Time for Thanksgiving

When the New England Colonies were first planted, the settlers endured many privations and difficulties.  Being piously disposed, they laid their distresses before God in frequent days of fasting and prayer.  Constant meditation upon distress kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and made them disposed even to return to their fatherland, with all its persecutions.  At length, when it was again proposed to appoint a day of fasting and prayer, a plain, commonsense old colonist rose in the meeting and remarked that he thought they had brooded long enough over their difficulties, and that it seemed high time they should consider some of their mercies; that the colony was growing strong, the fields increasing in harvest, the rivers full of fish, the woods full of game, the air sweet, the climate salubrious, their wives healthful, and their children dutiful; above all, that they possessed what they came for, full civil and religious liberty.  On the whole, he would amend the resolution for a fast, and propose in its stead a day of thanksgiving.  His advice was taken.

Let us be thankful in all things at all times.  For we have Christ within us, a perfect place prepared for us, and eternity promised to us.  What more could there ever be.  I am a child of the King!!

David Flood

Pastor

            We will begin looking at the events of the tribulation in the book of Matthew chapter twenty-four.  Verses four through eight, of Matthew 24, talks about the first half of this tribulation, or the first three and one half years spoken of by Daniel.  During this time Matthew said that many shall be deceived, there will be many false Christ, there will be wars and rumors of wars, there will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in divers places.  Wiersbe writes, “The Jews have often been lead astray by false prophets and false christs.  The rider on the white horse in Revelation 6:1-2 is the Antichrist, that final world dictator who will lead the nations astray” (Wiersbe, “Volume 1″ 87).  Then he makes this statement in verse eight, “All these are the beginning of sorrows”.  This is what Matthew refers to as the beginning of sorrow.  As we will see in further studies, this is the first half of the tribulation.

            The Bible says in Daniel 9:27 “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate”.  Daniel also spoke of the dividing of this week of years in half.  He said that in the midst of the week, or in the middle, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. 

            Thirteen chapters in the book of Revelation are dealing with this same time spoken of in Daniel and Matthew.  We see in the book of Revelation, several events taking place in more detail than in Daniel and Matthew.  First we see in chapter six, the first seal was opened and out came a white horse.  This is a personification of Satan the spirit of the antichrist.  Oliver B. Greene said, “Immediately after the Rapture, Antichrist will be revealed Rev. 6:2 and be accepted by the masses” (Greene 24).  Then we have the second seal that was opened and a red horse came out of it.  This is denoting a series of slaughters and bloodshed.  Then we have the third seal and out of it was a black horse.  This black horse is the wailing and lamenting because of the war, bloodshed, and death.  Then came the fourth seal and it was opened and out of it came a pale horse and his name was death, and hell followed with him.  Then we have the fifth seal which is the martyred saints who was slain because of the testimony of the Word of God.  Then at the end of this chapter, we have the sixth seal which is a great earthquake, the blackening of the sun, and moon as blood. Verse 16 of this chapter says, “And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:”  To this verse Winters writes, “They could not bear the thought of facing the Creator with the blood of the slaughtered saints on their hands.  Death was a more desirable alternative” (Winters 94).

In the next lesson, we will continue with this survey of the Book of Revelation.

David Flood

Pastor

Works Cited

Greene, Oliver B., What Meaneth All This.  Greenville: The Gospel Hour, Inc., 1965.

Wiersbe, Warren W. The Bible Exposition CommentaryVolume 2. Wheaton: Victory

Books, 1994.

The Bible Exposition Commentary  Volume 1.  Wheaton: Victory Books, 1994.

Winters, Howard. Commentary on Revelation.  Greenville:  Carolina Christian, 1989.

We had a wonderful week this week.  The services on Sunday were just fantastic.  On Wednesday night, we have been teaching on the Old Testament, but on this past Wednesday, we preached a message on Seducing Spirits and Demons in the Bible from 1 Timothy 4:1-3.  I believe God really opened our eyes to the reality that there are seducing spirits and demons in this world.  We will be putting this message on the church website at www.pleasantvalleybc.com sometime this weekend.  If you would like to have your own copy of this message, just send us an email at pastor@pleasantvalleybc.com we would be glad to send one out to you.

I have been talking with our sign company this past week.  Shipping has been delayed until Monday.  Please help us pray everything will go well in the instillation of this new sign.  This is just what our church needs.  This will help this community know that we are here.

Please continue to pray and work to see our church grow for the glory of God.  It will take much prayer and much work, but God will give the increase.  We have a lot of things going on during the month of November.  Please check out our calender on the church website for all the things going on. 

Pray for those who have been sick latley.  Pray for Bro. Young and His wife, and pray for the other request that have been given this week.  Don’t forget to pray for the services tomorrow.  Pray that we will see people saved and revival will stir in our church.

God Bless you

Pastor David Flood

The following is the Bible lesson for this week.  You may want to go back and review the last lesson since it has been a long time.

          During the time of this judgment of the Church, we need to focus on that group of people that rejected Christ and remain on the earth.  As we have studied, the saved are gone.  This ends one set time of the way God will deal with people and another begins.  There are really two groups of people that remain on the earth at this time.  They are the Jews that have rejected Christ and the ones who are not Jews but have heard and rejected or have never heard the message of Christ Jesus.  We need to return back to our discussion earlier, and pick up with the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants.  This will bring us up to the next event we find in the Scriptures.

            As we return back to our earlier study of the rejection of the Kingdom, we find Christ’s last words to the people in dealing with the offer to set up the Kingdom.  Once again in Matthew 23:39 it says, “For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”  Pentecost said, “Probably the promise of His return (Matthew 23:39) had given the disciples this eschatological association” (Pentecost 276).  With these words said, no doubt there was some confusion among the disciples.  We can see this by what takes place in the next chapter of Matthew.  In Matthew 24 we see that there are two questions being asked with one of the two being in two parts which gives us a total of three questions.  The disciples ask Christ in Matthew 24:3 when shall these things be, what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?  Pentecost writes, “The entire passage in Matthew 24 and 25 was written to answer this question concerning the signs of Messiah’s coming, which would terminate the age” (Pentecost 276).  We will be taking a look at the Gospel of Matthew, the book of Daniel, and the book of Revelation to answer these questions.

            Shortly after the Church has been taken away, the Bible speaks of a tribulation time.  This will be a time of Judgment on the earth for the rejection of Christ Jesus as the Messiah.   The Bible speaks of this time as of great tribulation and Jeremiah referrers to it as “Time of Jacob’s Trouble” Jeremiah 30:4-7.  Larkin said, “While the Church is being judged at the Judgment Seat of Christ in the air, the Jews will be judged under the Antichrist on the earth” (Larkin, “Rightly” 153).

            To see the timing of this event we will look at the book of Daniel, 2 Thessalonians, and the book of Revelation.  As we looked at Daniel chapter nine earlier, we saw a set of seventy weeks which were weeks of years.  This means that each year will be seven years in length.  We looked at the first sixty-nine weeks and determined that these have pasted.  We also looked at the events Daniel said would take place between the sixty-ninth week and the seventieth week.  Phillips and Vines said, “Between the sixty-ninth week and the seventieth week of this prophecy is inserted the long parenthesis of the church age.  We can express this thus: 7 + 62=69(+)…(church)… + 1 = 70 (millennial age)” (Phillips and Vines 152).  Then he spoke of a week that will take place.  The timing of this event must be determined partly by the event with the Church that just took place, and by the events and sequence of events spoken about in Revelation. 

            First we will look again at what Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4.  We looked at these verses in dealing with the resurrection and rapture of the Church, but notice what Paul said would happen after this gathering.  He talks about the tribulation that he had obviously at some point taught them about.  Paul put this tribulation time after the resurrection and rapture of the Church.  Secondly, we can see in 1 Thessalonians 5:9, Revelation 3:10, and Revelation 6:16 that God promised to deliver His people from the wrath that would come.  Thirdly, as already stated in Revelation 4:1, we see the Church in heaven.  This is before chapter 6 which is the start of the tribulation and is not mentioned again until Revelation 19.  From these scriptures we could put the chronological order of the tribulation to be after the resurrection and rapture of the Church.  There will be very little or no time between the rapture and the tribulation.

            The people that will be involved in this event will be the people who did not go out with the Church.  It is a time of Jacob’s Trouble and Jacob is Israel or the Jews.  The primary focus of the tribulation is the Jew’s believe in Jesus as the Messiah.  As we look at the events that will take place in this tribulation, we will see the different people that will be involved.  We need to keep in mind that though it is for the Jews, the whole world will be effected by the Judgment of God for their rejection of His free gift of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ.  Pentecost said, “There can be no question that this period will see the wrath of God poured out upon the whole earth…And yet, while the whole earth is in view, this period is particularly in relation to Israel” (Pentecost 195).

Please pray for our services tomorrow.  Pray we could see someone saved.

God Bless,

Pastor David Flood

Works Cited

Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things to Come.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1964.

Phillips, John., Jerry Vines.  Exploring The Book of Daniel.  Neptune:  Loizeaux

Brothers, 1990.

Vines, Jerry.  I Shall Return-Jesus. Wheaton: Victory Books, 1977

This past Saturday was the beginning of our new visitation program in which we are saturating the Pleasant Valley community with visitation packets and door to door visitation.  This past Saturday was the beginning of a whole month of visitation.  We started this program off with an unbelievable breakfast.  The food was so good, but that was not all.  Not only did we have our tummies full, but we got our spirits filled as well.  Bro. Eric Brown was with us and preached a tremendous message on the Sower.  You have to go to our website at www.pleasantvalleybc.comand listen to this message.  Just simply go to the preaching page and you will find it listed.  After this challenging message by Bro. Brown, we hit the streets in visiting door to door.  We were able to visit with over 250 houses in the neighborhood.  What a blessing this was.  We will continue every Saturday through the month of October.  Please pray for this visitation that we will see people saved and God’s house filled during the campaign.  God really blessed us on Sunday with a multitude of visitors.  We also had four people join the church on Sunday night.

Wednesday night we have started a Bible study on the Old Testament.  This has been a wonderful time in studying God’s word.  I normally have regular services on Wednesday, but God has impressed me to do some teaching.  I don’t know how long we will be doing this.  I believe we will finish up with the Old Testament during the month of November and after that I am planning on teaching some Bible prophecy.  If at all possible, come out and  be a part of this much needed study of God’s Word.

I have gone ahead and added our prayer request for this week to this post.  Please take the time and read over this.  Most of all pray.  Pray for our church and the names on this list.

May God bless you, and we hope to see you soon here with us in the service,

Pastor David Flood

• 1. Pray for our Missionaries
• 2. Pray for our country
• 3. Pray for our Pastor and church
• 4. Pray for the visitation program
• 5. Pray for the Sunday School campaign.
• 6. Pray for Wayne Gordy who had cancer surgery.
• 7. Pray for the man who Sis. Emma Jo met in the hospital and his step dad.
• 8. Pray for Bro. Harry Hullender’s friends and family that need to be in church.
• 9. Pray for Sis. Wanda’s son that he will adjust to his medication and that she will get to feeling better soon.
• 10. Pray for Bro. Hill’s two special unspoken request.
• 11. Pray for Mary Weaver who has colon cancer.
• 12. Pray for Sis. Alma as she goes to the doctor to see if she needs splints in her legs.
• 13. Pray for those that are lost and away from God.
• 14. Pray for the Pitt’s family that are battling bronchitis.
• 15. Pray for Wayne Pitts who has lung cancer and possibly something on his liver.
• 16. Pray for Lula Petty who will have knee surgery on October 13^th.
• 17. Pray for Don and Pat Cross.

            From this point we must draw a division between two of the three groups of people we have referred to.  We see in the last events, there were a separation of the Church and the world which are those who have rejected Christ as savior.  From this point on, we must look at these not only as being separated, but as going through different events specific to each one.

            We will first look at the directions of events that pertain to the Church.  After this glorious event we referred to as the resurrection and rapture of the Church, the Bible said we will meet together in the clouds to be with the Lord.  The Bible teaches us in 1 Corinthians 4:5 “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.” and in 2 Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad”.  We see two very important things in these two verses.  The first thing we see is there is going to be a time where every born again believer will give an account of the things we have done while on this earth in this present body.  The second thing we see is the time of this event.  It will be when the Lord comes.  Hutson writes, “The next event on God’s prophetic calendar is the rapture of the church.  Then immediately following the rapture will be the judgment seat of Christ, which will occur in Heaven while the Tribulation is beginning here on earth” (Hutson 6).  The Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 we will meet the Lord in the air at the resurrection and rapture of the Church.  This Judgment is the next event we find in the Word of God dealing with the Church only. 

            First in looking at this judgment in which the Bible refers to as “The Judgment Seat of Christ” we will look specifically at who the Bible said will be at this judgment.  We will be looking at 2 Cor 5:10 and 1 Cor. 3:11-15 to answer the questions of who will be involved and what this event consists of.  First we see it is a judgment for the believer.  In 1 Cor. 5:10, Larkin said, “The pronoun “We” occurs 26 times in the chapter, and in every instance it means the Believer, and the Epistle is addressed to the “Church” and “Saints” at Corinth” (Larkin, “Rightly” 149).  In these verses we see who will be there, but a close look will show us who will not be present at this judgment.  These scriptures never state that there is an unbeliever present at this judgment, nor does it state that anyone is turned into hell.  A close look of 1 Cor. 9:27 which states “but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” reveals to us that before the judgment he was saved, and after the judgment he is still saved.  This is not a judgment to determine salvation, but rather a judgment to determine reward or loss.  The one who looses the most at the judgment seat of Christ is still saved-that is, he goes to Heaven.  He suffers loss-not the loss of his soul but the loss of his service and reward for his service (Hutson 6).

            As we look at what this judgment consists of, we quickly see this answered.  This is a judgment to determine rewards or loss of rewards and not for salvation.  It is a judgment for the saved and not the ones who reject Christ as savior.  1 Cor. 3:11-15 compares our works in two different ways.  First it compares our works as “gold, silver, precious stone” and then it compares our works as “wood, hay, stubble”.  It goes on to say that our works will be tried by fire.  As you know wood, hay, and stubble all burn, but gold, silver, and precious stone will be purified through the fire.  What does all this mean?  Well we have to look at the contrast Paul is setting.  First we see our works as gold, silver, precious stone.  These are works that we have done solely for the glorification of Christ.  The Bible speaks of five different crowns as rewards the believer may have at this day.   The Crown of Life found in James 1:12 and Rev. 2:10, the Crown of Glory found in 1 Peter 5:2-4, the Crown of Rejoicing found in 1 Thess. 2:19-20 and Phil. 47:1, the Crown of Righteousness found in 2 Tim. 4:8, and then we have the Crown Incorruptible found in 1 Cor. 9:25-27 and 1 John 2:28.  There are many other things found in the book of Revelation that the Christian will have pleasure in receiving.  These are found throughout Revelation two and three in dealing with the seven churches.

            The second contrast we see is Paul comparing our works with wood, hay, and stubble.  This is in contrast with “bad works” spoken of in 2 Cor. 5:10.  These are works that we have done in the glorification of such things that are not of Christ.  Larkin said, “The result of this Judgment is “reward” or “loss”.  All our “bad” and “dead works” represented by the wood, hay and stubble, will be consumed, and only our “good works” shall remain” (Larkin, “Rightly” 151).

            We can see from the scriptures the next event in dealing with the Church is what the Bible speaks of as the judgment seat of Christ.  It will be for the Christian only and will be a judgment of works and not of sin.  All of the judgment of sin was satisfied at Calvary.  John Walvoord said, “In view of that, there is not only the motivation of love to serve Christ, but also the motivation of being found worthy to the extent that their works honored and glorified God (Walvoord 468).  We can not get this judgment confused with or put it in contrast with a general judgment due to the fact they are all different by time, place and the people being judged.  As we look at events further through the Bible this will become evident.

This concludes our study for this week.  Please, if you have the opportunity, go back and review our past studies.  This will enlighten you and keep it fresh in your mind.  God bless you.

David Flood

Pastor

Works Cited

Hutson, Curtis.  The Judgment Seat of Christ.  Murfreesboro: Sword of the Lord,

Publishers, 1990.

Larkin, Clarence. Rightly Dividing The Word.  Glenside: Rev. Clarence Larkin EST,

1920.

Walvoord, John F.  Every Prophecy of the Bible.  Colorado Springs:  Chariot Victor

Publishing, 1999.

Last Wednesday night, I started a new Bible study entitled “A Survey of the Old Testament”.  Our first night was very good.  I look forward to continuing this study about the Old Testament.  So many times we forget about the Old Testament, but let me say that you will never fully understand the New without understanding the Old.  Everyone seamed to be very excited about this Bible study.

We have many things going on for the next month or two.  I pray we have not planned too much.  We start our new visitation program during October, also during October is our Sunday school campaign, and many more events we have planned.  Please take the time to visit our website for more information.  On the site you can view all the different months.  Please pray for each and every event. 

Please, mark your calenders for this Thursday night 6:30PM for our mission’s work night.  We need about 30 people to show up.  This is how much work we need to get done.  During this night we will be putting together our books of by-laws, stamping tracks with the church’s information, and putting together visitation packets for the community.  All this is in effort of the kickoff of our visitation program. 

Well, keep praying that God will continue to work through our church in reaching the world with the Gospel message.  Pray much for each service and remember each and every one on the prayer list.

David Flood

Pastor

            The next scripture we must look at is in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5.  In these scriptures Paul is writing to the Thessalonica church to comfort them and reassure them that the rapture has not taken place.  In chapter one we see that the Church was going through a time of tribulation.  So much tribulation that they were beginning to think they were in the tribulation.  This could be the result of a letter they received.  Paul writes to them in chapter two explaining what must take place before the time of tribulation.  Paul is given them a chronological order to the time of tribulation.  Paul writes in verse one about the rapture or as he states “by our gathering together unto him” and then goes on to state the things that will be during the tribulation to show them that though they were experiencing tribulation, this was not the tribulation that would come.  First there must be the gathering together or rapture.  Wiersbe writes, “Paul appealed to them to “calm down” on the bases of the truth he had taught them in his first letter: the Lord would return and catch up His own to meet Him in the air.  This is “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and … our gathering together unto him” (Wiersbe, “Volume 2″ 196).

            The last set of scriptures to look at concerning the time of this event is found in Revelation 4:1-11.  John was instructed to write the Revelation of Jesus Christ with three main topics.  These are found in Revelation 1:19 where the Bible says “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter”. Three things to write about, things which thou hast seen, things which are, things which shall be hereafter. Clarence Larkin writes, “The “Key” to the Book is its “Three-fold division” Rev. 1:19″ (Larkin, “Revelation” 13).  John began to write of the things which God had revealed to him in chapter one.  In chapter two through chapter three he is writing of the things which are in the present to him.  This would be the seven churches which is the church age.  John was writing about seven different churches that had different situations.  John was not writing about seven different ages or times the church would be going through before the rapture of the Church.  If this were the case all seven ages would have to pass before the resurrection and rapture of the Church. In chapter four verse one the Bible said, “come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter” clearly John begins to write of the things which must be hereafter.  Also in this first verse we see that John is taken up.  Walvoord states in his book that this would be a far stretch of the scripture to say this was the rapture of the Church, but rather goes on to say “it is reasonable to conclude that the Rapture has taken place and that what John is seeing is a setting for events in heaven which will take place in heaven and earth in the period after the Rapture (Walvoord 544).  Weather this is the actual Rapture of the Church or not, you will see throughout chapter four and five the Church, which is represented by the four and twenty elders which is the number of the Church, and they are in heaven.  Notice the setting of this scene in these chapters.  They are around the Throne of God and not on earth.  This tells us they have been removed from the earth.  Notice further evidence of the representation of the Church by the four and twenty elders.  They were clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold, and in chapter five verse nine they sing a song of being redeemed.  From this point on we see no more mention of the Church until you come to chapter nineteen which is the end of the tribulation.  Then we are seen coming back with Christ to the earth.  To this McGee writes concerning Revelation 4:1, “These twenty-four elders stand for the total church from Pentecost to the Rapture.  Therefore, I can say categorically and dogmatically that here is the church in heaven” (McGee 930).

David Flood

Pastor

Pleasant Valley Baptist Church

Works Cited

Larkin, Clarence. Rightly Dividing The Word.  Glenside: Rev. Clarence Larkin EST,

1920.

The Book of Revelation.  Glenside: Rev. Clarence Larkin EST, 1919.

McGee, J. Vernon.  Thru The Bible. Volume 5. Nashville:  Thomas Nelson Publishers,

1983.

Wiersbe, Warren W. The Bible Exposition CommentaryVolume 2. Wheaton: Victory

Books, 1994.

Vines, Jerry.  I Shall Return-Jesus. Wheaton: Victory Books, 1977

Walvoord, John F.  Every Prophecy of the Bible.  Colorado Springs:  Chariot Victor

Publishing, 1999.

     You will need to visit the church calendar to be updated on some things going on at the church.  Just CLICK HERE and it will take you to the calendar page of the website.

Sep 3rd – after the worship service, we will be having our conference meeting and election.  What an exciting time this is.  We will be putting before the church Three men as deacons of Pleasant Valley Baptist church.  Bro. Harry Hullender, Bro. Sam Owens, and Bro. Billy Perry.  These additions with our two current deacons, Bro. Lawrence Denton and Bro. Ken Pitts, will give us a total of five deacons at the church.  It is such a blessing to see men make this step for the Lord.  I am encouraged with the willingness of so many at the church. 

Sep 13th- This will be a workday at the church.  As you know, the month of October is our Sunday School Campaign.  We need to work on fixing up our Sunday School classes and the church.  This will kick off at about 10:00am and we will work until done.  This will also be a good time of fellowship.  Please make plans to come and be with us on this day.

Sep 16th- this is our monthly trip to the nursing home.  If you have never been and are free from 10:30am to about 11:15am come and be a part of this ministry.

Sep 18th – this will be on Thursday night starting at 6:30PM.  We will be putting together visitation packets for the church in preparation of the month of October.  We will also be putting together the church By-laws and Constitution booklets during this night.  There will be plenty to do, we need all that is available.  We may even talk a few into bring a cake or something.

Sep 27th – is the church Fish Fry.  What a time of fellowhip, fun and games this will be.  This will be an all day event eating around 5:30PM or 6:00PM.  Everyone is invited to be a part of this. 

     We have also updated our missions website page.  CLICK HERE and it  will take you to the updated page.  As always we need to pray for all the missionaries around the world.  By the end of next year, we would love to see our mission program grow for the glory of God.  I believe it will.  God blesses those churches that are doing his will.

     Continue to pray for the prayer list and the church.  Pray that God will continue to bless in each service and that the church will continue to grow.  We were blessed yesterday with three more visitors in the morning service.  We just thank God for them.  I pray that you have had a bless day today, and that this week will be a blessed week in the Lord. 

May God continue to Bless you,

David Flood

Pastor

Pleasant Valley Baptist Church