(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Man, James chapter 5, the part that I want to focus on is starting there in verse number 7 where the Bible reads, be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord. That's the title of the sermon tonight. Be patient unto the coming of the Lord. Of course we're talking about the second coming of Jesus Christ. Be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husband man waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord, draweth nigh. And what the Bible is saying here is that just as a farmer would plant crops and then he patiently waits for the harvest, he's excited about it. He wants the harvest to come. He wants to bring in that increase into the barn and he's waiting patiently but he doesn't want to get out there and start prematurely harvesting things, right? He's got to be patient and wait for it. Why? Because there's nothing he can do to make it go faster. There's nothing he can do to change the course of nature. The seasons are on a certain cycle. Plants take a certain amount of time to germinate and just by staring at it and wishing for it to happen faster, it's not going to happen any faster. It's going to happen at the appointed time and the Bible is saying, you know, in the same way you need to be patient unto the coming of the Lord. It's not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father had put in his own power, right? It's up to God. It's an appointed time. It's a set time. It's none of our business. No man knoweth the day or the hour. We don't know when it is. There's nothing we can do to change it. There's nothing we can do to speed it up or slow it down. Rather, we need to patiently wait for it. In the meantime, we work just as the farmer does his work. He tends the crops. He works in the field until the time appointed comes. It says in verse 8, be also patient, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Now, what does it mean to draw nigh? It means that it's getting closer every day. We are getting closer to the second coming of Christ, but that does not mean that it's about to happen. That doesn't mean that it's even going to happen in our lifetime. But it's drawing near. It's in God's hand. We need to be patient and we need to establish our hearts. What does that mean to establish our hearts? Well, the opposite of having an established heart would be a heart that's being tossed to and fro or a heart that is being troubled or shaken or that's anxious. Just chill out and relax and be patient under the coming of the Lord. That is what the Bible is saying. Now just go a few pages to the right in your Bible to 2 Peter chapter 3. James told us in chapter 5, be patient under the coming of the Lord. Look at 2 Peter chapter number 3 and the Bible says in verse number 3, knowing this verse that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. So they're going to be people who mock and ridicule the word of God, the second coming of Christ, and they say, hey, where is it? Why hasn't it happened yet, right? Because they're not understanding the need for patience and that it's going to be a long time. What does the Bible say? In verse 5, this they willingly are ignorant of that by the word of God, the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished. So he's talking about God destroying the world in the days of Noah with a flood. But verse 7, the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. And so we see here that God's timeline is stretched out over a large scale. I mean look how long it took for the first coming of Christ to happen. I mean they sinned in the Garden of Eden and God is promising them that the seed of the woman is going to bruise the serpent's head and so we have the first prophecy about Christ coming to this earth to die on the cross for our sins and we have that all the way back in Genesis 3.15 and then how long do we have to wait for that? Thousands and thousands and thousands of years, several thousand years, right? And then even by the time we get to Abraham and we have more prophecies about the coming of Christ because of course the gospel was preached to Abraham and that in him all nations would be blessed, all families of the earth be blessed through the seed of Abraham which is Jesus Christ. But we had to wait another two thousand years, right? So already we have over, you know, two thousand years, well over two thousand years just to get to Abraham, another two thousand years to get to Christ. I mean we're talking well over four thousand years for the first coming of Christ to happen from when it was first promised, right? God is on a very large time scale. We live the short lifespan of seventy, eighty years, maybe we might live to be ninety or a hundred, God willing, maybe even a hundred and ten but you know a hundred and twenty it's just not happening. And you know what? God is dealing in thousands of years because for him a thousand years is like a day, a day is like a thousand years. He has no trouble with patience because he doesn't experience time the way that we do. He dwells outside of time, he transcends time, he knows the end from the beginning and for him a day is like a thousand years, thousand years like a day and this is already implying back in the first century A.D. when second Peter is being written that hey the second coming of Christ might not happen for a few thousand years, right? And for God that's going to be like a couple days and so we need to be patient. Now why is this such a long process? Why didn't Christ just return in the first century A.D.? I mean he destroyed the temple, right? He sent those armies of the Romans to destroy the temple. He decimated the nation of Israel, completely annihilated the nation of Israel by the second century A.D. and you know why didn't he just return and set up his kingdom? Why the wait? Why are we here two thousand years later still patiently waiting for the second coming of Christ? Why might it even not be many decades from now or centuries from now? We have no idea when it's going to be. Why? Why? Well the Bible tells us right here, look at verse number nine, the Lord's not slack concerning his promise. It's not that he's just reneging on his promise to return. He's not slack concerning his promise. He's not procrastinating and putting it off and you know just waiting. No he is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness but is long suffering to us, word, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. What's the point in waiting to come back is that more people are being saved constantly. As time goes on the gospel is going around the world. More and more people are being saved and so he is long suffering to us, word. He's waiting. Why? Because he's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. So he's giving more and more people a chance to be saved and every day goes by, hopefully we're winning more people to Christ. That's the idea. And then it says in verse 10, but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved. What manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God wherein the heavens being on fire should be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. So he's saying, look, this is something that we are expecting, we're looking for and we are inexorably moving toward it. It is drawing nigh. We are hastening toward it as a world. And it says, nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth where indwell with righteousness, meaning we're okay with God destroying anything that he wants to destroy. We're not like, no God, don't burn those trees because we understand that God can make all things new. God's going to restore all things. So if he ends up torching some nature and torching wildlife and just, you know, killing one third of the sea life and just destroying species by the sward in the ocean and on land, you know, we understand that, hey, these things need to come to pass. He can make all things new. He's going to restore all things. We're looking for new heaven and a new earth. We understand that everything here is eventually going to be gone. It's all temporary. It's all going to be burned up because we're looking for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Therefore beloved, seeing that you look for such things, you know, because you're expecting these things, you're looking forward to these things. Be diligent that you may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless. So you say, look, while you're waiting, make sure that you're living your life the way that you're supposed to be living, right? Jesus said, occupy till I come. That's like our word occupation, right? Stay busy until I come be blameless and spotless. Live the life you're supposed to live. Do the work you're supposed to do. And then I don't want you to miss the beginning of verse 15. This is such a great statement here. An account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation, right? What's the point of the waiting? He's long suffering, not willing that any should perish. The long suffering is salvation accounted as of it. It's the point is for more people to be saved for us to reach more people. That's the point. I mean, just think about our church alone. And obviously there's so many other thousands of Bible believing churches out there and so many other millions of Bible believing saved evangelical Christians out there in this world. And they're also winning people to Christ and they're also serving God and they have their own walk with God. But you know, obviously let's just talk about our church because we're here. It's us. Let's talk about our church. You know, when our church first started, how many souls were winning to Christ? Obviously the church started out as tiny and we weren't really winning that many souls to Christ because there just wasn't a whole lot of manpower. But then as the years go by and our church gets bigger and bigger, we're winning more and more souls to Christ. I mean, when I first started the church, the idea of knocking every door in the Phoenix area is kind of this, this big dream, this big idea, just millions of people. How can it happen? Now we're looking at the map and it's like, Oh yeah, I mean, we're kind of wrapping this thing up, just finishing up over here. I mean, because we just have so much manpower. And so wouldn't you say that it's kind of good just thinking about the perspective of Phoenix, this area, these people, isn't it kind of good that Christ didn't return like 12 years ago before we had a chance to evangelize our whole area? You know, and I'd kind of like to finish the whole thing and it'd be kind of nice for the people whose doors we haven't knocked yet, the souls that we haven't won to Christ yet, the souls that are going to get saved next week and the week after. And you know, hopefully our church can even do greater works in the future. But even if we just kept going at the current rate, I mean, we're talking thousands and thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of people that are going to be saved just in the next decade, God willing, if he allows us to continue the work that we're doing. And so the long suffering of our Lord is salvation. It makes sense to let us do more and to get it done. And obviously it's not just about us, but I'm just showing you kind of the zoomed in of one church. And the point is that that's supposed to be what's happening in all the churches and in all the states and in all the countries. I mean, if everybody out there was doing what Faithful Word was doing, this would be really easy to understand. That yeah, you want to get all these people a chance. Now, here's the thing for the churches that are sitting on their duff doing nothing, they're just like, why doesn't he just come back because they're just sitting on their duff and getting nothing done. They're not winning anybody to Christ. And they're just watching the world go to hell around them. And they're just like, oh, you know, is the rapture going to be denied or what? Because how could the long suffering of our Lord be salvation if more and more people are going to hell every day? But in a church where we're constantly reaching tons of people with the gospel, then it makes sense that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation. I guess Peter and James are just expecting us to be doing work. And then it all makes sense. And so I feel like this mentality that is just dying for Christ to return tonight is a mentality that's not into doing a whole lot of work to win people to Christ. Sorry, but it just is. The Bible says we should be patient under the coming of the Lord. There's an appointed time of the Father. The long suffering of our Lord is salvation, right? He's not willing that any should perish. That's what the delay is about to give us a chance to evangelize this world again and again and to get the gospel out to so many people. So if you would to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Now of course most of our independent fundamentalist Baptist brethren have been sucked in by a wrong teaching called the pre-tribulation rapture. And the pre-tribulation rapture teaches that the next event on God's prophetic calendar is the rapture. That basically we're just going through our lives and then just boom, we're gone. No warning, nothing precedes it and it could happen tonight. It could happen before the service is even over. This is how they preach. This is what they believe. They believe that Christ's second coming is imminent and that it is before the tribulation which is the exact opposite of what Christ taught. Christ clearly taught that other things have to happen first and that the rapture will take place after the tribulation. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 is explicit in verse number 1. It says that we beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him. What are we talking about? We're talking about the rapture, right? Christ comes and we're gathered together unto him. And he beseeches us that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled. You know what that kind of sounds like? Stablish your hearts, what James said, right? Be patient therefore brethren under the coming of the Lord. Stablish your hearts. He says, don't be soon shaken in mind or be troubled neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us because you know you're never going to get a letter from us teaching you this. But he's saying you know somebody might write you a letter making it sound like it came from us or a fraudulent counterfeit letter might come claiming to be written by the apostle Paul. But he said don't let any spirit or word or letter as from us, seems like it came from us. He says, don't be shaken in mind as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first. He's saying look, the day of Christ is not at hand. Don't let people make you think that. Don't let people shake you up and stir you up and get you all worked up about the fact that Christ coming is at hand, it's happening, you know, look what's going on over in Palestine right now and Hamas and Israel and it's about to happen. Don't let anybody shake you in mind with that, it's baloney. The day of Christ is not at hand. Now look, I'll be honest, full disclosure, I have not read a single news article about what's going on between Israel and Hamas. I've not watched a single news report or read a single article. So you might say that I am not informed. I'm not even claiming to be informed, let me just come out and say it. I don't know what's going on over there, I have no idea, fighting, stuff, war, whatever. Maybe it's a big deal. Maybe it's a total nothing burger. I don't know because let's say it's a nothing burger, would it be the first time that the media pumped up and hyped up some big Jew Palestine thing that didn't really turn into anything big? I mean, it seems like my whole life these type of things, these big crisis in the Middle East, I mean, they probably just pull out those same graphics, hey, in the back, get out those crisis in the Middle East graphics, right? Because it's like, it's the most used graphic in their catalog. And so, like I said, I don't know because I don't follow it, not interested, I haven't been able to just work up enough interest, I tried to like work up enough interest to read an article and I even clicked on an article and I just immediately was just like, no, I just got sidetracked. It's like, eh, I'm going to do something else. I don't care. You know, I've been reading my Bible. I don't care about what's going on over there because it's not relevant to me or my life. You say, yeah, but the coming of Christ at hand, I already know that that's not true. I already know that it's not at hand. And if it gets bad enough, the memes will educate me, you know, and so until the memes deliver the truth of the situation onto me, it must not be that important. If it's really that intense, somebody will walk up to me in real life and give me the salient points, right? I shouldn't have to go looking for it. It will come find me when it becomes a big enough deal. See what I'm saying? And the only memes I'm seeing is just my Facebook feed is just flooded with all these wonderful Bible verses about how Israel's a fraud and how the Jews are no longer God's chosen people in the New Testament and all these verses about how you have to believe in Jesus to be God's people and how people reject Christ. They don't have the son or the father and I'm just like hurting my finger clicking like on them all. Okay. So full disclosure, I don't know what's going on over there, but I will say this, that no matter what is going on over there, it does not mean that Christ is about to return no matter what, because I know that there are these other things that have to happen first, right? What does the Bible say? It says that day shall not come except there come a falling away first and the man, that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition, right? The man of sin, the son of perdition, also known as the antichrist until the antichrist is revealed, Christ is not coming back. Yes. Guess what? The antichrist comes first, then the real Jesus Christ. That's the order. First there's the antichrist, then there's Jesus. You know, these people are like, bless God, I'm not waiting for the antichrist, I'm waiting for Jesus Christ. Basically what you're saying is just like, I'm ready to be deceived because if the actual order is antichrist, then Jesus saying that you're waiting for Jesus to come at any moment isn't something to brag about. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? I mean, think about it, if somebody told me, hey, listen, you know, uh, uh, your, your, your son's coming over for a visit, but first there's going to be a prank visit by someone pretending to be your son. And I'm just like, bless God, I'm not waiting for that prankster. I'm waiting for my real son. And then, and then, and what am I basically saying? I'm just prepping myself mentally to be deceived, to be scammed. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? It makes no sense. Okay, so first the man of sin is going to be revealed the son of perdition before the day of Christ. Okay. Before our gathering together unto him and the coming of Jesus Christ, it says that day should not come except to come a falling away first and the man of sin be revealed the son of perdition who oppose it and exalted themself above all that is called God or that is worshiped so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is God. Now the antichrist is going to enter into the temple and claim to be God. Now don't be confused here. Some people will be confused and say, well, it says the temple of God, so that must be a legitimate temple of God. Well, let me ask this, is the antichrist actually God, but what does the Bible say in this verse? He's going to show himself that he is God. Does that mean that he really is God? So is he really sitting in the temple of God? No. This is all what is being portrayed that he as God is sitting in the temple of God showing himself that he is God. He's not really God and he's not really in the temple of God. The whole thing's a fraud. Do we understand that? So don't, don't misread this and think, oh, that temple is a, is a legitimate temple of God. So then the man sitting in it really is God, right? This is all just what's being portrayed. And what's so funny about this is that there's this phony pastor out there called Greg Locke. Okay. And I mean, where do I even start with this guy? I mean the guy has left his wife for the secretary and you know, he's just gone full charismatic, full hakala gondola, tongue talking, faith healing, bark like a dog, all that craziness totally abandoned the gospel of Jesus Christ, salvation by faith alone, abandoned the King James Bible. I mean just way out there. Okay. And this guy, I saw a clip of him that was played for me at the conference where they played a clip of his preaching and he said, you know, those Israelis, they need to just turn Gaza into a parking lot and they need to just send a missile and just blow up that dome of the rock mosque. Let's get that mosque out of there so that we can build that third temple and usher in the second coming of Jesus Christ. Now here are some problems with that. Okay. Couple of problems. Number one, why would we want to murder 2 million Palestinians? Don't we want them to be saved? All these men, women and children, right? We're not just, hey, just kill them all and let God sort them out or something. Why? For what? Right? What did they do to Greg Luck? Where did they hurt you, Greg? Why are you so mad at these Palestinians because, oh, because they are fighting with the Jews. That fight has been going on for a long time. It's going to continue to go on for a long time and it's none of my business and I'm not interested because it's Muslims and Jews fighting. Neither one of them is a Christian. Neither one of them is God's people. God is not on either side. They're both against the Lord Jesus Christ. The Muslims are not for Christ. The Jews are not for Christ. Let them all be anathema and you want to know the answer is Jesus. What was the question? Right? Jesus is the answer. Here's the answer. Let's get Jews saved. Let's get them to believe on Jesus and then let's get Muslims saved. Let's get them to believe on Jesus. And I guarantee you that if we walk into a Baptist church and we have an ex-Muslim and an ex-Jew that are both Christians now, they're not trying to blow each other up anymore. Right? They could be friends now. You say, well, you know, yeah, that'd be great, but you know, well, but here, I'm not interested in any other solution. You know, I'm on this earth to preach the gospel. I'm on this earth to win people to Christ, not to get devil one and devil two to get along with each other or to help devil one defeat devil two or to help devil two defeat devil number one. That's not really my mission. It's not my problem. It's on the other side of the world. And you know, what about all the wars that are going on in Africa right now? Do they matter? Right? Well, they do matter to the people that live there. Right? But here's the thing. There are always wars going on, always going to be fighting. There's always going to be violence. We live in a sinful world and there's wickedness and sin and violence and murder and warfare, whether it's in Russia or Ukraine or Palestine or Israel or Africa or Asia, wherever it is. But you know what we need to focus on? The spiritual battle is what we need to focus on. So first of all, I'm not interested in seeing civilians murdered. I'm not interested in seeing, uh, the genocide of the Palestinian people or the, the, the turning of Gaza strip into a parking lot or something like that. Okay. But then he said, you know, Hey, we got to blow up that mosque. Like I, you know, I'll allow it. You know what I mean? Like if it, you know, if somebody wants to blow up that mosque, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to do it, but if somebody wants to blow up a mosque, obviously it's not right for Christians to be violent. But if God allows that to happen and it's God's will for Jews and Muslims to blow up each other's buildings, you know, then I'll allow it. If Muslims blow up synagogues and Jews blow up mosque, it's really not my problem. But you know what? Like those are, those buildings are an abomination anyway. Every mosque is an abomination. Not just that mosque would to God that every mosque would, would be burned to the ground. Would to God that every synagogue would be burned down. Look, again, I'm not saying that we should go out and burn them. And of course we never would cause we're not violent. We don't advocate violence. We would never promote that. We're not telling people it's good to go do it, go to, I'm sure someone will lie and say that that's what I said. But of course we don't want to initiate those activities, but if they happen, we'd just be kind of like eating popcorn and just kind of like, we kind of just like burn baby burn would be our attitude, right? Because it's just like, it's, it's, it's, it's a house of wickedness. It's an abomination to God. We don't want to see false religion succeed. We want to see them fail. I mean, look, what if there was an earthquake and a chasm opened and the Mormon temple and Mesa just like sunk into the earth in a great chasm? What would we think about that? We'd just be like, I mean, I mean, I'd celebrate. I'd say, all right, kids, we're going out for ice cream. You know, it's a great day today. So so, you know, we're going to blow up that mosque, get rid of that mosque, but he wants to get rid of the mosque. Why? Because it's a mosque. No, because he wants to see an equally abominable building built in its place. What's the point in blowing up a mosque if you're going to replace it with something even worse, the third temple, right? This is the temple of the antichrist. So it's like, yeah, yeah, let's get rid of that Muslim mosque, you know, and replace it with the third temple. It's like, what? So that way we can get the antichrist in there. It's like, well, let's just keep the mosque then. I mean, if that's what it's about, don't blow up the mosque. Let's keep it. Let's keep that mosque as long as we can. But oh, we got to usher in the second coming of Christ. Is it really our job to make Jesus come back? That's absurd, my friend. This is an appointed time. This is God's plan. The long suffering of our Lord is salvation. Why would you want to shorten up God's, if God's got a plan and it's all about long suffering, it's all about salvation, it's all about not wanting anyone to perish and then we're just going to try to rush it along or speed it up or something is if we even have that kind of power, which I don't believe that we do for one second. But even if we did, why would we want to? I'd rather just stick to whatever God's got planned and just let it happen in God's timing and I'm not interested in blowing up any mosques or synagogues. I'm just interested in preaching the gospel and getting people saved and I just want to be found faithful. I want to be found blameless. I want to be found doing the work of evangelizing this world when Christ returns. That's all I'm going to worry about. And you know, I think about the pre-trib mentality of a Greg Locke or the pre-trib mentality of the old IFB and so forth and I was kind of thinking about their attitude because they always have this attitude of like, oh please let it be tonight, oh please wouldn't it be so wonderful, oh I can't wait for him to come tonight. And I'm, you know, I never could quite relate to that feeling, I'm just being honest. I am just not just dying for Christ to come back tonight. Now here's the thing, am I looking forward to the second coming of Christ? Hey, when we all get to heaven, what a day, glorious day that will be. But does that mean I'm just like, let's just move it up to today? No I don't. And let me tell you why. And here's a good analogy for you that might help. Let's say we're at work, right, and we get off at five o'clock. Aren't we all kind of, in a sense, looking forward to five o'clock on Friday because I remember getting off at four, I got off at four o'clock when we were first married, I would get off at four o'clock and I remember just being so excited every Friday, four o'clock, I'm off work and I would come home and I was so hyper and I was just excited and I was fired up like woohoo, the weekend, you know, because when you're young, that's your attitude, that's your mentality. So I have to go back a ways to like find this mentality. But hey, I was excited about four o'clock. I'm looking forward to four o'clock, it's gonna be great, but here's what I didn't do, I didn't just at one o'clock just be like, oh man, I wish it was four o'clock right now, I just want it to be four o'clock right now, why can't it be right now? And hey, maybe something bad can happen, maybe something bad can happen, maybe there could be some power outage and we all go home early. Maybe we can get rained out and we won't be able to finish our work and then we all get to go home early. Wouldn't that be wonderful? And what would you say about a person who was constantly saying things like that and constantly thinking that way, thinking about how, you know, yeah, if something bad happens, but hey, at least we get off early. You would probably say this guy is lazy, his heart's not in the work and he's impatient. Look, four o'clock's coming, just wait until four o'clock, let's finish the job, let's finish our work and then let's legitimately go home at four o'clock and let's enjoy the weekend. Okay, but the pre-trib mentality is this attitude that just can't wait to get out of here. Now I don't know about you, I want to keep working until the whistle blows. You know, I want to work hard until the whistle blows and I'm not going to sit around just longing for that whistle to blow prematurely. I'm looking forward to it, I'm happy about it, I'm expecting it, but I'm not just dying for the whistle to blow so I don't have to work anymore. What kind of an attitude is that? And that's not what the Bible teaches anywhere, it just doesn't. Okay, we're supposed to be leaving that in God's hands and just working and serving and be found faithful. Yes, we're looking forward to it, yes, we're expecting it, yes, we believe it, yes, we're excited, yes, it's going to be great, but when it comes, we'll have the assurance of knowing, you know what, we did what we could. We did the work that God wanted us to do, we got it done, our shift is over, because I don't know about you, I wouldn't be that excited to go home at 1.30 on a Friday if I know that next week I'm going to have two and a half hours less on my paycheck. You know, back in those days, my wife and I were living paycheck to paycheck, man, getting off two and a half hours early would have been bad financially. That would have been money we didn't have. We were really cutting it that close in those days. And so, yeah, getting off at four is exciting because we're done, because it's the right time. Getting off at 1.30 is not cool, because then you didn't finish, because then you're not getting the full reward, you're not getting the full paycheck. Okay, so why don't you grow up, be mature, be patient, you know, you're like, you don't want to be like a kid that's waiting for his present on Christmas morning, but he just caged, he's got to open them on the 22nd. He's got to open them on the 23rd. No, no, no, you're going to open them on the 25th, you got to be patient, you got to wait. You know what's funny about this is that the pre-tribbers, and I've heard so many pre-trib preachers say this, I can't even count, this is not a straw man, because I've heard many of them say this, and any of you that have been in the old IV, you've probably heard it too. This is what they'll often say. You know, I don't know why these post-tribbers, these new IFB guys, I don't know why they want to stick around during the tribulation. You guys can stick around if you want, but I'm out of here. Who's heard that thing of, hey, if you want to stay, you can stay, but I'm leaving. I don't want to stay, I'm leaving. Now, here's what's so foolish about this, and for those who didn't see because you're maybe in the front row or something, it was like 70 people all over the building just put up their hand that they've heard that, so I'm not making this up. I've heard it a bunch of times. Here's what's so silly about this. First of all, what we want is totally not relevant, because it's not like we can just wish if we just click our heels together and wish hard enough, and if we truly believe, we can just make doctrine happen. It's either before or after the tribulation, and the Bible says it, and that's it. Our desire doesn't change anything, number one, but by saying this, what the pre-tribber is actually demonstrating is that he believes in the pre-trib rapture because that's what he wants to believe in, even by his own admission, even out of his own mouth, he's basically saying, this is what I want to believe because I don't want to be here, and then not only is he saying I don't want to be here for the tribulation, he's also basically saying I want it to even happen sooner because I don't even want to be here right now. I don't even want to be here next week. I want it to happen tonight. Why are you in such a hurry to get out of here? Why don't you just establish your heart and get some work done because the long suffering of our Lord is salvation. We should be really happy that we have this opportunity to win souls, and I wouldn't want that opportunity to be taken away from me. If I could just push a button right now, and all my troubles are over, all of life is over, and I'm just in heaven with Jesus, I'm not going to push that button. This isn't the Hale-Bopp cult here. What in the world kind of a mentality that just wants to just exit this earth so badly. I don't want to leave. Now look, if God wants me to leave tonight, let's go. I mean look, if it's God's will for me to die tonight, then I'll be glad to die tonight. If that's God's will, if that's God's plan, if that's what he wants, then I'm ready to go. I'm not going to complain about it. I'll happily go to heaven and be with Christ tonight. If that's what God wants to do, let's go. You know, I've lived the life that he wanted me to live, that's what matters. But here's the thing, if God's got more work for me to do, I want to stay here and do it as long as I possibly can. You know, and when the tribulation comes, if it happens in our lifetime, I want to be here for as much of it as possible just so I can keep doing more work for God. And you know, you want to know what I'm not going to do during the tribulation? I'm not going to be in a bunker. What's the point? I mean stop and think about it. Like Christ comes in the clouds after the tribulation and we're all going to be caught up together to be with Christ in heaven, right? In fact, Pastor Shelley and I, we were talking about this as we were joking around about this, how, you know, we were joking, what if, what if you were, you're in the tribulation and you're, you're just about to be executed, you know, and you're just about to be beheaded for Christ. And then the trumpet sounds, you know, and, and you're, you're literally raptured, like you're, you're literally like the last person that was about to be martyred and then boom, you know, you're caught up. You know, it's kind of like, well, I was almost martyred for Christ. You know, maybe you'd almost be like, man, I wish you could have waited like one more minute than I could have had the glory of martyrdom for all eternity. You know, I didn't even get to live any extra time and I missed out on being a martyr. I'm the almost martyr and people like, yeah, yeah, we were actually beheaded buddy. Yeah, but man, I was there, I was on the chalk back there like we actually got beheaded buddy. You know, I'm joking. Of course it was a joke, but the point is I'm saying that though to illustrate something that's not a joke, that at the end of the day, we're here on this earth to do work for the Lord. And so the desire to just get out of here so fast is basically a shirking of responsibility. It's a lack of zeal for what you're supposed to be on this earth doing that you just, you're just dying for it to be over. Why are you constantly talking that way? It's like the person who just can't stop talking about quitting time, right? Now look, obviously we should preach about the second coming of Christ. We should be excited about the second coming of Christ, but not in this way of let it be today. Please be today. I just got to go today. That's not biblical. The Bible says be patient, patiently wait for it, establish your heart, leave it in God's hands. It's not for you to know. Just occupy it. Look, he comes at an hour that you think not, you don't know when it's going to be. Just do your job, just work and whatever, but I'll tell you when it's not going to be. It's not going to be today and it's not going to be tomorrow. It's not going to be next week. It's not going to be six months from now. It's not going to be a year from now. It's not going to be two years from now. It's not going to be three years from now. How do I know that? Because first the tribulation has to happen and the man of sin has to be revealed and that is going to take at least three and a half years, a minimum of three and a half years. So it's going to be more than three and a half years from now. I can guarantee you that right now. I don't know when it's going to be. It could be a hundred years from now, 200 years from now, a thousand years from now or it could be four years from now. Maybe this really is the beginning of the end over there and maybe it isn't. Like I said, maybe after I read one or two articles, I might be able to speak a little more intelligently to that, but I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but you know, I'm not going to get worked up until I see the abomination of desolation. I mean there have been so many times throughout history where people probably were pretty sure this was it. World War One, I'll bet there were a lot of people in the French revolution that thought this is it. French revolution guillotine gets invented, right? In 1793, all of the changing of times and, and the atheism and things that were running rampant and uh, just the, you know, the, the, the, the, the overthrow of the present order, the Ancien Regime, you know, I bet people thought that that was the end. I'll bet people thought World War One was the end. I'll bet people thought World War Two was the end, right? And there's probably a lot of preaching. This is it. What's happening, right? And all throughout my life there have been events where people thought this is it. It's happening. I mean 9-11 people thought this is it, it's happening, you know, it's, this is going to be it. World War Three, it's starting, you know, that's just, you know, we don't know, but we shouldn't let any of these things shake us or move us or trouble us. We just need to focus on doing our job. And when the whistle blows, we go home. But this obsession with trying to rush that or let's hasten that and, and let's get the Antichrist installed so that we, I mean, why would you want to help install the Antichrist so that we can get sooner to Jesus Christ? I mean, it's, it's, it feels weird even saying that, but yet it's real. My friend, it's out there. I mean, remember Tex Mars tells that story in Marching Design about the woman who donates to the Temple Mount Foundation and lots of Christians donate to these things and, and, and Tex Mars told her, he said, you know, you know that that's where the Antichrist is going to sit and declare himself to be God in that temple. And she just said, well, you know, yeah, but I just feel like I'm helping fulfill Bible prophecy. Like why do you need to help fulfill Bible prophecy? Like God needs your help. He needs you to mail 20 bucks to Israel every month so that you can help fulfill Bible prophecy. It's like, all right guys, I mean, I can just see God up in heaven running some kind of a telethon. Hey, I'm trying to get the second coming done, but we just need a few more donations to Israel. You know, and if we can just, if we can just, if once the thermometer hits a certain level, once we get enough donations, you know, then we can stage a second coming. What absurdity. God doesn't need your help to fulfill Bible prophecy. This is how easy it is for God to fulfill Bible prophecy. When the Pharisees and the Jews told Christ to rebuke his disciples who were saying, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, the son of David, they told Jesus he should rebuke his followers. And he said, you know what? If these would be silent, then the stones would cry out. Now why did Jesus say that the stones would cry out? Because scripture is going to be fulfilled. The prophecies are going to come true. If God has to make the stones cry out, he'll get it done. He doesn't need us to help fulfill Bible prophecy by donating money to Jews or Israel or the Temple Mount Foundation or any of these organizations and, and Tex March said, yeah, you are helping fulfill Bible prophecy. You're helping bring in the antichrist, but that's nothing to be excited about or proud of. It's, it's, it's truly mind blowing, but this is the kind of preaching that people listen to in a lot of these Zionist pre-trib churches getting so excited about the antichrist. And then of course, part of it is because they think, oh, we're going to be gone for everything anyway. So, you know, so we're going to be beamed out before any of the gnarly stuff happens anyway. So yeah, they're just like, yeah, bring it on. They want to burn it all down and then just be like, see you suckers and just be out of here. First of all, that's not the way it's going to happen because we are going to be here for the tribulation. We're not going to be here for God pouring out his wrath. We believe in the post-tribulation pre-wrath rapture. I'm not going to take the time to explain that in this sermon, but you know, if you've seen our film after the tribulation or other sermons that I've done, they've explained that many times. But the thing is we are going to be here for persecution, affliction. We shall through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God as it says in Acts 14, 22. So we are going to go through those things if it happens in our lifetime. But even if they don't think we are, which they're wrong, but even if they don't think that we are, you know, why do they just want to get out of here so much? I want to stay and finish my work first and only when God drags me off of this job site, right? I want the boss to come to me and say, hey, it's quitting time. Grab your lunchbox. Let's go. We're done. We're down. I don't want to be the one quitting early. I want the boss to tell me that the day's over. When the boss says it's time to go, I'm going to be like, yes, weekend party, right? But I'm not going to be like, kind of like, oh, 4 59, let me start packing up. And it's like, whoa, what are you doing? We're working till five 30 today. Oh, no, man, because, because, because number one, I'm enjoying the work, right? I mean, we rejoice with joy, unspeakable and full of glory. Number two, the work is important. The long suffering of the Lord is salvation. We want to stay and get people saved and finish our work. Now, when God says it's time to go, of course we know that in his wisdom, yeah, it's time to go. We don't want to stay longer than, than he has planned. We're not trying to push, we're not trying to put in overtime, but we don't want to leave early either. Let's just do, let's just leave when he tells, when, when he says you're done, you're done. And until he says you're done, you're not done. And look, I hope that I can live to be an old, old man. I hope I'm still preaching in my nineties and serving God and preaching and serving the Lord. You know, I'm not just like, well, no, I just want to depart and go be with Christ. You know, Paul said that he wanted to depart and go be with Christ, but he said, nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all. He said, yeah, I'd love to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better, but to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. So Paul's not just like, get me out of here, let it be tonight. He's saying, no, no, no, I got to stay because I got to do the work. If you're work oriented, if you're soul winning oriented, if you're evangelism focused, you're thinking about how the long suffering of our Lord's salvation, not just get me out of here so I can be more comfortable in heaven, we're all going to be more comfortable in heaven, but we are going to be in heaven for a really long time. We just have this one chance on earth. Let's make the most of it. Let's get people saved. Let's do everything that we can with the short lives that we've been given and not be in such a hurry to just get out of here at all costs. And so when it comes to the pre tribulation rapture, look, and maybe you're here tonight and maybe you have been indoctrinated in this and you actually believe in a pre tribulation rapture. I wouldn't be shocked if someone in the auditorium has that background or believes in that, uh, you're wrong, but I'm not mad at you if that's what you believe. And here's the thing, you know, pastors that are out there that are wrong on this, that are pre trip, you know, they could still be godly men and they could still be doing great things for God and serving God. They've been deceived on this. They've been taught wrong. They've been misled. They're confused, whatever, but nobody's perfect, right? Maybe they're really great in other areas and they're just, they're wrong on that one thing, but they're really great in other areas. Okay. Everybody's got the strengths and weaknesses. Here's the thing about the preacher rapture. I'm not really that worried about it because these people are going to figure it out someday when it happens in their lifetime and they're not raptured and the tribulation starts. Well then yeah, it'll be a great big told you so moment, but I'm not going to gloat too much. I'm going to control that celebration, but here's the thing. I'm not really that worried about it because like I said, it's just, it's going to happen one way or the other and obviously we know that pre trip is not going to happen. There's zero chance of it happening because the Bible repeatedly says it's not going to happen. You're going to see when it happens that they're wrong. So is it really a huge deal? And here's the thing you say, well, yeah, but they're going to be tricked by the antichrist. No saved person is going to be deceived by the antichrist. Even if they're a pre tripper, if they're saved, they're not going to fall for the antichrist. Anybody who falls for the antichrist isn't saved, but a pre tripper could get confused, disillusioned. There could be a lot of just a crying and fetal position and stuff, you know, that could have been avoided, but here's the thing about that though. What bothers me about the preacher, perhaps it's not that I'm worried about the dangers of what it's going to do. These are the things that really bother me about the preacher rapture. Number one, the lack of understanding about how the long suffering of our Lord's salvation and how the longer we stay, the better it is for the lost because when we're removed, well, that doesn't bode well for the loss, does it? We want to stay to get the law saved. That mentality is confusing to me that just can't wait to just, you know, if you guys want to say, go, I'm out here. I do want to stay. I do want to be here just for the record. Yes, I want to be here until God takes me out of here. I'm glad to stay and I'm not going to be in a bunker. I'm going to be preaching the word of God and if that gets me beheaded, well then so it looks like somebody gets to go home early. Somebody's getting off work early today, right? That's all that means because for me to live is Christ and to die is gain, but the other thing that bothers me about the preacher rapture is just the utter disregard for what the Bible says. It just bothers me that people believe in something that's just so grossly unbiblical just really bothers me like, man, why don't you guys care what the Bible says? Why do you guys just care about your tradition and what your friends think and what you were taught by somebody else? You know, why don't you actually care with about, to me it's just like symbolic of just not caring what the Bible says because it literally is one of the, the, the false doctrines that has the least Bible backing of anything. I mean I could think of all these other like, like serious heresies that have still have more Bible than the pre-trip and I'm not saying preacher rapture is a serious heresy. I don't even call it heresy because it's just, it's wrong. I don't think it's heresy. It's just, it's just, it's just dumb. It's just wrong. It's just false. But I mean we can think of some, I mean there, there's more biblical evidence for just about any false doctrine I can think of. I mean the preacher perhaps is just this, it's just this doctrine that just doesn't even have one verse. I mean at least the work salvation crowd has James 2 to twist up and misuse. The preacher perhaps who doesn't even have a James 2 to work with, they got nothing. You know, here's what they have, no man knows the day or the hour. So what? Yeah, we don't know the day or the hour. We just know it's after the tribulation. We don't know the day or the hour. It'd be like if I said, hey, I'm coming to your house, I'm going to visit. You're not going to know when I'm coming. I'm surprising you, but it's going to be after the new year and then you're sitting there in November. He could come today. It could be today. He said we didn't know when he was coming so it could be today. No, no, no. Cause I said, you don't know when I'm coming, but it's after the new year. Well, we don't know when Christ is coming, but it's after the man of sin is revealed who declares himself to be God in the temple of God that hasn't even been built yet because Greg Locke hasn't blown it up with a missile yet. Maybe he will blow it up with his missile this week. Maybe he will send a missile and blow it up himself. I don't know. I don't care. But we just need to focus on living our Christian lives and understand, and you know what we need is patience, patience because we might just live out. We might just have to, we might just have to go all the way till five o'clock my friend. We might just have to go till six. We might have to just live our entire life serving God. Isn't that terrible? I might just have to just live to be a hundred and just come up here and I'm a hundred years old. You know, who is it? Israel. That Israel over there, that's not the real Israel, okay? It's a fraud. It's 2081. The Jews still reject Christ. When are they going to give it up? It's not happening. You know, he brought them to the, he brought them to the land in unbelief in 1948 and then they were supposed to get saved. They never got saved. It is the year 2081. When will the dispensationalists admit that they were wrong? And by the way, salvation has always been by faith and you're never never saved by doing the work. You know, hey, maybe that, maybe that was a little glimpse into the future. Amen, because you know what? I'm willing to work from now until then. Let's go. Right. Or if Christ decides to come back in four or five, six years, amen. Because at least all of the peace of knowing, hey, that was his timing. He knew that we did what we could in Phoenix. We did what we could in Arizona. He knew it was time to pull the plug is his wisdom. But man, I want to finish. Let me finish. Not just, oh, give me, get us out of here, get us out, get a backbone. Let's stay. Let's do it. It's Bar Ritz and I have a word of prayer. We thank you so much for your word, Lord. And we thank you for your long suffering to us word. Thank you for the people that got saved today, Lord. And thank you that we're here today so that people could get saved today. And Lord, if it's your will that we be here five, 10, 20, 30 years from now, Lord, keep us here as long as we're getting people saved. And Lord, we just want to do whatever work you have planned. And Lord God, help us to be faithful all the way to the end, whether that's the end of our lives or whether that is the second coming of Christ. And it's in his name we pray, Amen.