Dear Friends:

There are many different views on the Rapture and that's okay, since it is not a salvation issue. I do not preach or teach on the timing of the "catching away" of the church in our services, however I have written the following study on this important subject and I hope it will be a blessing to you.

Pressing On,

Joel Hemphill

Pre-Tribulation Rapture

Fact or Fiction?

Jesus is coming soon! The signs are everywhere, famines, pestilence (aids is the greatest ever known to man), and the increase of earthquakes (Matt. 24:7). Jesus said also "the sea and the waves would be roaring" (tsunamis) and there would be "fearful sights" (Luke 21:11, 25). What could be a more fearful sight than busses and buildings being blown up, killing thousands? One of the greatest signs of His soon coming is the re-gathering of the Jews and Israel re-established as a nation (Isaiah 14:1-3, Jer. Ch. 30 & 31, and Ezek. Ch. 36 & 37, Amos 9:14-15). Plans are now under way to rebuild the last days' temple in Jerusalem (Mark 13:14, Rev. 11:1-2) (see www.temple.org.il). However, there is one thing that is being taught by many sincere Christian ministers today that I believe is based on a misinterpretation of scripture and I feel constrained in spirit to write about it. That is the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture of the church. May I say in all humility that I believe this is a man-made doctrine that is not supported by the Bible. Not that they would knowingly preach error but perhaps they have embraced it without thorough study and rightly dividing the word of truth. Maybe you have made up your mind in this area and will not hear me out, but I pray that this is not the case. Please look with me at some Bible facts.

My friend, can you imagine a just God taking His church, which is the light of the world and the salt of the earth, to heaven to miss the time of trouble and leaving the babies and children of all the nations to suffer through it? Do you believe all of earth's children under the age of accountability will be raptured, and have you seen in the Bible where life will continue on earth with no child to be found under the age of 10 or 12 years? Likewise is the church to escape suffering and persecution, while Israel that has already suffered so much, is left here in tribulation without our help, prayers, or support? It simply does not fit scripture, but seems tailor made for an American Church (Laodicea) that says "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing," and knowest not "that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor and blind and naked" (Rev. 3:17). I cannot help but think of the old hymn that asks, "Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas?"

My friend, God looks severely upon false teaching and the seriousness of it can hardly be overstated. When Paul said in II Thessalonians 2:3, "Let no man deceive you by any means" he was speaking in reference to the timing of Jesus' return. This shows that there would be deception regarding this matter. Every doctrine bears fruit, and error as you well know bears bitter fruit. Let me explain how this pre-tribulation rapture doctrine can do harm to the body of Christ.

The USA Today newspaper carried a story recently about the U.S.'s most decorated officer to survive as a P.O.W. He spent 8 years in the horrible prison called "Hanoi Hilton" and in spite of intense mental and physical torture, came back home to his family. He was asked in the interview, who did not survive the ordeal and he said, "The optimists." When asked to explain he said, "those who said, 'we will be out by Christmas' and weren't, then 'we'll be out by New Years' and weren't, then 'we'll be out by Easter' and weren't, and their spirits were broken, their hopes dashed, and they succumbed to despair and died." He said, "I fixed my mind for the long haul and thought, I have a wife and babies back home in the U.S. and no matter how long it takes or what I have to suffer, I will see them and hold them again." Thus, he made it! We as Christians must fix our minds for the long haul!

It is dangerous to preach a doctrine of easy escape when that is not what is coming. May I humbly say that what is coming is a shaking of the nations. In 1986, God told me, "I am soon going to shake the nations with a demonstration of the power of my wrath. Many will think that it is the end but it is not, it is just to show my power to the nations." God said He did not want His people stirred by the shaking, but He wants us stirred by the Word, now, "so that we will have the strength to reap the harvest of souls that the shaking will bring." I later found where Ezekiel 38:20, Haggai 2:6-7, Hebrews 12:26-27 and Joel 3:11 speak of this shaking which is to come. Joel 2:31 says these things happen "Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord."

Let me say to my friends in the ministry, Brethren instead of telling people they will fly away and avoid it all, let's do as Paul did in Acts 14:21-22, preaching to all of the churches "strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith" and saying "we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God." What happened to that message?

As Don Finto said in his book, Your People Shall Be My People, "I would rather be prepared for the worst and be delivered than to be caught off guard." Daniel 11:32 says, "then they that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits," (not, "will fly away"). These exploits are heroic and notable deeds and there is something in me that looks forward with great anticipation to that day. Strengthened by God, I would love to do battle with the anti-Christ for "greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world" and "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God." (I John 4:4 and II Cor. 10:4)

Dear fellow Christian, please receive this message in the spirit of love in which it is written as I do honor you and believe that you are a sincere seeker for truth.

God has plans that we know not of and one thing is for sure, His glory will soon be revealed in the earth. May we spread the Gospel and pray for the soon coming of Jesus.

Your Brother In Christ,

Joel Hemphill

Friends:

Sometime back I wrote a study titled "Why I Speak in Tongues" and posted it on this website. We get a good many questions and comments about this article and are always happy to respond.

A couple of weeks ago I received a quite lengthy email from a Dr. Bob Pearson (I have changed the name) who named many great Christian ministers from the past, and Dr. Billy Graham of the present, who did not teach or practice speaking in tongues. His question was basically, "If speaking in tongues is of God, and they didn't practice it, how could they have been used of Him as they were?" That is a good question and I hope I answered it well. I have posted my email to him here, so you can be the judge.

Warmest Christian Regards,

Joel Hemphill

"More About Tongues"

Dear Brother Pearson:

I received your email regarding my article on speaking in tongues and was very happy to hear from you. From the tone of your questions I felt that you may not believe in speaking in tongues, however I will answer according to my belief that you are a sincere seeker for the truth.

Number one, Brother Pearson, we must not get our doctrine from experience, no matter how profound, but from the eternal word of God, and we strive that our experience might fit the Bible.

Number two, you mentioned the names of many great men who obviously have done much for the kingdom of God, whom you say did not teach or practice speaking in tongues, and asked me to judge whether they were lost, backsliden or heretics. These are definitely not words that I would use to describe any of these servants of the Lord and neither would I set about to judge their walk with God. Nevertheless, from the scriptures we learn that some have done a good work for God, even tho their understanding of the truth was deficient and their message incomplete. Acts 19:24-28 tells of Apollos, a Jew who was "an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures." Verse 25 says he was "instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in the spirit, he spoke and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John." He was doing a good work for God. But verse 26 says Aquila and Priscilla "expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly" and his ministry became much greater (verse 28). If as you say, the men that you named never spoke in tongues, just think how much greater their ministries would have been had they practiced and taught this wonderful experience. They would have been in the company of many people, mightily used of God, who did speak in tongues, including Mary the mother of Jesus (Acts 1:14 and 2:1-4), His brother James (Acts 1:14 and 15:8-13), the apostle Peter (Acts 2:4-21) and the apostle Paul (I Corinthians 14:15-18).

My question to you Brother Pearson is, How do you know that the men you named never spoke in tongues? Take Billy Graham for instance. In his book "The Holy Spirit," in the chapter titled "The Sign Gifts," he says some wonderful things regarding speaking in tongues. He says on page 226 "I personally cannot find any biblical justification for saying the gift of tongues was meant exclusively for New Testament times." On page 228 he says, "The filling of the Spirit may result in many different experiences in our lives, of which tongues on occasion may be only one evidence." On page 231 Brother Graham says, "A number of friends have told me that after they had prayed for a long period of time, they suddenly found themselves speaking in an unknown language." He adds "The private use of tongues is implied by Paul when he remarks that 'I speak in tongues more than you all'." On page 233 Brother Graham expresses the need for believers to be filled with the Spirit and says, "on the occasion of a particular in-filling, tongues may be a sign God gives some." He says also on page 233 "to summarize, First, there is a real gift of tongues. Many of those who have been given this gift have been transformed spiritually. Second, God uses tongues at certain times, in certain places, especially on the frontiers of the Christian mission, to further the kingdom of God and to edify believers."

On page 218 Brother Graham gives this account, "A leading minister in the Church of Scotland lay in the Intensive Care Unit of a Glasgow infirmary. He knew that his life hung in the balance - at any minute he might be seeing his Lord face to face. And so, he began talking to Him. As he did, he found himself praying in a language he had never heard before. He recovered to serve his Lord for several more years." He makes this enlightening statement on page 221, "No one can escape the fact that the neo-Pentecostal emphasis has brought Protestants and Roman Catholics closer together in some parts of the world, not on the basis of having worked out their theological disagreements but on the basis of speaking in tongues and baptism with the Holy Spirit." While not professing to be an expert on speaking in tongues or saying whether or not he speaks in tongues, Brother Graham addressed the subject of "unknown tongues" on pages 224 and 225. He says "the question is whether or not the tongues in I Corinthians were known languages." He continues "some Bible students suggest they were, while others say they were simply some form of ecstatic utterance unrelated to any know human language. Personally, I lean toward the latter position." Also he gives a quote from I Corinthians chapter 13, "Paul mentions tongues of men and of angels. Now it should be apparent that angelic tongues are not known to any of us, yet the implication is there that some might speak in such tongues." Dr. Graham makes this awesome statement on page 234, "Indeed, tongues is a gift of the Spirit. Today there are Presbyterians, Baptists, Anglicans, Lutherans, and Methodists, as well as Pentecostals, who speak or have spoken in tongues. And those who forbid it do the Church a disservice because they appear to contradict the teaching of the apostle Paul." Please consider, that as quoted by the Full Gospel Men's Voice he said, "In the main denominations we have looked a bit askance at our brethren from the Pentecostal churches because of their emphasis on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but I believe the time has come to give the Holy Spirit His rightful place in our churches. We need to learn once again what it means to be Baptized with the Holy Spirit." (Emphasis mine throughout) I do know that his daughter Anne Graham Lotz teaches and practices speaking in tongues.

Brother Pearson, you mentioned D.L. Moody. I think possibly he spoke in tongues, as this practice did appear in the wake of his preaching campaigns. Take this account by Robert Boyd of a service in Sunderland England in 1873. "When I got to the rooms of the YMCA, I found the meeting on fire. The young men were speaking in tongues and prophesying. What on earth did it mean? Only that Moody had been addressing them that afternoon."

You mentioned also John Wesley. While I have no proof that he spoke in tongues, he certainly did witness many strong manifestations of the Spirit in his meetings. One account from his journal states, "In the evening, such a spirit of laughter was among us, that many were much offended." Another says "It was a frequent occurrence for people to cry aloud or fall down as if dead in the meetings, so great was their anguish of heart, caused, no doubt, by the Holy Spirit convicting them of sin."

Concerning George Whitefield, an account of a service in 1740 says, "Mr. Whitefield had scarcely spoken for a minute on the same text when the whole auditorium could be seen to be deeply moved, to be in tears, and to be wringing hands, and the sighings, weeping, and shouting of the people could be heard."

Jonathan Edwards' ministry was accompanied by many manifestations of the Holy Ghost as well. His writings tell of congregations "that were moved by a mighty, invisible power" that sometimes caused "visible commotion." He writes of one service where "many others at the same time were overcome with distress about their sinful and miserable condition; so that the whole room was full of nothing but outcries, faintings, convulsions and the like. It was pretty often so, that there were some that were so affected, and their bodies so overcome, that they could not go home, but were obliged to stay all night where they were."

You mentioned William Booth, father of the Salvation Army. His grandson, the late William Booth-Cliburn, noted minister and songwriter who penned such great hymns as "Down From His Glory" and "He's Coming Soon," was a very dear friend of mine, and he preached and practiced speaking in tongues.

Brother Pearson, from my study of the history of the Church of Jesus there seems to be an unbroken line of the Holy Spirit poured out in this manner. St. Augustine, who lived in the fourth century, wrote, "We still do what the apostles did when they laid hands on the Samaritans and called down the Holy Spirit on them by the laying on of hands. It is expected that converts should speak with new tongues." Tongues appeared in many of the great revivals. The early Waldensians, spoke in unknown languages. So did the Jansenists, and the Quakers and the Shakers, and the Methodists. "While waiting upon the Lord," wrote W.C. Braithwaite in an account of early Quaker meetings, "we received often the pouring down of the Spirit upon us and ...we spoke with new tongues."

You mentioned Martin Luther, and perhaps he was not baptized with the Holy Ghost. We owe him a great debt of gratitude for his part in the Reformation, but late in his ministry he turned bitter toward the Jews and wrote hateful things that are not consistent with scripture, nor someone filled with the Holy Spirit. He was quoted by Hitler in some of his speeches, and his erroneous doctrines helped lead to the horrible Holocaust. All doctrine, good and bad bears fruit, and it was said in a scholarly treatise on the Holocaust recently, written by rabbis Yoel Schwartz and Yitzchak Goldstein, "...without Christianity, the success of Nazism would not have been possible...Were it not for the fact that dozens of generations in Europe had been imbued with religious hatred, the growth of racist hatred towards Jewry in modern times could not have taken place." While I am not blaming Martin Luther for the Holocaust, some of his doctrine certainly did contribute to it. Perhaps it would have been different if Luther and others like him who taught this false doctrine, had been baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus said, "will guide you into all truth...and show you things to come" (John 16:13). Please note also that the disciples, baptized with the Holy Spirit, and with Him as their inner guide, taught only what "seemed good to the Holy Ghost" (Acts 16:28). Brother Pearson, much of the error and divisions that are a part of Christianity today would go away if all were baptized with the Holy Ghost.

Dr. Pearson, a look at tongues such as this always begs the question, "What good is speaking in tongues?" Let's let the Bible answer.

Brother Pearson, I hope that you will read again prayerfully Acts chapters 2, 8, 10 and 19 and I Corinthians chapter 14. It is a serious thing to teach and preach error and not the "whole council of God." I will say of all Bible truths what Dr. Billy Graham says of the "gospel" in his book "The Holy Spirit," "Men and women do make decisions wherever the gospel is proclaimed; whether publicly or privately, some say yes, some say no, and some procrastinate. No one ever hears the gospel proclaimed without making some kind of decision." Paul says in I Corinthians chapter 3 that some who have worked for God, will on judgement day"suffer loss" of rewards, tho they themselves will be saved, because they were not careful how they built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, as laid down by the apostles. The Lord told me in 1986 that my reward was being weighed in regard to how I received His word. Perhaps it is the same for you.

Please open your mind and heart to all the God has for us as believers.

In Christian Love

Joel Hemphill

Ministry To Homeless

Joel and LaBreeska and their daughter Candy Christmas are very excited about a new ministry the Lord has opened up for them in Nashville, in addition to their ministries on the road. They can be found every Tuesday evening @ 6:00 p.m. under the Jefferson Street bridge singing, preaching and feeding the homeless. The crowds have been running around 200 to 250 (Nashville has approximately 6000 homeless) and God is moving mightily. There have been people saved, baptized with the Holy Spirit, healed and set free from drugs and alcohol. One homeless man who was in a wheelchair was prayed for and he returned the following Tuesday without his wheelchair and praising God for his healing. There has been one baptismal service and another one is planned for the last week of November.

We are amazed at the number of ministers, both singers and preachers, that the Lord has sent to help in this work. The work was started about 1 year ago by Brother Danny Allen, a dedicated soul winner of Springfield, TN., who remains a very important part of it. Other regulars are Evangelist Kent Christmas, Pastor Bruce Allen of Christ Worship Center of Whitehouse, TN, Pastor & Mrs. Robb Tripp of Gallatin, TN. and Pastor and Mrs. David Calhoun of Donelson, TN. Other regular singers in addition to Joel, LaBreeska and Candy are their granddaughter Jasmine Christmas, Randy Burnett, Evangelist Jerry Bennett, Brittany Calhoun, Robb Elders, Russ and Becky Jeffers and Heather Smith.

Joel or Candy normally preach, but special guest ministers have included Pastor Jim Crockett of Bible Baptist Church in Hendersonville, TN, Evangelist LaVerne Tripp, Pastor Eddie Myers of Sonlight Baptist Church in Knoxville, TN who brought two car loads of his people and blessed us with their singing and preaching, and Pastor Maury Davis of Cornerstone Assembly of God in Madison, TN. Special guest singers have included, Stella Pardon, LaVerne and Edith Tripp, Sarah DeLane and Joey Hemphill.

No solicitation for money is made in the services or anywhere else but if God lays it on your heart to give to this work it would be thankfully received, and used 100% to feed and clothe the homeless of Nashville. Checks should be made to Joel Hemphill Gospel Association and are tax deductible. Be sure to specify for the "Bridge Ministry."

You may be asking, "How can I help?" You can pray and come to visit us any Tuesday night. Also, as winter approaches, in addition to the Bibles, shoes and clothes that are always needed, there is a pressing need for blankets, sleeping bags, winter coats, and a building to gather in on bitter cold nights. These dear people are homeless, for whatever reason, and sleep on the ground, in the woods and some in pasteboard boxes.

This is an exciting work! Thank God for the opportunity! Candy said to me a couple of weeks ago, "Dad, I could do this 7 days a week." It's hard work! Each week Candy cooks a 40 quart pot of Jambalaya (rice, chicken, sausage) as well as roast. LaBreeska cooks pots of baked or green beans, and other sweet ladies cook turnip greens, chili or cobblers.

Thanks to all who attend, pray, work and give. Great things are happening - just wanted you to know.

Christian Love,

Joel Hemphill

Alligator Hunt

The last week of September Joel and LaBreeska went to Louisiana for Joel's annual alligator hunt with good friend Bobby Emfinger. Bobby, of Gilbert, LA, sings with the gospel group, "Sounds of Calvary" and is one of the country's best alligator hunters.

Joel bagged an 8 foot and a 9 foot during the 2-day hunt. (Bobby had already bagged an 112 foot monster a couple of days before Joel arrived.) It was a good time of rest, relaxation, and fellowship with beloved family and friends, including Joel's mother who is doing well at the age of 87. LaBreeska managed to get in some shopping as well.