[MUSIC PLAYING]
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As Galileans, we witnessed his first miracle.
He warned us that a time of great deception would come.
But we must hold on to our faith that one
day He would return to save us from the end of the world.
Most people don't believe that Jesus is coming back.
What if there was evidence that proves that this is all real?
Because there were so many people
bringing up little bits and pieces of this,
I'm thinking there's got to be a pattern here.
The Bible talks about it as being a mystery,
but why does the rapture have to happen?
What's the point to it all?
A Galilean would have understood that perfectly.
They are the key to everything.
I'm just so stunned.
I never thought I would see this in my lifetime.
This is the most profound discovery in human history.
From his promise made through wine at the Last Supper to why
the world cannot know the day of his return,
we were chosen to preserve the truth until the end of days.
So even if we are not spared from death,
others can unveil what we knew and believe.
This discovery proves that He is coming back.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
We are not destined to live in this world forever,
for out of the earth we were taken,
as we are nothing more than dust,
and to dust we shall return.
Though the body must perish, the spirit lives forever,
so I urge you to seek the things that are eternal
rather than that which will decay into nothing.
As I write to you, the foretold coming of the messiah, our Lord
Jesus Christ, is now fulfilled, as we
await his prophesied return at the end of days.
Though He first came to save the world,
He will return to judge it.
My brothers and sisters in Christ,
know that a time of great tribulation approaches such as
has not been seen since the beginning of the world
nor shall there ever be again.
But our Lord will return to retrieve those that follow Him
from the wrath that will be poured
out upon all who are living on the face of the Earth.
A time of worldwide wars, famines,
great earthquakes, and sickness that will
bring an abundance of death.
The oceans will rage and the land will burn,
as the moon becomes as blood and the sun black as sackcloth.
But I warn you, before that terrible day there
will be a great falling away from the faith.
And when the hour of judgment comes upon this fallen world,
few will remain that truly believe.
Though the convergence of signs for his return
have been revealed to you throughout the scriptures,
there are some mysteries that God proclaims will be sealed
until the time of the end--
understanding that will be unveiled
to the generation that will witness
the return of the messiah.
I fear, though, that when the savior returns,
will He find any faith left on the Earth?
[AMBIENT MUSIC]
It's been 2,000 years since the final prophecies were recorded,
and today the foundation for the convergence of nearly
every prophetic sign foretold within
the remaining biblical prophecies
has never been more prominent.
As a result, a recent rise in debates regarding the signs
of the times has led to growing division regarding
when the messiah will return.
After all, if the events prophesied
within the ancient records are indeed to come to pass,
then knowing the timing of the Lord's return
would be of great importance.
The timing is a real hot-button, especially
among religious people, Christians and what the like.
We love predictability.
We want to know when He's going to be coming back.
The conflict, the disagreement, the contention over the timing
of the rapture--
and particularly in the last 10 years,
it has gone off the chart.
You know, instead of saying, my, how
they love one another, as they said of the early church--
now today of the church, they say, my, how
they fight with one another.
And recent findings from organizations,
such as LifeWay Research, confirm that the infighting
among Christians is deepening.
In one of our surveys, we ask when they thought
the rapture would occur.
The largest group, 36%, believe that the rapture
will occur pre-tribulation.
But if that's the largest group, that
means there's not a majority believing any one
thing about the rapture.
In addition to the 36% that believe the rapture will occur
before the tribulation period begins, 4% of Christians
believe it will happen in the middle.
18% believe the rapture will happen at the end.
An additional 13% consist of other timing
variations and theories.
4% just aren't sure about any of it.
And surprisingly, the remaining 25%, a growing statistic,
no longer believe in a literal rapture at all.
But why is this happening?
People have access to a lot of information right
at their fingertips, so they want to go and develop
their ideas on their own.
They want to put together this cornucopia
of eschatological beliefs without any kind
of hermeneutical framework.
But it really may not match up with any views out there.
So while the debate rages on regarding
the signs of the times--
Some Christians believe this is the final sign
for Christ's return, as Russia occupies war-torn Syria.
Israel prepares for war, as they send troops to the border.
--the secular world, which makes up
most of the global population, couldn't
care less about the return of Jesus,
scoffing at what is perceived as nothing more than
unfounded biblical nonsense.
It's helping to drive people away.
First it's going to drive them away from the topic we're
talking about, but ultimately it will drive people
away from the church, from Christianity,
from pursuing the faith.
That's how serious this is.
Yeah, I'm sure that somebody that has not bought
into the teachings of Jesus Christ
scratch their head a little bit if something this important,
about Jesus returning--
Christians can't even explain how that's going to happen.
After all, if the validity of biblical prophecy
can be confirmed by historical discoveries,
then why can't most Christians get on the same page
when it comes to the return of their messiah?
Maybe this is because we're asking the wrong question.
There is so much infighting about when
Jesus is coming back, nobody stopped and asked why.
But the fact is, the timing is not nearly as important
as the why of his return.
People forget to even ask, why is Jesus coming back?
Why is all this going to happen?
Why must there be an end of the world?
And I think we're focusing on the wrong thing.
The issue is why does the rapture have to happen.
What's the point to it all?
So what is the point?
Are the events of the end times simply a sequence
of ancient superstitions, or did those that were with Christ
understand something much greater that was
buried by the sands of time?
Before our story can begin, we need to first understand
that Jesus wasn't simply a Jew.
More specifically, he was a Galilean.
Not only that, but Jesus's disciples
were all Galileans as well.
They were not only Galileans, they were Galileans from just
about every walk of life.
You've got a guy who's a fisherman.
You've got a guy who's a tax collector.
And yet Jesus assembled these Galileans together.
And I think there's a great reason why the Galileans being
present, his disciples, future apostles,
would be spoken to by Christ in the Galilean vernacular.
You see, even though the regions throughout ancient Israel
share the same culture, the Galileans developed customs
that were unique only to them.
Why is this important?
Because Jesus used people's cultures
to more deeply communicate the spiritual nature of God.
He used words and symbols and analogies and parables
for them to understand.
You see it on the Sermon on the Mount--
speaking to them in ways that they can understand.
Speaking to them about being fishers of men,
you know, for example.
Why would you use that analogy unless you
knew that these are fishermen?
Everything He said was based on life that he lived,
culture that he belonged to.
I think it's hard for us to understand in our day
what it was like for them in their day.
When Jesus spoke, it was from the heart to their heart.
There was a profound connection made.
The first century believers had such a clear understanding
of what Jesus was saying.
He gave them clear revelation.
So it's no wonder that one day his disciples
came to Him to ask about the fulfillment
of God's plan for the future.
And Jesus answered them in shocking detail.
And He uses illustrations that they can understand that tells
them the world is going to come to an end someday,
and here's how it's going to happen.
So to fully understand the depths of what Jesus could have
revealed to the Galileans regarding how and why He would
return in the last days, we must understand the unique culture
to whom He was speaking.
We need to see the Messiah through their eyes.
This sparked an ambitious research project,
and fragments of new insight began
to expose the forgotten ways of the ancient Galileans.
You know that 2/3 of the gospel took place in a little strip
of land by the Sea of Galilee?
2/3 of the gospel.
It actually makes no sense, if you really think about it.
Most of the Jews didn't live there, but yet 2/3
of the gospel took place right there.
So you cannot ignore the culture and the people, the life,
and the habits of those days.
And that's why the Galileans are playing such a big part.
There are a lot of other people who have
a lot of pieces to the puzzle.
And a lot of other people are working on the same projects.
It's an enormous research project to make sure that you
find it and get it right.
Because there were so many people
bringing up little bits and pieces of this,
I'm thinking there's got to be a pattern here.
And there was-- pieces to a puzzle that formed a prophetic
timeline woven throughout the ancient
scriptures that directly references
an ancient Galilean ceremony--
a ceremony that was passed down through generations
to foretell how and why Christ will return
in the last days of the world.
And of all the ancient ceremonies,
this secret could have been hiding.
It was discovered within a one-of-a-kind wedding--
a wedding that contains a series of customs that would unfold
over an entire year, revealing a chronological sequence
of events that perfectly aligns with the recorded biblical
prophecies leading to the second coming of Christ.
It's a wedding.
It is a Galilean-style wedding.
There's no doubt about it.
Why use a Galilean wedding?
Because all of his disciples were Galileans.
When Jesus taught his disciples, He used an object to start
with that they already knew.
Then He would say, the kingdom of heaven is like that.
In the case of the Galilean wedding,
He would say to the guys, you know what our weddings
are like, don't you?
We do them all the time.
The end of the world is going to be like that.
The parallels to the rapture are incredible,
and it is so brilliant.
It's so brilliant.
So what exactly about their ancient wedding
changes everything that we thought we
knew about the second coming?
To truly understand the depth of what we're only
now rediscovering, we must journey back to ancient Galilee
during the time of Christ to follow
the very sequence of events that was hidden
within their prophetic wedding.
This is where the story begins.
These are the Galileans, and this is what they knew.
[AMBIENT MUSIC]
Welcome to the town of Cana.
Israel is now under Roman control,
ruled by Tiberius Caesar.
And under his cruel authority, life
is harsh for many of the Jews.
But on this day, there's hope for the future,
a promise for a new beginning--
because on this day, the betrothal between a young groom
and his bride is taking place.
I don't think it's possible to overstate how important
a wedding is in the Middle Eastern culture today,
as it was in that day, the first century.
A wedding was the most important event that would take
place in any town for anyone.
In fact, as word spread throughout the streets
that a betrothal was taking place, everyone who was able
would rush to the main gate to witness it.
Everything took place at the gate.
And this was really, really important, because this
is where you found the elders.
The elders ratified legal agreements.
And if you held the ceremonies near the gate,
you would have layers of people that
would gather around who are maybe not family
members, maybe not friends.
So you see, having wedding guests the way we have them
today wasn't important to them.
They wanted witnesses, because you can't
make a covenant without having witnesses
to ratify the covenant.
There is a written proposal that is presented.
It is a written covenant of marriage
that the bride accepts.
They would be asked, do you agree on these terms?
They would say, "We do," which means
that they can't go back on it.
They can't say, "I didn't know that was in there,"
or "those terms were disagreeable to me."
After the agreement outlining the union between the two
families was publicly read, gifts
were then exchanged, with the most
extravagant going to the bride.
In fact, contrary to popular belief, a dowry,
or the price that was paid to the bride's father in Galilee,
was not a purchase of the bride as property
as it was with surrounding cultures in the Middle East,
but rather an insurance policy that
would help take care of her if anything
were to happen to her beloved.
But what comes next will set in motion
a sequence of events that will shape the future
for generations to come.
Then it focuses down on to the moment where
everyone holds their breath.
What happens is the bridegroom is
then handed a pitcher of wine.
The groom then pours wine into a ceremonial cup
that will be offered to his desired bride-to-be.
And it was called the cup of joy.
With both hands, reverently, and respectfully, and fearfully,
he would pass it to his bride.
When the groom presents the cup, she now has the choice as to
whether or not she will accept or reject
this proposal for marriage.
The moment the cup is handed to the bride,
she's given all power to stop the wedding
by pushing the cup back and rejecting the bridegroom.
Contrary to all other wedding customs in the Middle East,
the bride in a Galilean wedding possessed the final authority.
She alone had the power to accept or reject
the offer from the groom.
The betrothal could not be completed
without her willing acceptance to drink from the cup of wine.
But on this day, during this betrothal, the bride accepts.
The groom will then also take and drink from the cup,
solidifying the new covenant.
But then he says something truly profound.
And then the bridegroom says publicly
so everyone can hear, "You are now consecrated
to me by the laws of Moses, and I will not drink of this cup
again until I drink it anew with you in my father's house."
But to understand why this phrase is so profound,
we must look at another act recorded
later in the scriptures.
During the Last Supper, Jesus offered a cup of wine
to his disciples to signify a new covenant with them.
And after his disciples drank from the cup,
Jesus then said something similar to what
a Galilean would have heard from their own weddings.
He said--
But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine
from now on until that day when I drink it new with you
in my father's kingdom.
This is exactly why when He gave them the cup,
He actually says this is the new covenant in my blood.
I'm about to pour my blood.
It's a promise.
We're going to be together again,
and we're going to mark it by drinking the wine.
It's something important.
The breaking of bread and offering of wine--
these acts were to form a new union, a new promise,
meant to deliberately set in motion events
of unimaginable importance.
In my Arab culture, you eat from the same bread
and you drink from the same cup.
The thought is that, that which is in you is in me.
It is a common union, comm-union--
no longer two, but one.
When Jesus says that at that Last Supper,
this is my body given for you, broken for you,
He is talking as a bridegroom to his bride.
When He says to them, this is the cup
of my blood in the new covenant, that's
how they would seal the betrothal
in the ancient wedding.
Well, when you think about the Galilean disciples,
they understood exactly what it was
saying regarding these things.
They were familiar things.
The illustration was entirely clear to them.
When Jesus said that, his Galilean
disciples at the Last Supper heard only one thing--
wedding.
In fact, this might explain why later in the gospel records
the disciples asked Jesus only when
the events of the last days would take place and not why--
because as Galileans, they likely
had already made the connection, especially given
Jesus's first recorded miracle, which took place
in the town of Cana when he turned water into wine
at a Galilean wedding.
And I find this most fascinating that the first miracle
Jesus ever performed was at a wedding.
And that wedding had the same cultural dynamic
that Jesus was describing when he
was explaining to his disciples about his soon return.
But the conclusion of the betrothal was merely
the first step on a year's-long journey
to an unimaginable conclusion.
Now the betrothal ceremony is finished,
and the families rejoicing, partying in the streets,
go back to their houses.
But this is just the beginning, now,
of an entire year of preparations
that goes into making the way for the wedding.
And though, technically, the bride and groom are now
united as one under a new covenant,
the real work only now begins.
The groom must leave his betrothed,
where they will live apart until the day of their wedding feast.
In fact, the groom is now responsible for all
of the preparations for the day he will
be reunited with his bride.
Over the following months, he will acquire materials to build
a new room onto his father's house,
along with crafting new furniture,
such as tables and stools.
He'll negotiate for required items, such as oil lamps, rugs,
and dishes that will be used in the wedding feast that will
take place in their new home.
And scholars have now discovered that
the theological implications of this period in the wedding
held profound importance regarding
the first coming of Christ.
You see, before Jesus's crucifixion,
He warned his disciples that He too would have to leave them.
Jesus tells them--
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 to myself, that where I am,
there you may be also.
I'm going to prepare a place for you.
This is key, especially when we think
about the first century Galilean experience and culture.
I'm going away.
A Galilean would have understood that perfectly
to mean that he's going to go away to prepare a new home.
He's going to go prepare a place for his bride, personally.
And then Jesus said something that they all understood.
I'm going to come back and get you, that where I am,
there you may be also.
But then He's not leaving before He's making a verbal promise
that He's about to come back and take us, and where He is,
we will also be.
And it's very important that we understand
He's not saying so where you are, I will also be.
It's where I am, you will also be.
He is speaking as a bridegroom to his bride, and they knew it.
They knew it, because this was the culture of that day.
It is so tragic, for lack of a better word,
they don't understand the profound depth of the culture.
You cannot separate the culture from the gospels.
If you take the culture out of the gospels,
you virtually gut out the entire meaning of it.
But unlike the earthly custom, where the groom
will bring his bride back to his father's house,
Jesus was speaking in a heavenly realm, where only
those that are born again, having agreed to be his bride,
could go.
It's Jesus who introduced the doctrine of the rapture to us.
I'm going to come and pick you up,
take you back where I've been.
You need to understand something,
if you don't have that event taking place in your theology,
you've got the wrong Jesus.
If Jesus doesn't come back for his church,
then we all have the wrong Jesus.
He so has to come back, that it's mandatory.
It is absolutely a definitive event.
It defines either we have the right Jesus or the wrong Jesus
based upon the biblical Jesus coming back or not.
He has to come back.
He said, I'm going away, but I'm going away
to prepare a place for you.
Then I'm going to come back, and I'm going to bring you to me.
Well?
Hello, that sounds to me like a rapture.
And this is further reinforced by Christ himself
when He tells his disciples that when this time comes,
there will be those living on the Earth
that will not taste death.
But until that time when the groom can
be reunited with his bride, there is
much that needs to take place.
And although the groom has left to prepare a new home,
the bride's job is not yet over either.
She must prepare for the hour that her groom
will return for her.
The bride then takes the next year
to put together a wedding dress and other accouterments
for the particular wedding.
She's got to buy with her bridesmaids
all kinds of pieces of cloth.
The bride and her bridesmaids would either weave or acquire
fabrics for the bride's dress.
Smaller towns in the region, being separated
from more populated areas, may not
have the materials readily available
to complete an elaborate gown.
The bride would often have to wait
for traveling merchants that would sell what was needed.
These preparations could become a difficult and costly
task that in the first century could take months to complete.
But that wasn't all.
Even after the wedding gown was completed,
the bride also needed to remain vigilant
and pure as she waited for her groom,
no matter how long it took.
The bride was to be always ready for her groom
to come back and take her to that place
that he had prepared for her.
The bride would just not sit and wait.
The bride was to occupy until her bridegroom came.
And this is where things get very interesting.
Typically in Galilee, around one year
would pass while preparations were being made for the wedding
feast at the father's house.
But recently uncovered evidence has exposed new insight
that is sending shock waves throughout
the theological community.
During this entire process to now,
neither the groom nor the bride actually
knew when the day or the hour of the wedding would take place.
The exact minute of the actual ceremony of the wedding
was not known.
Yeah, the bride just did not know the day or the hour
that her bridegroom was coming, so she always had to be ready.
In fact, no one in the entire town knew--
no one, that is, except for one person.
No one knew the day or the hour of this wedding--
not the son, not anyone else--
only the father of the bridegroom.
Only the father of the groom knew the day and the hour
that the wedding would take place--
the one who read the conditions on behalf of his son
during the betrothal--
the one that provided payment to obtain a bride for his son.
He and he alone holds the secret to when
the wedding will take place, the hour that his son
can retrieve his bride.
All the types of weddings in the regions,
whether among Arabs, Jews, or other people,
were all predictable.
You would take a year to prepare for that wedding,
but at the end of that year, the wedding would
take place on a designated day.
This is what made a Galilean wedding different than all
the weddings in the area.
Because the bridegroom would finish building his room.
He would finish with the feast.
And then he would go to his father
and say, father I'm done.
I want my bride.
And the father would say, I'll tell you when.
For the Galileans, it was a surprise wedding.
The son would go home to the father's house.
And in the Middle East they do this,
but specifically you see this in the Galilee
to this day, where the son adds onto the house.
It's one portion built upon another, extending the home,
enlarging the home.
And so the father would have been
the one with absolute preview over what's going on.
It's the father who tells the son, that's it, you're done.
And then the father would give the announcement, son,
go get your bride.
The father would be the one who would
determine the day and the hour.
And he would say to the groom, OK, now's the time.
The day and hour has come.
The bridal chamber, that place that you've prepared
was complete, he would say, OK, now.
This is the day.
This is the hour.
Go get your bride.
This goes back now to several accounts in the Bible
where Jesus tells his disciples that no one knows
the day or the hour when I'm going to come.
They wanted to know if He was going to establish the kingdom.
And He says, no, no, no, you don't understand.
No one knows when I'm going to come back for my bride.
The only person that could send the bridegroom to get the bride
was the father.
The only person that could send Jesus to come back to the Earth
is his father.
You see, during Jesus's first coming,
when his disciples asked when He would return at the end
of days, He also told them--
But of that day and hour no one knows,
not even the angels in heaven, nor the son,
but only the father.
Jesus himself, I believe, demonstrated
the genuine Galilean tradition by saying not even the son
knows the day and the hour.
At the moment of his promise to the disciples that He's coming
to take them, at the moment of his description of the end,
He was telling his disciples no one knows the day or the hour.
But although Jesus himself says He will not know the exact time
of his return based on prophesied events that would
take place at the end of days, the gospels
make it clear that we could know the approaching season
in which the end of our age would take place.
The day is drawing near, so he's got to get the feast out.
But still, he doesn't know the day when it's happening.
He's got a lot of help putting it together, because there
could be 50 to 100 people attending this thing,
and he's got to feed them not just for one day
but for several days.
The bridegroom is finished with the feast.
He's finished putting it together.
He's got the room built. He calls
upon his father to inspect it all,
which is more of a formality.
And the father finally says, yes, son, it's ready to go.
The son says, I want my bride.
And the father says, I'll tell you when.
But remember, this is a bridegroom who's
waiting for the moment when his father taps him and says,
go get her.
He's excited, he's thrilled.
And when Jesus is in heaven right now,
wow, I can't even begin to picture what's going on,
but he's got to be loving his bride,
saying I can't wait to come back and take
you to be with me where I am.
And although the groom has now completed the preparations,
he still has to wait for the moment
that his father will tell him to go get his bride.
And during this same time, the bride
would also be prepared and waiting,
equally as eager to be united forever with her beloved.
But as the sun sets on the town this evening,
the time of waiting is nearly finished.
The darkness of night approaches.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
This brings us to a topic that's fiercely debated today.
Since the origin of Christ's message left with the Galileans
has faded into history, Jesus's statements
regarding not knowing the day or the hour of his return
has sparked heated debate and growing misconceptions.
And the church has suffered from this.
And that is, there are those who want to set dates.
And yet the Bible teaches both from Jesus himself
and from the apostles that no man knows the day or the hour.
It is my belief that these date setters,
so-called, have irreversibly damaged Bible prophecy.
I grieve about the obsession of when will it
happen, as far as day and hour.
When you start setting days and then it doesn't happen,
then you have millions or hundreds
of thousands of disappointed people that, good chances,
that they'll walk away from that faith
because it wasn't proved right.
And the result is that Bible prophecy
is being systematically erased from Christianity
all over the world.
I'm just so stunned.
I never thought I would see this in my lifetime
that the greatest news in the Bible
is now marginalized, jeopardized,
and is simply coming under great criticism and skepticism.
And then you talk to a pastor, and he'll say, you know what?
I don't want to be identified with the fringe.
There is a fringe.
We don't know the day or the hour, and we don't.
Nobody's got any special insight.
It's a secret, apparently, only God the Father knows.
Look, when you live in this world
and suddenly someone tells you you're
about to be taken physically out of this world,
then knowing the day is like hitting the jackpot.
However, it saddens me that even though Jesus himself said
no one knows the day and the hour,
why do we think that we need to know?
It sends a clear message.
We're not supposed to deal with the actual date.
We're supposed to deal with the preparation for that day.
[SOFT MUSIC]
In addition, with spreading misconceptions
of biblical prophecy, more churchgoing Christians
with each passing year no longer want
to hear about these so-called fringe topics.
And most churches have clearly recognized this trend.
And if you ask a pastor, he will tell you flat-out,
"You know what?
The world is coming to end is not going to grow my church.
The fact that even Jesus is coming back is not going to."
That is the number one reason, actually.
And it's really because pastors are themselves ignorant
concerning Bible prophecy.
They're also fearful.
They're fearful that if they start teaching Bible prophecy--
I mean, really, they're teaching the Bible,
so how can you not teach the Bible,
the whole counsel of God, without also
teaching prophecy by default?
But they're fearful that it's going to be too controversial.
Christians always want to be accepted by the world.
They are always on the run to adopt
and embrace worldly views in order for people to like them.
You sugarcoat everything.
You become a motivational speaker rather than a pastor.
Because if you come to an unbeliever
and you pull out this rapture card,
he's going to run away from you.
He's going to think you're crazy.
And this growing trend of marginalizing Bible
prophecy is not merely an unfounded perception.
It's proven to be happening and likely far worse
than you believe.
Let me take you to a more qualitative
study we did several years ago.
We took 450 of those sermons from different pastors,
and just took those as a sample and looked at those sermons.
Only 2% of those were preached from a passage
of scripture that would be a prophetic book of the Bible.
Here's why this is a problem.
The culmination of prophetic events make up almost 1/3
of the entire Bible.
The findings that on any given day only 2%
of sermons contained anything prophetic
means that churches are intentionally
marginalizing the topic.
I think that when you take 30% of the Bible and you ignore it,
then your understanding of the other 70%
is going to be flawed.
The Bible cannot be dissected.
You cannot just choose what you want.
As to why it is that Christians today
are dismissive of the Lord's return,
I would connect the dots with Biblical illiteracy.
And here's the thing.
I'm sad to say that it's the fault of the pastor
behind the pulpit.
Churches are going to tell you, you know what?
I want to live my full life.
I want to see my children grow up.
I want to see my grand--
I don't want to think about end of the world issues.
And I think that is what so threw me, is that the fact that
the King is coming, we have a glorious home prepared for us,
we're going to go to that place eternally, became negative,
became a downer.
But the bigger problem is that you cannot remove
prophecy from the Bible without also
removing the return of Christ.
I absolutely believe that the rapture is a fundamental belief
in Christianity.
Eschatology, Bible prophecy, is of paramount importance.
Nearly 1/3 of the Bible is prophecy,
so you cannot have the whole counsel
of God without also having the prophetic word of God.
It's the gospel.
The gospel is that Jesus came.
He was crucified, buried, rose again, on the third day,
and is coming back again one day.
If you take the return of Jesus Christ out of the gospel,
you gut the gospel out.
But even worse yet, the unintended result
of prophecy being systematically removed from churches
and educational institutes is that the world
is forgetting why prophecy exists in the first place.
It's so that God can prove to the world that He is God.
The point to all of this is that if you remove prophecy
from the Bible, you remove the proof that the Bible
is from a divine source.
It would place the remaining scriptures of the Bible
on par with other religious teachings in the world.
With all things perceived as equal,
the Bible would be seen as no more
relevant or divine than any other so-called holy book.
This is actually why it is that young people today want
nothing to do with the church.
The number one reason that many today don't believe
is because there's no evidence.
You know, what's interesting is Jesus said,
I have told you what's going to happen before it happens.
So when it happens, you will believe that I am.
There is so much evidence.
And the problem is that many today
do not believe because they do not
see the evidence that is there.
And only one thing could come from this--
a falling away of those that believe
Christ will return and even in the validity of the Bible
itself--
a terrifying trend that has already begun.
So my mother and father immigrated to America
from the Middle East, and the America
that they came to in 1963 is not the America today.
It has changed dramatically.
There was a day when there was this knowledge
of the Lord's return.
You talk about it today, and it almost reminds me
of what Peter said about how that there is coming
a day that they will mock and scoff any mention
of the Lord's return.
"Where's the promise of his coming?
They've been saying that for generations and generations,
yet he does not come."
Well, I think that's all a part of the end-time apostasy.
Everything we're talking about, it was prophesied,
it's happening.
I think one of the things that plays into here
is what the Bible calls the great falling
away, the great fall from truth into apostasy.
And this is not simply a perceived social change
from different generational perspectives but one that
is being exposed through findings
from various organizations, such as LifeWay research,
the Barna Group and Pew Research.
We see that only about 15% are bought
in to evangelical teaching indicating that Jesus Christ is
the only way to remove their sin and that Jesus Christ alone
is how somebody can see eternal life
and that they ought to share that.
More than eight out of 10 Americans
would have some hesitancy or maybe completely dismiss
the core evangelical beliefs of putting the Bible first
and believing in Christ alone.
According to multiple in-depth studies from various research
organizations, more than 80% of Americans
no longer believe that the Bible is the complete word of God--
a trend that isn't surprising when considering the proof
for the validity of the Bible itself
is being systematically erased.
With all religions being viewed more with each passing
year as being equal and without substance,
a global trend of humanism is exploding.
We're up to almost one out of four Americans
indicating, "I don't really feel like I'm
a part of any religious group."
On that same survey, we did ask whether people
believe the world will end in their lifetime.
And less than one out of five, 18% of Americans,
actually believe that the world will end within their lifetime.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
Since the return of Christ is synonymous with the end
of the world as we know it, this may
lend some associative insight into the trends we're beginning
to see in why most people no longer believe
that Jesus is going to return.
And surprisingly, the scriptures foretold
this, too, was going to happen.
I know you have a little strength.
This describes this church in the last days
prior to the return of Jesus Christ as just hanging on.
There are a remnant of believers today that
are hanging on to that hope.
And they are few in numbers and growing
fewer with each passing day.
Jesus said that when He comes back,
we'll even find faith on the Earth.
We know that in the last days, there's
going to be a diminishing of people believing.
I believe that what is happening in America
is that the westernized version of, can I say,
a man-made Christianity is failing.
It's failing in faith.
It's failing in its ability to engage the culture.
It's failing to be ready, to be busy about our Father's
business.
It's failing in evangelism.
Why?
There's no sense of urgency.
And so we live in a time when there
are those saying that they believe in the Bible
and believe in Jesus.
I have to ask the question, what Bible are you reading,
and which Jesus are you talking about?
When you're completely detached from the word of God,
then the rapture sounds crazy.
Although the same people who may reject God
will believe in aliens.
They will believe in going to the psychic
and hearing from the dead and all of that.
They believe in so many weird things.
But when you talk about Bible stories,
they will immediately say these are fairy tales.
And it's interesting, because we found
physical evidences to almost every single miraculous story
in the scriptures.
Again, the Bible declares that in the last days
there's going to be those who will say, where's
the promise of his coming?
Everything has been continuing on since the beginning.
And they mock-- the Bible says in the last days there's going
to be mockers, and there's going to be those that make
light of the return of Jesus.
Not only is it going to get worse,
it's going to get exponentially worse.
[AMBIENT MUSIC]
Considering these trends, it's not surprising
that this is precisely why the scriptures famously warned
that in the last days, Jesus will return
as a thief in the night into a world that
is unbelieving and unprepared.
Jesus warned his disciples to be ready for his second coming.
He said He would come like a thief in the night.
Regarding the times and the seasons, my brethren,
you have no need that I should tell
you because you perfectly know.
The day of the Lord indeed will come to this world
as a thief in the night.
But it will not come as a thief in the night
to you, because if you're ready, you're ready.
And we can only be surprised and we can only suffer
from it if we're not ready.
He's going to come as a thief in the night
to those who are not aware.
He's going to come to those as a thief in the night to those who
have been bogged down and weighted
down with what Jesus said are the cares of this life.
[AMBIENT MUSIC]
Jesus returning as a thief in the night
to those unprepared in the last days appear self-explanatory.
And for years, theologians interpreted
the meaning at face value.
But you see, in ancient Galilee, we
know that only the father of the groom knew the day and the hour
that the wedding would take place.
But what researchers have now discovered
is that the hour would be in the middle of the night.
Well, even the idiom of, "no man knows the day or the hour,"
the idiom of, "as a thief in the night," they in that day
would have absolutely understand exactly what Jesus was saying
when he uses those expressions.
They knew it was literally going to be as a thief in the night,
and it would be in the night, which again
was why they had to have oil in their lamps
and their lamps lit--
so that it would not be as a thief.
They were ready.
They were dressed and ready.
This was the ultimate surprise twist on the Galilean wedding,
and Jesus, who lived among them for years,
knew this all too well--
that the groom would come for the bride
in the middle of the night.
Her life was pure.
She slept in her wedding dress.
Her bridesmaids were dressed in their white linen garments,
and they were ready to help her out should the bridegroom
come-- which he was coming unexpectedly
at an hour she didn't know--
so that she could be ready to meet him.
They will do that in the middle of the night for a reason.
It's to basically declare that it can happen when everybody
else are not necessarily ready.
It is deliberate.
And that's why only the people that
have an active part in the wedding
are excited and are ready.
But those that are not are completely-- they're asleep.
They are literally asleep.
Yes, exactly.
And that's why we're told not to fall asleep as others do.
That's why one of the reasons, I think,
Christians should always look for is, what
are the signs that Jesus gave to the disciples,
and are we seeing them?
[AMBIENT MUSIC]
And though Jesus returning as a thief in the night
was directed to the unprepared world,
He also gave another warning directed more
to those that would be waiting for his return
at the end of days--
a parable that warns how even those
that believe they are prepared can end up left in the dark.
Jesus spoke about 10 bridesmaids in the night prepared
and with oil burning in their lamps
waiting for the arrival of the groom,
which would come at any hour.
So you've got the parable of those
with the oil in the lamps.
You've got 10 of them.
You've got all 10 who started, but not all 10 finished.
You say, yeah, yeah, they did.
No, they didn't.
The Bible says that at the time of the midnight cry,
they all jumped up and trimmed their lamps,
but only five had enough oil to continue on.
And this is key.
Symbolically in scripture, the oil
is a reference to the Holy Spirit in your life.
And so you can be a believer-- listen carefully--
Jesus said these are they who believe for a while.
It doesn't mean you're born again to believe.
Has your belief brought you to faith in Christ?
So these virgins were religious.
These virgins were ready.
These virgins were waiting.
They had lamps.
They had oil.
But only the ones that had enough oil made it to the end.
The application for this today is quite clear.
With recently exposed social trends,
many believe that this prophetic warning from Jesus
himself regarding the church in the last days
is already coming true.
I think the remnant is keeping watch.
It's a little sliver of Christianity,
some estimate between 1% and 10%.
They're watching.
They're waiting.
They're looking at headlines.
They're looking at current events.
But I think that's a smaller and smaller
portion of the Church today.
[AMBIENT MUSIC]
As we head back to the time of Christ,
the sun has now set on Cana.
And just as Jesus warned the world will
fall asleep in the last days, tonight
so have many of the Galileans.
But tonight, the groom's hour has finally come.
The bridegroom knows the day is coming.
But he sleeps with his groomsmen--
they're all over the floor, perhaps in a small room--
and the father makes the decision, now is the time.
The father has decided that now is the hour his son
will retrieve his bride.
He wakes him and says, go get your bride.
The son leaps to his feet, and he grabs a shofar, a ram's horn
trumpet, and he lets go a blast to wake up the entire village.
It's a marvelous scene.
But it's meant to wake up not only the village,
but the bride and her family.
It was during hours of unexpectedness
that it would have been, in the very early hours
of the morning, even at midnight, where the bride
would be hearing that cry.
Behold, the bridegroom cometh.
And she was to rise up.
She was to get her lamp trimmed.
She was to be now executing her preparedness.
The wait is over, and the groom is finally on his way
to be united with his bride.
As they move through the town streets,
trumpets blared loudly to not only wake the bride,
but also the guests that were invited to the wedding feast.
Only those that were prepared could quickly
rise and join the concession.
[LAUGHTER]
The bridegroom and his groomsmen now exit the house.
They go out of the compound, begin to serpentine
through the streets of the village,
until finally they come near the bride's house.
And as the bride comes into view,
what a shockingly beautiful scene it must be.
There in the middle of the night,
you have a row of women with the bride in the middle-- all
the bridesmaids dressed in their white linen robes,
and in the center, the bride dressed
in her beautiful bridal gown.
After a year of preparing and waiting,
they are finally together again--
reunited as one forever.
The parade led by the bridegroom now
rush up towards the bride and her family--
and all the people that are standing there,
the bridesmaids.
And the two men with the litter set
the litter down on the ground in front of the bride.
And she very, very modestly steps out onto the litter,
and she lowers herself down.
The bride did not simply follow her groom
back to the father's house, but she was lifted into the air.
In fact, the ancient Galileans referred to this moment
as "flying the bride to the father's house."
She's lifted up off the ground.
She's escorted with him back to that place of preparation.
It speaks, it shouts, all about God's grace.
It's not her efforts.
She was just to be ready because she loves him.
She's borne aloft.
She's taken away with him.
It's all about the grace of God.
It's about the grace of God from the beginning
all the way through to now, to the end.
There are multiple chilling similarities
between this cultural practice and descriptions
throughout the Bible regarding what theology
has coined the rapture--
a moment that believers are caught up
in the air to be with the returning
messiah at the end of days.
This makes me think of something-- that when
the bride is lifted off the ground,
and they carry her off the ground,
as it were, flying her to the father's house,
doesn't this sound like Jesus collecting
his bride off the Earth to join him in the air?
Absolutely, I believe that.
Without question.
The clues that were given in scripture
all speak with specificity to this exactly being the rapture.
This is the reason why He's coming to take us.
Why would a bridegroom come and take the bride
unless it's to marry her?
From that moment on, we will always be with the Lord,
just like a husband and a wife are one.
They cannot be separated anymore.
This is why I believe the rapture
is such an amazing thing.
[AMBIENT MUSIC]
After the bride is flown to the father's house,
the long-awaited conclusion has begun--
the beginning of a wedding feast joined and witnessed
by all of those that were prepared and heard the call
during the darkness of night.
And Jesus made it clear to his disciples
that this, too, is a picture of what
will happen at the end of days.
Those that are caught up to be with the returning messiah
will partake in what the Bible refers to as the marriage
supper of the lamb, the lamb being a clear reference
to Christ himself as the sacrificial lamb crucified
on the cross.
In fact, the apostle John references this wedding
feast when believers are reunited with Christ as written
in the Book of Revelation.
To those in the final generation, he writes--
Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to Him,
for the marriage of the lamb is come,
and his wife has made herself ready.
The father's house in a Galilean wedding
is the perfect picture of heaven.
Together as a married couple, bride and bridegroom,
united forever, living in the bridegroom's father's house.
Why is this so important, is because this
is our destination, that we are chosen
as the bride of Jesus Christ and to dwell
with him for all eternity.
And everything here on earth is a foreshadow, a picture,
of that which is to come.
You know, it's interesting, at the Last Supper, twice
Jesus says this--
I eagerly await to partake with you when this finds
its fulfillment in my kingdom.
Here's the question that has to be asked--
why did God make everything?
Why did He let the world fall?
Why did He send his son?
Why did his son have to die?
Why did his son have to rise from the dead?
And then why did his son descend in heaven?
Why is his son coming back?
This may be the most important event
in the entire history of eternity
when God brings a bride to his son.
Because of this, Jesus promised that He would return
for his bride to all that have and will accept his promise
until the day He returns, to not only be united with,
but to save his bride from the wrath
that is to come upon the world in the last days.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
But Jesus warns that many will not accept his offer
to attend his wedding feast, that there will
be many that choose to be separated
from him for all of eternity--
those that will be left behind.
When they get to the father's house,
everybody piles into the compound now,
and the feast is set and ready to go.
And the door is shut behind them.
[DOOR SLAMS]
And no one leaves, and no one comes
in, for seven days and nights.
[SHOUTING]
And in ancient Galilee, if you were locked out,
there was no getting in.
There are so many people who know about it,
believer and non-believer.
Oh, yeah, I've heard about the rapture.
Oh, yeah, Jesus is supposed to come back.
I've heard about this.
Listen, hearing about it's not enough.
In fact, we know from Galilean experience in the first century
that you not only had to be ready,
you had to have enough oil--
you had to get in.
You had to get into that wedding.
And then the door was shut.
By the way, once the door was shut, it was shut.
Those who were out were out.
And you think about the incredible, terrifying reality
of knowing that Christ said He would come back, and to then
be shut out, to be left out?
And yet Jesus was warning us in those parables.
He was warning.
[SHOUTING]
And just as with an ancient Galilean wedding,
Bible prophecy warns that those who missed the second coming
of the messiah are destined to partake in the wrath of God
that will be poured out upon a rejecting word.
And the righteous will be removed from the Earth,
because the Lord there says in Isaiah 26,
I will put them in their place, I will shut
the doors behind them in these inner chambers,
while I pour out my indignation, wrath, upon all those
who dwell on the Earth.
The fact that the church escapes God's wrath is so important.
The church does not escape man's wrath,
and we see that going on--
terrible persecution going on in various parts of the world.
But the church, biblically, scripturally,
God says that He's going to spare
us from the wrath to come.
[AMBIENT MUSIC]
When you look at the whole picture,
the Galileans are really the key to understanding
the why and what of the second coming of Christ.
Jesus used this illustration that they knew so intimately
over and over and over again--
that you have a bride who is loved by a bridegroom, who is
betrothed to this bridegroom.
And the bridegroom is going to make a covenant with her,
and then he's going to go away.
And eventually, when they don't know,
he's going to come back to take her to be with him where he is.
This is an amazing thing, and it all stems from what
the Galileans understood.
And Jesus talked to the Galileans
like they were Galileans, so that they would understand what
He meant when He said, this is what it's
going to be like when I return.
There are many people who profess to be Christians that
are really not digging into the details of what
God has revealed about Himself.
After all, that's what scripture is.
The number of those looking to the return of Christ
are diminishing with each passing year,
and it's never been more important to speak up about why
the messiah is coming back.
I have not given up by any stretch of the imagination,
and that's based on what I see happening in my events.
The attendees are getting younger
and younger and younger.
So I have not given up.
I just think they need to identify with teachers
who are their generation-- and they're rare,
but they do exist.
And to the pastors, you need to tell your congregations.
The influence of pastors for those
who attend church on a regular basis, it is still very strong.
If I as a qualitative researcher can
pull from some fascinating qualitative research
that we did on Bible reading and what influenced
people's Bible reading--
when a pastor suggests something, and not
just the passage the pastor mentions in the sermon,
but when a pastor suggests, go home and read this,
go home and look up this, that has a big impact.
And I just think we need to hang in there
and keep encouraging the church and encouraging pastors.
They have one of the toughest jobs on the planet.
And those with media influence need to speak out.
Jesus died for his church.
He's coming back for his church.
He loves his church.
And we all need to tell the ones we love.
If they choose to ignore it, it's their fault.
But if you never warned them, that's your fault.
We live in a nation founded on Christian values,
yet followers of Christ are choosing to remain silent.
We must be prepared to tell others why Jesus is coming back
so they too can make a choice.
It is our choice.
Jesus is not forced on anyone.
It is our own free will and our choice
that we choose to accept our proposal from Jesus
Christ as our bridegroom.
See, this is why Satan--
again, the why-- why Satan hates particularly
the Christian marriage.
He hates marriage because of what it represents.
See, it's a microcosm of what awaits in heaven.
We are the family of God, our Heavenly Father.
We are brothers and sisters, siblings, if you will,
in Christ.
It is a microcosm, a picture, of that which has yet
to be fulfilled when it comes.
Before the day of wrath--
before the feast begins--
before the rapture-- before the thief comes in the night--
back to when it all began, to the moment
that you are offered his cup--
the question is, will you accept it?
[MUSIC PLAYING]