Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Good evening. My name's Pastor Peter and we're Wednesday here. We're at Community Media of South Central Pennsylvania.
We're going to introduce Brad Reeves, Pastor Brad Reeves today and my wife Sherry is with us as well.
Brad's going to talk about a conference that we have a local conference here in our community.
And before we get started, I just want to read to you the mission statement from Community Media of South Central Pennsylvania.
This is Community Media of South Central Pennsylvania enhances and improves the well being of health of our community by providing area residents, governments, organizations and institutions access to innovative digital technologies that engage, inform, educate and connect them to their community.
That's how Eyes to See Ministries International got connected with Community Media through Ray Galker, owner. And we're going to talk about this conference today.
So Brad, Pastor Brad is a, he's an author, pastor, missionary and the ministry. Well, you're go ahead and talk to tell us about yourself.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Well, first of all, thank you Peter and Sherry for having me on today. It's really a joy to join you and I appreciate you letting me.
As you've said, my name is Pastor Brad Reeves and I'm the pastor at Crossway Christian Fellowship in Hagerstown, Maryland. A delightful church. You know, we're not big, but boy, it's a family and we love the Lord, we love teaching on the scriptures and we also like looking at the world around us through the lens of scripture, which is so important.
And then I also run Coming Soon Ministries which is really my focus on writing, conference speaking and I have a number of podcasts, YouTube channels and so on.
Before that though, I was a state trooper for the Maryland State Police and was working actively. I had bomb dogs, drug dogs, and worked actively with a lot of type of activities regarding that presidential details, working closely with the government and so on. And these experiences really shaped how I view responsibly the vigilance and the leadership of being a strong voice of pastoral leadership. And really it's kind of an interesting story because I went into ministry and went to college and then was pastoring and wound up getting into law enforcement as kind of a bi vocational opportunity and wound up leaving ministry to pursue law enforcement. And somewhere along the lines the Lord knocked on my heart and says, hey, wait a minute, I didn't call you for this. This may be fun and this may be, you know, exciting, but I've got better plans for you. And so God just arranged for me to step back into ministry and I'm now leading this church. We planted this church for the purpose of being awake, aware and awaiting for the return of our Jesus, Lord Jesus. I'm also a father. I have a delightful, active 10 year old son and been married for 31 years. Today is actually our anniversary and so I'm a pastor Peter with a burden.
And I have a burden for biblical truth.
I have a burden for the church in this day. We're living in where we see the church really in America, floundering in a lot of areas.
There's a lot of, there's a strong remnant. But I see a lot of the churches around us and my heart is grieved and I think that's a grief of the Holy Spirit.
And so looking at the world prophetically, looking at the world with spiritual discernment and especially looking at the world with the love for Israel and the call and the cry for Israel to receive her Messiah, so important.
So I've, you know, people, some people call me a watchman. I don't know if that's a good title or not, but it's definitely something that fits.
And I look at the world and you know, you can look at things that's going on in the world and I know I meet a lot of people and they're scared.
They see the events going on, they see wars, they see these disasters, they're seeing all these things happen and, and they're frightened.
But Jesus didn't tell us all these things that were going to happen to frighten us.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: He told us that because he wanted us to have hope and he wanted us to look at the world and not be frightened, but cling to him. And so like you said, we're having a conference August 1st in Gettysburg.
And part of the purpose of that conference is to edify the church, to build the church up, to strengthen the church and to empower the church. Because Jesus says, when you see these things happen, straighten up, lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing nigh.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: And I was telling Sherry that I met you kind of in a roundabout way, but I believe was a divine appointment.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: And I was asked by somebody who had gotten an advertisement about this conference to look into it. And when I looked up Coming soon ministries and I'm seeing committed to helping believers and non believers understand that we are living in the end times and that the church's rapture is imminent.
And I thought, you know, that's what I've been teaching on here.
And I was fascinated because you're a missionary and I'm a missionary, we go to the same continent and I was telling Brad over a coffee before we came over here that Sherry and I were watching this video before the wrath.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Ingenuity films. And some of the statistics that we had seen on there were just astounding.
And roughly 27% of the Bible is on prophecy.
And yet some of the statistics from Lifeway and Pew Research showed that one of them was 450 random samples they pulled of sermons, and only nine of those even mentioned any part of a scripture on Bible prophecy.
And some of the other statistics were the majority of the world does not believe that Jesus is coming back.
And yet I was astounded to find out that most of those people believe the world will end in their lifetime.
And you talk about a burden.
That's the burden that was put on Cheri and I and a sense of urgency. And as we travel internationally and locally, we don't.
I don't sense that urgency or that burden in most of the places we go.
So when I found out about this conference, I thought, wow, that's right to what we're doing. We're studying, we're talking Eyes to See Ministries, goes by Ephesians 4 and the name came from Ephesians verse 18, that the eyes of your understanding would be enlightened. Which was interesting listening to you talk. I mean, that's. So this whole thing. Thing, this whole thread is interesting and exciting for us.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Well, and that's why we're having Abraham to Armageddon in August 1st. But to go on to your point that much of the church is not focused on what's coming.
And I have an understanding of that, Peter, because I came out of the church growth movement, I was a young pastor in the 90s, came out of Bible college, got my first church. And the first thing they did was they threw me into this thing called a church growth boot camp.
And basically they told me everything I needed to do was to make everybody feel comfortable and not make anybody feel uncomfortable in church.
Now that sounds pretty, that sounds pretty logical. I mean, you know, we're not intentionally trying to make anybody feel uncomfortable in church. But that began a journey for me in church growth movement that results in the American church selling the worst that the church has to offer.
And what happens is we strip away from the gospel and from the word of God, anything that might be offensive to somebody until all you're left with is, hey, you're in the club and you're going to heaven.
Let's have a good light show, a great concert, and a 20 minute motivational message to send you on your way. You've done your religious duty for the week and we'll see you next week. Have a great night. And that's the church that most of the American church is offering.
And I was deep into this movement. I was meeting with a lot of high level leaders. I was involved in a lot of different things.
And round about 2019, the Lord again knocked on my heart. Knock, knock, knock. You know, when the Lord does that, you got to pay attention.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: And he said, he says, brad, I didn't call you for this.
And he says, you need to come back to your first love. You need to come back to the gospel.
And I rediscovered the gospel again, the true gospel. The gospel that says that we're sinners and that we need to repent. That doesn't sell well in church growth churches. And then, you know, that we need salvation, but we need to walk with the Lord and we need to live by the Lord and walk with the Spirit. And the gospel that says he's coming back soon.
Because as much as Jesus talked about salvation in heaven, he also talked about his return.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: And in that film, a fantastic film called before the Wrath, if you haven't watched the movie, the documentary before the Wrath, you need to watch it.
We talk about wrath, but what we understand, we usually think of wrath as, you know, hell.
But there's a wrath coming here on earth and it's called the Tribulation period.
And when Paul talks about this in Thessalonians, in Romans, and when John writes about this in Revelation, he's talking not only about God's wrath in hell, but he's talking about a period where God is going to pour his wrath out upon the earth.
Again, that's not popular preaching. That doesn't get a lot of book sales and that doesn't get a lot of people wanting to have a big conference or people want to have a big concert, but we need to talk about this.
And so that's part of the reason why we started Coming soon ministries. That's part of the reason why we started. We decided to have this conference with some of the, what I would consider some of the best voices in prophetic ministry that there is.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: There's an all star or there's quite a dynamic group of people that you've assembled.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: These are not only friends, but they are some of the most respected teachers in the nation.
I'm talking about Andy woods, who is pastor of Sugar Land Bible Church, but also just one of the smartest guys I met. And I always joke with Andy because He's a tall guy. I'm a tall guy. And I say, andy, you're one of the few people that I actually look up to, not only physically, but spiritually.
But Andy woods is going to be there. J.B. hickson, not by Works Ministries. Olivier Melnick. He's a messianic believer that has Shalom and Messiah Ministries. Brandon Holthouse from Rock Harbor Church in Bakersfield, California. Tom Hughes, Hope for Our Times, and then myself. We're going to be speaking for the church. This isn't about being sensational.
This isn't about just being excitable.
This is about edifying the body.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: And one of the scriptures. As Sherry and I have traveled to Africa and India, and this really went back, became a burden put on my heart by the Lord.
Was in the Book of Acts, chapter 20, Paul calls the Ephesian elders together and he says, no person's blood is on my hands because I did not shun or hesitate to give you the whole counsel of God. And then he goes on to talk about why this is to be.
And when I looked at the title of one of your books, End Times Deceptions, I thought this.
He's got it.
Brad's got what we need to do.
And using biblical truth, because we do. We have to give the whole counsel of God. And you have that revelation. Sherry does and it doesn't.
I was at a conference one time, Sherry and I were in Baltimore, and the speaker, it was full, all the seats. And the speaker said to the ushers, don't leave. And they said, well, we don't have an overflow room, and we don't know what to do with all these people.
And it was sad but funny. He looked at the ushers and he said, don't leave, because when I start preaching, seats are going to start to empty quickly. Which is kind of what you were talking about.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: And it did.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: It did.
[00:15:53] Speaker C: It did. And there were seats that could be filled by people who wanted to take them.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: It's not uncommon for me to have people get up and leave during my sermons, especially when I start talking about Israel.
And, you know, Jesus is coming back soon.
That's great hope for the believer, but he's coming back. He's not coming back to New York City. He's not coming back to Washington, D.C.
[00:16:15] Speaker C: he's coming back to Israel.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: He's coming back to Israel, and he's going to come back as a Jewish king, and he's going to land on the Mount of Zion, on the Mount of Olives, in a Jewish Israel. And he's going to walk across the Kidron Valley and go into a Jewish temple and seat upon himself on the Jewish throne of David.
And that's not my opinion.
That's Bible.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: That's the Bible.
Biblical truth.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: Yes. So, and that's all happening after the wrath of the world.
But the Bible talks about how God is going to deliver his church, the bride of Christ, from the wrath that's coming upon the world. Revelation 3:10, Jesus tells the church in Philadelphia, hold on to what you have, be patient in endurance, and you will not see the day of wrath.
You will not endure. You will be delivered out of the wrath that is to come.
And that word that he says is a Greek word, ek, and it means, it doesn't say he's going to deliver us through the wrath.
If he wanted to say, I'm going to deliver you through the wrath, he would have told us that. He didn't say, I'm going to deliver you in the wrath.
He said, I'm going to deliver you from the wrath.
And that is so specific.
That is, you know, that's a promise to the church that we're in a difficult time right now. We're watching the world as things get more difficult. And we're seeing a lot of signs of the times the birthing pains are becoming more frequent and more intense.
Those are difficult times. But he says, be patient in that and we will find deliverance when the wrath of God comes. Because we're not seeing the wrath of God right now. We're seeing the wrath of the world. We're seeing the wrath of the enemy. We're seeing the results of the world systems that are failing, that have abandoned God and abandoned his promises.
But there's going to come a time when that's going to change and we're going to be delivered from the wrath of God.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: I know a lot of people kind of shun away from the book of Revelation.
If you study the Bible and we were talking about hermeneutics two weeks ago, It's very clear.
And what we're finding in our travels anyway is that there's end time events that if you look at the thread, the prophetic thread throughout the Bible, they're clearly separate events.
And what you were talking about first, Thessalonians chapter 4, where the church is caught up.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: And Jesus never touches his feet on the ground.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: No.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: And there's other scriptures that say that we will be with the Lord forever.
And when we get to Revelation after chapter three, the church isn't mentioned. Again, until much later.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: You know what's funny is there are people that say, oh, the word rapture, that's not in the Bible and that's just made up by Darby and they're speaking, I hate to say it this way, they're speaking ignorantly because they're repeating something that was said and they try to use Darby as kind of the straw man argument. And what First Thessalonians chapter 4 says is we will be caught up. Right? The word rapture is a derivative of the Latin word raptura, which is coming out of caught up. Harpazo, Rapture, harpazo.
If you look at the Greek language, the good translation of this is a snatching away and it's violent, almost a violent action. It's a very strong word. And after studying the word for a while and looking at what the Greek means, I often use this analogy. If you're with your child and you're standing on the busy street corner and there's cars whizzing by back and forth, and you've got your five year old son by the hand or your five year old grandson, and we're standing, standing there waiting for traffic to clear so we can cross the street, all of a sudden that five year old boy, because boys love to just do impulsive things, is he steps off of that curb and starts to move onto the street.
Whatever it is that you can grab a hold of, you're going to grab a hold of. It doesn't matter if it's hair, shirt, shoulder, arm, whatever it is, you're going to grab that boy and, and you are going to pull him as hard as you can back to where he needs to be.
And that's the action of the Rapture. You've just raptured your child from the danger that is about to come.
You know, some people say, well, we're being saved from hell.
Well, we're not really being saved from hell. In fact, if you want to look at it this way, God's saved us from his wrath.
God saved us from himself and he did that by sending his Son.
And we are saved from the wrath of God. We were destined by our very sinful nature to go through, to receive God's wrath, right? I mean, my sinful nature, my sinful self deserved every bit of God's wrath. I was rebellious, I was doing anything but what God wanted me to do. And I deserved not only hell, but God's wrath.
And when Jesus was on the cross, from the very moment, I mean, even when he was being flogged because the Romans called that the first death. And they were ripping his skin apart. And then he bore that cross, that beam on his shoulders. Can you imagine? And there's a lot of indication that he probably had dislocated. He had a dislocated shoulder. Some people that have studied the Shroud of Turin have said, you know, the guy in the image has a dislocated shoulder, but he carries his cross through Jerusalem to Golgotha.
And there, if it's not enough, he's been flogged, he's nailed to a cross and he hangs there for all day long.
And what does he say?
[00:22:54] Speaker A: Out.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they've done. And then he says, it is finished.
He received the cup of God's wrath that you, me and you deserved. And everybody that's listening to this message, why would anybody expect that the church is now going to go through a period of God's wrath upon the earth?
[00:23:24] Speaker A: And I, you know, I think about.
There was a messianic rabbi that, that I was listening to one day, Zev Porad, and he gave a very good description of an Old Testament covenant.
What they would do. And the two parties.
There would be an animal, it was bloody, they would cut the animal in half. But there was a trough that the blood would run into.
And each party was on the opposite sides.
And what they had to do was come to the, to the back end and walk together towards that trough, the threshold.
And if they stepped over the blood, they were in agreement. If they stepped in the blood, that was their way of saying no.
And when I look around today, one of the burdens that I have is there's an awful lot of people right now that may have entered into God's covenant when without knowing it, they're stepping on the blood.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: And that grieves me.
And it all leads back to, you know, what this conference is going to speak about.
It has to edify the church. The church needs to understand what time we're in.
And I don't think it really knows right now. For if you look at what is.
If I don't preach on a part of the whole counsel of God, I have to check myself and ask, do I not believe that? Is that why I'm not doing it? Or am I ignorant, meaning lack of knowledge on that?
I think with the prophecy, a lot of people believe, but it's far out there to them because there hasn't been a lot of people that have been able to teach on it.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Right.
Well, the seminaries have stopped teaching the pastors, and the pastors have stopped teaching the churches. But, you know, there's more prophecies about Jesus second coming in the Old Testament than there are about his first.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Yes, yes.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: And it's one of the most talked about topics in the New Testament.
Almost every book of the Bible of the New Testament, every epistle talks about the return of Jesus Christ.
And yet, as you mentioned before, like 1% of the churches, less than 1% of the churches are talking about this today.
And this conference, the Abraham to Armageddon conference, is there to build the church.
We're getting together.
And Peter, it's not a question coincidence that God has chosen Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the 250th anniversary of our nation to have this gathering. And it's in a place of fallowed ground.
This is the moment. The church in America is largely Laodicean. We have an abundance of resources. We have just. We can put on the best shows in the world. We can do all kinds of things.
But we've lost the law in the temple of God, like the day of Josiah. But here's the promise of Laodicea. Jesus doesn't leave the Laodicean church without hope. He says, hey, I'm standing at the door and knocking, and if you let me in. He's not talking to the nonbeliever at this point. He's talking to the saints.
He's saying, let me in and I will come in and we'll have fellowship. We'll have a holy Ghost, Holy fire time.
That's a promise that we can stand on as churches. And this area, this nation, was founded not to be given over to the demonic influences that have overrun many of our cities and many of our areas in our congress and the halls of.
In the halls of our state supreme court and so on. This nation was founded so that we could be a sending nation into the world to proclaim the gospel until Jesus comes. And just because the church has fallen asleep at the wheel doesn't mean we can't wake up.
That's the time that we have. And this conference, I believe, is a capstone to making that happen.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: Yes. And we were watching a movie, the Great Awakening, long ago. Awaken, Awaken. And you know, you're on the heels of that, so to speak.
[00:28:37] Speaker C: That's another good movie.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't seen it yet, so I have to go see it.
[00:28:41] Speaker C: It was so good that we went back and saw it again.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: Wow. We wept through that thing, watching what he did. George Whitfield. And it was powerful.
[00:28:51] Speaker C: It was.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: We have a heart. I mean, I want the church to have that kind of heart again.
I think we've lost that hope. We've lost that burning desire when you.
The church should be so hungry for the Word is what Peter said to Jesus when they were standing at the gates of hell. Right. In Caesarea Philippi. And Jesus says to Peter, well, who do you, who do you say I am? And he says, you're the Christ. You're the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And he says, blessed are you, Peter, for this has not been shown to you by men, but from the Father above. He says, lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:29:35] Speaker C: And they're powerful.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Are you going to leave too?
[00:29:38] Speaker B: Jesus says, yeah.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: And you know, it's interesting because in John 6:66. Yeah.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: Where the crowds leave him.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Yes. This is a hard saying. Who can believe it, right? And yet at Pentecost, when Peter got done preaching, they said, we've been pricked in our hearts. What do we need to do? And that's. I think that's what this conference is going to spur back.
And these people, you know, these speakers are committed yourself. You're committed.
I knew when we had lunch several months ago, I thought, I need to spend some more time with Brad.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: And I'm so good. What a divine appointment. But look at what's going on around us right now, Peter, and global instability. I mean, just in the Middle east with Iran, with Israel, we have Russia, that is posturing.
We have Turkey, that is posturing. We have so much instability just in that area. And then we have the.
We have a growing system of control, world control. And we have leaders that are talking about, we need world control. And you can look at Revelation 13 and other places of Revelation and Old Testament prophecy that point to this time that we're in. We have rising anti Semitism.
My friend Olivier Melnick, who's going to be there on August 1st, he's an expert in anti Semitism. He's a messianic believer. His. His grandfather was killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. And he says antisemitism is at a level not seen since before World War II.
And we have. It's open air instead of it being just in Germany or Eastern Europe. It's now global.
It's global anti Semitism. There is this demonic hatred. It's a demonic hatred for Israel. And what's most concerning is how it's all throughout the church.
And then you have the increasing hostility towards biblical Christianity.
Some of my most ardent haters isn't from outside the church, it's inside, it's within the church.
And they're vicious. And it's very unsettling now at artificial intelligence and the level of deception that's coming with artificial intelligence and manipulating the truth.
It's hard to tell. Sometimes you can look at videos and it's almost impossible to tell the difference between artificial intelligence or if it's an actual video. And then the erosion of moral and spiritual absolutes. We've watched just our morals completely erode global systems of surveillance.
Watching all these stories about the flop cameras being taken down. And people are tired of this. They're aware that something isn't real.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Even though they can't put their finger on. And then the growing possibility of deception on a scale previous generations have never imagined. You know, we used to be able to say seeing is believing.
That's not the case anymore. You can't say seeing is believing. Be careful not to claim, you know. You know, I want us to be careful that not every modern development is prophecy. But what I do want us to say is the church needs to be discerning. We have to be awake. We have to look. And there's a big difference between looking at the world through the world's lens or even worse, looking at the Bible through a worldly lens.
We need to look at the world through a biblical lens.
And that's why the church has stood apart. In the early church days, you know, when Paul went to Thessalonians, it was one of the first places he went.
And one of the first letters he wrote was in Thessalonica was to the church in Thessalonians. And he was only there two and a half weeks. He was there three weekends. And what happened?
The place erupted.
That's not church growth strategy.
They chased him out. They were ready to stone him, they were ready to kill him. And he had to flee. And then he flee down to Berea.
And Acts tells us that the Bereans were a special group because as Paul brought to them the gospel, they didn't respond one way or the other. They went where?
[00:34:07] Speaker C: To the Bible?
[00:34:08] Speaker B: To the Bible, to their scriptures.
And they opened up the scriptures. And what did they see? They saw that what Paul was teaching was true.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: What's the truth?
[00:34:17] Speaker B: Can the church be Berean churches? We don't have to follow after clever cliches or, or anything. Let's open up the scriptures and that's what we're doing August 1st.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: Wonderful. And, you know, thinking about what you said with watch when Matthew, recorded by the Spirit of God, chapter 24 and 25, that whole, what we call the Olivet discourse, was triggered by the disciples asking Jesus a question, when will the end come?
When will these things come to pass? And he goes in great detail.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: You notice he never answered the question of when, though he gave them signs. He never said when, but he said, see to it that you're not deceived, for many will come in my name and say that I am the Christ and go from here to there. And then he gives them a list of signs. But then he says, it's not for you to know the signs or the season. But he says, you know, he's telling his disciples, I need you to be aware. I need you to watch these things. Repeatedly throughout Luke 21 and Matthew 24, he says, See to it you are not deceived. He says, but watch and be ready. That was his instructions to the disciples. If that was important 2,000 years ago, how much more important is it to us today when we are seeing those exact signs unfold?
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Absolutely.
And.
It's his words, the way, the truth and the life.
Do we believe that? Are we willing to look at that and actually look at the Scriptures and what are we talking about today? We need to look at that. That's the burden that's on. I think, Sherry and I, that that question is, when is the end of the age?
And he, again, he doesn't give them. He doesn't tell him when, but he does give clues.
And if we go back to his Second Coming, he lays out signs then, and pretty much talk about a biblical term called his imminent return, which ties into the Rapture and the Second Coming being two different events.
But we need, as the church, we need to be watching right now, right? And I know that just looking at some pictures over the last year, because of artificial intelligence, what used to be easier to tell was a fake versus the real. It's gotten better and better at duplicating that.
And if you think about and the world is doing this, if you think about what's going to ultimately happen that the Bible says will happen, I think a missing piece to that is answered by artificial intelligence. How is this going to be?
How is the Antichrist going to have control and in the entire world? And when we look at what's happening and what this is ushering in, I think exponentially we're heading towards. That's another Sign.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: I think for the first time, we are the first generation that can look at the world around us and the technology of the world around us and say everything that is needed for the Antichrist to take control of the world is in place. Yes, this is the first time, I mean, before I remember being a young pastor and trying to speculate this Antichrist system, this one world government and this one world control. And I would think, how is all this going to take place? And we would kind of spiritualize it and make it into something. But now with artificial intelligence, we have the tools in place.
Especially with quantum computing coming on the scene soon, we have the tools in place to make that happen, where every person in the world simultaneously can be controlled, monitored and surveilled by artificial intelligence. There's a story about a man in China recently who got off his bus and he didn't want to walk down to the end of the road where the stoplight was and the crosswalk was. So he jaywalked across the street.
By the time he got across the street, the ccp, through security cameras and artificial intelligence had identified who he was, fined him for the crime, and taken the money out of his bank account before he even finished crossing the street. That's the kind of world we're living in. But listen, artificial intelligence isn't the enemy, correct? Okay, artificial intelligence is a tool, but it requires the church to be discerning.
Just like Paul, he wrote letters. That was the best technology they had in that day. He could write letters on Papris, cutting edge technology in first century Israel.
And then he would send that through the Romans, roads to various places, various churches. And that's how the Gospels got spread. But listen, there was dangers back then with pen and papyrus because there were people that were writing narratives that were not scriptural and trying to send it to the churches. And that's why Paul tells the churches, you have to be discerning, because that technology can be abused. The same thing is today. We're using the technology right now by talking here on television and it's going over the Internet and the airwaves, and we're using artificial intelligence, but we still have to be discerning. We have to know the scriptures. And I tell believers all the time, make sure you have a paper copy of the Bible, at least one with you or in your home, because there's going to come a day when you're not going to be able to trust the phones or what they're saying. And I'm already seeing additions of the new Testament coming out where they're removing revelation or they're changing the words.
So if you don't have a paper copy of the scriptures, you get one today, keep it in your home, get multiple copies if you can. I mean, they're pretty, it's pretty inexpensive. We live in one of the richest information ages of the entire history.
So we can get paper copies. But get them while you can.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: Yes, get them while you can. And you know, I look at,
[00:41:07] Speaker C: we
[00:41:08] Speaker A: all have a past. We have education, we have training.
You were speaking about yourself earlier and mine is. I've always been a student of military history and actually used to run war games with miniature figurines.
And if you look at World War II as an example, that was the first arms race.
And what my experience with that was is if you're going to recreate what happened back from 1939-45, you have to do it in six month increments because the world knew if Germany did this, Russia countered with that. And spiritually, that's what we're seeing in the world today. The enemy, the devil has always turned and countered what God did for good.
And artificial intelligence, when I listen to our current president and other people in the world, they're proclaiming that we will be the number one nation. No one will outdo us in that.
We are in an arms race right now.
[00:42:28] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: A natural arms race. That, that artificial intelligence is that tool.
So this isn't going to go away.
[00:42:36] Speaker B: I wrote a book called the Beast System Unleashed, which is a book about how artificial intelligence will be used by the Antichrist.
And that book, part of that book is a conversation I had with ChatGPT about what it believed artificial intelligence would be used for the Antichrist and how the Antichrist would use it. It's a fascinating book and I, I encourage you to go get it. But one of the things that chatgpt told me, and we're seeing this come to fruition, is one of the most dangerous things that's going to happen is not going to be nuclear war. It's going to be artificial intelligence wars. And it's going to be far more deadly than nuclear.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Yes, it would be, by the nature of it. And when I once, and I can't remember who was speaking about it, I think it was a lieutenant colonel that was retired that worked in the Pentagon. I had seen on Skywatch television and I don't remember his name, but he was talking about this very thing.
And there, this is a little bit out there. But at some point, if you Track how this will happen.
The artificial intelligence is going to start to think for itself.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: There are currently more chatbot users on the Internet now than there are people.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: So, you know, we have more machinery using the Internet than we actually do people using the Internet. Ford just recently came out with a patent that they're going to start implementing in their cars.
That is, they're going to use facial recognition and artificial intelligence to determine if you're fit enough to drive.
So on the surface, that sounds great. Well, that's great, because we'll cut down the number of drunk drivers, because the car will be able to tell you if you're inebriate or not based upon your facial expressions and. And your mannerisms. But think about this.
You.
You know, somebody is out on the hillside, and they're having a picnic with you two are having a picnic together on the hillside. And all of a sudden, this big, great big storm comes stirring up. And you see off in the distance a tornado. And you're frightened. You're scared. You're petrified. And Sherry says to you, peter, get in the car. We gotta go. We gotta go. And you're like, yeah, we gotta go. And you get in your car and you grip the steering wheel and you're ready to put it into drive. And the car says, I'm sorry, Peter, you're too stressed to drive at this moment. You're gonna have to calm down first.
And this is what is happening, is that we're gonna be shut out from very things we own by artificial intelligence.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: It's gonna make the criteria, and we will lose that ability. When you were talking about that book that you have, I remember several years ago listening to a gentleman, Tom Horn, and he had a book called Summoning the Beast. And the beast was artificial intelligence.
And he believed that the only way that you would be able to stop that was going to be through another AI.
[00:46:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:05] Speaker A: And that's where this exponentially will happen, with the arms race, so to speak. But the good news is.
We have a book that we can follow. It's that hard copy we're talking about.
And it gives us our instructions or marching order, so to speak.
So I remember when you had started, you were talking about what's happening in the world, and we need to watch this. But if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you were not given a spirit of fear.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: We were given one of power, love, and a sound mind.
And that's where our blessed hope comes from.
[00:46:56] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: And if we look at what Jesus Promised the church.
I will take. I'm going to snatch you out when this gets really, really bad.
And he's going to. There is going to be a harvest later on as well.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:47:13] Speaker A: The Bible talks about it. And these are.
If somebody would doubt what's written in the Bible other than archeological and historical evidence that's proving the Bible today.
If you would take and write down every prophetic word in the Bible and see what's already come to pass and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think, and you're going to know more about this than me, I don't think there's another prophecy that needs to happen before the Rapture.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: Literally there is not the Rapture.
Next prophetic event. Look, we as believers, as Christians, you don't have to be a very learned Christian to understand this. Jesus fulfilled every single prophecy perfectly with his first coming. Literally and perfectly. There wasn't an allegory about Jesus being born in Bethlehem. He was literally born in Bethlehem. There wasn't an allegory about him being a Nazirite or a Nazarene. He was from Nazareth.
Everything that the Old Testament wrote about with Jesus first coming happened. He was born of a virgin. I mean, you can go on and on and on, but when it comes to the second coming, suddenly we want to allegorize it, we want to spiritualize it. Why does Jesus second coming have to be spiritualized? Why can't it be just as literal as his first coming? In fact, it's poor hermeneutics to do such a thing.
Because you're taking something that the Bible has made as literal events and you're taking it into making an allegory because it doesn't agree or fit with your own theology.
Hal Lindsey had this great line that I always love to quote, and someone wrote me a while back a couple weeks ago, it says, Hal Lindsey didn't originate it. It was from another guy. I don't have the guy's name, but I always coined it the Hal Lindsay because he wrote it in. In the late great planet Earth. He said, if the plain sense makes sense, then any other sense is just plain nonsense. And Scripture wasn't written to be some great mystery or some great spiritual allegory. God wrote us the Scriptures so that we're grounded, so that we have hope, so that we have just the understanding of what's going on. So you can open up the Book of Revelation and you can read it just as plainly as you read Genesis.
And if you read those words, you see a terrifying situation that happens throughout chapters five through 21. But the end is the victory.
[00:49:57] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: And God gave us the victory through Jesus Christ, through his Son, and we see the deliverance. As you mentioned, the Church isn't mentioned anymore in the book of Revelation after chapter three because the Church has been raptured.
Paul puts it in plain message in First Thessalonians, chapter 4, 1 Corinthians, 15, John 14.
All of these things point to the Church being removed from the wrath to come. I don't know why that's such a hard thing for people to believe or understand.
If God could take a wretched sinner like me and save me from my sins, he can certainly take me out of this world before the world endures God's wrath. And what Paul underscores in chapter 4, verse 18 of 1 Thessalonians is he talks about the time that's coming. He talks about the things that are coming. He talks about the church being raptured. Then he says in verse 18, therefore encourage one another with these words. Now if the church was going to have to endure seven years of tribulation and pure hell on earth, I don't think Paul would tell us, yeah, be encouraged about that. I think he would say, you better hold on tight because things are about to get heavy. But he tells the church, be encouraged. So when I look at the world around us and I see what's happening, I'm so filled with hope because God's already written about this.
[00:51:24] Speaker A: Yes.
And it's interesting with that letter because just like Jesus was answering the disciples question that Matthew recorded, Paul is answering and responding to the Church's question because he had to leave prematurely.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: Right.
[00:51:44] Speaker A: And I believe he sent Timothy back to check on the church. And then what Timothy reported back is what Paul writes about.
And if you look at the very first chapter in his letter, his greeting, the first 10 verses, the last verse, he says, but the church has not been called to wrath.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:52:09] Speaker A: Right up front in his reading. And then he goes into, you know, what we need to live holy lives.
And that's part of it. And then he talks about the.
He answers the question about the dead in Christ and the living in Christ. So there's really only two things he's addressing there. It isn't that difficult. And I look at this hope that we have and I think a lot of people, because they get worried about what's happening with the say they start to read the seven seals and these are God's judgment, the seven trumpets, the seven vials, and it seems like they're going to. They get worried. But, you know, the rest of the book talks about this glorious thing that Christ's going to have that we get to be a part of.
[00:53:01] Speaker B: I saw a rider on a white horse, and his name was faithful and true and on his side. And he goes, you know, he's the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And he opens up his mouth and with one word he slays the Antichrist and all the, the earth that have risen up against him. And he comes back triumphant with the saints. What a glorious day when we are behind. I want to be behind the horse as watching this take place, not being on the other end of that. And friends, if you're watching this and you're confused, you don't have to be confused. God never gave us. God's not the author of confusion. He is the author of, as you said, a spirit of sound mind and not a fear. So if you're watching this and you're confused, don't be. You don't have to be.
If your church isn't teaching on this, you don't have to be confused. And that's one of the main reasons, Peter, why we're bringing this conference to the Gettysburg area. Because I want people to have understanding. These are sound, godly men who have a great understanding.
A lot of us have doctorates. We've studied this all our lives.
And I just want to encourage you, you can register.
We're limited on space, too, so I want to encourage people to get registered for the conference.
You can go to www.comcomingsoonministries.org. you'll find it on our website.
Www.adoaconference.org is another link that will get you there to the registration page. And there's also an online option to watch. Online. Online.
But we're going to have, we're meeting at the Wyndham in Gettysburg. It's a great, great venue. Beautiful venue. We have the speakers lined up for the day.
And it's going to be a glorious time for the church to worship and learn and be edified.
[00:54:57] Speaker A: And I'm excited. And actually, the Wyndham is at 95 Presidential Circle in Gettysburg.
I'm excited for this because I, you know, being a military historian, the reason this campaign came about in 1863 is all roads lead to Gettysburg.
[00:55:19] Speaker B: They do.
[00:55:19] Speaker A: And I don't think that's an accident. That where you're at is at the cross is right near the crossroads of this. I think that's a prophetic it's prophetic.
[00:55:30] Speaker B: And the Lord led us to do that here because we were. Our church is out of Hagerstown. There just wasn't a suitable venue in Hagerstown for us. So we were starting to look around Frederick or D.C. area. We wanted to find a nice venue. And the Lord led us up to Gettysburg and we met with the people at Windom. They're wonderful people. If you're coming from out of town. They have rooms available at a special rate because of our conference. And we're going to have food trucks there.
You know, it's right behind the Harley dealership. So if you want to go buy a Harley while you're at it, you'll be able to buy an American made motorcycle. But hey, you know, every time we.
I'm a part of these conferences, it is such a joyful time.
You get to be with like minded believers. And I talk to people all the time. They say no one in my church ever talks about this stuff, so they have to come and hear it at conferences like this.
So Gettysburg's very significant too, because the first two days of the campaign, the Confederates were winning. You know, Robert E. Lee really, by all rights was going to win Gettysburg.
And he made that one fatal flaw on the third day.
And he thought he was going to just win it all. And I think, I don't know if he got arrogant or if he got just, you know, too bold or too big for his britches, but you know, he wound up leading Pickett's Charge and that big campaign there on the field. On the third day, the unions won the war. And I think that's kind of a visual of what we're experiencing today. It feels like everything's lost. It feels like, you know, the enemy's winning the day, but we know who wins.
I've read the end of the book. Have you read the end of the book? Because at the end of the book we see who wins and it's going to be Jesus. And the church is going to be victorious and the saints are going to be with us too. What a glorious day that will be.
But the first thing to happen is the rapture of the church. And we don't want to be here during the seven year tribulation.
[00:57:43] Speaker C: And I just to want, want to digress for just a moment now that you're speaking about the rapture being, you know, the one thing that is next.
I've been hearing from people, students from all around the world and different, and what I'm hearing, people are hearing from the Lord.
Ten virgins. The ten virgins. The ten virgins.
Prepare yourself. Prepare yourself.
What Pete had heard from the Lord recently was repent, repent, repent.
You know, just the Laodicea in church, you know, coming back to your first love. You know, come out of your lukewarmness, seek my face like never before.
There's.
He spoke to me. He spoke to Pete separately.
And, you know, I'm in communication because of my situation with ministries that are global.
And this is what I'm hearing coming from all of them about the 10 virgins? Yes, they're all talking about. We're hearing from the lord about the 10 virgins. So there's this urgency that actually is
[00:58:47] Speaker A: the message the Lord gave me to transition from what we were doing last week beyond this.
[00:58:54] Speaker C: Oh, for two minutes is the 10 verses. And I'm here. I mean, I'm talking about people out of Germany, people out of Seoul, people out, you know, just globally. And they're all. Because I'm on zoom with them and things. And this. This is what I'm hearing from the Lord, each and every. This is what I'm hearing from the Lord.
[00:59:11] Speaker B: And you know where the fastest growing church is right now?
Iran.
[00:59:15] Speaker C: Iran.
[00:59:16] Speaker B: Iran is growing. Iran's churches are exploding. We need to pray for Iran because they're hearing messages from the Lord just like this. They're getting messages directly from Jesus. He's appearing to them in dreams. He's showing up. And the truth church is exploding. Instead of it shrinking under the heaviness of war and affliction, the church is growing.
I'm so encouraged to hear you say this as well, because that is such a powerful message. And people say, well, what does it mean? Does it mean I'm going to be left behind? I don't know, but don't find out.
[00:59:54] Speaker C: Well, you know, well, the door. You know, in the movie and in the Bible, it talks about, you know, before the wrath, it talks about the door being shut.
[01:00:05] Speaker B: Right.
[01:00:05] Speaker C: You know, in the Bible, clearly, they were all virgins. They were all pure.
They didn't have the oil.
[01:00:13] Speaker B: That's right.
[01:00:14] Speaker C: The five did not have the oil. And we all know that's the Holy Spirit. That is your relationship with the Lord.
And, you know, you can't just do church, right? You have to be in the presence of the Lord. You have to be able to spend that. That intimate time with him on a regular basis to be able to get that oil where you can come into the presence, you know, the wisdom and the knowledge, you know, that the spirits of the Lord to be able to impart to you, you know, to be able to change you, to be able to, you know, humble yourself before the Lord.
[01:00:49] Speaker B: Right. Because, you know, the Bible never.
There's a lot of movement about that. We're building the church up so that Christ can come and become the king of the church.
We call that kingdom now theology.
And there's nothing in the Bible about that. But yet a lot of people subscribe to that.
Or the church has replaced Israel. There's nothing in the Bible about that. Israel is the centerpiece of the God's prophetic plan.
But this is the result of a lot of poor teaching.
And, you know, the five foolish virgins who chose to not keep their wicks trimmed or their lamps full. And we need the Holy Spirit more than ever. We need the Holy Spirit.
[01:01:39] Speaker A: Yes, we, you know, God's will is going to be done.
[01:01:44] Speaker C: And
[01:01:46] Speaker A: when the religious leaders challenged Peter and John and they said we must listen to God and not man, Gamaliel told them, be careful what you do to these people, because if it's of God, you'll find yourself fighting against God.
From a providential standpoint, it's interesting when you were talking about Pickett's charge, when it looked like all was lost and had the Confederacy won there, they were marching on Washington, and we would be a divide. There'd be two countries.
[01:02:23] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:02:23] Speaker A: The reason why Pickett's charge failed is the Union had.
They had specifications on their artillery shells that they stuck to to the Confederacy had different armories.
Lee could not get the artillery shells that he needed. Where he needed it from, it came from somewhere else. And those fuses were different.
So when they massed the artillery, because the whole division was going to march across open ground, their shells were overloaded and they overshot shot the Union position.
So those men were sent to their death. And at the end, when Lee asked Pickett, where's your division? He said, I have no division, sir. But that had to be all orchestrated for this union to stay intact.
And I only bring that up because when it looks like things are not going the way we want, our job is to stay in relationship with God absolutely. And humbleness. God said, for thus is the high and holy place that I dwell.
His name is holy. It's that contrite and humble spirit.
And again, this conference and this teaching is needed. These people, if you haven't listened to them, I would look up each one.
They're traveling right now. Pastor Brad is JB Hickson is. He was in academia and he feels a burden right now to travel and get this information out. That's how much of a burden people have right now. And you know, I have this burden.
Howard Miller locally does. And this is.
It's exciting.
I mean, I am really overjoyed to be able to have you guys. I don't have to travel to this conference like Sherry and I normally do.
[01:04:33] Speaker B: I don't want people leaving this conference saying, well, I heard something really interesting that was fascinating. I want people to leave saying, I need to live more deeply for my Savior and my King. I need to live in the expectancy of his return.
I want them to walk away with a deeper relationship with their Lord and a better understanding. And you do that by going with a Berean spirit, by going with a Bereans heart. Don't go in there just thinking, well, I'm just going to just drink from a fire hose and download a bunch of information and it's going to be great. Go there with an expectancy to learn and go there with a discerning spirit because you know, that's where you're going to pick up. That's where you're going to really learn and grasp. I tell my church all the time when they're listening to me preach. I said, don't just believe the words just because I say them. Go back and research them, look them up, dig deeper because of what you heard. And that's what I want the church to do through this, is not just download information.
Because we live in an age where you can get information from anywhere. I mean, you can get information everywhere. We don't need more information.
We need a deeper walk. We need to be those five wise virgins that knew what the hour was. They were, you know, the job of the virgins, the job of those young women was to wait for the bridegroom. They were to be staying up at the night waiting for the sound for the bridegroom to come get his bride.
That's the job of the church today. We are to be waiting, but we have to be awake to that. We have to be aware of what's going on to know that the trumpet is about to sound and we have to be awaiting the bridegroom.
[01:06:20] Speaker A: Absolutely. And in closing, I just want to say this because this is what I believe in my heart. This conference is going to do.
When Cyrus left, let God's people go back home and he gave them the resources to rebuild.
Those people came back. God's people came back in three waves.
Nehemiah and Ezra were in the second wave. So you have the prophet and the priest.
And the Bible says that Nehemiah read the, or Ezra read the scriptures from early morning to midday for six days.
All the people were assembled at that place.
And the difference in the word of God was they received the information, the scriptures, because Ezra gave them an understanding. And that's how important I look at this conference. This is the understanding that the church needs and even people that are non believers in Jesus for what's going to happen.
[01:07:28] Speaker B: These are critical days, Peter.
[01:07:30] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[01:07:30] Speaker B: These are absolutely critical days. Not only for a world, these are critical days for the church.
And it's not enough to say, hey, I've got my get into heaven free card, I'm not going to hell, yippee do for me. And let's just wait for the, you know, whatever happens, happens. This is the time for the church to be the church.
We have to be awake. We have to be sending out the watchman, Jesus. I'm sorry. God told Ezekiel, Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 33, he says, I've put you out as a watchman on the wall.
If I want you warn of danger and the people do not respond, their blood is on their own heads. But if you don't, if the danger is coming and you do not warn the, the blood is on your head.
Friends. That's the same message for the church today.
[01:08:22] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[01:08:23] Speaker B: It's time for the church to warn the world. The time is short. Jesus is coming soon.
Get ready. And they may scoff, they may mock. Peter says they were going to scoff in the last days.
That's not our job. Our job is not to minimize the scoffers. Our job is to proclaim the message boldly until he comes.
[01:08:44] Speaker A: The power of the Gospel.
[01:08:46] Speaker B: Amen.
[01:08:46] Speaker C: Amen.
[01:08:47] Speaker A: Yes.
So I was thinking on that note, I'm going to let you close us in prayer because you have that fire already going and I don't want to stop it right yet.
[01:09:06] Speaker B: Well, let's pray. Father, thank you for, for Eyes to See ministry. Thank you for Peter and Sherry, Lord, thank you for their heart for you. Thank you for this time that we've had together. Thank you, God, that we have this great opportunity in Gettysburg on August 1st with Abraham to Armageddon. I pray God every seat is filled with people that you have anointed and appointed to be there to hear the message to the church that you have for the church today. God, I pray for Andy and Tom and Olivier and JB and Brandon and myself that as we present, Lord, they would not be our own words. But Lord, they would be your words to the American church. I pray, God that the fallow ground would be broken up. And God, I pray that you would encourage all those who are attending. And Lord, if there's anybody that's listening right now that is contemplating or debating about being there, God, I pray you speak to their hearts. I pray you quicken them to go and hear the good news. God, I pray that you would be glorified in this day and that the gospel would be glorified and everybody that's going to be there. And Lord, we just pray all this under the matchless name of our Lord and Savior the Great. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords. His name is Jesus. He is the Son of God, Yeshua, and he is coming soon. In Jesus name we pray.
[01:10:44] Speaker C: Amen.
[01:10:45] Speaker A: Amen.
[01:10:47] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:10:49] Speaker A: Thank you for coming.
[01:10:50] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[01:10:51] Speaker A: I appreciate it.
[01:10:52] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[01:10:53] Speaker C: Thank you.
Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty early
[01:11:10] Speaker B: in the morning Our song shall rise
[01:11:18] Speaker C: to the end Holy, holy, holy.
