John Hagee - The Question Jesus Could Not Answer
The most exciting, earth-shaking event the earth has seen since the birth of Christ in Bethlehem's manger is about to happen. It is the rapture of the church of Jesus Christ. It is imminent. What is the rapture? Saint Paul puts pen to parchment in 1 Thessalonians 4:16. And Paul writes, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with a voice of the Archangel and the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together in the clouds of heaven. And so shall we be with the Lord in the air. And so shall we be with the Lord".
Matthew 24:30, "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And they shall see the man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory". Acts 1:11, "Ye men of Galilee", the angels talking to the disciples when Jesus was taken into heaven, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand you here gazing into the heavens. This same Jesus shall come again in like manner, as you have seen him go". What does "In like manner" mean? It means you saw him physically, you saw him literally, going to heaven. And that's just how you're going to see him come back.
Put these verses together and you have this picture: Jesus Christ, the prince of glory, appears in the clouds of heaven, as lightning flashes from east to west. The trump of God shall sound, announcing the appearance of royalty, because Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace. He is the King of kings. He is the Lord of all Lords. And that trumpet is for him. The voice of the Archangel shall summon the righteous from their graves. All over the earth, graves will explode, as the occupants sail into the heavens.
Marble mausoleums will topple, as the bodies of the resurrected saints of God fly into heaven to be with the Lord. Cars are going to be parked out here beside 1604, hopefully bumper to bumper. And highways on planet earth will be there. The cars will be running with the drivers and the occupants strangely missing. Homes of believers will have the dishes on the table, the food is on the stove but the occupants of that home, who are believers, will instantly go to be to the marriage supper of the lamb. This church and the churches of the world are going to be packed with weeping, sobbing, hysterical people. They'll be screaming, "The Lord has come and we are left behind to go through the hell of the Great Tribulation".
I'm going to describe this, because some of you are going to be here. Your options when that happens is to denounce Christ and receive the mark of the beast in your right hand or forehead. And when you do, you lose your soul. The other option is to have your head cut off, and then be a part of the eternal kingdom and the resurrection that happens then. Think about that. It's so easy to receive Jesus and go the heaven. Think about it. Just beyond the clouds, the saints of God are going to be gathering home. From the east to the west, the north, the south: they shall come ten thousands times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, John writes.
That's the biblical phraseology for millions of people that are uncountable. God himself is going to wipe away the tears from every eye. There will be no parting. There will be no more suffering. There will be no more pain. There will be no more death or sorrow. There will be no more disease. You're going to a city where the roses never fade, where the word "Good-bye" has never been spoken: for the former things have passed away. Even so, come Lord Jesus! Give him praise in the house of God! We're going to the greatest family fiesta you've ever been to. My father and mother are there. My grandparents are there. Hundreds of church members are there. Each of you have precious relatives and friends that are waiting for you just inside the eastern gate. They're wearing crowns and dazzling white robes of righteousness. And they're ready to celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb that will last for seven years.
That's quite a party. We're going to receive crowns of life. There are five kinds of crowns mentioned in the scripture: the crown of life, the crown of glory, the crown of righteousness, the soul winner's crown, the martyr's crown. You'll be able to look at a person's crown, exactly like a military insignia, and tell what they did and how well they did it, when we get to heaven. We're going to sit at the wedding feast prepared for the bride of Christ, the church triumphant. This is the bride without spot or wrinkle. This is the bride that was purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ on the old rugged cross outside of Jerusalem. This is the bride that has been victorious over the powers and principalities of darkness for 2.000 years. This is the bride of the pure in heart, the bride that are the peacemakers, those that were persecuted for the name of Jesus Christ.
This is the Kingdom of God. And of that kingdom, there shall be no end. We are going to reign forever, and forever, and forever, and forever! Shout "Hallelujah" brother! The king is coming in all of his power! The Bible says, "Watch and pray that you be counted worthy to escape those things that are coming upon the earth". Question: if you don't believe in the rapture, as described in the Bible where people rise to meet the Lord in the air, how are you going to know when the real Jesus gets here? Fact: anyone can stand on the Mount of Olives, and say, "I'm Jesus". Hey, I've had Jesus show up at the back door here. I've had people show up saying they're Elijah, they're John the Baptist. This is a great place to work. You never know who's coming here. How are you going to know?
Anyone can stand on the Mount of Olives and say, "I'm Jesus". Anyone can put on a white robe. Anyone can claim to be a descendant of king David. Anyone can have his followers crown him as the King of kings of the new Israel on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Anyone can surgically have scars put in their hands. The false prophet of the antichrist is going to be able to make a statue speak. Don't you know there will be people saying, "This has to be of God. He's making this stone image speak". He will have an awesome, supernatural power given to him by satan himself. The Bible says that. So God has scripturally installed a fail-safe mechanism that is so staggering in supernatural power, so earth shattering: that not even satan can imitate it, much less duplicate it. That fail-safe system is the rapture of the church of Jesus Christ.
Let's press it further. Satan has always tried to imitate what God does. He cannot duplicate it, so he imitates it. When Moses went into the court of Pharaoh, he threw his stick down and it became a serpent. And so Janice and Jambres, who were warlocks for Pharaoh, came out and threw theirs down and they became serpents. Moses' serpents consumed those two serpents, and there, the theological debate was settled. But there was an imitation in a supernatural dimension. The antichrist imitates Jesus Christ. In chapter 6 of Revelation, the antichrist comes riding on a white horse. Why? Because in the second coming, Jesus is going to be riding a white horse in Revelation 19. The antichrist is going to be shot in the head, the Bible says, "Recovering miraculously". He is emulating the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
On the cross, Jesus defeated death, hell and the grave. The rapture is Christ' celebration over the grave. It is the ultimate humiliation of satan. That's why he hates the doctrine of the rapture. That's why no one in America is preaching about this. How will I know when the real Jesus gets here? Not by what I read in the New York Times. Not by what some liberal theologian has said. Not by some charismatic personality, standing on the Mount of Olives in a white sheet, saying, "I'm the king of the Jews". I'll know it's the real Jesus when my body sails through the air, past the milky way, a million miles a minute: when I stand in his presence with my brand new, disease-proof body. That's the rapture I'm looking for.
And then the critics of the rapture say, "You people are escapists. You say the word rapture does not appear in the biblical text". The Bible is a book of concepts and of word pictures so simple. The Bible says that a fool cannot err therein. I didn't say that: the Bible said that. Word pictures, let me give you a case. The word "Homosexual" does not appear in the Bible text either. But the concept is clearly expressed by God himself in Leviticus 20:13. People often say, "Well that's the law of Moses". You're dead wrong. God Almighty gave it to Moses, and Moses wrote it down. It's the law of God.
And here's the picture: "If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death". That's God's law. Point: the Bible text does not use the word "Homosexual". But anyone can get the picture. The biblical text does not have the word "Trinity". But over and over, it refers to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The concept is very clear. Critics say the rapture teaching is nothing but escapism. You people are trying to escape from the real world. The fact is the a rapture is no more escapism from the world than salvation is escapism from hell itself.
I gladly tell you, Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Heaven is my home. God is my father. Christ is my Savior. The Holy Spirit is my guide. And I'm thrilled out of my ever-loving mind that I'm going to heaven and not through the tribulation. If that's escapism, hallelujah: bring it on! The rapture is no more escapism than divine healing is escapism from sickness. Fact: environmentalists want to escape pollution. Fact: peace movements want to escape from war. Fact: Americans would like to escape from congress and fake news. That would be wonderful.
The Bible teaches us to prepare for escape. Luke 21:36, "Watch therefore, and pray always that you be counted worthy to escape those things that are coming upon the earth". He means the tribulation. Hebrews 2:3, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation"? If you refuse to simply accept Jesus, you're going through the tribulation. What are we going to escape? Walk with me through the pages of Revelation. There are going to be seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven vials, 21 global disasters in seven years. One-third of all the vegetation in the earth is going to be burned up by the sun. It will cause crops to be burned and global hunger. The sun and the moon are going to be darkened for long periods of time, because satan is the prince of darkness. The gates of hell are going to be opened and hordes of locusts, John says, "The size of a horse", are going to come upon the earth, and they'll sting men like a scorpion.
That pain will last for five months. Men are going to beg God to let them die, but God will refuse to let them die. There will be a worldwide famine. You're now seeing the beginning of that across the face of the earth. World War is going to be so bloody that the blood of those killed in battle, the blood will flow for 200 miles to the bit of the horse in the Valley of Jezereel Israel. That's called the Battle of Armageddon. Every person on earth is going to be covered at one point in time with great festering boils. The seven seas of earth are going to turn to blood.
How's that going to happen? Oil spills will be created by great earthquakes. And every river, and every stream, and every ocean will be like blood. This is the plague of Egypt. That's already happened. All the fish will die, producing more famine and mind-breaking thirst. The sun is going to scorch the earth and men with fire. And major uncontrollable fires are going to break out, burning cities at random. Mighty men, kings, men of war, the Bible says, are going to gnaw their tongues in pain, and crawl into mountains, and beg God to let them die. And God will not let them see death. Earthquakes are going to be so shattering that the islands of the sea are going to disappear. Every wall will fall down flat because of the earthquakes. Millions will be trapped beneath that rubble and no one can come to them.
Revelation 9:15 says, "And four angels are released by God Almighty to destroy one-third of mankind in a day". In America, that's going to be at least a hundred million people. Oh, God would never do that. We've already slaughtered 70 million unborn. And the blood of those babies is screaming in the ear of God for justice. And justice is going to come. I ask those of you, who are sane and of a sound mind: would you like to escape that? I do. I really do. I'm going to escape it. In a moment in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, I'm literally going to rise into the heavens with millions of believers to meet the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lion of the tribe of you Judah, the Lord of glory, the light of the world, the Lamb of God, the lover of my soul, will appear in the clouds of heaven and I'm leaving here. He is the day star. He is the bright and the morning star. He is the fairest of 10.000. He is the rose of Sharon. He is the Lilly of the valley. He is the Alpha and Omega, the one who was, and is, and ever more shall be. He is the bread of life. He is the captain of my salvation. He is the cornerstone, the mighty Counselor, and the Prince of Peace. He is Emmanuel, God with us, the hope of glory. He is the friend that surpasses all other friends. He is the fountain filled with blood. He is heaven's hope and hell's dread. He has crowned with many crowns: for he is the King of kings and Lord of lords! Give him glory and praise in the house of God!
The Bible is full of signs. I'm just doing to give you four. One, the knowledge explosion. Daniel, in chapter 12:4, Daniel, who received more revelation about the future than all the other prophets combined, said there would be a knowledge explosion. And the generation that has that knowledge explosion, when knowledge shall be greatly increased, will be the terminal generation. Think of it. From the Garden of Eden till the 20th century, people rode horses, carriages pulled by horses. Then came the automobile, jets, men landing on the moon. We are the terminal generation.
The greatest sign was the return of Israel, the return of the Jewish people to Israel. Jesus said, "Look at the fig tree. When you see this happen". May 15, 1948, Ben-Gurion bounded up the steps of the art museum in Tel Aviv. And he stood before an audience of 400 people and proclaimed the reality that the Jewish state was born. Two thousand years of wandering were over. This is the greatest miracle of the 21st century. Isaiah 66 says, "A nation shall be born in a day". And that happened only to Israel and it happened in my lifetime.
The third sign is Jerusalem, the return of Jerusalem to the state of Israel in 1967. Luke 21:24 says, "When Jerusalem is no longer trodden down by the gentiles, the time of the gentiles is fulfilled". What does that mean? It means God has a set time to bless Israel. And since 1967, that set time began. What I'm doing right now is fulfilled Bible prophecy. The Bible says, in Matthew 24:14, "And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to all of the world. And then the end will come". Right now, by television and 72 interconnected satellites, I'm preaching to every nation on the face of the earth that can receive an electronic signal. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is being preached to the ends of the earth.
Stand to your feet. Bow your heads in the presence of God. My question to you: are you ready? Some of you say, pastor Hagee, I believe in the rapture but I know I'm out of fellowship with God. There are sins that I need to confess, so that I will be ready. There are some of you who could say, I need to rededicate my life to Christ. Some of you could say, I've never heard the rapture story before. I certainly do not want to go through the Great Tribulation that is coming upon the earth. I want to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
If any one of those three describe you, I want you to slip your hand up right where you are. God bless you and God bless you, and God bless you, and God bless you. Come forward. I need thee come forward now. Oh I need thee you raised your hand: come on. Keep coming. Every hour I need thee oh bless me now come. My Savior I'll wait for you from the balcony. I come to thee come. I need thee oh I need thee every hour I need thee oh bless me now my Savior I come to thee will you bow your heads and pray this prayer with me, and with all of these precious ones who have come today?
Heavenly Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, your son and my Savior, I ask you to forgive me of all of my sin and all of my shortcomings. Today I want my name to be written in the lamb's book of life, as redeemed and forgiven, made white, whiter than snow by the blood of Jesus Christ. And now I confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And I pledge to live for him and serve him all the days of my life. Until I see him, face to face, in the meeting in the air, in Jesus' name. Amen and amen.