The Tribulation
"How can a young
man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to Thy Word," Psalm
119:9. "Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against
Thee," Psalm 119:11. "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light
unto my path," Psalm 119:105. "Jesus prayed to the Father, to
sanctify them in truth, Thy Word is truth," John 17:17. "For the
grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God shall stand
forever," Isaiah 40:8.
Before we get
started we'll have a few moments of silent prayer. Make sure you are ready, in
fellowship, enjoying your fellowship with God or not. Recovering fellowship so
we can abide in Christ and walk by the Spirit and I will open in prayer. Let's
pray.
Father, we are
thankful we could come together this evening for prayer before class to focus
on things that we can give praise for in terms of the Good News Club today. We
are thankful for the students that were there and for how well everything went
and for those who are helping out. Father, we are thankful for the DM2 conference
this last week. We pray that that would really impact people and challenge
people to be prepared and open to teaching and helping out in different areas.
Father, we continue to pray also for Chafer Seminary and for George Meisinger. We pray for those from this congregation
either locally or beyond, like Matt Hagemeir
and John Williamson, who are seminary students. We pray for them and their
courses and their studies. And Father, we continue to pray for us that we might
be responsive to the challenges of Your Word. We pray this in Christ's Name,
Amen.
A couple of
questions came in. One at the end of last week and I am going to answer it in
the course of what I am teaching tonight. And that had to do with the identity
of the Antichrist in terms of his Roman identity. And then there were a couple
of other questions and I am really surprised no one has asked these other
questions. I have asked them many times when I've been studying and don't have
really good answers for some of them, but they are questions I think that have
occurred to everybody, but just nobody comes right out and asks those questions
and they have to do with Daniel's 70th week. So we are going to do a
little review of that and kind of flip through some slides very rapidly just to
come back and understand again. I think it is a good review to go through the
whole scenario on that chronology. It is one of the most remarkable prophecies
in Scripture, and its one I cover every now and then, but every now and then I
find people saying, well you just need to go over that one more time. I've just
not quite gotten that one point. Now some of you who may be very familiar with
numbers can move through that pretty rapidly, but those of us for whom
arithmetic is sort of a curse, part of the curse on the earth, we have to go
through this a little more often.
We are looking at
the Tribulation. Here is a slide showing the ages: The age of the Gentiles
broken down to three dispensations. The age of Israel broken down into three
dispensations with the messianic age as a hinge dispensation. Then we are in
the church age, which is comparable to a dispensation. Okay? Then the church
age ends with the Rapture of the church; and then we are looking at that red
vertical line, the Tribulation, which is a seven-year period that comes
sometime after the Rapture of the church. It doesn't begin with the Rapture.
The Rapture ends the church age, but it is a peace treaty that is signed with
the Antichrist that comes in, that begins actually, this period known as Daniel's
70th week.
The whole prophecy
begins back in the Old Testament as we looked at that last time. Sixty-nine
weeks of seventy weeks prophesied by Daniel occurred before the cross ending
right before the cutting off of the Messiah, and then there is this huge gap,
this interim period, sometimes called the "great parenthesis" by some
dispensationalists, that ends with the Rapture. Then there's a little
intervening transitional period and then "the coming prince" will
sign this treaty, this covenant with Israel. That kicks off the stopwatch again
and we have a period of seven years that is divided equally into two
three-and–a-half-year periods known as the
Tribulation period.
Daniel had been reading
through Jeremiah coming to understand that God had decreed that there would be
a seventy-year captivity. This came out of his study of the passages in
Jeremiah. So the basic outline of Daniel's 70th week is the look at
this future period. It is called seventy
periods of seven. Now the question that came in was: what is the connection
between this future seventy-year period that turns out to be 70 × 7 and the
previous seventy sabbatical years that Israel had violated and so God was going
to take them out of the land to give it rest? Only in terms
of the number. God is using a symmetrical pattern here. In the Old
Testament there were seventy sabbatical years. Now a sabbatical year came once
every seven years. So if they were going to be removed from the land for
seventy years to give them rest for each of those seventy sabbatical years that
they had been disobedient, 70 × 7 = 490 today, yesterday, forever. So that
framework simply becomes a pattern for the future. It's not related to
sabbatical years that were violated. It is just that the number is the same. So
the future 490 years that is being predicted here is not related to sabbatical
years. It's only literarily because there had been 490 years in the past, now
we are going to have another 490 years. That is what they have in common. The
text doesn't say there are 490 years for you and your people and that is
related to the sabbatical year, the year of Jubilee, or anything like that. It
is just the number is the same that is the only connection.
And so we see that
at the end of Daniel 9 that there is this basic organization; there are seventy
weeks, that is seventy periods of seven. It doesn't say "weeks." It
just says seventy periods of seven. 7 × 7 is 490 years. It is broken down into,
if you open your Bibles and look at the passage in Daniel 9:24-27, you will see
that the first part is broken down into two periods. At the end of Daniel 9:25,
about half way through verse 25, the statement is made, "there shall be
seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;" so 7 + 62 = 69.
Now there have been
a lot of people and usually they come from an amillennial or post-millennial
framework, which means they are looking at this as having already been
fulfilled, but the whole seventy weeks was fulfilled before the cross. That's
the standard view of non-pre-millennialists. So they
try to peg, this first seven-week period ended with Cyrus, then the next period
ends with Alexander the Great. They come up with their own different schemes,
none of which are satisfactory because they are trying to put everything back
into the period before the cross. Among pre-mils and dispensationalists, they
see the seven weeks and sixty-two weeks as simply a literary way of saying
sixty-nine. There will be 7 + 62 week period. There is nothing historically to
look at in terms of what happens if they return to the land. If
the decree is in 444 BC.
what happens forty-nine years later? Forty-nine years
later is roughly somewhere around 395-396 BC.
What happened then? Well,
we don't know anything significant that happened then. There has never been
anybody who has come up with anything satisfactorily other than perhaps
indicating that it is during that first period of forty-nine years that Israel
really consolidates in their position in their return from the land and then
that is followed by the remaining years, but even that seems a little forced.
It is like we are trying to make this work into something and there is nothing.
That is a question I have always waited for people to ask me. I don't know the
answer and I have read and read on this and nobody else seems to know the
answer. So we have the basic text. Let me just kind of skip through these
slides.
Here is the
background I was mentioning earlier. You have in the previous time period, 490
years, which was covered by the 70 × 7 sabbatical years because it is 490
years. This is the slide. I think this originally came from Randy Price. This
is a slide that indicates 490 years is, of course, going to have seventy sabbatical
years because that is how the math works out. But the text never makes an
emphasis out of that. There are going to be these periods of years, so that is
a little bit confusing. The basis for the seventy years is Jeremiah 25:11-12,
as well as Jeremiah 29:10. This is what Daniel read when he realizes, as he
counted on his fingers and toes, that they have arrived in the time period
where it is time for the LORD to bring His people back to the land.
The text clearly
says that there are going to be six things accomplished at the end and all of
these are accomplished with regard to Israel. That is what comes across. It is
very clear in the text that the seventy weeks
are determined "for you and your people and your holy city" to do
these things. Some people ask the question because it says, finish the
transgression, to make an end of sin, and atone for iniquity" that that
looks like what was accomplished at the cross at the first advent? What is the problem with that? The problem
with that is that the seventy weeks are determined. Not the first sixty-nine
weeks are determined to accomplish these things. Those three things were
accomplished at the end of the 69th week. After the 69th
week Jesus was crucified. But this is the seventy weeks,
the full 490 year period is necessary to bring this to a conclusion. So it is
not talking about what was accomplished by Jesus on the cross. It is talking
about dealing experientially with Israel's sin, their idolatry, and their
rebellion against God, and the rejection of the Messiah.
So the last three
all make it clear that they are all fulfilled only at the end when the Messiah
returns, when everlasting righteousness is brought in, when He brings in His
kingdom. It completes the fulfillment of prophecy related to the coming of the
kingdom. This is when all of the unconditional covenants from the Old Testament
are brought into effect. The Abrahamic covenant is fully realized; the New covenant is fully realized; the Davidic covenant is
fully realized; and the Land covenant is fully realized. These are not realized
until then. In spite of the fact, one of the catchwords you will hear people
talk about today in a lot of non-dispensational circles and sometimes in
progressive dispensationalism. There is a term called "realized
eschatology." Now eschatology has to do with future things. But some of
those future things, if you believe what they believe, that we are in some form
of the kingdom now, then we are realizing some of those prophetic things in a
shadow form today; or we are realizing them in a partial form today, and
"already here", but now quite fully. We will talk about that when we
get into the millennial section again. But this is not an "already not yet
view." It is clear that we're not there yet and none of this comes in
until the kingdom fully arrives with Jesus.
Skipping ahead I
want to move through some of the slides I brought up last time. There is this,
"The Decree to Restore." This is stated in Daniel 9:25, "so you
are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore." As
we looked at last time, there are four different decrees issued by Persian
rulers related to Israel, but there is only one that fits the bill because the
text says, "from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild
Jerusalem." Not to return to Jerusalem; that was the decree of Cyrus to
send Ezra back. That was the decree that you could return to Israel. It is a
decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem and then the last phrase of that verse says "it will be built again" referring to
Jerusalem, "with plaza and moat." Now those two terms are important.
The plaza was the marketplace. So it is going to have a rebuilt economy; and
the moat has to do with the defense of the city. So it is a rebuilding of the
walls. It is not just a rebuilding and resettlement in the land. It is a
rebuilding of it so that the economy is flourishing and it has its defenses in
place. A decree to that end doesn't occur until 444 BC when Artaxerxes
gives that to his cupbearer, Nehemiah, to take it back to the land. So this can
be dated to March the 5th, 444 BC and stated scripturally in Nehemiah
2:1-3.
So we have this
initial period broken down in the text in Daniel 9:26, "after seven weeks
and sixty-two weeks" [7 + 62 = 69 weeks] first mentioned in Daniel 9:25,
and then after that second period, the sixty-two weeks, after that the Messiah
is cut off. So this is really important because the Text is saying that there
is a gap here. After you come to the conclusion of that 62nd week,
the stopwatch stops. After that, so there is a pause, after that the Messiah is
cut off. The other thing that has to happen is that the temple is going to be
destroyed. There is that destruction of the temple and the destruction of the
city, which is in the second line in Daniel 9:26, "the people of the
prince who is come will destroy the city." So two things have to happen
between the 69th week and the 70th week and they are:
1. The Messiah is
cut off; Jesus is crucified.
2. And the city is
destroyed and that occurred a little over thirty-five years later.
So the fact that it
says "after the sixty-ninth week" indicates a break in the action
because the 70th week doesn't start until Daniel 9:27, "and
he" that is 'the prince who is to come'
"will make a firm covenant with the many for one week." That is what
starts that last week. So it is really clear that there is a gap here. Jesus
has His triumphal entry on March 30th of AD 33 and that is exactly in fulfillment.
Seventy times seven is four hundred and ninety years [70 × 7 = 490 years], then
you take the sixty-nine years and multiply it times seven and it is four
hundred and 483 years [69 × 7 = 483 years], which comes to 173,880 days. I
memorized that number when I was in college. I was so impressed with this. I
love teaching this! This is one of those great prophecies in Scripture that
gives us such great confidence in the accuracy of the Bible.
And then we would
always have this problem with what are the 360 days and you have to compare
Scripture with Scripture in Daniel and in Revelation because different terms
are used to describe the same thing. It is called a "half a week" in
Daniel 9:27; and then in Daniel 7:25; Daniel 12:7; and Revelation 12:14 it is
described as "time, times and a half a time." It still comes out to
three and a half. It is described in Revelation 12:6 and Revelation 11:3. Notice that over here you have Revelation 12:14 and Revelation
12:6. These are in the same context. So this time period is equivalent
to 1,260 days according to these two verses and this phrase is used in these
other two verses. And then Revelation 11:3 also mentions the 1,260 days.
Another reference is
used of 42 months. This is used in Revelation 11:2 and Revelation 13:5, which
is the same basic context here. Revelation 11:2-3 are just right next to each
other showing that the 42 months is 1,260 days and that is equal to time,
times, and a half a time [42 months = 1,260 days = time, times, half time +
half week]. Therefore, when you work this out, it comes to the fact that each
month must be comprised of thirty days and a year would then be a lunar year of
360 days [month = 30 days; year = 360 days]. You can also check this:
To verify that check
your math:
and then you add (+) the days between March
5 and March 30
and that gets you another 25 days
So it all works out.
The math is impeccable there! So what happens then to those last seven years?
That is when we get into the period that comes up. What happens? That is the
Tribulation period as we see in this chart that defines "The Coming
Prince" and "The Messiah's return."
Now I want to bump
ahead just a little bit again. Take us through the calculations here. And we
see that, I'll go to this slide here. The seventy weeks concern the nation of
Israel. It is all about God's plan for Israel. I was reading Dr. Ryrie today. I
read along in three or four different dispensational books as I've been
teaching this just to go back and be reminded of things other people have said;
and he makes the observation here that in an earlier period in the development
of dispensationalism the primary argument for pre-Trib
Rapture had to do with the imminence of the Rapture, and I talked about that
last time. But in recent years, Dr. Ryrie wrote the book the book originally in
the 60s, but he revised it in the late 90s, and I think this reflects what
changed during that period. There is more of an emphasis placed upon
understanding Daniel's 70th week, because Daniel's 70th
week is for Israel. It is not for the church. It is not for us. It is not for
the bride of Christ. It is to complete God's plan and purposes for Israel. And
it is important to understand that if there is this time gap there and the
church is in between, that the church has to be removed in order to start
things going again for that final week. This paragraph is very important:
"Since the first
sixty-nine weeks have been fulfilled literally in terms of the time clock, we
must expect the last week, that last seven-year period to also be fulfilled
literally."
We have to
understand this consistently. It is funny. When you look at a-mil
or post-mil systems where they very subtly shift from a literal hermeneutic to
more of a figurative or typological hermeneutic. When they get into
prophetic things they will play fast and loose with the details of this 70th
week prophecy. They'll deal with the first part almost in a literal timeframe,
but then when it comes to the 70th week I've read some that put the
70th week between the crucifixion and the fall of the temple. That
is a lot more than one seven-year period. It just doesn't fit, but the only way
they can make it fit is to spiritualize it. So that is a very important thing
to understand.
So in Daniel 9:27 we
see:
I. The commencement
of the 70th week
II. The covenant
that starts the 70th week
III. The
consummation of the 70th week
We come to our slide
here on key "Tribulation Events." This fits over the book of
Revelation. The first three chapters of Revelation deal with the seven churches
of the church age and are raptured to be with the Lord in the air. Then in the
first three-and-one-half-year period Israel is protected. There will be
something called the church or Christianity, but it is all apostate. These are
not believers. They are the ones who survive. They are the ones who aren't believers
now. They are liberal, whatever, but they are not composed of people who are
believers. The Jewish Levitical system is going to be reinstated. They are
going to start to rebuild the temple if there is not something already there
before the Rapture. It could start before the Rapture. It may not. Right now we
have a little problem. It is called the Dome of the Rock that is sitting on top
of the Temple Mount. The Rock is considered by Jewish tradition, as well as
Islamic tradition, to be the foundation stone. This is where the Garden of Eden
was located, and this is the place where Abraham brought Isaac to sacrifice
him, and this is the Rock that was in the Holy of Holies on which the Ark of
the covenant sat.
They understand that
continuity in Scripture. All that is necessary in order for the future temple,
which will be apostate, to be reestablished on the Temple Mount is for the Jews
to fully control the Temple Mount. They gained military control of it in 1967
and then Moshe Dayan gave control back to the Islamic committee, the Waqf, in order to control it. So every time Jews go up
there, if they are seen praying or anything like that, the Arabs riot because
that is their typical response to anything. And that is the status quo since
the last intifadah no non-Muslims have been allowed to go into the
Dome of the Rock. So anybody who has been to Israel since 2001 has not been
allowed to go into the Dome of the Rock unless you are Muslim. But all that
somehow will be wiped out. Whether it is in a war or in an earthquake, we have
no idea. But I will get back to this in just a minute, but that's the issue
there. The temple will be there. It doesn't have to be a fully built and
completed temple by the time of the abomination of desolation. It can be a mobile
home, sort of like the tabernacle was a mobile home. It just has to be
sanctified by a resurrected priesthood and sacrifices need to start being
offered again.
This is what the
Bible predicts will happen, that there will be a return to these sacrifices,
Daniel 9:27 says, "He will make a firm covenant," that is the
Antichrist, the prince who is to come, "will make a firm covenant with the
many for one week" that is referring to Israel. "But in the middle of
the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering;" that means
that there has to be, by the midpoint of the Tribulation at least, an ongoing
day-to-day grain offering and a sacrifice. And so of course, we know that that
is apostate because these sacrifices should have ended because Christ died on
the cross. But this is a return to Judaism and a return to the Law. So you will
have the Jewish Levitical system reinstated. And then halfway through the
Tribulation period the Antichrist, who is so full of himself and all of his
conquests, will have this huge statue erected of himself
in the temple and he will call upon all the people to worship him as God. And
that is when it becomes very clear that Jesus' sign has come true, where He
told the disciples that when you see this sign those who are in Jerusalem are
to flee into the hills. Those who are in Jerusalem and Judea are to flee into
the hills.
Notice He didn't say
Jews that are all over the earth or any Christians who are all over the earth.
He is talking specifically to those who are living in Jerusalem and Judea who
are to flee into the hills. And that starts the last half of the Tribulation
period. All of this is covered in the book of Revelation. The first two sets of
judgments, the seal judgments and the trumpet judgments, take place in the first
half of the Tribulation and then the bowl judgments; the intensified period
takes place in the second half. And there will definitely be an overt worship
of Satan and a worship of the Antichrist. I think demonism will run rampant
during that period; and demons as well as elect angels will appear, will be
visible to human beings as history is brought to a close.
So, as we got
started in Daniel's 70th week last time, I think I've answered the
questions related to that. There is still one question. I don't know if any
other questions have come in, but there is still one question about the
identity of the Antichrist I'll get to eventually as we go through this. We
started this by looking at the terminology of the Tribulation. And so the first
term that we looked at had to do with Daniel's 70th week. Some
people think that that is really the most accurate term to use; some people
say, well, Tribulation is misleading because we all experience tribulation, but
I think that there's a basis for that. But like a lot of these words that are
used, "Daniel's 70th week" is only used one place.
"Tribulation" is only used in a couple of places. The term "the
Antichrist", as we will see, is only used in one place. The Bible doesn't
always use the same term. There are a variety of different terms.
So we come to the
second term, which is the "The day of the Lord". The day of the Lord is a term that is crucial to understanding this
time period and identify what that term describes.
1. It emphasizes
special interventions of God in human history.
It is really a broad
term although it is used most of the time to refer to the great end time
judgments. It is also just a generic term to describe any special intervention
of God in human history where:
And demonstrates:
The term refers both
to a time of judgment as well as a time of blessing.
It has this
"nontechnical" sense where God is simply demonstrating His authority over
Gentile nations in judgment.
"A day of the
Lord" could be the defeat of Syria, the defeat of the Assyrians, the
defeat of Babylon; that could all be described as "a day of the
Lord."
But as a
"technical" term it describes: a future event where God intervenes in the
Tribulation to judge the nations, all those judgments.
Go back and read
through Isaiah. Read through Jeremiah and Ezekiel. There are all of these
judgments that are pronounced chapter after chapter on all of the nations that
surround Israel. As God brings the judgment to its final conclusion, at the end
of the Tribulation period, this is the day of the Lord, when He has the final
say. It describes this judgment of God upon the nations. God brings discipline
upon Israel, judgment upon Israel for their disobedience, and for their
rebellion against Him and their idolatry, and to establish His messianic
kingdom.
It brings history to
this crescendo point of incredible violence and warfare that has broken out in human
history that is focused on Israel. Now the Antichrist is not there to destroy
Israel except as a subject people who have disobeyed him; he is clearly
anti-Semitic. They are supposed to be worshipping in the temple. So this shows
that he has kind of got a double or dual attitude toward the Jews; he wants
them to worship him; he invades their temple, but because they don't then he
turns hostile against them. But he is there not just to destroy Israel, but
also, I believe he's brought into the Middle East because the worldwide
coalition that he has built is collapsing and this is the focal point of the
war between the other opposing kings on the earth. And the focal point ends up
being in Israel and it is the calling upon Jesus as the Messiah to come and rescue
Israel that delivers Israel.
It is a funny thing
that in the Jewish community there's a couple of myths about why Christians
support Israel. One of those myths that is completely false is that the reason
Christians support Israel and want all the Jews back in the land is that once
all the Jews get back into the land then Jesus will come and destroy all of
them because they haven't accepted Him. Now there are a lot of Jews who believe
that. Unfortunately, we've got almost 1800 and 1900 years of Christian
anti-Semitism that makes it difficult for them to believe otherwise; but the
point is that the reason Jesus comes back isn't so that Jews will be killed and
slaughtered, but to rescue Israel from the assaults of the Antichrist and from
sure annihilation at the hands of the Antichrist and at the hands of Satan.
We look at a couple
of passages that use this term in a technical sense. We look at Zechariah
12:2-5. I have put all of this up on the screen for you. God says, predicting
this future time, "Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes
reeling to all the peoples around." Now we all know that the Middle East
crisis is a major problem in world history and we are told that from a lot of
different perspectives. You will read people everyone from Hal Lindsey to I
don't know who else, who will say this is the application of this verse. Only in a stretched sense. The context is talking about what
God is going to do. It is a future tense concept. "I am going to make
Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around." This is
fulfilled in the Tribulation period. It is not talking about now. It is talking
about when this becomes a major problem as a focal point of all of the armies
of the world near the end of the Tribulation period. So at that point, that is
when Jerusalem, when this is fulfilled; we see a foreshadowing of this or a
preview of coming attractions today as we deal with how we are going to resolve
the Middle East problem. So He says "Jerusalem will be a cup that causes reeling to all
the peoples; around and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be
against Judah." There is that focal point on Jerusalem and the southern
part of Israel. Not so much the Galilee or the northern kingdom of Israel.
In Zechariah 12:3,
"And it will come about in that day" and whenever we see that phrase
"in that day" in the Old Testament, probably about 95% of the time it
is referring to the day of the Lord. Watch it; there are a few places when it
doesn't, but most of the time if you see "in that day" that is
probably what it is describing, but make sure you read the context just to make
sure. "And it will come about in that day" when Jerusalem is causing
reeling to the peoples and when there is a siege against Jerusalem. So this
shows that Zechariah 12:2 is talking about a future end time period within
Daniel's 70th week, near the end of Daniel's 70th week.
"It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone
for all the peoples." We should probably translate that, not just peoples
but Gentiles. It is referring to all the Gentiles in the world in contrast to
the Jews. "I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the Gentiles; all
who lift it will be severely injured." Those who try to solve this problem
are going to be hurt severely by it. "And all the nations of the earth
will be gathered against it."
We are not anything
like that right now. Not all the nations of the earth are gathered against
Israel. Canada is very supportive of Israel. The United States is still pretty
supportive of Israel. There is mixed support from other nations. There are a
few other nations in the world that still support Israel. So Zachariah is
depicting a time when all the nations of the earth are against Israel; the United States
included, Canada included. This is within the Tribulation period. There is no
Christian influence whatsoever. "In that day," in Zechariah 12:4,
"declares the LORD, I will strike every horse with
bewilderment and his rider with madness." As destructive as it looks, God
is still in control. No matter what the plans of the Antichrist are to decimate
Jerusalem and annihilate the Jewish people, God is going to stop him. That is
the point of Zechariah 12:4. "I will watch over the house of Judah, while
I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness." People always say,
well are they going to have horses then? Then you have people like Hal Lindsey
who used his imagination to say, well these riders didn't have terms to talk
about M60 tanks or whatever the latest tank is or armored personnel carriers,
those things. That is what they are describing.
As I pointed out in
the Revelation series, at the sixth judgment there is going to be this massive
asteroid shower on the earth. This is about a year and a half into the Tribulation
that I believe is so massive it is going to take out the electrical grid. It is
going to throw everybody back into a pre-20th century timeframe in
terms of technology. Electricity, water power, all of those things are going to
be removed and all the armies of the earth are going to have to go back to the
time-tested technology of bows and arrows and spears. I mean, if you wipe out
the electrical grid now you can't fly any of the helicopters. You can't fly
F-16 jets. You don't have the computers to run all these things. All of a
sudden everybody is back to throwing rocks at each other. So they will be back
on horses. I think this is literal. Every horse will be struck with
bewilderment, his rider with madness. God "will watch over the house of
Judah and every horse of the peoples, of the Gentiles, will be struck with
blindness. Then the clans of Judah will say in their hearts, 'A strong support for us are the inhabitants of Jerusalem
through the Yahweh
of the armies.' " There is going to be this true genuine revival as God
delivers those in Jerusalem. Just imagine that under siege, as they are
thinking about all the times in their history when they have been under siege
in Jerusalem and they are about to be overrun and God destroys the army. And then
they are going to cry out and recognize that He is "their God."
Some other passages
that talk about the day of the Lord": Isaiah
13:6 says, "Wail, for the day of the LORD is near! It will come as destruction
from the Almighty." Because God is ultimately in control. Isaiah 13:7-9 "Therefore all hands
will fall limp, And every man's heart will melt. And
they will be terrified, Pains and anguish will take hold of them; They will writhe like a woman in labor, They will look at
one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame. Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning
anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will
exterminate its sinners from it." That is in the context in Isaiah 13,
talking about the fall of Babylon, which takes place in the future. So it is
described as a time of fury, burning anger, to make the land a
desolation. So there is a judgment of sinners at that time.
Amos 5:18-20
"Alas, you who are longing for the day of the LORD" (Zechariah 5:18a). See, just like
today we have people who say, oh, I wish the LORD would come back. They are saying, oh, I
wish that the day of the LORD would come and end all of this. "You who are longing
for the day of the LORD, For what
purpose will the day of the LORD be to you? It will be darkness and not light"
(Zechariah 5:18b). He says you don't know what you are wishing for; you don't
know where you are for this is going to be the most horrendous catastrophe you
could possibly imagine; worse than anything else ever
to happen in human history. "It will be darkness and not light; as when a
man flees from a lion, And a bear meets him"
(Amos 5:19a). I love the graphics here. You are running away from a lion and
all of a sudden you run right into the arms of a bear. How could your day get
any worse? "Or you go home" and you say awe, I am finally home and I
am safe and secure and you lean up against the wall and a snake bites you (Amos
5:19b). It says you think that there is hope and there is no hope. The day of
the LORD is not a time of hope. It is a time of
judgment. He says, "Will not the day of the LORD be darkness instead of light, Even gloom with no brightness in it?" (Amos 5:20). There is nothing positive about the day of that
LORD and that judgment at all. It is something
that is horrible!
Then we come to Joel
2:28 and following. This is what I always think of as a central passage on the
day of the Lord. That the day of the Lord not only involved judgment on the
earth, but it involves the things that are going to take place among the stars
in the heavens, the sun is going to be darkened and the moon is turned to
blood.
Guess what is coming
up in another month? We are going to get another "Blood Moon."
Remember, there are two "blood moons" this year; one at Passover; one
at Succoth in October. Next year it will repeat, one at Passover, one at
Succoth. The reason you have these things that I pointed out in the study I did
previously was the Jewish calendar is built on full moons. It is no accident
that these full moons occur on feast days. The calendar is built on a lunar
calendar. You expect that, but it is not just that there is a "blood red
moon." Of course, it is not always that it is fully "blood red"
as we will see in these passages. There are other things that go along with
that. There is a series of events. The sun is also darkened. There are other
things that go along with it.
Joel 2:28 says,
"And it will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all
mankind;" so "after this" means after the events already
described in relation to the end-time judgments. After this God says, "I
will pour out My Spirit on all mankind." This is the beginning of the
fulfillment of the New Covenant, which will be put into effect, of course, at
the end of the Tribulation period. "Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will
see visions." This is what was quoted by Peter in Acts 2.
The trouble is that none of these things actually happened on the day of
Pentecost. Peter was just quoting it to say these are the kinds of things that
happen by the Holy Spirit. What they saw on the day of Pentecost is similar,
but it wasn't the same. Joel 2:29 "And even on the male and female
servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days." That is a reference to
the fulfillment of the New covenant.
Now Joel 2:30 and
following, "And I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth."
So there is one thing that is going to happen "on the earth" and what
is that going to be? In a Jewish community men and women (and) their sons and
daughters are going to prophesy and they are going to have visions and dreams
and all these things are going to happen that have to do with revelation. Then
following that "I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, blood,
fire, and columns of smoke." So it is not just that you have a full moon
that occurs on a feast day that looks red. That has got to be preceded by these
young men and young women seeing dreams and visions and all of these other
things, as well as these other wonders in the sky and on the earth.
And then, in Joel
2:31, "the sun will be turned into darkness" so it is not just the
moon. It is not just a lunar event. "The sun is turned to darkness, and
the moon into blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes." And it is immediately
followed by the coming of this final judgment at the end of the Tribulation. So
what we see with these so called "blood moons" has absolutely nothing
whatsoever to do with the end times. It has to do with interesting effects of
today. And as I pointed out, if you go back and look historically at the
alleged fulfillment back in 1492 and again in 1951, 1967, when these things
happened. Why is it that they don't go back to all the different times when
this phenomenon of a full moon that looked red that occurred on a Jewish feast
day; why don't you look at all those, let's say, AD 70 and AD 1492. What happened during that time
period? What is that? 1,470 years? So it is roughly 1,400 years since the fall
of the temple. Why don't they go there? Because nothing
significant ever happened on those days. So they are cherry picking the
evidence, cherry picking the data.
Joel 2:32 goes on and says, "And it will come about that whoever calls
on the name of the LORD". This is at the time of the great
and awesome day of the LORD. This is using the phrase "day of the LORD" in terms of its most technical
sense, as that period immediately surrounding the return of Jesus. "And it
will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be delivered; For on Mount Zion and
in Jerusalem There will be those who escape, As the LORD has said, Even among the survivors whom
the LORD calls."
So what we see here
in a study of the use of these passages there is both a narrow sense and a
broad sense. The narrow aspect/sense describes the time immediately preceding
the Second Coming and the judgments that are associated with that Coming
concluding the seventh bowl judgment, concluding the Tribulation period. That
is the "great and awesome day of the LORD" described in Joel 2:31 and
Zechariah 14:1-5. Then there is a broad sense in which it describes the overall
judgment of God in the Tribulation period as the "day of the Lord."
It is not the "great and awesome day of the LORD" that is contrasted. It is the
"day of the Lord."
So you have verses
like this in Jeremiah 30:7, which shows that this is part of Jacob's Trouble.
"Alas! For that day is great." What day? The day of
the LORD. "There is none like
it; it is the time of Jacob's trouble," the time of Jacob's adversity.
That covers the whole period of Daniel's 70th week. It is not just
the end times. So this is a broad sense of the use of that term. "But he
(that is Jacob or Israel) will be saved from it." Another term. So we've
looked at "Daniel's 70th week." We've looked at the day of
the Lord; we've looked at Jacob's trouble.
And now, the fourth
term for the Tribulation is "the wrath of God". We've gone through
many of these verses already, so I won't take time on it. But 1 Thessalonians
1:10 and 1 Thessalonians 5:9 both talk about "the wrath to come."
Jesus "delivers us from the wrath to come" in 1 Thessalonians 1:10
and in 1 Thessalonians 5:9, "God has not destined us for wrath."
Then we look at how
the term is used in Revelation. In Revelation 6:16 it is used in terms of the
"wrath of the Lamb!" This is early in the Tribulation period. This
isn't late. This isn't that pre-wrath rapture view that the wrath of God is only
the very last period at the end of the Tribulation. This describes what happens
during the sixth seal judgment, which is probably during the first six months
to a year and a half of the first half of the Tribulation. The seal judgment
comes probably somewhere between a year to a year and a half into the
Tribulation period and is described as this meteor shower. These asteroids are
falling upon the earth and creating havoc. The rebellious kings of men, the
leaders of men, run into the earth to hide. They run into caves and wherever to
seek protection and they are just screaming upon the mountains to "Fall on
us; hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne" (that is the
Father) "and from the wrath of the Lamb!" So from the very beginning
the Tribulation is described as a time of God's wrath.
Revelation 11:18
"And the nations were enraged," that is Psalm 2:2 and following.
"The nations are enraged and Thy wrath came," see again it is God's
wrath. So this comes in the summary description of the first half of the Tribulation
period. Revelation 14:10 "he himself shall
drink of the wine of the wrath of God," this is taking about the second
half of the Tribulation when the wine is like in communion. What color is wine?
It's burgundy. It's red. It is like the color of blood. So this is talking
about "the wine." It is the bloodshed of the wrath of God during that
second half of the Tribulation period. We
see this also indicated in Revelation 15:1 and Revelation 16:1 talking about
this final period in the Tribulation as "the wrath of God." Now when
you look at people who look at the pre-wrath rapture view, they look at this
and they say, okay, the wrath of God just comes at the end. But we have the
wrath of the Lamb, which is the wrath of God, so the whole period is the wrath
of God.
Now, a couple of
things about the Tribulation period and another term that we use for
Tribulation, to describe it, is the Tribulation and also the Great Tribulation.
I'll say something about that as we go through this. The word "tribulation"
in Greek is THLIPSIS and it is just a general word for
adversity, calamity, distress, tribulation. What the
Scripture teaches is that all believers can expect some level of adversity or tribulation in
life. Now the reason I say that is because I have heard people since I was in
college say, well, you people that believe in the pre-Trib Rapture, you just want to avoid tribulation. That is
not true! We know that all through the church age Christians have been
subjected to horrendous persecution, horrendous martyrdom! Just look at what is
happening to those Christians in Iraq right now that are losing everything. And
many of them are losing their lives! They are being tortured and they are
having their wives and their children taken captives as sex slaves by ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) and
these radical Islamists! We do believe that there is horrid, horrid
persecution!
You think back to
the period in American history during the colonies, as we came into contact
with the severely demonized Indian tribes, American Indian tribes, and just
read the accounts of how they fought each other. You can't escape the
conclusion that they are demonic. It is exactly how we would picture the demonic.
They were involved in all manner of shamanism and witchcraft and it is just
phenomenal the extreme violence that occurred. And when you read the accounts,
which I have done, of pioneers that were on the edge of the settlements, the
edge of civilization in the late 1600s–1700s, especially during the time
of the so called "French and Indian Wars", "Queen Anne's
War", and "King George's War", "King William's War",
and all those different wars that took place in the 1700s, what you discover is
that there was a very good reason why the colonists said that the only good
Indian was a dead Indian; because when the Indian warring tribes came into the
settlements, they would kill the men and scalp them alive and torture them and
do all kinds of unspeakable things to them while they were still alive! They
would drag off their women, the children, and they would take them back and
enslave them and mistreat them and abuse them in just unspeakable ways! And
this happened again and again and again. So it was such a horror on the
frontier. And most of these were Christians!
So we believe that
Christians go through suffering. They go through martyrdom. They go through
adversity. This is what Jesus taught, John 16:33, "In the world you have
tribulation, but take courage, because I've overcome the world." He
overcame the world before He ever went to the cross. That is a perfect tense of
that verb "overcome" and He hadn't gone to the cross yet. But He had
already overcome the world. Romans 2:9, "There will be tribulation and
distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the
Greek." Romans 5:3, "And not only this, but we also exult." We
as Christians "also exult in our tribulations" because we know that
"tribulation brings about perseverance."
So yes, we believe
that we go through tribulation, lower case 't'. In Matthew 24:29 the term is
used of an unprecedented future worldwide suffering. It refers to the entire
period of Daniel's 70 weeks. Jesus said in Matthew 24:29 "But immediately
after the tribulation of those days." So that refers to the almost all of
it except for the end time. "Immediately after the tribulation of those
days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the
stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be
shaken." Once again this is one of those passages that talk about those
"blood moons" and what happens in the signs in the moons. When does
it happen? It's clearly preceded by all of the other signs in Matthew 24. It
comes at the end of the Tribulation period. Mark 13:19 is
a parallel passage. It says, "For those days will be a time of tribulation
such as is not been seen since the beginning of the creation which God created,
until now." So this is talking about the entire period of Daniel's 70th
week. Mark 13:24 talks about the very end. That is a parallel to Matthew 24:29.
Revelation 17:14 it
uses the term "great tribulation." Some dispensationalists take this
as a technical term. "The Tribulation" is the first half. "The
Great Tribulation" is the second half. But I think it is not a technical
term. In both passages, as you read them, it is simply talking about the term
"great" as an adjective describing the intensity, the unique
intensity of this period of adversity. And so the whole period is the
"great tribulation." In Matthew 24 Jesus uses the term when He talks
about the second half because it is more intense than the first half. After the
abomination of desolation you will have "great tribulation." It was
bad before; it gets worse in the second half.
When you look at the
length of Tribulation, it is seven years from the signing of that covenant with
Israel until Jesus Christ returns at the Second Coming. Next time we will get
into this, talking about the key people in the Tribulation. We need to get our
program out and figure out who the players are and define them and come to
understand them.
Now I was putting
off a question all the way through this because I thought I'd actually make it
to the Antichrist. The Antichrist is, just to answer that question that came up
last time. Let me pull up the slide I put together on this. It talks about
"the people of the prince who is to come."
The fact that it is western, because he comes in from
these. He clearly has a
headquarters in Babylon. I understand that, but there is a coalition. If the
Antichrist is the coalition of the Middle East, then what do you do with Europe
and what do you do with the western hemisphere? It is like virtually ignored in
the scenarios of some of these people who want to promote the idea that it is a
Muslim Antichrist and I understand their arguments for that, but they don't
really wash.
"The prince to
come" describes the Antichrist. He is going to come in the future.
"The people" are described as those who will destroy the temple. That
is in AD 70.
Those people who destroyed the people in AD 70 are "the people of the prince
who is to come," who comes 2000 years later. Those people were the Roman
army. They are comprised of many different peoples form all over the Roman
Empire. They came from North Africa, which now is Muslim. They came from the
Levant area, which is now Muslim. They came from the Greece, which is not. They
came from Rome. They came from Spain. They came possibly from other areas of
Europe around what is use to be Yugoslavia, Serbia, Croatia, Macedon, those
areas. All comprise this army. So the army is made up of this conglomerate of
peoples that basically populated the Roman Empire. So in AD 70 the people were the Roman Imperial
Army of Titus composed of people from all over the empire, which would include
North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean area.
In Daniel 2, in the
chapter describing Nebuchadnezzar's vision, it talks about the feet of iron in that
big statue you see; the feet of iron and clay. It is a mixture. The iron comes
from the legs of iron, which was the Roman Empire. The feet are made up of
iron, which is composed of the previous elements of the Old Roman Empire, plus
clay, which are weaker new elements. This would include the United States,
western hemisphere, Canada, all of these western
hemisphere countries are descendant and our institutions all derive from
Greco-Roman culture. So we are all part of that. All of Europe, and there were
parts of Europe that weren't part of the original Roman Empire, so all of that;
so it is primarily coming out of that organization. It looks at that scenario.
That pulls the world together because the passages in Scripture all talk about
the Antichrist controlling the world.
If you go along with
the flow of these advocates of a Muslim Antichrist you not only have the
problem of the fact that this centralizes everything into a Middle Eastern
scenario and ignores the rest of the world, but you have a problem with the
Antichrist coming along and establishing a covenant with Israel that would by
every account establish the rights of the Jewish people to build a temple, a
functional temple, on the Temple Mount. You can argue until you are blue in the
face with well maybe it there is going to be both of them up there. Whatever?
There is no way a Muslim, that kind of a power, is going to allow a Jew to even
set foot on the Temple Mount, much less build a third temple on the Temple
Mount. This is never explained by these particular advocates,
and then there are other problems with that position as well. Next time we will
come back and look at the details related to the Antichrist and the rise of the
final Empire of Babylon.
Lord, thank You for
this time tonight to look at these things and to focus on the future knowing
that since You have revealed them to us You are very much aware of what will
happen. There will be no surprises. You are very much in control and You'll bring all things to a glorious conclusion and we will
see that all things do work together for good to those who love You and to
those who are called according to Your purpose. Father, we pray that You would
challenge us with the fact that we face tribulation today, difficulties today,
heartaches and challenges, but You are in control and no matter how chaotic our
lives may appear at times, we can relax and trust You because You are in
control. We pray this in Christ's Name, Amen.