Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor: The Bible says Christians don't die. Eternal life begins now. Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. While a Christian may sleep, like the grave says rest in peace, it's temporary. But there are a lot of misunderstandings, and not knowing what the Bible teaches about death can set you up for a major deception in the last days. That is why our lesson title, The Spirits of Armageddon, is a very important one.

I am going to start with an amazing fact. Queen Victoria of England was very close to Prince Albert. They had several children, but they were always intrigued by psychics and mediums that could ostensibly communicate with the dead. They both participated in séances in the royal residence. After Prince Albert died, there was a young man, a 13-year-old medium named Robert James Lee.

He claimed that during a séance, he had heard from Prince Albert and he had a message for Queen Victoria. Intrigued, if you are going to get a message from someone you love on the other side, you will fall for almost anything. They invited this young man, and during the séance, he spoke with Albert's voice and used a pet name that only Victoria and he were aware of. Was this really Prince Albert speaking from the other side?

Victoria continued to hold these séances with various mediums, and she was known to seek her dead husband's advice in political matters. I think we are not surprised by this. A few years ago, we remember when Hillary Clinton visited with a friend who was a medium and wanted to communicate with Eleanor Roosevelt. In order to be fair, Nancy Reagan, after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, had her friend that was consulting his astrological charts and tried to match it up with his schedule.

The Bible says that this is going to be something that will happen more frequently in the last days. We have been going out on the streets of the city and getting some information. Just what do people think about death and communicating with the dead and resurrection? Let's find out what our man on the street has to say on this subject.

Guest (Male): Our souls deteriorate once we die. Once we die, our soul dies with us. That is why we rot.

Guest (Male): Some people believe in turning into another being or creature, but I think that once our soul goes back into God, we just become part of the earth and live eternal.

Guest (Male): Probably nothing. You just disintegrate and that is it.

Guest (Female): I think that we go see the angels. I think we go see heaven.

Guest (Male): I think our body reverts to energy.

Guest (Male): Ghosts? Phantom photoplasmic beings. They don't exist within our realm, but they're able to come here. I would say yeah, I think they are real.

Guest (Female): I don't know what they are because I don't think they are real.

Guest (Female): I don't know if it's real or not, but sometimes I feel that you can feel somebody's presence. Is that a ghost or not? I don't know.

Guest (Male): Ghosts are paranoia, but it could be real or it could not, depending on the person and depending on the situation.

Guest (Male): Dead people that you can't see, and I do believe in ghosts.

Guest (Male): I don't think the dead can communicate back, but I can tell you this, at my father's eulogy the last thing I said was I put my hand on his casket and said I'll be talking to you.

Guest (Female): Yeah, probably could be a possibility.

Guest (Female): I'm going to say yes because I have a healthy fear of ghosts.

Guest (Female): Yes, I talk to my husband every night.

Guest (Male): I don't know that the dead would be interested.

Guest (Male): Yeah, under certain circumstances.

Guest (Male): I think that it's possible for the living to speak with the dead because King Saul went to the Witch of Endor and had the shade of the prophet rose in the Old Testament. That is why I believe it's possible under the right circumstances. Was he supposed to? No. Was it forbidden? Yes. But it can be done.

Doug Batchelor: The last gentleman there wasn't that far off about something we are going to talk about. I think some of the people are getting their information from Ghostbusters or something. But it's clear to everybody there is a lot of chaos and confusion in the world out there about what happens with that final destination. What is going on? Where do we get our answers? What does the Bible have to say about this?

Our lesson is called The Spirits of Armageddon. I want to read this to you if you have your Bibles. Go to Revelation chapter 16 and if you start with verse 12, it is talking about the sixth plague. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up. It is just interesting to me that the Euphrates River is going dry so the way of the kings of the East might be prepared.

And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of demons performing signs, miracles, which go out to the kings of the earth and the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Right after it says that, if you have got a red letter in your Bible, the words of Jesus say, behold, I am coming as a thief.

Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest they walk naked and see his shame. Remember when we talked about the second coming, the first thing Christ said was beware that no man deceives you. There is going to be massive diabolical deception just before the Lord returns. To understand our study today, you need to know something about a story. It happens in the first book of Samuel, chapter 28.

King Saul, the first King of Israel, started out as a good king because God had chosen him, but he gradually became corrupted by power and he drove away the Holy Spirit until finally God would not answer him. He killed the priests of God. Then when all the Philistines gathered against him for this massive battle, he said he needed the priests to talk to him. They wouldn't speak. He needed a message from God.

He asked if there was anything from the prophets, but they would not speak to him because he had grieved away the Holy Spirit. So he said, give me a witch to call up the spirit of Samuel. He went to the Witch of Endor and she went through her incantations and this apparition appears that claims to be Samuel. He gave a totally discouraging message to King Saul. He said, why did you wake me up?

You're going to be with me tomorrow and your sons are going to die because you forsook the Lord, and David's going to be king. The next day in battle, they were defeated by the Philistines. Saul, wounded and discouraged, fell on his sword. He took his own life. He grieved away the Holy Spirit like Judas who hung himself. You can read in the Bible about Ahithophel who betrayed David and hung himself.

People who grieve away the spirit sometimes lose all hope. The question is, was that Samuel the prophet? Does a witch have the power to resurrect? Or are there evil spirits that work miracles to deceive the kings of the earth before the final battle? The story of what happened there with King Saul is an allegory of what's also going to be happening in the last days.

Let's find out what the Bible says. Go to our questions and answers, lesson number nine in your Prophecy Odyssey series. Was the spirit conjured by the witch really Samuel the prophet? What does the Bible say? First Kings 22:21 says, then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets.

Are there lying spirits out there? A lot of people when they say I think I saw a ghost, they saw a fallen angel that may be impersonating the dead. Let me ask you, we talked about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Did the devil know what Prince Albert's pet name was for Victoria? Sure he did. The devil's got lots of inside information about you. Not only does God have guardian angels, you can be sure the devil's got angels that know you too that are trying to tempt you and trip you up.

The Bible is pretty clear. Read in First 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, also because he consulted a medium for guidance. It says it was a medium. They communicate with evil spirits and those evil spirits, Satan can appear as an angel of light. Isn't that what the Bible says? Those evil spirits can deceive.

Question number two. Through what agency will Satan gather the armies to the final battle of Armageddon? It tells us I saw three unclean spirits like frogs. Now you ever been bitten by a frog or scratched by a frog? What's the frog's most powerful rapid weapon? It's the tongue. It's going to be through these messages that go out, these spiritual messages that's going to deceive the world.

Frogs were one of the plagues that fell on ancient Egypt. Three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of demons performing signs. They will claim to be deceased prophets and saints and apostles and they're going to be manipulating world leaders to make decisions that will bring about the final battle of Armageddon.

They gather them to the battle of that great day of God and they gather them together in a place called in the Hebrew tongue, Armageddon. Armageddon is a word that appears one time in the Bible. It's found there in Revelation chapter 16. But the Valley of Megiddo, we believe Har Megiddo means the Mount of Megiddo. There is a mountain up above Megiddo and this great valley where many a pivotal battle happened there, including the battle where Saul died.

The battle where King Josiah died. The battle where Gideon fought against a threefold alliance in the Valley of Megiddo. It says that the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east, a threefold enemy. Revelation talks about the beast, the dragon, the false prophet. Gideon fought with the armor of God and he won the battle. He blew a trumpet. Lift up thy voice like a trumpet, the word of God.

Pulled out a sword, said the sword of the Lord, the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. They broke the pitchers and the lamp was shining. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. How do we win the battle of Armageddon? By the word of God. Thy word I've hidden in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Friends, there's a lot of distractions in the world today. Christians need to read their Bibles.

The word of God is not changed, our weapon has not changed. We need to know what the word of God says. Number three. Do the dead come back to converse with or haunt the living? If you believe the people on the street, a lot of them think they do. But where are we going to get our answer? Man on the street or the Bible? The word of God is where you find truth.

Job, speaking of someone who had died, said his sons come to honor and he does not know it. They are brought low and he does not perceive it. My father's mother, Grandma Batchelor, was a dedicated Christian. She went to church and I hope to see her in the kingdom. If suddenly Grandma Batchelor should appear and say, Doug, I've got messages for you, here at the cemetery, there's Grandma Batchelor, okay?

She said, Doug, I need to tell you that you don't need to worry so much about the Bible because things have changed and the Bible's an old book, it's gone from person to person, it's been changed over time and you can't really trust it. Everybody's going to make it to heaven, just live the way you want to live. Should I believe what Grandma Batchelor says to me through an apparition or should I believe the word of God?

But it looked just like Grandma Batchelor and it sounded just like her and it even smelled a little bit like Grandma Batchelor. Does the devil know all about Grandma Batchelor? Don't be deceived because the devil can create illusions. Someone is going to say, Pastor Doug, my departed loved ones, I just sense their presence and it's so powerful. That's normal. If you're married to someone for 50 years and then they die and you find yourself feeling their presence, your mind is absolutely saturated with memories of that person and it's going to be normal to think of them.

I remember years after my brother died, I always had Falcon on auto-dial. I just press one button and I talk to him and we'd visit and hang up and even after he died, I didn't have the heart to delete his messages to me. One day, I picked up the phone to call him and I had forgotten that he was dead. I don't know if any of you have had that experience.

I know saints that are married for years and they have a problem and they call down the hall, Jack, can you come give me a hand? And they forgot Jack's been dead 10 years. They felt his presence. You feel their presence because your brain is filled with the person. But what does the Bible say? The Bible says they are asleep. Ecclesiastes 9 verse 5 says, do we believe the wisest man who ever lived, Solomon?

For the living know that they will die, but the dead, how much do they know? Know nothing. They have no more a reward for the memory of them is forgotten, also their love, their hatred, their envy has now perished. If you've got someone that hated you and they died, you don't have to worry about them haunting you. It is very liberating once you realize that the dead are dead and are not going to bother you.

I don't worry about evil spirits. I've got Christ. Greater is He that is in you than he. Some people live in absolute fear of the devil and fallen angels and ghosts and that is awful. I can walk through a cemetery in the middle of the night and all I have to worry about is tripping. I'm not scared those people are going to come bother me. They are dead. Have you ever gone through a cemetery and read some of the tombstones?

It's very interesting some of the sayings you might find. I remember one guy, he put on his tombstone, stop my friend as you go by, as you are now, so once was I. As I am now, you soon shall be. Prepare yourself to follow me. Well, a young man was walking through the cemetery one day coming home from school and he read that and he pulled a crayon out of his bag and he wrote on the tombstone, to follow you I'm not content until I know just where you went.

Some people have a sense of humor even on their tombstone. I think it was Dr. James Dobson who said that his father told his mother, when I die I want you to put on my tombstone, I told her I was sick. Here lies the body of old man Peas buried beneath the flower and trees, but Peas ain't here, just the pod, Peas shelled out and he went to God. It's not theologically completely correct.

A lot of them actually say RIP. What does RIP stand for? Rest in peace. That is more theologically correct. What happens when a person dies? They are sleeping, a dreamless sleep. You can read in Ecclesiastes 9:10, never more will they share in anything done under the sun, for there is no more work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you go. Psalm 146 says put not your trust in princes, neither in the son of man in whom there is no help.

His breath goes forth and that very day his thoughts perish. I could go through 50 scriptures right now. Psalm 6:5 says in death there is no remembrance of you. The dead do not praise the Lord, Psalm 115:17. He shall never return to his house. Friends, I know some of you are thinking, doesn't the Bible say in Second Corinthians chapter five, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord? That's true.

When a believer dies, their next conscious thought is the resurrection and the presence of the Lord. But a thousand years might have gone by. They are not there yet. For them, it's like that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. But the Bible's pretty clear. Is the resurrection past or is it future? Read John chapter six. It says over and over, the resurrection the last day, the resurrection the last day, it's in the future. That's when we get our rewards.

Number four. According to the book of Revelation, who has the keys of death? Revelation 1:18 says I am He who lives and I was dead and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I've got the keys of Hades, that means the grave and death. The last enemy to be cast in the lake of fire is the grave and death. There will be no more death. But the dead are not haunting, they are sleeping.

The reason we emphasize this in a prophecy seminar is because the devil and his demons are going to use this misunderstanding to manipulate the world in the last days with the great masterpiece of deception because they don't know that the dead are dead. A lot of people try to communicate with the dead, but the Bible very explicitly forbids that. We will get to those verses in just a minute.

If you want to know something about what happens when you die and life, look at how God made man in the beginning. Number five. How did God make man in the beginning? It says, and the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. That word life there, that breath is Ruach in Hebrew. The breath of life and man became a living being.

You get the elements of earth, God puts them in the right position, He inspires man with this power, this energy, this breath of life, and they became a living being. They are conscious, they are alert, they are thinking. Adam was different from most babies born in that Adam when he was made, he came factory pre-installed with the ability to walk and talk and think. He had a certain amount of knowledge that he was made with.

He was not made a baby, he was made a full-grown man. He was made in the image of God. When a person dies, you've got creation in reverse. What happens at death? Question number six. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was and the spirit, that's the same word as breath, it's the word Ruach, and the breath will return to God who gave it.

By the way, Ecclesiastes said not just the breath of people, not just the breath of the saved, the breath of the saved, the breath of the lost, the breath of animals, the breath of life of all creatures returns to God. It is not saying that word spirit is a little conscious ghost that flies out of a person when they die and goes off roaming around looking for a place until the resurrection. It simply means the power of life.

Right now this building, this studio is illuminated with all these lights and apparatus and devices through the energy of electricity. If heaven forbids someone should kill the switch and everything went dark, I would say, where did the light go? Where did the power go? Well, it's back at the power plant where it came from. That one power operates many devices. It gives life to these things. Well, that's the breath of life that you find in the Bible.

Job says all the while that God is with me and the breath, the spirit of life is in my nostrils. The spirit, it's the same word. Do you have a ghost in your nose? We hope not. The very fact he says the spirit of God is in my nostrils, he is saying the breath of God. In Hebrew, the word is Ruach. In Greek, it's the word Pneuma.

When someone has trouble breathing they call it pneumonia. And you men if you've ever used those air powered tools they're called pneumatic. It's because it's wind, Pneuma comes from that Greek word. So often in the Bible when it uses the word spirit people think it's talking about a ghost and it's talking about the breath of life. The Bible teaches that the spirit that returns to God is simply the breath of life that God breathed into man at the beginning.

You can look in James 2:26, Job 27:3 and others. Take away their breath and they die and return to their dust. You send forth your spirit, your breath and they are created. This is what it's talking about. Number seven. Where do the dead go when they die? Don't we go somewhere? Yeah. You know where they go? You probably seen it before. They go to the tombstones.

They go to the cemetery. It says, yet he will be brought to the grave and a vigil kept over the tomb. Listen to the words of Jesus in John chapter five, verse 28 and 29. All who are where? In their graves will hear His voice. Where are they now? Where did Jesus say they are? In the grave. Did He say they are in Abraham's bosom?

Did He say they are in Limbo? Did He say they are in Purgatory? When He comes again, He said when I come, all that are in their graves will hear His voice. That is when they hear His voice. He says come forth. Now how long does it feel for them? Instant. To be absent from the body, no consciousness of time, present with the Lord.

But the Bible says that the Lord descends from heaven and then the dead in Christ rise. And we are caught up to meet Him in the air. Now what about people who say well I had a near death experience? I died on the operating table, my heart stopped, and all of a sudden I began to hover above my body and I could see the doctors working on me and I heard their voice and I could see what was going on.

People will say I went through a channel and all of a sudden there was a pink light and then there was a blue light and this voice said in the pink light you're going to be a girl in the reincarnation and the blue light you're going to be a boy in the reincarnation. People have these near death experiences and they all vary. You know what happens when you die, I mean when your heart stops beating?

Your brain is robbed of oxygen. You got too much of the wrong gas there in the brain and it causes hallucinations. They have done this, they have induced it through experiments. Friends, I hope you have been blessed by today's message. But really the reason we do this is so that people might know Christ. Information is not going to save us, it's a relationship with Jesus, the one who died on the cross for your sins. You must personally accept Him.

That is the most important thing and why we do these programs. If you have not asked Him into your heart before, then I'd encourage you to do it right now. His arms are open wide, just come to Him as you are and ask Him. Hi friends, I trust you're being blessed by what you're watching. If you want to be doubly blessed, then you're going to want to get the Prophecy Odyssey study guides that go along with these presentations.

There are 15 study guides, they are beautifully illustrated and they will greatly enhance your Bible comprehension. So if you'd like to get them, simply follow the instructions that you see on the screen. You will be glad you did. Hello again. Today we've learned what the Bible really says about the subject of death to help you avoid the devil's deceptions. But there is much more to discover, so I hope that you'll request Spirits of the Dead, our booklet that helps uncover the real truth about the afterlife.

To get your copy, simply follow the instructions on the screen and we will send it to you quickly and free of charge. What you've seen just now is only part one in this presentation. Make sure and join us for part two in our next broadcast for some of the most important points on this topic and to complete the corresponding study guide. Until then, God bless.