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Where we apply scriptural principles to every day Christian lives.
Podcast4Him
96 | FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out): Overcoming Rapture Phobia
Do you have End Time or Rapture Phobia? In his episode, Sean and Jon discuss the "Fear of Missing Out" - We discover the truth behind the fear, coming misconceptions about the rapture and how to overcome your fears!
But has God made you feel unworthy, or was it people that claimed to follow Him that made you feel unworthy or guilty? Did God make you feel unworthy or was it because you felt unworthy in your own mind? Are you beating yourself up Now? I've got to be honest with you. You're probably being too hard on yourself. You're listening to the Everyday Christian Podcast, where we apply scriptural principles to everyday Christian lives. I'm John Rich.
Speaker 2:And I'm Sean Sloggett, and today we will be talking about FOMO, fomo, fear of missing out on the rapture. To be a little more specific, the rapture is something that every Sorry guys, I'm rubbing on something here.
Speaker 1:It's annoying me that every.
Speaker 2:Sorry guys, I'm rubbing on something here. It's annoying me. The rapture is something that every Christian has heard or talked about at least once in their lifetime. To me, it seems like it's seldom talked about until somebody finally breaks the ice on the conversation.
Speaker 2:And then when they do it finally breaks loose and you have to talk about it. Wednesday night Bible study have multiple three-part sermons by multiple ministers. Every podcast gets on it. So I guess, in essence, here we are breaking the ice, so the discussion can be started on this. You know, when we talk about the rapture, we're of course referring to Christ returning to earth and gathering up the Christians that have followed after him. While the word rapture is not found in the Bible, it was originated in around the 1830s by a man named John Nelson Darby. The idea and concept behind it is biblical. Again, there are differences in timing pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib but the idea stays similar. I'm not going to be discussing much on pre-, mid or post-trib. I don't know if Jonathan is or not. The only thing I will say about this is just be ready. People talk about it quite a bit. My philosophy on it has always been I'm just going to be ready.
Speaker 1:Trid, whenever he comes, I want to be ready for it, yeah and I think that, whether you're someone who believes in the rapture or not, I mean even that I know there are individuals that are my friends that believe certain or different things about the rapture. I'm not really, and I know, Brother Sean, we study for these messages and we sort of come together and try to have at least a baseline of what we're talking about. Me personally, I'm not really going to talk about the rapture itself, at least not dive into a lot of the details behind it, because I think you could talk for days on end about that subject, Till the sun goes down next week. We could talk about that subject, but I don't really want to get the sun is going down later and I am excited about it, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:We could speak on that for a long time, and I understand that having a fear of the rapture highly depends on whether you believe in it or not. So, for the sake of this episode, we are going to be on that side, that side that believes in the rapture. Again, sean and I, we believe in it. If you don't, that's fine. But none of those other things really matter to me, and I know that some of you are going to hate hearing me say that I don't particularly care if you're pre-, mid or post-tribulation. That's not what the point is of this lesson in particular, and it's also not who our target audience is with this lesson or this message. We have people that listen to us, that want theology, and we try to provide that for them. They want certain doctrine. We try to provide that for them. They want to dive in to deep discussions that most of your average everyday Christian is not going to understand. This episode's probably not for you. It's more for those who are struggling with the fear of missing out, brother Sean.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, I'll read some scriptures here 1 Thessalonians, 4, 16 and 17. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. These scriptures is where we get our concept or idea of the rapture, or from behind, where the rapture is based. So, as was mentioned before, rapture not being in the Scripture but the concept is there.
Speaker 2:From a child I have had this fear of the rapture. Of course it was something that was talked about, preached on At some point in me growing up, where that fear did start to happen. And I had two main fears that I had, if I can put it that way, which kind of splintered off into everything else the fear of not growing up. I wanted to grow up. I wanted to make money, I wanted to get married, have kids, go on vacations, all these things. And when it's late at night, it's dark in your room and you're laying there as a child, wondering if these things are ever going to happen or, if you know, is the Lord going to come back now? You know. The other fear I had was if Christ came back right now, am I ready? Yeah, if Christ came back right now.
Speaker 2:am I ready? If I am ready, will he be satisfied with the child or the kid that I am? Have I done enough for his kingdom? Even as a child I have had all these fears and thoughts. Even sometimes to this day, those things seem to come to my mind. When those fears do come to me, I think on all the good that I can. You know, as a child I wondered will I ever get my driver's license? I specifically remember that was one. I don't know why. I just wanted to get to 16 and get my driver's license Right. But now I am 32 and I have my driver's license.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now you wish you were Google back in time and be a kid again license.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now you wish you were Google back in time and be a kid again. I don't know about that. But you know, I wanted to get married and I'm married to a beautiful, wonderful woman. I wanted kids. I now have four kids. I tell people I have four and Jay has five, but that's right. Uh, you know, I think of the little bit that I have done to try, and you know, when those fears come, I try to think of the little bit that I have done to try and help God's kingdom. I also remind myself of Matthew 634, which says Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself, sufficient unto the days, the evil thereof, and I want to introduce this episode to you, and I want to introduce it by asking questions.
Speaker 1:I want you to think about these questions. I want you to really not dwell on them necessarily, but just give it some thought, give it a day. And that question is are you afraid of the rapture? Do you fear that God will take people away and that you will be left behind? Left? Have you ever walked?
Speaker 2:yeah, those that was one of those things that freaked me out, those movies slapped though those books are pretty good. They may have, but as a child, when you're trying to listen to something, to go to sleep and the left behind series comes on yeah okay, I'd put an odyssey tape in, because I'm about to cry myself to sleep.
Speaker 1:And most of the time they weren't. We talked about not doing doctrine, but they probably weren't as biblically accurate as well, but we'll move on from there. If you like the Left Behind series. I apologize, but do you have that fear of being left behind? Have you ever walked in the house? I actually wrote this down because I know we all sort of have had this feeling. You walked into the house, you hollered for your wife or kids, or your husband and kids, and when they don't call back, you have a fear, grip your heart. You're like they should be here. Where are they at? And it could be several other fears. You know, maybe they're just outside or you know, maybe something even more sinister happened to them. But even as a young person we talk about a young person where it's like I can't find my parents.
Speaker 2:I can't find my brothers Waking up from a nap as a child and nobody's in the house yeah. My little brother. I think it was my little brother. I know I'm interrupting, but he fell asleep in church one time and, for whatever reason, we forgot him and we lived like 45 minutes away. Yeah, so we're halfway home before one of his kids is like, hey, where's Ducky? And it's like, oh snap, we don't have him. Can you imagine waking up as a child in a church?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's pitch black and nobody's there. Yeah, you thought the rapture happened. I'm sure he thought well, I missed it yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think we've all faced those things as believers, as people who have been under those teachings, those preachings as Sean mentioned earlier. Every once in a blue moon you've got a series about it and we've all faced those things. I've had people tell me several individuals in fact, that have told me friends, family, that have told me, you know, there's been moments like that that they've had and that overcoming feeling of anxiety with the thought that maybe you have missed the rapture, that maybe there was a hidden sin in your heart that you don't know about. And there are a number of reasons why individuals fear missing the rapture. I think Sean touched upon those, but a few key reasons as well are fear that I won't make heaven, or fear that you won't make it through the great tribulation.
Speaker 1:And something that has always been amazing to me is when we quote scripture like 2 Timothy 1 and 7, which you are familiar with. It says For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And when we read that, we read it as believing that whatever fear grips us, it is from the devil or it's from ourselves. But we often overlook that the fear is not given to us from God. I know we touch on that, but we very seldom focus on that portion of it. We want to focus on everything the devil brings against us, but we forget that the Bible says that the fear is not of God and we believe that if we fear something evil it is not from God. But I write this, I wrote this down and I submit it to you that if we fear something that is supposed to be good, that fear is not from God either, especially if it is something that gathers us together with Christ.
Speaker 1:Do we fear that we have done something wrong that will cause us to miss the rapture? Is there something that we have not even thought of and therefore cannot confess? Anytime I've had those feelings. I've had that thought process. It always brought me confusion. Why? Because I'm striving to do right, I'm following God's commandments of loving my neighbor, I follow God's law but, most importantly, because I'm saved, because His mercy has restored and because His mercy and grace will keep me. When we have a fear that we will miss the rapture, it takes away from the goodness and grace of God, brother Sean.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, when you think of those things, have I missed out on it? And you know there are several things that come to mind when you think of that. Have I done this? Have I done that? Is there some secret sin that even I don't know about, which is? You know, some of those fears are I can't think of the word right now maybe healthy fears, if I can put it that way. But I will say, you know, if you're wondering, do I have some unconfessed sin that's going to cause me to miss out on the rapture? Probably not.
Speaker 2:You know, if you're doing everything that you can to follow the Word, be as scriptural, be as biblical as you can, loving your neighbor, being a witness, the list goes on. But if you're doing all those things and you have this torment, that maybe there's something that I missed. That's the devil talking to you. That's him trying to see if he can drum something up to get you to pull away from it. Yeah, you know, even if it's maybe a fear or a sin that has happened and it comes to your mind that you know, whatever the sin might be, but that comes like, hey, the devil or yourself, you start bothering yourself. Well, you did this, you did this, you did that.
Speaker 2:Well, you have one of two options Either point back to where you did, get it prayed through, or if you feel that and fear and conviction runs together. But it's two different things. So, if you feel the fear and then there's a little conviction with it, go pray about it, just pray it through and get it over with. Well, there was this one sin, but I'm not sure if I got it. Let's fix it right now. Let's go pray it through and get ourselves back on the right track. So, you know, that's definitely something that I try to look at is, as Brother Jonathan said, is it? What is the fear? What is it that's causing it, and is this something that I can control?
Speaker 1:Real quick side note. We are live, by the way. We're live on Facebook, youtube, we're live on Twitch, I believe, and we did get a message from somebody we were talking about the Left Behind series and they said it's from that Justin Jones guy. It says I'm not sure if I've met you before, but it says greetings, gentlemen listening while making crips for some of my friends. And then it says biblically accurate left behind movies over biblically accurate angels, which is it's pretty funny. All right, anyway, we'll move on from there, but I like that.
Speaker 2:I think that I saw a deal today about angels said if you say, your wife looks like a Side note your wife looks like an angel when. I come to see her. She better have six wings, the face of a lion and like it just.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when we talk about angels, we're talking about, you know, precious moments, angels, maybe, I don't know Like we're not talking about biblically accurate angels, but I think you know, as I mentioned before, when we fear we'll miss the rapture, it takes away from the goodness and grace of God. And I've heard folks preach this and compare the Ark of Noah to the rapture of the church. And I'm not against that kind of preaching, nor am I discounting or disproving those comparisons. But what preachers often do is they say that Noah, for 120 years he preached to people to get on the boat, get on the ark, and then no one listened. This is I'm not saying For 120 years he preached to people to get on the boat, get on the ark, and then no one listened. This is I'm not saying. I said this. I'm saying this is what many preachers say. And because they didn't listen, they missed getting on the ark and the rain came and they ended up perishing. And then they compare and say it's the same way with Christ coming back for the church, that there is coming a day when Christ will return and if you're not ready, then you'll not make it, or that the door of the ark will close. Now, if Noah did preach to those individuals, then he was preaching to individuals who were lost and did not believe. So why are you, as a Christian, worried about something that is focused on the life of an unbeliever? I know in part why Sean and I are working together to build this and I know in part why and there are deep psychological reasons for it there are deep fears for it that we're going to talk about, but there are a few reasons why we fear missing the rapture. The number one reason I can think of is because we have been preached to and programmed to believe that if I make one mistake or slip up, that God will leave me behind, even if I don't know what that mistake or slip up, that God will leave me behind even if I don't know what that mistake or slip up was.
Speaker 1:There are churches that teach that the rapture could happen at any second, which is fine, but it leads to constant fear rather than joyful expectation, the way that message is being preached, and this makes believers feel like they must be in a perfect spiritual state every moment or they risk being left behind. We're going to say left behind a lot, but to be in a perfect state at every moment I don't believe it's possible. I don't believe that you're going to be perfect every minute of every day. You can believe that that's fine, that's your belief. This is my belief.
Speaker 1:There are people that will preach and teach that a life of perfection is possible and that you'll be damned forever if you don't adhere to it. They'll preach scripture or preach from scripture, like out of Matthew 24, 40 through 41. I'm getting a little bit into the weeds here, but I'm trying to draw something out which I encourage every listener to read into the context of that scripture Matthew 24, 40 through 41. It says that two men are working in a field and they say that those two people are ones who claim to be Christian and one of those people are left behind and one of those are taken away, and that that is the rapture of the church. Again, not getting into the rapture discussion or debate, but there's more. There's a lot of evidence that this scripture is actually referring to the second coming of Christ and not the rapture, and it's stating that the person that remains is like Noah and the person that's taken away is like those who are taken by the flood. If you read the context of that scripture again. Not arguing that, not going back and forth, just please read it for yourself.
Speaker 1:I understand that Bibles, that believers need correction. I understand that people need guidance. I understand that they need the Bible, they need teachers. I need a preacher, I need a teacher. But I also understand that fear is not a tactic that we should give to believers to cause them to obey the rules that we have put in the Bible.
Speaker 1:I get and I agree with what Brother Sean's saying and I know what he's trying, what he's mentioning. He was like I'm trying to figure out the word and I get it. We have a sort of healthy fear. When the Holy Ghost I'm going to talk about the Holy Ghost, conviction, when God convicts our hearts, there is a sort of what we call fear and that's good. Those are great things. By the way, we treat conviction as if it's a terrible thing. It's not. It's a good thing. It means I have work to do and God's grace is enough, because if it wasn't for God's grace, you would have never had that conviction or what we're calling that healthy fear.
Speaker 1:But if all that I'm preached to and preached about is doom and gloom, hell or nothing, you know, heaven or hell, all these things. I'm not saying don't ever preach on that. I'm not saying Jesus didn't talk about hell more times than he talked about heaven. I get all those arguments. But I'm saying is, if all that we're spoken to and preached at and taught is fear, fear, fear, fear, the more you hear it, the more you're going to believe it. There are psychologists, there are tests that say that it takes multiple exposures, often anywhere from 70 to 20 times, for a new idea to become ingrained in our minds. If we're constantly hearing fear and we're not hearing love, we're not hearing mercy, we're not hearing grace, we're not hearing peace, if all that we're hearing every Sunday is fear this, fear this, do this, do this or else this, then we are going to have and cultivate a mind that is full of fear. If something is repeated consistently, it will eventually become a core belief, whether it's true or not.
Speaker 1:There are fear-based teachings or experiences that reprogram our brains, that create anxiety around certain topics.
Speaker 2:If you study. You know he mentioned the psychologist going and doing different studies, and there's a whole bunch of this all throughout, I mean throughout time. One very one huge example I guess I should say is you know, when Hitler first came on the scene, he made comments like he was going to take over the world without ever firing a bullet. And you look at stuff like that. How in the world could you even do that? And the more you hear it, the more you believe it. It's propaganda and there is good propaganda and there is bad propaganda, absolutely. You know, hitler commissioned some people to start making comic books and different things, cartoons or whatever the case was. But all of these that he did he just threw a little socialism, a little communism all throughout, and the superhero was always the socialist or the communist superhero Right.
Speaker 2:And after a couple generations, you know, these young kids that were growing up are reading these comic books because we like comic books and that's what young boys do. So over time their mindset actually shifted to it, to where, when they were adults, when that idea was presented, they've been reading about it for the last 10, 15 years and it was very easy for him just to come through and start taking over. Yeah, peanut Butter and Jesus kind of adopted. You know, I'm sure a lot of you guys have probably heard some about Peanut Butter and Jesus. But they have kind of adopted some of that tactic where they do comics and stuff, they make the sack lunches and pass them out.
Speaker 2:But that's not all they do. They always try to make sure that there's a coloring page or something in there that talks about Jesus, because if you can get Jesus in front of these kids at four years old, eight years old, 12 years old, whatever, they may not recognize it all the time, but they start connecting the dots. Well, hey, those people used to always bring me food every Saturday and we've had children, or I've heard stories of children saying man, this is the only meal I've had this week. Can I have another bag? Absolutely, you can, okay.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry this is the only I've had this week. Right, can I have another bag? Absolutely, you can. Okay, I'm sorry, this is the only. It's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a bag of chips or some little snack. So they start connecting the dots when they get older. Like, hey, there was one group that always took care of me, right, they brought me a sack lunch and there was something in there about Jesus. They brought me a sack lunch and there was something in there about Jesus. And you know, it helps connect the dots over time.
Speaker 1:So the more you hear it, the more you believe it is absolutely. Well, I think about Romans 10, 17. I wrote this down Romans 10, 17,. With what you're saying it says. So then, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. But just as faith grows by hearing God's Word, fear also grows when we hear repeatedly negative messages or a twist of the Word of God. Now I've got to tell you, listen, if you're a minister and you're a preacher, I've preached and I've taught and I've tried to do my best with what I feel God has given me according to His Word. But if all that I preach is the devil, this, the devil, that the devil, this, the devil that you're going to miss the rapture, you're going to go to hell. You're going to miss the rapture, you're going to go to hell. It puts a sense of fear in.
Speaker 2:You're not doing enough, You're not meeting it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it belittles people, it twists the gospel in such a way that it appears to be the truth because it's coming from the Bible. I've got to tell you you can take Scripture in the Bible and you can misuse it when you are preaching, even though it's true, and you can use it in a negative way. Or you can take Scripture and the Bible and read it out of context and provide it to your audience and make it whatever you want it to be, and both of those things are wrong. If you're taking Scripture, you're reading the Bible and you're trying to apply it to someone's life and you're doing it incorrectly, or you're doing it with one subject in mind. You're not giving the whole gospel experience, you're not speaking about everything that the Bible's saying. So I would say be careful with that. Be careful when you are preaching about the rapture. Be careful when you're preaching about hell. Be careful when you're preaching about all of these, what I would deem as somewhat discouraging things, because people, when they hear it, they believe it.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing is that fear is stronger when tied to emotion. We're talking about how we have been programmed to fear, and a lot of that fear is tied to emotion. Emotionally charged messages create stronger fears. Listen, I'm going to get a lot of people upset at me and I'm not saying necessarily this is right or necessarily this is wrong, but when I hear a message that is preached and all of the lights go out in the sanctuary and then the trumpet blows by someone up on the platform as a tactic to get people to come to the altar, listen, you need to be careful, that's all I have to say. You need to be careful because you are trying to charge people and trying to reach people through fear by plugging and messing with their emotions.
Speaker 1:If a teaching is tied to fear, shame or trauma, it's going to stick faster. Fear is more powerful when it is paired with a personal experience or with punishment. I think about when a child hears God will punish you for every mistake, or they hear something along those lines repeatedly. They're going to develop spiritual anxiety. If a sermon frequently emphasizes that you're not perfect, that if you're not perfect you'll miss the rapture, then fear is going to set in because it is charging us emotionally. So we are programmed and you are programmed Like if you fear this every day. You have been programmed by some sort of teaching, preaching YouTube video, whatever it is, some sort of teaching. Preaching YouTube video, whatever it is, to believe it, because it's constantly being said to you. Some of it is not biblically accurate and a lot of it, or almost all of it, is tied to your emotion, brother Sean.
Speaker 2:Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well, we feel like we're being programmed okay. So that program is there. But the other side of it is like why do we fear missing the rapture or fear going to heaven? It's because we feel as though we're unworthy or we have guilt. And there is a third thing I wrote on here too that's connecting all this.
Speaker 1:But I want to ask some more questions, like am I saved? Or, better yet, did Jesus save you? Have you ever had a salvation experience that included repentance? If you can answer yes, then why would you worry?
Speaker 1:Or why should you feel guilt? Why do you feel guilt? Is it because of the devil? Is it because of people? Is it because of the preacher? Is it because of the teacher or the missionary or the man of God or the woman of God? The preacher, is it because of the teacher or the missionary or the man of God or the woman of God? And now I want to ask you this is it because of God?
Speaker 1:And I'm not trying to simplify your guilt, I'm not trying to say or take away everything with the magic wand, with words. I know there are deeper and more complex issues that go on in the mind that will cause guilt to be difficult to remove. Don't listen. You know me better than that if you've listened before. But has God made you feel unworthy, or was it people that claimed to follow Him that made you feel unworthy or guilty? Did God make you feel unworthy or was it because you felt unworthy in your own mind? Are you beating yourself up? Now? I've got to be honest with you. You're probably being too hard on yourself.
Speaker 1:I had a friend I was talking with a few days ago and we talked for like an hour and a half on the phone and this friend was telling me about all of these things. Like you know, this is how God thinks of me. He thinks I'm nothing. He's embarrassed by me. I did this. I did that. I shouldn't have done this. People hate me. People are talking about me. He just kept going on and on and on, and I've like 20 or 30 minutes of him constantly saying those things, and I waited for him to be done speaking and the first thing that I said to him was you're being too hard on yourself. You're being harder on yourself than what God is being on you. You're putting thoughts in your head of what other people are thinking without actually knowing that, and if you're listening to this episode.
Speaker 1:I need you to understand something and we have other content that we've discussed overcoming guilt but I need you to know stop being so hard on yourself. I don't care what everyone else said on the outside. What does God say? God didn't say those things. God doesn't feel that way we like to think. God feels a way that we feel, but God doesn't. God doesn't love you that way. God loves you more than you love yourself.
Speaker 1:You didn't make a mistake that other Christians have not made before. You didn't do something that is unforgivable. You didn't have a moment of weakness that God wasn't prepared for and that his grace won't cover. You are not a nobody, you are a somebody, and if the fear of missing the rapture, the fear of the coming of Christ, the fear of am I going to hell when I die, is based off the guilt that God never gave you, then it's time to let go of that guilt and take on God's grace. When he forgave you, he forgave you of all. When you mess up, he doesn't throw you away like some backslidden person. He cares for you like a son and like a daughter. Stop being so hard on yourself.
Speaker 2:That's where that fear or conviction comes from. That I mentioned just a few minutes ago. You know, if it's you beating yourself up, if it's the preacher, teacher, if it's somebody else, whatever the case is, that's hard for me to argue and say that there's maybe some conviction tied to it. I'm not saying that others cannot be used of God, but most of the time that's a fear. And if you feel God dealing with you over, that's the conviction side of it where we need to answer to that and say, hey, maybe there is something going on here and you're absolutely right. God's not just going to throw you aside because you mess up, he's a God that's going to give you a chance.
Speaker 2:John 3.16,. We've all heard it. You know, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever. And that's it for whosoever. He didn't say for some, for the holiness church, for the church of God, for the assembly, for the Baptist, it doesn't matter, it's for whosoever. If you're being too hard on yourself and again, we're not trying to simplify this we understand that there's struggles that come with it. But if you're being too hard on yourself or if you're letting those other voices talk to you about all these things. Take a step back. Realize it's for whosoever will. If you feel like you need to go pray a little bit about it, do that, go pray about it, but remember God took care of it all. Yeah, you're not, it's been said. But you're not going to accidentally sin. Yeah, there's not. It's not going to be like, oh well, I just accidentally went and killed somebody.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you're texting and driving. I don't know why I laughed at that.
Speaker 2:It's not good that I laughed at that. If you're texting and driving or doing something like that, but you're not going to just go steal a candy bar on purpose If it accidentally ends up in your cart and you forgot to scan it. Good luck trying to convince me. That's a sin.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. I mean, it was an honest mistake. Yeah, I'll give you that you messed up. That was a mistake. You didn't sin. Yeah, you know sin is knowingly going and doing something Right. Right, and if you sin, then God's going to try to deal with your conscience and convict you of it and then you can correct it. Right, If you sin and I'll throw a hypothetical out here because I'm sure somebody's thinking of it or somebody will think of it what if I sin and the rapture happens and God comes back? How does your heart feel?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've talked about that before.
Speaker 2:We have, if you sin knowingly and you don't get a chance to go apologize or try to make it right. But you feel that prick in your heart, right, because and this is how it goes for me I don't know about everybody else, but when I feel that prick in my heart, immediately before I can even go talk to somebody or try to fix it, I'm just like God, I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, I mean 0.2 seconds and I'm like, oh man, I shouldn't have done that. God help me. And then I'm going to go try to fix it Right, I'm going to do everything in my power to fix it. But God is the one that you need to be worried about your sin with, most importantly, and secondly with the individual, if need be.
Speaker 1:So you're not going to just miss out on it because you sinned two seconds before it happened yeah and it's going to be a constant effort to pull away from God, a constant effort to come away, pull away from God. You know, if you, if you look, you really need to study what blasphemy in the Holy ghost means Side note, by the way, and I've got a class where I taught about it If you want to know what blasphemy in the Holy ghost actually means. But it is a constant. When you constantly are pulling yourself away from God and you're constantly doing things you know are wrong and you're constantly bashing God, that is a heart that is turned away from God, not something that Sean was talking about, where it's like I didn't even realize. You know that I, like, you're going to know when you lie. You're going to know when you kind of twisted the truth a little bit. I've done that before. You know. I've done that even in my adult years. I'm like I didn't say that quite right and I go back and I'm like I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:And if you don't realize you're lying, then maybe you need to go pray through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a whole different lesson.
Speaker 2:It's true, if it takes you six hours to realize you lied to somebody. You can meet me at the altar. We'll pray you through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll pray you through. But there is that programming and there is that fear of guilt and we're beating too hard on ourselves. And then there's also the fear of the unknown. We're going to talk about some misconceptions regarding the rapture, but there is the fear of the unknown. Regardless of whether or not that has to do with if I missed the rapture or not, we all fear that. There's nothing wrong with being uncertain. In fact, we can use the Bible to help us get a glimpse. But there are still so many thoughts and truths that are not even recorded in the Bible. But we're not certain about it. I don't know everything that will happen when I die. I don't know everything that could occur when the rapture of the church occurs. And because I don't know, I don't know everything that could occur when the rapture of the church occurs, and because I don't know, I don't have control and I fear I could miss the rapture, because I have a deep-seated fear of the unknown. It's that lack of control, it's that losing it. So those are three common reasons for fears the programming, the guilt, the unknown.
Speaker 1:But what about the misconceptions regarding the rapture? You know Brother Sean had mentioned 1 Thessalonians, 4, 16 through 7. I'll read that again. It says Now, if you again we started at the preface of this episode if you believe in the rapture, good. If you don't, good, just take what we're saying. But I believe that the rapture is a promise. It's not a punishment.
Speaker 1:We have misunderstood who God is. We have misunderstood God. God so loved the world. God gives us peace. God grants us mercy. God allows us His grace, god gives us strength. God gives us a renewed mind, god gives us power, but God does not give us fear. Our fear is based off of what man told us, even if that man told us something wrong. But what has God told you? We strive to be better through the help of God. We strive to do everything that we can not to sin, and I know that we should live upright according to the Bible. But that's it Upright according to what the Bible says in context.
Speaker 1:I have to add that in there, by the way, because so many preachers, so many ministers I know you guys are listening to this. You're like I'm tired of hearing him talk about preachers. Listen, I am a preacher, I am a teacher. There needs to be a standard and that standard is so many preachers have studied for the Word of God based off of what they feel. So many preachers have studied the Word of God based off of and I've done it too Guilty, and I've been guilty of that too based off of what they've read out of context, meaning I'm going to go into the Bible and I'm just going to put my finger right here and I'm going to read that and that's going to be the message.
Speaker 1:You have a problem if you take a single verse without any studying surrounding that verse, without any context, without any cross-referencing, without any commentary, without any knowledge about the history of it, and preach a message based off of simple English or simply what you read without diving into it. That fear comes from individuals that are studying and preaching out of context. But the rapture? It is a promise. If you belong to Christ, you are included in that promise. You're not going to accidentally miss the rapture. That's another common misconception. You will not accidentally sin, as Brother Sean said, and you're not going to accidentally miss the rapture. Philippians 1 and 6 says, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. You do not have to live your life worrying if there is a hidden sin that you'll miss the rapture for Now.
Speaker 1:Here's the conviction part that I was talking about earlier. If the power of the Holy Ghost is enough to bring conviction to your heart for things that you know you did wrong, then the power of the Holy Ghost is enough to bring convictions to your heart for things that you don't know you did wrong as well. Stop fearing did I do something wrong? When you have God on your side. If there is something wrong, god will tell you. I promise you God will bring it to you. But stop wondering. Well, maybe I missed the mark here today, maybe I didn't do enough here today, because God's grace makes up the difference. The truth is that God finishes what he starts. If he saved you I love this if he saved you, he will keep you. If he saved you, he'll keep you, brother Sean.
Speaker 2:Knowing I can't control it. Only our Heavenly Father knows when it will happen. You know the day, the hour, the minute, even the very second. I honestly love hearing sometimes, all the conspiracy theories on the rapture and the coming of the Lord. The 1999 Y2K debacle. I was eight years old, so you can bet your money I forgot about that, that I was freaking out as a child. Absolutely, because I'm an eight-year-old kid and all the computers are going to crash and everybody's going to go crazy and the world's going to come and do an end. I'm not going to get to live life. I barely made it eight years and well, here comes Jesus.
Speaker 1:So this is over for me.
Speaker 2:Well, I made it through Y2K, believe it or not, a whole 25 years, a whole 25 years through. Well, 12 years after that, though, the Mayan calendar ended. The Mayans, they, set their calendar up. It's like every 52 years or something weird like that that they did and they couldn't find any more going after 2012. So it was in December, I think it was like December 21st, 24th, 11th.
Speaker 1:Christmas time. It was around Christmas.
Speaker 2:It was right before Christmas, but it was around that time the Mayans' calendar ran out and they've been on earth for as long as everybody else has. We just didn't know they existed over here. And so, if they said it ran out, then their gods told them something Well, guess what? It's March of 2025, so we made it through that one too. And then, if that wasn't enough, there's always the prophets and the TV preachers and everybody coming out every few years throwing out there.
Speaker 1:Covid was a big time too.
Speaker 2:A lot of people thought it was the end of the world, and every couple of years there's an asteroid heading to Earth. It's half the size of Earth and when it hits we're going to blow up. So I listen in on them I do, I'll be honest but I scoff at them, and it may or may not be right to do this. But when they start talking like that, they're like December 21st 2012, the world's coming to an end. I'm like, well, it might be December 20th or December 22nd, but I guarantee it was not going to be the 21st 2012,. The world's coming to an end. I'm like, well, it might be December 20th or December 22nd, but I guarantee it was going to be the 21st, because the Bible says nobody knows. And if everybody on earth is saying it's, then well, guess what?
Speaker 1:Somebody's just going to get it. There's going to be some no-name dude that's just like, yeah, God's coming August 28th, and then he just so happens to come. It has nothing to do with this prediction. I'm going to be the guy that blows it off. I'll be honest.
Speaker 2:He'll be like ain't happening, yeah, and then I may have to ask God for forgiveness when I get over there. But yeah, I'm totally that guy it's like you know since I've grown up. Whenever that happens or the asteroids come in, or you know I'm just like, well, might be the day before, might be the day after, but I guarantee it ain't that day yeah.
Speaker 2:But I can't control it Right. One thing I do know is that I will continue to look into Christ. Yeah, right, I will keep my eyes focused on Him and do everything I can in my power to take everybody with me, because that is one of the commandments of Christ. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You can't. I know it's hard. I mean it's it's hard not to live in fear. It's easy to.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're not saying that we're not gonna fear and not have these these things come up as well, because I still have that fear sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, it's like there's those constant things that are going on. I mean the. The president of the united states is like. You know, if this side gets elected, I don't know what the world is like. You know what? The world's just gonna keep spinning. We may be richer, we may be poorer, but God is still God. God is still on his throne and we can rest assured knowing that.
Speaker 1:And I think that leads us to you know, we've talked about why we fear or the reasons for the fear of missing out, but I want to talk about what are some things that you can do to help you overcome that fear. And again, I'm not trying to wave a magic wand. I need you to understand that I'm not that guy. If you need additional help we've said it last time, we've said it almost every episode If you need additional help with whatever it is, counseling, whatever, reach out to us. We have resources.
Speaker 1:But there are some other tips and practical things that you can do to help you overcome the fear. One of those is examine your relationship with God Instead of living in fear. Strengthen your relationship with Jesus. Do I have him? Have I placed my faith in him? If the answer is yes, don't fear because he has everything in control. That is the biggest part of faith versus fear. It is letting go of my control and giving it to God. I have a hard time with that because I don't like anybody controlling. I hate it when people drive my car and I have to ride in the passenger seat. I hate it when I get on an airplane because I'm not the one in the pilot seat flying the plane and thank God I'm not careful, okay, you know what?
Speaker 1:Thank God I'm not, but also, you know, I'm probably not going to fly for a couple of years, at least until we get over whatever it is that's going on. But I have just in, like outward things, there's the the sense of needing to control things because I feel that if I get it all just right, it's going to go perfectly. There are things that I face, that you face, that Sean faces, that are just not in our control, Even if we wanted to do something about it. We couldn't, but God can and he will about it. We couldn't, but God can and he will. And taking away fear is replacing it with faith. Stop feeding fear with misinformation. If you're constantly consuming fear-based teachings, take a step back.
Speaker 2:Instead of watching YouTube prophecy doom videos, spendend time in God's word, spend time in his promises and especially nowadays.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because everything Facebook and all that.
Speaker 2:Everything is based off algorithms and if you don't know that, then surprise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you watch one, fear-based video then guess what? Next time Facebook Reels pops up, there's going to be another one in there, until that's all you consume. That's how our world works. Now, everything is based off algorithms. If you it's going to show end up doing something stupid, because I'm talking about fear-based tactics. Now your wife shops at Sheen or She-In, or however you say that, and then this new cute dress comes out again. Well, surprise, she visits their site. So guess what?
Speaker 1:The algorithm is going to pick it up and say she likes this, let's keep sending her this stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, so when you're feeding, fear you have to. It's going to take time, it's going to take a cycle. You've got to work your way through it absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I would say too. I mean, I think, a lot of times there are things that our phone picks up If we even speak. I'm sure that that's the case. Again, I don't know, most of the time I find ads, because I searched it on Google.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:But I want to say this as well, since we're here I mean, we might as well, if we're going to go on a rabbit trail, we might as well go all the way in. If you're getting your information from Facebook, you have a problem. If you're getting your information from YouTube videos, you probably have a problem.
Speaker 2:Unless it's Dr.
Speaker 1:Charles Stanley, then you're okay. Then you're fine. Yeah, if you are taking a single post by an individual you know nothing about and taking it as God's word or the God-honest truth, you have a problem. Don't even think about doing it. I've seen people that I consider to be very intelligent. I mean, I consider them to be like some of the smartest people I know that will share something from some individual that is an expert, in whatever field it is.
Speaker 1:I have a problem with that. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm not saying that things that they're saying are misinformation. Maybe everything they're saying is true, but what are the facts and how do you come up with the facts? Well, when it comes to the Bible, we know how to do that. We can mention that.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to life, if you are taking your and gathering your truths and your facts from one source that you read somewhere, you've got a problem. You need to get sources from the left side of the aisle, the right side of the aisle and the middle of the aisle, and if you're going to really get the truth of what is out there or get an understanding of what the truth actually is and the same thing for the Bible. If you're taking a scripture here or you're taking a scripture there and you're not getting the whole truth, you are going to have fear. But if you study it out, if you replace the fear with the facts of the Bible, if you replace the fear with the facts of the Bible, if you replace fear with the peace of God, you are going to have a better and more fulfilling life. I know I'm telling you every time we do these lives, it's like man, I can't edit anything, so I have to be careful what I say. But I need you older Facebook fogies to understand this Fogies wasn't the right word, probably you older Facebook individuals to understand this. Listen, I feel like I'm an old fogey, so so I'm a part of your culture now, um, since turning 34, since turning 34.
Speaker 1:But if you are taking information off of Facebook and you're running with it as the God's honest truth, stop doing that. Don't get your news articles from Facebook or from unreliable sources. It's like hey, you know, I heard back in this guy back in 1956, he predicted that all of these things would happen in 2025, and the rapture occurs in July 23rd. And you're sharing that stuff. You are the problem. Stop Replace those things. Search it out for yourself. We've got to get out of this rabbit hole. Brother Sean, you've got to help me here.
Speaker 2:Replace fear with facts, replace fear with the peace of God.
Speaker 1:There you go, the more you focus on God's love, the less room fear has to grow. Spend time in prayer, worship, fellowship and with others who encourage you. The Bible says in John 14, 27,. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, or neither let it be afraid. If you're wanting to overcome fear of the rapture, cultivate a stronger relationship with god. Focus on his love. Focus on what he says, focus on what he is doing. Don't worry about what everyone else says. Don't worry about what everyone else tells you, the external forces that are saying things into your ear. Don't even worry about what you're saying to yourself. Worry about what God says. He loves you, he cares for you. He cares for you so much. He loves you. He cares for you. He cares for you so much he sent his son to die for you, and if he saved you, then his grace is enough to keep you Little Shine. You got anything else?
Speaker 2:No, sir. Thank you all for listening in.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you all for listening. We want to really get sincerely, from the bottom of our hearts, appreciate all the comments, the questions, the messages, the likes, the shares. All those mean everything to us. If you have a question about this episode, you need further information, you have a comment, please comment. But if you've got something further, you need further counseling, further help, please message us. We would be happy to hear from you and help you. You can find us on the social media platform of your choice by searching the or, I'm sorry, searching at podcast for him I messed it up last time at podcast the number for him, or searching us by the everyday Christian podcast. Remember that every day, or two separate words, the everyday Christian podcast on the podcast app of your choice. And we want to thank you again for listening and God bless, God bless, thank you, thank you.
