In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: Thinking about this a lot, I know that we do our prophecy updates every year around New Year's. We've been faithful to do that for almost 29 years. We've been faithful to do that almost every year. But there's been this thing going on in my mind lately and in my heart that I want to leave something behind as a testimony, as a witness when the church is gone to those who didn't go.

Whether they be religious and are sitting in the pews, like we're going to see this morning, the five unwise virgins. Now, they made an effort to go out, as it were, to wait for the bridegroom, but they weren't ready and they weren't prepared. They were religious; they didn't have a relationship, and they were left. Or for those that don't know the Lord.

How many have family members that don't know the Lord? That if Jesus were to come today, they wouldn't go, and you're concerned for their souls? You want to leave something behind because the Bible, as we're going to see this morning, is very clear that the next prophetic event to take place, as we look at what's going on in the world stage, is for Jesus Christ to return for His church.

He's going to remove His church, and then He's going to judge this world. How many would say today that the world is ripe for judgment? Yes. And so He's going to come and judge this world, but He's going to remove the church, just like He prepared an ark for Noah, or Noah was involved in that, took him out before He judged the world. Just like with Sodom and Gomorrah, took Lot and his family out before He judged that city. He's going to remove us.

But the Bible makes it very clear, and we're going to see that this morning, that there will be a multitude that will come out of the tribulation and be saved, a multitude that can't even be numbered. I think we are responsible, this is what the Lord's been laying on my heart, we are somewhat responsible to leave a testimony, a roadmap if you will, a way so that they can understand that when we're gone, this is what you need to do to make heaven your home.

Because God is gracious and He's going to give you one more opportunity to wake up. Amen. So, this message is going to be geared, as it were, to those who are left behind. I want to remind us this morning of the promise for the church. I want to talk about this morning what it's going to look like for those that are left behind when the rapture takes place, so they can have an indicator that we're gone.

Hey, aliens didn't come and get us. Mother Earth didn't kick us off the planet because we couldn't get with the program and be woke because we're really awake. We want to leave them with an understanding of what has happened, why it's happened, what it will look like when it happens. We want to leave them with the warnings that Jesus gave and then give them the understanding that you have one more chance and you better not blow it.

Because if you blow it, hell, eternal torment, will be your future forever. So, we're dealing with very serious issues this morning, are we not? And so we're just going to go through that this morning, and then what we want to do is put together care packages for you. We want to put this message on CD, DVD, and thumb drive in a package with Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel.

Then you can write a letter to your loved ones and you can say, if all of a sudden billions of people are missing from the planet and I'm gone, and you can't find me along with all of these other people, open this package, read it, and follow the instructions to the nth degree if you want to make heaven your home. You missed the first coming, but don't miss the second.

The first bus has air conditioning, crowns, all of those wonderful things. The second bus might not have too much, but you can still get to heaven. But this is what you're going to have to do. Amen. So, that's going to be our message this morning, and then we'll start the book of Hebrews next week.

So let's pray and we'll just dive right in. Father, we thank You that You love us. We thank You that You've provided every means possible for us to be saved, for us to be redeemed, for us, Lord, to be made as though we never were sinners through the justification of Jesus Christ by that work on the cross and through faith in that work.

We thank You, Lord Jesus, that the moment that we opened our hearts to You, we received You as our Lord and our Savior, and we were regenerated and born again by the Spirit. That very moment, You wrote our names down in the Lamb's Book of Life. And Lord, the promise that You gave us before You went away is that You're going to come back.

And Lord, we think it's soon. But Lord, as though we are excited for that, and we are, our heart breaks for our loved ones, our family, and our friends that are either asleep in the light or not even in the light, that they may get left behind. And Lord, we want to leave something for them.

And if you're listening to this message, we love you, we care about you. We don't want you to be lost forever. We don't want you to go to a hell that was prepared for the devil and his angels and not for you. We want you to understand that you've got one more chance. And we want to leave for you, as it were, a roadmap how to get to heaven.

Because the moment the church is gone, some strange things are going to be taking place, some very confusing things, some seducing spirits, lying signs and wonders, and we just want you to know what the truth is. And so we pray for you this morning, our church, our family members, we pray for you that have been left behind.

We're concerned for you. We want to see you again in heaven. And so please, listen carefully to what is about to be said. And we pray it in Jesus' name. And all God's kids would say, amen.

You know, when Jesus had gathered His disciples together before His death, burial, and resurrection, He warned them that their hearts wouldn't become troubled because He was going to go away. We read it there in John chapter 14, the first three verses. And we see this, we who are born again this morning, we who are part of the church, we see this as a promise.

We understand this is the blessed hope. We long for that moment when Christ, the bridegroom, will come for His bride, receive us as it were, as we're going to look at this morning, take us home to be with our Father in our Father's house, because that has always been the Father's desire. And so He writes this in John chapter 14, verses one through three.

It says, let not your heart be troubled. You see, Jesus knows in this life we're going to have trouble. Any of you known that or experienced any of that? Listen, because it's not our home. We live in a fallen world. We live in a world that is coming apart at the seams. And there are indicators and warnings that Jesus gives us of this time that will tell us that time is short, that He's about to return for the church.

But in these very perilous times, as Paul calls them, He says don't let your heart be troubled. Put your faith in God, believe also in Me. And so we know that salvation is a work of faith. We put our trust when the Holy Spirit came knocking on our heart's door and we heard the gospel, we responded.

We responded by saying, Lord Jesus, we're sinners. We're in need of a Savior. We are undone. We can't fix ourselves. We're so broken, we need You to fix us. And the Bible says the moment you do that, the moment you come to the cross, as it were, of Jesus Christ, and there as a sinner you beg for forgiveness, then He does this wonderful thing in our hearts.

He sends the Holy Spirit, it regenerates us, we're born again because He's merciful, not because we're righteous, and we become saved. At that moment, He writes our names down indelibly in the blood of His Son in the Lamb's Book of Life. So that when He comes to judge this world, He's going to open that book first. And if your name is found there, you have passed from judgment.

Our concern this morning is for those whose names are not written there. You could be sitting in church your whole life and not have your name written there. Or you could be out in the world thinking that you've got it all together and you know wiser and your name is not written there. I want to warn you this morning, if your name is not in the Lamb's Book of Life, when Jesus comes for His church, you're still going to be here.

And it's not going to be a fun place to be. And we want to warn you about that. Because one of these days you're going to wake up and billions of people are going to be gone. In a moment and in a twinkling, just gone. And listen, the governments of this world are going to try to explain it away. We want you to know Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, He came for His bride and we are gone.

The trumpet has sounded, we're home. But we are still concerned for you who are still here. And we want to leave you a final message. Because we put our faith in Him and He says because in my Father's house are many mansions, many dwelling places. If it were not so, these are Jesus' words, He said if it weren't so, I would have told you.

When Jesus was crucified, when He was buried, when He rose again the third day, just before His ascension, He tells them, I'm going away to prepare a place for you. These 2,000 years, Christ has been preparing a place for the church to arrive safely on the other side. That place in our Father's house that we long for, that is our destiny, our destination.

And then He says this, and if I go to prepare a place for you, here's the promise, I will come again. We believe it's close. As we've been doing our prophecy updates, we believe it's at the door. We see what's going on in Israel. We see what's going on in our own government. We see what's going on in the governments of this world.

And I would advise you, go back and look at all of the prophecy updates. They're on our website. But the recent one, the most interesting one is that, listen, the Yanuka, that person that they're proclaiming in Judaism to be the Messiah is on the scene. And they're about to reveal him in 2023.

And one of the first things we're going to see this morning that Jesus says, don't be deceived because in the last days many are going to say, here's the Christ. We see Israel in a situation where they're going to have to take out the nuclear centrifuges in Iran just for their survival. And when they do that, that's going to set off Psalms 83.

Where those 10 hyper-Islamic nations that have surrounded them during the Arab Spring, which began in 2011, will attack Israel. And when the dust clears and the smoke settles, Israel will be victorious. And for the first time in Israel's history, they will own all of the property that was promised to Abraham in that Abrahamic Covenant.

Then Russia comes down for the spoil, Ezekiel 38 and 39. We just studied that. To take a spoil, to get back the oil, as it were. And again, God shows up and wipes them out. And the Antichrist will come out of the midst of millions of people being dead in Europe to be a man of peace to have all of the answers.

The church cannot be here when he comes upon the scene because Paul said that which restrains will continue restraining until it is taken out of the way, then the man of sin can be revealed. All the scenes are being set. The power, if you haven't been carefully noticing, is moving from the West to the East.

United States is no longer a player. And by the way, I hate to disappoint you, America's not coming back. Jesus is. America's being judged for her sin. Not the church, America. Because all of the powers are moving to Russia, China, Israel, those nations which are talked about in prophecy. We are not.

If you haven't noticed, the American dollar is collapsing. There will be a one-world government and it won't be based out of America, because the whole scene is shifting to the place that God said it would be when He comes to judge the world. We're living in the last days. Make no mistake about it.

And Jesus said to us who are living in the last days, don't let your heart be troubled. Put your faith in God, put your faith in Me as your Savior, because I have prepared a place for you in my Father's house. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I am coming again to receive you unto myself, that where I am you might be also.

That's the blessed hope. That's where we're going. And listen, if you wake up tomorrow and billions of people are gone, that's where we're at. Aliens didn't come with their spaceships. Don't you find it interesting the government's all involved in aliens now? I mean, listen, there's a lot of stuff coming out. They're going to have to come up with some deception to explain billions of people gone from the planet.

Listen, Scotty didn't beam us up. Jesus came for His church. Make no mistake about it. And you have been left behind because you weren't ready, because you thought the things of this world were more important than the things of God, or you had a religious relationship with Him, not a real born-again relationship with Him.

I find it interesting that Barna's Research says there's something like 80% of America claim to be Christians, but only like 30% of them claim to be of the born-again type, as though there's any other kind. Jesus said you must be born again. He said you can't understand, see, or enter the kingdom of heaven unless you are born again.

And that's the message we preach here at Gold Country Calvary Chapel. You must be born again. Well, what does that look like? You have to come to Christ and realize that you are a sinner in need of a Savior. You have to confess your sin and ask Him to wash you in His blood, to forgive you, to cleanse you. You have to come broken and repentant.

You have to come by faith, believing and trusting what He said He would do if you did. And the moment you do that, then you are born again. And you start this wonderful relationship with the One who saved you. And He puts a hope in your heart, He puts heaven in your heart. You understand that you're a pilgrim, that you're just passing through, that your hope is heaven. That's where you're going.

And so if you wake up tomorrow and all these people are gone, I'm here to tell you, Jesus came for His church. And if you're still here, you're in trouble. There's some things we want to warn you about, but we want to tell you what it's really going to look like. Not aliens, not Mother Earth, which they worship today, that got so tired of you not getting with the program that she just sent you away.

I mean, who knows how they're going to explain this? But I want to tell you the truth. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 13 through 18, Paul says, "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep." Now, the Bible never uses terms for the Christian as dead because we never die. We move.

The moment that you take your last breath here, you take your first breath, as it were, there. He says, I don't want you to sorrow as those that have no hope, as others. We don't sorrow when a brother or a sister in the Lord goes to be with the Lord.

But he says this, "For I say unto you," and listen carefully, "by the word of the Lord." This is the inspired, inerrant, authoritative Word of God. Paul is saying, I'm going to tell you something that is so remarkable, so incredible, that I'm having to preface it by telling you, this is the Word of the Lord.

"I'm telling you by the Word of the Lord that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep." The Bible says the moment that you leave this life, to be absent from this body, Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, is to be in the presence of the Lord. And those that have died, as we would think of dead physically in this life, they haven't died as Christians, they have moved to be in the presence of the Lord.

Then he says this, "For the Lord Himself," not aliens, not Mother Earth, not whatever thing that they can try to associate with, I want you to know this morning, if you are here and billions of people are gone, and there are billions of people because they trusted in the Lord and you knew they were Christians and they are gone, here's what has really happened.

"For the Lord Himself has descended from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ have risen first." Be a lot of empty graves. I don't know how they're going to explain that one.

I've often told the people here, if something happens to me before the rapture, cremate me, just speed up the process, and put me out there in the front of the church so that when the rapture happens they can see me rocket into heaven. Maybe somebody driving by will just be freaked out and get saved. I don't know.

"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up." That's our word for rapture.

I can't tell you how many people are, "Well, you can't find rapture in the Bible." You find it in the Latin Vulgate. It's a Latin word that in the Latin Vulgate is translated rapture. In the English Bible, in the King James Version which we use here, it's translated caught up. It's translated from the word harpazo, which means to be snatched away with great force.

One of these days, Jesus is going to descend, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and you and I in a moment and in the twinkling of an eye are going to be changed. This mortal will become immortal, this corruption will become incorruption. In 1/1,000th of a second, we're going to be caught away to meet the Lord in the air.

This is what he's saying. "They which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." How can we? We look around today and we see what's going on, this is our comfort. This is our hope.

And then it says in 1 Corinthians 15:51-54, it says, "Behold, I show you a mystery." A mystery is like an enigma. It's something that only the Holy Spirit can really reveal to you. He said, I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, we're not all going to die, but we shall be changed. Can you imagine? Can you imagine all of a sudden there's a transformation and your soul and your spirit now possess a new body?

And you are whisked away to be with the Lord. "Behold, I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment and in the twinkling of an eye," 1/1,000th of a second, "at the last trump. For the trump shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality."

"So when this corruption shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where's your sting? Oh grave, where's your victory?' The sting of death is sin and the strength of that sin is the law. But we thank God, which has given unto us victory through Christ Jesus our Lord."

We are saved by faith through grace. We've been given a promise by the Father because we've come to Him and humbled ourselves that we would be born again, that our names were written in the book of life and that He would return one day for His bride, for His church, and take us away. This is what's happened.

And in Revelation chapter 4, we have the indication of this as John is writing his, the revelation of Christ. He talks about in chapter 1 what Jesus looks like in His glorified state. In chapter 2 and chapter 3, he talks about the church age, what the churches are going to go through. And in chapter 4, he talks about the rapture when Christ removes His church before the judgment in chapter 6 shows up. Those plagues, those vials, those seals.

He says this in Revelation 4, verses one through two, he says, "After this I looked." After what? After the church age. Chapter 2 and chapter 3, He writes to the churches. And He says to the churches at the end of every one of these seven epistles that He wrote to the churches through John, He says, "He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches."