16 November 2014: As with many of the posts here, this one is about Bible prophecy. Be forewarned, this will not be a sugar-coated treatise on what lies in the immediate future.
In Daniel 9:26c the angel Gabriel spoke these prophetic words to Daniel: "
The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined." Thus for the one-thousand nine-hundred forty-four years since the sacking of Jerusalem and the complete destruction of the Second Temple of God on Zion (Mount Moriah) in 70 AD have the continuous wars heralding the end of the present ago of mankind raged. And the final prophetic flood is just barely being restrained at the gates.
Now most people who are known by His Name will immediately and correctly relate this statement to the passage in The Revelation of Jesus Christ found in chapter sixteen, verses twelve through sixteen. However, that is not the complete picture that Scripture provides to us. In no way do I belittle this God-breathed Scripture, yet in my studies I found it to be missing prophetic detail found elsewhere in Scripture that provides vivid detail of occurs in those final 42 months, especially right up to the very moment preceding Jesus' Second Coming. We know the earth will be shattered under the judgments of God during the whole of the 70th Week, but there is far more detail given of the complete prophetic picture.
For that more complete prophetic picture we must turn to the prophet Isaiah and his direct call from God Almighty to become His prophet two-thousand seven-hundred fifty-four years ago. The date of Isaiah's call to be a prophet was in 740-739 BC when King Uzziah of Judah, who was afflicted with leprosy over the period of a decade for his failure to obey God, finally passed away.
Isaiah 6 tells us of his realization of being a hopeless dead man covered from his lips to his toes in his sins, and of his immediate repentance to God upon seeing the Lord sitting upon a throne. And Isaiah thereafter was instantly confessing the sins which made him totally unworthy to view the immense power, Holiness and Glory which he beheld in front of his eyes. Then upon the confession of his sins Isaiah speaks to the sight of mighty and majestic pair of six-winged seraphim which stood above the temple of God. As an aside and for what it might be worth to the reader, I would like to note here that Isaiah's description of the disposition of the seraph's six wings (two wings folded over the face, two to fly with and two wings covering the feet) appeared to my mind's eye as a representation of what we know as the Star of David. Whenever I see the Star of David, I see a representation of the majestic seraph standing above the Temple of God.
Then, immediately following Isaiah's confession of his sins, one of he seraph's flew to Isaiah, touching his lips with a live coal from the burning altar before God and declaring the removal of his iniquity and the purging of all sin from him. Isaiah the prophet was born-again in the presence of God at the very moment he is called to prophecy. And Isaiah hears the voice of YHWH God speaking, "Who shall I send, who will carry forth for us?" Isaiah's response is immediate, "Here am I; Send me!"
What YHWH God says next to Isaiah is most instructive, even in our day! It is a direct repetition of what God had instructed Moses about, and Moses in turn had spoken directly to all of Israel in the Covenant of Moab found in Deuteronomy 29:2-4. (See also: Romans 11) So to Isaiah the Lord God specifically identifies "this people" who Isaiah is to speak the prophetic word to:
"Go, and tell this people:
‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
And their ears heavy,
And shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart,And return and be healed."
No question about it, Isaiah is to prophecy about these things to Israel, and we, in turn, receive this word through the inspired recorded Lord's word, the Holy Bible.
Now here's where the exquisite details about the final forty-two months of the Megas Thlipsis (Great Tribulation) are made clear. After being told by God who he is to tell these things to, Isaiah asks a question: "Lord, how long?" And the Lord God gives His response to this which is completely unambiguous even though the language is more than 27 centuries old:
"Until cities are devastated, without inhabitant,
Houses are without people
And the land is utterly desolate,
The Lord has removed men far away,
And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
Yet there will be a tenth portion in it,
And it will again be subject to burning,
Like a terebinth or an oak
Whose stump remains when it is felled.
The holy seed is its stump."
Planet earth today is home to something over 7.2 billion people and that number is growing annually by about 72 million additional people. By he end of the 42 months of the Megas Thlipsis the number of mankind who survive because God will have shortened the days in order to save what human life remains will be but a tenth of the number alive when the 70th Week began. There will be no cities and no one will be living in them. The remainder of the land will be utterly desolate.
I would roughly estimate that number will be just under 8 billion people living at the time. In real numbers that means every person who is alive today, all 7.2 billion of them, and excepting only those taken by Jesus Christ at the instant of the Harpazo, will have been killed. The remnant tenth of human life upon the earth will number 800 million, and of those (the 200 million of the army of the kings of the East, plus the armies of the Beast gathered at Har Megiddo) will be dispatched into eternity as described in Revelation 19:17-21.
The remnant of mankind, perhaps 600 million or so, will be the stump spoken of in the prophecy directly from God to Isaiah above. All men are created in the image of God, and this is the holy seed of the stump of mankind that will repopulate the earth during the 1,000 years of the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
So, as stated many times here, the flood of prophetic fulfillment is about to commence; the Restrainer who is currently holding back the flood at the gates will soon be taken out of the way. Will you be one of those who will soon be swept away by the irresistible force of the flood and into oblivion and the second death for all eternity? Or will you gaze upon and recognize Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, as Isaiah gazed upon and recognized God Almighty, and begin confessing your sin and unworthiness and thereby receive the eternal life the Lord has promised to all that would receive Him into their heart. At this time do you dare deny He is who He has proven Himself to be? It up to you, no one can do this for you. Your future is right now and it lies between just you and the God who created you. Make the right choice. Choose God. Choose now, before its too late.
