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June 11, 2024 - Jim Bakker Show
58:07
Jim Bakker Sermon 9: When Is The Rapture?
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Revelation's Door Opened 00:15:19
Open your Bibles to Revelation chapter 4.
Boy, it begins now.
We've finished the churches, and I pray to God we don't have anybody of the Laodicean church here.
I hope you're all of Philadelphia and on fire for God.
Full of love.
Revelation 4, verse 1.
After, and this word in the Greek means amid, almost immediately.
So almost immediately, or after or amid this, these things, I looked and behold, a door or a portal or an entrance was opened in heaven.
And the first voice which I heard was as if it were a trumpet.
In the Greek, it's reverberation, talking with me, which said, come up, go up hither, here, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.
Now, this is where many, teach that the rapture of the church takes place.
And you can believe what you want.
That's your privilege.
And I pray that you will not go through tribulation.
I think some of you have already been through tribulation.
And I know people around the world have been through tribulation.
But I am a firm believer after all my lifetime of study and five years in prison of study, of studying every word of this book of Revelation.
I believe sincerely with all of my heart that the rapture, this is not the rapture of the church.
And if you disagree with me, write me a note and I'll study it and bring it up in the next lesson.
But I will not turn this service into a debate and arguing meeting.
I'm in charge, so there.
And we're going to teach this and we're going to study it.
And we'll have some days.
I'll be more than happy.
We'll just have teaching session where we can have questions and answers and we'll just do that, some whole sessions.
But right now, we're teaching this word of the Lord.
I received a letter a few days ago from one of the outstanding Bible teachers of our time.
He has written many, many books, and if I gave his name, many in this room would know who he is.
And he wrote me a wonderful letter here to straighten me out because he heard that I was teaching that the tribulation that I believed in a rapture that took place somewhere in the middle of the tribulation.
And so he wrote me a wonderful letter, a kind letter, but to help me and to give me instruction.
So I thought I would just share that since we're at this point where so many different, I thought I would share some of his letters with you.
And you know, the amazing thing is that when I was in prison, I tried to find the basis of pre-tribulation rapture.
And as I studied book after book to try to find what other men had taught, I come to the realization that probably 95% of what they were teaching, they were quoting other men.
They were quoting other teachers.
And so here is the word from this wonderful man.
And I don't say that facetiously.
Is a wonderful man.
Just because we disagree, we don't have to be disagreeable, the old saying goes.
And he talks about the day of the Lord.
And I understand the day of the Lord.
And maybe one day we'll just have to teach more on the day of the Lord.
But he says, Jim, the Schofield Bible notes explain.
And I thought, oh, God, he's going to give me some scripture.
Instead, he quotes Schofield.
Now, Schofield's a wonderful man, but I want to know what the Bible says.
You know, we can't get our messages from each other.
The Bible says, woe unto you, shepherds, they get your word from each other instead of from God.
And so he says, the Schofield Bible notes in Revelation present this order of events.
Isn't that amazing?
I want to know what the Bible's order of events are.
But he says, the return of the Lord in glory, Matthew 24, 29, 30, is preceded by seven signs.
Among these, A, the rapture of the true church, B, the manifestation of the man of sin, the beast, the Antichrist.
C, the apocalyptic judgments.
So let's go and look at the verses that he has given us.
And he says, the return of the Lord in glory, Matthew 24, 29.
Let's just slip over there and so we can see what he has to say here.
Immediately after, what does after mean?
After, okay.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven shall be shaken.
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.
That's in the sky, by the way.
Look it up in the Greek.
The Son of Man in the sky.
And shall then all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
And that's what he told me to read.
So I read that.
We all agree with that, right?
And I personally believe that that's the rapture.
It's in the sky.
When he comes back, he's coming to the earth.
The last time he's going to come with his saints to rule and reign.
This is not that coming.
Listen, why don't we go on and read the next verse?
Verse 31.
And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet.
And they shall gather together.
When does the Lord come back?
At what trumpet?
Seventh, the final trumpet.
Is that right?
Is that when the rapture takes place?
At the final trumpet?
And what happens?
And they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other or from one end of the sky to the other.
Look it up in the Greek.
So that's where he told me to go.
So I went there.
And so he believes that that's the day of the Lord.
He believes that that is the final return.
I don't know if they call that the second coming.
Some may call it the second.
You see, the second coming to some is the coming when he comes with his saints.
His first coming, he came as a baby in a manger.
But so the next time we see him is going to be in the sky, the rapture.
And then there's another coming with his saints to rule and reign, right?
Okay, and so that's where everybody thinks that all the confusion takes place.
Let's go on.
And so he says, the return of the Lord in glory, this here is preceded by seven signs.
Among these, the rapture of the true church.
1 Thessalonians 4, 17.
Let's go over there.
1 Thessalonians 4, 17.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
And what he is saying, which is truth, is this will happen before Christ comes back with his saints.
But I believe what he is saying, I believe Matthew 24, 29 is that rapture of the church, that meeting in the air.
And so let's read 1 Thessalonians 4, 17.
Let's just read.
Well, let me go.
Let's read 4, 16, too.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.
Did you hear that?
We got to find a shout somewhere, folks.
I want to know where he comes back.
I'm going to find a shout.
I'll bring you to a shout.
I want to show you all of this.
If you study with me, we're going to see things as we take it word by word.
And with the voice of the archangel, we're going to find that too.
And with the trump of God.
And the dead in Christ shall rise first.
That is the rapture.
When the dead in Christ will be raptured first.
And then those that are alive will go to meet him in the air.
There is a meeting in the air.
That old song, there will be a meeting, a meeting in the air.
Remember that old song?
Boy, the more I say the scriptures, the more I realize it is a meeting in the air, in the sky.
And the dead in Christ shall rise first.
And then verse 17, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together.
The rapture.
That's the catching up together with them in the clouds.
Oh, there's another clue.
We got to have clouds.
God sign is clouds.
And he's coming back the same way he went away.
How did he go away?
In a cloud.
He's coming back in cloudy day to meet the Lord in the air.
So shall we be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Comfort each other with the words of the rapture, of the taking out.
We're to be comforted, not fearful.
People don't want to study Revelations.
They're afraid of it.
Okay, so he says these things would have to take place before that actually the rapture of the church takes place before the coming back of Jesus to this earth, which is true.
Let's go on.
The manifestation of the man of sin, the beast, the Antichrist.
2 Thessalonians 2, 4.
Go over there.
2 Thessalonians, just down the road.
2, 4 is what he.
I'm just giving you what he gave me to read is to prove that I was wrong.
I already said that once, didn't I?
2 Thessalonians 2, 4.
Who opposes and exalted himself above all that is called God or that is worship, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
Remember you not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things.
Now, let's see, how much did he want me to read?
2 Thessalonians 2, 4.
He wanted me to go down to 8.
Okay, where are we?
And now you know that withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way.
The restrainer will hold back.
And then shall the wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
So he says that after the rapture, the Antichrist will be revealed.
I believe the Antichrist has to be revealed before the rapture.
He had us read that.
Maybe we ought to back up.
Let's just go to verse 1 here.
Just look back up, right?
The same place where we are.
Let's go and see 2 Thessalonians 2:1.
Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him.
That sounds like the rapture to me, that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Don't let anybody tell you he's already come or all these other things.
As the day of the Lord, Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there be a falling away first, and that that man of sin, the Antichrist, be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalted himself above all that is called God.
I believe that the Antichrist will be revealed before the rapture of the church.
So let's keep going on.
And then he says, the apocalyptic judgments, Revelation 11 through 18.
And I'll tell you what, he actually, with 11 through 18, I hate to give you too much of a view ahead because I don't want you to jump ahead of us.
I want us to stay studying verse by verse.
But I believe Revelation 11 is the rapture chapter.
I believe with all of my heart that the rapture of the church takes place at that point before the wrath of God and these apocalyptic judgments take place.
And when we get there, I'm going to show you it and we're going to study it word for word.
So right now, let's go on.
Let's get back to Revelation.
So this dear brother has given me this information.
I tried to look it over, but it did not prove anything to me except that Schofield believes in a pre-tribulation rapture.
So Revelation 4:1.
After this, I looked, and behold, a door, an entrance was opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard was as if it were of a trumpet, at the reverberation, talking with me, which says, Come up, go up hither.
Vision of Heaven's Throne Room 00:11:22
I will show you things which must be hereafter.
This cannot be the rapture.
This is a personal experience of John.
This is a vision that John had.
It hasn't anything to do with meeting in the air.
And this is his personal experience.
Look what he says here.
He says, I looked, I heard talking with me.
You see that in that verse?
Show you things which must be hereafter.
This is not an invitation to a meeting in the sky, but this is a revelation, a vision of the throne room of heaven.
This is the greatest twisting of scripture, I believe, that has ever been.
I believe this fact to bring the rapture of the church at this point with no scriptural basis.
It doesn't say anything about the rapture.
It doesn't say anything about the dead and Christ rising.
It doesn't say anything about a meeting in the air.
I believe with all of my heart that the rapture of the church does not take place at this point.
The fact that these churches are not mentioned that we have just studied is another reason people believe this is the rapture.
They say, well, the church is not mentioned anymore after this chapter, after chapter three.
And so they say, well, since the church isn't mentioned anymore, the church must be gone.
The church must be taken out.
This has nothing to do with the church going out.
The first three chapters were letters to churches.
But just because the letters have ended as a preamble to this great word of Revelation doesn't mean that the rapture is taking place just because the letters of the churches have been addressed.
So I think it's stretching interpretation of the scriptures personally.
And none of the revealed accompaniments of the coming of Christ are here at this point.
No resurrection.
No cloud.
No final trumpet.
No final trumpet shout.
Merely a voice or reverberation.
The same voice, by the way, that John had heard previously.
Look over at Revelation 1:10.
This is the same voice that in Revelation 1:10, John heard.
I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet.
Is that right?
Did you see that?
Some of you aren't looking.
You better look because preachers will pull things over your eyes if you're not careful.
I believe to place the rapture here come against the unity of Scripture.
Totally.
There's no unity, no harmony.
Paul places the resurrection and the rapture of the saints through the coming of Christ at the last trumpet.
The last trumpet.
1 Corinthians 15, 51.
Go there.
Go there.
You've got to mark these.
You've got to see what it is.
1 Corinthians 15, 51.
Behold, I show you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
When?
At the last, meaning final or the furthest down the line in the Greek.
Trump.
For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed.
Hallelujah.
Our old sick bodies, our old bodies, our old wickedness, our old, all the turmoils, all the sin, all of the desires of the flesh will be gone.
We'll be changed in the twinkling of an eye.
And we will have a glorified body.
We'll have a body like God.
We'll be glorified.
It will be an awesome time where we'll be with him forever.
Forever.
Don't sell heaven for a mesopottage.
Don't sell heaven for something on this earth.
Go over to Matthew 24 with me.
Let's read this again.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days, this is verse 29 of Matthew 24.
Shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give her light.
And the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
I believe asteroid will hit the earth to cause a cloud.
The stars, asteroids.
The stars shall fall from heaven.
And we'll get into this a little bit.
And the word for stars, astra.
The star shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.
And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet.
There is no trumpet when he comes back with his saints.
This is the rapture.
This is the coming of Jesus Christ.
And they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven, meaning sky to the other.
This is that meeting in the air.
Go over to 1 Thessalonians 4, 16.
1 Thessalonians 4, 16.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
These are the signs.
Matthew 24, 32, I'm going to read another verse over in Matthew.
It says, Now learn a parable, the fig tree, when his branch is yet tender and put it forth leaves, you know that summer is near, nigh.
So likewise, when you see all these things, know that it is near and even at the door.
What's near?
The coming of the Lord.
What did the disciples ask Jesus?
They came to him in Matthew, right up top there, verse 3, Matthew 24, 3.
And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be?
And what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?
And Matthew 24, he goes on to tell his disciples these signs and these things.
In a few days, we're going to be into the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
And we're going to literally weave that together with Matthew 24 and see the coordination of Revelation and Matthew 24 in that area.
Verse 34, verily of Matthew 24, verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
It means that when these things happen, the generation that sees these things, they will all take place together.
And we've studied the book of Revelation, and he says, Behold, I come quickly, that these things happen.
When they start happening, they're going to happen quickly.
Soon we'll see where the rapture takes place.
I'm going to be showing it to you.
I'm going to show you where the final trumpet takes place and where it sounds.
And all the word will all come together.
And we're going to see the signs that have been told us.
Every hint.
This is a mystery.
The gospel is a mystery.
We look at it like a detective, you know, solving a mystery.
And we take all the word and we put it all together and we see the signs that Jesus and others told us was going to be.
And so we're going to see all the word come together.
We're going to see the clouds.
We're going to see the rainbow.
We're going to see his face as as bright as the sun.
In fact, brighter than the sun.
Why will every eye see him?
I believe every eye will see the rapture.
We'll see Christ coming back because the earth will be completely surrounded in cloud.
We'll be in darkness on earth.
And he is brighter than the sun.
And when he comes through those clouds, his vision, his light will go around the world.
And every eye will see the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It won't be TBN or CBN or ABC's television cameras.
That's what a lot of people told me.
You know, oh, well, now we got television.
That's how every eye is going to see the coming Lord.
He don't need cameras.
He doesn't need us puny man's inventions.
He's got better stuff than television.
And I can't wait to get my hands on it.
I can't wait to walk down the streets of gold.
Oh, you talk about supernatural.
He laughs at us.
He smiles.
He just looks down, and we're hopping off to the moon.
And we think we're, and he says, look at those grasshoppers hopping up to the moon.
Poor things.
You know.
Let's get back to Revelation chapter 4, verse 2.
And immediately I was in the spirit, and behold, a throne.
And this throne in the Greek means seat of power.
I don't understand the throne of God.
You know, we picture a little chair, a little throne, but I'll tell you, this is the seat of power of the king of kings, the Lord of lords.
This is God Almighty.
This is heaven's throne.
And John's going to use the word throne about 40 times in the book of Revelation.
Grace Ending, Judgment Begins 00:07:06
The word throne is used 40 times at least here in the book of Revelation.
So this throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.
Listen to me.
We're at the point in review.
Grace is about to come to an end.
And judgment is about to begin.
We're going to see the change from this meek, mild, mental, you know, gentle, meek and mild, gentle Jesus we used to sing in the little songs.
And we're going to see the change from the gentle shepherd.
We're going to see the change from that man who died on the cross willingly for you and me.
The day of grace will come to an end and the day of judgment will begin.
He has been patient.
He has been graceful.
He has waited so long for some to come unto him.
Grace coming to an end.
Verse 3: And he that sat was to look upon like a Jasper.
Some say that might mean diamond.
When I had a vision of Jesus in prison, it was like I was looking into diamond.
It was indescribable.
I sat beside him.
His robe was a blue, but a blue I had not seen before.
The whites were, I hadn't seen before.
His countenance was so that I couldn't explain it.
But it was like gemstone.
You can't explain it.
The colors were heavenly, beyond technicolor, beautiful.
And I'll tell you, when we see him and to look upon him, we will look upon something so wonderful, someone so wonderful, we won't be able to even fathom what we see.
It will be so awesome.
So it said, he that sat was to look like Jasper Diamond and a sardine stone, or some say there was a ruby stone.
And there was, are you with me?
Are you looking there?
And there was a rainbow around the throne in sight like unto emerald.
If you're keeping the signs of God in a little list we talked about earlier, you write down, make sure your list has rainbow.
Say rainbow.
Genesis 9:13, it says, I do set my bow, my rainbow.
Who's that?
God's rainbow, not new age.
I put a rainbow on a window or something one time when I was a young man.
And my dad got so upset, he said, that's new age.
Can you imagine my godly father letting new age take the rainbow?
I'm sorry, folks.
The world has counterfeits.
God has real.
And just because somebody takes something of God and misuses it, I don't throw it out.
Some of you have thrown out the prophet in the world today because some have been misused, the gifts of prophecy.
But I'm not going to throw out the gift of prophecy.
I'm not going to throw out the prophet.
We need prophets in the last day.
We need the evangelists.
We need the teacher.
We need the pastor.
We need all the gifts of the Spirit operating.
Just because there's some phony $5 bills, I haven't seen you stop using them.
But you throw out the things of God because you've seen some phony.
This is God's rainbow.
Genesis 9:13, I do set my rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be a token of my covenant between me and the earth.
Go over to Ezekiel chapter 1, verse 26.
And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne as the appearance of a sapphire stone, and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above it, upon it.
And I saw as the color of amber as the appearance of fire around about within, and from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as if it were the appearance of fire, and it had the brightness around about it.
And as the appearance of the bow, the rainbow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness around about.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.
There's the rainbow again.
The rainbow.
The bow.
God's rainbow.
When I saw it, I fell upon my face and I heard a voice of one that spake.
Back to Revelation 4:4.
Oh, there's so much here.
And around about the thrones were four and twenty seats.
And upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders.
Could this be those that represent perhaps the 12 tribes of the Old Testament and the 12 apostles of the New Testament?
Could this be sitting, the elders, four and twenty elders, sitting clothed in white raiment?
This is the righteousness of the saints.
Oh, that white raiment is his righteousness.
I'll tell you, some of those great men of God, boy, they had problems.
How many old men of God can have problems?
I'll tell you, Moses had some problems.
This great man of God, David, the man after God's heart, he had many problems.
Men of the New Testament had problems.
Old Paul was Saul one time, and he was quite a mean man.
We see Peter who denied Christ.
We see doubting Thomas.
But I believe they all have special places in heaven.
And these are the saints of heaven.
These are the men who are pure through the blood of Jesus Christ, sitting clothed in white raiment.
This is the righteousness of the saints.
That's you will be clothed with this righteousness.
And you are his righteousness through his blood.
That's the mystery of the gospel.
The great revelation of what Christ's blood does for us.
And they had on their heads crowns of gold, honor, and authority, glory given by God, a crown.
Revelation 4:5, go on.
Voices, Thunderings, Earthquakes 00:03:01
And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices.
Oh, we have some more key words here.
Exodus 19:16.
And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, and there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceedingly loud said all the people that was in the camp trempled.
There we see God's voice, God's sign there with God.
It's thunder and lightning.
There's the cloud again, and there's a voice of trumpet exceedingly loud.
Look at Exodus 20, verse 18.
And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking.
And when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off.
Go back to Revelation, Revelation 8:5.
And the angel took the censer and filled it with fire of the altar and cast it into the earth.
And there were voices and thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake.
There's going to be many earthquakes in the last days.
The book of Revelation is a book of quaking, a book of earthquakes.
You think we've had earthquakes?
You ain't seen nothing yet.
What's coming on this earth?
God is going to shake the church and he's going to shake the world.
Revelation 11, 19.
And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.
And there were lightnings and voices and thunderings and earthquakes and great hail.
Revelation 16, verse 18.
And there were voices and thunders and lightning.
And there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth.
So mighty an earthquake and so great.
So let's complete verse 5, Revelation 4:5.
And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices.
We see this throughout the Bible as a sign of God saying something very, very important.
And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God.
Sea of Glass Wisdom 00:10:43
We don't hear people talk much about the seven spirits of God.
Let's look over in Isaiah chapter 11.
The Spirit of God is so awesome.
Dr. I. T. Kendall brought to us such a great message about the Spirit of God and how this spirit can be grieved.
But the Spirit of God, the Bible tells us, is there in heaven and it comes to earth.
And the Spirit of God has eyes looking about, seeing you and me, to how to help us, protect us, care for us.
Here's in Isaiah, let's read about it.
Isaiah 11, verse 1.
And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.
The spirit of wisdom and understanding.
There's one of the spirits, spirit of wisdom.
Here's the spirit of understanding.
The spirit of counsel.
He is our mighty counselor.
The spirit of might and the spirit of knowledge and the spirit of the fear of the Lord.
And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.
And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears.
Here is the spirit of the Lord.
Just a little insight of what the spirit of the Lord is, what the seven spirit could be.
The spirit of wisdom and understanding.
The spirit of counsel, the spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge, the spirit of the Lord.
Verse 4, but with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.
And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
Turn over to Revelation 5, 6.
I want to keep showing you there is a continuity in the word of God.
The revelation doesn't stand by itself.
The revelation is a revelation of the whole Bible.
It's a revelation that's interpreted by reading and understanding and knowing the whole Bible.
And I beheld and lo, in the midst of the throne of the four beasts, Revelation 5, 6, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
The Spirit of God has been sent to this earth.
The Spirit of God is with you.
We have the comforter.
We have the one of all wisdom to guide us and to direct us.
We must understand this.
We have angels moving about.
We all, you know, people talk about demons.
They see demon movies.
They see these horrible Hollywood films.
People get scared to death of the supernatural.
But I'm telling you, we need to understand there's a supernatural that's greater than the devil.
There's a supernatural that is among us.
The Spirit of God moves among us.
The Spirit of God comes from the throne of God to earth.
The Spirit of God goes about looking for you, looking over you.
There is presence.
We need not fear what man can do.
For greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world.
Go on to Revelation 4:6 now.
And before the throne there was a sea of glass, like unto crystal.
And in the midst of the throne and around about the throne were four beasts.
And these are living creatures.
I hate that word beast here because I don't think beast is proper at this moment.
There's a beast in the Revelation, but this beast is a living being.
He's named 11 times in the book of Revelation.
And these four living creatures, I don't believe they're of the earth.
They are not of this earth.
They are living beings.
They are created beings in heaven.
It says, full of eyes before and behind.
But with all these eyes, they seem to know what's going on.
They seem to have everything in control.
Look at Revelation 5:6.
Look over there.
And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne, and of the four beasts, or the four living beings.
And in the midst, the elders stood a lamb as had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
Here, these four beings are so interesting.
And I just want to give you scripture.
I just, I could preach on this, but I want to give you the word, the foundation of the word.
Look back now at Revelation 15:2.
And I saw as if it were a sea of glass mingled with fire.
Oh.
This heavenly city and the heavenly city that comes to earth plus heaven, gold is used as paving materials.
Gold is used for streets.
Gold is used for tiles in the homes, in the floors.
And here we see a glass like gold there that is being talked about, a sea of glass.
I read a lot, and in prison, I read sometimes five and six books a day.
And I would read a lot about eternity.
I loved to read about heaven.
And so during one few month period of time, I read every book I could find about life after death, the people who had death experiences who were brought back to life.
And one thing I found is I read, there was such a harmony among all the different books I would read.
And, you know, about the light.
There's many books written about the light, you know.
And just about everyone who went to heaven, first thing they saw was the light.
For God is light.
You know.
But I remember reading a book about someone who was taking a tour of heaven.
They had died and gone to heaven.
And they said, in the mansions were floors so beautiful that they looked like liquid gold.
This is a vision, so I don't know if it's accurate or not, but it sure was wonderful to hear it.
And it really coincides with this sea of glass and this gold and streets and all.
And she said that as they were preparing the flooring, they would take the most beautiful flowers that she'd ever seen, rose-like flowers.
And in that golden liquid floor, they would literally throw the roses into the flooring, and they would become a part of the mosaic of that golden glass-like floor.
And she said there was no words to describe the beauty of even the normal flooring of your mansion.
But here we're reading about Revelation 15:2.
I saw a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten the victory over the beast.
This is a different beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
Go back further, Revelation 21:18.
And the building, the wall of it was of Jasper, and here's the city of God.
And the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.
John is just getting his first image of heaven here as we're entering this era of Revelation 4.
This awesome, the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.
Can you imagine that?
Glass or gold so pure that it looked like you could see through it and perhaps could.
Revelation 21:21, and the 12 gates were 12 pearls, even several gates was of one pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold as it were transparent glass.
Do you get that picture now?
It's beautiful, to say the least.
Our heavenly vision is hard to describe the visions of heaven.
Okay, back to Revelation 4:7.
And the first beast, we're almost through for tonight, so hold on.
Revelation 4:7, and the first beast was like a lion, the first living being.
This is not the beast, the Antichrist or the beast that is the destructive, the mark of the beast.
This is not in any way connected.
This word beast here really should be living being, a living created being like angels are created beings in heaven.
Heart Towards God 00:05:40
And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast was like a calf or a young bullock.
And the first beast had a face as of a man, or the appearance as a man.
And the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
And the four beasts, and the four beasts had each of them six wings about them, and they were full of eyes within.
Let's go back to the Old Testament, to 2 Chronicles 16, verse 9.
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him.
The eyes of God, The Spirit of God runs to and fro throughout the world looking for that heart.
David had a heart towards God.
God said he was a man after my own heart.
You don't have to be perfect to be after God's own heart.
You have to be under the blood of Jesus Christ.
Keep your heart pure towards God, even though sin will come into your life.
Keep short accounts with God.
Stay close to Jesus.
Keep your heart towards God because the Spirit of God is going back and forth looking for those with a heart towards him.
And this is what the word says.
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him or fully matured, full towards him.
Herein thou hast done foolishly, therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.
That's a warning for turning the heart away from God.
Revelation 4, verse 8, we're reading, and the four beasts had each of them six wings about them, the four created beings in heaven.
These are the song leaders of heaven.
I'll show it to you.
These are the worship leaders.
And the four living beings had each of them six wings about them, and they were full of eyes within, and they rest not.
They do not rest, in other words, day and night.
They don't sleep.
They don't need to sleep.
They're created beings.
They're like the angels.
And they're saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come.
These are worship leaders.
And when these living beings give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth forever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne and worship him that liveth forever and ever.
And they cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.
For thou hast created all things for thy pleasure.
They are and were created.
I've heard people say, well, I don't need my crown.
You know, because the Bible talks about losing your crown.
You know, you can fool around and do a lot of stupid stuff.
And God wants to give you a crown.
And you say, oh, I don't need a crown, but I'll tell you, when you get to heaven, you're going to want a crown.
And I'm going to tell you why you're going to want a crown.
You're going to want a crown to be able to lay it down at the Savior's feet.
You're going to want to say, I'm going to take every honor you gave me, and I'm going to give it right back to you, God.
I want to lay my crown at your feet.
All my works, anything I deserve, I give it back to God Almighty.
Oh, the glory.
Oh, the honor of being there.
The four living creatures who seem to have charge of the throne or heavenly activities in some way, which makes them highly exalted here.
These people, these beings, we're not used to this.
You guys watch Star Wars and all those crazy things with all those characters?
I'll tell you, heaven has some created beings that are more interesting than Star Wars.
And we're so earthly-minded, we can't even think about heavenly stuff.
And you think some of this stuff sounds so weird?
These are worship leaders in heaven.
Oh, I mean, preachers go on and on about the faces and what they mean and the eagle and the, you know, the different faces.
But these are worship leaders.
They seem to be ministers of worship.
They're leading the people in heaven in worship and heavenly praising to God.
They have all these eyes.
So, you know, it's like they know everything that's going on.
And the amazing thing, as we're going to be there in a few days, at the bidding of these four living beings, the four horsemen of the apocalypse go on their ride.
Each one of these tell a horseman, go.
It's time to go.
Ride.
Four Living Creatures 00:04:02
We're going to tie all this together.
And as I've said so many times, I believe the horses are out of the barn.
I believe the four horsemen of the apocalypse are ready to ride.
We are so near.
These things are happening.
We have disease that is running rampant that coincides right now on this earth with these things.
Everything is set for the final ride of the horseman of the apocalypse.
Go to Ezekiel 1 as we close today.
Let's do some highlights here.
Ezekiel 1.1 as we close.
Now it came to pass in the 30th year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the rivers of Shebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw a vision of God.
So this is the word of the Lord.
It came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest.
It says so in verse 3.
Go down to verse 4.
And I looked and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire enfolding itself, and a brightness was about it.
Remember, the pillar of fire was by day and the cloud by night.
And out of the mist thereof is the color of amber out of the midst of the fire.
Also out of the mist there came the likeness of four living creatures.
Uh-oh.
I think we have a better explanation here.
I like this word instead of beast.
Four living creatures, beings.
And there was the appearance, they had the likeness of a man, and everyone had four faces, and everyone had four wings, and their feet were straight feet, and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot, and they sparkled like the color of the barnished brass.
And they had the hands of a man under the wings on the four sides, and four, and they had four, and they four had their faces and their wings.
Their wings were joined one to another.
They turned not when they went.
They went out one straight forward.
And as for the likeness of the face, the four had the face of a man and the face of a lion.
And the right side, they had four had the face of an ox.
And on the left side, they four also had the face of an eagle.
Thus were their faces and their wings were stretched upward.
Two wings.
Everyone were joined one to another and two covered their bodies.
And verse 13, as for the likeness of the living creature, their appearance was like burning coals of fires and like the appearance of lamps.
They went up and down among the living creatures and the fire was bright and out of the fire went forth lightning and the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.
The Bible says that the presence of God, the Spirit of God, literally goes from the throne to earth like lightning.
My time is gone.
I wish I had more time to go into this.
We'll go back into Ezekiel.
And Ezekiel talks about the living creatures in the wheel, the wheel in the middle of the wheel.
It talks about these spirits.
It talks about these living beings.
So here we are way back in the Old Testament, talking about what the Revelation says is going to be in heaven.
And already, these beings have been introduced back in the Old Testament days.
This is the continuity of the word of the living God.
And as you read the descriptions of these heavenly creatures and this wheels in the middle of the wheel, you know, Sometimes I'm almost tempted to believe that some people maybe who thought they saw flying saucers maybe had a little glimpse of something that was coming from the throne room of God to this earth.
Learning About Heaven 00:02:28
And, you know, maybe people just thought they were crazy and maybe they were having heavenly visions after all.
But as you start studying what God has prepared for them that love him, the great vast universe of creation, the word of God says that it hasn't entered the minds of men the things that God has prepared for them that love him.
And we've just opened up this book.
We are just getting inside the gate.
And we're going to learn about the heavenly city.
We're going to learn about a place where God himself will wipe away all tears.
We have an awesome God.
We have a Bible that was written through over thousands of years and it has such continuity, such unity, and it is the only book of its kind.
No book has the authority and the power of this book.
And this book, the revelation, is we are to read it now and to open it up for the king is coming back.
And I want to be ready.
I want to be ready.
No matter when he comes, I want to be ready.
Amen.
Heavenly Father, I just pray, Lord, that somehow as we, in the next months, open the book of Revelation, as we see these things come to pass before our eyes as we study, Lord, I pray that you will help us to come closer to you.
Lord, that you will wrap your arms around us and that we will have this intimate relationship with you.
And then as we learn other key words in this book of Revelation, as we study those two words, fear not, fear not, God, that this word will bring comfort and not fear to our hearts.
Lord, don't let one person miss heaven.
That's been here tonight, I pray.
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