Ancient Symbols and Prophetic Parables with Perry Stone (Part 4)

Welcome to Manifest, hosted by international evangelist, teacher and author Perry Stone. Enjoy unique insight into prophetic and practical truth. It's time to feast on fresh manna, so get ready to be blessed and encouraged. And now, here is your host and teacher, Perry Stone. We talked a moment ago about grinding at the mill, grinding stones. And I mentioned a moment ago, and I want to reiterate this, that some people believe that this scripture is not applicable today because people do not grind grain as they did in the time of Christ. You know, two women shall be grinding at the mill, one shall be taking the other left. But he said, Watch ye therefore, for ye know not what hour the Lord doth come. Now, because he's talking about the coming of the Lord, Jesus would have certainly known that people would be grinding at the mill in the time of the end when he would return. I want to emphasize again that this is done by millions of people in third world countries. Now, the point I make that I want to make about Jesus making this statement, they are grinding at the mill, here's the point I want to make, and I didn't make it earlier, that if they are grinding wheat at the mill, there has been a harvest. In Israel, there's two cereal harvests. One is called the barley harvest, which happens around March and April. And the celebration of the festivals that occur at barley harvest are Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits. But then Pentecost is the harvest of the wheat. Pentecost centers around the wheat harvest. So the harvest in the Bible is not just actual barley and grain. It represents the harvest of souls at the end of the age that will come into the kingdom. Matthew 24, 14 said, The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness unto all nations. And then the end would come. Now, the barley harvest happens in the spring. Wheat harvest happens in the early summer. But we also know that there's a grape harvest that happens in the fall months. So you have barley, wheat, and grape. Now, barley is winnowed. You have to winnow barley because it's a softer grain. But you have to crush wheat to separate it from the straw. And you also have to crush grapes. Now, the book of Revelation talks about the grapes of God's wrath being poured into the winepress of the wrath of God. That deals with the latter part of the tribulation. What is the wheat harvest and what is the barley harvest? Well, let's look at this. In Matthew 24, verses 24, 41 through 42, we discover something. And that is that the field has been harvested and is not being ground in the mill. Now, there's a real key here, okay? And I want to give you what the key is. In the parables, if he's talking about two grinding at the mill, there has been a harvest of grain. Let us assume because they're grinding, it's the wheat harvest because the barley is harvested differently. Now, during the wheat harvest, there's something, and I've got to tell you about this because when I went to Israel and saw this, it was absolutely amazing to me. And that is that there is something, there is an actual board that in Latin is called a tribulum. And this board is made out of wood, and this one has stones embedded in the board. And when they want to crush the grain, they'll put the grain on a flat stone, what's called a threshing floor. And a man will stand on this, and sometimes his children will, and an animal will walk on that threshing floor back and forth, pulling that board over top of that in order to separate the grain. Now, this is interesting that the Latin word is tribulum, and the word that's used about the time of the end when the Antichrist and the Ten Kings appear and the judgments of God are unleashed on the earth is called the tribulation period. The word tribulation, however, is used in both Testaments. Most people don't know that. Deuteronomy 4, verse 30, Matthew 24, 21, both use the word tribulation. In Hebrew, the Hebrew word is sarah, which means adversity, affliction, distress, and tribulation. The Greek word is thlipsis, and it means anguish, burden, or persecution. Both words actually have the same connotation to them. A time of great distress, a time of great trouble, a time of great anxiety in the earth, and for individuals who are in the middle of that time called the tribulation. Now, this object, as I mentioned earlier, which is a board with rocks or metal embedded in it, is called a tribulum. It's also called a threshing sledge in Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 15. Now, here's what the Scripture reads in Isaiah. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth. And thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away. And the whirlwind shall scatter them, and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord and the glory of the Holy One of Israel. Now, if this instrument is used for crushing wheat and separating the grain from the straw on a threshing floor, and the wheat harvest is the separation that happens near Pentecost, which is the wheat harvest cycle, and the tribulation is the time of crushing and separating, then this makes sense that the wheat harvest in Pentecost, even though it's the church age right now, is representative of the time of the Lord separating and crushing, etc., on the earth. And when I say the separating, remember that there's 144,000 Jews in the book of Revelation. In chapter 7, there are 12,000 from the tribes, with exception of the tribe of Dan, of course, that are sealed with the seal of God. Then in chapter 14, they appear in heaven with harps, singing songs to the Lamb of God. These were men who did not make it in the rapture, but these are individuals, and they are Jewish, by the way. They're not the Jehovah Witnesses or the Mormons or some other group, as some have taught. They are individuals who are Jewish, who are going to be faithful to the Lord in the tribulation period, but God's going to seal them and catch them up before the time of the latter part of the greater tribulation actually occurs. So the point I want to make is in the story here, is we go back to the time of harvesting the grain, and the fact that they are grinding at the mill. The grinding would be the wheat harvest. They're not pressing on the grapes. That is alluded to in the book of Revelation in the latter part of the tribulation as well. But the wheat harvest is an actual harvest in which grinding occurs, and so here again we discover that as the barley harvest represents the Passover, Unleavened Bread, and first fruits, and the barley harvest will represent the overcoming remnant of believers, the wheat harvest represents the 144,000, and the grapes at the end of the tribulation will represent those who shed their blood by not accepting the mark of the beast who will die in the tribulation period. We may get into that a little bit more later on. Now another parable, Matthew 22, verses 1-14, is called a king's son's wedding parable. In Matthew 22, 1-2, a king sent his servants to bid people to come to a wedding. So he's gone out into the highways and the hedges to compel people to come to his son's wedding. All of a sudden, people start making excuses. One guy says, well, I have a farm, and I've got to take care of the farm. One guy says, I just got married. I've got to take care of my wife. One says, I've got stuff to go sell. I'm busy. I'm too busy to go into the wedding. So what eventually happened is the king became angry, and he sent his servants to destroy the entire city. And then he makes this statement. He says, now that the city is destroyed, you go into the highways and hedges and invite those who are willing to come to my son's wedding. Now we do know from the parable what this represented. It represented the city of Jerusalem and how the Messiah, who was the Son of God, came to the earth, and they rejected Him by and large. The religious Jewish congregation or people rejected Him, the Pharisees and Sadducees and so forth. And so what happened was the city of Jerusalem was eventually destroyed, but it would be furnished by Gentiles who previously were not allowed to be in covenant with God, but now the Lord has allowed the Gentiles to be in covenant based on Acts chapter 10. So they go out and they compel these individuals to come to the wedding, and people start coming into the wedding, but something very bizarre happens in this parable. And again, this is one of those parables that's very difficult to understand. In the parable, there is a guest who has appeared at the wedding, and this guest, if you look at the parable, is coming in, but he doesn't have on a proper garment. Now here's what the scripture reads in Matthew 22 verses 11 through 14 related to the king. When the king came in to see the guest, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment, and he was speechless and said, Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? And the Bible, of course, said he was speechless. I got ahead of myself on that verse. And here's what the rest of the verse says. Then the king said to his servants, Bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer darkness, and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now this is a very, very strange parable because the man is invited into the wedding, but when he gets to the place of the wedding, he doesn't have the right garment on. So those outside of the wedding did not have the garments. The king, and this is in history, had to provide the garment for the individual to come into the wedding. Now this stranger was unable to attend the wedding because of his garment. Now if we go to Revelation 19 and 8, we discover that the white robes given to saints, given to believers, are the righteousness of the saints. This man was attempting to enter the kingdom without the righteousness of God. He was attempting to enter the kingdom, but he was not in right standing with God. And here we go again. He's cast into outer darkness, which some scholars say he goes through the tribulation period. Now, of course, the wedding supper, we know that in Revelation chapter 19 that there is a marriage supper of the Lamb, which is going to occur in heaven. So I would say if this way, he professed to know the Lord, but he did not have a relationship with the Lord, the king, or his son. God is the ultimate king. His son is going to become the king of kings. So the wedding is the marriage supper of the Lamb, and the guy's trying to get in by professing but not possessing. Now, this agrees with Matthew 7, 22 through 23. Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, that I not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out devils, and in your name do many wonderful works. But he will say to them, Depart from me, you worker of iniquity. I never knew you. Or we would say, I never had an intimate relationship with you. So you have to have an intimate relationship with Christ. You have to be in covenant with Christ to be a part of the wedding supper. And that gives you righteousness with God, which righteousness becomes your garment that allows you to enter into the marriage supper of the Lamb if you're in covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now remember, Jesus, when he addressed the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2 and 3, he got to the seventh church, which is Laodicea, who said they were rich, increased with goods, and had need of nothing. And Jesus said to them, But you are naked, and you'll be spewed out of my mouth. So, you know, there's different information that we can deduct from the different parables that we read, the parable of the talents, the parable of the ten virgins, just the different parables that we're dealing with. Here's some information that we can deduct from that. Number one, this is important you hear this, that the coming of the Lord would happen in the distant future. Now, we do know this. We do know that many, many of the Christians in the first century church believed that Jesus could return in their day. As a matter of fact, in John 21, verses 20 through 23, if you'll read that, you'll discover that some of the disciples believed that John the Apostle would not die until Jesus Christ would actually return. And that's not what is taught. John even says, The Lord did not say that disciple would not die. He said to Peter, What is it to you if he's still around while I come? Jesus is simply making a point that John, Peter, just follow me. Don't worry about John. That's what Jesus was saying in John 21 to Peter who always had his nose in other people's business it seemed. But the parables reveal that it will be a long time before the Lord will return. Look at Matthew 13, 34. And the Son of Man took a long journey. Look at Matthew 25 and verse 19. After long time, the Lord of these servants cometh. Look at Luke 20 and verse 9. A certain man planted a vineyard and went into a far country for a long time. Now there's three parables that indicate that the person who is responsible for the estate, that's the king's son who would be Jesus, would take a long journey and then return to give an account to his servants. And we are the servants. We are his followers. So he's been in heaven a long time, but he's going to return to take an account. And that account will be at the judgment called the judgment seat of Christ in Revelation 11 verse 18. Two more verses. James 5, 7 says, The husbandman, and this is the person who owns the vineyards, who owns the fields, waits for the fruit of the earth and has long patience for it. That's why the Lord has not yet returned. The Lord has not yet returned because he has long patience that many souls would be saved. The Lord, according to 2 Peter 3 and 9, is not slack concerning his promise, meaning if Jesus said he was coming back, he is coming back. But it says he's long suffering, not willing that any perish, but that all come to him through repentance. So if you want to know why it's been a long time and the Lord hasn't returned, if you want to know why the parables indicate that the Lord, the owner, the king's son, will be gone long and then come back, and he's left us with stewardship, it's because he's not slack concerning his promise. He's not giving up, saying, well, I'm not going to return at all. He's patient, waiting for souls to be saved, for the hearts of people to be ripe so that they can turn to him. There is a time delay, and this is important, you hear this. There's a time delay in the return of the Lord, and we don't know the day or the hour, and sometimes this long time gap can make people believe the Lord is not coming or it's going to be a long time. I can't tell you how many times on the Internet somebody would come on and say, well, you know, you're preaching, the Lord's coming, I've heard it all my life, he may not come for a thousand years. Well, Lord, if he didn't come in a thousand years, there wouldn't be a world left, you know, the way things are going, because Jesus said, except the days be short and no flesh would be saved. And Daniel 12 and 1 talked about the future. But I want to show you what can happen, and this is the danger, of people who know the Lord will come and they always put it off till later. Matthew 24, 48. Now notice, if you say the Lord's going to delay his coming, he says you're an evil servant. Your heart's not right to say that. Luke 12 and 45. Here again, people saying, well, the Lord's going to delay his coming. As a matter of fact, in 2 Peter 3 and 4, the reaction of those that are not looking for the Lord is revealed. 2 Peter 3, 3 and 4, there'll be scoffers in the last days saying, where is the promise of his coming? Now, if you want to see, because I see this traveling, if you want to see the reaction of how people live, if they do not believe the Lord could not come for another 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, they seem to do what Luke warned about in Luke chapter 12, verse 45. Luke warned about the reaction of people who would teach and say that the Lord's going to delay his coming. Luke 12, 45 says they will begin beating and mistreating their workers. They mistreat people. Number two, Luke 12, 45, they would begin eating and drinking. And then the drinking would lead to drunkenness in Luke 12, 45. I can't believe, and I know that people, I get criticized for saying this, but I can't believe the number of people today who think it's okay to drink alcohol in the body of Christ. And I will tell you this, that if you ever have a family member who struggles, if you ever have a child that struggles, if you ever have a husband that struggles, and you see the pain, and you see car accidents, and if you ever have a grandchild and you've permitted them to drink and they go and hit somebody and kills them and end up in prison, you're going to have to live with that the rest of your life. And nothing good has ever, in the Bible or in society, good has ever come out of people drinking alcohol. Most people, when they start going to parties, end up with their clothes off, end up having affairs, end up doing just crazy stuff, saying crazy things and doing crazy things. And so the best thing to do is leave it alone. Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. And the Greek reads, Be not drunk with wine, wherein is an debauchery of every kind, but be continually in control of the spirit. Now the reason I'm saying that is if you look at the word drunken, men shall drink and become drunken. The Greek word is the word methe. And although it's not talking about methamphetamines, we have a word today called methamphetamines, and we have a drug, the abbreviation of it is meth, and it alters people's personality, which is the same thing alcohol does. People become drunken. It alters their personality. It alters their character. It takes their inhibitions down. And the drugs of choice by people today, whether it's cocaine, heroin, or meth, or LSD, whatever they want to use, it's altering the personality. And I want to make one more statement, then I'll go to something else. And oftentimes when people who are believers are involved with alcohol or they're involved with drugs, what you say to the unbeliever is, Jesus is not enough. I have to have a fix because Jesus is not enough. I have to be high with something else because Jesus is not enough. And so how can a world that is bound up be delivered by Christians who are bound up? How can a world that's suffering and people that are in bondage be set free by Christians who themselves are in bondage? You do not encourage anyone when you maintain the situation that you're in in the area of addictions. And I'm not condemning people who have legitimate addictions who want help, but I am talking to those people who want to justify what they're doing and not deal with it, realizing that it will affect other people's lives. And I think this is the warning that Jesus gave. You've got to believe that the Lord could come at any moment because if you don't, you'll mistreat people, you'll become greedy, you'll become selfish, and it can lead to other things, as the Scripture says. Now this is why Luke 21, 36 sums all this up. We watch and pray to be accounted worthy to escape these things and to stand before the Son of Man. So the parables, the parables are warning us to be watching or we could miss the return of the Lord. Look at this verse. Watch therefore. It's a very important verse. Look at this verse. Watch therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord doth come. Matthew 24, verse 42. Now the Greek word watch means to keep a guard at night, used in Matthew chapter 14, 25. And the word watch in Greek can mean to keep in custody or watch your action, watch your words, watch how you walk, watch how you live. So that word watch, stay alert morally, stay alert spiritually. That's really what watch means. Stay alert morally, you know watch out for the traps of the enemy, stay alert spiritually. And you can only do that when you pray. You have to watch and pray. If you pray and don't watch, you may stumble into a trap. But if you watch and don't pray, you're going to be weakened because prayer is where your strength comes and prayer is where the Holy Spirit gives you warnings. And so the main parables, and I want to get into this, the main parables that deal with the coming of the Lord are the following. The parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. The parable of the three servants in Luke chapter 19. The parable of the wedding invitation in Luke chapter 22. And the parable of the disobedient servant in Luke chapter 12. Now I want you to look at the screen, look at those four parables. These are the four, what we call primary main parables that relate to the events prior to the return of the Lord and the reaction of people. Notice there's five foolish virgins. There's one unprofitable servant. There's a man that doesn't have the right garment on. There's a disobedient servant that's not taking what God is giving him and being a good steward with it, okay? So what is keeping, okay, what's the one thing keeping people from their blessing in these parables? So what I want to do, I wanted to look at this, and I said, okay, what's the one thing keeping them from their blessing? Okay, let's look at this. With the ten virgins, they are sleeping before his return and they don't have extra oil. So the situation with the ten virgins are they're not watching. With the three servants, two of them are giving to advance the kingdom, but one of them is not advancing the kingdom, so his problem is he's not giving, all right? In the parable of the wedding, everybody that's in the wedding has on the proper garment, but you have this one guy that doesn't have a proper garment on, so there's no righteousness or right standing with God in him. In the disobedient servant, you have this servant that doesn't believe the Lord was coming. He's saying the Lord's going to delay his coming, so it's unbelief. Now look at the right list again. Number one is not watching, not to guard yourself, not to guard what is around you spiritually or morally. Number two is not giving, becoming greedy and selfish and not giving what belongs to God and assisting the kingdom. Number three is not being righteous, not being in right standing with God. And number four is falling into unbelief or not believing. Now, you can't receive anything from God based on the book of Hebrews when you're in unbelief. If you don't believe God can save you, you can't be saved. If you don't believe God can sanctify you, he'll never sanctify. If you don't believe in the Holy Spirit, you'll never receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. If you walk around saying, oh, God don't heal anymore, guess what? You're not going to get healed. So if you don't believe the Lord's coming, guess what? He's not going to come for you because Paul said, beware lest with an evil heart of unbelief you fall short of the Sabbath, the sabbaton or the eternal day of rest. Unbelief can stop the flow of God and keep you out of the kingdom of God. Now available is Perry Stone's latest DVD series, The Antichrist, His Confederacy, and The World's Final Eighth Empire. This new eight-hour expanded and detailed DVD teaching will explain the empire that will seize the world in the future. This teaching will unlock the final mystery of the Antichrist. In this series, Perry will explain where the theory of the Antichrist originates in Scripture, what the prophets, Christ, and the apostles taught about the Antichrist, the early fathers' teachings about the Antichrist, the men in history who were candidates for the Antichrist, the major prophecies concerning the Antichrist kingdom and his ten kings, the role Islam has in the future eighth kingdom. Discover the area the Antichrist comes from, where he rules, and what he will do. Learn details of the mark and image of the beast and global economic control. You will also discover numerous prophetic insights seldom known that are now revealed. This study will answer hundreds of your questions. It also includes word studies, amazing history, and combines Old and New Testament prophecies to give a clear understanding of this subject. These four DVDs, approximately eight hours of teaching, has numerous pictures and charts. This DVD series is manifest offer AK139 and is available for a gift of just $65 or more. To order, visit perrystone.org or call toll-free 1-888-21-BREAD. That's 1-888-212-7323. You may also write to us and send a check or money order to Perrystone Ministries, and request offer number AK139. This offer is available on television for a limited time, so we look forward to hearing from you soon. Please take advantage of this offer and get the DVDs. And, you know, in a couple of weeks we're coming out with a brand new prophetic book, and I want you to keep your ears and eyes open for that. It is the most significant one for the season we're in that I think you will read anywhere. It's so detailed, a heavy revelation from the Lord. I only have a few moments here to remind you that our prophetic summit's coming up. My birthday, can you believe I'll be 62 now? I look 62 now with the hair, you know what I mean. But June 23rd I'll be 62 years of age, but I still feel great. I'm not quitting and I'm not giving up. I'm getting recharged and re-fired like the old timers used to say. So our summer Warrior Fest, now these are registered events you have to register to come. Registration may be full, but we can put you on a standby registration. Louisville, Kentucky, July 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th. Open up with me on Thursday night, get there with me the whole meeting. Family Faith Church in Willis Campus, that's in Texas. We want you to go to Willis, Texas Friday and Saturday. That's August 13th, 14th. And then Family Faith Church Huntsville Campus, we always go there all day Sunday. And that's in Huntsville, Texas. That's August 15th, Christ Temple, August the 27th, 28th and 29th, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Oh, we love that church. Pastor Chuck, we can't wait to get up there with you and jamming all the great people. Woodward First Assembly on September the 12th, and that's in Woodward, Oklahoma. Also, just let me throw this in here. In October the 10th, I'll be at Faith Landmark Ministries. Now we're going to be doing a lot of things in the future. Perrystone.org will give you the information under itinerary. See if we're going to come in your area. Bless all of you. Amen.