Amazing Facts

Jean Ross: This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.

Doug Batchelor: Title may seem a little ominous, devils and dead prophets, but I think that'll make sense as we proceed. Uh I like to start with an amazing fact and you probably heard about Harry Houdini. Now Houdini was a legitimate magician. He was also known as an escape artist. Uh he was one of the greatest escape artists in history. He's become legendary and in some myths have written about him that are not true, but he was extremely strong. He was double jointed. He was able to pick locks and he could get out of handcuffs. He escaped from Scotland Yard jails they said were unescapable.

He escaped from many jails and prisons. They would handcuff him, put him in a box, chain up the box, throw the box in the river, and he would get out. And these weren't tricks and illusions. He really would get out. But then he also was something of a magician. But um he sort of resented what was happening during the same time he was doing his escape artist acts. There were all of these people that were spiritualists that were claiming that they were consulting with the dead and Houdini didn't like that one bit. And so he began to try to expose phony um spiritualists and mediums.

He presented himself as the scourge of fake spiritualists. Uh he was the president of the Society of American Magicians. He maybe didn't know there was such a thing. And he was very keen to uphold professional standards and to expose frauds. Well he was very successful and he kept surpassing one escape procedure after another. But he got a severe case of appendicitis when he was like 51 years of age and they were not able to catch it in time and he died from that. He died on October 31. What day is that? Halloween 1926 and then all these spiritualists said while he was taken out because he was fighting against the evil spirits.

But if you listen carefully, he's going to contact us. And so for years afterward, his wife Bess would get together with other spiritualists on Halloween and they would try to make contact with Houdini. And even today, there are people who say we're going to try and contact Houdini through these mediums. But um so far as far as we know, there's been no success. There's a reason for that is the Bible says the living know that they will die, but the dead know not anything. Now you might wonder why are we talking about a subject like this in connection with prophecy?

Got to tell you a story in the Bible. I don't have time to read it all to you, but if you look at 1st Samuel chapter 28, you can read the whole story. King Saul was a good king, chosen by God, filled by the spirit. But over the years, he began to become proud and it got worse and worse until he drove the spirit of God away. He killed the priests of the Lord. He became so jealous that God was now having David chosen to replace him. He was consumed with jealousy and selfishness and pride so that he basically grieved away the Holy Spirit.

Then as he was facing a great final battle with the Philistines, he asked God for some guidance and there was no word. Trying to find a prophet who had some word for him, no prophet would speak to him. So he said, well then I 'll get a witch. Shows you how quickly he could switch. And they found the witch of Endor and he disguised himself. He went to the witch and he said, I want you to conjure up for me the spirit of Samuel the prophet to tell me what I'm supposed to do. She went through her incantations and rigmarole and she said, oh I see this man and this being, this apparition appeared claiming to be the prophet Samuel.

Some people wonder, was that really Samuel? Does the devil have the power to resurrect the dead? No, he does not. Does he have the power to create illusions? Yes. This demon that was impersonating Samuel the prophet gave Saul a completely hopeless message. Said you're going to die and be with me tomorrow and your sons will die and David will be king. He mixed some truth with discouragement. And the next day in the battle, discouraged, wounded, King Saul fell on his sword and committed suicide. Why do we need to understand what happens with the dead? Now this is a sensitive subject.

There's probably nobody here if you're an adult, you've not been touched in some way by a death. It may be parent, spouse, sibling, child, all of the above for me. And I know it's it's as hard as it gets when you lose someone you love. It leaves a terrible vacuum. Death is terribly permanent. And so I don't want to be insensitive about this, but here's what you need to know is that the dead are dead until the resurrection. What confuses people is you read a verse in the Bible where it says absent from the body present with the Lord.

They don't read the whole verse. And they say, well as soon as you die, you're immediately in the presence of the Lord. Well in a sense, if you're saved and you die, your next conscious thought is the resurrection and being caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So for the person who dies, it is their next conscious thought. But it hasn't happened yet cuz the judgment has not happened yet and the resurrection has not happened yet and Jesus said the dead are asleep. So when people say I'm having my dead loved one talk to me, well they may have memories that are coming to them.

They may feel like that person that they've lived so much of their life with is is impressing them. But it could also be evil spirits that are manipulating them. So you got to be very clear that dead people do not talk to the living. Do you know the Bible forbids that? The Bible says anybody who tries to communicate with the dead is forbidden. Those people are called mediums and witches, spiritualists. It is absolutely forbidden in the Bible. And yet I hear Christians all the time saying, oh I heard them they were speaking to me they look we don't talk to the dead.

Isaiah said, should a living people consult with the dead? Go to wizards and peep and mutter according to the law and the testimony. That means the law and the prophets. If they speak not according to this word, there's no light in them. So friends, when we discover what the Bible says about life and death, where are we going to get our answer? Pastor Doug or from Jesus in the Bible. So we're going to be quoting Bible tonight. Listen carefully. All right. Question number one. Was the spirit that was conjured up by this witch, the witch of Endor, really Samuel the prophet?

What does the Bible say? 1st Kings 22 verse 21 and a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, I will go and be a lying spirit. Are there lying spirits in the mouth of all his prophets? Are there false prophets that are being manipulated by lying spirits? And you realize that not every pastor that uses the name of Jesus, not every pastor that holds the Bible is telling the truth. There are some wolves in sheep's clothing. Jesus said, beware. Speaking of the second coming, the first thing Jesus said is beware, there will be false Christ and false prophets.

The devil finds he does more damage from the inside. What else does it say? 1st Chronicles 10 13 so Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he had committed against the Lord because he did not keep the word of the Lord. Were to keep the word of the Lord. Also because he consulted a medium for guidance. He died for doing that. It is not God's plan for us to go and talk to astrologers. Now astronomy is the legitimate study of the heavens and I would love to be the first pastor to go up on the International Space Station.

That'd be so cool. But that's different from astrology. You know my mother, she was into we use Ouija boards growing up and astrology. My mother actually wrote an album of astrology, 12 songs for the different signs. And my mother's friends used to write articles. They wrote the astrology section in the paper. My mother was in show business and she wrote she was a Hollywood film critic and she used to write songs for Elvis Presley and I mean I I won't talk about that right now. Just to let you know that she told me I said, Mom, do you believe that?

She said, are you kidding? It makes money. The the people writing the zodiacs and the astrology signs for the folks reading it don't even believe it. Number two. Through what agency will Satan gather the armies of the Earth to the final battle of Armageddon? I saw three unclean spirits like frogs. It's like a counterfeit Trinity. It's not the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It's the beast, the dragon and the false prophet coming out of the mouth of the dragon, the mouth of the beast and the mouth of the false prophet. They are the spirits of demons, fallen angels performing signs.

Can the devil do signs and wonders? Doesn't it say in Revelation that he'll deceive the world going so far as bringing fire down out of heaven in the sight of men to deceive them? So when you say oh I you know, I know what the Bible says, but my pastor he does signs and wonders. That should not be our criteria. If it doesn't go along with the word of the Lord, there is no light in them. To gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty and they gather them together to a place called in Hebrew Armageddon.

That word is something of a mystery because there is a very important valley in Israel called Megiddo. And there it was a crucial point. A lot of battles happened. King Saul's battle with the Philistines happened in Megiddo. When Gideon fought against the Amalekites, the Midianites and the people of the East, it happened in Megiddo. King Josiah was killed in Megiddo. When Deborah and Barak went against the army of Sisera, it was Megiddo. So all through these Old Testament battles, these pivotal battles happened here. Now one Bible translator when they say what does Armageddon mean? As far as I know, it means harma hill of Megiddo, the hill of Megiddo.

Megiddo's actually a valley. So but in the story of Gideon in Judges chapter six, when it says in Hebrew, the Lord said to Gideon, you know how that translates? Harma Gideon. So it may be referring to the battle of Gideon where Gideon only had 300 soldiers and using a sword and a lamp and the voice, the trumpet, they overcame an army of like almost a million. I mean it said they were like the sand of the sea. In the last days, God's people are going to overcome with a lamp. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a sword.

The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword and a trumpet. Lift up thy voice like a trumpet. Three symbols for the Bible. So it may be Revelation could be pointing back to this battle of Gideon in the valley of Megiddo. It's something of a mystery, but that's what it's talking about. Don't be waiting for different armies to gather in Israel and they've been shooting each each other over there for hundreds thousands of years. That's actually can confuse people. All right. What do people out there in the community think about what happens when you die?

I think we might have some man on the street videos.

Guest (Female): Uh well in my culture, I was raised Buddhist and in my culture, we have reincarnation.

Guest (Female): What do I think happens when we die if we're non-believers? I believe that we would go to hell and burn eternally. But I do believe if we follow God's law that we would be with him in heaven.

Guest (Male): Oh, probably nothing.

Guest (Female): I believe that um you'll be with with God in heaven.

Guest (Female): Absolutely. Ghosts are 1,000% real. As someone who visibly sees ghosts 24/7, I can confirm.

Guest (Female): Um I believe that ghosts are definitely for me personally, it's loved ones. It's always been loved ones, but they can be you know people that you normally pass on the street, someone completely random. I believe ghosts are real 1,000%.

Guest (Male): Uh ghosts are energy of souls um of probably dead people. Uh they are real, but I think ghosts can die too cuz if all if everyone turned into a ghost, then there would be a there would be a lot of be a lot of ghosts. There would be too many ghosts. So I think you know it's a second life and then uh then you're gone again. But they're probably dead people. It's energy, spiritual stuff. I don't know. A book fell off a shelf when I was a kid and I was ghosts are probably definitely real.

Guest (Female): For me, uh they are real because like if you have a good um like side, then you also have a bad side. So I feel like um ghosts for me represent like um maybe spirits.

Guest (Female): I have communicated with the dead on multiple occasions. I think it can happen. I just think you need to have a really really strong connection with whoever has passed.

Guest (Male): No. I've witnessed some stuff and I kind of think it's cool, but I don't know. Some people can just scam you, but some people I think somewhere in this world can.

Doug Batchelor: All right. Would you all agree that the world is pretty confused about the state of the dead and can you communicate with the dead and ghosts? Are ghosts real? Yes, but they are not dead people. They are demons impersonating the dead. So when people say they saw something go bump in the night or something levitate or they saw some sign or wonder some spooky something, yeah, I don't doubt that for a minute. But these are what you call demons and evil spirits. They are impersonating the dead. And that 's why we've got to understand that the dead are dead because all of a sudden if some being appears and claims to be Moses and has a new message that conflicts with the Bible, he says I've got fresh evidence.

What are you going to believe? Spirits, signs and wonders or you know how many times around the world Mary appears to people with messages? They call them Marian apparitions. This is very dangerous because a lot of those messages conflict with the Bible. For one thing, though Mary was a godly woman, I expect to see her in the kingdom of heaven. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to communicate with the dead. It is actually forbidden. And yet I hear Christians all the time talk about yes, I'm you know they say Robin Williams died and he's in heaven telling God jokes and I'm going why are they getting these ideas?

Do the dead people come back to converse with or haunt with the living? What does the Bible say? Job 14 21 speaking of someone that dies, his sons come to honor. He does not know it. They are brought low. He does not perceive it. For the living know that they will die. This is Solomon Ecclesiastes 9 5 and 6. The living know they'll die, but the dead know nothing, not a zero zip. They don't know anything. They have no more a reward for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred. If they hated you and they died, don't worry about them haunting you.

They're dead. And their envy has now perished. Never more will they have a share in anything done under the sun. Under the sun means in this life. There will be a resurrection for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave. This is what the Bible says, friends. Here's I could give you 50 scriptures. There's just not time. Psalm 6 verse 5. In death, there is no remembrance of you. Now you would think if someone died, the first thing they do is remember God. The dead do not praise the Lord nor any who go down into silence.

Job 7 verse 10. He shall never return to his house. If you're afraid they're going to come back and haunt your house, Karen and I bought a house about 30 years ago and we know that the prior owner died in the house and some people were spooked by that. I thought oh I don't care, get a discount. It is not going to didn't bother me one bit and he wasn't going to bother me. Number four. According to the book of Revelation, who is it that has the keys of life and death? Answer. Jesus said, I am he who lives and was dead and behold I am alive forever more.

Amen. And I have the keys of Hades. And the word Hades there means the grave. It's a Greek word. I have the keys of the grave and of death. It's only Jesus who can unlock the grave. And he proves that in first of all his own resurrection for one. Number five. How did God make man in the beginning? So if we'll understand something about creation, you can understand something about the reverse. The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living being.

The Bible refers to the breath of life. It is his essence of life, his power of life that God gives his creatures. What happens at death? It's creation in reverse. Notice Ecclesiastes 12 verse 7. Then the dust will return to the Earth as it was and the spirit will return to God who gave it. Now when it says the spirit returns to God, people say, well there you have it, Pastor Doug. When a person dies, their spirit goes off to be with God. This is what you've got to catch. The word spirit there means breath.

It means breath of life. It is the same word that is used for the a dog, a cat, a bat, a cow, anything that's alive. Every creature breathes. And when they stop breathing, they die. And it's the breath of life, the power of life that returns to God that gave it. In this passage in Ecclesiastes, he's talking about not only good people and bad people, but animals. The breath of life of everything that dies returns to God. Let me give you some more scriptures for that. The Bible teaches that the spirit that returns to God is simply the breath of life which God breathed into man at the beginning.

So in our auditorium right now, we've got a lot of apparatus that's operating through electricity. Heaven forbid we should have a power failure. If that did happen, you might say, where did the electricity go? Well it's back at the power plant where it came from. It's this same electricity is operating many different apparatus, right? But that's all it's talking about when it says the breath of God. In Hebrew, the word is roach. In Greek, it's the word numa. Uh when someone has problems breathing, they call it pneumonia. And if a few men have worked with some tools that are called pneumatic tools, what does that mean?

They're operated by air pressure. That's what numa means. It means wind, breath. Let me give you some verses that prove that. Psalm 104 verse 29. You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. You send forth your spirit, your breath and they are created. It's the breath of life that creates and when that breath is taken away, they die. Number seven. Where do the dead go when they die? They go right to heaven? Do they go to hell before the judgment? It says yet he will be brought to the what? The grave and a vigil will be kept over the tomb.

Again it says John 5 28. These are the words of Jesus. All who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth. He's talking about the day of the Lord, second coming, future. Matter of fact, three times in John chapter six, it says it's at the end of time when they are resurrected. They're in their graves now. That's why they're resting in peace. Any of you ever walk through a cemetery and you read some of the graves, some of the tombstones? Are any of you at all spooked by walking through a cemetery? Doesn't bother me.

I'm just afraid I'm going to trip. I'm not I try to be respectful. You don't stand like right on a grave. You know you walk around them just I believe in respect. I've done a lot of funerals and sometimes I get there early and I walk around. I read some of the tombstones. Some are really sad, you know. You you see the mother's life 25 years and then right next to it is a baby that lives one day and it's she it's the same day she died. She died giving birth. You can get the whole story right there.

And some of them will say our beloved mother now singing with the angels in heaven. And the same church cemetery, you'll see another one that will say our beloved mother resting until the resurrection trumpet which tells me there's a lot of confusion in the cemetery about what happens. And some of them are funny. I remember there was this one tombstone that it said, stop my friend as you go by. As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, you soon will be. Prepare yourself to follow me. Coming home from school one day, a kid read that and he took out his crayon and he wrote down to follow you.

I'm not content until I know just where you went. So I remember James Dobson. He said his father told his mother to put on his tombstone, I told her I was sick. So you know, we we can laugh about it and there there are some funny tombstones, but it's also a very serious subject. Bible says they're in their graves. Do you long to experience the peace that can only come from our loving heavenly Father? Do you desire your heart to be clean and at rest? Jesus stands before you right now with his arms open wide to receive you.

Why not ask him into your life right now? Why not receive him now as your personal Savior? Take that first step and say yes, Lord, I choose you. He's ready and waiting to receive you now.

Guest (Female): My question is so many people are misled or don't understand the difference between the rapture and the second coming. And a lot of people I speak to seem to think that it's the same event and it is not. So how would I be able to explain to them about the two different events?

Doug Batchelor: Well one of the ways is we have literature that you can share. Um I've got a booklet that talks about the secret the secret rapture and the second coming. It's called Anything but Secret. And it contrasts the two teachings. Unfortunately, so many preachers in Christian media have bought into what Pastor Ross just described some of the the futurist interpretation of prophecy that says there'll be a secret rapture and then a second coming seven years after there's a tribulation and and they sort of have scrambled what I think are very clearly in the prophecies of Daniel, Revelation, another books that the next coming of Jesus is a literal second coming and the world being destroyed by fire is what follows immediately after that.

There's not seven years of tribulation. Just so our friends have a verse, you have 2nd Peter chapter three where it says the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. Oh my secret rapture friends, you see there it is. He's coming as a thief. Everyone's going to disappear. Keep reading the verse. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat and the Earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

So when the Lord comes as a thief, life doesn't go on for seven more years. It says that the Earth is burned up. We are caught up to meeting the Lord in the air and the wicked are destroyed by the brightness of his coming. So those are all verses and I recommend the book Anything but Secret and you can share that. Then I'm going to call these 800 835 6747 and you can ask for the book. It's called Anything but Secret.

Jean Ross: Would you like to know God's plan for our broken world as revealed in Bible prophecy? Want practical trusted solutions for your biggest challenges? Freshly updated and redesigned, Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides provide 27 Bible-based topical lessons with beautiful graphics and straightforward answers that are enlightening, encouraging and easy to understand. Each study guide leads you step by step to real relevant Bible answers for the most important questions in your life. How can I have better health and relationships? When and how will Jesus come again? And so much more. Don't leave the future to chance. Transform your life with truths from the Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides.

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Doug Batchelor: Don't forget to request today's free offer. It's sure to be a blessing. And thank you for your continued support as we take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.

Jean Ross: This presentation was brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.