Things You Probably Didn't Learn in Church: End Time Events Made Simple What Is Heaven Really Like Proof That Jesus Lived, Died, and Rose Again Satan, Demons and the Invisible War All About Angels Can You Really Know Your Going to Heaven and More…….

By Jerry Blount

As a Bible researcher and teacher of over forty years, I have noticed that there are certain topics in the Bible that most Christians know little, if anything, about. For instance, do you think heaven will be a boring place? Many Christians do, so why would they be looking forward to going there? Learn the real facts. Do you know the next prophecy to be fulfilled will be the Rapture, when Christ will return to take the believers home to heaven. Many Biblical scholars believe this will happen soon. You need to be ready. Are you aware that there is an unbelievable amount of evidence that proves that Jesus lived, was crucified, and rose again. The Bible contains information that could not have been written without divine inspiration, including advanced knowledge about nature, prophecy, medicine, sanitation and science; knowledge that was thousands of years ahead of its time. Fulfilled prophecy and archaeology discoveries are proving the scriptures to be true. The effects of Satan and his demons are all around usbroken marriages, depression, private doubts about God, divided churches. You need to be aware of his tactics. Are angels involved in our everyday lives? Do you have your own guardian angel? These questions and many, many more are answered in this book. Many years ago I asked God to give me a hunger for His word. He honored that request far more than I anticipated. I truly enjoy studying, researching, and sharing the scriptures. God has blessed my wife and myself in so many ways. We live in a beautiful part of the country, Michigans Upper Peninsula. God has also blessed us with a great son and daughter, their spouses and the four greatest granddaughters ever. I am a blessed man!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490864037

Jerry Blount

Many years ago I asked God to give me a hunger for His word. He honored that request far more than I anticipated. I truly enjoy studying, researching, and sharing the scriptures. God has blessed my wife and myself in so many ways. We live in a beautiful part of the country, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. God has also blessed us with a great son and daughter, their spouses and the four greatest granddaughters ever. I am a blessed man!

Book preview

Things You Probably Didn’t

Learn In Church

End time events made simple What is Heaven really like Proof that Jesus lived, died, and rose again Satan, demons and the invisible war All about angels Can you really know your going to Heaven and more…….

JERRY BLOUNT

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Copyright © 2015 Jerry Blount.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-6402-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6404-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6403-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014922658

WestBow Press rev. date: 01/27/2015

Contents

Introduction

Section I

End Times Events

Section II

Daniel’s Seventy Sevens Prophecy

Section III

Heaven What’s It Really Like?

Section IV

Proof That Jesus Lived, Died, and Rose Again

Section V

Satan, Demons, and the Invisible Spiritual War

Section VI

Angels: God’s Invisible Army

Section VII

Can You Really Know You’re Going to Heaven?

Section VIII

Bible Facts

Section IX

The Greatest Attribute of a Christian

Bibliography

Introduction

First I would like to explain the title of this book. I do not want to imply that pastors or preachers of the Word of God are not doing the job that God called them to do. Certain topics, because of their content or size, simply do not lend themselves to be taught in a twenty-minute sermon on Sunday morning.

While teaching Bible studies over the years, I have noticed that there are certain topics in the Bible that many Christians know little, if anything, about. For instance, it seems that most Christians have a completely mistaken idea of what heaven will be like. Many Christians seem to think it will be like one long church service or that it will be boring. It isn’t surprising, then, that there isn’t much anticipation of going there. The idea that heaven will be boring could not be further from the truth. The very best of this world is just a glimpse of what heaven will be like. The Bible actually has a great deal to say about heaven. Jesus said it will be far more than we can even imagine. We should be looking forward to heaven with great anticipation.

Likewise, many Christians know very little about the end times’ events. Many Christians seem to think Revelation is too hard to understand and that it’s not that important in their everyday lives. I, for one, used to feel that way. I felt that as long as I was living for God, it didn’t matter. I now realize that it is very important to know what is and what will be taking place. We are very near the end. Every major event prophesied to occur before the rapture has taken place. The rapture is next, and with what is happening in the world today, it cannot be far off.

By writing a book covering several of these topics, I hope to leave you with a basic knowledge of them. While I tried to keep each topic short and include only the basic, most-important information, I also wanted to give the reader a fairly complete knowledge of each subject. My real hope is that what I have written will spark your interest and inspire you to study and search the Scriptures even further.

SECTION I

End Times Events

Dr. Tim LaHaye remarked in his novel The Rapture, No scholar of academic substance denies that Jesus lived almost 2000 years ago. And we find three times as many prophecies in the Bible relating to his second coming as his first. Thus, the second advent of our Lord is three times as certain as His first coming, which can be verified as historical fact. There are over nine hundred prophecies in the Bible concerning the second coming of Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 24:42, Jesus told us to keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.

The best way to keep watch is to know what God has revealed about the future and to understand the biblical events happening around us.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations will be from the New International Version Bible.

Signs We Are Nearing the End Times

Twenty-six hundred years ago, God told Daniel that during the end times, the Antichrist would sign a peace covenant with Israel. At the time of Daniel’s dream, the land of Israel had already been conquered and the Jews taken captive. There was no country of Israel even then. Critics of the Bible pointed to this prediction, arguing that it could not happen since the Jews didn’t have a country of their own and there was no nation named Israel. But in 1948, the Jews were given their own country, and the nation of Israel was born. This fulfilled the prophecy spoken through the prophet Ezekiel.

Whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations. (Ezekiel 38:8)

And this prophecy was given by the prophet Isaiah:

In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people … He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth. (Isaiah 11:11–12)

The fulfillment of this prophecy means that the end times are near. Today, we can literally watch prophecy being fulfilled as we approach the end of the earth as we know it.

Natural Disasters

And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrow. (Matthew 24:7–8 NKJV)

Natural disasters are almost becoming commonplace. Earthquakes are happening all over the world. According to the US Geological Survey, there were 21,527 earthquakes of 5.0 or higher on the Richter scale from 2000 to 2012. There are floods, tsunamis, storms of all descriptions, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and droughts. The experts may say that global warming is changing the normal weather patterns, thus causing all the natural disasters, but the Bible tells us that these things will increase as we near the end times.

Wars

All around the world, people are starving because of droughts, famines, civil unrest, and wars.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars … For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. (Matthew 24:6–7 NKJV)

Have you ever seen a time as now when there are so many wars going on at the same time throughout the world. Countries killing their own citizens, different ethnic groups killing each other. There are wars over religion, wars over drugs, wars over oil, wars between neighboring tribes, wars between neighboring countries that lived at peace for centuries, wars between different groups over who will control their countries, wars to control other counties, and even wars over lifestyles and beliefs.

The Global Research Center report on May 11, 2013 stated that the United States alone was fighting wars or helping out in 74 different nations, plus many covert operations. We are living in very unstable times. Security is at an all time high around the world. The idea of peace does not seem possible in today’s world.

Turning from God

Now the spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. (1 Timothy 4:1 NKJV)

At that time many will turn away from the faith … and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increased of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. (Matt. 24:10–12)

When I was in grade school, we started each day by saying a Bible verse, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance. Today, we have removed God from the classroom. Our Founding Fathers formed our government on godly principles, and now, under the guise of the separation of church and state, we have pushed God out of our government and any public place. What has been the result of all this? We have to look no further than to the violence in our schools. Fifty years ago, who would ever have envisioned a day when we would have guards or police in our schools?

Many are turning away from the faith because they are more interested in this world’s pleasures. They watch as these pleasures are portrayed on television, not realizing how empty and unsatisfying they really are.

Many churches today no longer preach the gospel according to the Bible. They tailor their preaching to what they think people want to hear rather than to teach sound doctrine. Their watered-down version requires no commitment or change. People believe that they can live as the world lives and still be okay. It’s amazing that according to a 2005 ABC news poll 85 percent of Americans believe they are going to heaven although many have made no commitment to living for God or any effort to do so. Many preachers say they believe in God, but they lack any faith in His power. There is a group of liberal scholars who call themselves the Jesus Seminar. They don’t believe that Jesus did any miracles or had any supernatural powers. They are rewriting the Bible as they think it should be.

Satanism is at an all-time high. Just recently, a woman who was being sentenced for murder confessed to having killed twenty-two people in satanic rituals. There are over a hundred thousand witches registered in the United States. Satan and his demons are hard at work, for they know their time is limited.

But woe to the earth and sea, because the devil has come down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows his time is short. (Revelation 12:12)

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away. (2 Timothy 3:1–6 NKJV)

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers: and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. (2 Timothy 4:3–4 NKJV)

I really don’t need to point out what is happening in the world: the lack of faith, the free fall of morality, the lack of respect or caring for our fellow man—the list goes on and on. All you have to do is look around you or watch the evening news. So what’s behind all this? Satan, of course. We are in a war between good and evil, and much of the world is unaware of it.

The Beginning of the End

The Rapture

The rapture will be when Christ returns for the believers. This is the next big event, which can happen at any time. Every event prophesied to take place before the rapture has already been fulfilled. All prophecies that have not yet been fulfilled take place after the rapture. The original meaning of the word rapture was to catch away, or snatch away.

Only the believers will hear the shout and trumpet call. Jesus will only come as far as the clouds. There, He will wait for the saints to rise to meet Him in the sky. Then He will return to heaven taking the believers with Him. This will all happen in a millisecond. What a glorious day that will be for the believers. This will fulfill a promise Jesus made to his disciples.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My father’s house has many rooms. If that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am, there you may be also. (John 14:1–3)

According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who