NO. LIVERMORE — At the North Livermore Baptist Church April 18, service: The congregation was welcomed by Pastor Bonnie Higgins at 9:30 a.m. to begin the service.
The Call to Worship was read and the Invocation/Lord’s Prayer was recited. The hymns that were sung was “Wonderful Words of Life”, “There Shall Be Showers of Blessing”, “What if it Were Today?”. We completed the service with “Go Now in Peace”. Linda Lyman is the organist each week.
The sermon, titled “Left Behind? What Happens Next?” reading the scripture from Revelation 20:11-15. Pastor Bonnie started out reminding the congregation that last week she spoke about Jesus coming back for His Church. This week, Pastor Bonnie spoke about what will happen for those who are left behind. The Bible speaks about the end times throughout the Old and New Testament. God has always known that He needed a plan to save His Church and to punish those who didn’t accept His Son, Jesus Christ.
After the Church is taken up with Jesus, the rest of the people left behind will continue on with their lives as they wish, until a new person, the Antichrist, will take charge. At first, he will bring peace to the earth and everyone left will follow him. He will make a covenant with Israel for seven years, which is known as the Tribulation. During the first 3½ years, things will go quite well. There will be peace for everyone, or they think. Then the turning point will be when the Antichrist will break the covenant with Israel and the Antichrist will strive to be worshiped and people will do it. During the last 3½ years, famine, wars, plagues, and natural disasters will happen. For the people to eat or work they will need to pledge allegiance to the Antichrist by taking the mark of the beast. Once people take the mark of the beast, the people will seal their fate and eternity in Hell.
Pastor Bonnie went on to say that there will be some who will come to know Jesus during the Tribulation. Those will be called the tribulation saints. They are the ones that will come to accept Jesus after the rapture. Even though they will be martyred during the Tribulation by orders of the Antichrist, they will spend eternity with Jesus. There will still be those who come to know Jesus and spread the gospel during this time.
So, why would God do this? There are consequences for all things, good or bad. For those who accept Jesus, eternity in Heaven and with the Father is waiting for them. For those who reject Jesus now, will pay the price of God’s wrath. God wants to give them a taste of what they will endure in Hell for eternity. God wants everyone to accept Jesus, and He gives them another chance to do that during the Tribulation. God has said in scriptures that Judgment Day is coming and the penalty is severe to those who reject Jesus.
During the Tribulation, scriptures tell us that Jesus will unleash the Seven Seal Judgments, the Seven Trumpet Judgments and the Seven Bowl Judgments, each one worse than the ones before. By the end of the Great Tribulation, the world will be destroyed by fire. God needed to destroy the world at this point, so, the new Jerusalem will come from the heavens for all who believed in Jesus will live in a perfect world, in peace and harmony. This will go on for a thousand years as Jesus reigns and Satan and the Antichrist is locked up in the Abyss. For a short time, Satan will be up to his old tricks, and then Jesus will send him to hell forever.
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