I'm Pastor Donny Jester Grace Redemption Church. I'm so glad that you can tune in today. We have been talking about the Rapture, and trying to cram, I should say, all the information that I'd like to give you out of this time frame is pretty impossible, but we hope that we can say something that will cause you to think and encourage you. And you can tell others, this is what it's all about.
It just doesn't stop with me. Hopefully I can impart to you what little I know that you can tell others. So if you got your Bible, we're gonna go back one more time to our text. First, that's the Lonese chapter four, verse 16.
We'll start right there. So while you're getting that, I wanna also let you know that if you'd like to become a partner with this ministry, you'll see the address on the screen. You can tuck in a little love gift if you'd like. I believe it's good ground.
And if you would like to text and give, a lot of people are doing that. That's safe and secure. It goes to the church. And I think it would be a blessing, certainly to the church and a blessing certainly to you.
So thank you for your time that you've taken today to watch this program. So let's look at the word again. First, that's the Lonese chapter four, verse 16. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the archangel of the Trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we 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. I don't know if you've gave it much thought or not.
There's a lot of people that have received, I think condemnation. I know that I talked to a lot of people all the time trying to straighten people's thinking out because they feel like that if they make one wrong move that God is ready to swat them. God's a good God. The only thing that you have to understand about God is He loves you so much that He lets you live your life without Him.
And what I mean by that, He will not control you. He will not force you to serve Him. And so what you have to know is that if you're walking one way and the Spirit of God is walking with you and you start going in a direction that's totally out of line with God's word and God's lifestyle, then He just backs up and He'll keep loving you. But you got it on your own.
So it's important to know that God is walking with you. And so in all of what we have faced this year, my job is to encourage people. My job is to tell you to think about others rather than yourself. Somebody in my family talked to me not long ago and said, are you walking in fear?
Because you've got a mask on every time you get out. No, I know the Bible says in Psalms 91 verse 10 that no evil shall befall me. No, no plagues shall come. Now am I dwelling?
I know that. But what about people that have not grew their faith? What about people and let's say I'm asymatic and I'm carrying something and it bounces off of me and gets somebody else. Just a thought of me transmitting something that's deadly, it could be deadly to somebody else.
I just can't do that. So I wear a mask, not just for me. I wear a mask for others, for the little grandmother that that's immune system is not good. But I want to do everything I can to protect others and others and myself as well because I want to be used by the Spirit of God.
So in this teaching on the Rapture and where you're at right now, there is hope. The Bible says in second, excuse me, in Titus chapter two verse 12, the Bible says, I should say verse 13 calls it the Blessed Hope. That's soon appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I believe the Rapture of the Church is the next great event on God's timetable.
I look in the history in the Bible and I see where before the flood God called a man to preach his gospel and build an ark at the same time. He worked as he preached, nobody believed him. But through that believing of the Spirit of God and talking, it wasn't like a twilight zone impression. God talked to Noah and gave him detail, informational how to build the ark.
See the Rapture of the Church is like the ark to me, lower to God, it's a saving place. God is not intended for us to go through the raft. And then I'll show you that in the word. So we understand in teaching before in this program that the words called up in verse 17 says in the Greek the word harpazo, which means great joy, which means ecstasy, which means a snatching away, a catching away, it's derived from the old English word, rapture.
So he said the Lord himself showed a sin from heaven with the shouting of the voice of the ark angel, the trump of God and the dead in Christ, she'll rise first. That means the dead in Jesus, their bodies asleep, but their spirit and their soul is in heaven. Hallelujah to God. My mother's body that's riddled with cancer, 700 miles from here in Prescott, Arkansas, 46 miles from Texa, Kena.
My mother's body is going to get up out of that grave and the spirit, her spirit will be reunited. You say, well, what happens if somebody's blown to bits and there's no trace of the body or they cremated himself? Let me help you here. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 38, the Bible said Paul said, God has given to every seed it's on body.
Because people say, well, we would know one other in heaven, well, you know one another now, don't you? Hopefully we'll look a little bit more refined. Hopefully there won't be fat rolls going into God. Hopefully I'll have a little bit of crow's feet diminished and the wrinkles won't be so much on my forehead that you could screw a hat on.
What I'm saying is that God gives seed to everybody. That's 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 38, I believe that's correct. And so I know that the rapture of the church is like the ark, it's a saving place. I'm not going through hell on earth.
For he says here, shall be caught up in the clouds and that word clouds doesn't mean clouds like we see out here in the firm, it's talking about clouds of people. Shall be caught up in the clouds together of every Old Testament, patriarch that has ever lived glory to God will be caught up together. And every single day it will be caught together. And the Bible says, and to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be the Lord.
Then he says in verse 18, comfort one another, well, this is what I want to close with today. There's no comfort in telling people that you're going to have to go through hell on earth for the rest of God to come out in the great tribulation period and meteorites falling from the sky, big as truck tires. And the moon turning the blood and the sun being darkened, no, and all the plagues that's coming, demons being loosed out of the pit, no, God didn't want us to go through that. He doesn't want you to go through that.
Why did I know that? Because if you look at 1 Thessalonians chapter four verse 18, he says, comfort, there's no comfort in me telling you, you've got to go through that. So you look at the next chapter in 1 Thessalonians chapter five verse nine. He says, it's not appointed for us to go through wrath, but to obtain salvation or deliverance from the Lord.
Glory to God, that means I don't have to go through this. So therefore I'm not following some teaching to get me under the spirit of condemnation. I know my God will come back for me. I know he'll come back for you and he loves you.
You just got to make sure that you know I mean you have been born again. So would you pray that prayer with me? Dear God in heaven, I give you my heart, I give you my life, I turn my back up on the devil and on sin, I turn my face to you. Jesus, I make you Lord of my life.
I accept you. If you've done that, please write us, call us, let us know and tell others what's happened to you that you just accepted the Lord. God bless you.