My Grandpa Raggio was a businessman. When I was a little boy in elementary school, Grandpa was building homes, buying and selling real estate, and brokering mortgage loans. For a while, he owned a small lumber yard and hardware store. Then he bought a couple of full-service gas stations.
When I was about 8 years old, I spent one summer hanging around his Sinclair gas station. I pumped gas for the customers, checked their oil, and washed their windows. We sold candy and snacks and cold drinks inside, and we did oil changes and lube jobs. We had a car wash bay, and we sold tires and fixed flats. I wasn't on the payroll. I was just there because he was my grandpa.
One afternoon, Grandpa walked in while I was standing near the cash register. He pulled out a $100 bill and gave it to me. I looked at that $100 bill and my eyes just about popped out.
I could not believe that Grandpa had given me $100. It seemed like a million dollars to me. I knew I had done nothing worth $100 at the gas station. The minimum wage was only one dollar in those days, and I wasn't even working regular hours. I was just his little grandson hanging around the gas station.
I was so overwhelmed that I took the $100 bill and went into a storage room in the back of the building, where he kept all the oil and lube products stored. I stood there in that dark store room and stared at that $100 bill until I convinced myself that it could not be real. I decided that it had to be a counterfeit. Finally, I walked back into the front office and handed the $100 bill back to my Grandpa. I did not want it. I was afraid to keep it because I was afraid I might get in trouble if the FBI found out my Grandpa was handling counterfeit money. He couldn't understand why I didn't want the money, but I insisted that he take it back.
Now, when I remember that day, I think, "WHAT A DUMMY I WAS!!!" If I had actually kept that $100 in 1960, and put it in any kind of a savings account, it would certainly be worth $10,000 or more today. But I didn't keep it because I could not believe that it was real.
Now I am 64 years old, and I see the same thing happening all the time. You may know that I preach and publish the gospel every day of my life. I have tens of thousands of subscribers who receive my Bible lessons every single day, and hundreds of thousands of people see my Internet publications every day.
But they do not understand the value of what I have given them. I preach and teach the Oneness of God. I preach and teach the Acts 2:38 Pentecostal experience of full repentance, water baptism in Jesus' name, and the baptism of the Holy Ghost with speaking in other tongues. That is what the Bible says is the New Birth. I preach and teach holy living, separation from the world and its ways, because the Bible says that without holiness, "no man shall see the Lord." And I preach a lot about Bible prophecies for the last days. I do my best to show people where the Bible says we are headed, and how we are supposed to live and believe in these last days.
But most people look at what I preach just like I looked at that $100 bill that Grandpa gave me 50 years ago. I didn't believe it was real. I thought it was counterfeit. I was afraid I would get in trouble if I took it. Can I say it?? I was an idiot!!
Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it," Matthew 13:44-46.
I see it every single day. People pass right over this Oneness, Apostolic, Pentecostal, Holiness message, and treat it like it is counterfeit money.
But one of these days, they are going to wake up just like I did and realize how foolish they were for turning it down. For giving it back. For refusing it.
In Noah's day, they continued eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, even though Noah's Ark sat right there in their midst screaming out a prophetic message that nobody wanted to hear, "until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and KNEW NOT until the flood came, and took them all away," Matthew 24:38-29.
Those who reject the Gospel, and those who reject the prophetic message will someday soon wake up and see the world on fire with prophetic fulfillment. Many of them will suddenly remember the prophetic message that Ken Raggio and others have been preaching for decades. Suddenly, they will realize that $100 bill was not counterfeit. Suddenly, they are going to WISH that they had taken that $100 bill, because it might have helped them in their time of need.
"They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But WISDOM IS JUSTIFIED OF HER CHILDREN," Luke 7:32-35.
WISDOM IS JUSTIFIED OF HER CHILDREN.
Those who wisely take the $100 bill - the Gospel and the prophetic TRUTH - will JUSTIFY the preacher and his message some day. Those who HEARD and OBEYED the message will be the PROOF and the JUSTIFICATION that the MESSAGE was the TRUE message that they should have believed and obeyed. And those who REJECTED the message will be on the OUTSIDE LOOKING IN when Judgment Day finally arrives.
A Roman Centurion came to Jesus one day, asking a miracle for one of his servants who was sick. Jesus marveled at his faith, especially since many of the Jews had coldly refused to have faith in Him. Jesus "said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," Matthew 8:10-12.
While the JEWS He came to save REJECTED His message, this Roman Gentile truly believed! Jesus warned the Jews of a day to come when men would come from all parts of the world into the Kingdom of God, while many of the people He came especially to save would be cast into outer darkness because of their unbelief.
The Roman Centurion saw the $100 bill and received it. The unbelieving Jews saw the $100 bill and called it "counterfeit," and rejected it.
Don't reject the TRUTH. The day will come when you will regret you rejected it.
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Books, DVDs, and CDs from Ken Raggio
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Please subscribe to this blog so you will be aware of future articles.
- - - - - -
FOR MORE, get and read THE DANIEL PROPHECIES - GOD'S PLAN FOR THE LAST DAYS - http://kenraggio.com/The-Daniel-Prophecies.html
- - - - - -
For more information, visit http://kenraggio.com for thousands of pages of FREE BIBLE STUDIES.
- - -
Follow me on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, LINKEDIN, YOUTUBE and INSTAGRAM!
FACEBOOK - ken.raggio.9
TWITTER - kenraggiocom
LINKEDIN - kraggio
YOUTUBE - Ken Raggio
INSTAGRAM - kenraggio
Let's study the Bible together!!
Books, DVDs, and CDs from Ken Raggio
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