In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of our heavenly citizenship and living for the Lord Jesus Christ. He talks about the resurrection of the body and the faith needed to believe in it. The preacher also discusses the unity of believers in the body of Christ, regardless of race or ethnicity. He then delves into the topic of the second coming of Jesus and the need for believers to be prepared for it. The sermon concludes with a story about a man reading from the Old Testament and struggling to understand its meaning, highlighting the importance of seeking understanding from God.

We're going to read from four different places this morning, because all these readings are related to our subject, and I just say that here in the 15th of Acts we are breaking rather abruptly into what is familiarly called the Jerusalem Council, which resulted from the fact that some preachers from a Jewish background had been up to Agriol, and where the church was composed strictly of Gentile language and tried to force the law of Moses upon the circumcision and the keeping of the commandments along with faith in Jesus Christ. So, as Barnabas goes down to Jerusalem and meets with the leading brethren there, they discuss this issue, and this is the climax of their discussion. We read in verse 13 of Acts chapter 15, and after they had held their peace, James answers saying, men and brethren listen unto me. Simeon, that is Simon Peter, has declared how God at the first, or for the first time, will visit the Gentiles to take out of them a paper for his name, and to this agree the word to the public as it is written. After this, I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down, and I will build again the ruins thereof, and will set it up that the remainder of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord with force, all these things. Let's strengthen chapter 15. Let's strengthen the 15th chapter, where we read verses 51 and 52. Let's strengthen 1551. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, from the thinking of an eye at the last moment. For the trumpets shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. Philippians chapter 3. Let's go a little farther over. Philippians the third chapter, verse 21. When we run, change the word conversation to citizenship or commonwealth. This word here comes from the word that has to do with our connections, and our interests, and our concerns. What he's saying is that there are a lot of earth in heaven, and our citizenship is in heaven. Let's also look for the Savior. For Lord Jesus Christ, we shall change our body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the written, whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. One more passage in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. 1 Thessalonians the fourth chapter, and the 13th verse. I will not have you to be uninformed, brethren, concerning those who are lying asleep, that you shall not even as others who have no hope. But if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so then also with sleep and Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not receive or go ahead of those who are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, the birth of the archangel, and with a purple cross, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be called up to gather with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. Now, this morning, with the help of God, we would like to speak on the subject we have announced in the local paper, the rapture of the church. When we speak of the rapture of the church, it has to do with what I personally am firmly persuaded of, that there is to be a secret and a private coming of the Lord Jesus Christ through the air to receive his almighty little son. And, this what we should call the rapture of the church is not so much the coming of the Lord as I feel, and this is something I just noticed recently, not so much the coming of the Lord but I'm willing to be with you. I've just discovered this recent, and I'd like to share it with you, that when you speak of the coming of the Lord in the general shape of the world, and its use is throughout the New Testament, it has to do almost without an exception to the time when the Lord Jesus will come back to the earth to put his enemies down under his feet, as he said of Beirut. That's the coming of the Lord from the word that means his coming present with us here on the earth. But, the distinction between the revelation of Christ and the rapture, the emphasis here is not so much upon his coming, but upon the blessed Christ as wherefore he goes and be with him. He comes here, dear friends, as we will hear, to receive his own living within himself, to take the leave of us, as we read here in this passage, where God has received Jesus Christ as savior. Does he live on the same footpath over here with people who are good servants and best tithes, and who are good, moral, righteous people who have never been born again? Or, rather, you are living here on this side of the road that presents the face and moral side of life? Well, it doesn't matter if you have entered into this door and received the Lord Jesus to speak of that blessed event when Christ shall come, as we read right now in 1 Thessalonians 4. But, the shop of the book of the archangels and the book of God in order is this, that those who have died in Christ shall rise first. He noted this. We who are alive, and the seed of those who remain, have left us to those who are still living here when the Lord Jesus comes. So, we learn in our study of the subject of death that there is no difference between the bodies of saved and unsaved that they both will have the earth in which they came. The wonderful difference is that when a person dies having received Christ as savior, they shall be raised incorruptible to each other with the Lord. Then, those who are alive when Jesus comes, and those who have left us to heaven, will have died. Will I show you a mystery? We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in the moment and the places of the life, at the last trump of the trumpets shall sound when we read that the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. So, we learn that there are two things that are going to take place at the rapture. Number one, the dead, saved, those who have left us in Christ and have died before Jesus comes, are born to be raised and will be incorruptible body and both of us who are living shall be changed. I love that passage we read in Philippians, chapter three, that our citizenship, our coming up, our concern, our politics, our interests, our society is of a heavenly nature. Now, it doesn't mean that we are isolationists and have nothing at all whatever to do with the world. We didn't have to go out in the world all together, but what he's saying there is that our interests and our concerns, and the things about which we should be concerned and things which will involve should be basically, and first of all, of our heavenly nature. Our citizenship being in heaven from which we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall change our five bodies. Now, I tell you, it's absolutely astonishing to think that that one incorruptible corpse in the cemetery shall be raised and made into the likeness and image of the body of Jesus Christ. In John's first epistle in chapter three, John says, love it, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall be him as he is. And, apparently, the glorious truth of the Christian faith is that, ultimately, it conforms into the likeness of Jesus Christ. This is the answer to the problem in connection with Christian suffering. In Romans 8.28, we remember that verse that says, well, we know that God is working all things together for good for them that love him good, for them that are called according to his purpose, and then he gives us the purpose of his calling. Well, then we therefore know he can also predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, and can be conformed to the likeness of Christ as a gradual process that takes place while we're alive, but ultimately the confirmation of it takes place when we go to meet the Lord in the earth. Behold what man of love the father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God. And, it does not yet appear exactly what we're going to be like, but we know as much that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And, everyone who has this hope set upon him purifies himself even as he is pure. That's this brilliant thought that of being made like the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is coming to earth again, what if it were today? Coming in love and power to reign, what if it was again? Coming to take things chosen by all their redeemed and purified, bring them to the floor and lead our lives. Oh, that it will be so. Some glad morning, some sad morning. I think Jesus is coming again, and I'll tell you it's a blessed thing to know that you're saved by the grace of God, and that we are prepared to meet him when he does come. Now, there are simply three things we'd like to take up in connection with the doctrine of the rapture. First of all, the purpose of the rapture. Secondly, the proof of the rapture. And, thirdly, the participants who shall take place in the rapture when Jesus comes. Now, we know that passage in Acts chapter 15, because in that passage in just one, two, three, four verses, you have a time period recorded in your Bible that reaches from the day when Peter preached the first sermon ever preached to an exclusively Gentile audience, on to the time when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back after the great tribulation, at the revelation of Christ as Daniel's mighty, strong, mighty Gentile world power, and sets up his millennial kingdom and reigns for a thousand years. On a larger historically, in Acts 15 and verses 14, 15, 15, and 17, you have a period of time. I say again, cut, rave on, rave, two thousand years, and reaching on to the end of the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. It's wonderful how the Spirit of God deals us with insight into things that have come, and he tells us in this passage. Now, Peter says in the time of conscience they had to settle the problem of Jewish influence upon Gentile conversion, and while all the men at the conference they had were safe, then James said, when I've heard you listen to me, now I've got something to say. Simon Peter has already told us how God, for the very first time, did visit the Gentiles at the house of Tenelius. What he's saying is that, at first, but for the first time, God visited the Gentiles. At Pentecost, in the opening chapter of the book of the Acts, the message was strictly refused and Jews believed, but there when the Jews believed, they were brought into what is known as the body of Christ, the church of God. In the tenth chapter of the book of the Acts, the gospel is shared to a Gentile audience, and what was done by the Pentecostal effusion at the beginning of this age was delivered in a churchly form for the Gentiles. It now seems to be done in the tenth chapter of the book of the Acts, and so James says, now brethren, Peter has already told us how God, for the first time, visited the Gentiles. Now, notice what he's doing. He read this to take out from among them a people for his name. So, that reminds us of what God is doing in the world today. Have you ever noticed how few Jewish converts you know? How many of them today know five Jewish believers, of course? Not a one of us, perhaps, but for every one Jewish believer in this present age, we find 10,000 Gentile converts. Now, the reason for that is not that God has not opened salvation to Jew and Gentile alike, but God is doing one thing basically today. That's why the church found out that today is composed of Gentiles, because God is taking out from among the Gentiles a people for his name. So, he says to James in the book of Acts, after this I will return, and James says, now brethren, this is what the prophet taught us in the Old Testament, and he says, after this I will. After what? After God finishes the work he's doing of taking out from among the Gentiles a people for his name, it is as to the last Gentile believer or Jew, whoever it may be, turns to Christ to prove to that complete number known only to God, and then the last member of the party, Christ, is added to the building through faith in Jesus Christ. He says, I will return, and no, I will build again the tabernacle of David which is falling down. The tabernacle of David is a reference to the dispersion of the nation of Israel, but rallying at this wall the fact that God has scattered the Jews all over the world as a result of the ejection of Christ. But now, he says, after I take these people out, after I've done this work of claiming sinners, then he says, I will return, and after that he is going to rebuild the tabernacle of David that speaks of the restoration of the nation of Israel, and then notice these interesting words. I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up that the remainder of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called. When you read it in the Prophecy of Jerome, it leads us that when Jesus rose for a thousand years upon the earth, that Gentile nations would say, "'Come, let us work with the ruminants there, and then teach us the ways of the Lord.'" What a marvelous prophecy here in Acts 15. It teaches us that God is doing one thing in the world today, saving sinners by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. Now, one of my friends, is this ever really accepted in him? Have you ever really understood the truth of this simple verse? "'I am the girl by me, and in her is where ye shall be saved,' just as the girl you have in your home lets you from the outside in, so the Lord Jesus is not upon the cross. When our sins upon him, his death satisfying the judgment of God against us, the ruminant sin that keeps us out of the presence of God, thus the Lord in his death and resurrection becomes a girl, and that's the end of the presence of God.'" And, my dear friend, I wonder if you've ever really understood here. This is not the goal of the church, and the church is not the goal of heaven. Lord Jesus Christ is the goal. I am aware that he's in the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. Church members with their baptism and prayers, and works in money and wealth, are doing well and in order in their faith, but they have nothing to do with becoming a patriarch. We must simply trust the death of Jesus Christ, alone with his death, in the way that has been about saved. Whenever we do that, we have the weight of his son from heaven. That's what the Thessalonian believers did. Paul says, you know, wherever I go preaching, if I start to tell anybody, you know, the people like to say, I was in a certain seed and had a revival going, the Lord did a great, and I broke the canon somewhere else, and Paul said, well now, let me tell you folks what happened with Thessalonians. Well, you don't have to tell me anything about that. Well, we've heard about it already. It's all true. Yeah, the news is spread all throughout the church. All the Thessalonian people turned their guard from idols to serve the living and true God, and the weight of his son from heaven. That's it. When we trust Christ as our Savior, we turn the guard from our idols and we serve the living and true God, and the weight of his son from heaven. Now, putting it very clearly, the purpose of the lecture is for the confirmation of the work that God is doing in the world today. After he has taken out from among the ten thousand people of his age, I will return. The purpose of the lecture is to complete the work that must be done by the teachers of the gospel, and it is peculiar to us ten thousand ages from God and human occurrence, and those of living strength. Let it be true, ten thousand years well up, lack of life. There's only one body, and the head of Jesus Christ in heaven. He died for us upon the cross. The body has many members, but there's only one body and only one head, and that's all that God is doing in the world today. Now, this, the completion of it, is when the Lord comes to the air, and with the ascending shout from the voice of the archangel, dead believers shall rise first, living believers shall be saved, and all the believers shall go up to lift the Lord in the air. That is the purpose of the lesson, the purpose of the lesson. Now, the proof of the rest, and we need to go into this, because there are some people who do not believe there'll be a rush. They must never go on preaching things that really thrill our souls and our spleen, and everybody thinks it's exactly like they do, because they don't. And, there are some sincere people in the world today who do not believe there'll be a secret coming of Christ. There are plenty of good Christian men today who see that the coming of the Lord is one event, but at that time he simply comes back and everything is done in a moment of time right then. And, there are others, as I firmly believe, that accept the doctrine of the lesson. Now, notice this. You see these words right here on the chart, the letter? They give a little count, but don't look for it in your Bible, because the word is not in there. And, say, don't look for trinity in your Bible, because the word trinity is not in the Bible. And yet, I'm sure that most of you here believe that God is a trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Don't look for the word substitution in the Bible, because that word is not in there. But, the doctrine of substitution is the fact that when we trust in Christ, we can say, thank God his death was substitutionary. It was my death that Jesus died, but the word itself is not in there. So, let us remember this. Those of you who are believers should know, and I trust we all do, that you're going to have to find the doctrine specifically made in order to get it out of the word of God. Now, the word that is not in the Bible, but the doctrine is in 1 Thessalonians 4. I want you to notice this. May these words be read together. In verse 16, "'For the Lord himself shall be sent from heaven to the south for the worship of the archangel and of the prophet God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.' Now, notice first particularly, very carefully, verse 17. "'Then we who are alive and remain until the Lord comes, we shall be caught up.'" Underline those two words, "'caught up.'" First, we shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Let me tell you one thing I have noticed, and I have learned that value as a study of words, because here, right here, is the single strongest passage in the entire Bible regarding the doctrine of a secret coming of Christ to the air. That book is known as the rapture. The word itself, you can read the dictionary, you most likely find, gives a definition something like this. The word rapture has to do with a thought that comes, something that is wonderful and beautiful, breathtaking, something ecstatic, happening in a split second of time, to be rapturously overcome with joy as the gift of one's eternal promise. Isn't that a rapturous experience? As long as I think that our connotations were rapturous, it means to be caught up in a moment, in a moment of ecstatic joy or thrill. Now, if you look at the word this way, and it says here that we who are alive and remain shall be caught up. Now, to me, if you confuse or try to make this a page in the first section of chapter four, so if you try to make this contentment real, or if you try to reconcile it, if you try to reconcile this time when the saints were brought up into the air, then remember all of the scriptures I've had to include in Jesus' teaching and the promise. If you try to reconcile this again with the first Thessalonians 4, through that time the Lord speaks of in the August discourse, when the Lord said, "...fear the one whom his holy hands have enclosed." If you try and confuse it with this scripture in 2 Thessalonians, it's mentioned with the revelation and the day of life, when the Lord said, "...come back from heaven with all of his mighty angels and flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, but have made up the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." If you try to confuse that with this experience that I'm going to have, I don't know whether you're going to grow up, but I'm going to have it. Whether you believe it or not, it murders, Lord, it's killing, and it's cruel. Jesus says in John's Gospel chapter 14, "...if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself." And, this is what he's talking about. Although the rapture is not mentioned in the full gospel, the truth is prophetic, as suggested in John's gospel, "...and I will come again and receive you unto myself." So, this event here, dear friends, has to do with we shall be caught up. It's the same thing he said to the Apostle Paul, in verse 15. In a moment, in the pit of the lie, the world comes near. See, we shall be changed in a moment. Wait a minute. Yes, I want to call your attention to this, that this word here, the root comes from the word kotak, which is a Greek verb, and the force of the word stands there for the thought of a force that has suddenly emerged to be called away, to be literally zipped out at a moment of time. It's just like if you were walking along some day down the street, and some unseen force would take you by the hair and the head, and zip you up the earth, as we receive from the inside what we receive from the outside. That's the force of this word. We are alive and remain so. We're caught up. Caught up. Now, in the interpretation of this passage here, and this word, remember that the bluster of the rapture may cease to come and rest upon this passage right here, and the other places the word is used in the text. Now, this identical Greek verb to which comes the word kotak, in relation to the experience of the urban mind that we're taken by the grace of God, is used some five times in the text. Now, if you wonder what a word means in the bible, please don't go to Western Dictionary, because you'll find, most likely, that what is meaning of bible word comes out the bible. So, why not go right straight to the holy book? Now, if I say that very precisely, it's a way to understand the meaning of the word, is to see how the spirit of God uses it. And, again, I don't know if you've ever thought of it or not, but that's the way Mr. Gentry got his definitions written down in the dictionary. He didn't write all his words down and say, this means this, and this means this. He wrote them down because of the way people use them, and that's how he left the meaning. That's how he had the dictionary. So, why go to the dictionary? The bible is an interpreter, and if the spirit of God uses this word in other places, then you'll understand what this means, since it was called out. All right, follow me carefully, and I'm not going to let you turn to me, but in the eighth chapter of the book of the Acts, we fill up the three-tenth scenario, and the Lord interrupts the city-wide campaign where he says, remember, for death, we'll go down into the desert. Well, he's got a job for it. He goes down his tent, and every day he goes down into the desert, and he thinks he's very lonely. He wonders what in the world the Lord wants him to do down here. He's a child of God, and he's gone to Europe, and he sees a man lying in a chair. He's a black man, loudly opposed to death, and he's sitting in his chair reading a school from an Old Testament publicate called Isaiah. But, he has a problem because it speaks about a man who was being smitten, and stricken, and wounded, and afflicted with God, and this man says, you heard what he's talking about. Is this an experience he had, or is it something that happened to somebody else? And, the Lord says to Philip, Philip was doing this after that charity. Philip was paddling off across the desert, and he ran along the side of the track and looked up at this fellow, and he said, hey, do you understand what this means? And, this man looked at Philip and said, how can I? Philip came out and explained it to him, and Philip jumped up in his chair. Now, what about the philip? Notice this, he says, opening the scriptures, opening his mouth, rather, he speaks to this man from the third passage, peace unto him, Jesus. Okay? Okay, he's going along, and then this man believes the message, and starts crying, and as he's going along, he's telling the whole world. And, that really wasn't how he was, he was a brother, and the world had to look down in it, because again, it said, look Philip, you're a good brother. He said, I appreciate you leading me to Christ, and I know I'm saved by the grace of God, and now I want to be baptized. I want to go down into the world again, down into the world again, come up out of the world again. I want to physically set forth in a public confession that experience which I've had spiritually. This is baptism. I've been to the meeting with Jesus Christ, where he tells his journey of resurrection. You see the very heart of the gospel of these facts, that when you touch Christ as your Savior, you die with Christ. He will burn, he will breathe with the Lord Jesus. He said that's all. And so, the eunuch believed this, knocked the chair, and then Philip went down into the water, and he said he baptized him, and straightway, when he came up out of the water, it said that the Spirit of the Lord pulled away Philip, and the eunuch saw it all. I can imagine if your man said, look at it again, brother Philip, I want to thank you for leading me to the Lord Jesus, and he started to shake hands with him, and he's gone. Now, here's the second use of this verb, is it keeps leading. Here it's caught up, there it's caught away. But, it's the same thing. They might enter the world. Now, two times in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, the Paul refers to a man who died about fourteen years ago, whether in the body or out, whether he was alive or dead. I don't know, the Lord knows. Our second one was caught up. So, the third heaven, what is the paradise? The same words called up right here, and then no more in the book of the Revelation in chapter 12, when we have a picture of the birth of the Lord Jesus and the prophetic forces and the devil himself. There was a woman who was ready to deliver the manchild of the Lord Jesus, believe that the Lord came to destroy him, and leave that the earth shall not be lifted, but it lifted that the heaven caught up. And, there is the other use. So, you see, every time this word is used in the New Testament, you learn by these other historical references, you see a scene, you see action, you see a man out in the desert being sexed away, you see a baby being brought up to heaven, and you see just now just what this word means. And, that's why I believe it to be us, Jesus coming, when Christ is coming to the earth, with a voice of providence, prompt, and the voice of the archangel, again in Christ shall rise first, and leave it alive for the whole time. And, that is the doctrine of the rapture. Now, I say again that the others are going to believe it, but that is their prism. Now, those who think we've got to go through the tribulations, and now those who think this and think that, but firstly, I like what Brother John Bernholz said on one occasion, that if any of you here that believe that stuff, I hope I'm standing right beside you when Jesus comes, and you don't know any better. You're going to go where you want to go and on the way up to the desert, I'm going to set the thing in place that I told you about. I told you so, Brother, I told you so. And, I hope, bless God, if you don't believe this, and you're a Christian, I hope I'm with you when he comes. And, I'm going to grab you around the neck and hug you real good, and I say, Brother, look what you've been missing all your Christian life, looking for the tribulation, and all you're supposed to be looking for is the sons in heaven. Looking for God's sons in heaven. That's the prospect of deliverance. All right, now, who's in case one? 15, 13, and chapter 15. Now, this is vitally important. Now, 10 is wise. In connection with the wrath of the church, there is a resurrection. In connection with the judgment of the great white throne, there is a resurrection. But, in connection with the judgment of the nations, there is no resurrection. This is the judgment of living nations. Perhaps one of the most confused things in America today is the confusing of the doctrine of resurrection and judgment. But, notice that there is a resurrection in connection with this, so this does away immediately with the belief that when the sheep and the goats stand before the Lord, that they have judgment of heaven when they have slain the Lord. What's in it for me just a moment? Look here very carefully. This book here, you can test it in either Bible. There is not one verse in the entire Bible, not one verse in the entire Bible has ever said that there's forgiveness of sin. As far as the penalty of misdemeanor is concerned, it's something that takes place in a future day. Eternal life is always something in the present or in the past tense when it comes to being in the very instant. You take the original revised text of Ephesians 2 and 8 for migration, you have been saved, you say, but that's exactly the way the original text reads. For if you trust Jesus Christ right now, seven and a half minutes to twelve, at eight minutes to twelve, you will have been saved by the grace of God. It's in the past tense. So, please believe that God in your head received the judgment of the nations, and the goats on the left and the sheep on the right will give you that way. The bad will teach you to go away to heaven, you know. There'd be that way to build you a boat to go away into hell. There's nothing like that in the Bible. Now, just notice very clearly in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Now, we have seen the purpose of the rapture is the confirmation of the work that God is doing, the building of a church not made of bricks and stones and fused with stained glass windows and carpets and so on, but a church made up of it in stone that believes on Jesus Christ. All right? And then, the proof of the rapture is this fact that we shall be caught up in the consideration of the word that substantiates our belief in this doctrine. Now, who shall take place? Who shall take part, rather, in this rapture when Jesus comes? Verse 22 of 1 Corinthians 15, whereas in Adam or God, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. There, again, you have the doctrine of original sin, the following two consequences of the one act of disobedience on the part of Adam, and the one act of obedience on the part of Christ. As the sin of Adam brought death to the human family, so the obedience of Christ brings resurrection. First of all, listen, even as in Adam all was put into a place of spiritual death, even in Jesus Christ shall all be raised from the dead. He that ascends to the deathly seat of Christ as Christian, which is our subject in 6.30. In the evening, for the sake of the protection of everybody's soul as sinners, will be cast into the lake of fire. As in Adam or God, but even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But, notice, definitely, verse 23, but every man in his own honor, Christ the first-born, absolute Savior of Christ, hath his coming. Oh, thank God! Underlying these words, hey, there are Christ's friends at his coming. You know, I've read a lot of books, and the more I read books, the more I thank God for the Bible. It must have been Mr. Churchill who was giving credit for this. He never ceased to marvel and praise God for the light that his Bible showed from the commentaries he had in his library. So, I can reach up on my shelf and pull out a commentary, and a man shall give that commentary and some of the things that God got me to have in the figuration will get cleaned up when they'll be fit to go to hell. I can find a man that shall look long enough in his commentary and say that Jesus don't come until after the figuration is complete. He'll look hard enough and find some that say, well, sometimes at the end of a thousand years, we're in the right. We're in it right now. We're going to bring Jesus to earth by preaching the gospel, and Jesus, I'll tell you this, for me it's confused, just confused, but you know what I think about the Bible? It unconscionably does that. And, you know, I don't have to write a C.H.O. Book Catalog section to do it. Just burn an arch tape, look up, save that price, and it comes. And, you know, I'll put Mark in my Bible, if you'd like to steal my notes from me. I don't know who I stole them from. I've got notes of myself and others that I read, some others from the Lord direct things off, but then it's not original, I'm sure. The two things I learned in learning my Bible from this statement, I said, number one, when Jesus Christ comes, all of it's only going to go to Jesus Christ. Number two, who he is, though, Jesus Christ. Ready? I'm not telling you off. That makes me tremble to think of the good people I know. That makes me tremble to think of the good religious people I know that used to give me good advice when I was a sinner on my way to hell, and one of them tried to get me to quit drinking and cussing and gambling and straighten up and be a helpful man anyway. I was a disgrace to my neighborhood, my wife, and my children, and he just gave me advice, advice, advice, and the poor fellow got so tired of giving me advice, he just took the gun and blew his brain out. My dictate I tell you, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not good advice, it's good news. Well, bless your heart, there's no more now than you can live up to. You don't need to know anything. You need to know him. You need to know the Lord Jesus for your sake, for your sake, for the Christ that is coming. Isn't that simple? You know what that tells me? It tells me that a person can live a life 95 years long, never swear, never drink, never smoke, never steal, never lie, and all the others have been cheated, have been broke, so unless you belong to Christ, ain't no Christ. That's true. Isn't that true? So much the life you live. And the last thing you have to have in this business, unless you belong to the Lord Jesus. Are you here? You say, well, how do I become here? Well, let me give it to you very quickly. Seven times, listen, seven times in the 17th chapter of the gospel of John, you read that those who are saved by the grace of God, listen, are a gift of the Father to the Son. Now, there are two objects in the Bible. John 3, 16, God's beloved world, the game has only become so. Who's ever believed that it's so barbaric to have everlasting life? God always expresses love by giving, and in order to prove God that he loved us, he gave his Son for us to receive in our savior. Is that it? Yes. When God wants to prove his love to the Son, he's got to give him something, too. But, to have to give it in song of God to the children of the world, to prove his love for his Son, it goes right around. And, every time he finds a poor old fellow in need of help, and willing to believe and receive Jesus Christ, he sets him up, and he's a gift, that one to the Lord Jesus. And, the next thing, the next thing he gives, that one to the Lord Jesus. And, there's his love as a gift of the Father to his Son, and Jesus said, that all that you have given me, I have lost none except the that the strictest might be, poor fellow. And, he said, this is the will of the Father, who came into the world to do the will of the Father. This is the will of him that has set me, that everyone that sees the Son and believes on him should have everlasting life, and I will raise him up. I believe it. Oh, my dear friend, look. Testament, you get to be his. First, Jesus Christ is your savior today, sinner. You know you need to be saved. You know you do, and you need to do it today, and to do it with Jesus Christ. And, look, oh my friend, I'm not, you're not telling me lies. People, I've never tried to scare you in my life. I just tell you lovingly and tenderly, you're downright right, you're going to hell for that. I'm not trying to scare you, that's a fact, but I'm telling you another fact. Listen, listen, you may be a sinner to be saved, you may hope to be saved, but if Jesus tells a sinner, a sinner will hope that he'll never be saved. Is that clear? Because only those that are going in Jesus' time are those that belong to him. That's what I wrote for you today. You know, I heard a story a minute ago, I have to tell you. I heard a story a number of years ago about a man, and I remember back in those days, I remember when when he's dead, the tremendous, uh, silk dog, Waldo, took me, you know, and we used to sell him. Hey, Lotus, don't know if he'll change into the Japanese, but she passed out a few years later. Apparently, he multiplied thousands of acres of rusting, walking, metal, no market for it, and that's when the war started. His story told of a man who had a tremendous amount of this stuff, and he discovered that he had in it some valuable material, useful in the war effort, but he began to try to figure out how to get companies from the And, the only thing he thought about made it prohibitive to go to the pro, involved with taking all the profit away. Whatever miracle bucks and dollars are involved with the Waldo's Channel and American Indian community, and the story goes, but there's a proof of it, that the story's supposed to be true, that he actually came up with this idea. He had in a tremendously huge and powerful magnet, made of six or eight pieces of metal, that was large enough to pull anything out of anywhere, that would attract all the specific kind of metal that he wanted to excavate from all the places where he was located. He wrote this all off, even at the end of a full page, and went throughout his man's churchyard in his home, passed through there with a toxic game guard, and everywhere he went, he would hold that magnet right down at the closest point to the highest spot in that particular location, and the story goes, you hear some rustling and rambling, and you hear a rippling and jumping up here, and up there, and a piece of precious metal, because the magnet was drawing it, and here a piece, and here a piece, and after all the precious metal was going down, there was a mass of rotting, choking existence. When I heard that story, I said, what a picture of the coming of Jesus Christ. When the Lord himself shall come into the air, with the voice of the archangel, the ascending prophet of God, and only those who have the spirit of God living in them will be able to respond to the prophet of Jesus, and be ascended and shot, and all of you responded to that verse, we have the same life of the Lord Jesus in town. And you see right there, if Christ comes today, if he would have come right now, right now he could, I don't know who's saved here, but I'm afraid, but as we look, maybe some down here, one, two, three sinners sitting here, maybe two or three or four on this side, maybe some man that's been wanting to be saved, you know you should, maybe some young person, you know you've never really been saved, and you see he would have come today, right this minute, all the same people are still in the grove, and you think of all the baptized religious in the form of unsaved sinners that are church members, and good, and sweet, and kind, the faithful of the church that will be left. Why? Because only the Savior of Christ and his coming are going to go. So, my friend, let me pray, ask yourself this question, do I belong to Jesus Christ? I lift me up, I shook the preacher's hand, and I told the church to send the power of death to our eyes, but oh, do I belong to Jesus Christ? I don't want to be left behind any time, and my friend, if you know you belong to him, you know the truth of that, but if it's going down in your mind that you really belong to him, you ought to get excited to go. So, we say, Father, we thank thee for thy word, and we cast ourselves upon thee, not forgetting the power of Satan, Father, to blind the minds and the hearts of unbelievers. We think of the prospect of the coming of the Lord Jesus, and some of our precious friends, unsaved, whom we've come to know and love for so many years, not being left behind as if we were offered tribulation. Eventually, we cast it in the lake of fire, Father. Oh, God, we pray, break the power of Satan over the lives, and give the freedom now to come to Jesus Christ. We ask it in his name. Amen. Now, we're going to stand and sing this one verse. This will conclude our service, so that we can get our best shake with Sergeant O'Brunnick, that well-known hymn, just as I am, that I've once played. We're going to sing the first verse standing. This will be an opportunity for you to come in public to receive Jesus Christ. If you don't want to come out and sing and sing, come after the meeting is over, and let us take the Bible, and help you to know your faith. That will conclude our service. God bless you.