Sid Roth - Breaking The Apocalypse Code
Sid Roth: Hello. Welcome. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. You know, many people have given up on understanding the Book of Revelation. Other people are just flat so fearful they don't want to read the Book of Revelation. And then others, believe it or not, they think the Book of Revelation was finished in 70 A.D. when the temple was destroyed. Well none of those three are acceptable. I always wondered about a scripture that I read in the New Testament: "The love of most will grow cold in the last days". The love of most will grow cold. Why? They won't understand the season and the times that they're in. The Book of Revelation is the key to the last days. You must understand it. My guest has invested 80,000 hours researching the scriptures and is considered a pioneer in understanding the Hebraic roots of the faith and putting the two together. You will understand the End Time book for the Bible, the Book of Revelation. Well the studio audience is so excited because we have Perry Stone here. I feel like I know Perry because I've watched him on television so much and I've bumped into him when we both had tours to Israel. But Perry, 80,000 hours studying the Bible.
Perry Stone: Eight to 14 hours a day and my staff is here. They'll verify that. It's just been my life to understand the Word. You know, especially prophetic events and the Book of Revelation is one of those books.
Sid Roth: But why is that many churches today are not interested in hearing prophecy? Look, when I became a believer in the Messiah I couldn't get enough prophecy, prophecy about why Jesus was the Messiah, prophecy about End Times. But it seems as though the pendulum is swinging.
Perry Stone: I think there's a couple of reasons. Reason number one is people think it's too difficult to understand. Number two, it does contain symbolism, which has to be interpreted from the scripture itself. And if you don't know the Old Testament, some of that symbolism isn't going to make sense in the Book of Revelation. You have to have to...
Sid Roth: Could that be the reason that many Christians are saying, well we're no longer under the Law, so we won't even look at the Old Testament.
Perry Stone: Let me give you an example. In the Book of Genesis, Joseph has this dream of sun and stars bowing before him. In Revelation Chapter 12, there's a woman in travail and it talks about the sun and the stars, and the moon, and it all refers back to Joseph's dream. Joseph's dream was about Israel and that is a picture of the Nation of Israel. So if you don't understand Joseph's dream, which is in the Torah, how are you going to understand what's written in the Book of Revelation? So what the book does, I think, we're talking about why people don't study. And the third reason is people see it as a negative book when it's not. Here's what the Book of Revelation actually is. It is Jesus as our high priest in Chapter 1. But we then see him in Chapter 19 coming back to rule on Earth in a thousand years as king of kings. The Book of Revelation is called the Revelation of Jesus Christ. But yet throughout the book you see plagues and judgment. So people don't understand what's taking place many times. Here's the bottom line. It is Jesus transferring from the priestly position to the kingly position. He is transferring as the high priest to the king, because he is a priest after the Order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was a priest and a king, priest of the most high God, king of Jerusalem. So in this role of priesthood that the Messiah, Yeshua is in. He is now high priest of the profession of our faith, but he has to transfer to take the world over as king. The Book of Revelation explains to you the process of how he judges the world in order to legally take it back from the God of this world who is Satan, who has taken over the kingdoms and the governments of this world. And so that's what the whole theme of the book is, the transference of Yeshua the Messiah from high priest to king. And in the process of doing that what is interesting is in the book there's a seven seal book. In the Roman time, Cesar Augustus' will was sealed with seven seals. In the Roman time, a wealthy person's will was sealed with seven seals. But what those seals were...
Sid Roth: You know what? You would never understand any of this symbolism unless you knew the Old Covenant.
Perry Stone: That's right.
Sid Roth: When it says, "No longer under the law" and it states that in the New Testament, Paul says it. What does he really mean?
Perry Stone: Let me just say this real quick, and those in again understanding the Book of Revelation, understanding where we're living. The Five Books of Moses, part of that contains is what is called The Law of God. It's not the Law of Moses, the Law of God. But there was ceremonial, sacrificial and moral law. Sacrificial law was fulfilled through Christ. That's what the Apostle Paul is talking about. You don't go back to the temple to offer blood offering when the final lamb was offered. There is no more sacrifice of sin. However, the ceremonial law includes the Sabbath, the new moons and the Feast. Part of those were fulfilled through Christ. Part of those are going to be fulfilled with the future during the tribulation, the coming of Christ. We call it the rapture and also the kingdom, which is the rule and the reign. That happens in the future. That's your three qualities. The moral law of God has never changed because the moral law of God is the character of God. So in other words, when you see God says, don't like, don't steal, don't commit adultery, that's all found in what we call the New Covenant teaching. And so in other words, people have, I grew up in a full gospel church and everybody kind of dubbed it altogether and said, Christ has done away the law. The problem you have with even implying it the way it's understood in the West or interpreted in the West, is then you have to do away with those prophecies that are there that haven't even come to pass yet. How could it be done away with when certain things have not yet happened?
Sid Roth: Well when he says, "no longer under the law," we're no longer under the law of temple animal sacrifices.
Perry Stone: Right.
Sid Roth: That's what he's talking about. But actually, Jesus makes it a little more difficult than we have in the Old Covenant. But you'll never understand it unless you, Book of Revelation will remain a mystery unless you have the key, which is in the Old Covenant.
Perry Stone: Right.
Sid Roth: The Old Covenant will remain a mystery unless you have the key, which is the New Covenant. And the two together are the Word of God. But there's only one book in the entire Bible that says, "I God will bless those that hear this book". There's only one book in the entire Bible in which God says, "I God will curse anyone that tampers with one word of this book". It's the Book of Revelation. And I don't want it to be a mystery for you any more or you may miss what's going on in the last days. Be right back.
Sid Roth: Sid Roth here with Perry Stone. And there is a teaching, it's an old teaching, that's resurfacing right now. It's called Preterits and it basically states that the Book of Revelation is already completed. You don't even need that book any more. Now you throw out the Book of Revelation, you throw out the Old Testament and you throw out the Word of God. Now Perry Stone, what would you say to someone that walked up to you and said, "Look Perry, 70 A.D., you know what happened in Israel? Everything took place in the Book of Revelation".
Perry Stone: First of all, let's talk about who they are. These are individuals that believe that Matthew 24, the Book of Revelation, most of it was fulfilled in 70 A.D. Why do they say that? Well you had the destruction of the temple, destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews being scattered and then Josephus talks about these cosmic signs, stars shaped like a sword, the voice that came in the temple saying, "Let us depart hence," a comet that was seen over the city. So what they do is they take the cosmic signs that Josephus wrote about, they take the fact the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were scattered and they basically say all of Matthew 24 was fulfilled. But the problem you have with that, there's a couple of problems. Problem number one is the Bible says, "There will be a generation that will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of glory and the tribes of the earth will morn". Show me where that happened in 70 A.D. It did not happen. Number two, anybody who's a Preterits watching, they know this because the people who have revived this doctrine, this is their biggest weakness. They believe the Book of Revelation was written 68 A.D., just about two years before the destruction. Therefore, when John, for example is told to measure the Temple of God in Revelation 11, they say, well that was the temple in Jerusalem. It had to be written by 68 A.D. because the temple was destroyed two years later. Here's the problem you have. The early church followers, three of them, talk about the Emperor Domitian, who was the emperor in 81 A.D. is when he came to power. Now the temple is destroyed in 70 and the emperor, that was the emperor when John wrote the Book of Revelation comes in 81 A.D. and he dies about 94, 95, it blows the theory away. There's nothing a Preterits can stand on when they understand that history reveals the Book of Revelation was written in 95 A.D., 25 years after the destruction of the temple. And Sid, the scripture they use in Revelation 11 about measuring the Temple of God is a temple in the tribulation period, not one that existed in 70 A.D.
Sid Roth: So if it's so blown out in the water, why does anyone believe in this Preterits thing?
Perry Stone: Because they don't know the Bible or they don't know how to properly interpret, you know, the Book of Revelation.
Sid Roth: Who gains by someone tossing out the Book of Revelation and tossing out the Old Testament?
Perry Stone: Well no one gains.
Sid Roth: Yeah. And there is someone that gains: the devil.
Perry Stone: The enemy gains.
Sid Roth: The devil gains.
Perry Stone: The kingdom of darkness gains because there's a lot of reasons why people should study the book. Because I've looked at it from the historical perspective, the allegorical perspective. I've looked at it from the four main perspectives. The only way to interpret the book properly is futuristic from Chapter 4 to Chapter 22. And Sid, here's the reason why. Because if you look at the numbers of people who are dying in the tribulation, a third, a third, a third, never in the history of the world, and I want everybody to hear this, never in the history of the world is there a time that you can find where those numbers ever came into existence yet.
Sid Roth: What about another old doctrine that is floating around now. It's called Kindermal. We are going to take over the political realm, the art realm, every realm of the world and present Jesus the earth on a silver platter. What's wrong with that thinking?
Perry Stone: Okay. It's the same thinking the Pharisees had. The Pharisees had it mixed up because they said they wanted a Messiah who would conquer Rome, put Israel in a political power position. So when Yeshua came, he came as a lamb, not a lion. He comes as a lion at the end of the tribulation. Okay. So they had it mixed up because when they saw him they said, we want to make him a king, we want him to conquer Rome. He didn't do that. What did the disciples say when he was going back to Heaven? Will you restore the kingdom to Israel? They wanted a political kingdom, but they got a spiritual kingdom. Now the Kingdom of God, is on Earth through the church. But here's what we're doing, setting people free from demon spirits, healing the sick. We're delivering people from sin, getting them ready for eternity.
Sid Roth: Which party is that exactly? Is that Democrat or Republican?
Perry Stone: There you go. And so the kingdom is now spiritual. And today people have got it mixed up again because they think that we, the people, make a political kingdom. We take over the government. One guy told me it's getting better and better. I said, if it's better and better I don't want to see worse and worse. I mean, you know...
Sid Roth: How can someone say it's getting better and better?
Perry Stone: I'm telling you, it makes no sense.
Sid Roth: I can't afford it.
Perry Stone: So here's the point I make with that. There is a kingdom, yes, the Kingdom of God is on Earth and it's working in us now. But it's a spiritual kingdom delivering people from the power of demonic activities in sin and Satan. The Messiah will come. You can't have a kingdom without a king. The king will return. In Revelation 19, the timing is at the conclusion of what's called the Great Tribulation. "The saints of God will rule and reign with him for a thousand years". Then we have the actual kingdom on Earth, political and spiritual. Because when he becomes king he rules the earth with wrought of iron. We're not ruling Earth with a wrought of iron, because we can't rule because our king has not returned yet.
Sid Roth: What about the Rapture? What a divisive area. But what an exciting area when you spend 80,000 hours studying the Bible. The only book, the Old Testament was the only book the first church had. We'll talk about rapture when we come back.
Sid Roth: Now if I was give you a book that has thousands, literally thousands of precise predictions of what will happen in the future, and if I showed you that thousands of them have already come true, would you like to look at the last third of the predictions that haven't had a chance to come true, or would you toss that book out? Many Christians have tossed out the Old Testament, have tossed out the Book of Revelation and won't have a clue about the last days. And I'm concerned about you. I want you to be the head and not the toes. I want you to overcome. I don't want you to just be a patsy for the Antichrist system that's coming. Perry Stone, just tell me a few of the prophecies that haven't come true yet.
Perry Stone: Okay. Daniel 9:27 is seven years of which a treaty has to be signed with Israel, with surrounding nations. That is has absolutely not happened yet. That's where the foundation comes for the seven-year tribulation period, is Daniel 9:27. Now look at some prophecies, for example the big one in my opinion, you have Isaiah 17:1, a destruction of Damascus, which is going to take place. That's just a second one, for example, that has not yet happened. Damascus is one of the oldest continuing cities in the world as far as going all the way back to the time of Eliezer and Abraham. The third scripture that I'd say is definitely, you can see the formation, the fermentation of the nations is what I call it, is Ezekiel 38 and 39. This is called the war of Gog and Magog. For example, Persia, which is Iran, heads up that battle. And then you have countries like...
Sid Roth: Isn't it interesting that Iran is surfacing as a world dominant player right now. Russia is surfacing as a world. I mean, isn't everything coming into place?
Perry Stone: Let me just say it this way. When the, they call it the Arab Spring took place in Egypt, I told my staff, I said, if we're really in the time of the end, Libya has to fall next. And they asked me, they said, why do you say that? I said, go to Daniel 11 and read where it talks about the Antichrist. Now this is the chapter that deals with the man who's coming in the future called the Antichrist. And it says, that he's over the treasures of Egypt, the silver and gold of Egypt and the Libyans and the Ethiopians will be at his steps, meaning they will be following his footsteps. And you know, the situation happened in Egypt and then it was followed up in Libya when Qaddafi was killed. And it's left a void. There's a tremendous void in those two countries. Now in the future, we don't know the timing of this. Only God has the timing. But in the future there will come a, I encourage people, for example, to read Isaiah 19. It says, the civil war would be in Egypt, brother against brother. It says, there will be no jobs in Egypt. Now part of that's happening now. But there's a second head of that where it says, Egypt is given over to a cruel lord. That's according to most scholars, the Antichrist. So the point is that when we see the alignment in the Middle East, we see the prophecies taking place in Israel. These are so specific by the prophets that it's not a guesswork thing.
Sid Roth: You know, talking about specific, wait until Perry tells you about the destruction of nuclear war in Zachariah about the skin. Explain that.
Perry Stone: You want to talk about that? Okay. There is a scripture, there is a real odd scripture in the Bible that says, "The Lord will allow a plague to come upon the people that attack Jerusalem," and it would be "that their eyes melt in their socket, their tongues melt in their mouth". You're thinking, okay, what could this be? Without going into details, I know this for a fact. There is a bomb. It has been invented. I also know it has been tested and I'm not going to go to any sources for that. It's called a neutron bomb. What it basically does is it, let me just explain it in simple terms. What it basically does is when it explodes it leaves, it can leave a building intact, it can leave a vehicle intact. But it actually melts the skin on the human being and it leaves them in skeletal form.
Sid Roth: The Bible actually says their standing in skeletal. How could Zachariah thousands of years ago have known about a neutron bomb? Most of you don't even know what a neutron bomb is. But I have to ask you about the rapture. What does the word "rapture" mean?
Perry Stone: From the Latin translation of the Bible, the New Testament is written in Greek. First Thessalonians 4, the phrase, "We should be caught up," that Greek word means to be snatched up suddenly, snatched up by force, snatched out of danger's way. When St. Jerome translated the Bible from Greek to Latin, the word "called up", he chose the Latin word where we get the English word, "rapture" from. And it basically means in the setting of the context of the scripture, it means to be literally called up. Because the Bible said that when he comes, Christ comes, Messiah comes, we'll be called up to meet him in the air. So people often times will say to me, you use a term that's not found in the Bible. I said, you know, believers use terms all the time. We talk about trinity. We talk about second coming. We talk about millennial. None of those words are in the Bible. But we use them as English words to describe what is written in the Bible, to describe an event, to describe what that word means. So often we'll use that particular word because people are familiar with that word around the world. So that's why that word is used.
Sid Roth: Now you believe in what is known as a pre-tribulation catching away.
Perry Stone: Right.
Sid Roth: Or rapture. What is the strongest reason that persuades you that that is correct?
Perry Stone: One verse is in Luke where Jesus says, "Pray that you be counted, escape all these things and stand for the Son of Man". Then the Lord tells the church in Revelation, "Because you've kept the word of my patience, I will keep you from the hour of testing coming upon the whole earth". But one of the things, and here we go again, you have to start in what we call the Old Testament. You will discover eight examples. It starts with Noah then it goes with Lot, then it goes with the 144,000 Jewish in Revelation, and then it goes all the way through when the Babylonians came in and the righteous were marked with the seal on their head and protected. There is an escape found eight times in the scripture of individuals who escape judgment. Now Naaman says this: "God has not, God appoints his wrath for his enemies". And Paul said, "God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through His son". There's so many scriptures.
Sid Roth: Isaiah 26.
Perry Stone: Yes. And in our Revelation teaching I show the scriptures of why I believe it's Preterits, because we're not appointed to the wrath of God and we are, I'm going to say it this way and this is going to be a little controversial. But this is basically what I'm saying. The Father has a bride who is Israel. You can read that in the Old Testament. He says, "I'm married to Israel". But the son has a bride, which is the church. And before God can rescue His bride, the son has to rescue his bride. Now he comes from the church and then God turns His attention back to His bride and brings salvation and deliverance to them. And there are scriptures for all of this, but that's a big statement that's just been made. I know the people are kind of going to have to muse on that one a little bit.
Sid Roth: How about if I give you one minute to explain your revelation of 666.
Perry Stone: Oh wow. Well if you look, you know what, it's going to take more than a minute. But I will say this. Honestly, and I'm going to make this short in one statement, it can be linked to the Islamic religion, and that's the short version.
Sid Roth: Okay. I'm going to tell you something. I want you to fall in love with God's Word. I want you to fall in love with God. I'll be candid with you. The issue is not when the rapture occurs before the tribulation, in the middle, at the end. The issue is are you going to be raptured? That's the issue. Do you know God? If you don't make Jesus your Lord. Believe that He died for your sins. Say with your mouth, I make Jesus my Lord. Because of his death and resurrection, and blood my sins are atoned for and I am clean in Jesus' name. Amen.