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Could Satan Fake the Rapture? Steve Wohlberg's Answer Might Surprise You

8 views • Aug 12, 2026 • 58:38 • Transcript

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0:00 You think this could be a deception in the future, where maybe a select few do vanish. That Jesus is going to sort of sneak down here, nobody's going to see him, and the Christians are going to vanish, leaving their pajamas and their false teeth, and, well, they're just gone. We're seeing a movement in America, in our government, in the Department of Justice, in the Religious Liberty Commission, to chisel away at the reasons for separation of church and state. But we do know that eventually our country is going to speak like a dragon. So that shows us that these demonic miracles are going to play a major role in leading people to get the mark of the beast and to gathering the word. And then people go, oh, no, what are we going to do? You know, this is the rapture. Could Satan do something like that?

0:55 When they learn about Jesus, and if the aliens come back, and if they say in the name of Jesus, then they go away, they disappear, which shows these are not extraterrestrials, these are demons. And the third thing is, they bring what appears to be a dead relative, usually to tell them to do something against the Bible. Pastor Steve, thank you for coming out here. I want to talk a little bit about two big things that are happening right now. I mean, there's some huge stuff, but for this presentation, I know that you have done a lot of research on understanding Sunday laws, understanding worship issues in Revelation 13. And I wondered if you would talk a little bit about that. But before we get into that, I want people to know who you are and where you came from, a little history behind what you have done in the past. Because you've been doing white horse media. Quite a while, correct? Yes, it's been about 18 years.

1:51 18 years, yeah. And since then, you've lived in several different places. Idaho, is it? Yes, my family just moved from Priest River, Idaho to Eppeson, Tennessee last summer. Very good. Big change. Big change, yeah. I've been up there in Idaho. I love it. But yeah, this is where I grew up, down here in Tennessee, so I'm partial to it. And so, welcome to Chattanooga. Let me be the first. Maybe the second. Maybe the tenth person to say that, but it's definitely a change, I'm sure. It's a big change, but we like it. So, I just have a few questions for you. I want to, I know that you grew up as a Jewish kid in Hollywood Hills, correct? Correct. And you were a film extra. I was as well.

2:39 And I think that's really interesting that you… You were in the Screen Extras Guild? Yeah. Oh, no, I didn't get in. I was Taft-Hartley a few times, which means you get a special role. And if you do that several times, you get into the guild. But I was just, I put my comp card in and, you know, all the stats in the back, and you'd get a special role. And you'd get to do something or wear a special outfit or say one line. But it was fun. It was something to do. What were some of the programs you extra, just out of curiosity? Yeah, I was on the Waltons. I was on Bad News Bears. The 11th Victim, which was… I guess it was a documentary about the Hillside Strangler and a few other shows. And so it was something I just did for one summer. This was when I was 20 years old, right before I became a Christian, growing up in the Hollywood Hills of Southern California, Jewish home.

3:33 No Bible background at all. My family was very secular, cultural Jews entirely. So we didn't keep the Sabbath. We didn't follow the kosher dietary principles. We didn't read the Bible. We never prayed. We celebrated Passover every once in a while with neighbors. But, you know, there was just nothing going this direction. It was all just, this is what Jews do. So, and as a teenager, I just got pulled into the Hollywood, North Hollywood lifestyle of the drugs and the rock and roll and the nightclubs. And that's what I did for all my teenage years. And then when I was 20 years old, I actually will… What happened was my dad, he had a carpet company in Southern California, in the West Hollywood area. And he knew a man. There's an old secular song where part of the song goes, slip out the back, Jack.

4:29 I don't know if you remember that. It was an old song. And so that Jack was a friend of my dad. So he taught… Jack was in the industry. So that's how I got a job as an extra. Jack, you know, made some phone call or some contacts. So my dad asked me, do you want to work in the film business? This summer, I've got a connection with my friend Jack. So I joined the Screen Extras Guild. And they started calling me to work on different shows, to do different little parts, like you mentioned. No talent needed. Just go where they want me to go. Another show I worked on was called From Here to Eternity at the beach. And one time when I was at the beach, a man walked up to me. He was with the extras. And there was a group of us just waiting for our part. And he started witnessing to the group that I was with about Jesus. And I'd never heard anything about Jesus in my life. So we had lunch that day when the catering truck came to the beach and fed us.

5:24 I sought him out, sat down with him, and started asking him questions. And he said, have you ever read the Bible? And I said, no, never read the Bible. So that was the beginning. And little by little, eventually, I started… I found a Bible. I started reading it. And then, to make a long story short, I started visiting different churches. And I met an Adventist who invited… He invited me to church. And I met the pastor at the Canoga Park Seventh-day Adventist Church. And the pastor gave me Desire of Ages. And I read Desire of Ages. And my whole life changed. It's an incredible book, right? About Jesus' life? Completely. I knew nothing. And by the time I got to the end of the book, and I read about Gethsemane and the cross, it really reached my heart. And I got on my knees in a dorm room at Cal State Northridge.

6:14 And I asked Jesus to come into my life. And he came into my heart and get me out of the drugs and the wildlife, the cocaine, the marijuana, the LSD. And I said, Lord, get me out of this. And he came into my life. He changed me. It's been amazing. And that was 1979. So it's been 47, 48 years since that happened. Wow. Wow. Overnight? Or did you have to take some time to say, hey, I got to change. I got to change friends. I got to change my lifestyle. Or did it just… Like, I'm done with this. Well, when I read Desire of Ages. Now, it took a little while because when I first started reading the Bible, I was still working as an extra. And I would take the Bible with me when I would go on these assignments. And I would sit off stage and read the Bible. The first book I ever read was Ecclesiastes because it had a funny name.

7:04 I didn't know what it was about. I saw it in the table of contents. And I read the book. And it was all about Solomon's aimless journey into wealth and power and how he said it's all vanity. It's all chasing after the wind. And I remember sitting off stage. So, this connects the Bible with my being an extra. I remember sitting off stage and looking at the Bible and looking at the people that I was working with. And I'd look at the Bible and I'd read Solomon say, this is all chasing after the wind. And I looked around and I thought, you know, is… I always thought, you know, being in the movies, being an extra, that this was really, you know, kind of like the epiphany, you know. And I was hoping maybe someday to become an actor and get, you know, rich and famous and… And then I looked at these people and they didn't look happy. I noticed their faces. They did not look happy when they were off stage. And so, I looked at them and I thought, maybe this isn't it.

7:56 Maybe this is just an illusion of what life is really all about. So, then I kept reading the Bible. And then maybe it was a month or a month and a half later, I landed at the Canoga Park Adventist Church just checking out the Adventists. And the pastor gave me Desire of Ages. And when I read that book… That's when it all came together. And so, by the time I got to the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, I was ready. And then I said, I'm done. And I got on my knees and I prayed. And by that time, summer had ended and I was going back to school. I had moved into a dorm at Cal State Northridge, my third year of college. And when I read that book, that was it. And within a short time, through the providence of God, I found out…

8:45 I read about La Sierra and I switched schools and started taking classes for the ministry. And one of my first classes was the Life and Teachings of Jesus. And my textbook was Desire of Ages. And I remember just looking at this and thinking, there is a God in heaven. I mean, he has worked miraculously. And now I'm out of all that crazy life. And here I am in a Christian school studying the Bible, preparing to be a pastor or in the ministry, reading Desire of Ages. I've got new friends, no more rock and roll, and no more discotheques and Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta. You know, all that was behind me. You had in 2001, you were pastoring Fort Worth, Texas, when the Left Behind series came about, right? That's right. And you decided to write a book called The Left Behind Deception.

9:39 It sold tens of millions of copies. That was a pretty significant time in your life. Right? Something happened there. Yeah. I don't know the exact count of how many books were sold. But by that time, so 2001, I became a Christian in 79. So we're looking at, you know, 21, 22 years. And by that time, I'd been reading the Bible for a long time. And prior to that, I was hired by Joe Cruz and by Doug Batchelor. And I worked for Amazing Facts for six years. And I became very familiar with the issues. As you're, you know, giving Bible. Bible Prophecy Seminars. And you talk about, they talk. The people that I was trying to reach, a lot of them believed in the rapture, seven years of tribulation, the future Antichrist, the rebuilding of the Jewish temple, a future Armageddon, where the nations gather against the Jews.

10:32 And I became very familiar with that theology. And then when the Left Behind, it was really, that theology was popularized by Hal Lindsey in his book, Late Great Planet Earth. But that was a nonfiction book. And then the Left Behind series hit, where Tim LaHaye, who was the main theologian, Baptist pastor from Dallas Theological Seminary, he connected with Jerry Jenkins, who was a writer, and they started producing the Left Behind series. And so when I saw how big that series was, and so many people were reading it, these are novels, then I just felt convicted that I needed to write a book that dealt with the teachings of this. And so when I saw how big that series was, and so many people were reading it, these are novels, then I just felt convicted that I needed to write a book that dealt with the teachings of this. This series and showed that they're not right. These teachings are not right. So that's where the Left Behind deception came. And it evolved into different books, more books. Eventually, there was a bigger book called End Time Delusions that dealt with the rapture, the tribulation, the Antichrist, Israel, all that in one book.

11:35 And I found a publisher that was not an Adventist that didn't believe in Left Behind, and they were willing to publish this book. Oh, good. And they just really. Really promoted it. And that was in the early 2000s, so it's been getting close to 25 years that book has been selling from Destiny Image, and a lot of people have read it. And their eyes have been opened to the truths of Scripture. So I don't want to get too far off on this, but I have to ask you, so just a couple sentences, because it's a rabbit trail, and I know we can go in. Both of us can talk about this quite a bit. What is, do you not believe that we are going to heaven? No. How do you say this to someone who says, well, he doesn't believe that we're going to be raptured? He must not believe in heaven. No, yeah. Most people don't ask me that or question me on that, because it's pretty clear from my teachings that I certainly do believe in heaven.

12:29 And I do believe Jesus is coming, so we have that in common, in a sense, with those who believe in the rapture. We both believe Jesus is coming. Yeah. The difference is, and they use 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, and they interpret the Lord coming down from heaven. And then us being caught up, they interpret that to mean that Jesus is going to sort of sneak down here, nobody's going to see him, and the Christians are going to vanish, leaving their pajamas and their false teeth and their jewelry, whatever, on earth, and, well, they're just gone. And then the world wakes up. Where did they all go? And that begins the seven-year tribulation. So I tell people, so I say, basically, let's take a closer look at 1 Thessalonians 4. It says that Jesus is going to come. He's going to come down from heaven with a shout, it's loud, with a voice, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God. It's one of the noisiest verses in the Bible. And then it says, and the dead in Christ will rise first. There's going to be this huge resurrection, and then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up. So I do believe we're going to be caught up. I just don't believe we're going to disappear. Yeah.

13:37 And I do believe Jesus is coming down, but I don't believe it's going to be silent. It's going to be loud and noisy and visible. Mm-hmm. So I just direct people to the text. I say, let's just look at the text. So I do believe we're going to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and we're going to go to heaven. And Jesus is preparing mansions for us. And Revelation is very clear. Chapter 19, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven shouting, hallelujah. You know, God has judged the great whore. Mm-hmm. And so I just, you know, I clarify these things with people. I've studied the Bible with all kinds of people, and many times they just see it right there. I was once visiting with a Baptist. I was a Baptist pastor, and we went through some of these verses, and he looked at that. He said, I never saw that. I've been a pastor all my life, and now I see it. Actually, he was a Lutheran pastor, but he believed the left-behind scenario.

14:29 And so people who read my books, they just take a closer look. What does the Bible say? But I certainly do believe in going to heaven. Yeah. No question about that. It's the power of Hollywood. Hollywood has pushed this idea forward. And what I like to say, and I think you would agree, there's no second chances. The flood is an example of what happened at the second coming, what will happen. That's right. So, yeah, very good. But going back to Jerry Jenkins for a second, I think that's a really interesting story. He once publicly responded to a story about you, and he said to the effect, can't we all just disagree about this non-essential doctrine and not talk about each other? Do you think this is a non-essential doctrine? Do you think it's important to understand? I think it's very important to understand. Yeah. Because it's basically a fork in the road. The left-behind scenario puts most of the book of Revelation after the rapture in the future, and that's when the Antichrist shows up.

15:23 And that's when he eventually makes war on the Jews and the temple is rebuilt. And that whole scenario ignores 2,000 years of history and what the Protestant reformers taught about who the beast is, who the Antichrist is, who the whore is in Revelation 17. And they understood it was the papal power. And even the colonies, when the colonies were established in the 1600s from England, they knew who the beast was. And many of them, many of the Baptists that were part of that movement, and I've got documentation for this, they believed that the Roman church was the beast and that infant baptism was a badge of the whore. Hmm. And they believed, some of them believed that if the church, uses force in England or in the colonies, they're setting up an image of the beast because they're forcing people to follow their doctrines just like the Church of Rome did.

16:25 So when you take the wrong road onto the left-behind track, then the focus is the Antichrist is coming. And they also tend to really focus on Israel and what's happening with the Jews and what they see. What they see as a build-up toward the final battle of Armageddon against the Jews. And so by looking at the Middle East, they are, they are blinded to what's happening with America and the Vatican and the preparations for the mark of the beast. Wow. So I actually gave a book once, one of my books, to Jerry Jenkins and to Tim LaHaye. I gave him a copy of The Left Behind Deception and I gave a copy, I think, Exploding the Israel Deception, I gave that to Jerry Jenkins, gave a copy to Kirk Cameron. Uh-huh. About the Sabbath. And I remember his response, this was at a big Christian bookseller's convention.

17:18 He was at his booth and I handed him a book and he looked at the book on the Sabbath and he said, it's a very controversial subject. And so, and Kirk Cameron has, not too long ago, come out believing that hell doesn't burn forever. Yes. I thought it was so interesting that Charlie Kirk came out with his book on the Sabbath and Kirk Cameron took a stand on the state of the dead or on hell not burning forever. Yeah. So you've got the two Kirks hitting the two great errors dealing with Sunday and with the state of the dead. Yeah. He took a lot of heat for that too. Man. Yeah, he did. He did take a lot of heat. And we've, I've tried to get on a show, I've been on a lot of shows, we have, that's part of what White Horse Meeting does, is we've hired a company to book me on shows, many different shows. And of course the hosts, they get the pitch and then they say, I'd like to have Steve as a guest. And so I've been trying to get, I wrote Kirk Cameron. A personal letter, wrote Tucker Carlson, a personal letter, trying to get on these shows and discuss Israel, hell, the rapture, any of these things, but so far they haven't, they didn't bite.

18:26 Yeah, yeah. But we've been praying. It's hard to get them to bite on some of that stuff because it's, I mean, controversy is a good thing, but sometimes it's what they want to promote and what's big right now. I think that some of these subjects are going to become much bigger in the future. Oh, I do too. And I want to get on these shows. So one of the niches that White Horse Media, that I've been working with for almost 20 years, we have gotten into podcasts and getting me as a guest on radio shows. And I've been doing this for a long time. So I've been on so many shows, you know, and here I am with you, you know, talking to, I'm assuming mostly an Adventist group. And the Adventists are happy when I get on these other shows representing biblical teachings, and that's, you know, one of the things that really excites them. And one of my visions is that when the mark of the beast comes, I want to get on these shows.

19:20 I want to be discussing Sabbath, Sunday, force, religious freedom, Jesus, what day did Jesus keep, and why did he die on the cross? He died on the cross for all the sins of the world because we've broken the law of God, including the Sabbath. Yeah, yeah. So I've got a book on this, have books on all kinds of subjects. Yeah, actually show us some of your books. I want people to see some of your books that you actually have. Yeah, so and I just brought a few of these. And we have tracks, too. So we have this little track, The Two Big Lies, that's the only track that I'm aware of that deals with what happens when you die, that you don't go flying up to heaven, and also what day is the biblical Sabbath. Because in Great Controversy, she says, through the two great errors, Satan will bring the people under his deception, Sunday's sacredness and the immortal soul. So this little glow track. Size track hits both of those in one, yeah, I gave one to a Baptist man that was at my house recently, giving us a quote on a water treatment system so we could get better water than what's coming in Appleton, Tennessee.

20:25 And I hand it in this track. So he came back later to do some measuring, and he said, I read your track on The Two Big Lies. He said, wow. So we had probably 15 minutes worth of conversation about that before we even talked about water. Wow. Wow. That's a powerful little resource. We have another one called Will God Save America, which deals with Christian nationalism and the movement toward enforcing a universal day of rest. And also this is about the Sabbath. And this is designed to reach the patriots in this country. So then we also have the book about the Sabbath, The Truth About the Sabbath, which is loaded with information on where Sunday came from, what the biblical Sabbath is all about, how Jesus kept the Sabbath, how he didn't change it. All the New Testament texts about the first day of the week, what do they really say, who changed the Sabbath, the history. So this is a great resource. And then we have The Light at the End, which is a real missionary book published by Pacific Press. I wrote it. It was their missionary book of the year for 2025.

21:27 And this book is all about Revelation 13, the first beast, the second beast, the image of the beast, the mark of the beast, the cross, the Ten Commandments, the plan of salvation. So anyway, this is... if you want to have a look at it. It's a great resource. If you want to help people understand what Revelation 13 and 14 are really all about, this is a great book. And then we have another book that's more advanced for people that really want to dig deep, take a deep dive. And this is called The Bloody Woman and the Seven-Headed Beast, which goes through every verse in Revelation 17, talks about who the woman is and who are the five that are fallen. One is, one's coming. And what about the beast that was and is not and yet is? You know, this is a very mysterious topic. So anyway, these are some of the resources. Whitehorse Media is basic. It's basically an outreach organization. We do have some books that deal with church issues, like The Godhead, but most of our books deal with truths that need to be shared by our people.

22:23 That's what we're all about. Very good. Yeah, sharing the truths that are so important for this time. Just going along, we're going to get to Sunday a lot, but I find it very interesting what you said about people vanishing and how that's not actually going to happen. Do you think, and we know that Isaiah 14, 12 talks about how Satan wants to be as God. He wants to be, he wants that worship. He wants that ability without the responsibility, I guess you could say. Even if he had the responsibility, he could never handle it, because he's a created being and he's not cut out to be God. I guess he finally learned that lesson, we hope. You know, it's so funny you should say that, because I was thinking the same thing about Hollywood. As soon as you become well known. And you've probably experienced this as well.

23:11 Eventually you get seen so much in public that you can't go in public anymore. I think Elon Musk said he can't go in public anymore because he said, I'll just keep signing people and taking pictures with people. He said human beings aren't supposed to be able to handle that. That's right. Yeah, it's interesting you bring this up, because just this morning, a lot of times I'll watch little video clips when I'm making breakfast. That's my video clip time. And so I watched a little short. With Mick Jagger. And I used to listen to Mick Jagger years ago in my what I call my BC days before I became Christian. And he's now pretty elderly, but he's still alive. He exercises amazing. And he was being asked about this great thing, you know, how you being in the public light for 50 years with the Rolling Stones and you're being, you know, so popular, what has that done to you?

23:59 Has it changed you? Is it? Is it easy? And he just basically said that, you know, it has changed me. It's disconnected me from people. And so I hang around with people that I can relate to, people that are in show business. But he was just pretty in that moment, he was pretty down to earth and basically saying, you know, that it's very difficult, it's challenging for an entertainer to be in that position. And I believe, as you just stated, that we were not designed, we were not wired to be very popular, to be, you know, in the limelight. I call it the perils. The perils of the spotlight. And one of the things, and I could share with you more about some of the struggles I've had as a Christian, which the Lord has used to teach me the importance of humility rather than the arrogance and pride of the devil.

24:55 You know, it's dangerous to be, and I can understand like what Elon Musk said, you know, he doesn't want to be around a lot of people because they always say, oh, Elon, you know, you're the world's richest man. Will you sign my? This or that. And we just, anybody that's in the limelight needs to walk. We need to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. And realize that every ability, every gift, every talent to write a book or to speak publicly is something we've received from God, from Jesus. And one of the reasons why Lucifer fell... I believe it's in Patriarchs and Prophets, she says that he came to attribute his own brightness and his intelligence to himself rather than his creator.

25:52 So he stopped giving God the glory and he began to challenge God's wisdom, his government, and he began to deceive the other angels. And it became all about him. Yeah. And he really exposed himself in the wilderness when he was trying to deceive Jesus. And he said to him, you know, all these things I will give you if you will just bow down and worship me. And that is just a horrific exposure of his heart, self-worship. And you know, I hate to say it, when I first became a Christian and I began serving God and giving out books. I was in Hollywood Boulevard. I kind of imagined myself, you know, getting to heaven someday and the angels coming around me and they're, you know, just, you know, so appreciative of how much I was doing for the Lord.

26:51 And then years later, the Holy Spirit just convicted me, you know, that you see that thinking, even after you're a Christian, that thinking is demonic. Yeah. It's so devilish that when we do get to heaven by the grace of God, all eyes are going to be on Jesus and we're all going to be taking our crowns, throwing them down at his feet and saying worthy is the lamb that was slain. Wow. And so I have learned, I've been through some very challenging experiences, even after I read Desire of Ages, because when I read Desire of Ages and Jesus came into my heart, there was still a whole lot of work that God needed to do inside me that I had no clue. And I had to go through some deep, dark days in order to learn the lessons that the Lord is still trying to teach me, that Lucifer's, the core of his character is I will ascend.

27:52 I will exalt myself. I will be like the most high. And the core of Jesus' character is learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. Yeah. So, you know, the great controversy between Christ and Satan is a character controversy. And Jesus is working to purify people and to prepare us for heaven and to teach us the lessons that God is God, not us. And the Lord is worthy and deserving of glory. Not unto us, David said, not unto us, but to your name be the glory. And it's a hard lesson for humanity to learn. It's a tough lesson. Sometimes I like, well, one of those same lines, we get to heaven, Christ gets us to heaven in spite of us, not because of us, I guess you could say. Yeah. And if, you know, if God uses your podcast and uses you to reach a lot of people, and I have a team that works with me at White Horse Media.

28:52 We just had a staff meeting the other day online because they're in Idaho and I'm in Tennessee. But we talked about the body of Christ has different members, you know, the eye, the mouth, the hands, the feet. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. But ultimately, the glory goes to Christ. We're all working together. So if God's using White Horse Media, praise his name. If he's using, you know, Strange Normal and your family to do these productions, praise his name. And we want to, you know, First Angel's message says, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come. Absolutely. That's what it's all about. I love the trails we're going on. And it's not even in my notes, but I think that this is a fascinating talk that we're doing. But going back to the vanishing, going back to the rapture thing, because I think this is a fascinating topic.

29:43 Do you think, like since Satan wants to be as God, do you think he'll want to fulfill some prophecies? And the reason I'm asking this is because it's really interesting to me that people, there's so many that believe this idea that we're all just going to vanish and planes are going to crash and all this is going to happen. Do you think if something does happen, do you think something could happen? I mean, for instance, say probation closes, something, and this is just the thought experiment, this isn't, you know, pulling anything, but you think this could be a deception in the future where maybe a select few do vanish and then people go, oh no, what are we going to do? You know, this is the rapture. Could Satan do something like that or do you think that'll be prevented? You never know. Yeah, we never know. I know biblically there's no example in scripture of people vanishing other than Jesus.

30:46 After his resurrection, it says he vanished from their sight. Now, what exactly that means, I don't know. Or he just, you know, he appeared with the disciples and on the way to Emmaus when they got into the house and they broke bread, they recognized him and he was gone. But I don't. I don't see any biblical examples of anybody else, you know, disappearing. When Paul talks about believers being caught up, I go back to Acts chapter 1 where Jesus was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight. So they were watching him go up and then the angel said, you know, why are you gazing up into heaven? The same Jesus who was taken up will come again in like manner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's no hint of, you know, us just disappearing.

31:38 And so as far as the devil being able to pull that off, I mean, he's pretty deceptive. And I was recently asked, I don't know if it was you or somebody in an email exchange, but somebody asked me. No, it was on my live, my Sunday live. I do a live event from my house and they were asking me about, could it be possible that Satan could use? Could he use the idea of, you know, people being kidnapped and disappearing by aliens? And there's a lot of stories I'm sure you've heard of people that have say they've been kidnapped and taken up and then they've been abused and come back. And he said, you think that Satan can use that as an example of the rapture? And I'm thinking I have a real hard time with that because it's not the Christians that are being, you know, vanishing. It's people that are being abused by the devil. Yeah. Who are being taken up.

32:32 And then, you know, if those stories are real, if they've really happened, which I'm not going to dismiss them, but I've heard that a lot of some of these people who have had these kind of experiences when they learn about Jesus and if the aliens come back and if they say in the name of Jesus, then they go away. They disappear, which shows these are not extraterrestrials. These are demons. And so I don't know if the devil can pull that off. I don't think so. It's kind of like the rebuilding of the temple. You know, there is a small group of Jews and there's a lot of Christian supporters that would like to see a temple rebuilt on the Temple Mount in Israel. But the problem is, many problems. They're surrounded by Muslims. The Dome of the Rock is a Muslim building. So what are they going to do, blow up the dome? I mean, you'd have World War III. Yeah. Or are they going to build next to the dome?

33:32 Most Jewish people don't want a temple there anyway because they're tired of the conflict. They don't want to inflame the Muslims or have a new crisis over this. And then you've got the animal rights activists that would be saying they're sacrificing animals, you know, and it would be a huge deal. So is it possible that the Jews might, some Jews might rebuild the temple? I'm not going to say it's impossible, but we know if that happened, it's not going to be God's temple because they'd be sacrificing animals and Jesus is already the great sacrifice. Yeah. So it can't be the temple of God. So I don't think it's going to happen. I've told people, I think it's very unlikely. I think it's all just a grand delusion directing people to the Middle East so they don't understand what's happening with America and the Vatican. Yeah. And Jesus' high priestly ministry up in heaven. Wow. But it's not impossible. Nobody really knows. And I guess it's not impossible that Satan could, if he did do something like this, I think it would be an illusion.

34:28 Just like we're told that Satan can make it appear. You know, he can. He can make people sick and make it appear that they're well. He can. He's very deceptive, but it would be an appearance. It wouldn't be a reality. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. There's two examples that come to my head. One is there was a person in Acts that was, I would say, there's not a word for it today, maybe teleported from one area to another. Do you remember this? Where he was walking? Philip. That's right. And he was taken from one place to another quickly. And he says, I don't remember how I got so fast. Yeah. Between these two parts. Do you remember this? Yes, I do. And I guess you could interpret that as being he disappeared, but. Who knows how that worked? We don't really know. It doesn't really tell us. Yeah.

35:16 And the bundles. I remember at the end of time, the righteous and the wicked will be bundled. Do you remember this? Yes. Matthew 13, the parable of the wheat and the weeds. And so the weeds are gathered into bundles to be burned. Yeah. And the wheat are gathered into the barn. Fascinating. Do you think that's literal? Well, the weeds representing Satan's followers, they will be burned literally in the lake of fire. Yeah. The wheat, it's a symbolic description of them being gathered into the barn. I think the barn would represent heaven and the new Jerusalem, that we will eventually be gathered into the new Jerusalem. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree. You know, Satan can't create life because he's a creative being. And I don't think, back to the disappearing thing, I don't think, and even if he did do something like that, the Christians who believe in the rapture, and they're going to be going up in the rapture, if there's some kind of a mass disappearance, how are they going to accept the idea that they missed the rapture?

36:26 Right. It's not going to be something they're going to want to believe that teaching. Absolutely. Absolutely. I have a few questions. I know we've been going over a lot of rapture stuff, and I think that's fascinating. But there's some current events that have happened in the movement that is pushing for separation of church and state. Separating, well, actually bringing state and nation back together with the church. And so it's really interesting to see how this has been agitated recently. And how… I went over last night in my live stream, Uganda is talking about a Sunday rest or a Sunday work day on Saturday for cleaning up the area. And we have known already, and Christian nationalists inside of America have been pushing for the idea that we should have some kind of enforcement of blue laws, which are the idea of going to church one day a week. Can you talk a little bit about that?

37:26 What do you see is actually happening here? Yeah. And there's others. We've done a lot of homework on this. The Heritage and Hope podcast with James and Alex. Yeah. Great podcast. I was on a podcast, one of their podcasts last Friday where we discussed Sunday law updates. So the Uganda situation is a little bit different because in Uganda, the government was requiring all of its citizens to take, I think it was a three-hour period on Saturday morning to go out and clean. Clean, clean the country, the community. And so I… From what I've read is that the Adventists took a stand, thank the Lord. And they said, we're good citizens. We want to do our part. We're happy to clean, but we'll do it on Friday or we'll do it on Sunday. And last I heard, the government was considering this. But that's really not so much a Sunday law. That's more of a enforcing Sabbath keepers to violate the Sabbath. Now, the Christian nationalist movement is really a movement that basically…

38:30 It basically says that America is in trouble. We're going down morally and we need to come back to God, which we certainly agree with. And they're saying we need to get back to our Christian roots. We're a Christian nation and we need to reinstitute the enforcing of the law of God like we used to do in American history. And part of that enforcement has to do with enforcing blue laws. And they see it as a solution to the problems. And there's a lot of people, Stephen Wolf wrote a book called The Case for Christian Nationalism. There's a lot of Christian nationalists out there, Douglas Wilson, that are just coming out wide open. And they're saying we need to get back to God. We need blue laws. And there will be penalties if you don't go along with these blue laws. Now, they're not being consistent because they're trying to get society away from paganism and enforce God's law away from idolatry.

39:28 But I've thought about this. And if I ever get on these shows discussing this with them, I would say, well, if you're really going to be consistent, you need to include all Catholics in the penalties because they have idols. And the Second Commandment says no idols. And you really need to also include all the Sunday keepers because Sunday goes back to sun worship. It's pagan in its root systems. And it's really it's different than the Fourth Commandment. If you really want to enforce God's law, which I don't think we should do, you need to enforce the original law. Which has to do with the Ten Commandments and the Fourth Commandment, which is the seventh day is the Sabbath. But, of course, you know, we don't believe in force anyway. But so this movement is there. It's real. It's getting bigger. Trump's Religious Liberty Commission issued a draft report. And they're basically saying that the phrase separation of church and state is not exactly in the Constitution.

40:22 And we need to educate people away from the concept of separation of church and state. And instead of a wall separating church and state. Which they say really goes back to Jefferson. We need to build bridges. And so it's a slow undermining of the principle of separation of church and state, which, although it's not specifically stated in the Bible, it's very clearly there. And this commission, and I've done a lot of homework on this, they don't understand the history behind the First Amendment. And so if you look at it, and I've got books here I've been reading. This is a very interesting book called America in Crimson Red, showing how the Baptists were persecuted in America, especially in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, because they didn't believe in infant baptism. And so the colonies, when they got set up, they were British colonies, and they were largely still under the control of England and the Church of England. And they required you, if you had a baby, you had to bring your baby to church. And you got to baptize your baby. And the baptized Baptists that were growing in America, like Roger Williams, they didn't want.

41:29 They said, we can't do that. We can't follow our conscience, because baptism is for adults or for people that know what they're doing. So the persecution against Baptists in America eventually created such an outcry. And there's more history behind this that really influenced Madison, especially, to introduce the Bill of Rights, which led to the First Amendment. And a lot of it has to do with, in a nutshell, it was the awareness. Of religion, the dangers of religious tyranny, which had taken place in Europe, taken place in England, and it took place for 200 years in the colonies. And the First Amendment was not a secular, Jeffersonian, liberal idea to build a separation between church and state, or a wall between church and state, or denying Congress the right to establish religion. Or its goal is also to...

42:29 You know, stop, to make sure that religion was not hindered from its free expression in America. So what's happening is the liberal left has been using, as the report said, the draft report from the Religious Liberty Commission, said that the left is weaponizing the phrase separation of church and state to try to remove God entirely from public life. And the committee is reacting against that, and they're saying that, you know, the left is wrong. We should be able to... We should be able to express our religion freely. And they're saying that the separation of church and state really isn't there. It goes back to Jefferson. But that's not true. Roger Williams talked about the wall separating the garden of the Lord being the church and the wilderness of the world. So it didn't originate with Jefferson. It goes back... I've got another book here by Thomas Helwitz, and he lived in the 1600s. He wrote a book called The Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity. Hmm. He was a Baptist. He gave this book to King James, who produced the King James Bible, or under his leadership.

43:36 And basically what Helwitz says in the early 1600s was that the Roman Catholic Church is the Antichrist. It's the beast, and it forces religion. And then he said if the King of England forces people to be religious, you're basically the image. You're the image of the beast. You're the daughter of the horse. Yeah. And King James didn't appreciate that when he read Helwitz's book. I think he got a signed copy of it. And so he imprisoned him, and he died in prison. Oh, my. And then you've got Roger Williams over in America right around the same time he wrote his book, The Bloody Tenant of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience. Because Roger Williams was banished by the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay because he believed in religious freedom. So they banished him. And back in those days... If you didn't baptize your baby, or if you believed in religious freedom, if you didn't go to church on Sundays, so many Sundays in a row, you could be whipped, beaten, fined, taxed, jailed, banished, dunked.

44:41 And if you came back after banishment, you could be executed. Executed. And so it was tyranny in the colonies. And so when the Christian nationalists say we need to get back to our Christian roots, I think to myself, well, which Christian roots do we want to get back to? Do we want to get back to... Do we want to get back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the original colonies that persecuted the Baptists and executed the people in Boston? Or do we want to get back to our freedom roots, go back to Roger Williams and all the Baptists that stood up for freedom of religion? And Madison and Jefferson, and Jefferson certainly took the ball, and so did Madison. But it didn't originate with these men. It originated through 1,500 years of persecution. Religious tyranny. Religious tyranny against Christians who didn't believe what was being taught by the state church.

45:35 And so we're seeing a movement in America, in our government, in the Department of Justice, in the Religious Liberty Commission, to chisel away at the reasons for separation of church and state, for the wall that was built to protect us from religious tyrants. And Christian nationalism wants to reinstitute. And Christian nationalism wants to reinstitute that and punish people who don't do what they think we should be doing. And, you know, the battle's on, and everything that it says in Great Controversy and Revelation 13, it's slowly coming to pass right in front of us. That's what I was just thinking. Because I remember I was going over this last night on the livestream. Revelation 13 mentions five times the word worship or worshiping in there. And at the very end, it says, Those who don't worship. Correctly, are killed. And so this has become a big issue according to Bible prophecy.

46:33 So it's fascinating to follow what is happening even right now in the world and in the United States about what's happening. That's right. And the two horns like a lamb. The lamb is Jesus. The beast isn't Jesus, but he has two horns like a lamb in Revelation 13. And the lamb-like principle is, you know, Jesus just made an incredible statement where he said, Give to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar. And give to God the things that belong to God. And what he did right there was he separated the things of Caesar from the things of God. And when Jesus told his disciples to go to all the world and preach the gospel, he didn't tell them, go to all the world, unite with the government, and enforce Christianity through the state. He never said that. He said, my kingdom's not of this world. He taught a totally different method, the method of preaching the gospel through the power of the Holy Spirit. But Rome went the different direction and decided to enforce its will. Through the state. And that's what happened all throughout European history in England and in the colonies.

47:33 And the First Amendment is really, those two horns like a lamb slowly grew up and gave us our freedoms, our religious freedoms, our freedom of conscience. But eventually, those two horns are going to break down. It's going to speak like a dragon. The issue is worship, like you said, which is the, you know, the first table of the law has to do with our relationship with God. The second table of the law has to do with our relationship with one another. And it's so interesting. I recently saw a video on this that in the Supreme Court building, when you go to the front, up on the top, before you go into the doors, there is a fresco there of Moses with the Ten Commandments, and his knee is covering most of the first table of the law. And I think the statement there is that government is not to enforce the first table of the law. It is. It has a legitimate sphere to enforce portions of the second table of the law.

48:34 Not all of it, because you can't enforce, you know, don't covet, because that's what's going on in your mind. You can't enforce, you know, lustful thoughts that are adulterous, because that's going on in your mind. But the government's legitimate sphere can enforce don't murder and don't steal someone else's property. So government has a legitimate sphere. But the first table? It's off limits. It's out of bounds. And Jesus made that clear. And those two horns like a lamb are going to break down, and it's going to speak like a dragon, which goes back to the dragon that gave the beast its power, which ultimately was Rome, and behind Rome was the devil. And it's a sad—I appreciate the religious freedoms that we have in this country and that we still have. America's 250-year anniversary. I'm grateful. Yeah. I'm grateful that we can do a podcast like this. I'm grateful that White Horse Media can do programs, that all the Adventist ministries can freely preach and teach these things which we would not have been able to do if we were living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony or if we were living in England or Europe during the Dark Ages.

49:42 But we can do it, and we should praise God for the freedoms that we still have. But we do know that eventually our country is going to speak like a dragon. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Well, it's really interesting to follow what is happening. Right now, in current events, and apply them to exactly what you said. That's right. Bible prophecy, Revelation 13. Revelation 13. And we're seeing this stuff happening right now. You know, I did a presentation, and I'm not going to go too far into this because I want to make this podcast about what you're talking about here. But I also think that we're seeing not only those two great deceptions come about right now. You mentioned at the beginning there will be worship issues and there will be spiritualism. And the spiritualism issue we're seeing are these apparitions of Mary. I talk a lot in my podcast about Chris Bledsoe. He believes he saw this fireball in the sky.

50:38 And this fireball came, and then this woman came out. She said she is Hathor, an Egyptian goddess. I have a picture of Hathor up here so I can show people what it actually looks like. But the Egyptian goddess is a pagan deity. It's a demon. And so if that's appearing to an American man who worked for a company. A contractor building buildings for the government, and we're seeing all these different apparitions of Mary all over the world, spiritualism is active, and it's a real thing happening right now. Oh, yeah, and sometimes, like you said, apparitions of Mary, it's the apparitions of the dead, it's the UFOs, you know, the demons who are impersonating aliens. It's also in the charismatic movement where people believe that they're channeling the power of the Holy Spirit and they go bang. Bam, and they knock you down, and you go flying backwards. And then you look at these people sometimes when they're on the ground, I mean, they're convulsing, and they look horrible.

51:37 And you think, is that the Lord? Is that the Spirit of God? And in the Bible, God's people fall forward. They don't fall backwards. I'll explain that. Well, like Judas, when the mob came into the garden led by Judas to arrest Jesus, Jesus said something. He said, you know, they said, we're looking for Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, I am he. And they all fell backwards because they were, you know, they were not followers of God. They were there to arrest the Son of God, and they fell backwards. Daniel fell forward on his face. Moses fell on his face. In 1 Corinthians 14, it talks about how if God is working among you and an unbeliever comes in, and then the thoughts of his heart are revealed, he will fall on his face, and he will acknowledge that God is with you.

52:32 So you don't find communities where God is working, people falling backwards. They fall forward on their faces before the Lord. Wow. And that's what we see in the charismatic world. People are falling backwards, left and right, and they're getting shoved. Boom, boom, boom. Like Benny Hinn and many different people. And you just look at that, and you think… This is not a manifestation of God's power. So I could see that as also a spiritualistic manifestation. So Satan's spiritualism takes many forms in the latter days. He has many tools in his chest. Yeah, yeah. One of the things I think we're going to see a lot more of is, you mentioned the research showing that things like this can go away when naming Jesus Christ, right?

53:22 That's right. Because the power of Jesus' name is a real power that the Christian, I mean, you've got to have that relationship. You can't just claim something and not live the life. I mean, there was a woman, I believe, in the Gospels that came up and asked Christ for something. And he said, no, I'm not going to give this to you. And she pled with him. And he went ahead and did it anyway. Yeah, the children's bread to the dogs. Yes, the children's bread to the dogs. Yeah, that's a very interesting scene. So that's the only time I find in the New Testament where Jesus played a role. He role-played. Because he was with his disciples. This woman came. She was a Canaanite woman, I believe. She came and she pleaded with him. And she said, you know, my daughter has a demon. Please come and heal her. And he acted cold toward her. And then he said, it's not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs.

54:14 And in Desire of Ages, it says that he was basically portraying to the disciples the hardness of heart of the Pharisees. And the Jews. He had a Jewish attitude toward the Gentiles. But she kept persisting. And finally, he dropped that role. And he said, oh, woman. Daughter, your child is healed. And in Desire of Ages, it says Jesus was trying to show the disciples the contrary character compared to the way he normally had compassion on people. To try to show the disciples. That having coldness and hardness of heart toward people that are not Jews is very wrong. Yeah. Very wrong. And so, what you were saying about that was that this spiritualism that appears can leave in Jesus' name.

55:14 That's research that comes out of Joe Jordan. He talks about the spiritualism leaving. But also, he said that there's two other things that happen. This idea that when these apparitions... Usually at the end, they claim that Jesus is not who he says he is. He's not really God. He's just another ascended master. And the third thing is they bring what appears to be a dead relative. Usually to tell them to do something against the Bible. And for instance, there would be like... This is just an example. A dead son that would appear to the woman. And the woman would say... Or the son would say that appears to be dead. Mom, you've married the wrong... My father's not who God wanted you to marry. You have to divorce him and go find somebody else. Something that would be basically, you know, divorced.

56:07 God doesn't want divorce. And so, these people, thinking that their son has seen God and is occupying a position there, come down and want to comply with what God says. But they don't know the word of God doesn't go contrary to what God says. Yeah, it's significant. In Revelation chapter 19, verse 20, it says, The beast was taken and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image. So, at the time when the mark is enforced by the image, there's going to be miracles that are going to be done in order to convince people to go along with the image and the mark. And so, yeah, I think spiritualism is going to play a huge role.

57:00 And we know from Revelation 16, we have the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. And it says, These are the spirits of devils which go forth. They work miracles and they go forth to the kings of the earth and the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. That's in Revelation 16, verses 14 and then 16 is Armageddon. So, that shows... It shows us that these demonic miracles are going to play a major role in leading people to get the mark of the beast and to gathering the world against God at Armageddon. Fascinating. I think we're up to see some pretty amazing things as things start wrapping up and Satan realizes his time is short. Do you have any last thoughts before we close? I don't think so. I think, well, the main thing is we need to know the Bible. We need to know Jesus. We need to walk in humility.

57:54 And we need... The power of the Holy Spirit to help us to understand the Bible, to know Jesus, and to resist the devil. Absolutely. Can you pray us out? Sure, of course. Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to talk freely about the Bible and about end-time issues. And we just pray, Lord, that you'll give us more of the spirit of truth to guide us into all truth. Give us the Holy Spirit. Help us to understand the Bible. Help us to reflect Jesus Christ. His love and his power. And help us to help others and be ready for the final events and for the return of the Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.