The Final Events Leading Up to The New Heavens and Earth

I want to talk about the major events leading up to the new heavens and earth. The older— it's going to be literally purged by fire, the entire world, and there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. We're going to take our time and go through each because I want people prepared. I'm gonna say this: I believe with all my heart— now, of course, this is speculation, this is from studying the Word of God. I'm not— I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong. I've never done this before publicly, but I believe with all my heart the kingdom age will be, be established. And up and running by 2075. That's the beginning of the— Hey everybody, welcome to the Jon Bevere Podcast. I'm joined by my son Arden. Arden, I love doing this with you. It's so good to be here, Dad, especially now with where we are. We're in our new studio.

That's right, we've been waiting for this. This has been a long time coming.

I gotta say something, okay? I don't want— I, I just— so important to say, you know, when David went and recovered what they lost from Ziklag. They, 400 men went to the battle. And they beat the Amalekites, took everything they stole, and they came back. And the 400 that went said, hey, the 200 that stayed behind and guard the equipment, they don't get any share, 'cause we did all the work. And David made this statement, he said, no, everybody gets equal share, because everybody was a part of this. And David's a type of Christ. And I've been telling our staff for years and years and years, the people that we touch, the voices of Messenger, if you look at Lisa, you look at myself, Addison, you, others, we are the voices, the people see the voices. But you look at the people that are guarding the equipment. I mean, I look at Nathaniel who heads up this department. He is a brilliant leader. I look at Andrew who designed this set, who is a genius. And then I look at Lindy who makes sure that our sound is right, coordinates everything. I look at Sierra, who makes sure our thumbnails are all correct, and she's the one that oversees the YouTube placement and all of that.

Look at Josh, he's doing live switching right now.

Live switching, you took it right out of my mouth. And then I've gotta talk about Chris Pace, who is our producer. So we have got a wonderful team behind this podcast. And I just have to say, you know, I look at, you know, I'm a Detroit Lions fan, and I saw, Jeff, Jared Goff, he bought, you know, a whole thing of steaks for his linemen. And he realizes the linemen don't get a lot of credit, but they're the guys that keep them from getting killed by those big defensive guys. But I am always so grateful for this team. And I realize that we never could do this. We could never share the Word of God as we've been doing had it not been for this team. So thank you for the set, guys. Thank you also for just doing such a quality job. But we are in 2 Peter still, chapter 3. And listen, Garden, I just feel compelled of the Holy Spirit not to rush this. There is so much to talk about, and I'm beginning to understand why the second most talked about subject in the first 3 centuries of the church was the second coming of Christ, next to salvation. The reason is, there's so much. The more the Holy Spirit shows me, the more that opens up to me, the more that opens up to me, the more he shows me, the more he shows me, the more that opens up to me. And this thing keeps expanding. And it's important. If it wasn't important, God would have said just a few things about it, right? Just a few scriptures kind of giving us a hint that it's coming, don't worry about it, it'll happen when it happens. No, the second coming of Jesus is so important to our foundation. And I'm gonna tell you why. One of the foundational doctrines of the church is the resurrection of the dead, which is a key part of the second coming of Jesus. Arden, as we're getting ready to go into this scripture, let me say this. So many people ask us, how does John and Arden go so deep in their study? It's easy. We have this program called Logos. I have been using it for years. I use it to write books, Arden. I use it for my podcast. I have my notes on one page of the computer and the Logos is right next to it. I can go into the root word studies. I can go back to the original. I can see what was happening in the time period. It's absolutely amazing. It's a game changer.

And not only that, but Logos is offering everyone who signs up right now for this limited time offer, 60 days free.

Okay, that's amazing.

So it is completely free for you. So please, please do not miss this chance. Go to Logos, so logos.com/bavere, and you can sign up right there. Not only that though, there is a video that's a Zoom call that we did that shows you how to better use it. Because if you have a tool and you don't know how to use it, you probably won't use it. And we want people using this every single day because it will help them go deeper in their studying of the word.

So everybody just click the link below and we can jump right back into our study. So let's get back into 2 Peter chapter 3, and we're going to start with verse 3. Most importantly, Peter says, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come mocking the truth, okay, and following their own desires. I find it interesting that they're pursuing their own fleshly desires, their lust, and it creates in them kind of a mocking Okay, and they will say— what's the truth they're going to mock? They will say, what happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? For since the fathers fell asleep, everything continues as they were from the beginning of creation. They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command. But then he goes on in verse 8 and he says, but you must not forget. So I think it's interesting. They deliberately forget, but we must not forget. Now I'm going to talk about this word forget, must not forget. It's the Greek word lanthano, okay? And it means to not recall information and thus to lose sight of its significance. So here's Peter saying, they willfully forget, you must not forget this one thing. So what are we not to forget? That a day is like 1,000 years to the Lord, and 1,000 years is like a day. Now, why does Peter say, do not forget? Because Moses wrote in Psalm 90:4, for 1,000 years in your sight are but as yesterday when it passed. Now, I wanna kind of open up something that the Jewish fathers taught that we lose sight of. Now, this is not from scripture. And anytime I bring something up, Arden, that's not from scripture, I'm gonna make sure it's clear because I look at the scripture as the word of God. We have 66 canonized books of the Bible. That is the scripture that reproves us, rebukes us, we build our major doctrines off of. However, we have writers of church fathers and Jewish fathers. We've got Enoch, we've got Noah, we've got others who wrote, we've got the Midrash, we've got a lot of books that were written by some of the patriarchs that have been discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls. How do I treat those books? I treat them as if Billy Graham wrote a book. Billy Graham, I'm not gonna treat his book as scripture, but I sure know this man walked with God faithfully until he left this earth. And he's a trusted leader in the church. So I'm gonna weigh heavily what he says, but I'm not gonna build major doctrine around it. So anything I bring in over the next couple podcasts from church fathers, from Jewish fathers, please, I will make it so abundantly clear, this is not part of the canonized scripture. So Jewish fathers wrote, that mankind would have 7,000 years on this earth, corresponding to God's creation. He created the earth in 6 days and he rested on the 7th. So each day represents 1,000 years. So the Essenes protected these Jewish fathers' messages in the caves of Qumran, and they have been discovered in 1947, '48, '49, and '50, in that time period, and we're still looking and searching out where caves are to this day, because we feel like we haven't recovered everything. We have recovered tens of thousands of fragments or full scrolls, full books, but we still believe there's more. And when I say we, I'm not talking about me, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the great, great men, the archaeologists that are looking for these scrolls. So what they taught, is there would be the age of creation or the age of chaos. It would be for 2,000 years. Now, the age of Torah would be next, which would be another 2,000 years. The age of grace, and this is actually what the Jewish fathers wrote before Jesus even came, the age of grace would be 2,000 years. And finally, there would be a kingdom age that would be 1,000 years in which the Messiah would rule as king from Jerusalem the entire world.

Yeah, which I mean, the age of chaos and/or slash creation, I kind of feel like even with the context of the Book of Enoch is looking at what happened after creation. That's kind of framed out again, what Enoch said is framed out within that time period of the giants and the fallen angels and everything like that, which makes sense. 'Cause I kind of heard that and saw age of creation. Yeah, that makes sense. But then why would you put chaos into it? Is that all the things that the world went through. So I love this, looking at this and looking at where we are. I think it's just powerful. I think it's also really good to see the context of what God was doing and what God is still doing in scripture of showing in 2 Peter of him talking about these things. And also to realize that, yes, we're pulling things from Enoch, we're pulling things that you're saying is, hey, these are other people that wrote on this. A lot of the disciples had their context. Like, they, they quoted Enoch. They quoted Enoch multiple times within scripture, so they had the context. So it's actually good for us to be able to look at it in the full scope of things, looking at these stuff and being able to put it all together.

Hey everybody, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment, but first I want to thank the patrons who make this podcast possible. Your support behind the scenes is critical to sharing these messages. So thank you. To become a patron, just click the link in the show description or go to johnbevere.com/patron. Now let's get back to the show. So, you know, just to give people a visual, I'm using the, the scripture as our foundation. Anything that I bring in from Enoch, or if I talk about some of the early church fathers such as Polycarp or somebody like that, it's something that can build on the foundation, but the foundation has to stay the same. The word of the living God. Now, I think it's quite interesting because there are people that say, because I haven't done this work, but I trust these people because they're geniuses. They are able to calculate when Adam was created. And the way they've done it is from the Book of Jasher, which is a book that was discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls that gives timelines. They use the Book of Chronicles. They use the Book of Genesis. They use other books that give, timelines. I think Ezra or Nehemiah might have done it as well. But they say that they can definitely trace Adam back to 4,000 years before Christ. Now, one man in particular, I'm going to quote him, says he believes, after he's done extensive study, and to be honest with you, he's one of the smartest men I've been able to listen to in the past 10 years, but he says he believes that Adam was created, because Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born, so we can say this, but he believes it was 3925 BC. So that would be 75 years short of 4000 BC. So if we go by his, that means from 3925 to 1924 BC, that's the age of creation or chaos. Chaos, yeah. Interestingly, 1924 BC is when Abraham was walking the earth. So we go from Adam to Abraham is the age of creation. Now, if you go from 1925 BC and you go 2,000 years, you're at 74 AD. Okay, 74 AD, Jesus came around 2 BC, he died on the cross 32 AD. We're right in that spot where Jesus came in the end of the fourth day.

Which isn't the 75 AD, that's what Titus, was prophesying to the destruction of the temple?

The destruction of the temple was 70 AD by Titus of Rome. And then he destroyed the second temple that was built in Qumran. He didn't do it, it was another general of Rome destroyed it in 73. So by 74, there were no more sacrifices being done. So from 25 to 74 AD, okay, we see a full transition from the age of Torah to the age of grace. Isn't that amazing? Now, let's take 2,000 years for the age of grace, because we know Hosea said after 2 days, after 2,000 years, God says, I'll return and revive Israel. I will have punished them, spread them all over the world. And Isaiah actually says that right before the second coming, I will bring them back from all over the world for the second time in Isaiah 11. First time he brought them back was from Babylon. Second time it will come from all over the world. Well, if we take 2,000 years, we come to 2074. So that means, I'm gonna say this, and I believe with all my heart, now of course this is speculation, this is from studying the word of God, I'm not, I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong if 2074 comes and this hasn't happened. I will stand up and say, I'm sorry, I was wrong. But I've never done this before publicly, but I believe with all my heart the Kingdom Age will be established and up and running by 2075. That's the beginning of the 7,000th year, if indeed this man's timeline is accurate.

Which, how do you take that within what the Bible says of no one will know the exact time? They'll know the season, but will not know the exact time.

Well, we've got between now and '74, 2074, that's 50-year span. I don't think we would know the day or the hour having those 40 or 50 years, but we do know it's the generation or the season.

So you're saying it can happen within, it's not gonna be 2073 that we're gonna see Jesus returning on that year that you're saying that's happening, but something's gonna shift within this time period.

Jesus could return in 2039. I'm just throwing a year out, right? Well, then it would be a few more years before the world is established, the way he wants it for the kingdom age. I mean, if you look at the transition from Torah to grace, it was a 50-year deal in the sense of for everything to be fully in place where there was no longer any animal sacrifices. It was from 25 to 75. Well, I think the same thing could happen. So I always want people to understand, we are to plan like he's not coming back for 200 years. All right, we should have plans for our great-grandchildren because that is what God's— Jesus said, "Occupy until I come." All right? So we don't know the day or the hour, so we should never ever— If anything, it is my hopes by talking about this, it makes us more urgent, realizing the work of the kingdom needs to be accomplished.

Can I say this, taking it from a standpoint of what we recently went through? So when we had our second child, I remember my wife thought our baby was gonna come relatively early. It's 37 weeks, we'll see that baby come. Before 40 weeks. And I remember those 3 weeks, almost 3 weeks, being some of the more like frustrating weeks of my life because I was stuck in this weird period where all I wanted to see happen was this big life change that I knew was coming. It was like, I know it's coming any day now. I don't know when it's going to come. I wish I knew exactly what was happening. And then I had also kind of handed off so much stuff on my work plate that I was in this weird limbo where I was like, I'm not actively working in the way that I was working before because I handed it off thinking like, oh, okay, my wife's feeling like it could come early, so I need to make sure I get all this stuff off my plate. And I felt like I wasn't bringing that balance of what you're saying is occupy until he returns, plan, prepare, work as if he's coming back 200 years from now, but live today as if he's coming back tomorrow. And I think, I witnessed it from, you know, a very— not a very minor, but kind of a relative term of seeing a child come into this world. And honestly, those 3 weeks being very frustrating and very hard on us, to now you're looking at your Creator coming back and all that comes for that. And then the purpose of your entire life, where I was just looking at as a scope of just my work and my personal life of what was seeing, but yet everything that you're doing I think it's so important that we don't hear this and think, oh man, okay, well, now I gotta, God's coming back, so I don't really need to do anything. Like Jesus is gonna come back in my lifetime, I don't really need to do anything. I just need to just keep buying time until he comes back and then we'll see. But no, we gotta continue to keep being urgent, have that eternal mindset.

Well, this is the mindset that so many people take. Hey, he's coming back, I can slack here, I can slack there. That is the absolute opposite of what what Jesus meant by telling us, "I'm soon coming." I mean, you can find that he's soon coming all over the New Testament. If you are getting married in 2 years, you will think, "Ah, I can put off getting the tux. I can put off, you know, arranging the cake." But if you're getting married, we talked about this last time, and just in case somebody here, you get married in 2 days, you're like, "Oh my gosh." You're not going to be going and playing 5 hours of pickleball on one of those 2 days. And so, It was always intended that God, in having us talk about this, it would create a hurry-up mode. Not a striving, because we're always to be led by the Spirit, but it created an urgency to stay prepared, to keep evangelizing, to stay watchful. And these are some of the things we're going to talk about. How do we properly prepare in this season of his second coming? Believe me, it's not getting lighter and easier as far as our labor in the Lord. It actually becomes more. I heard one minister say, I always say it's not wait time, it's hustle time. You know, if you got 2 minutes left on the clock and you're behind by 14 points, in other words, we see this harvest of souls that have not come in yet, and God says the greatest harvest is gonna come right before his return. That means, hey, let's become more urgent with our prayers, more urgent with our labor. This is why we work so hard. I just named this whole team. I watch this team work so diligently. Why? They wanna get the word of God out to the nations because Jesus said, until I come back, you are to make disciples of all nations. Hey, that's what we're called to do, whether we're in the marketplace, whether we're in education, whether we're in government, athletics, we are ambassadors and we are declaring his coming and making disciples.

I love that you said that, of we know that we're gonna win this game. So if there's 2 minutes left, 14 points down, if you have that mindset, we know we're gonna win, you're gonna be hustling, you're not gonna take it slightly. All right, but Dad, But talking about like the Age of Grace to the Age of, you know, the Kingdom Age, what does that look like?

So the Kingdom Age, I definitely want to talk about, but in essence, Jesus will actually set up rule in Jerusalem. Those who have glorified bodies, in other words, bodies just like His, and we're going to get to this. This is yet to come, but I'll start talking about it now because you asked, and I love that you asked. We're going to have bodies just like Him. Now, Jesus was able to eat fish with his disciples after he was raised from the dead. The only one who has the resurrected body right now is Jesus Christ. However, when he appears, Paul said, we shall not all die, but will be changed in the twinkling of an eye. We won't precede those who have died in Christ. People's bodies in the grave that have died faithfully serving Jesus their lives, and who, us who are alive, we are gonna be caught up in the air to meet the Lord, And at that time, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, we're gonna put on immortality. We're gonna put on our heavenly bodies, which is made after the heavenly man. So just as Jesus, 'cause he's like the prototype, he cooked breakfast with them by the sea, he ate fish with them, he was able to walk right through walls. Now that's something that we could talk about for a while, but I think there's more dimensions available to the heavenly body. I don't think he actually physically walked through a wall. I think you can go in and out of dimensions just like that. I think that if I'm in Jerusalem and I wanna be in New York City during the millennium, I think I just think it and I'm there. That's, I believe, is the way the heavenly body people are gonna be. But then you're gonna have people that are gonna survive. The Bible's very clear about this. That survive the tribulation. That's people that are going to be in natural bodies, and Isaiah talks about them. A person's going to be young when they're 100 years old. You're going to have children playing beside a serpent's hole. You're going to have the lion and the lamb lying down together. So in other words, you're not going to have this animosity and this destruction and all that the curse brought on the earth. That's not going to be going on. So you're going to have two types of people on the earth, the glorified body people and the people with natural bodies. That's going to be the rule. And Jesus is going to show us how it should have been done. I believe he'll rule out of Jerusalem, and the nations are supposed to come up. And if they don't come up and worship the King, they're going to suffer no rain. This is not the new heavens and earth. This is the millennial reign of Christ. So we will get into that. And what I want to do, and I feel like this is very important, is I want to talk about the major events leading up to the the new heavens and earth. Because in 2 Peter, Peter is talking about the new heavens and earth. He said the old earth is going to be— it's going to be literally purged by fire, the entire world. And there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. We're going to get to that, but I feel like people are so confused in the dark about what are the events that are going to happen right before his second coming. So we can say for sure we know we're in the season of his second coming. What's the first big thing that's going to happen? It's the apostasy, the falling away of people who profess Christianity. They're going to walk away from the faith. How do I know that? Well, one scripture would be 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3. Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 'Let no one deceive you by any means, for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first.' So Paul is saying the first thing that's gonna really indicate we're in the last days is there's gonna be a great apostasy. The Greek word is apostasia, and right from the dictionary, it is a term designating the falling away from the faith. So I got that right from my logos. Dictionary, a term designated the falling away from the faith. I want to read this from the Amplified, verse 3. Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first, unless the predicted great falling away of those who have professed to be Christians has come. Now, there was a poll done into 2022 that riveted me. It actually caused me to write this book because it put me on my face, it put me on my knees, and I wrote this book called "The Awe of God." 95,000 people were strategically polled. Now let me tell you, a normal poll, a normal national poll will have 3,000 to 5,000 people being polled. They'll select people from all these different walks of life that they've learned how to do, the pollsters. This one, they wanted to get really accurate results, so they went to 95,000 people. All right? And the company that gave the percentages of their findings on their report, which is Barna, I've converted the percentages to numbers to really make it clear. So what they did is they said there's 3 groups of people. There's practicing Christians. Who are the practicing Christians on these 95,000 people they polled to get a representation of what's happening in America? Practicing Christian is those who identify as Christians. They agree strongly that faith is very important in their lives, and they attend church on a regular basis. Non-practicing Christians, that's category 2, those who self-identify as Christians who do not qualify as practicing. In other words, you push them in the corner, they're going to say, hey, I'm a believer.

Yeah.

Third group is non-Christians. These are people who do not identify as Christian, with many of them being atheists, spiritualists, and agnostic. All right, in the year 2000, so we're going back 25 years, approximately 126 Americans identified as practicing Christians. 126 million Americans. That's, okay, right now in America, Pardon me?

That was more than a third, right?

That was more than a third of America. So 126 million Americans. In the next 20 years, 33 million of those 126 million moved to non-practicing Christians, and another 33 million moved from practicing Christians to non-Christians. Many of those, again, are professing atheists, spiritualists, and agnostic. All right, most would say the 33 million that went from practicing Christians to non-practicing Christians, most would say, well, they're still Christians. However, I would challenge that. What is a true believer? He is a follower of Jesus. He is someone who has denied himself, taken up his cross, and followed me. We have in Hebrews 10:25, A very, very specific word from the apostle. "And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near." So the writer of Hebrews is actually speaking prophetically. He says, as the second coming comes, you're gonna have people that identify as Christians, but they're not gathering together. So I think that second category, that 33 million falls under this. They're not attending. They're not gathering regularly. They don't see faith as a very important part of their life. But if you push them in the corner, they'll say, "I'm a Christian." Okay?

Which that was too, and that was under an extreme time of persecution when the writer of Hebrews wrote that. That was when Nero was basically murdering and putting Christians, burning them at the stakes, lighting the parties, everything like that.

And yet they're still saying, "You can't forsake this." What you're referring to is so important to note, I mean, I'm so glad you brought that up. I wouldn't have done it. Nero was ruling. First thing he was doing is throwing Christians in the circus where they were torn limb to limb. They say—

By tigers.

By tigers, by bears. Just horrible, horrible, horrible. Then the church continued to grow. So then what he did is he got 100 Christians and put them up on the hill in Rome and crucified 100 people at the same time. But the church has continued to meet. So they continue to meet. They continued to meet during the crucifixion. But then he did something really, really lewd. He got a bunch of Christians, put them on stakes, poured kerosene on them, and lit them on fire and threw a very lewd party. So he used the burning Christians as light for his party. The Christians stopped gathering at that point. This is when the writer of Hebrews writes to them and says, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. But he also is speaking prophetically, he says, especially as you see the day approaching. The day of the Lord's return coming. In other words, that writer was saying right before Jesus comes, you're going to have a group of people that stop gathering. Yeah, they still say, I'm a Christian, I'm a believer, you know, I'm fine, nothing's wrong. But my question is, are these the unwise virgins? They have light, they're virgins, they're looking for the bridegroom, but they don't have oil in their lamp. And why don't they have oil? Because they're not walking in obedience. Peter says God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey Acts chapter 5. So in other words, they're not continually being filled with the Spirit. They're people that identify, say, okay, I'm a Christian. But as Barnabas says, they're non-practicing Christians. So here's the first century church. Can you imagine at the judgment seat of Christ, the first century church looks at the 21st century church? We gathered when we were being torn from limb to limb. We continued to gather when 100 of us were crucified on a hill. And we even continued to gather when we were corrected by the writer of Hebrews after we were burned at the stake. And you guys stopped gathering?

Because it's inconvenient.

Because it's inconvenient.

Because you'd rather spend your Sunday or rather spend your times doing something else. That's one thing that I've even realized with the challenge of having even younger kids. Is it's easy to not prioritize gathering with other people. But I think we're fortunate because we're working in occupational ministry. So I get to see my life actively play out in what I feel like is a purposeful way. But I look at some of my friends where I can see, you know, they're not in full-time ministry. And I watch, and not saying you have to be on full-time ministry, but I'm saying they don't attend or gather together with others fellow believers, and I watch as they just feel like, man, my life feels almost in a way purposeless. It doesn't feel like I'm making an impact. I'm taking care of my family. I'm doing this. Like, those things are making sense. But I think when you gather together as a community, whether that's for church, whether that's with a group of friends, like whatever that looks like, there's something that begins to start welling up inside of all of you that just begins to see, okay, I'm being encouraged on the daily. God, I know there's plans for me. People call out different things, giftings in your life. There's stuff that happens.

Let me affirm what you're saying. Why does Jesus say, when two of you are gathered in my name, I am in the midst of them? Wait a minute, is he not in the midst? Isn't he in me when I'm alone by myself? Of course he is. What is he saying? There's a special manifestation of my presence that comes when you gather together in my name. And we miss that by just watching online. We miss that by not gathering together as believers.

Yeah, that's good. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to derail it. I just wanted to bring that up.

You haven't derailed a thing. This is all very important to what we're talking about. Okay, so if we take the 33 million that have gone from Christians to non-practicing Christians and the 33 million that have gone from Christians to non-Christians, that's 66 million people. The population of the United States in the year 2021 was 332 million. So 66 million represent 1 in every 5 Americans. This, Arden, is a disaster. I would call that a great falling away. I believe we're in the middle of the— Do you know that last year, 4,000 churches started in the United States, but 7,000 churches closed their doors? So we went minus 3,000 churches last year.

[Speaker] And that's just looking at the US. I mean, I think the story could be completely different around the world, or very similar, whereas you have some countries where it's almost Christianity is not even existent, and you have other countries where Christianity is continuing to keep thriving. But I think looking at the U.S. as a good representation of what we see is it was established underneath God back in the day, and it was so much of a country that we believed we're going to be founded under the godly principles, but yet you've watched as it just continues to keep keep moving further and further away, that you have to look at it from, yes, we're looking at just America, but this number is representative of so much of what the world is seeing, that if we're not actively keeping these things in front of us, how easy it is to drift away and what you'll keep seeing around the world.

The unwise virgins, they all believed they were going to be going with the bridegroom. They believed it. They had light. They were looking for his appearing. They didn't. And I just look at the fact that the very first thing Jesus says about the day we're living in is be very careful you're not deceived. And he said there's gonna be many false prophets, teachers, that are going to deceive many. And so if you look at Paul writing to Timothy, he makes this statement in 1 Timothy 4:1. Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times, and I believe we're in the last of the last times, some will turn away from the true faith. They will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. I believe one of the most deceptive teachings of demons is, "Oh, you can live however you want. The blood of Jesus covers you. You know what? Don't even worry about holiness. Don't even think about it." We're not to worry about holiness. Don't even think about living holy. Don't even make it a concern. Just, you know, do the best you can, treat people nice. You know, that's not walking in relationship with Jesus. That's not denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following. So what that does, if you look at Jude, because we talked about Jude so much when we were talking about 2 Peter, Jude says they're going to come in and actually say the grace of God makes room for immorality, it makes room for being fleshly. If you look at Jesus, he said the servant who says, "My master is delaying his coming," he begins to party, he begins to indulge in fleshly things. And what do people do when they indulge in fleshly things? Peter just says, they're gonna say, "Where's the promise of his coming? What do you have?" You're looking at something.

[Speaker] No, I'm looking at what you're saying, 'cause I think that's one of the lies for sure. I think also even the people accepting kind of what I was saying of almost mediocrity with their life, where it's like, they're like, well, I gave my life to Christ, but I'm not walking in any purposeful things, and I don't see my life as a living testimony, and I just— whenever I go, I go kind of thing. But yet understanding the spirit that's been given to you, which means whether you're in occupational ministry, whether wherever you are, like you've said, you have so much purpose. And I feel like I just was going back to Romans 8, and I love the scripture where it talks about the unveiling of God's glorious sons and daughters. Which, how does, like, do you know kind of how that correlates with the end times where it talks about, it says, it says, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth to be compared with the glory that is going to be revealed to us." In us. Okay, so mine says to us.

Okay.

"For the anxious longing of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of God's sons and daughters, which I love. One of the translations I remember says the entire universe stands on tiptoe waiting for it. It says, for creation was subject— subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that creation itself also would be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. So looking at that, like talking about the children of God and the purpose that you have within life, that the things of like the enemy trying to say like, oh, just live however you want, live whatever you look like, that's not what you're saying. Like, that's not what the entire universe would be waiting and standing on tiptoe for the unveiling for. So how does that even correlate with end times and what we're seeing in the second coming?

If you look at Colossians 1:4, it says, when Christ, who is our life, appears, we shall appear with him in glory. That's why I got that scripture in Romans. Romans is saying the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that's gonna be revealed in us. Okay, it says of us, but I think other translations say in us, 'cause I have that scripture, like I've said it for years. Now, what are the sufferings of this time? Okay, you cannot walk with Jesus and have a cruise mentality, have a lay back, kick back, ease mentality. Paul said, I press toward the mark of the high call. What is the mark of the high call? That I would know him, the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, and being made conformable to his death. I have to press to reach that goal. Now, for me to press means what? I'm going to get opposition and resistance. So in other words, this whole world is under the influence of the evil one according to 1 John. This whole world is directed by the prince of the power of the air, according to Paul in Ephesians 2. There is a course in this world. It's like a rapid flowing river. And God gave me this vision one day, Art, and I saw this guy pressing, pressing, pressing with a rowboat. And I remember he was really having to fight against this current. He got tired. Remember Jesus said, "He who endures to the end." Got tired, put up the oars, and he kept moving forward because of existing momentum, but he eventually started flowing with the river. Now his boat was pointed upstream, but he's flowing with the world. You know what he is? He's a non-practicing Christian. He has the appearance of a Christian, but he's now flowing with the world. He's not pressing into the high call. So this is what Paul said, for me to attain the high call, there is going to be resistance. I am going to have to fight the good fight of faith. I am going to have to take heed, very careful heed, lest I drift away, according to the writer of Hebrews. We aren't telling people this today. And I am so concerned that we're watching so many people put up their oars and they start drifting with the course of this world. And what happens? No oil for their lamps. They may be looking for his coming. They may say, "I am a Christian," if you push them in the corner. But faith is not the center of their life. They're not seeing themselves as ambassadors anymore. They're enjoying this world and waiting for the one to come. These are people we gotta reach. And I'm gonna be talking about this. This is coming up. But I wanna read an excerpt from a guy named Isaiah. Now, this is not Isaiah of the Old Testament. This is a first-century church leader. He was friends, actually, with the apostles of Jesus Christ. Listen to what Isaiah wrote. He said, "When the Messiah's coming is at hand." Okay, so now stop and think about this. This is a first-century persecuted believer who is a leader in the church, who is friends with the apostles. And he's actually prophesying. Now again, this is not scripture. This is a person who gave a prophecy, okay? But listen to this prophecy. This is amazing. When the Messiah's coming is at hand, his disciples will forsake the teaching of the 12 apostles and their faith, their love, and their purity, and there will arise much contention about his coming and appearing. So there we go right there. Peter said people are going to follow after their own lusts and their own desires, and they're going to say, "Hey, where's the promise of his coming?" And it actually creates a contention over the second coming of Jesus, which there is a lot of today. Okay? Now listen to this. This is amazing. "And in those days, there will be many who will love office." They will love the ministry. "Though they are devoid of wisdom." They're YouTubers, they're Instagrammers, they're self-appointed people that have started churches in their homes or in buildings, rented buildings. Okay, they love office, but they're devoid of wisdom. There will be much slandering and boasting at the approach of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit will depart from many. And in those days, there will not be many prophets nor such as speak reliable words, except a few here and there, on account of the spirit of error, of fornication, of boasting, and of covetousness, which shall be in those who yet will be called his servants, who received him. They'll say, I'm his servant, I received him, but they will have a spirit of error, they will have a spirit of fornication, a spirit of boasting, of pride. Now, I'm gonna back what I just read from scripture. Paul says, last couple of words he writes on earth, "For a time is coming," we're in it, "when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears wanna hear." they will reject the truth. Why in the world does Peter spend all of chapter 2 talking about these false teachers? We spent so many podcasts talking about these false teachers because of what we're coming into in chapter 3, the coming of the Lord. The church expected, were looking for him to come in their generation in the first century. How much more now that we are actually living in the generation that Israel has become a nation and God did what he said he would do, bring them from all the corners of the earth back to their home land, We are in the season of his second coming. We should have the same urgency that the early church had. And this is why I'm taking time and I'm not going to rush past this. So the first thing that Paul said that's going to indicate that we're truly in the time of his second coming is the great apostasy, the falling away. The second thing we need to look for is the latter rain. And that's what we're going to talk about in the next podcast. So we're going to take our time because I've got like 14 of these, okay? But we're going to take our time. And we're gonna take our time and go through each because I want people prepared. I cried out today, Arden, when I was praying. I said, "God, so many people listen to this podcast. Please let there be transformation in their life. Please let their hearts be touched so deeply by your Spirit that there is transformation." And that's what I'm believing for.

[Speaker] And I see that passion in you. I do wanna say for people too, is you mentioned the "Awe of God" book. If you guys wanna support the podcast, one of the ways that you can actually do that is we have created an entire line of merch about the awe of God. So you can go online, you can go to johnbevere.com, and you can actually pick up that line of merch. You can go even easier, go and click the link down below. There's hats, there's crewnecks, but it's a good way to actually even just represent and wear the message.

It's a conversation creator. I wore it on the pickleball court the other day. It's a conversation. Can you show me the book? Because before you get any merch, I'd rather you have the message.

Yes, message.

So if you want the foundation of what we're teaching, It's right here. Because why the awe of God? Because Jesus delighted in it. And the awe of God is what keeps us from falling away. The Bible is so clear that we depart from the faith when we lose the holy, healthy fear of God. And this book has been a bestseller for 2 years now. And if you don't have it, I highly recommend just go on Amazon. It's on a— I think it's on like a 40% sale by the time you watch this. So just get it from Amazon. I'm not even going to send you to our ministry. Get it from Amazon. Because most of you are Prime members. All you have to do is one click. Click. If I send you to our website, you got to enter all your information. You won't do that. I don't— I just want you to get the message.

Well, and I love seeing you're passionate about this, Dad, and I'm excited to jump into it more.

All right, and thanks. And again, it is so good having all of you on this. I feel like we've got a family. This podcast is creating a family. I meet so many of you on the road. I— it's just absolutely— I've met you in other nations, I've met you here in the United States, and my heart is just so touched. I mean, literally, Art and I run through airports, people come up and say, I'm listening to your podcast, Yes, I mean grocery stores, they come up and say, "I'm listening to your John Bevere podcast. I love your son." They always say, "I love your son. He brings such great content to the program." So I want to say, I look forward to seeing you guys out there. Don't hesitate, walk up, say hello. I'll smile, I'll thank you for being a patron or part of the family. And let's just keep diving in the Word of God together as we unfold what is going to happen right before Jesus returns. We'll see you in the next podcast. Best guess.