Bible Doctrine

Does The Most Important Part Of The Christian Church Remain Locked Outside The Door In These Closing Hours Of The Church Age?

As the Church Age comes to a close, we are reminded that while it will end in failure corporately, the invitation to each and every one of us individually to ‘open the door’ to Jesus Christ remains in gloriously full effect. And when we do, Jesus promises to come in and ‘sup’ with us in intimate fellowship.

Published

6 years ago

September 2, 2018

Geoffrey Grider

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Do you remember what it was like the moment you called out to Him in your anguish of soul, asking nothing more than to be cleansed of your sin, and the overflowing joy that followed when Jesus saved you?

The only place in the New Testament where it talks about an actual church building is found in the book of Revelation, in the message from Jesus to the angel of the Church at Laodicea. Laodicea is a very busy church, materially prosperous, and it represents in type the end of the Church Age where we now find ourselves. But it is also the church of the ‘closed door’, and on the other side stands the One whom we claim to follow, asking for anyone who cares enough to open the door and let Him in. How sadly ironic for the One who is The Door to be relegated to the outside of the very thing He shed His blood to create.

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Revelation 3:20-22 (KJV)

Revelation 3, in verses 14 through 22, shows us the state of the Body of Christ at end of the Church Age, that is about to experience the Pretribulation Rapture, described to us in type starting in chapter 4. But the Church Age is not ending in triumph, it is ending corporately in lukewarm apostasy, self-seeking and self-enrichment. We’ve become callous and religiously hardened, having reduced the love of Jesus Christ and the love for Jesus Christ, to a series of bullet point presentations that purports to show us how to have a ‘better life’ but actually do nothing of the kind.

“And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,” Revelation 1:5 (KJV)

In short, we have fallen out of love with the very One who has redeemed our souls with His own blood. The same One who at this very moment stands at the door, knocking, asking to be let in. Asking you and asking me to let Him in. Why would He bother to patiently stand and knock when He could simply speak and start everything all over again? Why does He love us so much?

That’s My King, Do YOU Know Him?

Do you remember what it was like when you first got saved, back when you didn’t know much more about the the Bible than John 3:16? Do you remember what it was like the moment you called out to Him in your anguish of soul, asking nothing more than to be cleansed of your sin, and then the overflowing joy that followed when Jesus saved you?

“But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:4-9 (KJV)

The true message to the Laodicean Church Age

I remember when that day was for me 27 years ago, on my knees in my bedroom, with a King James Bible open to John 3:16, asking God to save me with tears streaming down my face. I had come face to face with Jesus, and felt the burden of sin peeled away from me like so much old wallpaper being removed from the parlor. It was exhilarating, it was liberating, and most of all I was in head over heels in love with a Jewish Saviour, Jesus of Nazareth.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 (KJV)

I immediately began to witness to anyone who would listen, or not listen, so excited to show them the freedom that I had found in Jesus Christ. My message wasn’t about ‘religion’, it wasn’t about trying to get anyone to church, and it wasn’t about trying to show people how to ‘improve thier lives’ with a new way of thinking. No, my only message was to tell people about a Person, a Man, an actual Individual with whom they were invited to have a relationship with who just happened to be the God of the entire universe.

But if God would have back then showed me the future that yes, would include amazing victories, souls saved and mountain top experiences, but also the times where I would functionally deny His Name and return to living for myself and the world, I would have ran screaming out of the room. How could I ever turn away from such amazing love? How could you? Yet according to Jesus in Revelation, somehow we did. Peter asked the same question.

“And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.” Luke 22:61,62 (KJV)

This I believe is the message to the angel of the church of Laodicea, a church that had replaced the love of a living Saviour with the lukewarm outer vestiges of religion. The true church is not a building, it’s the redeemed people who make up the Body of Christ. We’re not called to church building programs and membership drives, or even about ‘sharing the message’. We are called to tell a lost and dying world about a person, Jesus Christ, and to invite them to have a saving relationship with Him. And while we do that, to personally open the door to let Jesus back in to our own lives as individuals.

The true joy and beauty of Heaven is Jesus

The image that I use in this article is from a painting called ‘First Day In Heaven‘, and to me it really captures the incredible joy that awaits the born again Christians – made up of both Jew and Gentile – in Heaven. It has nothing to do with anything that the physical place of Heaven contains, as amazing as all that will be, and everything to do with Who is waiting there to receive us. Safe in His arms, never again to be apart, all tears wiped away forever more.

“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:1,2 (KJV)

Look at the expression on the girl’s face in the painting, she is finally with the One who loves her more than anyone else could possibly love her, and her soul is filled to overflowing. What inexpressible joy we will know in that day! In that moment she knows that the only thing that mattered in this life, or will matter in the life to come, is a relationship with Jesus Christ.

As the Church Age comes to a close, we are reminded that while it will end in failure corporately, the invitation to each and every one of us individually to ‘open the door’ to Jesus Christ remains in gloriously full effect. And when we do, Jesus promises to come in and ‘sup’ with us in intimate fellowship.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” John 10:27,28 (KJV)

Return to your first love while time remains

Christian, ask yourself this. Where is Jesus in your life right now? Does He occupy the place He did when you first got saved, or has He faded into the dull routine of your daily life? Listen to see if you can hear Him knocking on the door of your own heart, inviting you in to eat with Him and be restored to true fellowship. Throwing off the shackles of Laodicea and returning to your first love. Taking worthless religion and throwing it in the trash where it belongs, the true Christian life is about Jesus who gives us the victory in Himself.

Over the past 8 and a half years on NTEB we have talked about an amazingly-wide range of topics covering differing religions, politics, the Bible and issues related to the Last Days. But there is nothing more important than opening the door to Jesus as He knocks for us. To the getting away from creeds and rituals, and getting back to the One that saved us and redeemed us with His own blood. Going forward this ministry will seek to make sure that Jesus occupies the place He so rightly deserves.

He is worthy of praise, His mercy endures forever, and He loved you and I so much that He took our punishment on Himself and paid for our ransom in full. He is Jesus of Nazareth, and He loves us more than we have the ability to understand it. Revelation 3 and the message to Laodicea was not written to lost people, it was written to redeemed people who had lost their way. It’s not about anything we can do for Him, and everything about what He has already done for us.

Listen as He stands knocking, open the door and let Him in. It’s all about Jesus.

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:28,29 (KJV)

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Bible Doctrine

New Children’s Book ‘The Baptism Of Jesus’ Painting The Spotless Lord As A Sinner Who Needs Baptism ‘To Wash My Sins Away’ Is Pure Heresy

Published

2 months ago

February 8, 2024

Geoffrey Grider

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Jesus got baptized by John the Baptist to fulfill God’s righteousness, not to wash away any sin because He was sinless

The children’s book ‘The Baptism of Jesus’ teaches that “John the Baptist lived a simple life. He went around sharing his important message and persuading people to let him wash their sins away. He told people to live better lives and prepare for someone who could baptize not with water but with God’s love. This someone was Jesus and he did come and he asked John to baptize him.” The photo graphic has Jesus saying “I have come to the river to wash away my sins”. Umm. No. Full stop. Jesus was and is sinless, on every level, teaching that He had sin is a Laodicean heresy that we are nipping in the bud right now. But as long as we are on the subject, let’s take a look and see why Jesus was baptized.

“Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.” Matthew 3:13-15 (KJB)

First of all, Jesus is submitting Himself to the baptism of John because He is fulfilling a type as He presents Himself to Israel as the ‘suffering servant’ of Isaiah 53. Second, John the Baptist is shocked, and doesn’t want to to it because he knows Jesus is the sinless and spotless lamb of God. But Jesus gently rebukes him, and says it needs to be done to ‘fulfill all righteousness’. Jesus is showing the people that He is the Lamb, without spot or blemish. But Jesus is only doing this ceremonially because He has no sin to either wash away or repent of. So we can safely conclude that the writer of this book did this out of ignorance of scripture, or did it intentionally to try and make the Lord look bad. All this is ‘par for the course’ here in the lukewarm Laodicean end of the Church Age.

“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Hebrews 10:12-14 (KJB)

Throughout the Old Testament, we see the types set up by God to show you the coming final sacrifice that would take place. That is why the lambs sacrificed were without spot, without blemish, they were a perfect type of the only ever perfect Person, the only ever born sinless human being, that was qualified to “take away the sin of the world”. Now do you see why Jesus was baptized? He’s showing the Jews the Lamb has arrived, and on their behalf, and ours, He submits to what God has established, fulfilling all righteousness in the process.

“And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.” Acts 8:36-38 (KJB)

Lastly, in the Church Age, baptism is no longer connected to your salvation, it is part of your sanctification, your testimony to a lost world that you have become born again. The first man saved in the Church Age, the Ethiopian eunuch, asks Phillip what is stopping him from getting baptized. Phillip tells him he has to believe first, get saved first, and then you can be baptized. If you’re trusting in your baptism to ‘wash away your sins’, I have bad news as they are still intact and on you. But if you have trusted the sinless Saviour Jesus of Nazareth who made a payment for you in God’s blood on the cross, then you are every whit clean and whole. Jesus saves. Not Mary, not the saints, not baptism, not the sacraments, not the eucharist, and not anything other than the sinless and spotless Lamb of God. Are you saved? Find out before you go, you’ll be glad you did.

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Bible Doctrine

There Are 7 Raptures In Your King James Bible, And The Pretribulation Rapture Of The Church Before The Start Of Jacob’s Trouble Is Only One Of Them

Published

4 months ago

December 7, 2023

Geoffrey Grider

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There Are 7 In Your King James Bible starting In Genesis and going all the way clear through to Revelation, we’re looking for the Pretribulation Rapture of the Church

I was just on X a moment ago, and saw that the word ‘rapture’ was trending with lots of people putting their ‘2 cents’ in. Unfortunately, due to the dearth of bible doctrine ‘rightly divided’ being taught today, most Christians are vastly underinformed as to the meaning of that phrase. When people ask me about the Rapture, my usual response is ‘which one’? Your King James Bible shows a minimum of 7 raptures that I can see, with 7 being a perfectly appropriate number for that topic.

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 (KJB)

A quick peek into Webster’s 1828 dictionary shows us that the word ‘rapture’ means ‘a seizing by violence’ and a ‘transport; ecstasy; violence of a pleasing passion; extreme joy or pleasure.’ In other words, when the Lord raptures someone up, He is not asking permission first but it’s going to be great. Better than you could ever imagine. The greatest example of this is the Pretribulation Rapture of the Church at the end of the Church Age, but as you’ll soon see, it is far from the only rapture in the Bible.

With that, I present for your scholarly consideration the 7 Raptures In Your King James Bible:

1. Enoch – This rapture is a wonderful type of the Church being removed before the start of the time of Jacob’s trouble and the great Tribulation. You will notice it takes place immediately prior to the original Days of Noah. Slam dunk.

“And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” Genesis 5:24 (KJB)

2. Elijah – Another one of the one-man raptures that shows the ‘catching up’ without the Lord asking first, a hallmark of the rapture process. Conclusion? Be ready!

“And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” 2 Kings 2:11 (KJB)

3. Jesus – Even the Lord Himself was happy to demonstrate the rapture process by doing it Himself. In this case, He was caught up into the clouds, which is exactly how Paul says you and I will be caught up when it’s time for the Church to go.

“And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.” Acts 1:9 (KJB)

4. The Church – Here it is, ‘that blessed hope’ with all the trimmings. Come get us, Lord Jesus! One of the main differences between the Rapture Paul talks about and the one Jesus describes in Matthew 24, is that Jesus comes for the Church personally, He doesn’t send angels. Also, it is His Voice that acts ‘as a trumpet’, but no trumpet is present. Matthew 24 shows angels doing the rapturing whilst blowing actual trumpets. Things that are different are not the same. Doctrine matters!

“After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.” Revelation 4:1,2 (KJB)

5. 144,000 – The 144,000 we see sealed on Earth in Revelation 7 are now up in Heaven with Jesus in chapter 14. How did they get there? You know.

“And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.” Revelation 14:1 (KJB)

6. The Two Witnesses – Moses and Elijah go up for a ‘second time’ each.

“And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.” Revelation 11:11,12 (KJB)

7. Tribulation Saints – The Jewish remnant being caught up from Selah Petra.

“And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Matthew 24:31 (KJB)

The one that concerns you if you’re saved is the fourth one, the Pretribulation Rapture of the Church, the body and bride of Jesus Christ. This Bible doctrine, taught by both Paul and John, as well as shown in type by King Solomon in the Song Of Solomon, is perhaps the most highly-debated and contested doctrine in the Church today. Amazingly, a majority of low information church goers are in a row against it. When you stop preaching Bible doctrine, as Paul warned would happen in 2 Timothy 4, and this is what you get. Detractors will say that this did not exist until John Darby and CI Scofield taught it in the 1800’s, but that is just Laodicean nonsense. The doctrine of the Pretribulation Rapture of the Church is clearly present in your King James Bible. You would have to work pretty hard to miss it, and many absolutely do. Don’t be one of them, learn how to rightly divide your Bible.

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“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

Bible Doctrine

The Amazing Way That The Letter ‘X’ Is Used In Your King James Bible As It Relates To The Antichrist And His Soon-Coming, Short-Lived 7-Year Kingdom

Published

9 months ago

July 24, 2023

Geoffrey Grider

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Let’s do a quick King James Bible study on the many appearances and inferences of the letter ‘x’ in relation to the Antichrist and his coming kingdom

On our Podcast this afternoon, we had a wonderful time going through our King James Bibles to discover some peculiar anomalies with the letter ‘x’ and verses related to the coming Antichrist and his short-lived, 7-year kingdom. It was so well received that I thought a quick follow-up on the topic was in order. Enjoy!

“And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.” Luke 4:5-7 (KJB)

The main theme of your Bible is the coming King, Jesus Christ, and the kingdom that will soon be given to Him at the Second Advent. Jesus is the ‘volume of the Book’ from Genesis 1 to the end of Revelation 22. But before that can take place, the Devil is going to get a throne for 7 short years, and will try his best to hold onto it. When we look closely at the following passages, some pretty weird things present themselves to us regarding words that either end or begin with the letter ‘x’. Please note the following:

Rex – King, this is Antichrist the counterfeit king, a Xerox copy. “And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.” Revelation 6:2 (KJB). The Latin word for king is ‘rex’, and that’s exactly what the Antichrist is, a king, but with a catch. He’s not the actual Messiah, he’s a counterfeit, kind of like when you make a copy of something with a copying machine like, say, the industry-standard and iconic Xerox.

Hex – a curse or magic spell. “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:” Revelation 13:16 (KJB). Now this counterfeit king, let’s call him Mr. Xerox, brings something when he arrives, and we call that a ‘hex’. It is something that curses the one who receives it, please see Revelation 14:9-11 (KJB). The Bible calls this ‘hex’ the Mark of the Beast.

Pox – pus-filled, a pustule, blister, ulcer or vesicle. “And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.” Revelation 16:2 (KJB). So King Xerox gives out his hex and what does that produce? It produces a pox in the bodies of the people who received. Is it just me or is there a preponderance of the letter ‘x’? There is, and it gets better (worse?).

χάραγμα cháragma – the Mark. “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelation 13:16,17 (KJB). I rarely go to the Greek, but today I did and what did I see? The Greek word for ‘mark’, as in the Mark of the Beast, and it’s χάραγμα, or cháragma in English. Do you notice how the Greek word begins with the letter ‘x’? Odd.

χξϛ chx stigma – 666. “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” Revelation 13:18 (KJB). Here we have the words 600, 60 and 6 written out in Greek as χξϛ, or chx stigma in English. Did you notice what the first letter of that was? Yep, it’s an ‘x’. Amazing.

In math and science, ‘X’ stands for an unknown quantity, perhaps you recall ‘solving for x’ in your high school algebra classes. I cannot tell you the name of the coming Antichrist, no one can, he is truly Mr. X, but maybe his greatest strength is also his greatest weakness. From an end times perspective, seeing a large amounts of x’s should be setting off your prophetical ‘red flags’, and in 2023 we have buckets of them. Elon Musk just rebranded Twitter as X, and his opening goal is to take over a minimum of 50% of the global financial system. That’s a lot of ‘buying and selling’, don’t you think? Why don’t you mark that down for later? In the meantime, go listen to today’s Podcast on this very subject.