We give you all the praise. We give you all the glory. You are worthy, O Lord. You are worthy. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Please be comfortable. You’ve probably noticed I’m not the kind of preacher who has messages like three things to make your Christian life a success.
Those messages are fine and in their place, but there’s a red flag waving right now in this whole world, and I believe that the Christian people need to be aware. They need to be informed. They need to be like a certain tribe back in the Old Testament where it says, men, we include the ladies, who knew and understood the times and knew what Israel should do. To listen to the preachers across the country, I have to wonder, are they people who understand what time it is? Do they have any clue whatsoever? End times is not a popular topic, and it ought to be.
It ought to be something that people are calling for and saying, help me to understand what’s going on. And the question that’s lingering in everyone’s mind, when? When is he coming? First Corinthians 15, I declare to you brothers and sisters that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep. Sleep is a convenient word for dead. We will not all be dead.
We will not all be asleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. A that we cannot go to heaven in the condition that we’re in. That’s the opening statement. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. So what is your person, your body, going to be like in heaven? It will not be comprised of typical flesh and blood, because the physical person that you have right now is under condemnation. By the first couple in the garden, death came upon all of us, not just spiritual knowledge death, but physical death.
Death passed upon all of us. So in our person, in our physical person, we are not ready for heaven, and so the passage through the grave is for those who have grown weary in their bodies and have passed on. And if Jesus tarries, there’ll be more of us who will go by the way of the grave. There’s questions, of course, arise when somebody is being raised from the dead. What if they were buried at sea? Or what if they were cremated? The Lord will figure all that out. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, and your body is very important to the Lord.
You need to know that. So we’re going to be raised incorruptible. That’s a big word. We’re sown, like seed, in corruption. Remember when Mary and Martha sent for Jesus, said you better come. Your friend is in dire straits. It says that he waited something like three or four days. So here’s everybody expecting the healer, the master, to arrive, and he arrives after he’s died.
And the women are just beside themselves. If you’d been here, he wouldn’t have had to die. So Jesus says, we’ll open up the tomb. And they said, master, he stinks. His body is being corrupted. So I want you to get this picture, morbid as it sounds. He came out of that grave not in corruption. He came out alive, ready for tea and crumpets.
His body was regenerated. Now he did not have a body ready to go to heaven, because that’s got to be totally incorruptible. And that man, along with his sisters, died, and their bodies were corrupted. But when he came forth from the grave, that was a resurrection moment, and his body, corruption, was reversed. And so when he says, I’m telling you a mystery, he’s talking not to you and I. It’s happily we get to read it now, and discern it, and work through it. But he’s talking to the Jews, who believed in that there would be a resurrection. Even the ladies, one of them said to him about him rising again.
She said, well, I know we’re all going to rise sometime. And Jesus said, no, no, no, I’m not talking about that. I am the resurrection and the life. That was a huge announcement. I am the resurrection. He wasn’t saying, I have an opportunity. I have connections somewhere. I’ll make a phone call.
I’ll send an email. I’ll get this done. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. So it was a mystery, but the mystery begins to unfold in this magnetic moment. This was a crushing moment to the enemy, the enemy of our souls. I am the resurrection and the life. And Mary and Martha were not catching on, not just quite yet, because they had no understanding. Jewish people had an understanding.
Remember Job said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. He said, when my skin worms have consumed me entirely. He said, with these eyes I will behold the master, the Lord of the young. I will see him. So you see, Job had an understanding that as corruptible as his body is, and that he would lose out someday fighting for his breath, fighting for his life. He would lose in that battle, but the day would come when he would resurrect. But he had no understanding of how that was going to happen. And so when Paul says right here, first of all, Jesus said, I am the resurrection.
Okay, that gives us a clue, but more clue is coming. And here’s Paul the Apostle says, you know there’s going to be a resurrection. Let me tell you how it’s going to happen. It’s been a mystery till now. What’s a mystery in the Bible? Now, you must have played a game some years ago called clue. Figure out the mystery. You found out that the Baker did it in the library, whatever, you know, all that silliness.
We all know about murder mysteries. We know about people writing books about murder. People love mystery. No, no, this is a different word. This is a divine secret that Paul says, I have news for you, and I got it from Jesus himself. Let me tell you, I’m gonna pull back to, you know there’s going to be a resurrection. Let me tell you what it looks like. Some of us are already dead.
Moses is dead. Abraham’s dead. We’re all dead, all of those people from way back. But not everybody will be dead when it takes place. We will not all be asleep. And if the resurrection happens any day now, we could say not all of us will be gone. I don’t know what that will be like. Lightning speed, lightning speed, it’ll happen.
We’ll not all be dead, but we will all be changed. April and I went to Pastor Church in Hamilton called People’s Church, and the first thing I noticed when I walked into the lobby was a sign over the nursery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. Paul says not all of us will be asleep, but every one of us is going to experience a divine miracle. There weren’t a lot of people at Lily Quinn’s funeral. It was an impossible thing to invite all who would know her, and some would say, I was there, but it didn’t even seem like a funeral. It was so brief. The family handled it the best way they knew how at the time.
If you were there, you heard me say these words. The ground that we’re standing on right now is going to become the site of a miracle. I said it. Frequently and most of the time, I do say so at a Christian funeral. I say, the ground you’re standing on is going to be miracle ground, because this body is going to be transformed and we will all rise. Not all of us will be dead at that moment, but the apostle says it’ll happen so fast, he says, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Now you and I don’t talk about the twinkling of an eye, but there is a Greek word, and I won’t trouble you. Here he goes with his Greek again, but this is so, like I love to dig in and find little treasures like this.
The twinkling of an eye is an English statement that means the smallest, you know, we can divide an hour into so many minutes, so we can divide the minutes into seconds, but then you can divide the seconds into milliseconds, and it goes down and down and down and down, and more and more and more, and the twinkling of an eye in Greek is the smallest dimension of time possible. It’ll happen so fast, you could say you’ll never know what hit you. In a flash, in a moment, the twinkling of an eye, there’ll be the blast of a trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, imperishable, and we will all be changed. Mystery, a secret that the Jews never had until Paul the Apostle said, I’m about to let you know about that secret. New immortal bodies, victory over death, we will have a new body. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the eternal, the spiritual realm of God. Therefore, the dead and the living will undergo a transformation, supernatural transformation, the shedding of the perishable, the shedding of the mortality, and we will become like him, and we will see him as he is. Because you see, flesh and blood cannot inherit the eternal, the spiritual realm.
Our physical bodies as they are are not acceptable into heaven, because this body is corruptible. So the dead and the living will shed our current existence, and we’ll go to be with him. Hebrews 9 says, 27, 28, as it is appointed for men to die once, but then there’s a judgment. So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. Now this is a special word. To who? To those who eagerly wait for him, he will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. This is not a silly question.
This is an honest question, and it’s a trap. Are you eagerly waiting for the appearance of Jesus? Is that the next thing you’re anticipating? Are you sure? Are you sure? Tribulation is coming. Now the word tribulation in the Bible means pressure, and this is going to be a sad note for those who believe you’re a Christian, you’re a king’s kid, you should never ever experience harm. You’re a king’s kid, all you have to do is pray a certain way, and everything’s going to come up humpy-dory, and you’ll never have a disappointment in life.
But the New Testament, use your concordance if you have one, and look up every time that the word tribulation is used. It’s used frequently of Christians. Christians, we will have tribulation. We will have trouble. I was with Bob Hodson yesterday, and there’s no question in my mind, Bob is watching us right now. Good morning, Bob. Bob said, please don’t ever stop playing your sermons on television, because he said, I’m struggling with my reading in the Bible now. I’m really struggling.
It’s really troubling to me. But he said, when you come on on Sunday mornings, he said, I can’t wait for it to come on, because he said, I understand every word that you say. He said, I got excited last Sunday. He said, my pastor was wearing jeans, and he said, oh good man, good man. I don’t know what doesn’t take much to make him happy these days, but Bob’s going through some pressure right now. He can’t remember things. Somebody was coming to pick him up to take him to a family reunion. He said, he’s coming to see me.
He’s coming to get me. I said, who? He couldn’t remember who was coming to get him, and I had to help him sort of figure it out. We played this little game of, is it your brother? Is it your sister? No, no, no. And he was so drunk. He’s under pressure.
He’s going through what the Word of God calls tribulation, and we will all experience tribulations. But when you get into the book of Revelation, and it’s mentioned in Daniel and in the book of Ezekiel as well, a time of tribulation like we have never known is coming. So the big question for Christians is, will we go through the tribulation? Pastor, can you help us with that mystery? Now I have a very special friend. I won’t mention him right now. We’ll leave that alone, but this guy is a die-hard tribulationist. We’re going through the tribulation.
Some of us are going to get our heads cut off. The Muslims are going to do this, and they’re going to do that, and oh, we’re going to burn, and we’re going to. . . And this is the word that he tells people in restaurants. This is the way he tries to invite people to give their hearts to Jesus. He’s never led anybody to the Lord that I know of. He’s a very special friend, and Norm, if you’re listening in right now, God bless you.
But I got news for Norm if he’s listening in right now. The question I asked a few minutes ago was, are you eagerly looking for the coming of Jesus? And I would say in his case, and if you think we’re going through the tribulation, you’re not looking for the second coming of Christ. You’re more, you are more speculative about which one’s the Antichrist, which one, which one, which one is the Antichrist? I don’t care who the Antichrist is. I’m not going to meet him. I’m anticipating Jesus, not the Antichrist. Do you think that Justin Trudeau.
. . No, I don’t want to hear about that. When I was in Bible college, a very special elderly pastor was teaching us, and he said, young men and women, let me tell you, he said, when you get into the ministry, he said, you’re going to be speaking and speculating at times about the second coming of Christ. We’re all anticipating it, and he said, I’ve always been in that form, and he said, back, he said, during the Second World War, he said, I just thought I had a thought from God, and he said, I wrote a book, Mussolini is the Antichrist. He said, I had to pull the book off the shelves. He had to burn them all. Henry Kissinger, he’s the Antichrist.
No. Who’s the Antichrist? Why do you even want to know? There was a wonderful thing, I guess, on the YouTube just the last few hours. It said, do you know that the Antichrist might be alive right now? I don’t care, because I’m not looking for him, because you see, the Antichrist is the one who’s going to be a dominating feature of the time of the tribulation. So I’m not looking for the Antichrist. The Undertaker.
I’m anticipating the Uppertaker. Hello? John 16 three. These things, Jesus says, I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace. I’m on my way this afternoon to Toronto. I’m going to be too late for the march that’s happening. Messianic Jews are marching in the streets of Toronto, somewhere around Bathurst. The police are having a nervous breakdown, because they’ve had word from the Palestinian supporters, we’re going to mess with your parade.
Signs of the times. We’re there. Everybody in the world is hating the Jews now. Even in the Republican Party in the United States, there are those who are starting to rise up, and they’re against, they’re anti-semitic too. And we have anti-semitic sentiment all through our society right here in Canada, and I’m not one of them. And I’m going to Toronto tonight, and I’m going to be the next 48 hours sitting among a lot of Messianic Jewish people, people who’ve been converted from Judaism into Christianity, others who are sniffing around. I’m hoping there’ll be Jewish people there that are just intrigued, and if they want to come and throw rocks through the windows and do whatever, I want to be there. Because these are the times just before Jesus comes.
Do you know that Jesus could not have come before 1948? Because the Word says that Jerusalem, that Israel had to be reborn. The Word of God says it so clearly. And there are other things that had to take place before Jesus comes. But I have news for you church this morning. Nothing else in the Word of God has to be fulfilled before the coming of Jesus for his church. Nothing is left, nothing has been left undone. He could come in a moment in the twinkling of an eye.
You better get excited, I’m good till five o’clock. I had a good sleep last night, I’m ready to go. Jesus said, I’ve come that you might have peace in me. The world is rocking and reeling. They’re hiring police to come in from every community around, they’re racing to Toronto right now to try and guard against the stupidity against those who would say, I believe in Israel, I’m a friend of Israel. You better be a friend of Israel. The Lord said to Abraham, whoever loves you I love, and whoever despises you is going to be in trouble with me. I’m a supporter of Israel.
Hello? I’ve sent a word to the lady across the street that owns that store. You know why we can’t park there anymore, anymore, anymore? Do you know that? Because she’s a daughter of Abraham. Today, yesterday was their solemn day, and I’ve told her, we pray in our church for you. We’re with you. I bravely speak that out.
We need to be supportive of Israel, and we ought not to be afraid of what’s going on in the world today. All kinds of horrible things. That knucklehead who founded Microsoft wants us all to eat grasshoppers and dead ants, like as he lost his ever-loving. The guy creates something for the computer, and now he’s going to be, watch this, he wants to be the Messiah of the world. He’s going to save the world, and one of his very best friends is our own Prime Minister. He’s going to save the world for us. Have at it, friends, party on. Jesus is the all-conquering Savior.
Fear not, I am with you, he said. And Jesus said, you’re going to come under pressure. There’s going to be difficulty. Now, who’s he talking to? You say, I’m claiming that promise. You’re welcome to, but he’s talking to the Jews right here. His audience, as Jesus spoke, he said, these things I’m saying to you, his current audience, that in me you may have peace, because Israel was in for difficulty. And on the day they threw down their blankets on the road, waved their palms, Hosanna, Hosanna, and when they took him to the cross they cried out, no, we’ve changed our mind, we want nothing to do with him.
And from that day their death was marked, because only 40 years later the destruction of Jerusalem came. Jesus was saying right here, if you accept me, you’ll have peace in your heart. Don’t be disturbed with world events. Jesus said, in the world you will have pressure, you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I have overcome that world. Tribulation is divided up into two, three, and a half year segments. I think you’re aware of that. It’s seven years of challenges and difficulty.
The first three and a half, who knows how Trump is playing into it. I’m not going to get down into the weeds there, but I’m just saying, what he’s trying to do is bring peace for Jerusalem, peace for the world, peace for the whole world in fact. Because the people of Iran are out, they hate Canada, they hate us, because we are not submitting to their rule. So Trump is over there trying to sort this thing out and say, will you calm down, please calm down. It’s a very, very challenging hour that we’re living in. And I’ll tell you how the story goes on. Eventually they all turn against Israel. That’s the Battle of Armageddon.
When there’s somebody’s crying, okay we finally have peace, we have a peace accord. When they start yelling, we finally have peace, watch out. It’s the lull before the storm. Oh pastor, I’m afraid of the storm. I’m not going to be here. I’m going on the first load. The train’s leaving. You can hear the whistle, you can hear the rumble on the track.
I’m going up with the first load. How about you? Are you looking for Jesus? He said, I’m coming for those who are eagerly looking for me. If you’re not looking for me, I’m not coming for you. It’s okay, move on. Three and a half years of peace, and suddenly the Antichrist will take over. And is he going to be a Jew, pastor?
Is he going to be a Gentile? Is he going to be an Arab? Is he going to be a Muslim? I don’t care. He could be Santa Claus’s cousin. I don’t care who he is, but the Jews should care. Matthew 24 was not written for you. Matthew 24 is about Israel.
You women pray that it won’t come when you’re with child. Head for the hills, run for your life. It was written for the Jewish people. He was saying trouble is coming. You’ve rejected the Lord. You’ve rejected the Messiah. You’ve chosen your path. So the second half of the tribulation is going to be horror like the world has never seen.
I believe that, you know, that whole Wuhan thing, you know how Canada had a part in it. I’ve never said this publicly, and I think it’s safe to do so now because it’s in the news. You’ve heard that our own medical lab out west in Winnipeg had people from our enemies, the Chinese. They had military medically inclined people in there working with them on viruses. Did you know that? It’s in the news now. I’m not telling you any secret, but here’s a little secret I’ll tell you. I knew about this in 2019 when I became your pastor.
I knew about it then. It was not in the news. Do you know how I knew? Because I knew somebody, and I still know this person who was working there. That person called me in panic and said, David, you’ll never believe what’s going to go down. We’re in for a virus. It’s going to go worldwide. 2019.
I never told a soul. Never told a soul. Are they working on bio weapons right now? You bet your green apples they are, and it’s going to be unleashed upon the face of the earth for three and a half years. It’s going to get ugly. All kinds of stuff. Let not your heart be troubled. If you are looking for him, he’s coming for you.
He’s coming for you. At the end of the tribulation, at the end of the tribulation, that’s when Jesus is going to appear to take over the world. So there’s two comings. There’s a coming now that is the resurrection of the saints, the believers, and nobody will see it. It happens in the moment and twinkling of an eye, but you’ll read that he’s coming and every eye will see him. That’s a different coming. That’s the second coming. So we’re anticipating now not the second coming.
We’re anticipating the rapture. The word rapture means suddenly taken away, suddenly removed. We’re looking for that. The bridegroom is saying to the father, I’ve added a room onto our house in heaven. Are you pleased? And the father is finally going to say, it’s finished. Go and get your bride. The trumpet will sound and the groom will come for his bride.
We’re the bride. We’ll hear the call and we’re gone. I was in a Bible College graduation service back in 1968. There was a Newfoundland preacher there. He was as big as a house. He had a voice on him like a foghorn, and he said, I have an idea. He said, there’s a great magnet in heaven. He said, in every one of you, he said, is a piece of God that’ll respond to that magnet.
He said, there’s some angel up there with his hand up ready to pull, ready to pull the cord. He said, he’s ready to say, Master, do we do it now? He said, oh my God, I feel the upper tug. The place went, we went ballistic. We thought he really meant it. He said, I feel the upper tug right now. When I was in Bible College days, the preaching of the second coming of Christ, the preaching like I’m giving you today, was common. It was, it happened, it happened.
It was in the pulpits across Canada. I remember coming home late at night. I was out beyond my, my limit, and I had the family car. And when I got to the we lived way out in the country. When I got to our lane, I turned off the motor, had enough, you know, impetus. The car rolled up in the driveway. I touched the brakes. I got out of the car.
I went through the garage door. We had way into the house, down from the garage. I took off my shoes, and I tiptoed down the stairway into the basement. I tiptoed up the stairway, and I went down the hall thinking, my mom and dad are fast asleep. Don’t wake them. But when I got to their bedroom door, it was open, and the place was dark. The door was open, and as I looked, there were no lumps in the bed. I walked over, and I looked, there was nobody in the bed.
I ran into my bedroom, and I dropped on my knees. I said, dear Jesus, I’m sorry. I missed the rapture. Come on, Jesus, help me, help me. All of a sudden, I heard, David, is that you? Are you all right? My mom and dad had gone next door to Freddy Smith’s to have pie and coffee, and they had no idea I’d come home. They came into a darkened house.
They’re coming down the hall, and they hear me screaming, Jesus, forgive me. They wanted to know, what have you been up to anyhow? You see, in those days, the church was on its tippy toes, anticipating the second coming of Jesus. Well, not the second coming, second coming. I’m sorry if I’m mixing you up. Coming for the rapture. We were looking for his appearing, and it was so real to us that us young people didn’t want to get out of line. Don’t be left behind.
There was a big movie out, Left Behind. It was a huge, huge success. What are churches preaching about today? April and I visited a church down in California at the time. It was known as the fastest-growing church in America. We’re sitting in the, in the, watch this. We landed in the airport. I rented a car in Los Angeles, and I said to this lovely lady behind the counter, I said, would you have a map here that could help me?
I said, I want to get to, I want to get to a place called Saddleback, and she said, oh, you’re going, oh, I can’t remember his name. Doesn’t matter, but she mentioned the preacher’s name. I said, you know him? She said, everybody knows who he is. Everybody knows what that church is. So she said, here’s a map that’ll get you, and she looked at her watch, and she said, you could still make the four o’clock service. I said, this is Saturday. Yeah, she said, the weekend starts on Saturday afternoon.
She said, that place is huge. We raced there. We got there four o’clock. We got into the Saturday afternoon service. I was never so disappointed. The fastest growing church in America. The songs were all totally, you know, legislated. It was a, everybody stand to the right, and then they stand to the left.
Everything was just chopped up just, just like this. There was nobody really singing. It was the guys in the platform playing their ukuleles, and they were having a great time. The audience was just being entertained. I thought, dear God, this is called worship. Then the preacher got up, and this was his topic. How to survive in a toxic environment. Well, that’s a good how-to message, isn’t it?
Make you feel good. Here’s, here’s how to survive. And by the way, at the end of the message, she said, now come back next week. We’re going to talk about how to survive in a toxic workplace. Fastest growing church in America. Our country’s going to hell in a handbasket. Toxic environment? We need to know what the Word of God says.
We need to be ready. We need to be ready. So there, you know, there are, there’s a division. Again, I got to hurly, I got to, I got to hurry. There are those who believe that we’re going up the rapture before the tribulation. I’m in that, I’m in that classroom. Then there are those who believe we go up midway. Remember I said three and a half year?
They believe that the three and a half mark, that’s when we go. And I don’t, I don’t remember why they said so. And then there are those who believe that we have to go through the tribulation and Christians are going to suffer like everybody else. The Word of God says, I have not appointed you unto tribulation. I have not appointed you unto wickedness and harm and destruction. I’m not part of that crew. So I remind you this morning about the communion as I invited the servers to please come right now. And we’re going to be saying goodbye to those who’ve been watching us on the internet.
Goodbye to Daryl and Elsie and to Bill and to Annette and to Bob Hodson and to Joan Hodson and whoever else is out there watching.
God bless you.
Thank you for joining us today.
We’re going to have communion just now.
