Storm Warning: The Urgency of Bible Prophecy

Why is there such an urgent need to study Bible prophecy in this day? Find out with guest Jeff Kinley along with hosts Tim Moore and Nathan Jones on the television program, Christ in Prophecy!

Air Date: October 8, 2022

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Transcript

Tim Moore: Greetings in the name of Jesus our Blessed Hope, and welcome back to Christ in Prophecy!

We’re now in episode five of our six episode series embarking on a very important end times topic, one that God has laid on our hearts very heavy – the urgency of the Rapture.

Nathan Jones: The signs of the end times are increasing in frequency and intensity, just as Jesus prophesied. Our Lord is indeed standing at the very precipice of Heaven, ready to return and snatch away the Church in – the Rapture. That also means the superstorm of the Tribulation will quickly follow.

Tim Moore: To proclaim this important message, we gathered together a team of dynamic Bible prophecy teachers just outside of Dallas, Texas for our ministry’s annual Bible prophecy conference. The theme – “Storm Warning: The Urgency of the Rapture.” Besides Nathan and myself, we were joined by Dr. David Reagan and the Prophecy Pros, Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson, along with many other gifted Bible prophecy teachers.

Nathan Jones: Well so far, we’ve covered the end times sign of nature and the spiritual signs, the signs of technology and society, as well as the signs of Israel and world politics, and the recent phenomenon – the convergence of signs. Now Jeff Kinley, noted author and preacher, will bring us his special message about the urgency of Bible prophecy in our day.

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Part 1 – Presentation by Jeff Kinley of Prophecy Pros

Jeff Kinley: Well, I’ll tell you something we’re living at a time where we need to know our Bible, right? We need to know what the Word of God says. Now, I’m going to talk about the urgency of Bible prophecy today. And I want to tell you that there are two different kinds of urgencies. There’s the panic kind of urgency where people just lose their minds when the chaos of the world hits. And then the second kind of emergency or urgency, rather, is when we know that the time is short. This is the kind of urgency that a football team has when there’s two minutes left in the game and they’re down by six points. It’s no time to panic. But it is time to be urgent. And we need a game plan. And so, I want to talk to you about urgency here.

Now, let’s talk about why should we have urgency? So today I want to give you four reasons why I believe we should have a sense of urgency, not panic, but urgency about our Christian lives. Here’s the first one here, is number one, because the bride must be awakened and prepared. If you’ll notice Jesus Christ, after giving a revelation of Himself, which is how Revelation begins by the way, it begins and ends with God. He goes on to talk about the seven churches.

Now, why did He give us a vision of these seven churches, and why did He go and evaluate these seven churches? Because on the heart of Jesus Christ, most closest to His heart is the condition of His bride. And He wants His bride to be ready, and He wants them to be awake. In fact, in Revelation 3:2, He says to the church at Sardis, “Wake up.” And right now, my friends, we are in a state, whole as a church, whole worldwide of slumber. The church is asleep. They’re asleep on many different levels, not the least of which is biblical.

During the pandemic, a third of church members in America stopped going to church, and a third of them have not come back. I received an email from a pastor this week who said, Jeff, we used to have a nice, thriving church, but during the pandemic they all went away and they didn’t come back. You see, we went home, but we didn’t go back to church.

George Barna did a study during the pandemic, he found out that 18% of professing Christians read their Bibles one time a week, one time a week. 19% never read their Bibles. That’s about 20%, one-fifth of all the people that go to church never open up the Word of God. And then he found that only 14% of professing Christians read their Bibles on a daily basis. 14%. But it gets worse. During the pandemic, they did another study, they found out that that 14% drop down to 9%. We’re becoming more and more biblically illiterate in our day.

I believe the greatest need in the church today is biblical discernment to be able to look at the world, to look at their own lives, and to know what to do about it. And yet, with less and less Bible reading going on the church has less and less discernment. And so, the bride, instead of being able to see what’s going on and recognize the convergence and respond to it biblically and accurately and spiritually, they’re scratching their heads just like the rest of the world.

We went home from COVID, but we didn’t connect with God. In fact, we connected less with God during the pandemic. I always like to say that biblical illiteracy leads to theological bankruptcy, which leads to spiritual anemia. And if you wonder why the church today is so incredibly weak, why we’re having such little impact on our society is because we are biblically deficient. And the church today must wake up.

And my friends, that begins right here behind the pulpit. We have to have pastors, like many of the wonderful pastors who have come to this conference, who believe in the Word of God, who preach the Word of God, unashamedly, unapologetically in season, out of season, not to tickle ears, but to stimulate hearts. And we need pastors in our pulpits today. But unfortunately, too many pastors today are delivering self-help sermons on Sunday mornings. Trying to help people just get through the week instead of doing what Ephesians chapter four says is to equip the saints for the work of ministry out there in the world. And so, pastors today are not equipping their saints.

One pastor put it like this. He said, “Most churches today are a rock concert and a fog show, followed by a TED Talk.” And you wonder why people are not able to handle the world that they’re in while their marriages are crumbling. Why they don’t know how to raise up their children in the nurtured admonition of the Lord is because pastors are not equipping their saints. Now, thank God again for the many pastors that are doing that. But they’re not the majority, my friend. They’re not the majority.

I guess the number one email I get over every other subject, I get emails from literally all over the world, and they asked me one question, “Where can I find a Bible teaching church? Where can I find one? I can go to a show on Sunday morning, but where are the men who are saying thus saith the Lord? I want to hear what God says. I could care less what you think or how funny you think you are. I want to know what Jesus says about the world, my life, salvation, and how in the world we’re going to bring this thing together and so that we can be prepared when Jesus Christ comes for His bride.” Amen.

Now, every year, there is a group of men called the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and they’ve been meeting every year since after World War II. They come together every year and they do what’s called they set The Doomsday Clock. And the Doomsday Clock is where they think we are. These are secular, really pagan scientists, but they’re setting the Doomsday Clock where they think we are in terms of how close we are to an extinction event for planet Earth. And this past year, in January, they set the Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight. In other words, and this is the closest they’ve ever put it, they say we are on the verge of an extinction event here on planet Earth. And they list all the reasons why they think that are contributing to that. None of them are Bible prophecy, I will tell you. But it’s all these other things.

But the bride has to be awake, because in order to participate in the wedding, she has to be awoken. Now, in my ministry career, over the 30 plus years I was a pastor, I performed about 80 weddings, about 80 weddings. And this is what I would tell the bride and groom after going through counseling, many weeks of counseling, to prepare them for the most important relationship, humanly speaking, that ever happened. I would say to the man in the last meeting, I would say, “Look, if you show up tomorrow with a suit and a pulse, I can get you through this.” And then I turned to the girl and I say, “I have nothing to say to you.” And here’s why. Because she has been dreaming about that day since she was this high. She’s been waiting for her knight in shining armor to come riding up on a horse and sweep her off her feet all of her life. She spent the past six months to a year meeting with florists, and wedding planners, and cake decorators and all these other people. And she’s been burning up her daddy’s credit card all across town. She’s been looking at wedding dresses and spending all this money. Why? Because she has been anticipating the day. Someone has said there’s only two days on your calendar. There’s this day. And there’s that day. And my friends, we are living for this day. And for that day. I’ve never met a bride who wasn’t ready for her wedding day. And the excitement and the anticipation, the eager exuberance that she has is unparalleled on planet Earth.

My friends, we are the bride. The question is, are we preparing ourselves? And what I’m so thankful for, as I said before are prophecy teachers, or pastors and now even laypersons in different parts of the country, I’ve got laypersons whose pastors won’t let them put on a prophecy conference. They’ll say, I’ll just do my own prophecy conference, and we’re having hundreds to come to these things. They’ll just administrate it, put it together. One of those even written a manual, how to put on a prophecy conference as a lay person. I’m like, girl, you go, you know, because we need to hear what God is saying to the church, and He’s speaking through prophecies. Todd and I’ve even come up with the idea of a one day pop up prophecy conference. Where we come into a city for just a half a day and we bring in food trucks and we just have a blast together talking about Bible prophecy. Look, it doesn’t matter what form it takes. It matters only that we do it. The bride must be awakened.

Let me give you one final thing, we’re wrapping this thing up. Real quick. Because of the Lord’s return being imminent, because of the Lord’s return being imminent. Now, I want to tell you something. I study the Bible, I’ve been studying the Bible since I was 18 years old. I’ve been to four years of seminary, over 30 years as a pastor, I’ve read my Bible cover to cover. I’ve taught it cover to cover. And I want you to know I cannot find a single verse in the New Testament that says that the return of Jesus Christ is imminent and that we should, oh, okay, well, maybe not. It seems as if God wants us to be ready. It seems as if we should have within us an eager anticipation, a sense, if you will, of purposeful urgency about our lives. Why? Because the Lord is coming back.

In fact, the early church invented a term that expressed this. It was called Maranatha, which is an Aramaic term, just meaning may the Lord come. Can you imagine going to church next Sunday and instead of where’s the coffee bar, or how’s it going? Or Nice dress. Or I wonder what he’s preaching on today? That every believer that walked in that door turned to another believer and said, Maranatha, maybe it’s going to be today. Wouldn’t it be great if it was today? And there’s fist bumping and there’s high five and there’s hugging going on. It could be today. Quite suddenly. It could be today.

So, you say, Jeff, what do I do then? How do I wrap this thing? I’ll leave a couple quick thoughts and we’re done. Number one, warn the lost, wake the slumbering, encourage the seeking. That’s why that verse Todd Hampson quoted Hebrews 10:25 that we ought to encourage one another as we see the day approaching. In other words, we dial up our encouragement. Whatever level you’re at, encouraging others in terms of their walk with Jesus. Turn it up. Turn it up. Warn the lost. Be about the business of Christ.

Secondly, fight for what is good and decent. Why? Because if God wanted you in heaven, you’d be there. Amen. Not a single person here right now is supposed to be in heaven. You’re supposed to be right here on planet Earth. And Jesus is saying, I put you here. I put you in that city. I put you in that church. I put you in the neighborhood. I put you in that family because that’s where I wanted you. And so, Christ says, here, fight for what is good. So, that means out in the community. I mean, fight politically, fight for what is good. Fight at the school board meeting. Get out there and be a soldier for Jesus and for what is good, and moral, and decent. Don’t let people tell you that men can have babies. That’s insane. Fight. Fight for what is good.

Third thing is to redeem the time because we’re all on a budget. So, what do you mean budget? Time budget. We’re all on a time budget. I remember going to the state fair when I was a boy. My dad gave me 11 $1 bills, he said, “Don’t spend that all in one place, you know?” And I just doled out those bills. You know, I was on a budget. Guess what? We’re all on the budget. Were on a budget two ways, number one, we don’t know when the Lord is going to come back, right, so we are on that budget. Secondly, we’re all, you know, living on borrowed time. I don’t know. Tomorrow could be my day, when the Lord says you’re finished your mission, Jeff let’s go home. That’s okay. I’m okay with that. I’d rather wait for the Rapture. But you know what? It really doesn’t matter, because on eternity’s timeline, those of you who will live to be 100, you’re still just a dot. You see what I’m saying? So, with the time that you have left, and those of us who are a little bit older understand a little bit more of our mortality, you know. We’re going I’m know I don’t have 50 years. I might not have 30, maybe I have 20, maybe 10. I don’t know. But however long I have breath in my lungs, I’m going to tell people about Jesus Christ. I’m going to live for Him.

I just want to pause real quickly and say this. I was back in the green room here earlier, and I was watching my brother, Dave Reagan. And I just turned to my brothers who are with me. I said, “I want to be like that when I’m his age.” 84 years old that guy has got more energy than ten men who are in age 20 preaching the Gospel.” And I said, “I don’t know how Dave is going to go, but it’s probably going to be while he’s talking to people about Jesus.” So, but, seriously, man, fight to the finish. Go all the way. I mean, die on the battlefield. That’s the way to go. Redeem the time. We’re all on the budget.

Last thing is this is, live your life, love your family, enjoy your Lord. I have young couples walk up to me, say, Jeff, if the return of Christ is imminent, what am I supposed to do? I said, “Have some more babies, get busy, go on that vacation. You know, do whatever God’s called you to do.” Martin Luther said, “If I knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow, I’d plant a tree today.” Why? Because I expect to see that tree grow. I’m going to do what God’s calling me to do today. Right now. Don’t hold up on a mountain in your pajamas with a candle saying give me more oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning, you know. No, get out there and live for Jesus. Do what you’re supposed to do. Go to work. Do the dailies. Because in the end, you know what God is going to judge us on? Not brilliance, not the number of people in our ministry. Watch this. Faithfulness. That’s what He’s looking for. He’s looking for faithfulness. Now’s the time of urgency.

Now, many of you know the story of Paul Revere. He’s one of the most famous men in American history. And he’s made immortal by the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about the midnight ride of Paul Revere. It’s just 11 verses published in 1861. Among those words, he says “So through the night, rode Paul Revere. So through the night, when his cry of alarm to every Middlesex village and farm, a cry of defiance and not a fear, a voice in the darkness, a knock at the door and a word that shall echo forever more.”

Everybody knows about Paul Revere, but you may not have heard of Israel Bissell. You say, who is that Jeff? Well, Israel Bissell and other writers like him are the men that some people think are the composite which became Paul Revere of that famous midnight ride. Israel Bissell was a 23-year-old postal rider when the war broke out in April 19th of 1775, and he was commissioned to take a document by the Massachusetts militia, General Joseph Palmer. And he had a note in this document. It said this It read “To all friends of American Liberty, be it known that this morning, before the break of day, a brigade consisting of a 1,000 or 1,200 men marched to Lexington, where they found a company of our colonial militia and arms upon whom they fired without any provocation and killed six men and wounded four others. By an express from Boston, we find that another brigade are now upon their march from Boston, supposedly at 1,000.” Then it said this in Israel Bissell’s letter. It says the letter said, “To give Bissell, to furnish him with fresh horses as needed.” And Israel Bissell took off on his ride with that document, riding from hamlet to hamlet, from town to town, delivering. And every time he arrived, they would copy the letter again, and they would put it in his hands, and he would get on a horse and ride to the next town. He rode so fast, so furiously, so urgent was his mission that the first horse he rode died underneath him because he rode the horse so hard. It was a 345 mile journey from Boston’s western edge to Philadelphia.

Later, 24 to 48 hours, he finally reached Philadelphia, where hearing the pealing of what eventually became known as the Liberty Bell, drew a crowd of 8,000 people who learned that war had just begun. By then, the portion of the document bearing Bissell’s name was an inaccurately listed. His first name was called Trail instead of Israel because they have miscopied his name. That document, that very document resides today in Philadelphia in the American manuscript section of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. You see, Israel Bissell had a sense of urgency about his life. The British are coming! And he came to each town. You know what he said? He said two arms. Two arms. The British are coming.

My friend now is the time, not to be alarming, but to sound the alarm. Now is the time not to panic, but to persist in the mission that God has given each one of us. And part of that mission is to tell them that the King is coming and that we must be ready. Are you ready? Are you ready for the returning Bridegroom? Are you helping people, other people in this world be ready for the coming King? My friends, we have a mission of urgency. And may each one of us before God discern. God, what does that look like for me? How does that look in my life? How can I be a woman, a man, a young person that has an urgent message to a desperate populace that Jesus still saves?

Part 3- Q&A with Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson

Nathan Jones: I do wish we had the time to show you Jeff Kinley’s entire sermon. Fortunately, you can still watch the conference in its entirety on our Christ in Prophecy YouTube channel. And, for those who prefer DVDs, we’re offering the entire album for a donation of $25 or more, and that includes shipping. Check out ordering details in the next segment and on our website at lamblion.com.

Tim Moore: We held three question and answer sessions during our Storm Warning Conference. Let’s see how the Prophecy Pros – Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson – answered these two questions: “Why is the message of Bible prophecy more relevant today?” and “What prophetic significance is there to Russia invading Ukraine?”

How do you think the message that we share matters more today than it did 20 years ago or 40 years ago? And I don’t want to give away your age, but whenever you started proclaiming this message, how does it differ today in terms of our excitement and our anticipation?

Jeff Kinley: Yeah, well, just for the record, I was born during the Eisenhower Administration, so, you know. But I think that the reason, it’s true, the reason why… I like Ike as well, yeah. The reason why it’s more exciting today is because, again, God has been gracious enough to allow us to see things that our previous generations of believers, you know, never got to see. It’s like, you know, when Peter talks about the prophets, long to see these things be fulfilled and in their time and they were not allowed. They wrote those things for your benefit, Peter says. We are the beneficiaries of all the previous generations that longed for the day to see some of these signs come in formation.

You talk about the rebuilding of the Temple. At no time in 20 centuries could anyone even remotely begin to see the possibility that the Jewish Temple would be rebuilt. And yet now it’s like it literally could happen overnight. I mean, all they need is permission to do it on the Temple Mount. So, there’s so many things that are put into place.

I got to put it this way. We were in England one time going to a play and we were sitting in the theater and all of a sudden the lights went dim and we began to hear the orchestra warming up, and we could hear the rustling of people backstage. That’s something you don’t hear when you’re standing outside the theater. You know, it’s only for the people who are in the theater who are about to experience the play. And so, I think God is just putting it in our hearts right now with that sense of anticipation. It’s growing day by day. And that’s why, again, we should never panic, but also just continue to have that that sense of expectation that Christ is coming back. And just to know you have been chosen for such a time as this. I mean, and whether or not the Lord does come back, I mean, the Rapture, if it doesn’t happen in my lifetime, that’s fine with me too. But at least I’m able to see the warmups, you know to what’s happening here, and anticipate the Lord’s return.

Tim Moore: For those of you who aren’t familiar, Jeff and Todd, Eisenhower was about six presidents before Reagan. All right. So, Todd’s youngest fella on the stage. And so, I just want to make sure. Anyway.

Jeff Kinley: The D-Day invasion.

Todd Hampson: I’ve heard of Mike and Ike the candy.

Jeff Kinley: Operation Overlord.

Tim Moore: You like Ike too?

Todd Hampson: No Mike and Ike the candy.

Tim Moore: Oh, Mike and Ike, totally different thing. All right. Well, with all the things happening in the world today, people say what prophetic significance is there to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Even to what happened this week. We’ve touched on it in other venues, but once again, with Russia and Turkey, their leaders going to Iran of all places, I mean, what does this mean in terms of prophetic significance?

Todd Hampson: I think it’s really interesting that really they’re not friends, they’re friends because it benefits all three of them. They’re kind of forming this alliance because of what Russia is doing, you know, there’s been an alliance against them. Israel, of course, is, you know, partnering with other nations to be a force against Iran. So basically, Turkey, Iran and Russia are all looking for some kind of leverage. And it just happens to be in the playground we call Syria, where it’s wide open. They all have military assets there. And really that’s just a recent development, maybe less than ten years old, even like you said this week, it’s firmed up in a big way, even more. So, we had a lot of questions when the Ukraine thing first broke. Does that have anything to do with Ezekiel 38? Not directly, but indirectly in many ways, it could be the whole including part of the Stans as that attack and also the partnerships that we’re seeing there. And if Russia is cut off from the rest of the world, they need to get some more resources from somewhere. And Israel happens to be. And actually, Russia and Israel used to be on talking terms, so to speak, and, you know, would try to maintain a good relationship. But now, they’ve told them, you can’t fly and you can’t fly in here anymore. So, things are moving pretty quick into place which, you know, who knows when that’s going to happen. It’s wild how prophecy developments can kind of have a hurry up and wait aspect to it. There are times when you’re like, oh my gosh, Ezekiel 38 is about to break loose right now. Or, you know, Israel’s about to do something to Iran because of the nuclear situation. And then there’s a pause for a little while. I guess, you know, very birth pain like, you know. So, it’s kind of interesting to watch.

Jeff Kinley: You know, the Bible is the book of a thousand coincidences. You know, it’s like every time the Bible speaks, every time an archeological survey or dig is done, it keeps proving the Bible over and over again. And then all of a sudden, here comes three nations that the Bible said are going to be allianced in the last days, according to Ezekiel 38 & 39. And lo and behold they are. Now just from a purely skeptical standpoint, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re always going to be allies with one another or even to further their relationship even now. However, it is very interesting that Russia has moved south toward Ukraine. They have military assets in both Syria and in the Mediterranean. And they, I’m sure, want those reserves that are in Israel. So, it’s like you know, if it looks like a duck, you know, that whole thing, right? All the boxes are being checked off. Now you have to have all the boxes checked off in order for it to be a fulfilled prophecy. But it’s like this box seems to be checking off this box. And the Bible again, just keeps turning up, right every time. I always compare it to a baseball player, it’s like if you if you get a hit one time out of every three times you get up to bat, you’re going to be in the Hall of Fame one day. But the Bible is batting a thousand. It’s never missed, not once. And that’s the confidence that we have because it’s the divine Word of God.

Tim Moore: People ask sometimes why we seem to blend in so much history, but if you don’t understand history, you don’t understand how prophecy has been fulfilled. Obviously, prophecy is history written before the fact. Part of the historical context is in the late sixties, early seventies, when the rest of the Middle East was spewing hatred and even declaring war on Israel, its closest quiet ally in the Middle East was none other than Iran. Iran provided all of its oil and gasoline resources with the support of the United States.

In more recent history, one of its strongest allies in the region was Turkey. Boy, how things can change. And so now we see through the Abraham Accords a short pause in hostilities, so to speak, as people reposition. But the Lord is bringing all these things together in fulfillment of what His Word has declared.

Closing

Nathan Jones: We hope that this episode in our series about the urgency of the Rapture has been a blessing to you and has helped you understand how vital it is that Christians get the hope-filled message of Jesus Christ’s soon return out to the world.

Tim Moore: Tune in to the last episode in our Storm Warning: The Urgency of the Rapture series as I conclude by addressing John the Baptist’s challenge from Matthew 3:7 – “Who Told You to Flee from the Wrath to Come?”

Until then, this is Tim Moore and Nathan Jones speaking for Lamb & Lion Ministries saying, “Look up and be watchful, for the King of Kings is coming soon.” Godspeed!

End of Program

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