Our Future Is Out of This World

Want some good news amid the bad? God has a glorious future planned for you. He screams at us and says, you think this is something?

I've got a heaven coming. Your eyes can't even handle it. Your ears can't even receive it. Welcome to Understanding the Times Radio with Jan Markell. Radio for the Remnant, brought to you by Olive Tree Ministries.

Today, Jan spends the hour with Dr. Ed Hindson. Our world today is threatened by dark clouds daily, but the future God has planned for us is out of this world. Prepare to be encouraged. For millennia, humans have looked up into the sky and wondered what lies ahead of them in the afterlife. Our souls innately desire an answer to what is perhaps life's greatest mystery, that which awaits us when we walk through the door into the world beyond. But God doesn't conceal the details about your eternal resting place. Look in God's Word and you'll find a glimpse into heaven, streets brighter than gold, God's radiant throne, and the eternal home of Jesus Christ.

All the magnificent details are written in the pages of Scripture. What heaven will look like, how your soul will get there, if you'll be reunited with loved ones once you arrive, and how your body will appear for eternity. That is but just a sliver of what we can know about eternity, which promises to be a place beyond your wildest dreams.

All you have to do is open the Bible and you'll find that inside, God is revealing the mysteries of heaven. Welcome to the program. Well, I hope with those couple of teases that you heard, you're going to realize that this hour we're going to focus on only good news, the hope of our future in heaven, the millennium, the new heaven and the new earth, and more. And we are setting aside for this week, current events, bad news, dark topics, and only we'll look at our glorious future, the future for the believer. It's out of this world.

It's unimaginable. And if you are struggling today, I hope this hour will be uplifting. We're carrying a new book by Dr. Ed Hindson, his most recent book, Future Glory Living in the Hope of the Rapture, Heaven, and Eternity. Let me just read from page seven of this book. Ed writes, God has planned an incredible and eternal experience for every believer. We were created for eternity and redeemed for eternity, but life has a way of focusing our attention on our immediate cares and not our ultimate goal. He says we are easily caught up in our daily tasks that take most of our time and attention away from the ultimate purpose for which we are created. The Bible reminds us that while God has made everything beautiful in its time, He also has put eternity in our hearts. Ecclesiastes 3, no matter how hard we try, we are never satisfied with anything less than that which is eternal. Dr. Hindson said eternity is a long time.

It lasts forever. Sometimes people ask, what will we be doing all that time? They assume once we die and go to heaven, that's all there is to your eternal life. But the Bible promises so much more. In fact, there are at least seven things predicted in scripture that every believer will eventually experience.

And as time permits, folks, we're going to talk about those seven things that are yet future. Dr. Ed Hindson is Dean Emeritus at Liberty University, more specifically the Rawlings School of Divinity. He's the Distinguished Professor of Religion there. Dr. Hindson, welcome back to the program. Thank you, Jan.

It's always an honor to talk to you. I love your commitment to Christ, commitment to the Word of God and to getting the truth out to people in a way that can make a difference for both time and eternity. We are carrying your new book, Ed. And by the way, Ed has participated in my Understanding the Times conference activity.

I'm going to try, Ed, as much as time allows, to hit some of the highlights contained in the book, things that are yet future. You say that most people want to go to heaven, but they're not in a hurry to get there. They are tied to this world. They can't comprehend the wonders of heaven and eternity in a perfect place. And honestly, Ed, after the events of the last year and a half or so, I am still shocked that many people still want to cling to this earth.

God, I think, allows things to come apart from time to time from a human perspective to remind us this is not our final destiny right here. And if you're dealing with people that live in the third world and become believers, they want to know how soon can we go to heaven. But Americans are thinking, hey, I've got the house at the beach and I've got the swimming pool and the three cars and all my plans, and let's not get in a hurry to get there. And yet at the same time, if you ask them, do you really want to go? Most people will say yes, but you have to get your focus then on the Lord Jesus Christ, who's the one who can take you there, and you need to be ready to go at any time. Any of us could die at any moment or Jesus could come at any moment. So being ready to go keeps our focus in the right direction. As you rightly say, before heaven happens, something else has to happen. And let's just spend a few minutes on it.

And I'm going to have Dr. Ron Rhodes with me within the next three, four weeks, specifically on this topic. But nonetheless, it's so important. And you say the next major event on the prophetic calendar is the rapture of the church. There are lots of things that might happen before the rapture occurs, but nothing must happen before the archangel shouts the trumpet sounds and we leave this world to be with Jesus Christ. Are people thinking certain things must happen first? Because I think it's a signless event.

But speak to this, please. I think a lot of people feel like there has to be certain things that must take place. The temple has to be rebuilt eventually. There has to come a time of apostasy and unbelief. Some people would even try to argue the Antichrist has to come first. I think Second Thessalonians 2 makes it very clear he will not be revealed until after the Restrainer is removed.

And I'm not looking for the Antichrist, I'm looking for Jesus Christ. For the believer, at death, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. But your spirit goes to heaven.

Your body goes to the grave, and in some cases, to the dust or ashes of time. At the rapture, Paul makes it clear in First Thessalonians 4 that when Jesus comes in the clouds, he brings with him those that have been with him. The spirit returns and the bodies are raised, reunited with your spirit so that your body, soul, and spirit in a glorified body for all eternity, then we that are alive and remain at that moment are caught up in a glorified body also to meet the Lord in the air and to be with all of them as he reunites the entire family of God in the rapture. The rapture has to occur. People can argue all day long about the timing of it. There has to be a time when the dead are raised and the living are caught up.

You and I and so many others believe that has to be before the time of tribulation, before the wrath of Christ is poured out on the world, because he's coming for the bride out of love and commitment to the bride. But that's an exciting thing to look forward to, that no matter what's going on on planet earth and what's going wrong, God is always going right. Jesus is coming. The dead will be raised. The living will be caught up. The question is simply, when?

But the real personal question is, are you ready to go when the trumpet sounds? I'm going back to the fact that this could be a signless event, and nonetheless, there are certainly signs for the second coming. They're outlined in scripture. But couldn't some of those second coming signs, Matthew 24 outlines a lot of them, couldn't that second coming experience be casting a shadow on the church age?

I think so. That's why he would say that eventually when you begin to see these things come to that, look up. Well, you only look up in anticipation of the rapture and the coming of the Lord. We should be aware of the fact that certain trends that we see going on right now are precursors to set the stage for the rapture. They're not signs of the rapture. They're signs of the return.

Dr. Walvoord from Dallas Seminary years ago used to like to illustrate it in the way that if you went to the mall shopping in September and they already had Christmas decorations up, you know, Thanksgiving's coming before Christmas. If I see the signs of the return, that'll tell me the rapture's coming soon. And one of those signs is apostasy and unbelief. We are living right now 21 years into the 21st century with a tsunami of that kind of unbelief, not only sweeping the secular culture, but impacting many of the churches and many of the younger generation as well.

The problem of deconversion is happening all over America right now. Young people walking away from the faith saying, I made a profession, I grew up in a church, I don't believe any of it, I'm out. You believe then, as I do, the 2 Thessalonians 2 passage, talking about the great apostasy, the great falling away. Some are now teaching that's the rapture. I think you and I believe it's clearly the great apostasy, the great falling away from the faith, the great Laodicean false teachings raging in the church. That's 2 Thessalonians 2, am I right?

Exactly. And I think Paul also makes that clear in 1 Timothy 4. The Spirit expressly says in the latter times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, etc. Paul's talking to Timothy about falling away from the faith in the latter days. He's talking to the Thessalonians about the fact that people will fall away from the faith. The debate comes over the term. Fall away is apostasia in the original Greek. It means to stand away from. So it's like if you stood up for a position and said, I believe in A, and then you walk away from it and said, I don't believe that anymore, I believe B and C. Instead, you have walked away, stood away from your original position. The argument then is, well, can it mean depart?

My dear friend, Tim LaHaye, and I were very, very close. Tim would point out often in English translations prior to the King James Version, that phrase was often translated depart. The departure would come first, and that starts with Tyndale's New Testament and was followed by other translations later.

In the interest of time, I am moving on because we've got some more categories in your book to cover. Again, folks, the book is Future Glory, Living in the Hope of the Rapture, Heaven, and Eternity. A God that loves you enough to send his son to the cross to die for your sins, loves you enough, he'll come back when the time is right.

You can trust him for that. Plan your life like you have a lifetime to serve the Lord, but prepare your heart to be ready to go in a moment's notice, because at any moment, God could call us home. If you know the Lord is your Savior, the promise of the rapture is assured for you. If you die first, spirit goes to heaven, body goes to the grave, but at the rapture, the spirit returns, the body is resurrected and reunited in a glorified body, soul, and spirit for eternity. If you're alive at the time of the time of the rapture, boosh, we're out of here to the glory of God. You say, we're going to go right up through the ceiling.

How are we going to do that? Why are you going to get the dead guy out of the ground? The same way, by the power of God, the same power that Jesus exerted when he stood at the tomb of Lazarus and simply said, what? Lazarus, come forth.

And the dead man came to life immediately and walked out. Somebody observed if he hadn't said Lazarus and just shouted, come forth, all the dead of all time would have come forth. There's coming a time that he's coming for the believer to call us home to heaven. If you just join me, you're listening to Understanding the Times Radio.

I'm Jan Markell. I have on the line from the East Coast, Dr. Ed Hindson, as we are carrying his newest book. In the book, he's outlining seven future things the believer is going to experience. Some of those include the rapture, the father's house, the marriage supper of the lamb. We've got the second coming where we participate in that. The millennial reign of Jesus Christ, we participate in that. We have the new heavens and the new earth.

And I'm sure some of you have had questions about all of these categories. We can't cover them all today, but we'll cover as much as we can because this is our glorious future. And if you're tired of the headlines like I am that I have to look at every day, then it's time that we focus instead on our glorious future, or as the book title is, future glory. Ed Hindson, I'm moving to, as you outline, the father's house.

The bride must be taken to the father's house. And you say this is one big house with lots of rooms. And quite frankly, it's heaven. It comes out of John 14, let not your heart be troubled.

Believe in God. Believe also in me and my father's house are many rooms that were not so what I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. This essentially is heaven, correct?

Correct. The beautiful thing about it is that if Jesus has been there now for nearly 2000 years, preparing a place for the bride of Christ, it has to be spectacular beyond imagination. Think about beautiful the world is, and it's under the curse of sin.

Despite that, the beauty of various places on this planet are incredible. They're nothing compared to what he has prepared for us for all this time. He's working on something unique for every single believer. And what I love about it is we're all there in that house together, brothers and sisters, co-equal in the family of God serving in a glorified state where there's no sin, there's no animosity, there's no competition of any sort. Everybody is there with a focus on the presence of Jesus Christ, who makes it glorious for all eternity. Well, all believers are citizens of heaven. And Jesus says we are a part of a different kingdom, not of this world. And this is why we don't fit in this world very well. The believer, particularly since things have gone so haywire here in the last year and a half to two years, nobody feels comfortable here anymore if you're a believer.

And rightly so. People got too locked down to success, prosperity, the blessing of God, all too often as it did with ancient Israel and has done even throughout the church age. Sometimes when everything's going right, we don't feel like we really need God.

We're not desperate for His presence. But when everything goes wrong and the bottom falls out and you go on your knees, then you understand it's really ultimately all about Him and our relationship to Him and where that's going to take place in eternity. So these seven things are seven things I like to remind people. If you know the Lord, this is part of your future destiny. Whatever goes wrong here on planet Earth is not the end. You have the rapture to look forward to, the trip to the Father's house that is promised only to believers. There we go to the judgment seat of Christ.

We go from there to the marriage. Both of those are clearly pictured in heaven. You have to go up in the rapture to go to the judgment seat. You have to go up in the rapture to go to the marriage. But then from there, we return with Jesus in His triumphal return and reign with Him in His millennial kingdom on earth. So when people say, well, all of you guys that believe in the rapture are just escapists.

No, not at all. We actually believe we're coming back to planet Earth later, but only when the King comes back will we return with Him. And then His rule will be glorious and earth will finally experience the full blessing that God has promised to it.

And yet even that is still not eternity. Beyond that millennial reign is the new heaven, the new earth, and the new Jerusalem. One more clip here, Dr. David Jeremiah, speaking about the glorious kingdom of heaven to come. When you get to heaven, you're going to know all the people that you met down here, and they're going to know you. It is unthinkable to me that in heaven, we will know less than we do here. 1 Corinthians 13, 12 says this, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known. We will have a greater sense of recognition in heaven than we've ever had here on this earth. Well, our new bodies will be indestructible. Our new bodies will be identifiable. Our new bodies, thirdly, will be incredible.

And I mean that, incredible. Verse 43b says, we will be sown in weakness. We will be raised in power. We will be buried in weakness. Isn't that true? When a body's buried, it's without any strength, without any power. But when we come out of the grave, it will be in power. In our current bodies, we are limited in our ability to sustain effort for very long. Isn't that true? It gets harder and harder as we get older and older.

We work hard for a few hours, and we're exhausted. But in our new bodies, we will have capacities and abilities without any limitation. Nothing will be outside the scope of the possibility for us in our new body. On one occasion, listen to this, on one occasion, Jesus actually entered a room without going through the door. He just appeared in the midst of his disciples. John 20, verse 19 says, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came, stood in their midst, and said to them, peace be with you. In Jesus' resurrection body, he surmounted the limitations of this life.

Earth had no power to stop him, and our bodies are going to be the same. We are carrying Dr. Heinsohn's new book, Future Glory, Living in the Hope of the Rapture, Heaven, and Eternity. Find it in my online store, OliveTreeViews.org, views as in viewpoint, OliveTreeViews.org.

Call my office, get on our newsletter lists, E and print. You'll have the opportunity to get ahold of this very uplifting book. Dr. Heinsohn, again, in the interest of time, I'm moving ahead here because once we are in the Father's house or heaven, and this is your third point here, then we are going to experience the judgment seat of Christ.

Let's just spend a couple of minutes on it. God keeps a record book of what we do for His kingdom, and we will be rewarded. We'll also be reminded of some things maybe we aren't so happy with, but if we were faithful to the Lord, we will be rewarded because the Lord Himself is keeping the record. So after the rapture in heaven, and it's before the Lord is here, the Lord's seat, which is the judgment seat, 2 Corinthians 5, 10.

Talk to us about it, please. The judgment seat or Bema seat was where the ancient city's administrators would often appear and rewards would be given out to those for their faithful service. The Christian will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and we will be rewarded for our faithful service to the Lord. Now, our good works do not earn heaven.

We're already in heaven at that point. The good works are merely rewarded then if He shows appreciation to us. Some of those rewards are listed as crowns that we will receive and then ultimately cast at His feet. So when somebody says, well, they don't need a lot of rewards, you want some crowns to throw at the Savior's feet, and worship and appreciation for who He is and all that He's done for you. I like to remind people, you don't have to be a preacher or a leader to receive those rewards. Every faithful believer will be rewarded for faithful service, and those that have been faithful in much here on earth will be given much responsibility then in the kingdom and in eternity. I love to think of the lady that led me to the Lord in vacation Bible school. I grew up in a non-Christian home. I tell that story in the book.

She had no idea this kid would go on to have a global ministry one day. Well, whatever God's going to bless for my activities, she'll share in that because she was faithful in giving the word of the gospel to me, and that's true for everybody listening today. God keeps the record book of all that you're doing to serve the Lord and will bless you accordingly. Do you think we will regret some lost rewards?

Yes and no. Yes in the sense of how could you not regret it that it's missing, and yet at the same time in a glorified mind and body, God will give us an eternal perspective where we see it from his perspective. You might even think of Simone Biles.

She couldn't compete in some of her Olympic competitions. There was a loss of reward so to speak, and then she finally did the last event and won a bronze medal, and there was a reward. So I think it's that kind of a thing where we'll realize, okay, I didn't do the high jump, but God blessed me with this and this, etc. I think the motivation there is we can't just take our salvation for granted and assume I'm saved. I'm on my way to heaven.

It does not matter how I live or what I do. The New Testament makes it clear, yes it does. We're saved by grace through faith. Not of our works are we saved, and yet that same passage in Ephesians 2 goes on to say, but we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. And that word workmanship in the original Greek New Testament, poiema, is the word from which you get the word poetry. We are God's poem.

God is writing a beautiful story in your life as a result of his grace and your response to that grace by faith, and he's going to keep the record book and bless you and reward you for your faithful service. You say that God will judge according to the truth we have received. Now I think I know what you mean there, and perhaps those who don't have a whole lot of access to the scripture perhaps will not be judged so severely. Would that be correct?

I think so. You have that implication given throughout scripture. Paul even says in one passage that because they did it in ignorance in the past, etc., even Jesus from the cross, Father forgive them. They know not what they do.

They don't realize who I am. That doesn't mean they're not responsible, but that it's more severe, he said, for those who know the truth and try to teach the truth but don't live it. Here's a quick clip of Dr. Erwin Lutzer talking about the Bema Seat or Judgment Seat of Christ. First of all, we're going to be judged fairly. We're going to be judged fairly.

You say, well, where is that in the text? This is, after all, the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, the one who died to redeem us, the one who loves us, the one who became our brother. He's going to be doing the judging, and of course, he would like to have us do well. He is going to be eminently fair. And standing there in the presence of Jesus, we will all have to deal with reality, nothing but reality. No attorney to tweak it to make ourselves look better. No fact will be overlooked.

If you were brought up in an abusive home, it affected the way in which you lived and so forth. All of those things are going to be taken into account, and when your judgment is over, nobody is going to dispute it because we'll know that the judgment was indeed fair and just. And you'll be judged on the basis of what you did since your second birth, not your first birth. There are seven milestones that are ahead of us, folks, and we're trying to cover those in the time we have today. They all represent future glory, and we've still got several to get to. Obviously, we've already talked about, first, the rapture and heaven and the Father's house, the judgment seat, the marriage supper of the Lamb, the second coming, the millennial reign of Jesus, the new heavens and the new earth. What on earth would be the new heavens and the new earth?

Is that going to be on the earth or is that in heaven or both? So we're going to talk about those when we get back. We're going to continue to go through the list here that I have. Again, we can find it all in Ed Hindson's new book, Future Glory, Living in the Hope of the Rapture, Heaven and Eternity. And it is about 220 pages of almost all good news. And if you're as tired of the bad as I am, then this is something that will not only inspire you, but will cause you to look at the future, I think, with eagerness. So many are dreading the future. But when you see what awaits us, I think you're going to have a different perspective on where you are going to be spending eternity. So I'm going to just take a real short time out when I get back. We're going to talk about the marriage supper of the Lamb. It follows the judgment seat of Christ. If you're a believer, we're going to a wedding, and it may be the greatest marriage of all time.

That in just a minute, don't go away. We hope you'll stay in touch with us online through OliveTreeViews.org. That's OliveTreeViews.org. You can call us Central Time at 763-559-4444. That's 763-559-4444. Write us through the mail at Olive Tree Ministries in Jan Martel, Post Office Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. That's Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311.

All gifts are tax deductible. In this age of fake news and false teaching, thank you for trusting Understanding the Times Radio and Olive Tree Ministries. It's right around the corner now, so why not get it on your calendar and plan to live stream this timely event? Behold He Comes is the West Coast Prophecy Conference on September 11th at Calvary Chapel, Chino Hills, California, 9 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. Pacific Time.

All seats are taken, but you can stream the event live or on demand anytime for just five dollars. Here is Pastor Jack Hibbs. Hi, I'm Pastor Jack Hibbs, and I want to encourage you, Pastor, to join us for a live stream event on September 11th, that's a Saturday, 2021, where we are going to be hosting a very special Bible Prophecy Conference titled Behold He Comes.

My goodness, around the world there are so many things going on that herald the coming of Jesus. So we're going to get together, and I'm going to be joined with special guest speakers, Amir Serfati and Jan Markell and Barry Stagner, as we spend Saturday, September 11th, streaming live various teachings concerning what does the Bible say about our days. We believe it's going to be a great opportunity for you to gather your church together and have a tremendous time of being in the Word. We'd love to have you join us.

It'd be very exciting. So listen, to find out more, please go to beholdhecomes.org. beholdhecomes.org, and we hope to see you online. Somebody can live a long life here on earth and we can say, well, they had a good life, but down deep there's always the feeling that wasn't enough.

Nothing less than that which is eternal is enough, and only Jesus can give you eternal life, and it's available to all who put their faith and trust in Him. We know you can't always be by a radio, so just remember that our programming is posted to our website in both its audio and video format. Just go to olivetreeviews.org, that's olivetreeviews.org, and then to radio.

You can also find us on YouTube, Rumble, Light Source, and his channel. Now here are Jan Markell and Dr. Ed Hindson to wrap off today's program. Number one, the reality of heaven. So come on, Pastor, and that's the whole thing. I want to come to you right now from the view of a skeptic. Maybe a skeptic is in the house or watching right now and they're, they're all, come on, this religious junk heaven. Well, my argument is why does man appreciate some sort of glory or paradise that speaks of grandeur? It's not purely materialistic.

I'm not promoting some sort of wealth and prosperity bizarreness. I'm talking about the fact that there's something that God has put within you, and apparently it means something to Jesus because you know John 14, he said, I'm going to go away and prepare a place for you. In my father's house, there are many mansions, and if it were not so, I would have told you. I go now to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

That's amazing. It's called heaven. Welcome back, Pastor Jack Hibbs. Oh, he gets so excited, thankfully and rightfully so, when he talks about eternity and what lies ahead for the believer. I'm talking for the hour with Dr. Ed Hindson. Dr. Ed Hindson is Dean Emeritus at Liberty University, more specifically the Rawlings School of Divinity. He's the Distinguished Professor of Religion there, and his newest book is titled Future Glory, and it's talking about living in the hope of the rapture, heaven and eternity.

Find it at OliveTreeViews.org by calling our office, by getting on our newsletter lists. I've read it cover to cover because I needed a break from the endless litany of bad news that we've been dealing with now for decades and decades, but I think the last year and a half or so has been on overdrive and folks are tired of it, and we cover current events here almost every week on Understanding the Times radio, but sometimes we just have to look at apologetics because that's much more hopeful. So, Dr. Ed Hindson, of the seven items that you outline in the book, I want to get to the fourth here because it's the wedding of all weddings. It's the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Now, just having said that, there are listeners right now. Their churches aren't dealing with the things we're talking about, and they hear about a marriage supper of the Lamb, and they're saying, you know, that sounds really strange, so can you make sense of it for them? I think so. I think the Apostle Paul knew that.

He looked forward to it. The writers of the New Testament were convinced of that. That's why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2-9, I have not seen nor ear heard the things that God has prepared for those that love Him beyond our comprehension.

It can be understood to a point, but not fully comprehended because it's beyond anything we've ever known. In the whole emphasis on the marriage, you have that in the book of Revelation very clearly. In the 19th chapter, Jesus is preparing to return to earth in Revelation 19. It's the climax of the whole book of Revelation. It opens with four hallelujahs, and then the statement that we're to praise the Lord and sing praises to Him because the marriage of the Lamb has come. That's Revelation 19-7. His wife has made herself ready, and to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, and the fine linen represents the righteousness of the saints or the believers.

So the idea there is the marriage is a picture. It's an illustration of our union with Christ. That prophecy is not just bad news about what's going to go wrong in the future. Prophecy is bad news only for the unbeliever. Prophecy is good news for the believer. The good news is Jesus is coming to take us home in the rapture to the Father's house, to the judgment seat of Christ to receive our rewards, and then to the marriage, to this celebration of a union spiritually with Christ forever.

So I like to remind people, if they've never been married or how many ever times they've been married, you're going to be married again in the future. There's a wedding coming, and that wedding is described here in such beautiful way, and the Bride of Christ is a term used throughout the New Testament. So it's not only there in Revelation. Paul refers to the church as the Bride of Christ, that Christ in essence is spiritually married to the believer forever, and that becomes a full reality at the marriage in heaven. And once you receive the white robe, then when we return with Christ, same chapter, chapter 19, Revelation, verse 14, the white-robed believers come from heaven with Christ in his triumphal return. The Bride of Christ comes back to reign and rule on earth with Jesus. No longer the church vilified, murdered, persecuted. Now she's the church triumphant who marches out of heaven with her warrior husband to reign and rule on earth. That is still coming in the future destiny of every single born-again believer. The marriage supper of the Lamb actually takes place then during the tribulation. That's what's happening on earth. The saints are in heaven. So this would be during that seven-year tribulation.

Exactly. So you have all that illustration throughout Scripture where Jesus will talk about going away to the Father's house to prepare a place for you. Well, in the Jewish wedding concept, the couple would be betrothed to one another, but then the groom would go back to his father's house, add a room or maybe several rooms onto the house to prepare for the bride. The bride was told, you be ready to go when he comes back for you. And he would return for the bride when the room was ready and take her to the Father's house. I think that's very clear in what Jesus talks about. It's very clear in what the apostles talk about in the letters of the New Testament that the bridegroom is coming to take the bride home to the Father's house in heaven and take us to the marriage.

And that relationship is permanently consummated forever. We are now in a glorified body, in a glorified state that is no longer subject to pain, to heartache, to disappointment or descent. We're in a final, fixed, sinless state forever with the Savior. I'm going back just a little bit in our discussion here. As it concerns the rapture, nobody knows the day or the hour. In the meantime, we have a job to do. Don't fall for guys saying, I know the date of the rapture.

No, you don't. I've been in the ministry for 50 years. I've heard every crazy speculation you could imagine.

1972, 76, 88, 99, 2000, 2011, whatever. Jesus said, nobody knows the day or the hour of my coming in what? In the rapture to raise the dead and capture up the living in a glorified body, straight to the clouds, to heaven, et cetera. So if nobody knows the time, so don't waste your time trying to guess the time, be ready all the time because Jesus could come back at any time.

Well-taught people. Yeah, you live with a balance. An eye on the sky, He could come at any moment.

Feet on the earth. I have a job to do in the meantime. I love the way you said that, Dr. Heinsohn.

That was brilliant. Moving on only in the interest of time to the next event, the second coming of Jesus. I think you say it's the second most prominent reference in the Bible next to salvation, correct?

Exactly. There are scores of prophecy about the return of Christ. And yet so many churches never talk about it. They talk about you die, you go to heaven, that's it. But if you read the Bible, it's obvious, no, you go to heaven and you're going to the marriage and you're going to the judgment seat, but you're coming back with Jesus to reign and rule with Him when He returns. The believers are coming back with the Lord Jesus Christ because the earth is devastated. And reading the seals and the bowls, et cetera, that are in Revelation, we see why the earth is devastated and humanity is at its lowest point.

I like the way you put it. Jesus no longer rides a donkey. He rides a white horse and the saints are with Him. But that could be literally millions of saints over time. And probably will be.

This is a host that is stunning. It's at that point that when He returns triumphantly, Revelation 19 ends with those powerful statements. He speaks the word with a sword of His mouth, slays the army of the Antichrist, the beast and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire. Satan is bound in the abyss for a thousand years, and Jesus is going to reign and rule on earth in a time of unparalleled peace and prosperity and blessing in the right sense of the word, where the word of God, the law and truth of God will go out to the entire planet, even as God promised by the Old Testament prophets, as well as the New Testament apostles. So we're going to proceed to reign and rule. And this is when in Scripture it talks about on his thigh is written King of kings and Lord of lords. And Satan is bound then for 1000 years. And that's the millennium. We're not there yet, folks, because I'm still dealing with the second coming here of Jesus Christ. We are going to reign and rule with Jesus Christ in our immortal bodies.

We'll get to that in a minute. But this is the second coming. And I think many denominations are fine with teaching about the second coming, but they're not fine with teaching about the rapture. Now, I don't fully understand that in that I think the rapture is so clear in Scripture. But why are they OK with the second coming but not the rapture? Technically, the promise of the second coming is in every theological statement of virtually every denomination. They all say that they believe Christ will return because he said he would.

They at least go that far. Then the problem becomes when and how does he return? Is it literal?

Is it spiritual? Is it before the tribulation, after the tribulation, et cetera? The timing issue gets garbled up there. And a lot of times people who don't believe that the rapture will come before the time of tribulation tend to say things like, well, there never will be a rapture. No, there has to be a rapture or you've got to take 1 Thessalonians 4, rip it out of the Bible and throw it away. There has to be a time the dead are raised, the living are caught up. The question is simply when.

I'm convinced it is before the time of tribulation because the time of tribulation is clearly described in the Book of Revelation as the wrath of Christ and the wrath of God the Father. Well, the church that's born again and saved is not the object of the Savior's wrath. She's the object of the Savior's love and devotion. When you spoke at my Understanding the Times conference a few years ago now, you put a picture from your PowerPoint presentation of a bride in a white gown, beaten up, black and blue eye, et cetera. And you said to the audience, God doesn't beat up his bride. He died on the cross for his bride. Why would he beat her up?

And I think you made a point that I'll never forget. Yeah. Is that his goal for his bride?

No. Satan may attack her. The world may attack her, but God's not going to attack the bride. He doesn't have to pour out wrath on the bride to purify the bride.

That starts to sound like Protestant purgatory after a while. Jesus went to the cross. He took the punishment for us.

He took the beating. We deserve it, but we don't receive it because he paid it all for us. What I love about these positive prophecies of the future, they highlight the love of Christ.

They highlight the power of his atonement and his commitment to the bride, that God is a wonderful future planned for every believer. And my goal in writing the book was to help people see that. I actually wrote this in the first month of the COVID shutdown. Okay.

Couldn't go anywhere at first. So I thought, why waste the time? I preach on it. Let's write it up in a book so that all the verses and all the emphasis is there. People can read it, study it for themselves and walk away with a wonderful sense of Hallelujah. We win that the future is really glorious in Jesus Christ. You're listening to Understanding the Times Radio. I'm Jan Markell. I have on the line from the East Coast, Dr. Ed Hindson. We're carrying his new book, Future Glory, Living in the Hope of the Rapture, Heaven and Eternity.

You can find that in my online store by calling us or getting on our newsletter lists here. And then I'm moving on from the Second Coming because the saints, that's you and me, folks, if you are a saved person, we return in the Second Coming and we are going to populate the millennium. And that's the sixth future promise that Dr. Hindson talks about, the millennial reign of Jesus Christ.

Ed Hindson says in his book, Revelation 19 is probably the most dramatic chapter in the entire Bible. It is the final capstone to the death and resurrection of Christ. In this chapter, the living savior returns to earth to crush all satanic opposition to the truth.

He establishes his kingdom on earth in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies of his own promise to return. Having said that, Ed, there are some and I might be one of them who has asked, I don't any longer, but at one time I did, why do we need a millennium that's a thousand years right back here on this awful earth, though it's going to look a lot different during the millennium. Help us understand this literal 1000 years on earth, which we already have referred to the amillennialist is going to make this symbolic. And we're in the millennium now.

And I've talked about that on air before, but there's no way we're in the millennium now, but why a millennium? Because it fulfills the promise of the prophets that there has to be a Messiah, the son of David on the throne of David on earth in Jerusalem, reigning and ruling and that the law and truth of God would go out from Jerusalem to the whole world. We have to think of the millennial era as a time of unbelievable Christian influence, Christian evangelism, Christian messages. If Jesus is here in person and he's ruling as king, then every school is a Christian school.

Every hospital is a Christian hospital. Everybody who's born in natural bodies throughout the millennium will have every opportunity to hear the truth while Satan is bound in the abyss, locked down, cannot get out. People say to me all the time, well, do you think God can build a chain to hold Satan? Do you think the chain is literal?

Well, do you think the abyss is literal? Is the devil literal? God can capture Satan and limit him however he wants to. The scripture says he's going to do it for a thousand years when he cannot deceive the nations and there is no war. The very fact that there are wars on the planet and there's massive deception ought to tell us we're not in the millennium. Satan is not bound at the present time.

Peter said he walks about like a roaring lion. James, Jesus' own brother, said to Christians, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Satan is very alive and well on planet earth right now, but there will come a time in that millennial reign when he will be bound in the abyss and the opportunity for earth to finally experience the full blessing of God will come. It'll have to be renovated after the devastation of the tribulation. There will be much for us to do and glorified bodies will return to reign and rule with him and have responsibilities in his literal kingdom on earth and that is a glorious time that people can't fully comprehend and yet we see in many ways how God blessed America in its early days because of the commitment of so many of our leaders to biblical truth that they too were looking forward to that kingdom in the future.

We realize today we can't bring that in by ourselves. The church even at its best is not going to bring in the kingdom of Christ on earth. You're only going to get the kingdom when the king comes back. People ask me every time there's an election, they want to know, who would Jesus vote for if he were here? Well, if Jesus were here, we would not be voting for anybody.

He'd be the king and it would be glorious. But at the end of that millennium, Satan is released. Help us understand this. That's the great shock. It really is like you're watching this movie where finally the enemy's captured and everything's going great and suddenly he's let out again. I think God releases him one more time to demonstrate that salvation is of God, not the environment. The environment can be wonderful but it's not going to convert you. The message can be fully available to everybody but you have to personally believe and I think Satan's final deception is to try to deal with those that have been born during that thousand years to say, do you really want to follow Jesus or not?

Are you tired of this? Follow me. And the sad truth is many will follow him and that final rebellion is then put down and then the earth and its atmosphere, when he talks about new heavens and new earth, I believe he's talking about the atmosphere around the planet. You have those three levels of heaven. I talk about that in the book.

Yes, you do. The atmospheric part of the planet, what we would call outer space, and then the dwelling place of God, what Paul called the third heaven. Well, God doesn't need to renovate the third heaven where he dwells. It's the planet and the atmosphere around it and some believe that that means elimination of the current planet.

It's replaced by another. Others, like David Jeremiah, my good friend, says he believes it's a renovation where everything that represents sin and death is burned away and the planet is brand new. Either way, the scripture calls it a new heaven and a new earth, but the real key is the new Jerusalem that comes down from the ultimate heaven of God. And the new Jerusalem then is the portal between heaven and earth in eternity. That's when the scripture says every tear is wiped away. There is no sin.

There is no pain. There is no more death. We shall live in that glorious city forever and ever and serve God in his vast universe. We need to get to the new heavens and the new earth because that follows this thousand year reign of Jesus Christ on earth. And folks, that's a literal thousand years.

I know there are many denominations teaching it's symbolic. I understand that. But Dr. Heinsohn and I believe that reign of Jesus Christ is a literal thousand year reign. Let's spend a minute or two here at Heinsohn on the new heavens and the new earth.

This I really want folks to comprehend. How will the new heavens and the new earth be different than the millennium? And it will, for one thing, we're going to get rid of Satan finally in the new heavens and the new earth.

He's gone. He's history. And that's the major difference at that point. When this is described in the last two chapters of the book of Revelation, the city has the glory of God. That's part of my emphasis in the book on future glory. We are there in a glorified, sinless state. And it's in this city that there is no need even of the sun or the moon to shine because the glory of God illuminates it. And the nations of those that are saved walk in the light of God, that you still have your national ethnic distinctions from earth, but you're resurrected in a glorified body.

And all of us are there in harmony with one another, brothers and sisters in the family of God forever. The river of life is there. The tree of life is there.

It hasn't been seen in the Bible since it was lost in Genesis three. Now this tree of life is available again. And then he goes on with those beautiful descriptions. Pain is wiped away. Evil is no longer there. You are in this glorious place forever and ever. And that's why I think it even says in the Old Testament in Ecclesiastes, God has said eternity in the hearts of men, that we're really not satisfied with anything less than that, which is eternal. Somebody can live a long life here on earth and we can say, well, they had a good life, but down deep, there's always the feeling that wasn't enough. Nothing less than that, which is eternal is enough.

And only Jesus can give you eternal life. And it's available to all who put their faith and trust in him. Is the new heaven and the new earth in heaven or on the earth or all the above or all the above is the new Jerusalem suspended between heaven and earth. And the saints of God go back and forth to all these places and have access to the whole universe in which we are serving God in the expanse of all that he has created forever and ever. So there's a river there.

There are trees there. There's some emphasis on nature. Yet at the same time, there's the streets of gold and the walls of jewels. It's almost indescribable. And as John, the apostle writes those closing chapters in Revelation, he's trying to tell us what I saw was almost beyond description. It's so glorious. You don't want to miss it. And I want to go there in just a moment that it's beyond description. We don't want any listener to miss it, but still talking here about the new heavens and the new earth.

So this is paradise regained, correct? Exactly. No curse, no sin whatsoever.

All of that removed. All of that has been judged in the lake of fire. The unsaved are not admitted into this place. People always ask me, why wouldn't you still give them another opportunity? You're not going to take unsaved people to heaven because it wouldn't be heaven.

It wouldn't be happy. Just help us better understand the holy city, the new Jerusalem, because again, some of this is out of this world literally. So it's a little bit hard to grasp.

It is. I think when he says the streets are of gold, but it's transparent as glass, not sure that that means literal gold. Like we think of it, it looks like gold, but it looks like transparent glass. And he keeps using like and as comparisons as he's trying to describe this because he's trying to describe something he'd never seen before.

And that was beyond human description. The key is it's the holy city. There's no crying there. There's no pain there because there is no sin there because the holiness of God prevails in that place. And we are made holy by him because the scripture reminds us without holiness, no one will see God. God is the one who grants us that gift of righteousness and holiness through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

That when Jesus died on the cross, he not only died to forgive your sin, but he dies to give us the gift of his righteousness. And we stand complete in him. And as you see the description of the people that are there, it is obvious they are not just worshiping God. They're doing all of that, but they're also serving him. And he calls them his servants who serve him for all eternity. I think we'll be busy because in a glorified body, it's not limited by human dysfunction and physical limitations.

As you say, it's beyond description. It's our future glory. Ed, if there's one person uncertain about that as we speak here, and I am down to just a couple of minutes, you've outlined the plan of salvation actually two or three times.

Why don't we do it one more time as we go out of the program here? Jesus came not just to teach a better way. He came to give everybody a better life. He died on the cross, taking the wrath of God against our sin, put it to death, rose from the dead to offer us the gift of eternal life. And the scripture tells us, whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

It's a call that says, I really believe Jesus. You are who you said you were. You're alive today. You can forgive my sin. You can change my life.

I'm ready to say yes to you. All the wages of sin is death according to the Bible. The gift of God is eternal life to all that will believe.

So I would encourage you today. If you're questioning, am I on my way to heaven? John the apostle said, I wrote these things that you might know that you believe. Put your faith and trust in him. He paid it all, all to him we owe. If I'm trusting him, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He will fulfill all of his promises to you and me. Dr. Ed Hindson, thank you for all you do.

I can't think of a program more appropriate for me to close with something I do quite often. And that's this little saying, when the time was right, the sea parted, the walls fell down, the lions went hungry, the sun stood still, the waves were calm, the stone was rolled away, the clouds were parted, the Lord ascended. And when the time is right, the King of Kings will return. God is never early. He's never late. He's always right on time. And his plan for you is good. I hope you've seen that throughout this hour that the plan, these seven incredible events that lie ahead of us, that his plan for you is not just good, it's perfect. I want to thank you for listening. And we'll talk to you again next week. contact us through our website olive tree views dot o-r-g that's olive tree views dot org call us central time at seven six three five five nine forty four forty four at seven six three five five nine four four four four we get our mail when you write to olive tree ministries and jan markell box fourteen fifty two maple grove minnesota five five three one one that's box one four five two maple grove minnesota five five three one one all gifts are tax deductible remember that god has orchestrated events to play out as they are he remains in control you are in the palm of his hands and everything is falling into place