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Amazing Facts

Prophecy Encounter

Doug Batchelor

Signs of the Coming King, Pt. 1

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

The Great Basin Bristlecone Pine is 1 of the longest living organisms on earth.

Incredibly, it can live more than 4, 000 years.

In fact, 1 specimen called the Methuselah tree in the White Mountains of California is believed to be over 4, 700 years old, and it's among the oldest living trees on the planet.

This tree was around when the Egyptians were building the pyramids.

Some of these ancient evergreens found on lonely mountaintops have weathered thousands of years of intense freezing wind, pounding rain, scorching sun, and violent electrical storms.

How have they managed to survive for millennia of such harsh weather and adverse conditions?

They do it by sending their roots deep and wrapping them tenaciously around the solid rock and hanging on.

You know, friends, Jesus tells us that there's a time of tribulation coming just before his return.

An intense frightful storm of trouble unlike anything we've ever seen.

Is your life anchored on the solid rock of Christ?

Let's explore together from the Bible just what will happen in the last days.

You know, it's very interesting that they have so many programs now that are dealing with the subject of preppers.

National Geographic has a program that specifically talks about doomsday preppers.

And a lot of people have been wondering what's coming.

And some of these people aren't even religious.

They just see what's happening in the world, They're worried about the environment, they're worried about a natural disaster, they say what will we do if an asteroid strikes, or if there's a tsunami, or if there's a social meltdown.

Others are worried about Armageddon and there's more religious overtones to their fear.

How many of you have heard about folks that are preppers?

They're trying to get ready for the last days and they're storing up buckets of beans and they've got, you know, solar electric and all these things.

Karen and I have had a cabin in the hills for 40 years now, and I think 35 years we've been off the grid and it's just because there's no electricity nearby.

But a lot of people are doing this because they think when there's this major meltdown, we somehow will survive.

Now, for years, folks have acted like, well, this is just a fringe group that's worried about that, but it's now going beyond that.

I think it was just last week Wall Street Journal published an article that now there's about 60% of these mega millionaires have a plan or a place where they can protect themselves in the event of some social meltdown.

You can see Doomsday Prep for the super rich.

They bought these deactivated missile silos.

You've heard of skyscrapers that go up in the air?

And they have rooms, and It's $3 million for a level, and they are selling out because these mega millionaires and billionaires, they're buying secure spots, they've got their own water system purification, air purification, hydrophonic farming, they've got swimming pool, they've got a theater for 17 people, they've got a pharmacy, a jail, and this is all being built below ground.

You know, they thought if anybody kind of, you know, gets odd, they've got the jail until they cool off, because, you know, if you get cooped up with a bunch of type X millionaires, anything could happen.

So it's not just fringe groups that are thinking about some kind of catastrophe that seems to be looming on the horizon.

Hedge fund managers, multimillionaires and billionaires from Silicon Valley, they are making preparations for what they think is going to be inevitable 1 way or the other and you consider what we're going to study tonight and you'll see why.

So we're going to be talking tonight about signs of Jesus coming.

The second coming of Christ is what you would call the pinnacle or the high point of prophecy.

And we're going to go through sort of a question and answer method that just helps me stay on track and so it creates an outline for our study.

First question is, what is 1 of the central teachings in Revelation?

We've mentioned that there's some supplemental material that you can get to go along with these presentations, but I'm going to give you a few of the scriptures just from Revelation so you'll know that the second coming of Jesus is not an afterthought in the last book of the Bible.

For instance, Revelation 1, verse 7, first chapter, Behold, He's coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him.

You can read in Revelation 14, 14, and upon the cloud 1 sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown.

Someone on the clouds coming, Jesus is coming in the clouds.

Blessed is He who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.

Now that's the last chapter in the Bible, but we're not done yet.

He who testifies of these things says, Surely I am coming, how?

And you're probably thinking, Pastor Doug, John wrote that 2, 000 years ago.

God's idea of quickly and my idea of quickly are not the same.

I mean, we want fast food, and we think our microwaves are too slow.

Well stay with us and we'll talk about that in just a moment.

He who testified of these things said, surely I am coming quickly, amen, even so come Lord Jesus.

1 of the principle teachings of the book.

So with that in mind that the Lord says He is coming and that He's coming quickly, what can we know about the time of Jesus' return?

Now this is where you've got to be very careful and I want you to listen carefully to what I'm sharing.

We can know something about the Lord coming soon, but be very careful about a group that is giving you a date for the Lord's return.

Matthew 24, Jesus said, speaking of His second coming, but of that day and that hour knows how many people?

No man, not even the angels, but my Father only.

Now I'm sure Jesus is in heaven, He knows now, but when Christ was on the...I doubt that the Father is saying, I know the date, but I can't trust you with it.

But when Jesus was on the earth, He said, I don't even know the date.

So when someone starts to presume to tell you I figured it out, I did the math, I know the day and the hour of Jesus coming, this gentleman here Harold Campion, a very sincere man, I don't question that, he was the president and 1 of the founders of Family Radio, they have some great Christian music, but I think most of us remember when a few years ago he foretold, I think it was 2011, that was the second or third time he picked a date for the second coming.

As a matter of fact, 1 of his dates was I think 1994 or 96, I don't remember.

I was doing a seminar and again he had picked the date and it really helped the attendance of my seminar.

And I've always made it very clear, that's not how you do it.

He had a big date for May 21, 2011, and we actually interviewed him.

We were on Fox News in Sacramento because I made an offer.

He had a great network of radio stations.

We said, we'll give you a million dollars for your radio stations you can use now, but if Jesus doesn't come, you sign them over to us.

He had a stroke shortly after Jesus didn't come.

He really believed it, but it messed up a lot of people, and you know what?

That's why we've got to be careful about people just continually setting dates, and then it's the next date, and then it's the next thing.

I think we need to live in a state of expectancy because in reality, as far as you're concerned, if you die, your next conscious thought is the resurrection and the second coming of Jesus.

And even if you live 90 or 100, 200 years, what's that compared to eternity?

The Bible says a day with the Lord is like a thousand years.

Now Jesus did tell us we don't know the day or hour, but we can know when it's near.

Matthew 24 verse 33, He said, When you see all these things, know that it is...

He said, Lift up your heads when you see these things.

5 times in Mark 13, when Jesus talks about the second coming, He says, watch, watch, watch.

Actually it's 4 times, but He wants us to be watching.

It said, less coming suddenly He finds you sleeping.

And then He gives the parable of the virgins waiting for the bridegroom.

Signs of the Coming King, Pt. 2

Contrary to the popular belief that lightning never strikes the same spot twice, It's actually been known to strike objects, even people, multiple times during intense electrical storms.

During 1 storm, for instance, the Empire State Building in New York was struck 15 times within 15 minutes.

Sometimes a single bolt of lightning will really consist of as many as 42 discharges striking the same spot in such quick succession that it appears like a single flash, but it all happens in less than 1 quarter of a second.

Lightning from 1 cloud to another is also very common, and it's been recorded to jump as far as 20 miles between clouds.

But whether lightning is moving from cloud to cloud, or cloud to ground, or ground to cloud, it's hard to miss the brilliant, blinding flash that illuminates the sky.

In Matthew 24, Jesus said, for as lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

In spite of His words, some still believe that His return is going to be a secret.

Join me now friends as we take a closer look at what the Bible really says about the return of Christ.

People know that something unusual is happening.

2010 the Pew Research Group did a survey and in that survey they explained that by the year 2050 about 60% of the people believed that Jesus would come.

I think 40 of those 60% were absolutely sure.

20% said probably, and that's in North America, of course.

And that's why we're going to be talking tonight about the pinnacle of prophecy and signs of Jesus coming.

You know, it's very interesting we're going to be finding that the book of Daniel is a partner book for Revelation, so we'll be going back and forth.

Revelation does a lot of referring to the book of Daniel.

You look in Daniel 12 and he says in verse 4, But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end.

So no question about what he's talking about.

And he goes on to say, Many will run to and fro.

First of all, I think they're going to run to and fro through the Word of God and discover truth, but you can't miss the point that people are running to and fro faster, do you realize for about 6, 000 years people, the fastest thing you got is a horse?

Just can't even imagine the change that's been seen.

National Geographic back in 2006, I know it's an old article but it still bears the point, that's the magazine cover if you want to reference it.

There's a quote in there, people are traveling far from home more than ever before in human history, and knowledge will increase.

This is a picture here on the screen of the great Hadron Accelerator.

It is the largest experiment in the world, it's the biggest machine in the world, it's under the ground about 500 feet, a 17 mile tunnel in Geneva underneath the ground, where the whole these European governments got together and they poured like $13 billion into building this testing equipment to understand physics, and as they hyper-accelerate these particles, they smash them and then they measure what they find to try and figure out what is the base core of what life is made of, what is the stuff of life?

Actually, the nickname is, the machine has been built to discover, they call it the God particle.

They said, we're trying to find the answers of where everything came from.

But with technology, not only from under the ground there in Geneva, but up in the sky with the International Space Station, knowledge has increased just in 1 lifetime, I should actually say in about a century, you look at just some of the changes, incredible inventions, automobiles, airplanes, radio, television, smartphone, computers, a lot of young people today they can't imagine a world without a smartphone and you know, I get...

Karen and I got a rental car, and it's a fairly new one, we got lucky, got low mileage rental car, and I've nearly wrecked 3 times trying to figure out how to run the thing.

I sat in the car when we got there, and I sat there, I said, Oh, this is great, low mileage, you know, And I figured out finally you don't have to use a key, you just press the button, because it knows the key is in my pocket.

I kept trying to figure out where do I put the key.

I'm 1 of these old people, I want to put the key in somewhere.

And I keep taking the key out when I walk up to the car, but it doesn't need the key, it just opens by itself.

And I said, what a waste of energy, I had to find it.

And I'm trying to figure out how to shift the thing, and I'm looking at all this, and finally Karen reaches over, she turns a knob.

I'm a man, I want to grab something and hear it clunk, you know, when...

Can you imagine trying to explain a smartphone to the apostle Paul?

Paul would say, look, let me find that in my scroll.

I said, no problem, Paul, I'll Google it.

And another 1 for me that I think is a tremendous evidence of the nearness of Christ's coming is global evangelization.

Matthew 24, verse 14, this to me I think is 1 of the most powerful prophecies that really makes me believe we are living in the last days.

Jesus said extremely clearly, The gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations.

And then he said, Then the end will come.

He didn't say it might come or it could come or it may come.

He said very emphatically, the end will come.

He did not say the gospel will be preached and there'll be a great global revival and everybody will believe.

He said, for a witness, give them an opportunity.

And then what they do with that opportunity is up to them, but the end will come.

Well, is the gospel going in all the world?

Just this last 2 days we've had an invitation to return to China.

We were 1 of, if not the first Christian organization in over 50 years invited to preach publicly a whole series of meetings that was broadcast on television in China.

And then the neat thing is they made copies of that and they continued to multiply that.

I just got a call from our headquarters there and they said, can you come back?

And so the gospel, and it's now on satellite.

Karen and I are going next month to New Guinea and they tell us there'll be about 100, 000 people at this 1 meeting that we're going to in New Guinea.

And I'm just 1 of thousands of missionaries that are out there doing it.

Jesus said the gospel will go to the world.

Amazing Facts gets email from all these people in the Middle East that are watching online.

And so people are searching, and the gospel is going, and missionaries are going.

And so we're seeing, I think, the fulfillment of that in this generation.

Now, I need to pause at this point and delve into a very important part of our study.

I've been talking about signs of Christ coming, now I want to talk about how He's coming.

Because there's a lot of confusion about how.

Now, there's going to be a lot of people in heaven that misunderstood how He's coming.

Did the apostles misunderstand how the Messiah was coming the first time?

They'll be in heaven, but they had the Scriptures wrong.

They thought when the Messiah came, He was going to come on a white horse like King David and he was going to destroy all of the Romans like Samson or something, and they were going to be a world empire like Solomon, and they just had all these great glorious ideas about when the Messiah comes, and Jesus said, no, no, no.

First time I'm coming like a lamb, second time I come like a lion.

Well, the devil is doing the same thing to the church today.

A lot of good people are confused about how he's coming so they won't be prepared to receive him.

A lot of Christ's people, the Jews, did not receive him when he came the first time because they said, Nazareth?

They misunderstood that he was coming first as a sacrifice.

Well now there's a lot of misunderstandings.

When you read Revelation, there's 1 group that's called Preterists, and just think of the word pre.

They believe that all of Revelation was pretty much fulfilled by 100 AD.

The Hero of Revelation, Pt. 1

It's the most read book in the world, selling close to 4 billion copies over the past 50 years.

The Bible is an amazing book unlike any other.

Although it was written over a period of around 1, 500 years by 40 different people on 3 continents the Bible maintains incredible harmony throughout its 66 books.

A long list of Bible predictions have come to pass that confirm the scriptures are divinely inspired, but none are more dramatically fulfilled than 125 prophecies about the Messiah that were fulfilled to perfection in the life of Jesus.

Various Old Testament books predict with great precision the place of His birth, His trial, the manner of His crucifixion, the timing of His resurrection, and many other aspects of His life.

1 thing is for certain, that dozens of prophecies and predictions about his life could never have happened by chance alone.

Join me now as we take a closer look at this hero of Revelation.

Our presentations tonight dealing with the hero of Revelation is part of our Prophecy Encounter series.

We call it prophecy encounter because we're hoping that through the study of prophecy that people will encounter the hero of Revelation.

Matter of fact if you read the first words in Revelation it's not a revelation of the beast, It's not a revelation of the beast, it's not a revelation of the Antichrist.

People say, I want to read about the Antichrist in Revelation.

Are you aware the word Antichrist does not appear in the book of Revelation?

First verse, Revelation 1.1, The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to him to show his servants things which must shortly come to pass.

So the book of Revelation and the things we're going to study in Revelation, Bible tells us way back in the time of Christ they were about to come to pass So the prophecy at least begins during the time of Christ and carries on until of course we're in heaven if you read Revelation 21 and 22.

There are over 300 Old Testament prophecies that provide a number of precise identifying characteristics regarding the Messiah.

A lot of people in the world think that Jesus was just 1 of many religious leaders.

You cannot really believe that and be a Christian.

The Bible says, there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved.

Jesus is not just another religious teacher.

It's called the incarnation in Christ to save us.

The Christian religion is all about Jesus.

The whole Bible tells us about that, we're going to delve into some of these.

First prophecy is in the book of Genesis.

Genesis 3, verse 15 this is after Adam and Eve sinned and God then speaking to Adam and Eve and because of the serpent was the medium through which Lucifer spoke, God said, and I will put enmity, that's where you get the word enemy, it means there's animosity, there's friction, there's polar resistance between you and the woman, between the serpent and the woman that comes up in Revelation so I want you to note that, between your seed, the seed of the serpent and her seed, the seed or the offspring of the woman, the seed of the woman it's talking about is the Messiah.

It goes on to say, and he, the seed of the woman will bruise your head Christ would bruise the head of the serpent and you shall bruise his heel.

The progress or the walk of the Christian church has been impeded slowed by the work of the devil.

There is a battle in this world between good and evil, between the woman and the serpent that carries all the way through.

You read in Revelation 12 we don't have to guess who the serpent is.

So that great dragon was cast out, the serpent of old, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.

For 1 thing He said in John 6, 38, For I have come down from heaven.

I mean, if you meet somebody that says, I've come from heaven, and you know the Bible, we talked a little last night about people who claim to be Christ, and there's some, you know, prominent characters that claim to be Jesus, but there's also some that are locked up here and there.

And I met somebody once that claimed to be Jesus that I'll never forget because I was by myself up in the mountains.

I was a hermit for about a year and a half and I was all by myself and a hiker came by the cave and that was not that unusual, I'd see people from time to time, he stayed and he visited for a little bit and then said he was Jesus.

And at first I thought, well I've got some Spanish friends named Jesus, maybe that's...he didn't look Spanish.

He said, my name is Michael David Harper.

They said, that's my earthly name, but I've come from heaven.

Well, I'll tell you, it's a little spooky when you're by yourself up in the hills and you meet somebody who says, I'm Jesus.

And I have come...and I wasn't quite sure what to say because, you know, I just started reading the Bible and I thought, well if it is Jesus, I've got a lot of questions.

And if it is Jesus, I don't want to show a lack of faith and hurt his feelings, I mean all kinds of crazy things are going through your head, you know.

And I didn't want to make him mad, whether he was Jesus or wasn't Jesus.

And so I said, well, the Bible says that when you come that everybody's gonna see you, it'll be like lightning.

He says, that's true, he says, you know, but I'm coming specially to prepare some other people early.

And he had like an answer for everything, he knew the Bible, and he stayed with me for 2 or 3 days and ate all my food, so I knew he wasn't Jesus, and he didn't clean up.

And I saw him a week or so later, and he actually had found an apostle, some guy was following him around saying, this is Jesus.

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