Journey Through the Stars

We are so glad that you're here. And to all of our children here in the Dallas area in Texas, welcome, I'm glad you're here. You're all looking really good today, dressed in your "Amazing Adventure" t-shirts. Has anyone looked at the study guide for last night and filled in the answers, done the activities? Looks like almost all of you did. You know, these study guides are filled with all kinds of great Amazing Facts.

I was just looking at the study guide that you're gonna get tonight, did you know that a few days ago when we had hurricane ike make his way up into Texas, the wind was about 110 miles per hour. But on neptune the average wind is about 1,200 miles per hour. That's pretty strong, isn't it? Well, you'll find that and a whole lot of other interesting facts in the study guides, so be sure to get it on your way out this evening. Also for those of our sites, the different sites, the coordinators, tonight we'll be using our decision card, so you might want to get that ready. Pastor Doug will call for it at the end of the program.

For more information about the study guides or the Bibles that we've been using, please visit the "Amazing Facts" kid's website. It's amazingfactskids.org. Let's stand as we sing together, "life is an adventure." Life is an adventure, following the king. Every day with Jesus makes us want to sing. Walking in the spirit, he will lead the way.

With his words to guide us, glowing deep inside us. Nothing can divide us following the king. Life is an adventure following the king. Every day with Jesus makes us want to sing. Conquering with kindness everywhere we go.

Voices we are raising, Jesus we are praising, life is so amazing following the king. Life is so amazing following the king. Please remain standing as we have our scripture reading and prayer for this evening. I'm gonna invite our two volunteers to come forward. I'm gonna ask just if you'd introduce yourself, tell us your name and how old you are? My name is Vahomi Valheemi and I am 12 years old.

All right, thank you. What is the scripture that you're gonna be reading today? We are going to be reading John 14:2-3. "In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you so. I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. That where I am, there you may be also." All right, well, thank you very much. Tell us your name and how old you are? My name is Madeline and I am 13 years old. Thank you, Madeline, you're gonna have the prayer for us this evening. Yes, I am.

Let's bow our heads as we pray. Dear Jesus, thank you for today. Thank you for all you've given us. Please let the rest of the day be good and keep us safe. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Thank you very much. I'm gonna invite Pastor Doug to come forward for our Bible questions. Well, Pastor Doug, here we have another program this evening. And we have some video questions, so let's start with that.

All right, we're ready to do that. My name is elise, I'm 9 years old and my question is: where is the Garden of Eden now? That's a good question. We all know about the Garden of Eden, that beautiful paradise that the Lord made in the very beginning, everything was perfect. The Bible tells us God said it was good, good, very good. Now, that was God's garden, he planted it.

And of course, after the flood of Noah, some people say they've discovered the Garden of Eden, but nobody's really discovered it. I believe that the Garden of Eden, and the Bible doesn't specifically say this, but I believe that the Garden of Eden was taken up by the Lord to heaven, and it will be in the new Jerusalem. Now, the Bible does say in Revelation 21 and 22, you've got the tree of life that was in the Garden of Eden is gonna be in heaven. And I think the Lord did something to preserve that tree. You know, the Bible tells us in Revelation 21 the new Jerusalem, we have a lesson coming on that, is gonna come down from God out of heaven, when Jesus comes back or at the end of the 1,000 years.

If God can bring a city down out of heaven, can he take a garden up into heaven? Yeah. So I think the Garden of Eden is up in paradise right now. God saved it and we're gonna get to go there someday. It wasn't destroyed by the flood. All right, well, we have another question that somebody wrote in.

It's tristan, he's in fourth grade and he asks, "why did you do the 'Amazing Adventure' series?" All right, perhaps tristan is wondering: why'd we do this series? Well, I think this is one of the most important things that "Amazing Facts" has ever done in doing a special evangelistic exciting series about the Bible just for kids. Because you have your whole lives before you. And if you make decisions during this series to put Jesus first in your life, nothing is more important than that. And so everything that's happening here with the television broadcast and with the program, and the lessons and the Bibles, is all to help you be prepared for the most exciting adventure, the one of going through this life with Jesus on into eternity. And so we just thought it was the most important thing we could do, and that's why we did it.

Amen. We have another video question. Okay. My name is Michael, I'm 10 years old, and my question is: did Jesus have any brothers and sisters? Yes, he did. The Bible tells us that Jesus had four brothers and he had at least two sisters.

It names four of his brothers, let me see if I can remember their names, Judas, Simon, is it Joses? And Pastor Ross knows the other one. No, I don't remember. And it says, "his brothers and his sisters." It doesn't say how many. But in order to say, "sisters, is that one or two?" It's got to be at least two. So maybe he had four brothers and 20 sisters.

We don't know. But it says he had sisters, and so yes, he did. All right, now, were they born before Jesus or after Jesus? Oh, that's a good question. You know, some people are surprised to know that Jesus' brothers and sisters were probably older than him. They were the children of Joseph.

See, Joseph probably lost his first wife and he had a whole oogle of kids before he married Mary. And then, so Jesus had these older brothers and sisters. And one reason we know that, when Jesus was hanging on the cross, he committed the care of his mother to the apostle John. And so if it was his, he would have normally done it to his real brothers and sisters. Okay, well, we have another question from faith, she is a fifth grader.

What is the best thing that you can do for God? Wow, that is the most important question. The best thing you can do for God is to surrender your life to him. You know, being a Christian is a battle that you win by surrender. You win by surrendering your life to the Lord. Everybody is gonna serve somebody.

You can say, "well, I don't want to serve anybody," and if you say that, you're really serving the devil. There is no such thing as a middle road. Jesus said, "he that is not with me, is against me." And so if you don't make your decision to be for Jesus, what does that mean? You're for the devil. So the most important thing you can do is to say, "lord, I want to surrender my heart and life to you. I can't do it without you, but I want to trust you with my life.

I believe you have a big plan for me and I am yours." And when you say that, you give God permission to activate his power in your life. He won't force his love on you. I mean he loves you, but he won't force you to love him. You must choose. All right, I think our last question for today is a video question, so we'll finish up with that.

Hi, my name is Ashton, I'm 11 years old, and my question is: why was the flood 40 days and 40 nights? Why was the flood of Noah 40 days and 40 nights? Well, 40 is an interesting number in the Bible. You know, there's a lot of 40s. Moses spent 40 years growing up in Egypt. Then he spent 40 years in the wilderness. Then he spent 40 years leading the children of Israel from Egypt to the promised land.

King David reigned for 40 years, king Saul reigned for 40 years, king Solomon reigned for 40 years. Jesus was out 40 days in the wilderness. Moses went up the mountain for 40 days. A lot of 40s in the Bible. Forty seems to represent a generation in the Bible.

And so these 40s that it talks about, like the 40 days when it rained, it means a new beginning, something's gonna happen that will bring a new beginning. And you'll often see that there's new change after 40 in the Bible. Okay, well, thank you very much, Pastor Doug. We have some special music brought to us by the "Amazing Adventure" singers. The Song is "my God is a righteous God.

" [Music] Jesus knows my every word and deed. Jesus wants to meet my deepest need. He lives now to intercede, he will surely stand by me. My God is a righteous God, my God is a holy God. My God is a faithful God, he will surely stand by me.

Jesus' love has drawn my heart to him. Jesus' love has washed away my sin. His word makes me pure within, he will surely stand by me. My God is a righteous God, my God is a holy God. My God is a faithful God, he will surely stand by me.

Christ has saved me from sin's penalty, Christ will keep me for eternity. He guides through life's stormy sea, he will surely stand by me. My God is a righteous God, my God is a holy God. My God is a faithful God, he will surely stand by me. Sing to the Lord.

My God is a righteous God, my God is a holy God. My God is a faithful God, he will surely stand by me. Amen. Thank you, so much. That's the truth, that was a beautiful song.

We're so glad that you are here with us again tonight. And this series still has more than half of it to come. Right now is night number 3 out of 10 nights, and we have an exciting presentation tonight that's dealing with a "journey through the stars." Now, I don't know about you, but when I look up at night and I see the sky and the clear stars that go on forever, I just feel this yearning to go up there. And I've just had this dream for years that someday I could be on the space shuttle or go visit the international space station. Pastor Doug loves to fly.

If I'm on a motorcycle, I'm looking for jumps. If I'm skiing, I'm looking for jumps. I fly in an airplane, I'm a pilot, and if I'm skiing or whatever I'm doing on the water, I'm always wanting to go through the air. And for me, one of the greatest things that could happen is to just fly through the stars. You know, I was very interested to learn that back in 2004 for the first time, a private company, they won a very big award, I think it was over a million dollars, because they were able to send a man into space and back again.

It was a private company and it was called "spaceship 1." And they actually piggybacked this little-bitty spaceship on top of another plane that was called "the white knight." And the white knight flew real high in the sky, and then "spaceship 1" took off from that one and it just shot up like a bullet, breaking the sound barrier many times until it got up to space. It made it over 65 miles up. It was over 320-200,000 feet. And then it stayed up there for a few minutes, long enough for the astronaut to eat some m&ms that were floating around. He wanted to make his m&ms float.

And then he came back down again and they landed. And I thought, "oh, they're practicing, so they could take private people up into space." How many of you would like to go up into space? Wouldn't that be fun, to be weightless? But that would be nothing, because if you just go up into space around our planet, you haven't gone very far. I mean even if you go like the "voyager 1" or the "voyager 2" spacecraft to the end of our solar system, you haven't gone very far. I like looking at the stars through a telescope. Some of you have heard about the Hubble telescope, it's the most powerful telescope that they've got in the world right now.

And when we look through the Hubble telescope, you see the most incredible things, space is huge. Sometimes you look up at the sky at night, you think you're looking at a star, you're looking at a galaxy, a whole cluster of stars, like that one that's on the screen right now. From far away that looks like one little dot of light. But you get closer, you find out that it's a galaxy that might have 100 million blazing suns, not counting all of the planets that would be in there. We live in the milky way galaxy, which is, I think that if you were to travel the speed of light, first of all, you'd get a ticket.

No, you wouldn't, because the police couldn't catch you. You'd go 186,000 miles per second, it would take you 100,000 years. Think about how far you'd be in one second, 186,000 miles. If you, how far would you be in a year if you went 186,000 miles per second? It would still take you 100,000 years just to go across the little dot in the universe called our milky way galaxy. Space is huge! And heaven is way back out there.

Many believe that it's in the constellation nebula of orion. And there are some beautiful things in space. I like this picture I got from the hubble website. It's a nebula, but it looks like an eye out in space. They call it sometimes "the God's eye.

" Isn't that something? It looks like he's looking down at you, but that's actually a nebula up in space. Wouldn't you like to fly through the stars? You know what I'm telling you now is absolutely true, you can. If you trust what I'm saying and you trust the Bible, you can take a trip through space and fly through the stars, and you won't need a spaceship and you won't need an astronaut suit. Wouldn't you like to do that? Wouldn't you like to be able to skip off of the moon and go fly down the red canyons of mars, and go circle saturn once where the rings are? And then just take off like a shot past pluto? Except you won't go the speed of light or the speed of sound, you'll be going thousands of times faster. Angels travel--well, the way we describe it is the speed of thought.

They can just go...pwww! It's true, Jesus is coming back, and he is gonna take those that trust and love him up. And they're gonna take a journey, an incredible Amazing Adventure through space. It is real and you have the opportunity to be on that trip. How many of you would like to go? I know a man paid $2 million-- well, I don't know him personally, but I heard about him--so that he could go up into the space station. You can go on this trip and your ticket is paid for by Jesus; isn't that exciting? He's coming back to get those that are ready, take 'em on that trip.

We're gonna talk about the return of Jesus tonight. Let's get to our lesson, "journey through the stars" is our lesson tonight. This is lesson number 3 in the series. Question number 1, you ready? Will Jesus really come back to earth again and take us through the stars to heaven? Let's find out what Jesus said in his own words. And this was our scripture reading tonight.

He said, "in my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also." He says, "I'm gonna go," and he did. He says, "I'm gonna come back, so that you can be with me." And he's preparing a place for you. How sad that would be if you left that beautiful mansion he's prepared for you vacant, because you don't get ready for his coming.

Wouldn't it be terrible to miss the bus when Jesus comes? I've missed some planes before and it's an awful feeling. When your whole adventure, your whole trip, you just sit there in the airport and you see the plane taking off, and there you are. You don't want to miss it when Jesus comes. Amen? You want to be ready for that. He says again in Revelation 22:12, "behold, I am coming quickly and my reward is with me to give to every man according to his works.

" When Jesus comes, he's going to reward people. And so if you trust him and give him your heart, he'll take you with him through that trip through space, and you can live forever and ever. Question number 2, this is very important: how will Jesus come the second time? Let me tell you why this question is so important; when Jesus came the first time, he came to earth as a baby, remember, the first time? His people, the Jewish people, they had Bibles, they had their old testament, and in the Bible there were prophesies about Jesus coming the first time. But they weren't reading them or they were misunderstanding them, and they thought that when Jesus came the first time, he was gonna come like a conquering king. But they missed the part where it said he was really coming the first time as a lamb.

He comes next time like a lion, with power and majesty. They didn't know how he was coming, and so when he came as a baby, they said, "oh, that can't be him. We're expecting our Messiah to come as a mighty power." And so they were mixed up, they were deceived. It says in acts 1:9, it tells us how he's coming. It says, "while they watched he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.

" They saw him going. And as Jesus was ascending up into the sky, it says, "behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who said, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into the heavens? This same Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven, he will come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven." Now, see, what these angels were saying, when Christ went to heaven the first time, the disciples were standing there watching him go up into the clouds, probably looked something like the clouds around Pastor Ross's feet when the program begins. And they watched Jesus just disappear and they kept staring. And the angel said, "why are you gazing up into the sky? This same Jesus--" is it the same one? "Is gonna come in the same way as you saw him go." Now, did they see him go? Yeah. Are we going to see him come? Was Jesus real when he went to heaven? You remember after he rose from the dead, the Bible says they touched his hands, he ate in front of him, they hugged him, he was a real person.

He's gonna be real when he comes back. Some people say, "oh, Jesus already came, he was a spiritual coming." No, when Jesus comes you're gonna know it's gonna be very real. You not only need to know that he is coming, you need to know something about how he's coming, so you won't be deceived. And it says he left in the clouds, he's coming in the clouds. When he left he was real, when he's coming he's gonna be real.

When he left he was visible, when he comes back he will be visible, you'll see him. Everybody's gonna know. Question number 3, will we be able to see Jesus when he comes, or is he going to arrive secretly? You know, there's a lot of very dear people and they read the Bible, but they mix up some of the verses a little bit, and they think that when Jesus comes again, it's gonna be a secret. That you're gonna be driving down the road talking to grandma, and if grandma's ready and you're not ready, all of the sudden grandma's gonna disappear. And if grandma's driving the car and you're talking to her, and she disappears, you're in trouble, 'cause that car is gonna be going down the road without grandma anymore.

And there might be a pilot flying a plane and all of the pilots disappear, and the passengers who aren't ready, the plane's gonna crash or something. And there are people, they believe this, that Jesus' coming is gonna be secret and folks are just gonna disappear. But the Bible says when the Lord comes, everybody's gonna know it, everybody's gonna see it. Now, I'm gonna illustrate a few things to you from the Bible here in just a moment. Read in Matthew 24, and you know, kids, I know I'm giving you a lot of verses.

And I want to tell our friends who are watching at the sites, hopefully you've got a piece of paper and a pencil, 'cause I go through them so fast, you don't have time to look them all up, because I want to cover as much as I can during the program. But jot down the verses when you get them, or they'll be on the dvds, they're on the screen, but I want you to check on Pastor Doug. There's a lot more verses in the lesson than I'm able to cover during our 1-hour talk. Matthew 24:26, Jesus is warning us not to be deceived. He said, "therefore, if they say to you, look, he's in the desert, do not go out.

Or, look, he's in inner rooms, do not believe it; "for as lightning shines out of the east and flashes even unto the west, so also the coming of The Son of man will be." Have any of you ever been outside in a lightning storm when it flashes? And after it flashes, a few seconds later, then you hear the thunder. And the closer the lightning is, the sooner you hear the thunder. I remember being in a lightning storm when I was a little boy. I was inside with my head under the blankets. I was a little bit scared, put my head under the pillow, and I could still see the lightning flash.

Lightning was the brightest light that they knew back then. All right, gonna illustrate something, I need a volunteer to look in the mystery chest. You know, I'm gonna kind of take a different route here, we're gonna come down here. You want to help me? Come on up here. Well, you be patient here, we're gonna try and cover as many helpers as we can.

Now, in the mystery chest here you're gonna find something that looks like a police radar gun. And you'll find something else in there, so don't take that out. Just take out the thing that looks like a big police radar gun. Can you find that? Okay. You know what that is? It's not a police radar gun, just looks like one.

Who knows what that is? Flashlight. That's a flashlight. And what's this? Flashlight. All right. I want you to also, don't sit nothing on the Bible here.

All right, I want to try something here. Can you close your eyes? What's your name, Vicky? Close your eyes for a second. All right, can you tell my light's on your eyes? Yeah. Yeah? Okay, because you're right here next to me. Okay? Now, you all close your eyes for a second.

Don't cheat. Don't cheat. Close your eyes. Keep your eyes closed. Did I turn on the light? You were cheating.

You saw it? This one's a little harder. Are you afraid for me to shine this in your eyes? No? Okay. This is like a million lumens, the cameramen don't want me to shine this in the camera lenses, but can you notice that? I'll tell you what, we have a lot of fun; I go camping with my boys--all right, let me try something here, go ahead and close your eyes. Did I turn on the light? Did I turn it on? No? All right, close your eyes. Put your hands over your eyes, I just wonder.

Yeah. You can feel it, can't you? Even with your hands over your eyes. Okay, thank you very much, vicky. I go camping with my boys and I tell you, it's a lot of fun to, you go out there riding around with this thing and you go, "boom, boom," you could shoot it up into the clouds and it goes a long way. See how bright this is? Everybody get a chance? Okay? Well, I don't want to leave anybody out.

Now, even with your eyes closed, close your eyes. Close your eyes for a second. Okay? Now, what's gonna be brighter? I want to ask you; what's gonna be brighter: that light, lightning, or Jesus coming? Jesus coming! Is anybody gonna say, "oh, did Jesus come an hour ago and I missed it?" Or is everybody gonna know when Jesus comes? Everybody's gonna know when Jesus comes, yet some people think it's a secret. The Bible says in Revelation 1:7, "behold, he is coming with the clouds." And can you say that with me? What's that say? How many eyes? "Every eye will see him." That means every eye of everybody alive in the world, they're gonna see it. Not only are they gonna see it, they're gonna hear it.

The second coming of Jesus is gonna be the most climatic event in the world. You can read in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, "for the Lord himself," it's really gonna be him, "will descend from heaven with a shout." Now, I'm not gonna ask you to shout, but I bet we got some good shouters here. But you can't shout like the Lord. "And with a voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God." All right, I need a volunteer. I'm going this way.

I want to be fair here. Let's see. All right, I'll, yeah, matter of fact, you want to grab a friend? You grab a friend. All right, hurry up, you guys gotta come up here. You're gonna be sorry.

All right, come on up here. There's something left in the chest. Very carefully get that out of the chest. There's something I want you to very carefully get out of the chest. Wave at the camera while you're looking in there.

Okay, now very gently bring that out. Okay, you can shut the chest now. All right. Now, do either of you guys know how to play trumpet? No. No.

Well, that's okay. I don't either, but I'll do it. All right, come up here for a second. You're covering your ears, what's the matter? Now, you guys know each other? Yeah. Yeah.

You're friends? Yeah. Okay, here's what we're gonna do. What's your name? Manasseh. Manasseh? Okay, you stand right here. All right, you come over here, aziel.

Put your ear up against manasseh's ear. You guys are friends. Don't worry, just, no, your ear, not your finger. Put your ear up there. All right, hang on.

Now, I'm gonna blow in this ear and you tell me if you hear anything, okay? No, no, no, no, I'm not gonna do that. Okay. You tell me if you can hear this. Okay, can you hear that? Yeah. Okay.

Go ahead and cover your ears. Yeah. You can still hear? All right, you cover his ears, put your hands on his ears. And you cover his hands. Matter of fact, close your eyes, it might even help.

Could you hear that? Yeah. Okay, you can sit down. Thank you very much. Give them a hand for doing a good job. All right, now what's louder: my trumpet or the Lord's trumpet? the Lord's trumpet! Is it gonna be a secret when Jesus comes? No! The Bible uses the loudest language there is to describe the second coming.

Remember, when Jesus came the first time, he came as a gentle baby, he came like a lamb. He came as our sacrifice the first time. But when he comes again, he's not coming like a lamb. He's coming the next time not quietly, it's not a secret, he's coming like a lion. There's gonna be a shout.

It's gonna be with majesty. It's gonna be with trumpet and the earth's gonna be shaking, and everybody's gonna know. You know why you want to be ready to take that trip through the stars? Because this world's gonna be in bad shape when Jesus comes and you don't want to miss it. Some of you are thinking, "well, Pastor Doug, doesn't the Bible say when Jesus comes, it's like a thief?" Yeah, it does say that. You've probably--you're correct if you've heard that.

The Bible does say Jesus is coming like a thief in more than one place. But let's read what it says. You can read in 2 Peter 3:10. Some of you have Bibles, you might have time to find that. "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.

" Now, listen to what happens in that day. "In which the heavens pass away with a great," what? "Noise." "The heavens pass away with great noise and the elements melt with fervent heat." That means intense heat. "And both the earth and the works in it are burned up." Now, if the heavens are passing away with a great noise, that means the atmosphere, and the elements are melting, does it sound like a secret? What does it mean when he comes like a thief? Pastor Doug is not proud of it, but I told you I was a little bit of trouble when I was growing up. You know I used to be a thief. I'm not proud of it and Jesus has forgiven me, but I used to steal things.

And I've learned that it never pays to steal, 'cause it seemed like every time I stole something, I got caught or somebody stole something from me. It just didn't pay. But when I was gonna break into a home and steal something, I never sent them an announcement and said, "I'll be coming to visit you, I'm gonna be stealing stuff." I always came, it was a surprise, but when I came and I took something, they knew it. See what I'm saying? So Jesus says his coming is gonna be a surprise, but it doesn't mean that when it happens, nobody's gonna know. That's what he means.

You're not gonna read in the newspaper the day after Jesus comes. "Jesus came yesterday." And all the report about Jesus coming, that's not how it's gonna happen. So everyone's gonna know. Question number 4: who is with Jesus when he comes? Oh, I heard some of you know the answer to this. Let's go to--let Jesus answer this for us and you'll find it in Matthew 25:31.

There are several verses. Jesus is speaking, "when The Son of man comes in his glory and all the holy angels with him." How many angels with him? All. How many angels are there? Well, does everybody have a guardian angel? And there are 6 billion people in the world today. And so if there are 6 billion people, there are at least 6 billion angels. And I think some people not only have a guardian angel, there's a recording angel.

He may not be writing, he's probably got video. And everything we say and do, God knows, doesn't he? It's all recorded. So there are billions of angels. Can you imagine what it will be like when Jesus comes? It says again in Matthew 24:31, "he will send his angels with a great sound of," there's our trumpet again, "with a trumpet, and it will gather together his elect from the four winds," that means from all corners of the earth. Four winds--four winds are north, south, east, west, that means everywhere.

They'll gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. All his angels will be there to gather all that are ready for that trip through the stars. And again, you read in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8, "when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God." And so think about when Jesus rose from the dead, God sent an angel down from heaven that rolled away the stone and threw it aside. And there were some roman soldiers there guarding the tomb, brave roman soldiers. What did they do when they saw that one angel? They got so scared, they fell over like they were dead.

One angel. Can you imagine how the wicked are going to act when the heavens are filled with billions of mighty angels? You need to be ready when Jesus comes, because there's gonna be two kinds of people, those that will reach out and say, "I'm ready, lord," and others that will run from him. You know, if I go out at night with this light--I'm having fun with this, but I want to illustrate something, and there are cockroaches on the ground, what do cockroaches do when you shine light on them? They run. But if you go out at night in the woods and you shine this, you know what starts happening with the moths? Do they run from the light or come to the light? They fly to the light. And so everybody, when Jesus comes, is either gonna be a cockroach or a moth.

They're gonna run from the light or they're gonna fly to him. And so you want to have Jesus in your heart, so you're ready when he comes. Right? Again, something else exciting is gonna happen. It says in 1 Thessalonians 4, and this is 4:16, "for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God." We read that part, but I want to keep reading now. "And the dead in Christ will rise first.

" So when Jesus comes, there's a resurrection. Some of you maybe have loved ones, you might have a grandma or grandpa, or a friend or someone that's died, and you're waiting for Jesus to come, so they can come back to life. That's when it's gonna happen, when Jesus comes. Those who've died trusting in him are gonna be given glorified immortal bodies. And we'll talk about that more another night.

Then what about those of us who are alive? What happens to us? It says, "then we who are alive and remain, we shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air," and that's when we begin our journey from this world that's gonna be destroyed. He'll make a new one later. We're gonna begin our journey through space back to those mansions he's prepared for us in heaven. Won't that be something? And you'll be able to just fly around and try out your new wings. That'll be exciting.

And I want to be there, don't you, friends? I want to be ready. Now, when looked at the second coming of Jesus, I don't want you to be deceived, it says that his coming is literal, personal, it's visible, it's audible, it's physical, it's vitalizing, it's glorious, it's climatic. You're gonna feel it, you're gonna see it, you're gonna hear it. It's gonna be bright, the earth is gonna be shaking, there's gonna be a resurrection. Let me ask, does that sound like a secret? And yet the devil's got a lot of dear people believing that Jesus' coming is gonna be a secret.

Nothing secret about it. Number 5: will everyone go to heaven when Jesus comes again? It'd be nice to think everyone would go, but Jesus is very clear that the road to eternal life, few find it 'cause few are looking for it. Most people are just happy with what's happening here in the world. They're preoccupied with their entertainment and their television, and their video games and stuff like that. Right? So they don't think about Jesus, and so a lot of people won't be ready.

Revelations 6:16, "the wicked say to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits upon the throne." And it goes on, it says in Isaiah 11:14, "with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked." So the very--when he speaks, the wicked are destroyed by the breath from his lips 'cause they're not ready. Again, Jesus said, "and behold I come quickly," Revelation 22:12, "and my reward is with me to give to every man according to his works." He is coming, he's coming soon. He's coming very quickly. And everyone's gonna be rewarded. We're saved by grace, but we're rewarded by our works, because our behavior shows if our hearts are changed, right? Now, there's several signs I want to give you quickly that tell us about Jesus' coming, so you will know it soon and you won't be deceived.

Number 6: what are some of the signs of Jesus coming? I bet you know some of the answers, but we're gonna go through not all of them, but many of the main signs. Jesus was sitting on the mount of olives one day and his disciples gathered around him. He told them that jerusalem was gonna be destroyed. They thought that meant it would be the end of the world. And so they said, "what-- when's this gonna happen? Tell us when will these things be? What will be the sign of your coming in the end of the age?" Or the end of the world.

And he gave them the answers of a number of signs, that we can know when his coming is near. And let me tell you right now, before we even get into it, we are very close to Jesus' coming. I believe that you are living in the generation that will see Jesus come. One thing he told us, the first thing he said, is to be careful about false prophets. Jesus warned us about wolves that come in sheep's clothing.

Matthew 24:11, it says, "then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many." Oh, you know, I'm getting a signal, something very important is happening. You know, we got word that there might be a special visitor that was gonna come, how many of you know that president george w. Bush was coming to Texas because of the hurricane? He was gonna view the damage, and we put out a request to see if he could come by our meetings, 'cause he heard about the miracle that happened here last night. Did he make it? Did president bush? He did! President bush is here! Oh, let's all welcome the president. We're so glad that you're here.

You look like you've been working hard, and eating a little more than usual, too. So what brings you by to visit us here at our "Amazing Adventure" program? Well, I just heard about this great meeting and had to come see it for myself. Oh, isn't that exciting, the president's here. When did you pick up a south african accent? Oh, it's a Texas accent. One of your international visits, huh? How many of you believe this is president bush? Who is this? You don't know who it is, do you? Well, who are you? You look like president bush to me.

President bush. I think something looks suspicious here about your face. Well, I think you ought to take that off and show us who you really are. The jig's up. Oh! It was hot in there.

Thank you very much, Pastor Ross. You know, sometimes people pretend to be somebody else, don't they? You know what's gonna happen in the last days? Satan is gonna put on a Jesus mask, except his is not gonna look so rubbery. He's gonna see if he can impersonate Jesus. And he is very powerful with the tricks of illusion. How many want to say, "thank you, Pastor Ross," for helping us with that.

He's probably been wearing that rubber mask for half an hour. You know, I got a picture on the screen I want to show you real quick, it's what they call an optical illusion. Now, if you look in the middle of that, do you see that there are black spots? How many see black spots? Do you know what? There are no black spots. You try to pick one of them out, look at it. Whenever you try to put your eyes on one of the black spots, they move, don't they? It's because they're not there.

But when you look in the middle, it looks like they're there. It's called an "optical illusion." The devil is the master of illusion and disguise, and impersonation. He knows how to pretend that he's an angel, and that's why Jesus said, "be careful about false Christs and false prophets." How are we gonna know the difference? We've seen just in recent years many very evil false prophets and people who've pretended that they were Jesus. How can we know? We've got to read our Bibles. Haven't I been telling you? How many read your Bible today? Good for you.

Read it, yeah, when you go home tonight, pick your Bible up, pick a spot and read the Word of God. It'll keep you from being deceived by the devil, 'cause the Bible's gonna tell you how to expose his deceptions. Some other signs that Jesus is coming soon, I've got to go through them quickly, wars and disaster. Do we have war in the world today? Yes. And it's very sad when people die, and sometimes innocent people are dying.

And it's very tragic. Are there natural disasters? Yes. Matter of fact, we just had a natural disaster, we showed you the eye of a hurricane pass right near Dallas, Texas, yesterday, and it was raining, for the first time in the history of this church, right on top of this spot. Matter of fact, I got a couple of drops on my head and we prayed all this weekend that the Lord would push that storm somewhere else. We need to pray for the people that God beat up pretty bad in Texas from that storm.

There's natural disasters all over the world every day. Sometimes thousands of people die. They had a tsunami a few years ago, 240,000 people died, a natural disaster. These things are happening more frequently. Earthquakes and floods, fires-- I'm in California, we had record forest fires this year in California, all at one time.

Hundreds and even over a thousand fires were burning. That's one of the signs, Jesus said these things will increase. Another sign that I think is really important, knowledge will increase. You can read, for instance, in Daniel 12:4, it says, "but you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end, for many will run to and fro." People travel to and fro more quickly today than ever before. In just a few hours I can be back in California.

Do you know back in the days of your great-grandparents or my grandfather, it could take days to get to California before airplanes? And before that it could take weeks on a train. And before that it would take months on a horse or foot or wagon. In one generation things have changed so much. Knowledge has increased. Not only do people go to and fro, knowledge is increased.

It's just absolutely fantastic how quickly things are changing. If you look at all of the inventions, they've now got microscopic robots they're developing, where you actually swallow a camera if the doctor wants to see if you've got a tummy ache, you can swallow a camera in a pill, it goes in, it takes a bunch of pictures, I won't tell you how they collect it later, and then they check it out, the film. And things are all microscopic, and I won't ask for a show of hands; how many of you have one of these Wiis? I didn't want to ask for a show of hands, but I figured there were plenty of you out there. But they've got these whole interactive games now, and pretty soon they've got them where you put this helmet on and it does all of the exercise for you. I guess with some of them you actually have to exercise.

In just one generation, look at all of the changes that have happened. When I did my grandfather's funeral, I thought about, he died at 93, all of the changes he saw, grew up, born at home, kerosene light, used horses to get around. And he watched things change from that, where they used cannonballs to fight, to nuclear weapons. From kerosene to electricity, from the telephone to the television, to the internet to satellite, it's all showing us, Jesus is coming soon. Speaking of that, another sign of Christ's soon coming is the gospel is going to a whole world.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:14, "and the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world, for a witness to all nations, then the end will come." Do you know right now, while we're doing this program, these cameras are recording it, it's bouncing off satellites all across North America. Three angels broadcasting and hope channel are carrying this signal all around the world from this church right here. The gospel is being preached to young people just like you, in Australia, in South Africa, in Europe, in many different parts of the world. Jesus said the gospel will be preached into all the world, for witness to all nations, then the end will come. Do you believe Jesus? Are you ready for that trip through the stars? Another sign of the times, Jesus said there'd be a lot of selfishness--people only thinking about themselves.

That's the opposite of love. Now, I know you don't ever fight with your brothers or sisters or friends at school, right? So many times our fights are, you don't need to raise your hands, I already knew. I've had kids in my home for 30 years, I know. But that's one of the signs, we need more love in our hearts now. You can read in 2 Timothy 3:2 and 4--1, 2 and 4, "but know this, that in the last days men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God.

" That's a sign of the last days, Jesus said, people cold hearted. We see brutal examples of crime. People just don't care about each other and they'll shoot strangers for a pair of tennis shoes or something. And you can read Matthew 24:12, "Jesus said, because lawlessness will abound." People are without law. "The love of many grows cold.

" Again, disobedient to parents, and there are so many signs that tell us that Jesus is coming. The fighting, all of the divorces that are happening. This is not God's plan; he wants people to love each other. Children, it says disobedient to their parents. Oh, it bothers me when I hear parents calling their children and the children don't listen.

You need to obey your parents, that's one of the ten commandments, right? Number 7, how can I be ready for Jesus' coming? How many of you wan to know the answer to that. Friends at home, do you want to know the answer to that, be ready for Jesus' coming? Jesus said, "behold, I stand at the door and I knock, and if any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in." He wants to come into your hearts. You know, years ago when I went to military school, back when I was--well, the first time I went, I was 5 years old, I went to military school. Then I went again from 11 'til 13. And here's a picture here of me and a buddy named bobby boyer in our dress uniforms in military school.

I think I was about 11 or 12 there. I was 11 in that picture, because when I was 12, I had stripes on my uniform, I was company clerk. And every year they'd inspect our rooms. And boy, I'll tell you, they, military school, you've never had to clean your room like I had to clean my room, I'll just tell you that right now. We had to clean our floors so you could eat off 'em.

I mean it. We had to fold our underwear in our drawer, and they'd measure how you folded it with a ruler. It's the truth. We washed our windows inside and out. I know how to wash a window so there are absolutely no streaks in it.

Matter of fact, I'm probably a little eccentric with cleaning 'cause of the time I spent in military school, cleaning, cleaning. And I remember we would wax our floors, especially once a year we'd have what they called "government inspection." And the most important people in the military would inspect New York military academy. It was the elementary school for west point. That's where I went. And we had one of the top generals, four-star generals in the country, General William Westmoreland was inspecting one year.

And it was during the time of the Vietnam War. Or actually, yeah, it was still going on then. And we all had to stand and it was a big--we had hundreds if not thousands of cadets. We had to stand at attention in our doorway, floors all polished, waiting for the general to come. We didn't know when he was gonna come, because he'd stop at different rooms.

And some rooms failed inspection, and ooh, you got in trouble if you failed inspection. And we'd stand there at attention in our dress uniforms, all our buttons polished, our shoes polished. And after waiting hours, 'cause he inspected every room in the whole academy. Some of the kids on my floor got tired of waiting, and there were no officers on our floor, we were on the second floor, they were all on the first floor. And the kids got tired of waiting and they said, "oh, he's not here.

Someone look out the window, see if you can see him coming." And you know what they liked to do--they'd take off their shoes. And the floors were all waxed, it was like ice. And they'd run up and down the halls and they'd slide. They'd run as fast as they could and then they'd slide. And some of the kids, I said, "don't do that.

" I said, "he's gonna come, you're gonna get caught!" They said, "oh, no. Someone look out the window, watch for him." But one of the guys who was looking out the window watching, he wanted to have fun, too. And so instead of watching for General William Westmoreland and his entourage to come to Dingley Hall and inspect our building and our rooms, the kid who was supposed to be the lookout, he got out in the hall and he was going up and down the hall. Pretty soon we had three or four kids and they're taking turns, and they're laughing and they're racing up and down the hall. And they go, they'd stop, and they'd slide and they'd knock each other down.

They'd just slide on this wax floor. And you know, I have to admit it was fun, but we shouldn't have been doing it then, because we were getting ready for the most important inspection of the year. And all of the sudden we heard, "atten-hut!" And I forget exactly, they said something to introduce general william westmoreland. And right when he walked out into the middle of the hall with his entourage, two kids went sliding by. And they looked up, they couldn't stop.

And they looked up and they saw the general and they weren't ready. Do you think they passed or failed inspection? Failed! I'll tell you, you know, I was standing there in my door at attention with my white gloves on, and I kept wanting to play with the other kids, but I thought, you know, "as soon as I do that, he's gonna come." And I decided, "I want to be ready when he comes. I want to pass inspection." And, whew, was I glad. And you know what? I got to slide all I wanted after inspection, up and down the hall. That was not the time to do it.

Well, Jesus is coming, friends. And not just because we want to pass inspection, but because we love him. We don't want to wait 'til the last minute to get ready; we want to be ready now. Right? If you knew the schoolteacher was coming to visit you, would you wait until you saw her coming up the driveway before you cleaned your room? You want to have things ready to receive her before. Well, I'm promising you right now, 'cause Jesus is telling you, "I'm coming again.

" And he wants you to be ready. He wants to take you to that place he's prepared. He wants it so much, he died to save you. There's gonna be two kinds of people when Jesus comes, those that are ready and those that are not. There will be some that'll look up and say, "this is our God, we've waited for him and he will save us.

" They're looking for Jesus to come, they're excited about his coming. They want to tell their friends and get others ready for his coming. And then there are some who say, "no, I'm gonna live now for the world and for the devil. I don't really want to live for Jesus. I'm gonna live for myself.

" And, you know, those people are never very happy. My last question is, do you believe that Jesus is coming soon and do you want to be ready when he comes? What is your decision? I'm hoping that you have some cards here. And we've only got a minute left, so let's pass them out very quickly. And I'd like to ask you, and you may have to finish this after prayer when we're off the air, but I want to ask everybody to make a decision tonight. Write your name, your address on the card.

They're distributing pencils here, hopefully they're distributing these things in your group. Very simple questions, "do you want to accept Jesus?" Put a yes--put a check in box number 1, if you want to say, "I want to give my heart to Jesus and follow his teachings in the Bible." Check box number 2 if you'd like to say, "I want to be baptized and have all of my sins washed away." You can make a decision tonight to accept Jesus. And check box number 3, maybe you'd like to talk to a pastor or one of your church leaders about baptism. I'd like to encourage you to make that decision tonight, friends. I'm gonna have prayer with this group after we go off the air.

I hope the leaders who are watching will have prayer with their children and talk to them after we go off the air. When is our next meeting? Tomorrow night. I know some of you have school tomorrow, but this is the most important adventure in the world, just for seven more nights. We're looking forward to seeing you. Tomorrow night we're going to talk about the "code of the king.

" So right now, you have prayer with your groups and we'll be having prayer, God bless you. In a word surrounded by darkness, there is a voice that whispers to every young heart urging them to find the treasure of truth. Those who follow the path will discover eternal riches beyond their wildest dreams. Pastor Doug Batchelor leads your kids on a powerful, soul-winning Bible study experience just for them. The 10-part series is filled with incredible Bible stories, exciting spiritual discoveries and heart-warming music, all designed to help your kids stand with Christ for eternity.

The most valuable thing that God ever gave to this world was his word. Join us for an "Amazing Adventure, a journey for life with Jesus." Order yours now. Take the journey. If you've missed any of our "Amazing Facts" programs, visit our website at amazingfacts.org. There you'll find an archive of all our television and radio programs, including "Amazing Facts presents.

" One location, so many possibilities, amazingfacts.org.