Heavens Sending Monumental Message

Right at the top I’ll admit that I’m overwhelmed with trying to understand the signs in the heavens that are apparently firing at this present time. Reports of things going on in the dark regions of space certainly seem to correspond to things going on down here on this planet in terms of impending Bible prophecy fulfillment scheduled as the time of Christ’s Second Coming comes into view.

The prophecy in view here, scheduled for ultimate fulfillment during the seven-year Tribulation—like all other end-times prophecies—seems to be casting a foreshadow in this present hour.

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26).

Things are moving so fast in all of this that by the time this article is posted, some dates will already be past, possibly revealing some of whatever it all means.

My hope is to try to lay before us these things that are scrolling in some sort of eschatological presentation for those who are Mark 13:37 spiritually attuned. It seems as if all is coming together at hyper-collision speed, portending a world-rending cataclysm that cannot be averted.

In order to briefly examine the things in the heavens that are moving and shaking, let’s scan through the following article excerpt.

During the next couple of months, so many amazing things are going to be happening in the heavens. For example, during the Great American Eclipse of 2024 on April 8th, the sun, the moon, and the seven other planets in our solar system will all line up in the sky. It is almost as if the entire solar system will be screaming that this is a once-in-a-lifetime event. But before we get to April 8th, there will be some other absolutely incredible things happening in the skies above our heads. On March 25th, we will witness a penumbral lunar eclipse.

The following comes from Wikipedia:

A penumbral lunar eclipse will take place on Monday, March 25, 2024. It will be visible to the naked eye as 95.57% of the moon will be immersed in Earth’s penumbral shadow.

Since so much attention has been focused on the Great American Eclipse of 2024 on April 8th, this other eclipse has kind of snuck up on us…

On top of everything else, this “blood moon” eclipse also coincides with Purim. The first day of Purim goes from sundown on March 23rd to sundown on March 24th. The second day of Purim goes from sundown on March 24th to sundown on March 25th. So this is going to be a “blood moon Purim eclipse,” and Pastor Mark Biltz believes that it is quite appropriate that the moon will be eclipsed on Purim…

The first lunar eclipse on March 25 will coincide with the Jewish holiday of Purim. Biltz noted that it was fitting that the moon should be eclipsed on Purim, as Esther literally means “hidden….”

We also know that in late March, “the Devil Comet” will be racing through the sky as this blood moon eclipse is happening. In fact, it is being reported that it is possible that this comet “could be visible to the naked eye” at that time…

So the run of “the Devil Comet” will be taking place during the “blood moon Purim eclipse” on March 25th and the total solar eclipse on April 8th. Is that just a coincidence?

And let me throw one more thing at you. NASA is telling us that at some point between right now and September, a star that is 3,000 light years away will explode. That explosion will be so bright that it will actually be visible to the naked eye in the northern hemisphere.

[Source: The “Blood Moon Purim Eclipse” Of March 25th Will Happen At About The Same Time “The Devil Comet” Becomes Visible To The Naked Eye by Michael Snyder, March 17, 2024, Rapture Ready News March 18, 2024]

The writer of the above article says that all of this activity almost certainly has significance in that all of this seems designed to be telling us something.

Another writer who has quite an interesting perspective on what the signs in the heavens mean presents in-depth details of these matters. You can look into his much-studied examination/exploration at the following website: https://youtu.be/YkA4ro5wBuA?si=rMmCdOzhPe_Pc-IX

Heaven seems to be sending a monumental message. While the signs in the heavens are blazing their forewarnings that might be flashes of impending cataclysm, the signs here on Earth continue to rage with portentous signals that the planet is on the brink of something disastrous. Nations around the globe are, to put it mildly, in disarray. There is indeed perplexity on Earth, the seas and waves of humanity roaring.

Jesus said when we see these things begin to come to pass, to look up –that our redemption –Jesus Himself—is drawing near. He is about to intervene and call believers to Himself, as Paul the apostle has foretold.

With all the signals of that sudden intervention by Christ, you must know Him in intimate terms for Salvation. That is, you must do the following in order to go to Him when He calls to all believers into the Clouds of Glory.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

–Terry

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A Horse With No Cart

There’s an old saying that warns of “putting the cart before the horse.” This signifies that there’s a necessary order for many things, a cause and effect. A team doesn’t celebrate winning a game when the outcome is in doubt, or they are far behind in the score, but wait until they secure a victory.

We also see this in 1 Corinthians 15. Jesus’ resurrection secured our receipt of imperishable and immortal bodies. Apart from His victory over death and the grave, our faith would be “futile” because we would still be in our sins (15:17). Paul sums up this woeful state in verse 19:

“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

Our hope of resurrected, glorified bodies rests upon Jesus’ death on the cross and the empty tomb signifying His resurrection. This came first, and it secured our hope of eternal life.

Of course, we magnify the Savior on Resurrection Sunday as a day set aside to remember His victory over death. The practice of meeting on the first day of the week began because that was the day Jesus rose from the dead.

However, pulpits far too often remain silent regarding the implications of Jesus’ resurrection for us as believers. I have heard many Gospel presentations that end with the certainty of God’s forgiveness of our sins, which is essential, but contain no reference to eternal life.

The message thus becomes one of “your best life now,” which Paul decries in 1 Corinthians 1 5:17-19. It’s similar to a horse outfitted to pull a cart, but he stands alone with no wagon.

During His earthly ministry, Jesus emphasized “eternal life” as the result of believing in Him (John 3:15-16, 5:24, 6:40, 10:28). Martha understood that Jesus’ promise included that of a resurrected body, as evidenced by her words pertaining to her brother’s death, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24). Eternal life signifies a bodily resurrection, which Jesus secured for us on the cross, after which He became the “firstfruits” of our future restoration to life (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).

After Jesus’ ascension, the Lord revealed more details of this hope to His apostles. Through the Holy Spirit, they wrote about Jesus’ appearing when He would raise the “dead in Christ” and catch us up “to meet Him in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17). In Philippians 3:20-21, the apostle sums up the promise of 1 Corinthians 15:47-55 with these words:

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

Please know I love hearing sermons about Jesus’ resurrection, and as a young pastor long ago, I always looked forward to expounding on it. However, I cannot remember a time when I heard Jesus’ promise of our imperishable bodies even briefly mentioned by a pastor. Is not this a key reason for our rejoicing on Resurrection Sunday? We have hope beyond this life because we serve a risen Savior.

This leads me to a couple of questions:

1. Why do pastors refuse to mention the wonders of our “blessed hope?”

In most cases, unbiblical beliefs regarding Bible prophecy account for the silence regarding the New Testament promise of resurrected bodies for the saints. The most popular teachings regarding the end times focus our hope on the church as either the current kingdom of God or as the vehicle to bring in the millennial kingdom minus our Savior.

Some teach that the fulfillment of 1 Corinthians 15:50-55 happens at the time of our regeneration, while others point believers to an end-of-the-age wrap-up of human history with no mention of the saints receiving glorified bodies. The most popular teachings in churches today deny the Rapture and leave the saints with no expectation of their resurrection.

Other pastors claim to believe in a pre-Tribulation Rapture but refuse to mention anything that relates to it so as not to offend those with other beliefs or the unsaved.

2. Why does it matter?

The New Testament fixes our hope solely on Jesus and His imminent appearing to take us home. Such an eternal perspective is essential not only for our encouragement in these perilous times but also for our growth toward spiritual maturity. I say this because such a focus:

• Motivates us toward purity in our lives (1 John 3:1-3).
• Teaches us to value eternal realities over temporal things (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
• Calms our souls with the certainty that Jesus will intervene in our world, bringing “sudden destruction” on the wicked (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11).

Jesus’ death in our place upon the cross, His burial, and His resurrection three days later are essential to the proclamation of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-11). However, the Apostle Paul does not stop there but continues to explain that our receipt of immortal resurrected bodies is a direct outcome of our faith, without which it would be useless (1 Corinthians 15:12-58).

One of Satan’s big lies is that we now enjoy all the benefits of God’s promised kingdom in our flesh and blood bodies with a raptureless future devoid of glorified bodies. Though extremely popular in churches that claim to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, it’s most definitely not what the Bible teaches, and it contradicts most of what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15.

This is why we defend the Rapture with so much passion. Pastors that deny it or refuse to talk about it deprive those under their care of sorely needed comfort for the day in which we live.

-Jonathan

 

 

Going to Hereafter with a Smile

It was almost like going home. Only we had just come from home and were here in the Christ In Prophecy studio. And there were smiles to go around. We had a joyous time being together in a physical setting for the first time in quite a while.

My friend Mike Hile and I travel together and have done so for many years because I’m now blind and have to have Mike to help keep me between the ditches. So we were in McKinney, Texas, near Dallas to shoot TV programs for Lamb-Lion Ministry and their Christ In Prophecy weekly program.

It was like a homecoming –great to be again with my great friends Tim Moore, the program’s host and head of Lamb-Lion Ministry, and with Dr. Nathan Jones, TV co-host and Lamb-Lion web minister. And it was doubly great to sit right beside my wonderful friend of many years, Lamb-Lion and Christ In Prophecy founder Dr. David Reagan.

Dave, Tim, Nathan and I caught up on things of our lives apart from each other for those intervening years. We did so, even while taping the programs, but especially between the sessions of doing the programs. It was, for me, a heartwarming time of being with those who have been so special in my ministry life.

In retrospect, thinking on the topic for our television get-together, the wonderful time spent there appropriately sparks just an inkling of what that Grand Reunion will be like once in the Hereafter following the Rapture.

Dave and I were in the studio to do programs about two of our books –each of which involves Bible Prophecy, as you might expect. But these books have at their centers the theme of the future for Christians in eternity. These books focus on that Glorious Place Jesus said He was going to go in order to prepare a place for those who believe in Him for Salvation.

Dr. Dave Reagan’s book’s title is How To Die With A Smile On Your Face. My and my co-author Jonathan Brentner’s book has the title HEREAFTER: It’s Far Better than You Imagine.”

Dave, in his unequaled way of presentation, expounded on the marvels that await those who have accepted God’s Grace Gift of Salvation through Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world for the Redemption of fallen mankind.

My title comes from years ago hearing the great radio broadcast personality Paul Harvey expounding on one of his sponsor’s products. He said something like: “If you want to keep your pearly whites from here to hereafter, you should (use whatever toothpaste he was promoting.) The word hereafter made me think what a great title that would be for a book about Heaven.

Dave and I were precisely on the same page from the very start of the program’s taping. As a matter of fact, I accused him of stealing my thunder in using exactly the scripture I was going to use. He was first to speak, and he quoted the following.

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Cor 2:9-10).

In our book, HEREAFTER, we further look at the Joyous future that awaits each and every believer when their time on earth is through.

[Book Excerpt]

In Psalm 16:11, David wrote:

“You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

When the day described in Revelation 19:1-10 arrives, our joy will know no bounds. Our fondest moments in this life will pale by comparison.

During the TV taping, I was asked to recount my brief clinical death visits to that Sphere that is the Hereafter. I can’t tell you what a joy it always is to do just that. As a matter of fact, I recount that Good Friday experience of April 22, 2011, most every morning when I awake. For some reason those Moments spent in that Realm flood back into my thoughts upon awakening to a new day.

Dr. Reagan brought up during the programs that Heaven isn’t just some ethereal realm or dimension of existence where saints will be floating around as disembodied spirits. He said it is a real place, according to all we know from Scripture.

Again, in our book HEREAFTER, we address this place called Heaven, about which Jesus said the following.

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:1-3).

A Physical Abode

The Greek word for “place” in John 14:2-3 is topos, which denotes a physical location in almost all its usages throughout the New Testament. It frequently denotes a specific location such as a city, village, or area. Jesus is preparing actual “rooms” in His “Father’s house” for the multitudes that would come to know Him as their Savior since that evening. Our new home will be visible with many amenities that will please our immortal resurrection bodies. Not one saint will feel any disappointment when he or she sees their heavenly accommodations.

The word Jesus chose for “prepare,” hetoimazo, also depicts a tangible, physical preparation. Paul used this same term when asking Philemon to “prepare a lodging place” for him (Philemon 22).

Although my own trip to somewhere on the periphery of Heaven didn’t take me to that final place that the Lord Jesus is preparing, the trip itself was exactly as the Apostle Paul said it would be. He said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor 5: 8).

I.e., when the last heartbeat happens upon passing from this life, we who know Christ for Salvation are instantaneously in that Heavenly Sphere. To this, I can attest firsthand, although it was obviously not yet my time to go all the way to the place prepared for me in the Hereafter. The trip was, however, instantaneous –in the twinkling of an eye speed. I was sent back, among other reasons, to tell you about that Abode that is, as our book subtitle has it, far better than you can imagine!

If you are not yet in God’s Family, for whom Jesus Himself is preparing places of unimaginable splendor where we will live in Glory Forever, here is how to become part of that Family. You will then be certain to go to the HEREAFTER with a smile on your face.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

–Terry

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A Future Palm Sunday Celebration

On Palm Sunday, we remember Jesus’ triumphant ride into Jerusalem just five days before His death on the cross. Matthew records the messianic hopes of the crowd reflected in their shouts of “Hosanna,” or “O Lord, save us” (Matthew 21:9). The word originally signified a cry for help in the Hebrew, but over time became an expression of praise to the Lord (see Psalm 118:25).

The multitudes also proclaimed, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” as they watched Jesus, seated on a donkey, ride into the city (Matthew 21:9). These words, taken from Psalm 118:26, signified their belief that Jesus was the long-awaited King of Israel.

Why am I recounting a past fulfillment of prophecy? It’s because it points to a future time when Jewish people living in Jerusalem will welcome Jesus as their King, reciting the words of Psalm 118:25, just as their ancestors did so long ago. The outcome, however, will differ greatly.

During the week after His triumphal entry, Jesus spoke these words:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'” (Matthew 23:37-39).

When Jesus made this prediction, He knew that a brutal death upon the cross awaited Him. Fully aware that the previous cries of “Hosanna” would soon change to “Crucify him,” He looked forward to another entry into Jerusalem when He would also hear the words of Psalm 118.

The outcome of His future arrival, however, will be far different.

The latter-day repentance of a Jewish remnant, also prophesied by Zechariah (12:10-13:1), will lead to those in Zion truly welcoming Jesus as their King, and it will be a kingdom that awaits Him rather than death upon the cross.

Current events in Israel make the fulfillment of Jesus’ words seem impossible. The nation is fighting for its survival as the result of deadly attacks on all sides. In addition, it faces mounting world pressure for it to give up its fight against terrorism and reward its oppressors with a nation of their own. How could the nation survive for long if the world forces a two-state solution on it? But God!

The almost constant warfare and criticism will someday lead to Israel’s acceptance of the peace terms offered to them by the antichrist. However, just as Jesus also predicted in Matthew 24:15-17, this will also not end well for the people. However, the betrayal and necessity to flee Jerusalem to avoid death will bring many Jews to saving faith in their Messiah by the end of the Tribulation. Not long after His Second Coming, they will welcome Jesus into Jerusalem as their King.

The differing “Palm Sunday” events illustrate two important truths regarding Bible prophecy:

First, what we see often differs from reality. When Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem in fulfillment of the words of Zechariah, the disciples could never have imagined that He would be hanging on a cross in less than a week.

Likewise, when we look at current-day Israel, steeped in worldliness and deadly conflicts, is it not difficult to imagine the fulfillment of Jesus’ words? Yet we know that a future group of repentant Jews will again shout, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” as He again enters Zion to reign over them as their King.

Bible prophecy enables us to look beyond what we see and believe what it reveals about the future. Apart from what we read in the New Testament, how could we expect Jesus’ soon intervention in our world to take us home to glory?

Second, the fulfillment of Bible prophecy always exalts Jesus, always. As followers of Jesus, we anticipate meeting Jesus in the air and, after that, suddenly appearing with Him in glory with imperishable bodies (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17; Philippians 3:20-21; Colossians 3:4). During this time, we celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb as praise for our Savior thunders throughout Heaven (Revelation 19:6-10).

The book of Revelation magnifies the Lord Jesus from beginning to end. The apocalypse is all about His unveiling as the head of the church, the One who brings judgment upon the earth to take the kingdoms of the world away from Satan, His all-glorious return to the earth, His spectacular kingdom during which time we will reign with Him, and His ultimate victory over death that will lead to the wonders of the eternal state.

Sound biblical teaching on future things always springs from the words of Scripture, not what we see, and glorifies Jesus by fixing our hope on Him and on Him alone as our expectation of what is and what is to come. That’s why we believe that a future day is surely coming when Jesus will again arrive triumphantly in Jerusalem to shouts of “Hosanna” and “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

It will also be a joyous day for us since we will reign with Jesus in the kingdom that will follow.

-Jonathan