are going, oh God forgive me, I'm so sorry. I'm talking about people who are just sleeping with their girlfriend and they don't even feel convicted. They did a poll, uh, the most recent poll. 57% of the men who attend church regularly are looking at pornography regularly regularly, and half of that 60%, I'm rounding up, half of that 57% , don't feel bad about it. Whoa. Do you remember when God said through the prophet Jeremiah, they don't even blush when they sin? Wow. They don't even feel bad about it. Why is that? Because we're not warning and correcting in our preaching. We're only inspiring. And scripture tells us in order to be a faithful man of God, we have to warn , we have to correct, we have to rebuke, and we have to encourage. Those are the things we have to do. One out of the four is what we love. We love inspiration and encouragement. But we got three others to deal with. And that's why Paul said, I if anybody suffers eternal death, it's not my fault. Because why, Paul? Because I didn't withhold. I didn't withhold what was needful for your salvation. And he said, What was needful is that I had to warn and teach you day and night with tears. That's Acts 20. And that's with Gentiles . So this is why you've got people now in the church that don't feel convicted. They're living with their girl friend because we're no longer teaching what is needful for everyone's salvation. He's coming back for a bride, and she's going to be pure and holy and all his . When we engage with and sleep with sin, it hardens our heart. That's why we put off his coming. I'll get it right tomorrow. When I see every all the this is this is another reason why I really believe strongly. This is another reas of many ons, because I give five chapters to this in this book. There's 28 chapters . The catching away of the bride, which some people call the rapture, I call it the catching away because that's what our English Bible says, is going to be before the tribulation starts. Because if it was mid or post, we would know the exact number of days and Jesus wouldn't be coming like a thief in the night for his bride. The gro om would always come as a thief in the night for his bride. When his dad said, Go get your girl, he waited until it was night when nobody was expecting, so nobody could see them coming from a distance. And they would come into that community making all kinds of noise all of a sudden, and he would snatch her away. The Greek word is our paze . He would snatch her away suddenly and take her back to the bridal chamber. And if you look at Isaiah, God's resurrection life is going to come on the graves, those who sleep in the dust in the Lord, and it's going to raise them up. And then God is going to pour out his wrath on the nations . So Isaiah writes in Isaiah 26: God's going to raise people from the dead who are in Chr in the Lord, that be Old Testament and New Testament saints, and then he's going to pour out his wrath. Well, Paul had a revelation. It was a mystery. In other words, that Isaiah didn't have. And that is when they rise, together with them, we rise. Now, that would make sense that he's coming as a thief in the night. If he's coming as a thief in the night, well, tribulation starts. Antichrist is revealed, right? Tribulation starts, seven-year pact with Israel. I know I know almost exactly when he's coming. Yeah. By just I mean, Daniel gives the days. Revelation gives the days. Yeah. It's no longer a groom coming by stealth to catch away his bri de. Now, the second coming, that's a different story. Every eye is going to see him. So the second coming is actually two events. Just like a wedding has a ceremony and a reception and they're in two different places and two different functions. The second coming is two different events with two different functions. One he's coming for a bride, the other one he's coming to wage war. Yeah, there's a lot of people that uh look at the wage war part and they fantasize about being able to participate in that that war with Christ. And I'm like, honestly, like if I'm there at present, I just kinda wanna watch the the king work. Like it's gonna be it's gonna be the the words that come right out of his mouth is going to destroy them there's not even gonna be a weapon involved it's gonna be his words instantaneous i don't think uh like we we we look at war as there's a timeline it's there's not gonna be a timeline much of a timeline it's just gonna be it's just gonna happen yeah and it's gonna be wild um there's people that when we're talking about you know the the taking away of the saints the the the rising up you were careful in the book not to say the word rapture right and Did you say once people call it rapture, but I'm not calling it that you kinda go into Darby and Harpazo and I I I think it's important to to talk about those kind of things because uh there's a lot of people that that push back on the rapture and they're just like this unbiblical, it's it's it's it's absolutely not uh it's it's made up, it's from the 1800s, and you kind of tackle that in the book. I do. And I thought it was really good. Tackle it strongly. Yeah, it's like I I know you're friends with um uh Rick Renner. Oh I love Rick. And whenever I get a chance to talk to him about this stuff, like he goes into it well. And it's just like I I think it's important for people to hear that side of the argument that it's it's not only from the 1800s. This is something that was spelled a long time ago. So first of all, where does rapture come from? It comes from the Greek word raptimere. If we look at Julius Afrikan or Ju uh uh oh, who was it? Uh anyway, Julius . I I I his name escapes me right now. He translated the New Testament from Greek to Latin . He spent 23 years doing it in a cave. Jerome. Jerome. Thank you. Jerome did it. That translation was so accurate, it was used for a thousand years to translate other New Testaments in other langu ages. When he came to the Greek word harpazi, which means to snatch away by force, he used the Latin word rapdomir, which is where we get our English word rapture from. Now, that still doesn't satisfy the argument. Hey, John Nelson Darby, who actually was a great Bible teacher, started this in the 1800s. No, that's not true. I have in here that I have seven reasons why the rapture happens at the beginning of the tribulation, but I'm not arguing with anyone. If you don't like what I say, please, please stay with what you believe. But I do present six of them are straight from the Bible, and the seventh is from early church fathers' writings. So let me read to you what Iranius said, who lived A.D. 130 to 2 03. He was discipl ed by a man who was discipled by, I think he was discipled by Polycarp, who was discipled by the Apostle John. Wow. He says, and therefore, when the end excuse me, I don't have my reading glasses on. And therefore, when in the end the church will be suddenly cut up cut off from this, suddenly caught up, then it is said there will be tribulation such as not been from the beginning. So he's teaching on a catching away of the bride. Okay. And then the tribulation. All right. And if you look, and if you look at the book of Revelation, I mean the first four seals, yay, yay, yay. Two billion people are put to death. Okay. Then we've got um Victoranus. He wrote, The wrath of God always strikes the obstinate people. And they and these shall be in the last time when the church shall have gone out of the midst. And then the most convincing to me is this one. Um for all the saints and who is this I'm reading? Um this is Ephraim the Syrian for all the saints and elect of God are gathered prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord, lest they see the confusion and the great tribulation coming upon the unrighteous world. There's three early church fathers in the first three centuries that wrote about it. So Darby didn't invent it, he resurrected what they taught, and he resurrected what the Bible teaches. Because I got six points showing you in scripture. Now , I'm just gonna be bluntly honest. My wife doesn't even agree with me. Is that right? And we joke about it. Okay. Because this is not something to divide over. Right. It's not something to argue about. Do you know what Paul said? Comfort one another with these words. But I find the way it's presented, it terrifies people. Yeah. It's totally opposite from what Paul says. Tribu Tribulation, Jesus said, in this world we're gonna have tribulation. There have been more people put to death for their faith in Christ in the last hundred years than all nineteen hundred years put together of the of the church age. More . The tribulation is the world's wrath against believers. The tribulation, capital T, is God's wrath against a sinful world. So what's God gonna do? Beat us all up and then say, okay, let's go eat dinner. Let's have a wedding feast. My bride. Yeah. He's gonna catch the bride away. I believe during that seven years is the judgment seat of Christ. I believe during that seven years is the wedding supper of the Lamb. And then he's going to come back according to Zechariah, to Jude, to Enoch, with ten thousands and thousands of his saints on white horses. Well, if it's at the end of the tribulation, do we get raptured into the clouds and then all of a sudden we mount horses and come back? Does he have a wedding dress on over his warring outfit and then he pulls off the wedding dress really quick and puts on his armor and comes back and destroys the nations? Makes no sense. All right. Now, if you disagree with me, I respect you. And that's what I tell my wife. I say, at least you're ready for extreme suffering such as never been seen on the earth , worse than Hitler, worse than um Sodom and Gomorrah, worse than what Egypt went through. No humanity's never gone through. The Egyptians, go read the book of Exodus, those 10 plagues , they what they went through is not as bad as what the world's going to go through during New Tribulation. Because Jesus says it, others say it, there other prophets say it. There will never have been such suffering in all of mankind's history. Wow. So that's got to exceed what happened to Egypt. And when I I just read through Exodus uh last month. And when I went through Exodus, I thought, can you imagine? Can you imagine every single one of your livestock being destroyed, every every single part of your harvest being destroyed, your trees being destroyed? By the time I mean that nation was ravaged. Yet the seven-year tribulation' bes gonna worse. The last three and a half years especially. That's wild. Yeah. That's wild. Uh and you mentioned a little bit about the arguing side of things. And uh maybe this is an opportunity for you to put pastoral hat on, you know, because uh it it for me it it's I I tr I think we get lost in the in the mix of things and you were talking about before uh earlier today about keeping your eyes focused on Jesus. And I feel like a lot of the arguing that comes from these kind of topics comes from not keeping the foundation, the foundation of the house you're building everything on, which is Christ. And when we get caught up in trying to prove our point, intellectual intellectualize everything and try to be the smartest guy in the room, that's when the arguing happens. And God's not in that. Knowledge puffs up, love edifies. So I say this right now to comfort your listeners . If you vehemently disagree with me, just know I love you and I hope you love me because you are my brother and sister, and we will forever be with Christ Jesus our Lord. And I that's as far as I go. You can take everything I said and throw it out. And you know what? This is not something the only place I'm dividing is if you question the deity of Jesus, you question the fact he was born of a virgin. You question the fact whether he was died and was raised from the dead. Now I'm going to be strong. Yeah. And I'm going to resist you. And if you don't listen, I'm going to come to the point where I'm going to have to pull back and treat you like a heathen. Okay. So that's the only place I'm going to get strong. As far as this goes, I will never argue this again, especially after writing this book, because the Holy Spirit showed me how futile and how damaging it is when we argue over these things. Yeah. Um, when it comes to the person listening right now that is hearing you talk about uh the return of Christ and maybe they're they're they're lost in sin. You mentioned different sins that people are getting lost in within the church. Maybe they once were in the church, they're no longer in the church, or maybe they listened to this show and they're they're not they've never claimed to be a Christian. Uh if what you're saying is true, what would you say to them as to what their next steps should be to make sure they're back on track and in line with what is coming? You know, when a bride marries a groom, because this is what it's all about , when she walks down the aisle, she's actually saying something pretty strong. She's saying goodbye to 3.9 billion guys. Can you imagine a girl she's been being proposed to by her boyfriend? And she goes, Well, yeah, I dated Matt in high school. I'd like a couple nights with him a year. And you know, Tony was my college beau. I I and we dated three years. I'd like just a couple, three nights with him a year, but you'll be my favorite. I I'll I'll be in bed with you three hundred and sixty nights a year. I just need four or five nights with them . There's not a guy in America that would go for that. No good. Okay. So we think Jesus is coming back for a bride that says, Let me sleep with the world. The very things that drove the nails in your hands. Let me just flirt and sleep with them. If you think that you have not repented, and if you look, repentance is the foundation of our relationship with God. The next step is faith towards God. Penance from dead works, faith towards God. First words out of Jesus' mouth, publicly, repent of your sins, turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. First words out of John the Baptist's mouth, repent. First words out of the disciples when Jesus sent him out two by two. He took Little ring boxes open up and she is automatically saying, Goodbye, all my old boyfriends, and I'll never establish another boyfriend again. I have just now said goodbye to 3.9 billion guys. If you are willing to do that, then you, Jesus is standing there right now with his arms open wide. And if you live that way , I'm now my wife made mistakes the first week, the first year, the first 50 years. I made a lot more, but I'm talking about a bride. Likewise. Okay. So that did not mean her heart wasn't loyal to me. Will you make mistakes? Yes. But we're talking about you just well, it's everybody's sleeping together before they get married. It's fine. You're allowing culture to disciple you. And if you allow culture to disciple you, you are not his disciple. Because he said , if you continue in my word, you will know And if you're not reading the word of God, you don't know what it says. And we got preachers today will tickle your ears and they're in abundance . And if you want to hang your eternal life on what those guys are preaching that's not from the Bible, that's just inspiration , then you are in a very dangerous place. Because I look at the Word of God and it says we must be very careful to pay close attention to the things we've heard, lest we drift away. I just want to encourage you, please, ask the Holy Spirit to teach you and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to a church that the pastor will preach the whole counsel of God. And I would just say, be faithful to your groom and you'll be ready.. Yeah No, I absolutely agree. Um, so the book, The King is coming, it is uh meant to be read in about a four-week period. Yeah. That's the way we set it up. Yeah. Because people don't like to read nowadays. Yeah, absolutely. So they're like 15 minute chapters. Yeah. And it it works, it works great. Um I would I would suggest that the people that you just spoke to, if they are there there's different things that trigger people to coming back into the grace of God or for the first time. And there are people who are very aware of the times that we're living in. From a non-Christian perspective, they see the times that we're living in. And this book points to the answer as to where you fit in the equation for literal physical salvation, but also spiritual salvation. And that's the that's the biggest thing that I I want to point people towards is the fact that we we are we are a fallen creation and Christ is coming back and one day when he comes back you want to be on the right side of that. It it's it's it's not about at that point it',s not about your opinion. It's not about well, I thought it doesn't matter what you thought. You have this limited time here on this earth to get yourself in a position where you can you can choose Christ and books like this, obviously, your favorite book and my favorite book, the Bible, are the spots that you need to do your own research. And this is what I told the church a couple weeks ago. A lot of times people question, can I really trust uh this this story and narrative of Jesus? But they question it and they don't actually seek answers. This is an opportunity for people to hear you and your heart and then say, okay, I have these questions. I need to seek answers because my literal life and eternity is at stake. Whether you agree with that or not, whether you believe that to be true or not, what if you're wrong? Your finite mind, what if it's wrong? It the stakes are that great The publisher told me, I didn't even know this. There's over five hundred scriptures in this book. Wow. So it's a systematic study of not just the timeline of of Jesus' return, the season, but even more so it's more about being prepared. I found out where my finals were in college when I was at Purdue University. That took five to thirty minutes. But I spent days studying preparing for the final. Yeah. A bride has to just take thirty minutes to figure out where the reception in the church is gonna be, but it takes her months to prepare to make for this wedding. So this book is going to be more heavily cited on the preparation aspect. How to know, because the Bible says when Jesus returns, there's going to be believers that are confident and there's going to be believers that are ashamed. It's in that book. It's it's it's first John two twenty eight. He said, Now little children. He doesn't say, Now all humanity, now believers. Remain in fellowship with him so that when he appears we may be confident and not shrink back in shame. Wow. I don't want any of your listeners ashamed. Yeah. I want them prepared. I agree. John, I appreciate you coming out and sharing it. It's been a pleasure. This is great. Thank you. Thank you . Flashing rust around me, but they break up . I'm feeling a body, but I'm wearing I should go for cover leg to rain . So my soul is mad , so I will have those stand ard s I'm not looking to preach, but I'll start the colloquium In the den with the snakes and the rats and custodians Even things that I care about looking dystopian Trust their masters complacently how they hold me all the up Flushing the surround me, but they bright though I'm feeling out of my way I should go for cover leg islation is the way Come up off of the base like a baritone dial it back like a rotary telephone The darkness becoming a pharaoh path of the vine We'll make it by red load Scrolls from the dead for therapy, like bathing the monsters and heresies Frequencies changing a rain. I don't think it is safe with connect with polarity Flushing muscles around me the baby