The Ancient Wedding that Explains the End Times

Jesus and the apostles are saying things that were very familiar to them that are not familiar to us in the 21st century in Western culture. And that is they were speaking about a wedding, the ancient Jewish wedding. We're going to talk about the ancient Jewish wedding. In other words, the weddings that took place during the days of Jesus. Because it's a totally different, most accurate representation, not just what we've experienced here. This is why Jesus says, "No one knows the day or the hour. I believe the Trinity had a discussion at the beginning of the creation before the foundations of the world when he was the lamb slain from the foundations of the world." And they agreed. Hey everybody, welcome to the Jump of Your Podcast. I'm joined by my son, Arden. - It's great to see you. - It's good to see you too. Arden, we might finish Second Peter on this podcast. - That's crazy. - It's been a year. - Yes, we're going to try. - That's very, very exciting. Okay, we're going to kind of review, okay? Just a quick review. Second Peter, chapter one, it's all about the fact that God has placed His divine nature in us. And we are told that this nature is brought out by His exceeding great and precious promises, which we are to use our faith to employ them so that we can live godly and holy lives walking in love, walking in the holy fear of God. Because in chapter two, He says false teachers are going to come along. What's the false teachers going to do? Don't worry about living godly. Forget it. It's okay. You got grace. You're good. Okay, they're going to lure people into the bondage of sin. Then He comes into chapter three, why we wanted to live godly. And He talks about the second coming of Jesus, the imminent return of Jesus Christ. And I want to go to verse 14 of 2 Peter and He says, and so, dear friends, this is almost like the wrap-up, while you are waiting for these things to happen, what things the day

of the Lord, the second coming of Jesus, what we talked about last time. Make every effort to be found living peaceable lives that are pure, listen to the word pure and blameless, not in your friend's sight, but in His sight. We have the ability to do that because we've been given the exceeding great and precious promises. They bring out the divine nature that He is deposited in us. He put the nature of Jesus Christ on the inside of us. That's why we're to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Why is this? Because of the coming of Jesus is imminent. Eminent means it can happen at any time. It doesn't need anything as a prerequisite. All right? Eminent is important that we remember the word eminent means nothing needs to happen for it to happen. First Thessalonians 4, 15 through 18, Paul says, "For this we say to you, by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, that means robust spiritually and remain, that is a remnant until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have died in Christ before us." For the Lord Himself, I love that, Himself will descend from heaven with a shout. Now, remember the word shout, with a voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up, big word caught up, Greek word harpatsu, together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord. So we're meeting Him in the air, okay? And thus we shall always be with the Lord, therefore encourage one another with these words or comfort one another with these words, the Greek word harpatsu, to grab or cease by force with the purpose of removing and or controlling, to seize, to snatch away, to take away. There are 14 occurrences in the New Testament we reviewed on the last podcast.

Now, why is all of this so important? This is where we're going here with this one, because Jesus and the apostles are saying things that were very familiar to them that are not familiar to us in the 21st century in Western culture, and that is they were speaking about a wedding, all right? The ancient Jewish wedding, a wedding imagery is often used to describe the relationship of Jesus in the church. If you look at 2 Corinthians 11, Paul says to the Corinthian church, "For I am jealous for you with a jealousy of God Himself, I promised you as a pure bride to one husband, Christ. But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion of Christ will be corrupted by what false teachers." All right, Ephesians 5, "For husbands, this means love your wives just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her," he's referring to the church as her here as a bride. To make her holy, there's the word holy again, and clean, there's the word pure again, washed by the cleansing of God's word, there's the God's word, which what brings out the divine nature. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church, glorious bride without spot or wrinkle or any blemish. Instead, she would be holy and without fault. As scripture says, a man leaves his father, mother's joined to his wife. The two are united as one. This is actually a great mystery. Paul said, but it says in Ephesians five verse 32, but it is an illustration of the way Christ, the groom, and the church, the bride are one. Now, why is this so important? Because of the words of Jesus before he left this earth. Jesus says in John 14, and I have been looking, I've been waiting to podcast to get to these words to Martin. Are you ready? So Jesus looking his disciples last supper, and he says, don't let your hearts be troubled. Okay, what did Paul say? Therefore, comfort one another with these words. Remember we read that in Thessalonians? Encourage one another. Don't let your hearts be troubled. Because my father is going to pour out his wrath and beat the heck out of you. That's how ridiculous that sounds. Don't let your hearts be troubled. That God trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my father's home. Now that is a key statement. There is more than enough room in my father's home. My father's home.

My father's home. Remember that. This were not so. What I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you. This is huge. Okay. When everything is ready, in other words, the place I'm preparing for you, I will come and get you so that you will always be with me where I am. All right. The second coming is much more than an event. It is two lovers being reunited. This is what I love about. It's a marriage. Okay. So let's take a look at this. We're going to talk about the ancient Jewish wedding. In other words, the weddings that took place during the days of Jewish. Totally different. Most accurate representation, not just what we've experienced here. Yes. Totally different than our weddings. All right. So let's go through. How does a Jewish wedding begin? It begins with the betrothal, which in the Hebrew is called the katuba. All right. Now this katuba is initiated by the bridegroom. All right. So usually what happened, either the bridegroom alone or the bridegroom and his father would go to the bride many times her household and they would say, I want to marry your daughter and they would negotiate a bride price. Now you see this author's scripture. Jacob had to work seven years for Leah and it was seven years for Rachel. Okay. If you look at David, Saul, David said, how can I marry the king's daughter? I'm a poor boy, the son of Jesse. He's a king. And Saul said, I'm going to get him killed. I want a hundred Philistine for skins. That's all I'm asking for for my bride price. Okay. There's another incident. Arden is we're getting ready to go into this scripture. Let me, let me, let me say this. So many people ask us, how does John and Arden go so deep in their study? It's easy. We have this program called logos. I have been using it for years. I use it to write books, Arden. I use it for my podcast. I have my notes on one page of the computer and the logos is right next to it. I can go into root words, studies. I can go back to the original. I can see what was happening in the time period. It's absolutely amazing. It's a game changer. And not only that, but logos is offering everyone who signs up right now for this limited time offer. 60 days free. That's amazing. Completely free for you. So please, please do not miss this chance. Go to logos. So l-o-g-o-s dot com forward slash bevere. And you can sign up right there. Not only that though, there is a video that's a zoom call that we did that shows you how to better use it. Because if you have a tool and you don't know how to use it, you probably won't use it. And we want people using this every single day because it will help them go deeper in their studying of the word.

So everybody just click the link below and we can jump right back into our study. Why? If you look at Abraham's servant brings ten camels filled with gifts for the bride and her family. So this was a custom. The bridegroom would come to the bride's family. He would sometimes present gifts to the bride's family. But the big gift was I'm going to buy her. I'm going to actually give a price. Now why is this? Because back in those days, everybody in the family had responsibilities. All right. We didn't have dishwashers back in those days. We didn't have washing machines. We had fields to tend to. Everybody worked in the family. So the bride price made up for her not being there to do those chores anymore. Now, bride price could be gold, it could be treasures, it could be animals. Okay, it could be anything, whatever the families agreed to. Now, once they agreed to the bride price, listen to this, they would drink a glass of wine together. And really looking forward to having this meal with you. And then he pours a glass of wine and he says, "I won't drink this again until I have it with you." Okay, so the bridegroom would have a glass of wine with the bride. Once they finished it, they would not drink a glass together again, nor would they see each other again. Because the bridegroom would then leave and go back to his father's house, and you know what he did? He built a room off his father's house that he and his bride would live in. Now, that's the way it usually happened, until they got enough wealth established where they could build a separate structure. It was usually a room right off the father's house. Now, that would usually take a year, but it was an indefinite time. It was not known when he was going to come back. So, the father was the only one that would know when that groom was going to come back for the bride, because the father wouldn't give the groom permission until he said, "I approve of this dwelling that you have built for your new bride." Now, this is really interesting. While they're separated, they are actually married. Yeah, because it comes kind of at the patrol, that's right. This is non-engagement, okay? So, in the western culture, we're engaged, you can break the engagement, no problem. You actually had to go through a divorce.

This is why, if we think about Joseph, Joseph, when he is betrothed to Mary, finds out she's pregnant. Okay, she is committed adultery on me, because they're married. And he was going to privately put her away, and the angel had to appear to Joseph and said, "No, no, no, no, the child in her is conceived of the Holy Spirit, okay?" So, they're married, but they're separated for a year. Why was this? This was a chance for the bride to prove her faithfulness to the groom and the groom, his faithfulness to the bride. And a baby usually comes in about nine months. So, that's why it was usually a year, although it was an indefinite time period. It would be maybe a couple weeks short of a year, a couple weeks after a year. They knew about the time, but it could be at any time. It could be three months later. So, the bride, her job, the groom's job is to go back and make the groom. The bride's job is to prepare herself. She has to make a wedding dress. She has to get everything packed. She has to choose her bride's maids. Now, we see a parable of the bride's maids in Matthew 25. The groom would pick his groom's men, so they did have bride's maids and groom's men. So, her job is getting her wedding dress ready. Now, you look at Revelations 19. It says the bride has made herself ready to her. It was given fine linen, which that fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. What are we doing now by living godly holy lives? We are preparing ourselves for the return of our bridegroom. We're staying faithful to him. We're not committing adultery with him. We're not sleeping with the world. This is why these false teachers are luring people into a relationship with the world. See what I'm saying? No, that's good. Okay, so now, they're separated from each other and neither one knows, neither one knows, when he's coming back, only the father of the groom knows. This is why Jesus says, no one knows the day or the hour, not the angels in heaven,

no human being and not even the son of man referring to himself. I personally believe Arden, even Jesus doesn't know the exact time of his return. I believe the Trinity had a discussion at the beginning of the creation before the foundations of the world, when he was the lamb slain from the foundations of the world. And they agreed that only the father would know when the son would return. Isn't that amazing? Okay, so now, the time has come. The father says to the groom, okay, I approve of the dwelling, go get your bride, right? So you know what they do? They don't come during the day, they come at night and there's a reason. Okay, we go out at night. Why, we have lights, we have city lights, we have lights in buildings, so we go out at night. Back in those days, everything was done during the day. That's why you see so much night comes when no man can work. Families were all hunkered down together in their homes at night. Now, many times, it was midnight. everybody's in bed, and you know how the groom would come? He would grab his groomsmen, which was a big, it wasn't like two groomsmen. It was a group of guys, okay? And you know what they would do? They would come into the bride's neighborhood or community, shouting and blowing shofar horns. They wake up the whole community. When she hears the shouting, she hears them. - She knows. - Immediately, she gets her dress, she gets her bags, she gets her dress on, she puts a veil on so he can't see her face. Her bridesmaids go out and join the groomsmen and the groom. And this big group comes and they snatch her away. - There's that word.

- You know how it happened many times? If she was on the second floor of a structure, he'd put a ladder up and just snatch her away. He wouldn't wait for her father to come out and say, "Oh, great, glad you're here." No, he snatched her away. - Oh, okay, interesting. - And the whole, now the community would join. So there would be other families joining and they would all go back to the father of the groom's house where the room was that the groom had prepared it and this is so cool, they would put a hoopa over that chamber that he had prepared. Now the hoopa refers to the canopy that covers the bride chamber and is underneath that hoopa that that bride and groom are reunited. Now her veil's on her the whole time. So she and her groom go into that hoopa and that's when he finally takes that veil off. Now, nobody else has seen her face. The bridal party is outside of the hoopa. This is really kind of crazy. Sometimes it was just the best man, okay? But either the entire bridal party or just the best man is outside the hoopa until the bride and groom consummate the marriage. And then the bride groom takes the sheet that had blood on it, that proved her virginity to the best man or the wedding party.

They would go back to the wedding attendance. This is all the people from her neighborhood and the groom's neighborhood that had come. They'd show the sheet and then they had a big party for seven days. Now listen to this, the bride and groom stay in the hoopa for seven days. While there's a party going on, is that what we talked about last seven years? Isn't this interesting? - Yes, uh-huh. - After the seven days, the groom brings out his bride, unveiled, and presents her to all the guests of the wedding feast. All right? She's been hidden away for seven days. - Yeah, what a party. - Seven days. - Can you imagine being alone with your wife for seven days? - Yeah, from the outside of the day. - That's even better. - Yeah, that's even better. And then you go to the other side. It's just everyone's enjoying having fun for seven days. - I know, I know. So listen to Revelations 1907. Let us be glad and let us rejoice and let us give honor to him for the time has come for the wedding feast of the lamb

and his bride has prepared herself. She has been given the finest pure white linen to wear for the fine linen represents the righteous acts or the good deeds of God's holy people. Now, remember we talked about this a few podcasts ago? I said, "Arden, I don't even know "if the Western church has got enough material "to make a bikini, let alone a bride's dress." - Yeah, uh-huh. - All right? That's something our works don't save us, but our works do prepare us. - Yeah, yeah, that's good. I think people need to hear that. Our works don't save us, but our works do prepare us. - Yes. - I think that's really important. That puts an emphasis on our works, not in a legalistic way, but in a preparation of we live in a way that is purposeful and a live away that's searching and waiting on the day of the Lord. - Okay, now are you ready for this? - Yeah. - I'm gonna read to you Isaiah 26, verses 20 through 21 and 27 verse one. Come my people, enter your chambers. Hoopa, and shut the doors behind you. Hide yourself as it were for a little moment until the indignation is passed. For behold, the Lord comes out of his place

to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will also disclose her blood and will no more cover her slain. In that day, the Lord with his severe sword, great and strong, will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent. That's a term for Satan. Now. - Leviathan's used within the book of Job, too. - Yes. - Is it the same reference in terms of Satan? - Yes. - Absolutely. - Now I'm gonna read a few more scriptures and pieces. Revelations 310, Jesus says to one of the churches, "Because you have obeyed my command to preserve, "I will protect you from the great time of testing "that will come upon the whole earth." Okay, now I'm gonna take this all back, and we're gonna look at 1 Corinthians 15, and then we're gonna look at 2 Thessalonians, because we haven't even touched those yet. Paul writes the Corinthian church, "But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret." King James says, "A mystery." There are about nine mysteries in the New Testament. What is a mystery? It's not mysterious, it's just a truth that hasn't been revealed to the Old Testament saints. These truths were either uncovered by Jesus,

or uncovered by the Apostle Paul, the Holy Spirit using the Apostle Paul to uncover them. So this is something the Old Testament saints didn't know, which means this is something that the people, when Jesus is talking about the Second Coming in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 and Luke 21, they didn't know it either. But I reveal to you a mystery. We will not all die. Okay, stop right there. We, the saints, will not all die, but we will all be transformed. Now let me say this really quick. There's three transformations that take place when we're born again. The first one happens instantaneously. That's when our spirits go from being dead to alive. It's absolutely amazing. We become a brand new creation in Christ. Even though we still have the same mind, the same memories, we are a brand new person. Then at that very moment begins the transformation of the soul. Now this is a process. The Bible says, "Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. James is writing to Christians." Paul said that we're transformed by the renewing of our minds. Peter said, "These exceeding great and precious promises

are given that what we might be partakers of the divine nature." Paul said, "We work out our salvation with fear and trembling." This is when what's done in here manifests out here. And we can either slow that process up or we can speed it up. Okay? So we, this is the only transformational process we're involved in. The final transformation is when we get a brand new bodies. And that's what Paul is talking about here. This is when we get a body just like Jesus. Now Jesus is the only one that has that body right now. If you were to go to heaven right now, the saints are there, but they have like the spiritual bodies, okay? Because if you look at Hebrews, it says, "You've come to the city of spirits, of just men made perfect." They have not. - They don't have a body. - Body. So they're just like Jesus. When Jesus went down into the heart of the earth, the three days and three nights and preached the spirits in prison, he didn't have his resurrected body yet. It wasn't until the Holy Spirit joined him to his natural body,

which instantly transformed into a heavenly body, okay? So Jesus actually was like that, like the way the saints are right now. He was that way three days and three nights. So when he comes out, we got to think about it. His body can interact with other human beings on earth. He ate breakfast with them by the seashore, right? He said to Thomas, handle me? Because a spirit doesn't have flesh and bone, like you see, I have. Mary sees him as a gardener. The disciples of Anamaeus have a meal with him and talk to him on the whole road. Don't even know who he is. But he can walk through walls. - He can transport. - What's that? - He can transport. - Very much too. - He vanishes. - He can disappear and go, I believe when we have the millennial reign of Christ and we're in those bodies because this is what's about to happen. We can be in Jerusalem leading with Jesus and all of a sudden just have the thought, I want to go to New York City right now and we'll be in New York City just like that. Natural people won't be able to do that. And there's going to be people in natural bodies

during the millennial reign of Christ. There's going to be two people. There's going to be the heavenly bodies and the natural bodies. The natural bodies will be much like Adam and Eve. The heavenly bodies are going to be just like Jesus. We're going to see him, right? Because we're going to be just like him. - So you're saying everyone that has passed away and has gotten that heavenly body will be on earth with people who have not received that heavenly body and that just be people that are not believing in the return of God and not believing in Jesus as their salvation. But can I ask you a practical question? - Yes. - Obviously that's a lot of people and that should be a lot of people because we're talking about from the existence of time all the way till the coming of Jesus. How does that practically make sense in terms of like people being here on earth with all of those people. When we're even looking at it right now and we're saying, yeah, there's a lot of people on earth and we're at eight billion people on earth. Hey everybody, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment. But first, I want to thank you. these messages. So thank you. To become a patron, just click the link in the show description or go to jobavir.com/patreon. Now, let's get back to the show. Do you know that the book of Revelation?

The sealed judgments. The first four, a fourth of mankind is going to be killed. Okay, if you look at the further judgments, the bold judgments, you're going to have a lot more killed. There's going to be... Remember God said he's going to make human beings as scarce as gold? Those people that are left, that remnant that's left in their natural bodies, will be the ones who enter the millennium in natural bodies. See, because there's still going to be people having babies in the millennium. It's not going to be us in the glorified bodies. Jesus said, when we're glorified, we're going to be like the angels of heaven. We're not going to be have reproduction facilities. Yeah. I'm talking about genitals. But there will still be people who will be making babies. Yes. Who is that? They'll be the natural people. They'll be the people that were left there on the earth. Yes, there's going to be a massive army that comes to attack. Jesus is going to devour them with the sword of his mouth. But there's still going to be people on the earth that weren't killed by the plagues. They're going to be left over. They're going to be in natural bodies. But they'd be like the people that were not a part of the army that people will stay back, all those things. They weren't killed by the plagues or the bulls or of judgment, weren't killed by the sword that came out of Jesus' mouth. These are people that just survived. And when they see the king come back, they'll believe. But then they go through a thousand years with Jesus. Are they in their natural body for a thousand years? They're in their natural bodies. That's why it says a man will be considered young when he's 100 years old. That's what scripture is talking about. Interesting. They're going to be reproducing. Yeah. Okay. But you're going to have two types of people on the earth. And just as Jesus interacted with natural human beings, when he was raised from the dead, we're going to be able to interact with the natural people like Jesus did. So would our lifespan basically look as similar as the early fathers, or like Abraham and Tara and all those early, or not Abraham and Tara, sorry, go back even further. Our lifespan, we're going to be in forever bodies, not our lifespan, but those people. Yeah, those people, their lifespan is going to look like what we saw there. They're going to be able to live a thousand years. Yeah. At least when they're living and having children when they're 500 years old or 600 years old or 400 years old. Yes. That's okay. So then it's the end. Satan is going to be released. He's going to be locked up for a thousand years. He's going to be released at the end. And who's he going to attempt the people in the natural bodies? Yeah. So the question is, is then that thousand years, what about the spirits that have been released on the earth? So the

spirits, obviously, that's coming from the Nephilim and everything that was released on the earth. Will those be locked away with Satan? Yes, they'll be locked away. Satan, there will be no demonic spirits, no forces of darkness on this earth that thousand years. Sickness? Will it be sickness? I don't believe there will be. Okay. So for that, we'll play right next to a Cobra hole, the line and the lamb will lay down together. The line will eat straw just like the ox. This is what the Bible says and it's going to be that the people that refuse to come up and worship the Lord on a yearly basis, they're going to have a famine. They're going to have no rain. So they've not been tested. So at the end of the thousand years, Satan is going to be released. It's going to be one more test of faithfulness, not for us, but for them. For them. Okay. Which I think, you know, in a natural mind, you could look at that and be like, well, how would they even be able to succumb to any kind of testing? You've been seeing this for a thousand years of watching what God's been doing. But I kind of actually almost look back at the people of Israel. Well, in the people of, well, Adam is, yes, that's an amazing example. But even the people of Israel is like constantly, they see what God does and how he shows up in incredible ways. And that's not just through the desert or through the wilderness, but also through their kingdoms. And yet it's just amazing, like Solomon's son, reaffirmed how he just completely forgets about like God's faithfulness and starts leaning to other temptations and everything that happens. You look at this and you're like, you're two generations removed from David. How is it that you are falling this away from, from God and your love for him? But yet that might be a good example of how people will come up to children and Israel seeing the sea split of the fire and then now they're complaining three days later. It's really sad, but it's why we can't be casual about these things. I think it's just always coming back to these casual things where it's just like, yeah, we saw God do that. That's incredible. But then you just kind of forget about the goodness of God. You forget about what God's done. And then you just start leaning to those things because in my mind, I'm like, man, if I was tempted after a thousand years, if I was part of those people, I would know what the truth is. But the sad thing is, as you will see, sweet Paul, it will be. How could Eve be walking in the cool of the garden with the presence of God, every glory of God succumb to the temptation, the deception of the snake? Yeah, and that's the wisdom of the enemy.

That's crazy how crafty he is. Yeah, that's crazy. I think a lot of times we don't, but God is greater. Greater is he than us than he that's in the world. I was even thinking about that last podcast as you were talking about it, is understanding when Jesus is coming back, us understanding, like you said this a little while back, but the opposite of God is not Satan. He's not. And there's no battle that's going to happen. Like, sure, there's that battle that's going to happen. But when Jesus comes back, it's like a boom, instantaneous victory. Satan is not a formidable foe to God. Yeah. He is a formidable foe to us. Yes, correct. Because we are not past temptation. We have to stay strong, stay vigilant, stay sober minded, because our enemy, as a roaring lying, is seeking whom he may devour. Yeah, that's good. Sorry, I just want to ask questions. Oh, no, sorry is at all. This is all good. But let me reveal to you a wonderful mystery. We will not all die, but we will be transformed. So you know, he's talking about our physical bodies. And so just think about it, just as Jesus in the center of the earth and the Holy Spirit by his power raises him up, his body that's dead in the grave up, even so those spirits in heaven are going to be reunited with their bodies in the air first. Then we in a split seconder be caught up together and we'll all be together with the Lord. That's his bride.

Okay. So it will happen in a moment. The word moment is actually the Greek word that we get the word Adam from. This moment means a time that is not divisible any longer, which quantum physics tells us that's 10 to the minus 54th of a second. Okay. It might be 45th second, but I'm right in the neighborhood. In other words, if you divide that moment anymore, you're in oblivion. Okay. That's what quantum physics says. But anyway, what he's saying is this is going to be even faster than the twinkling of an eye. This is an indivisible type of time in the blink of an eye. When the last trumpet is blown, that is not talking about the trumpet in the judgment, the judgment. There are seven trumpets that are blown. This is talking about the trumpet, I believe, that is a call to his people to assemble. That is the figure that Paul is using here. For when the trumpet sounds, and it's also a type of when the groomsmen come into the community and they're blowing the show far. When the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. Oh, wow. And we who are living will all be transformed for our dying bodies must be transformed into the bodies that will never die. Our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies. Now, I want to take us to first Thessalonians five, are we are we are we tracking? Yeah. Okay. Paul says, but concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need that I should write to you for you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord, that's

the seven year tribulation, so comes as a thief in the night. Now keep that in mind for a second. For when they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman and they shall not escape. Now, can I say this? They're not going to be saying peace and safety at the end of the tribulation. So this is another reason why I believe that the catching away of the church can't happen at the end of the seven years. Why? Because the moment the Antichrist is revealed, the moment he walks into the temple and says he's God, we know it's 1260 days or excuse me might be 1290 days before Jesus returns. So they're not going to be saying peace and safety on the second half of the tribulation. Then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman and they shall not escape. That's talking about the day of wrath, the day of the Lord. But you brethren, now listen to this, but you brothers and sisters are not in darkness. That's why we're doing this podcast. The word of the Lord reveals these mysteries to us so that we're not in darkness so that that day should overtake us as a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of day. We are not of the night or darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober. That's our instruction. That's what Peter said. For those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk or drunk at night, let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love as a helmet, the hope of salvation. Remember, he is called the blessed hope. What's the blessed hope? His second coming.

For God did not appoint us to wrath. There you go. same obtained salvation through our and edify one another. Twice he tells us to comfort each other with these words. Now, there's a space of time between first Thessalonians and second Thessalonians. Do you know what happens? The Thessalonians Christians get, many of them get scared. They think, oh no, we miss the coming of the Lord because there were people coming in and teaching. The coming of the Lord's already happened. And so Paul has to write him back again the second time. - Yeah, which I want to encourage people too because we're jumping from first Thessalonians, second Thessalonians, and there's still 14 more verses or 16 more verses. And I've always framed this out as this is an end times checklist for you. We've talked about it before. So I would encourage you go through it because if you're wondering like, what do I need to be doing? What do I need to keep pursuing God and looking at this? - Yes, yes. - Just go through these next 16 verses of the end of first Thessalonians five. That's the end of first Thessalonians five, right? That checklist. And that's the last verses in chapter five.

- Yes, 12 through 28. - Now we come to second Thessalonians chapter two. Now brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as from us as though the day of Christ had come. So they were all concerned that the day of Christ had come, they missed his coming. Paul is writing to comfort them. Okay, let no one deceive you by any means. For that day, what day? The seven year tribulation will not come until the falling away comes first. That's the apostasy we talked about. And the seven year tribulation will not come until the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worship, so that he sits as God in the temple of God showing himself that he's God. That happens right at the midpoint of the seven year tribulation. He makes an agreement with Israel at the beginning. He says, build your temple, but at three and a half year point he walks in and says, I am God. That's when Israel's eyes are opened up and they realize, oh my goodness, we are following the wrong man. We crucified the Lord of glory. That's when Paul said, all of Israel is gonna be saved, but they're gonna be greatly persecuted.

All right, do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things. Now listen to this. And now you know what is restraining, okay? I wanna stop right there, restraining. Something's restraining. What is restraining that he, the man of sin, will be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawless, this has already worked. Many, many anti-Christ have gone out. The spirit of anti-Christ has gone out. The mystery of lawlessness is at work. Only he who now restrains, so we see two times. What is restraining and he who restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way, okay? Now in the Greek, that word taken out of the way, you know what it means? A sudden takeaway. A sudden takeaway. It's not harpazzo, but it's a sudden takeaway. It's another word, Greek word, that means a sudden takeaway. So there's a restraining force that's keeping the anti-Christ from being revealed. And the lawless one, once he is taken or it is taken out of the way, the lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and the brightness of his coming. All right, now. The word restraining is the Greek word that means to delay,

to hold it back, to postpone, to restrain, to suppress or to stall, okay? The verbs that are used with it are neuter and masculine, both in the original text. So it can be a thing or it can be a person or it can be both. Matthew 16, 18, what did Jesus say? The gates of hell will not prevail against the church. In other words, the church can't be prevailed against. So the hell will not prevail, not prevail, yeah. So now many people say that he or what is restraining, the man of sin from being revealed is the Holy Spirit. I question that. So that's going back to what I was saying here, why I mentioned this. So when I read this, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. I've always read that as gates being defensive. So understanding is that the gates of hell are not going to be able to stop the church from prevailing. Or not, well, not that it will prevail against the church, but the church will not be able to be stopped and that it will overcome the gates of hell, right? Yes. So the gates of hell can't be. The church has penetrated every single sector of society. Government, professional sports, the gates of hell hasn't been able to stop us. So it's more on a natural standpoint, not so much of the physical, or more on a spiritual standpoint, not so much the natural, is that what you're thinking? So not the natural gates of hell, because obviously hell will still be a place, right? Yeah, I think what Jesus is saying is any stronghold the enemy has, the body of Christ

can stop it, because we're a restraining force. And so, I mean, I can't think of anything else, I know in church history they taught other things, but I can't think of anything else that's a restraining force. I look at our nation, what would happen if every single Christian was removed from our nation? Our nation would plummet into lawlessness. I mean, it is the godly in our nation, in government, in schools, in education, in healthcare, in the military that is actually keeping, is restraining lawlessness from going wild. So I see the church as a restrainer, and it's going to be removed suddenly. So I really believe that the Antichrist can't be revealed until Jesus comes, and this is another reason why I believe that the church is going out before the seven-year tribulation, because it's the restraining force. And I just want to end with this. Here are some of the reasons why I believe the church is going at the beginning before the seven-year tribulation, all right? We're not appointed to wrath, we've already said that, made that clear. Number two, how can he come as a thief in the night when the wrath has already been poured out and the armies are gathered together against Jerusalem and against Israel? We will know, hey, it's the time, all right? The church appears the first three chapters of the book of Revelation. Then you hear in chapter four verse one come up here. I believe that was to John, but I believe that's the church. I believe that's the voice of the archangel. If you look, the church is not mentioned again in the book of Revelation until chapter 22. So here it is 21 times in the first three chapters, and you don't hear, because God is dealing with Israel now during the seven-year tribulation. If you look at Revelation's not five, verse nine and ten, this is the very beginning. The church has been caught up in chapter four. Listen to this, they, the 24 elders, now what do I, who do I believe the 24 elders are? I believe 12 represent the Old Testament, the 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 represent the

apostles. I think it's a representation of the church and the Old Testament saints. The 24 elders sing a new song saying, "You are worthy to take the scroll." Now this is happening in heaven, okay, before all this wrath is being poured out on the earth. The 24 elders sang a new song saying, "You are worthy to take the scroll to open its seals for you were slain. You've redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe, tongue and people and nation." This is before all the wrath is poured out, and have made us kings and priests. There's only three groups of people that have made kings and priests in the Bible, Melahizedek, the church and Jesus, okay, you have made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on earth. So the fourth reason is I look at the ancient Jewish wedding and it shows us he's coming back for his bride. He's going to catch her away by surprise. It's not going to be a surprise when we've gone through all the wrath and the tribulation. And fifth, who are the people riding on the white horses with Jesus when he returns? If you look at Jude 14 and 15, now Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied about these men also saying, "Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all." If you look at Jesus in Revelations 19 and the armies of heaven clothed him fine linen and white and clean followed him on white horses. I believe that's his saints. So Arden, all that to say, I said it right from the beginning of last podcast. The more I study, the more I realize how much I don't know. This is not meant to be exhaustive. I'm hoping what it's going to do for you is it's going to incite a great hunger to really seek God. I believe God made this so that it had to be... Oh, there it is. Well, we were talking about this as we were traveling over here, is that how

the book of Revelation starts with those who read it and understand it. And I'm like looking at the things that was written within the book of Revelation. And they're not things that you would probably just understand by just reading it. You have to go deeper. And that's what even Second Peter at the end of it is talking about the end of chapter three where it says the untaught and then it talks about the untamed or they put them on the same level. And so understanding that we have to dive deep into this for ourselves. And also, great news and not just trying to plug it in here, but I just think this is a great way to be able to learn. But understand we, if you have logos, you are able to grab and to study this on a greater level and an easier level than you've ever had before. So make sure you're taking advantage of those kind of resources. But please make sure it's something that's pointing you deeper into the word of God, not taking you to other different resources. So we have concluded Second Peter, let's review it quickly again. I want to make sure everybody gets it. We've been given the character and nature of God. The exceeding precious promises bring it out. The false teachers come along, try to get us to live a very worldly lifestyle. Why? Because Jesus is returning and he's coming back that are for those that are diligently looking to be what? Pure before God, they're pursuing holiness. They are living blameless lives, peaceful lives, and they are looking for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, they're urgent in their work in advancing the kingdom of God. That's why I chose a year ago, I felt like the Holy Spirit said, talk about Second Peter. Little did I know that it would take one solid year for us to even scratch the surface and I mean it. We scratched the surface. There's so much more and I want to encourage every single one of you, as Arden said, get into your logos and search out even deeper. What we've shared, we've got all these podcasts. You can go back, you can review them, but go deeper. Get the word of God so solidly in you that his return is more real to you than the Instagram you look at, than the social media you look at. It's more real than the physical world around you. We have our sights set on the things above, as Colossians 3 says, looking for the blessed hope of his return. Listen, it's an exciting day we're living in and I believe with all my heart, we're going to see an outpouring of God's Spirit and you are going to be involved in it and we're going to see a harvest of souls come into the kingdom before he comes and takes us home. Yeah, I feel like we need to even just take a moment and understand we just finished our first book of the Bible, which I know you said that, but just the realization of how long

we've been able to go through it and so thankful for all you guys coming on this journey with us. And I'm excited that, yes, sure, we'd love to hear recommendations, but I'm excited to hear what God speaks to you next of what book of the Bible we're going to be going through and just continuing to keep diving into more and more as we just understand this on a deeper level. It's going to be great. Art and it's been a pleasure.