Posted on 07/05/2010 6:39:06 AM PDT by GiovannaNicoletta
More and more as we get closer to the end, people want to see a time line of coming events. Questions about the order in which events will take place, the span of time between them and the likelihood of there being enough time for everything to happen in the time we have left are becoming more numerous with each passing week.
As you know the Bible doesn’t provide this level of specificity. But neither are we left to make unfounded predictions. There are a number of clues scattered throughout the New Testament that take much of the guess work out of things. With diligent study, we can put them together and make some pretty reasonable assumptions.
Romans 11:25
For example Romans 11:25 says Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in. I’ve shown several times how the phrases “full number” and “come in” point to the Rapture of the Church. In Paul’s day they were often used in a nautical context. The “full number” was the number of crew members a ship needed before it was authorized to set sail. As soon as the full number of crewmen had been contracted the ship immediately left the harbor to begin its journey.
The phrase “come in” means to arrive at the ship’s scheduled destination. It’s still in use today. People talk about how different life will be for them when their ship “comes in”.
From Romans 11:25 we get the notion that the Church has a full number, too. That’s the number of believers necessary for the rapture. Reaching that number frees us from the constraints of this world and we’ll immediately “come in” to our scheduled destination, Heaven.
Jesus told the disciples He was going to His father’s house to prepare a place for us, and then He’d come back for us to take us there (John 14:2-3). He didn’t say He’d come back here where we are to be with us here, as in the 2nd Coming. He said He’d come back to take us there to be with Him where He is. This has to be a reference to the Rapture. Once He’s done that, Israel’s time of hardening will come to an end and the time of their reconciliation will begin.
Isaiah 17, Psalm 83, And Ezekiel 38-39
Ezekiel said that one outcome of the battle he described in chapters 38-39 is that Israel will be awakened to His presence (Ezekiel 39:22). Since Paul said Israel’s awakening will follow the rapture and Ezekiel said it will be an outcome of his battle, we can assume the rapture will likely precede Ezekiel 38.
None of Israel’s current next door neighbors are mentioned by Ezekiel, even though they’re all antagonists, but the prophecies of Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 feature them prominently. From this we can conclude these prophecies will be fulfilled ahead of Ezekiel 38 but there’s no way to tell if they will also take place before the rapture.
Acts 15:13-18
A set of parallel clues can bring us to the same conclusion about the relationship between Ezekiel 38 and the rapture. In Acts 15:13-18 James said that Israel was being set aside so the Lord could take out of the Gentiles a people for himself, after which David’s fallen Tabernacle would be rebuilt. The phrase “take out” comes from a Greek word that means to take hold of something for the purpose of carrying it away. It refers to the rapture of the Church.
David’s fallen Tabernacle is the Temple which was destroyed in 70 AD and will be restored. But there won’t be any need for a Temple until Israel is back in an Old Covenant relationship with God. And this will only happen after the Battle of Ezekiel 38. Being back in an Old Covenant relationship means Daniel’s 70th Week will have begun (Daniel 9:27). That means the Age of Grace will have come to an end and the Church will be gone.
Matt. 24:34, Psalm 90:10 and Isaiah 23:15
Based on these verses I believe Jesus said His 2nd Coming would take place about 70 years from the time Israel became a nation again in 1948. (As I demonstrated in “Why The Re-Birth Of Israel Is A Sign Of The End”, it doesn’t make sense to tie Matt. 24:34 to signs that happen just a few years before the 2nd coming.) Adding 70 years to 1948 brings us to the end of 2018. When Daniel’s 70th Week begins, there will only be seven years left until the 2nd coming. That means Daniel’s 70th Week will have to begin 7 years prior to 2018, in 2011.
Other clues indicate the 2nd Coming will likely happen on Rosh Hashanna, also known as the Feast of Trumpets and the Jewish New Year. Because it takes place at the time of the new moon rather than on a full moon, it’s often difficult to determine the exact time of its arrival. For this reason it was sometimes referred to in the past as the feast where no man knows the day or hour. Jesus used a form of this phrase 4 times in the span of 23 verses while referring to the time of the 2nd Coming (Matt. 24:42, 44, 50, Matt 25:13).
Computer projections tell us that in 2018 Rosh Hashanna will occur on Sept. 9-10. But it takes a confirmed visual sighting to make it official and Matt. 24:29 says the moon will not give its light following the end of the Great Tribulation, so no one will know the day or hour of His return until they see Him coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. (Matt. 24:30)
That’s All Folks
That’s as much of a hint as to timing the Bibles gives us. But remember Psalm 83, Isaiah 17 and Ezekiel 38 are all called battles, not wars. If Israel acted without restraint Psalm 83 would likely require only a week or so to fulfill. Isaiah 17 involves only the firing of a missile or the dropping of a bomb. The Rapture of the Church will happen in the twinkling of an eye. God could annihilate the forces of Ezekiel 38 in an afternoon. My point is, this is not too much for Him to accomplish in the time that’s left.
The way the Middle East keeps heating up it’s possible the fulfillment of Psalm 83 and Isaiah 17 could happen very soon. When the Gaza Blockade issue threatened to ignite into a full blown confrontation recently, I thought we were seeing its beginning. But sad to say it’s not if these two prophecies will be fulfilled but when. And from Scripture you can’t tell if they’ll happen before or after the Rapture. They could all happen at once.
But after they do, the Battle of Ezekiel 38 will follow, Israel’s awakening being necessary for Daniel’s 70th Week to begin. This will bring the anti-Christ to the forefront to confirm the treaty that allows for a Temple to be built. In the middle of the 70th Week he’ll claim to be God, kicking off the Great Tribulation, after which the Lord will return to establish His Kingdom.
Over the past few weeks we’ve taken a fresh look at Psalm 83, Isaiah 17, and Ezekiel 38-39. We’ve also shown why the re-birth of Israel has to be the premier sign of the End of the Age. Hopefully, this perspective on how all these prophecies are related will provide the overview we need to understand how very close we are to the End of the Age. Even angels have longed to look into these things (1 Peter 1:12) but you and I are blessed to experience them firsthand.
You can almost hear the foot steps of the Messiah
Church fathers probably were leaders and it is often times difficult for leaders to say they don’t have the answer. Abraham had faith, they needed faith not understanding.
But you are right. Making it up is not the right answer.
I try not to seek answers as much as I try to seek God and His Holy Spirit.
I think a lot of the world is part of Israel and doesn’t know it.Many Jews left Israel and spread out into the world and many of them lost their Jewish heritage along the way to 2010.
I agree. Some lost it and some hid it because of persecution. I have an old Jewish friend who is in that boat and now trying to make some sense of it all - no family, no connection, only practiced in his early youth. Parents died.
Something is stirring inside of him, looking for truth about anything - ‘what’s it all about’ but he’s had bad experiences with ‘Christians’. I told him so have I! And they are a bad representation of The ONE they should be representing.
I’m trying to get him hooked up w/a certain Jewish - now born again Christian - who has a ministry, who speaks Hebrew and very knowledgeable on the OT since youth. He will feel ‘at home’ with him. Hope it all works out.
Which early church fathers?....there was a time early on that Christianity began to lose the sense of its Jewish heritage and the ancient prophecies were ignored. I think it had to do with the fact that history had not yet been aligned yet with the end times events. Some of the stuff the ‘early church fathers’ held to be true went awry of scripture early on. A lot of modern day evangelical types hold to a spiritual Israel kind of view seeing the church as the inheritors and ultimate expression of the new spiritual Israel.
I think though, you have take some things of the Bible as literally true. God knows where all of the direct descendents of Abraham thru Isaac and Jacob are! Abraham’s descendents will have the gentiles as an inheritance as promised, indeed as Paul states, we are made joint heirs with Israel via the”spirit of adoption”. Yet Paul says, Israel’s Jews will have their hearts softened” as well. The OT is filled with promises for the Jews...” I’d have to find the verse where many will “take hold of a Jew” so that they could be taught by “such a one”...in the age of peace to come. Christ himself with his saints(the rapture church) will rule out of the New Jerusalem, which will descend out of heaven and will be a cube 1500 miles in all directions as well as up. (This might not be as physically implausible as one would think. The moon at that time is said to have disappeared due to the disasters of the Tribulation and such a mass might act as a counter balance to what the moon provided to the Earth)
The point is, the Bible is fairly specific about the grafted in Gentiles and the reingrafting in of the Hebrew descendents of Abraham and the roles and ultimate dispositions of each. I just don’t see support of a “spiritual Israel” at least in the symbolic sence that some folks believe in.
I realize too that your perspective changes the farther along the narrow way that you have walked.
Not understanding some of the details at this point in my walk is not troublesome to me. In fact, the older I get I realize the less I understand, but the more intimate my relationship with Jesus becomes, the more I realize just how much I need His righteous because my sinful nature is always revealing itself anew. I know Jesus, and I'm learning that knowledge of Him and His Holy Spirit is my satisfaction, not knowing all the answers.
Amen and Amen!
2 Timothy 4:1-8 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH: HENCEFORTH THERE IS LAID UP FOR ME A CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
Jesus will appear but we are to “Preach the word”, “watch”, “endure afflictions”, “do the work of an evangelist”, “finish the course”, “keep the faith” until that time comes, then there are crowns.
So watch...YES...but be ready NOW because the important part of the discussion is that Jesus is coming...not WHEN He is coming. Even so, come, Lord Jesus
AMEN,WorldviewDad, AMEN! Maranatha!
Now you understand where I’m coming from...now how much we see of Ezekiel 38 or psalm 83, what periods of time must occur after it all takes place before “the treaty”, we don’t know. The implementation of the final economic ‘system’ may occur in stages with wars and persecutions in between...we don’t have all the info yet. A few smart folk though will be able to detect a personality or perhaps two evil personalities, purporting to offer leadership, arising out of the mirk of war and economic malaise and a host of false prophets doing all kinds of magic tricks and preaching seductive false doctrines that befuddle and confuse folks while hampering the work of genuine Christians.
Christians themselves may become more increasingly spiritually potent while under great stress as well, fullfilling Christ’s prophecy that his saints will do “greater works than he” especially against these new demonically empowered false prophets. Perhaps two especially Godly spiritually potent fellows will start making their presence known with resultant miracles as well as curses, being laid upon the earth, issueing out of their mouths. It is said God never is without a witness to himself...perhaps with the church gone or greatly under persecution, these two prophets and 144,000 sealed saints become this witness and will provide comfort as well as some protections against the Beast system for those who are left trying to hold out against the AntiChrist.
Sometime in the middle of all this, the rapture occurs, God “thrusts his scythe into the Earth and reaps his harvest of all toungues and tribes” and a great ‘wedding feast is held”! The timing is all in his hands! Won’t it all be marvelous?
It’s safe to say, we’ll know it when it happens. I don’t agree with trying to put a date on it. We are to live and work til Jesus comes, whenever that will be.
Jesus only said we can’t know the day and hour- the specific time, however, HE is the one who told us to watch for signs of the season, the general time.
“You can believe what you please - it doesn’t have any effect on me whatsoever. “
I don’t believe what I please - I don’t have that right.
“But then don’t come on my posts and try to do the same thing you’re accusing me of. If you believe you are being unfairly “labeled” or otherwise unfairly treated, then I don’t want to read any more disparaging remarks about “futurists” or “dispensationalists” or any of the garbage I’ve been treated to for years. “
I have made no disparaging remarks, to the best of my knowledge. If I have, I apologise. I have certainly disagreed with you, but that is the nature of an “open” thread.
I was dispensationalist until about 1985 when I was in my late twenties. At that stage I had no idea there were even any other views having been brought up in the Plymouth Brethren. Then my beliefs were challenged by a very Godly Christian in a Bible study. That led me on a long, hard look at Scripture where I was forced to re-evaluate the basis for what I believed. In too many cases, it turned out to be the teachings of men (Darby, Schofield,etc and their more recent successors), rather than God’s Word.
Nobody knows the date of the Rapture, since it's a signless event and no one attempted to set a date for the Rapture.
However, there is a date for the beginning of the Tribulation, and a date for the end of the Tribulation.
So it's about what date one is referring to.
Thank you.
You absolutely have the right to believe whatever you want. It's called "free will".
I was dispensationalist until about 1985 when I was in my late twenties. At that stage I had no idea there were even any other views having been brought up in the Plymouth Brethren. Then my beliefs were challenged by a very Godly Christian in a Bible study. That led me on a long, hard look at Scripture where I was forced to re-evaluate the basis for what I believed. In too many cases, it turned out to be the teachings of men (Darby, Schofield,etc and their more recent successors), rather than God’s Word.
If one understands the correct definition of dispensationalism, not the definition that the allegorizers of Scripture will tell you, and not the definition the people who take it upon themselves to decide what Scripture is true and which is false will tell you, dispensationalism is very Biblical and can be validated with Scripture. I don't know what you were told, but tell me what about this you disagree with.
Dispensationalism is the study of God’s Word within the understanding that multiple dispensations are represented in scripture. The giving of the Law to Israel at Mt. Sinai is a classic example of a dispensation. God dispensed (thus beginning a new dispensation) a set of rules for His chosen nation. Though He had previously given a law of circumcision for Abraham and his descendants, and though sacrifices were performed to some extent, these things were codified at Sinai and made part of an extensive list of laws, obedience to which God demanded. The dispensation of the Law was a significant change from that which was previously required of Israel. We can identify several dispensations throughout scripture. Chronologically, they are:
One can see that truth in Scripture as, for example, that there was a time when God intended for mankind to be able to eat freely from the Tree of Life, but Adam’s sin resulted in a change: no more Garden of Eden and no more Tree of Life. The rules changed. Only by recognizing these changes can one truly understand God’s Word as He intended. Failure to do so can lead to serious problems in Bible study and in life. If, for example, one does not recognize that God gave His law to Israel, specifically, then he may wrongly apply it to himself and live under constant self-condemnation as he attempts to live up to an impossible standard.
Paul teaches us to “be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15). Dispensationalists attempt to do just that: rightly divide the word of truth. A major mistake many make is to assume that the Bible has two divisions: Old Testament and New Testament. They then assume that one section is for Isael and one is for the Body of Christ. This can also lead to serious error in Bible study, most significantly in that they can easily confuse that which was intended for Israel with that which was intended for the Body of Christ.
So, that is dispensationalism in a nutshell and, as for Darby and Scofield, they are nothing more than convenient boogymen for those who feel very insecure and threatened by the way they see the Bible.
The implementation of the final economic ‘system’ may occur in stages with wars and persecutions in between...we don’t have all the info yet.
You may be interested in this.
Sometime in the middle of all this, the rapture occurs, God “thrusts his scythe into the Earth and reaps his harvest of all toungues and tribes” and a great ‘wedding feast is held”! The timing is all in his hands! Won’t it all be marvelous?
I personally believe the Church will be taken out before the Tribulation begins, but there is no guarantee given by God to the Church that we will not go through suffering and persecution before He raptures us out of here.
I’m glad you caught that. I just noticed that I failed to ping you. Life has been rather disrupted for the last several weeks for a number of significant reasons and I just am not focusing well.
Take you time and do what you have to do. We'll all still be here when the dust settles.
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