Global SITREP D1-17: The Endgame

19 September 2017: There is no better way to lead off this SITREP than with the video I've embedded above (hat tip: GG5). This video is from February 2016 and appears to be of a two-year old child prophesying Jesus' soon coming. Wow!

Next, as you might expect, the subject of the Revelation 12:1-2 sign has been foremost due to its literal fulfillment in about 45 hours from now. 

"Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth."

Well, that great sign will come into fulfillment at approximately 10:15 AM Saturday morning (from where I stand on this earth), when Jupiter the king planet is "born" from Virgo (the woman), clothed in the sun (at Virgo's left shoulder) with the moon under her feet. Above her head a garland of twelve stars; the nine associated since antiquity with the constellation Leo plus three "wandering stars" we know as Mercury, Mars and Venus. This is verse one.

But what about verse two? What about the woman's crying in labor and pain prior to the birth? This is not difficult to see clearly also. 

Consider: The birthing process has been ongoing for the past ten days. If Revelation 12:1 is directly manifest by heavenly objects we can see with the naked eye verbatim with this verse of Scripture, then what is the observable manifestation that is directly relative to Revelation 12:2? 

Just look back at the events that have occurred in this same birthing period. Multiple hurricanes, roaring and tossing of the seas, major floods on land, major earthquakes in various places have caused tremendous damage; coronal mass ejections from the sun with more due to occur as the current major prominence rotates to face the earth in the next couple of days. 

There are wars, and rumors of war. Today, for the first time in my own memory, as American president stood before the assembled United Nations to say in completely unambiguous terms that an endgame was afoot; that an enemy nation (North Korea) would be totally destroyed by the United States, even if the United States had to act alone in defense against North Korean aggression. 

In Syria, another military endgame is afoot. This is an endgame which in certainty will result in the fulfillment of several 'last days' prophetic wars, and set the stage for the final pre-70th Week military event: Ezekiel 38/39. These are the birth pangs Jesus spoke of in His discourse on the Mount of Olives. No doubt they will increase in the days ahead.

As Jesus said, these things must take place, but the end is not yet; the end from the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38/39 still lies at least seven more years into the future. In all of this we can comfort and care for each other in the knowledge that during this endgame our blessed hope will occur in the twinkling of an eye.

So, this is where we are at the present time. There are other things that could be cited which are concurrent, moreover, in the next few days we could expect even more things to occur, and from September 24th going forward even more will occur.  The sign for Revelation 12:1-2 has been given, I believe, to wake up even the most deeply slumbering among us.

20 September 2017: Up to this point Eschatology Today has deliberately concentrated on Revelation 12:1-2. The reasoning is simple. The sign in these first two in-progress verses are separate from the second, or "another" sign which follows in verse three. They are set apart and distinct signs in both time and place. 

The first sign has been taking shape in the heavens over the past nine months and concludes this Saturday. This sign will not occur again in the future. Scripture tells us, as also already touched upon, that the heavens shall be shaken, heavenly bodies in space, planets and stars, will be moved from their places by the power of God. This appears to occur no later than the middle of the 70th Week. 

Therefore, a near future occurrence of this very unique astronomical alignment in Leo and Virgo would be preempted from ever occurring again in the future. With this shaking and moving of the heavenly bodies the constellations themselves will likely be completely altered. The constellations only exist as seen from the earth in the night sky and nowhere else. It seems obvious that at the time of their shaking and moving they will have completely fulfilled the Lord's anointed purpose as signs. A new heaven will exist in the future. Therefore, first sign of Revelation 12:1-2 is entirely exclusive to the present time, right here, right now.

The second sign, Revelation 12:3, as mentioned briefly in previous posts, is a picture of the Antichrist in the form of his completed earthly kingdom, the fourth beast kingdom consisting of seven heads and ten horns. The second sign of Revelation 12:3 then is clearly a picture of an earthly realm as is made crystal clear by reading in context the entirety of Daniel 7. 

In Daniel 7 we read that the fourth and final beast begins as ten, but is reduced to seven when Antichrist, the eleventh rising little horn among them, subdues three of the kings (horns) among the ten, rips their horns out by the roots to place them upon his own head. Therefore verse three is a literal event which occurs at the start of the 70th Week. Without question the Bride of Christ will have been taken from this earth prior to the occurrence of the sign of Revelation 12:3. As can be seen in Revelation 12:6 this period of time is without any doubt the second half of the 70th Week, the great Tribulation as some refer to it; the Megas Thlipsis as Jesus referred to it in His discourse on the Mount of Olives.

We may as well also now look at Revelation 12:7-17. These verses are a type of recap of the events described in the sum of the previous verses. Give great attention to verse seventeen as it describes the woman from verse one as also having other offspring. At this period of time during the Megas Thlipsis these other offspring of the woman can only be the innumerable Saints of the 70th Week - those who have received Salvation by the Blood of the Lamb through the testimony of the 144,000 Jewish priests who had the seal of the living God placed upon their foreheads in Revelation 7.

UPDATE 21 September 2017 - 1 Tishrei 5778: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation." Leviticus 23:23-24 

This is the day the Lord proclaimed to Moses. According to Leviticus 23:2 today is one of the days the appointed to be proclaimed as "sacred assemblies." It begins at sundown today and concludes sundown tomorrow. The purpose is to anticipate and prepare for the coming of our Messiah.

This is the only feast which begins with a new moon. Tonight when the first sliver of the new moon is seen the Shofar will sound. In fact there will likely be heard the trumps of thousands of shofar as the new moon is seen around the world. This will commence the events leading to the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. His coming will not catch us as "a thief in the night" because we are keenly alert; we have been fervently watching very closely all of the signs in the season of His coming. We are the 5 virgins, lamps oiled, who go out to meet Him as His procession is seen coming.

Numbers 10:10 says, "Also in the day of your gladness, in your appointed feasts, and at Rosh-Hodesh (head of the month), you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be a memorial for you before your God: I am the Lord your God.”

Also, Number 29:1 says, "And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work. For you it is a day of blowing the trumpets."

Another term for this in the Hebrew tradition is Yom Teruah. It means a day for a sharp blast of war, a blast of alert or a blast of joy. Literally, Yom Teruah is a "Day of Blasting or Shouting."  The last of these blasts or shouts is directly associated with the coming of the Lord for His bride.

With the Revelation 12:1-2 sign ongoing in the heaven above, and in concert with the Feast of Trumpets/Rosh-Hodesh and Yom Teruah we stand looking up for the coming of our Lord. Amen.

Even so... come Lord Jesus!

All These Things Be Fulfilled - Part III - The End

The Third (70th Week) Temple standing upon 

Mount Moriah, Jerusalem in the very near future.

28 January 2014: It won't be long until a real-world fact very close to as what the image above depicts comes into existence. How the 3rd Temple comes to exist is the subject of the many pre-70th Week prophecies you can read about in these Eschatology Today pages as well as in the many linked websites and blogs found along the right margin of this blog's main page. However, the focus of this article is the third and final installment of the original 2009 "All these thing fulfilled... Part I and Part II." 

In Part III we will recapture the some key points from Parts I & II in concert with key items of Jesus' prophetic discourse to His disciples on the Mount of Olives circa the year 33 AD (Matthew 24). As a statement of eschatological belief, I convicted by the Spirit that from this point in time, January 2014, and going forward through the next 17 months or so the world literally will witness several of these major prophetic events coming to pass before our eyes and this disbelieving world will find itself landed squarely on the doorstep of the angel Gabriel's prophetic 70th Week, specifically, Daniel 9:27, as given us through the full "70 Weeks Prophecy" of Daniel 9:24-27.

The first point I would like to bring attention to in Jesus' Olivet Discourse is His prophecy in verse 2 regarding the destruction of the 2nd Temple. Let's consider that this prophecy stands like a proverbial book end on the left side of the prophecy. Our Lord then works his way through the several pre-70th Week signs:

1) Deception of many men falsely claiming to be anointed ones (false messiahs).

2) Wars and rumors of other wars that must take place (i.e. the prophetic wars of Isaiah 17, Jeremiah 49, Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38/39 that must take place), but the end is not yet .

3) Wars on a global scale followed by global famines, infectious plagues and earthquakes around the globe.

Our Lord then wraps this up neatly for us by referring to these signs as "All these are the beginning of sorrows" in verse 8. These the pre-70th Week "birthpangs" are heralding the coming of His Kingdom, and we are very familiar with them because we are currently living in them.  

Then a instantaneous transition occurs. I believe this transition has two sides or parts to it and occurs in instant of the Harpazo when the Father will have sent His Son to collect all of us, the Bride of Christ. In the Harpazo the bride will be physically caught up, snatched away from this earth and instantaneously changed into new spiritual bodies and met by the Lord Jesus Christ in the air to remain with Him ever more. This is the side of the transition that you want to be on because the other side of this transition is from the present world to the advent of the 70th Week. The Tribulation has arrived.

In this side of the transition that just occurred, back on the earth, terrible things now occur with respect to those who were left behind, who were Christian in name only; those of "Churchianity who were not truly redeemed and were not indwelt by the Holy Spirit. They suffer the consequences of their lack of decision to be covered by the redemptive Blood of the Lamb. At Matthew 24:9 Jesus tells us these people will be hated in all nations, persecuted and killed for "My name's sake."  

Facing an onslaught of universal hatred some will completely lose whatever basis of faith they had. Hatred of and betrayal of those who do repent (as seen in verse 13) in the aftermath of the Harpazo will become rampant. So, the time for a decision for Jesus Christ if you have not already done so is right here, right now, because in one instant, no one knows exactly when except for God the Father, this transition will occur without any further warning. 

Again, the 70th Week, the tribulation has arrived and is just getting started, as in verse 14 Jesus makes a crystal clear reference to the 144,000 Jewish evangelists will be going around the globe preaching "this Gospel of the Kingdom." The Bride of Christ has been Harpazoed into the the many mansions of His Father; the places He has prepared for the past nearly 2000 years for His Bride. On earth the fulfillment on Ezekiel 39:29 has occurred after the battle of Gog/Magog, and the redemption of Israel has begun wit the Lord pouring out His Spirit and the fulfillment of Paul's prophecy in Romans 11:22-27 has taken place.

Then, in verse 15, Jesus gives us the right side book end of this prophecy. He jumps forward 42 months into the 70th Week and to the point where the Abomination of Desolation, the man-made image of the Antichrist, the beast, the son of perdition, is standing within the Holy Place inside the 3rd Temple. These proverbial book ends capture a sequence of events that date back to their prophetic beginning. 

The sequence was of the destruction of the 2nd Temple, the destruction of Jewish Jerusalem and the end of Israel with a global dispersion. This process, as noted in Part I of this article, took precisely 70 years, a Biblical generation (Psalms 90:10) to complete.  On our calendar these events began in 66 AD with the first Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire and came to a final conclusion in 136 AD with the end of the third and final Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire.

In the initial Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire, also known as the "Great Revolt" and the one in which Jesus appears to have prophesied expressly in the Olivet Discourse, extended from late 66 AD to early 74 AD. This war was literally begun and ended at the fortress redoubt of Masada over a period of period of precisely 7 years. And those 7 years had a hiatus, definable first and second halves which had been brought about by first civil war among the Jews in Jerusalem, and, secondly, by a Roman civil war for control of the Empire. The result is well known world history, which can be read about here, and here, for those history buffs (like myself) who are so inclined.

As a related aside concerning the fulfilled prophecy of Daniel 9:26b "the people of the prince who shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary," these links will prove beyond any doubt that two of the four key Roman Army legions (V Macedonica; XV Apollinaris and X Fretensis; XII Fulminata) which besieged and sacked Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD arrived direct from Europe via seaports on the Mediterranean coast of Roman Phoenicia (modern-day Lebanon) and Samaria (modern-day Israel). The latter two had been garrisoned in Greco-Roman Aram-Damascus under Procurator Agrippa II and the 10-city Greco-Roman Decapolis.

So, the duration of these events, the revolts of 7 and 70 years respectively,  appear to be significant numbers of years when it comes to Bible prophecy, enough to make the Preterists hold to their eschatological position as they do. But all is not quite that tidy and neat, as we shall see. There are other critical factors which must be accounted for.

Now, moving on to the modern era beginning in 1948, the process has reversed with the restoration of Israel (per Ezekiel 37) in 1948 and the recapture of Jerusalem in 1967. These events have maintained through the  battles or mini wars of the ongoing Psalm 83 war (1973 and 2006) with the final battles yet to be joined, but entirely and glaringly imminent. The Psalm 83 war begun in late 1947/early 1948 is now in its 66th or 67th year. So what remains in the reversal of this prophetic process are the conditions permitting the building of the 3rd Jewish Temple... the 70th Week Temple... the tribulation Temple... the Abomination of Desolation Temple.

If the first, deconstructive part of this prophetic sequence occurred over a period of a literal 70 years, a single generation (as Jesus also noted), then why not consider that the restorative part of the prophetic sequence will also occur in precisely 70 literal years, or from 1948 AD to 2018 AD?  This seems logical, even possible given a quick glance considering where things are to day. However, that would be akin to engaging in what is known in these modern times as 'newspaper exegesis.'  There are other key factor involved which allow for more time for all of the pre-70th Week prophecies to achieve independent fulfillment.

No pun intended, but chief among those key factors is the prophecy of Ezekiel 38/39 in conjunction with the literalness of Psalm 90:10 which provides two definitions in terms of years or durations of a single generation: 70 as normal, or 80 of strength.

We must be cognizant that the prophetic Word which came to Ezekiel contains two timelines of prophetic significance. 7 years of burning, and 7 months of burying. In the text it appears as though the burning begins first and then the burying commences. The 7 years of burning the Magog Confederation's weaponry as a form of reciprocal plundering and pillaging is the critical eschatological factor to be considered as the text states this burning occurs over a literal and Biblical (360 days each year) 7-year period of time per Ezekiel 39:9.

Let me be perfectly clear about this conclusion: nothing is 100% certain or dogmatic or date-setting about the time-line interpretation I am presenting here, excepting only that "Eretz-Israel" was declared into its modern existence in a single day just as prophesied by Isaiah 66:8 and Psalm 90:10 defines the number of years in a generation. The Word of God is Supreme. And these two points must be addressed.

The first point is the date which starts the Lord's prophetic time-line with respect to Israel and the last days prophecies. That date was May 14, 1948 AD.  In the declaration of "Eretz Israel" David Ben-Gurion made no mention of borders of "the land," and no mention of the Lord God and His Abrahamic Covenant in their right to re-establish "Eretz-Israel" was made either. The declaration of "Eretz-Israel" was based upon a declared "natural and historic" right based on "the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly" upon which Ben-Gurion and those gathered with him in assembly in Tel Aviv simply declared the existence of the "State of Israel." They signed the very secular Proclamation and placed their "trust in the Almighty" on the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 - 14th May, 1948. Nevertheless, the prophecy of Isaiah 66:8 was precisely fulfilled at that moment, and the prophetic process of the redemption of Israel began.

The second point is that a normal generation per Psalm 90:10 was given a duration of 70 years. If one were to count forward 70 years in time the count would end in mid-2018 AD. However, if we are in a generation of strength, or 80 years per the same Psalm 90:10, that would count forward to 2028 AD.

Getting back to Ezekiel 38:9, I agree with all of my fellow students of the Lord's Word who say that Israel will have to complete this burning of the Magog Confederation's weapons prior to the middle of the 70th Week. Accordingly, IF the 70th Week should commence circa mid-2018, then the middle of the 70th Week would be circa mid-2021 AD plus and additional 6 months (to account for the full 42 months of the first halve of the 70th Week, thereby placing the time further forward to almost 2022 AD.  2022 minus 7 years is 2015, and for me that is just cutting everything a little too close. In fact, it does not work at all.

Therefore, consistent with my belief that this final generation is a Psalm 90:10 generation of strength of 80 years duration, my conclusion is that we must in sound hermeneutic exegesis push these times forward by most if not all of those additional 10 years. I realize folks are most urgently desiring the Lord's return, and pray daily for the Harpazo to occur without delay. However, in so doing in consideration of those additional ten years we allow for the literal fulfillment of Ezekiel 38/39 and the burning of the weaponry for a full 7 years as well as all of the other preceding prophetic wars (Jeremiah 49:34-39, Isaiah 17, Psalm 83 and associated prophecies) to transpire, each in their own time, and from which Ezekiel also declares that Israel will have recovered from, and be living in peace, safety and fearing no enemy when the Gog/Magog launches its attack. And, most importantly, we do nothing with respect to the timing of the Harpazo of the Bride of Christ. The Father will send His Son at a time we do not expect, Even so, Marana'tha!