In the Marriage of the Lamb you may be thinking particularly of the consummation of the marriage between Christ (the Lamb) and the church, which takes place in heaven after the bema seat of Christ. However, a larger view of the marriage begins at Christ’s first coming and ends at the creation of the New Heaven and New Earth. This is the view we will present here, which, as we will see, is patterned after a typical Jewish wedding. We will present it in seven parts; first describing to you the Jewish practice, followed by how the churches marriage with Christ corresponds to that practice. The wedding begins with the betrothal.
The Betrothal Period
The betrothal period for a Jewish marriage is the period between the time of the arrangement of the marriage and the actual marriage ceremony and consummation. That betrothal period in ancient days was sometimes quite…
My work. I’m a retired painter—not a lot going on. Tomorrow or the next day I will wash a deck and paint it. I do this particular deck every 3 or 4 years. The next two jobs are doors—to repaint a few doors—easy. After that I have a bedroom to paint. So, what I have lined up is easy, a little boring, but just enough to keep me out of trouble.
Bible reading. I always manage to keep myself busy, but for some reason I feel that I have sadly neglected my time in the word. Yesterday I decided that I would spend two half-hour periods reading the bible—where I am at in Exodus. I liked it. It did me good. I’m gonna try to keep doing that. I have sort of prided myself for being faithful to a morning quiet time. But recently I feel the need for more and something less structured. My goal is to fill my mind with the word of God; to meditate more on it.
My book writing. I’m sort of at a lull in my writing. I had two different books going, but I finished them. Now I’m going through them one at a time, editing them; so I am basically just checking grammar and spelling and to make sure everything is said right.
Photography and walking. For me those things go together. Without my camera walking would be too much of a chore. But walking with my camera is like hunting and an adventure. I’m always hunting with my eyes for the perfect shot. Yesterday while walking I was quite disappointed by all the overgrown weeds and grass, but I did spot two beautiful purple Morning Glories (pictured). My walk was worth it just to see them. And the way the light reflected out of the middle of the trumpet bell is gorgeous!
The Coronavirus and globalism. I am getting so turned off by all the hype and news that the pandemic is getting. I really don’t think that it is as serious as the media is telling us. But the globalists are ecstatic about it. Finally, something came along that will help unite the world. Now all they need is one vaccine for the whole world. The only disappointment they have is the US, Israel, and the Christians.
They are so angry at Donald Trump and his nationalist views. If only they could somehow get Biden to win the November election. We will see what happens. But I have a feeling that they will be in for a constant fight until the Rapture. But after the Rapture everything will change. The Rapture itself will be the driving force for globalism. It will propel all the world leaders to come together to strategize their global agenda. I think, instead of being horrified at all the disappearances the devil will cause them to be gleeful at the new global prospects.
(L-R, rear) Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien clap for US President Donald Trump (L) after he announced an agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel to normalize diplomatic ties, the White House August 13, 2020, in Washington, DC. – Trump on Thursday made the surprise announcement of a peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The normalization of relations between the UAE and Israel is a “HUGE breakthrough” Trump tweeted, calling it a “Historic Peace Agreement between our two GREAT friends.” (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
In the prophetical bible passage in Ezekiel 38:13, we are told that as invaders (mainly from Iran, Turkey and Russia) are about to invade Israel for their rich resources, Sheba and Dedan will question why they are doing it. We…
In my soon to be published book, After the Rapture, I talk about certain counties listed as Sheba, Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish who will question the Ezekiel 38 invaders (Ezek. 38:13). The invaders, listed in Ezekiel 38:2-3 and 5-6, will come upon the land of Israel seeking after “spoil” and “plunder,” are mainly Russia, Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and others (in the map in yellow).
But there are other countries closer to Israel (in green on the map) that are not listed as the invaders. These are Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and Somalia. And we can also put on the list Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and UAE. Some of these countries we can definitely say are the countries spoken of in Ezekiel 38:13, who will question the invasion saying, “Have you come to capture spoil?” These are listed in scripture as “Sheba” and Dedan,” which are definitely Yemen and Saudi Arabia and possibly other gulf states like Oman and UAE.
And we can assume that these closer countries will choose to make peace with Israel to protect themselves from Iran and Russia and all others that will align themselves with Iran.
Now, it seems, with the new peace plan between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), put together by President Donald Trump and his son in law Jerod Kushner, that these things are proving to be true. And most bible scholars are waiting for other countries to join with the UAE in a similar peace plan. Who will be next? I look especially for the big country of Saudi Arabia and also for the super-rich country of Yemen and also Oman.
These are exciting times, seeing bible prophecy come together!
When I read in the bible about how God deals with slavery and polygamy, and other sins, I have to stop and think. I sometimes wonder why He hasn’t spent more time condemning those things. It almost seems like He has just gone along with it—tolerated it. From the beginning of time it seems that slavery has occurred, and all through the Old Testament most men have had more than one wife. And divorce was also rampant. It wasn’t until Jesus came along in the New Testament that polygamy and divorce were dealt with. But even in the New Testament slavery was still an issue—still something that seemed to be excepted as normal (Eph. 6:5-9; Philemon).
Well, I don’t know what to say, except that from the beginning God gave man free will—the freedom to do as he wished. And God rarely intervened, except in the flood, and also when He directed Israel to wipe out the evil nations (by Joshua’s leadership).
But it is interesting how God has worked within the evil world system to bring testing on His people in order to discipline us. And we are commanded to live in this world without complaining so that we may appear as shinning light in the world (Phil. 2:14-15), and be a pleasure to God.
In regard to slavery, it has seemed that God hasn’t said much about it, except how masters ought to treat slaves and how slaves ought to please their masters (Eph. 6:5-9). So, even after Christ, slavery seemed to be excepted, but something that should be regulated or made acceptable —more like a boss and an employee.
But that certainly wasn’t how it has been—all the way into the 60’s in our country (USA). And it has taken a long time to change it. Even now there is still so much tension between whites and blacks. And what’s going on now with this Black Lives Matter movement is not helping. It seems to be just stirring up more bitterness.
I sometimes wonder why God didn’t put a stop to slavery from the start. Surely, He saw what would happen and the racism. But, like I said, that’s not how God chose to work. He gave us free will; and He also gave us the ability to ask for His help. We should do that. We should be constantly praying and asking Him to help us with our tendency toward racism. Instead of all the riots and the terrible BLM speeches (with awful language), made to stir people up to do horrible things, Christians should meet together to pray, and then be obedient in however He directs.
The Father has paid the price for His Son’s bride with His Son’s own blood.
In the Marriage of the Lamb you may be thinking particularly of the consummation of the marriage between Christ (the Lamb) and the church, which takes place in heaven after the bema seat of Christ. However, a larger view of the marriage begins at Christ’s first coming and ends at the creation of the New Heaven and New Earth. This is the view we will present here, which, as we will see, is patterned after a typical Jewish wedding. We will present it in seven parts; first describing to you the Jewish practice, followed by how the churches marriage with Christ corresponds to that practice. The wedding begins with the betrothal.
1 The Betrothal Period
The betrothal period for a Jewish marriage is the period between the time of the arrangement of the marriage…
While I was busy writing books, I was also engaged in activities to bolster my spiritual growth. I think it was just after my divorce, about 1991, I heard about these local, yearly prophecy conferences. There was usually three or four speakers and the conference lasted all day long. Each speaker was different, but they all had a message on bible prophecy. A few years later another much larger, yearly prophecy conference began, which was organized by Jan Markel. She also featured a weekly radio program with a special guest. That was especially helpful to me, and it also encouraged me to read and study prophecy subjects and passages on my own. Eventually, I became confident enough to push forward with a book: Biblical Evidence of a Pre-Tribulation Rapture. I found out first hand that you learn more from your own personal study than by just listening to a message.
Another area of my life that I started working on was the area of my sexual purity. The year was 2003. I heard about this event called National Coalition for Purity Rally from a flier that I received in the mail. And so, I decided to check it out. The main speaker was quite dynamic and he made the bold claim that anyone could master their own purity. They defined purity in three ways: no pornography, no sexual fantasy, and no masturbation. Well, since I could use help in all those areas I decided to join. I signed up for their boot camp, which was followed by weekly purity platoons. Surprisingly, right away I felt a new spiritual power help me in all areas of purity. The power I was convinced came from the Holy Spirit moving through the unified prayers of all the guys in the group, as well as from the Scriptures we were learning and memorizing. It was dynamic. I stayed with that group for about ten years. I have to admit that I am not as pure as I once was, but at least I know that with enough prayer power and with sufficient quality time in the word, it is possible to achieve any level of purity that I set my heart to.
A third area of growth in my life has been in the area of prayer—group prayer as well as personal prayer. It is important to have your own personal, private, daily prayer time—mine is in the morning; but I sense the most powerful prayer results come in group prayer when you are praying together in agreement and in unity. The devil will constantly try to break up your prayer group, but fight against him. Find ways to pray together. I look for every opportunity available. These days small groups have been so helpful to me, especially in the area of prayer.
Almost immediately after I published Biblical Evidence of a Pre-Tribulation Rapture, I began working on my next book, After the Rapture: What Happens On Earth and In Heaven After the Rapture. I am almost finished with the book. I only have a little bit of the last chapter left and the introduction—I always leave the intro until last. I am so excited to get this book published. I think it is my best writing. It flowed off my pen more than the previous books, and without much rewriting or editing. Also, it is more controversial, and allows for more guesswork. In other words, I go beyond what the Scripture gives us. I start with the Scriptures and then I make a good, educated guess at how things will play out. I put my imagination to work.
Okay, here is a rundown of the book, chapter by chapter. I begin in just three or four pages, describing what it will be like just before the Rapture. Much of it is what is going on right now: false prophets, evil, wars, famine, and lawlessness.
I outlined the book in two parts, part one is On Earth After the Rapture, in ten chapters; and part Two is In Heaven After the Rapture, in just two chapters. I begin the first chapter by describing what I think will be the immediate effects of the Rapture. I go fast and furious through this chapter, first describing automobile and airplane accidents, but I also talk about people’s fears and panic and grief and rioting. We know all about rioting, but it will be much worse than what we are experiencing now.
In chapter two I will talk about the different theories that will emerge as to why so many people have disappeared—especially in the more Christian countries like Kenya and the United States (and a few others). Of course, this is all guesswork on my part; but some ideas have already been expressed in writing. New Agers have written much on this. Here I delve into some very bizarre things such as alien abductions and parallel dimensions.
In chapter tree I discuss the probable collapses; economic, institutional, government and moral.
In chapter four through eight I write on the rise of a new global government, a new global religion, and the Antichrist. Many, I am aware, think that these things will not happen until the Tribulation period, but I argue that they will begin to happen in the period between the Rapture and the Tribulation, which is why I think that that period could be as long as ten years. It will be a very tumultuous time, seeing so much evil; yet for some, a very exciting time seeing so many changes take place all under the banner of unity (a false unity)—a world unified government and a world unified religion.
In chapter nine I talk about the Ezekiel Invasion (from Ezekiel 38-39). Many place this war during the Tribulation, but I see it happening just before the Tribulation, and I give my reasons.
Chapter ten covers the very exciting topic of the third temple. I discuss here how all the articles are already made and ready for use. I discuss the building progress but also the obstacles of the progress.
Then in chapter eleven I begin part two on what transpires in heaven after the Rapture. Here I point out that we will first face the Bema, which is when all we who have been raptured will be judged according to our works, whether good or bad.
The last chapter is on the Marriage of the Lamb, our marriage to Christ. Many will disagree with me here, but I argue that our marriage to Christ will be patterned after the typical Jewish wedding. And the reason for their disagreement is because it will set forth a biblical proof of the Rapture.
Now in a typical Jewish wedding ritual, after the groom establishes the marriage covenant with the bride, he then returns to his father’s house to prepare a place for the bride, but promises that he will soon come again to get her and take her to be with him in his father’s house.
The key biblical passage here is John 14:2-3, where Jesus tells His disciples, “I go and 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 ye may be also.” This passage, as you can see, follows the pattern of the Jewish wedding, and it is unmistakably, also what happens at the Rapture of the church.
Well, like I said, I am not quite finished with the book, but I will be very soon. I anticipate it to be published maybe by Christmas, 2020.
I’m not sure exactly what I expected in terms of sales for my books. I thought that I would get some sales, at least for my e-books that I was selling on the Lulu website for just two or three dollars. But nothing! —for months and months. Finely, I decided to make them free. That way at least people wouldn’t have the excuse of not being able to afford them. Well, right away people were starting to order the free e-books. And I felt better, because now the books were at least getting out there.
I know there is a lot more I could do to sell my books, but I hate that part of it—the marketing part, which takes money, something I don’t have. But maybe someday. In the meantime, I will just keep writing. My first project was to rewrite, or edit my prayer books. After reading a few chapters I realized there was so many things I could improve on—ways to make the writing better, clearer. My mom told me that I repeat myself a lot. She was right. My roommate James also mentioned that I use the words thus, therefore and hence far too much. He was right too. Then I found a book by William Zinsser entitled On Writing Well. I learned so much from his book about how not to be so wordy, to say things in less words. So anyway, I went over my book (and that also included my six smaller books), and in just about every paragraph I found something to change. Basically, the content remained the same, I just did some editing that made it read better. It took about a year.
After that I was eager to move on to my next project. I chose the subject of bible prophecy. That entire field has intrigued me for many years, and I really wanted to write a book about it, particularly on the subject of the rapture of the church. I have been a big proponent of the pre-tribulation rapture, and I was ready to lay out the biblical evidence for that view. Even before doing any work on the subject I decided that the title of the book would be, Biblical Evidence of a Pre-tribulation Rapture.
The book was outlined in four parts. In part one, in four chapters I lay out the ground work for the rapture. I describe it from key Scripture passages, including from Daniel 9:24-27. I also talk about Israel and the church, particularly the false teaching of replacement theology.
In part two, I decided to take a detour from the rapture study and look briefly at the kingdom of God—the Millennium. I thought it would be good for the reader to get the big picture of what God would be doing in the future, especially for the Jews. That was a great study. In fact, I got so into it that I decided to make a separate book from it, which I entitled The Coming Millennial Kingdom. Wow! What a detour that was. So, what I did for part two was to just write an abbreviated version of that book.
Part three is basically a bible study of all the Scripture verses of both the rapture and the second coming, which I refer to as two phases of His coming. The first phase is the rapture, and the second phase is His second coming to the earth to set up His kingdom. I concluded from the study that there are 29 verses that refer to the rapture, and 34 verses that refer to the second coming. I also found 16 characteristics of the rapture and 16 characteristics of the second coming. I remember that I thought it was so profound to find 16 characteristics for each phase of His coming.
In part four I show why the rapture must come before the tribulation. First, I give 19 reasons why the pre-tribulation view is the correct view. Then in the last chapter I look at four conflicting views and offer my rebuttal. The four views are: the partial rapture theory, the mid-tribulation rapture theory, the pre-wrath rapture theory, and the post-tribulation rapture theory.
At first, I admit that I was a little afraid of doing this study, thinking that my view in my mind would be weakened. But the reverse was true. I was able to very easily bring a good rebuttal to each and every point. None of their views hold any water. I found that the only view that is biblically correct is the Pre-Tribulation view.
This is a difficult topic, and in order to answer it we must look at a few Scriptures to get a clear understanding of it. First of all, the main passage in Revelation 21:4 that we generally go to that mentions tears must be taken in its proper context. What this verse is telling us is that in heaven, or in the eternal state, there will be no tears, nor will there be death or mourning or crying or pain. Now the question is, when will these things be wiped away or taken away? Well, it seems logical to me that they will disappear instantly when we are translated into the eternal state…or into heaven.
Another passage that confirms what we are saying is 1 Corinthians 15:52-55. It is the famous Rapture passage. It speaks of our changing into what is “imperishable,” and when we put on “immortality.” Then…
(L-R, rear) Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien clap for US President Donald Trump (L) after he announced an agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel to normalize diplomatic ties, the White House August 13, 2020, in Washington, DC. – Trump on Thursday made the surprise announcement of a peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The normalization of relations between the UAE and Israel is a “HUGE breakthrough” Trump tweeted, calling it a “Historic Peace Agreement between our two GREAT friends.” (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images) 
Stephen Nielsen 