Tuesday, August 18, 2020

No Second Chances for Jesus!



We must never forget that the Lord knows those who are His, much like you know which children belong to you. Jesus said in John 10 and 17, that His sheep know His voice. I know His voice, thank God that I know His voice and I hope that if you have found your way here today, you also know His voice or if you don't, by the end of this message, I will show you how you can. The Lord knows those who are His. Who doesn't love the feeling of belonging to someone who really loves us? There is something we all love when someone we love gives us a big hug and puts their arms around us from our children, to our spouses or even family members and friends. It makes you feel like you belong, you are worthy and you are loved.

We can see how powerful this is, when people all over the world are being persecuted, murdered, beheaded, killed in every manner you can think of, and they are not afraid. They are singing songs, praising the name of Jesus because they are secure in the knowledge of knowing that despite all these things, they belong to God. No other religion in the world gives you that sense of belonging like trusting in Jesus does. How is that possible? Because He is the only one that is real, He is the only one alive and He is the only one who loved you enough to die for YOU! He is the ONLY Way, the Truth, and the Life! You can't get to God any other way, despite what you might have heard. Remember Jesus Christ died on the cross for all of our sins, not some of them.

I believe that when we read of God's sealing of the 144,000 tribes of Israel, that He is providing them with the Holy Spirit, but it's only a guess, which imparts upon them a sense of ownership that no matter what happens in the Tribulation, they belong to God and can't be harmed. They will walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and their ministry will be like that of 144,000 Billy Grahams throughout the world. As the four angels are getting ready to wreck havoc upon the earth, another angel comes to tell them "Time Out, we have to seal these 144,000 first before you unleash the wrath of God!" They will be walking in a bubble of protection and nothing can harm them that God does not allow.

Now we look at salvation and the wisdom of God.

Revelation 7:4-8 ~ "Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000, from the tribe of Gad, 12,000, from the tribe of Asher, 12,000, from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000, from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000, from the tribe of Simeon 12,000, from the tribe of Levi 12,000, from the tribe of Issachar 12,000, from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000, from the tribe of Joseph 12,000, from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000. "

This is not the church. These are not Gentiles. These are Jewish men from the tribes of Israel. God knows those who are His. The "Church Age" and the age of grace is what we are in right now. That will end the very moment of the rapture and the Day of Christ will begin! God's eye will be focused on the nation of Israel and 144,000 Jews will be sealed to begin evangelizing to the entire world.


Isaiah 49:5 -6 ~ "And now the LORD says - he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength - he says: "it is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."

God is not done with the nation of Israel. You need to come to terms that the nation of Israel is not going anywhere. It was brought back as a nation for the second time on May 14, 1948 and it will continue no matter who threatens to destroy it. God has put His hand on that country and He is doing a work in them.


Romans 11:25 ~ "I did not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in."

Isaiah 43:5-6 ~ "Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, "Give them up!" and to the south, "Don not hold them back." Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth -" 


God is not done with the nation of Israel and one of those reasons is that He is going to call out 144,000 of them to be preachers and evangelists. There will be two groups of people saved during the Tribulation period. (1) Many Jewish people will awaken and to see Jesus as the Messiah, and (2) those non-Jewish people who come to believe in Jesus due to the preaching of the 144,000. God has an awesome plan for the Jewish people and the nation of Israel! It's time to choose God and move on!  If you try to share God with most Jewish people right now, they think you are nuts, did you know that? They just don't see Jesus as the Messiah! The Bible says that they can't, that there is a veil over their eyes according to what we just read in Romans 11:25. God has blinded them.

The Bible says that Satan has blinded the minds of those in this world that do not believe, did you know that? That is one group of people in the world. The second group is those that does believe in Jesus, called Christians, and then there is also a third group of people, they are not blinded by Satan. Did you ever think of that? Who are they blinded by? God! He has blinded the Jewish nation until He is ready to open the blinders. Satan hasn't blinded them. Isn't that interesting?

God in all His wisdom has a great plan during the Tribulation, besides the 144,000 sealed, there will be an untold amount that will choose Jesus both Jewish and Gentile alike during this time. They decide to choose Jesus and move on. There are those in the world today, that haven't yet made that decision to choose Jesus, and if you are one of those people, you are walking a fine line, kinda of like sitting on an ice cube right now over hell. It's bad enough to sit on an ice cube, but have you ever slipped on ice? No matter how great you look, in a second you are humbled when you slip on that ice. You are finally brought down no matter how much you think of yourself, just like the rest of us.

You might be thinking to yourself right now, "I'm not sure I'm ready to make that decision just yet, I still have a few things left that I want to do first." Watch out and beware. Right now during this time of preaching the gospel during the time of grace, the call is upon you right now to choose. We will see in 2 Thessalonians 2 in future studies that once the rapture happens, those people who just prior to the rapture who played with the idea of the gospel and didn't accept Christ and put Him off, the Bible says that God, Himself, will turn upon them, and send them strong delusions so that they will not believe the truth, they will not come to the knowledge of the truth, because they would not during that time of the gospel of the Church Age.

So then who will get saved? The multitudes of the Jews and Gentiles during the Tribulation Period who did not have opportunity to respond to this age of preaching this gospel. Did Jesus not say to go unto all the world and preach the gospels to all the ends of the earth? Not only that at the end of the Tribulation Period or near the end of it, the Bible tells us that there is going to come a time when God will send an angel to flew through the midst of the atmosphere, not the stars, and it will not be a satellite message either, that does not answer what the Bible tells us. It will be an angel sent from God out of heaven, and it will proclaim the everlasting gospel to the entire world and then the end will come upon the earth.

The church is to do it now. Israel is to do it during the Tribulation Period, and when God is done with both, God is going to say, "Angel, one last time, preach it all around the globe, and then that's it. It's over." If you are playing around with the gospel today, you'd better stop playing. You better receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you are having a hard time seeing that, speak to God, open your Bible and He will show it to you. If you want to kill about an 1 1/2, go see the Passion of the Christ. If you need to see something about what Jesus did for you, go see Mel Gibson's rendering of the Passion of the Christ. I stress this rendering because as accurate as it is, it is not accurate enough. In that movie, Jesus is shredded in that and you'll walk away disgusted, changed hopefully, but in the book of Isaiah, it says that Jesus was mutilated so much so that you couldn't even tell who it was or if it was human or not. All you saw was the silhouette of a human being. Can you imagine putting a human being in a blender, turning it on, pouring it out into the shape of a human being and having it stand up? Marred more than any other man for our sins, He loves us that much!

Did you know that while He was on the cross, He was accepting you? All of the sins of the world we could ever commit past, present and future by every single person who had been born, was born and will be born, He paid the price of all it, just for YOU! He accepted it all willfully. That is why He said, "Father if this cup be taken from me, may it pass." The answer was no, it may not. Salvation knows no other way, but for Jesus to go to the cross. And He took upon Himself, what you and I deserve.

John 4:14 ~ " but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Do you know what this verse means? It means that when you taste of what Jesus offers, you will not be like a little bumble bee. What do they do when spring comes? They go from flower to flower sampling all the nectar. They don't build a house on just one flower. There are a lot of people who come from religion to religion to religion, sampling everything that there is to offer, and try to build their own little life from what they like from each of them. Jesus says that when they sample from what He offers, they won't want to go anywhere else!

John 6:51 ~ "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

John 5:39 ~ "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me,"

Remember that salvation has a perfect ending. As we look back to the first three words of Revelation 7, "After these things," I had you circle them in your Bible, to make a special note about them, and now we come to verse 9, "After these things," again! In the Greek it is "meta tauta" and means that same as Hollywood filming a scene and when they get to the end, they say, "It's a wrap!" Simply put verses 1-8 in Revelation, "It's a wrap, it's complete! Stop! Change of scene! Bring in the new set! Get ready to film!" Do you get that?

Beginning in Revelation 7 in verse 9, there is insert, still a parenthetical insert, but now there is a shift change. It's all about a God who loves.

Revelation 7:9-10a ~ " After these things, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:"

Why is this important? It is an interesting group of people, who they are and where they come from. Who are they? They are obviously converts by what they say in a moment. We know that they have the white robes that were given to them. They are before the throne of God and before the throne of the Lamb. Notice where they are at and who they are? Some of them are Jewish but not limited to Jews, these are the converts that comes from the preaching of the 144,000. The verses says that they come from all nations, tribes, people and languages.

You might be well versed in knowing about the Bible, but it doesn't mean you know who Jesus is. He is not only the author but He is the One who the Bible says He is. That is why you need to read the Bible and understand it is all about Jesus Christ. If you don't understand something, pray about it and ask God for understanding and remember, it all points to Jesus Christ.

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