The Claw

Chapter 9. The Evangelist

Every Summer the four churches of Fred would come together for a camp meeting. The meeting would begin on a Sunday morning and evening, and then stretch out Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening. The perishoners of the four churches would look forward to this event.
Someone would rent a massive tent, a stage area, pulpit and about 500 chairs. On Saturday the perishoners would gather in the old field just East of town and put everything together.

2017 was no different. The speaker for this meeting would be Daniel Perkins, an Evangelist from Dallas, Texas. He was a well known speaker from Dallas Seminary, and a student of Dr. Penticost. Pastor Perkins did not have major degrees behind his name. Some would call him self taught because of the many revelations he had through dreams and visions. He would remind them that he was God taught.

Dreams and visions were from God and were given for learning and understanding. Some of what he would say was questioned by others. When asked about others questioning what He said, Daniel would reply, "Good, no one should take anyone's word for anything. The things that God has revealed to me can be revealed to any Christian, that is willing to seek answers from him."

Revelations were being given to all that were drawing closer to God. There were some that thought they were hearing from God, however, their lives were not producing Godly fruit.

"Good morning," Pastor Perkins stated. "Thank you for inviting me to your community. The next four days I believe will be a blessing for us all."

"This morning I will be talking about the Great Escape. Tonight I will address the Time Line. There have been many people having dreams about timelines. With so much information unknown by many when it comes to this subject, I feel it necessary to bring to light the unknown. Tonight's subject will shock and surprise you."

"What is the Great Escape? Some call it the Rapture, others the snatching away, the Great Rescue and or Escape. Everything we need to know about this event is found in this Bible I am holding. In fact, your Bible gives this same information. We read that no one knows the day or hour, but only the season. What if we could figure out when the season would be? What if we didn't need to wait until the time when the season was here? What if God's Word gave us the season?"

"I would like to read a scripture to you that I typically do not read until after the message you will hear tonight. This comes from Luke 21:36. Let's read this verse. 'Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.' We must do two things, watch and pray always. Keep those two things in the back of your mind. We will revisit them soon."

"All these things, is an important phrase. We will see this phrase again. If we do the two things, we may be accounted worthy to escape all these things. The two things that we do must be very important, because we can escape all these things and stand before the Son of man."

"Do you see the Great Escape coming into focus? Not only do we escape, but we stand before the Son of man. Who is the Son of man? His mother was a virgin woman. She was born of mankind. She was of the lineage of King David. She married a man who was also of the lineage of King David. Who was the father of the boy called Jesus? Was it the woman's husband? No! The father of Jesus is God. So Jesus was referred to as the Son of man, because his mother is of mankind."

"Well now, we watch and pray always, so that we can escape all these things and stand before the Son of man, which is Jesus. When do we do this? At the time of The Rapture or the Great Escape. Now we have two questions to answer. First, what does watch and pray always mean? Second, what does God mean when he says, all these things? Are those the two questions you would pose to God? I did!"

"What if our God is so amazing that he can answer both questions with just one verse? It reminds me of the t.v. show Name that Tune. Each person bids on how few notes it will take to figure out the tune. Finally, someone says I can do it with one note. The note is played and the contestant gives that deer in the headlights look. Everyone knows that he just blew it."

"The good news is that God never blows it. He has an answer for everything. I prayed and asked for his help. Do you know what he did? He gave me an answer!"

"He led me to the second letter of Peter 3:11. In verse 10 I could see phrases, such as, 'a great noise', 'elements shall melt', 'with fervent heat.' I immediately thought of nuclear war. Does it sound like nuclear war to you? It did to me. I began to think of a conflict between this Country and China or Russia or even both of them. We are in conflict with North Korea right now. China says that they will defend North Korea. Would nuclear war be far behind? And what if Russia were to join in?"

"I then read 3:11, 'Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and Godiness.' There was that phrase, all these things. Is it possible that all these things shall dissolve in a nuclear war? Is escaping the nuclear war then, all these things that God is referring to? Do we leave just before the nukes fly? It appears so!"

"What about the rest of it? In Luke he says watch and pray always. Here in Peters letter the words are holy conversation and Godliness. Praying is obvious holy conversation with the Lord. The question is, is watching and Godliness the same. Godliness is the act of trying to be like God. If we draw close to him in relationship, we will begin to act more like him. Why then must we watch? By watching for him and expecting his soon return we will tend to want to live for him. We then will try harder to achieve Godliness."

"The question is now are you saved? Are you living for him? If he returned now to Rapture his children are you ready to go? Have you lived for him in the past but you have strayed away? Are you simply not certain? Today you can be certain. Today you can become ready to escape the coming nuclear war. If you want to pray the prayer of salvation come forward."

As the congregation sang the song 'just as I am' people throughout the tent began moving toward the front. Jane was sitting near the front and noticed Alice Butner heading up front. Soon there was a crowd of 50 people waiting for prayer. When the song ended Pastor Perkins prayed the prayer of salvation.

"Ladies and Gentlemen pray with me this prayer. When we say amen you will be a child of God. "Holy father, I thank you for Jesus. I Believe that he was born of a virgin, died on the cross, rose from the dead, will return one day to set up his kingdom. Please forgive me of my sins through the blood that Jesus shedd on the cross. I will no longer live to please myself. I will live to please you. I thank you for forgiving me and for being my savior. In Jesus name amen."

The crowd cheered and clapped. Jane went to Alice and put her arms around her. They hugged and cried together. The two apologized to each other and would now be good friends.

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The people in the tent prayed the prayer of salvation. They want to be worthy to escape all these things which shall come to pass(be dissolved). Those of you in reader land can also pray this prayer of salvation. You can be a child of God.