The
Day of the Lord Part I
Introduction, past prophetic history
and “future” prophecy:
In part one of this
article we show what very few in Christianity are aware of regarding the number
of days of the Lord there have actually been in the past that many have
mistaken for the final day of the Lord that will occur in our future.
In part two we lay
out for our readers exactly what we have come to understand about the final day
of the Lord that is the one-time one-off event that everybody seems to be
expecting --- but are completely unaware of what it will entail in details that
we feel will stun our readers regarding what is actually revealed in prophecies
that most have simply misunderstood.
Introduction
There are
wide ranging views on “the Day of the Lord” and some samples of how the bible
and its prophecy are viewed by many appear at the end of part one of this
article.
There would
be very few among Christianity who really understands that there have been many
“days of the Lord” in biblical prophecy.
Most
associate the “Day of the Lord” with a one-time future event which in
reality according to prophecy is actually termed in the book of Revelation as
follows:
For they
are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of
the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great
day of God Almighty. KJV
Revelation 16:14
Fewer still
will be largely unaware that there are “two” great battles prophesied in both
old and New Testaments to occur very close together at that time that
Christianity calls ‘the second coming’. The book of Zechariah fills in many
details missing from the Book of Revelation and is closely linked to Daniel’s
prophetic writings and those of Revelation in some most unusual ways that will
unfold for our readers as we proceed in a step by step explanation outlining
these prophetic events according to what we’ve uncovered in 5 years fairly
intensive research.
We make no claims as to having all the
answers as some do and assert what they teach is the whole truth --- but what
we are presenting is an honest appraisal of prophecy without all the
hype and guesswork that goes into most religious leader’s interpretations of
prophetic scripture.
Modern
scholars have claimed without evidence that the apostle John wrote the book of
Revelation around 95 AD and we’ve found this assumption to be faulty and that
in fact all the scriptural evidence points to Revelation having been written before
67 AD. We fully realize that much of
what we have come to understand from our research will not sit well with the
majority of either Christianity or the scholarly academic world --- but we are
compelled to present what we’ve found in the word of God without fear or favour
or regard as to the sensitivity of those who might find offense in what we have
seen in prophecy to be what we believe to be the truth and so we would ask our
readers to thoroughly check everything we will have written and presented here
in whatever way they are capable of for verification.
Past
prophecy plays a major role in understanding the prophetic future
The apostle
John writes that he was present in spirit and in vision “on the Lord’s day” as
follows:
10 I was in the Spirit on the
Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
11 Saying, I am Alpha and
Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and
send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto
Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto
Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. KJV
Revelation 1:10-11
So pretty
much everything in the Book of Revelation was to occur after John wrote the
book of Revelation and distributed it to the churches of
The newly
made prophet, the apostle John, was commanded to record what he saw in vision
and what was going to occur from his day onwards:
Write the
things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things
which shall be hereafter; KJV Revelation 1:19
There are enough clues in the 1st
chapter itself to ascertain that John was writing these visions shortly before
67-70 AD because the churches are pictured at peace with nothing untoward
happening at that stage except for perhaps his incarceration on the Isle of
Patmos and he apparently had time to distribute copies of the book of
Revelation to those churches before the end of the Old Testament age. We place the writing of the book of
Revelation at about mid-way through 66 AD therefore allowing about 6 months
getting those messages from
One important
clue that the apostle John was given in the visions of Revelation and John
wrote in the book of Revelation before 67 AD is that he is asked in chapter 11
to do something that would have no meaning --- even in vision --- if Jerusalem
or the Temple had been destroyed before he recorded his visions therefore and
these verses also signify that the Gentiles of the day [The Romans] would
desecrate the Temple and Jerusalem for the exact amount of time that it was
prophesied that they would to do so and to which the angel Gabriel alluded to
in the seventy weeks prophecy of Daniel’s prophetic book [ Daniel 9:26-27] :
1 I was
given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, "Go and measure the
2 But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has
been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42
months. NIV Revelation 11:1-2
Note: we haven’t
quoted Daniel 9:26-27 in full here because it is a little obscure in the KJV
but even worse in the NIV --- but a full explanation will appear in part two of
this article that will clarify it satisfactorily for our readers
More
than one day of the Lord in Prophecy? How so?
Determining which
day of the Lord is the one ahead in our future and which prophecies
actually depict that day of the Lord that the Book of Revelation shows is ahead
for us and which Old Testament prophecies are not for our future --- is at the heart of
what has caused a great deal of confusion among Christians who are unaware that
a “day the Lord” actually occurred in 67-70AD when the Romans destroyed
Jerusalem and the Temple and “the great tribulation” that was prophesied to
occur by Jesus and other OT prophets did indeed occur at that time --- right on
schedule --- according to many Old Testament prophecies.
Very few
understand this prophetic fact and as a result leaders of various churches
attribute the prophecies of the Olivet discourse in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and
Luke 21 entirely to our future and try to fit the notion [theory] of a
second “abomination of desolation” into their predictions of the “end times”
and explain this away by claiming prophecies are “dual” and can be fulfilled
more than once i.e. ‘a former and latter fulfillment’ and so they have
apparently developed the “theory” of duality in an attempt to explain prophecies
that didn’t fit their “model” or “template” of the future.
The apostle
Peter identified that the day of the first Pentecost signaled the
arrival of the “last days” that the Old Testament prophets foretold and
therefore had begun in his, Peter’s day well before the destruction
of
16 But
this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
17 And it shall come to pass in
the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your
sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams:
18 And on
my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy:
19 And I
will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and
fire, and vapour of smoke:
20 The sun
shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and
notable day of the Lord come:
21 And it
shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be
saved. KJV Acts 2:16-22
There would be fewer still in our
modern era who understand that Christianity’s eschatology as a whole is
thoroughly flawed by doctrines based on a future “great tribulation” derived
from “the great tribulation” that was recorded in scripture in the
synoptic gospels and which prophecy and Luke’s gospel [Luke 21:20-24] shows was
clearly fulfilled in the past and occurred in 67-70AD with the second Diaspora
of the Jews at that time.
Luke’s gospel
stands almost alone in giving the exact timeframe of “the Day of the
Lord” that occurred in 67-70AD but still in conjunction with the Matthew and
Mark gospel accounts as mute testimony to the fact that Daniel’s “abomination
of desolation” noted by Daniel in the “70 weeks prophecy” [Daniel 9:24-27] was
set up in 67-70AD by the Roman army of that day and that “the great tribulation
known by many to last for a period of 3 ½ rears actually occurred during that
Roman occupation and this is practically unknown knowledge in some or even most
religious circles today and perhaps some of the secular history sources and not
necessarily acknowledged by either those sources or Christianity in general
simply because some believe that the heavenly signs of “blood, fire and pillars
of smoke” portrayed in the gospels could not have happened in those days and
must signify therefore a more sinister modern “nuclear war” scenario --- and so
it is ASSUMED without proof that all those heavenly signs are for our future
only.
What even
fewer Christians understand is that nearly every “Day of the Lord”, past,
present and future was and will be accompanied by heavenly signs very much like
those shown by the Apostle Peter in the quote we’ve given above and so we are
going to list those past days of the Lord for our readers also --- so
that they can see for themselves that heavenly signs are possible without
nuclear war being involved at all and that genocide and the near destruction of
man’s civilization could just as easily have occurred in the past --- as well
as in modern times.
A listing
of “the day of the Lord” in past biblical prophetic history:
The most
notable day of the Lord in the past with “graphic” detail is this “Oracle”
declared by
Isaiah to be for the Babylonians and although it is fairly long we feel it
necessary to get the point across that nearly every day of the Lord is
accompanied by “heavenly signs” and is therefore well worth our readers taking
a good hard long look at before making any erroneous judgments as some in
Christianity do in arriving at conclusions claiming “nuclear war” is inferred
in any scripture and therefore must be involved in the near destruction of
mankind that has been prophesied about in the past --- including the gospel
accounts of “the great tribulation” as many might think --- and therefore
suppose that none of those heavenly signs could have occurred in the past and
make the erroneous ASSUMPTION that these
signs were only for our times in our future ahead and don’t appear to
have been fulfilled in the past.
[1] Isaiah’s “Day[s] of the Lord” as follows:
Surprisingly enough Isaiah has at
least two references to
“different” days of the Lord and possibly three as our readers will be able to
see for themselves shortly and so too does the book of Joel.
We’ll list the first one here and the
second a little later and a “possible third” a little later still [in part two]
--- together with all the other Old Testament prophet’s “day of the Lord”
references that are more or less synoptic in referring to the same final
day of the lord relevant to our day and age for our future. Isaiah’s possible third involves five full
chapters of Isaiah that fall into the category of ongoing and in some ways
timeless prophecies concerning both a past and a future Day of the Lord all
rolled together but for obvious reasons due to the length of these passages of
prophecy we’ll only highlight those parts that seem to clearly apply to
our modern age mostly and will accompany that with an explanation of those
parts that seem to apply to earlier ages.
1 An
oracle concerning
2 Raise a
banner on a bare hilltop, shout to them; beckon to them to enter the gates of
the nobles.
3 I have
commanded my holy ones; I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath--
those who rejoice in my triumph.
4 Listen,
a noise on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar
among the kingdoms, like nations massing together! The LORD Almighty is
mustering an army for war.
5 They
come from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens-- the LORD and the
weapons of his wrath-- to destroy the whole country.
6 Wail, for the day of the LORD is
near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
7 Because
of this, all hands will go limp, every man's heart will melt.
8 Terror
will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman
in labor. They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame.
9 See, the
day of the LORD is coming --a cruel day, with wrath and
fierce anger-- to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.
10 The
stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising
sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.
11 I will
punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to
the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless.
12 I
will make man scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir.
13
Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its
place at the wrath of the LORD Almighty, in the day of his burning anger.
14 like a
hunted gazelle, like sheep without a shepherd, each will return to his own
people, each will flee to his native land.
15 Whoever
is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword.
16 Their
infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted
and their wives ravished.
17 See, I
will stir up against them the Medes, who do not care for silver and have no
delight in gold.
18 Their
bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants nor
will they look with compassion on children.
19
Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Babylonians’ pride, will be
overthrown by God like
20 She
will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; no Arab will pitch
his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flocks there.
21 But
desert creatures will lie there, jackals will fill her houses; there the owls
will dwell, and there the wild goats will leap about.
22 Hyenas
will howl in her strongholds, jackals in her luxurious palaces. Her time is at
hand, and her days will not be prolonged.
NIV Isaiah 13:1-22
When God does
decide to intervene in world affairs our readers can rest assured if that’s the
right word to use in this case --- that any day of the Lord will be quite
dramatic and quite spectacular as far as heavenly signs go --- very much like
this description of what Isaiah prophesied was to occur to the Babylonian
Empire of the past. This particular day
of the Lord portrayed above was directed entirely at the Babylonians of those
ancient times and included as our readers can see signs very much like those
listed in the synoptic gospels in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21.
The signs
accompanying the day of the Lord to occur in our future will differ very
little to what is described here as far
as heavenly signs go --- at least at first
--- because most of these signs are common to all God’s direct
interventions in the affairs of men in the past apparently:
10 The
stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising
sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. NIV Isaiah 13:10
This is a pretty good description of a solar eclipse
and/or a large heavenly body blocking out the light of stars that are normally
visible as it passes our earth.
However, the book of Revelation shows that
there will be some extraordinarily “extra” heavenly signs that undoubtedly our
planet has encountered in the past but that have never occurred before in the
past epochs in recorded human history to quite the extent they
are shown in Revelation and these are given in Revelation Chapter 8 and are additional to those given in chapter
6 that occur over a longer period that signaled when the “last days” began to
be fulfilled in apostolic times and as the apostle Peter affirms as we’ve
shown.
Some of those
heavenly signs portrayed in Chapter 6 occurred during and after the great
tribulation in 67-70 AD but those in chapter 8 are specific to our day and age
as signs that the second coming is “imminent” and exceptionally close
when they occur and begin to come to pass and these signs will coincide and be
very close to the time of God’s two final witnesses appearing for their
apparently “prophetic” mission [Revelation 11:3] --- whatever that turns out to
be --- we do have an ‘inkling’ of what that mission might entail but we’ll save
that for part two of this article and present that as the pure speculation that
it may in fact just be --- at the conclusion of part two.
Notice the
wording in verse 14&15 of Revelation 11 showing the “timeframe” of the
prophesying of these two specially “anointed” men of God showing their
prophesying being very close to [ 3 ½ years approx. before] the “last trumpet”
[I Corinthians 15:52] as follows:
14 The second woe has
passed; the third woe is coming soon.
15 The
seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven,
which said: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord
and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever." NIV Revelation 11:14-15
Zechariah with similar visions tying
very closely into the prophecies of John’s/Jesus’ book of Revelation shows
these men are specially anointed prophets for our day:
So he
said, "These are the two who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the
earth."
NIV
Zechariah 4:14
Our readers
can see for themselves by reading the rest [full context] of chapter 11 of
Revelation where these men fit into God’s plans for the future.
The prophetic books in the Old
Testament are not necessarily in chronological sequence or order:
We discovered
in our research into prophecy that many prophecies are not in chronological
sequence or order and neither is the placement of the prophetic books
necessarily in chronological order as they appear in the English Old Testament
from the King James Version [KJV] onwards, including the NIV etc.
So at this
point it is also necessary to point out to our readers that the prophetic books
of the bible are a collection of prophetical writings that were gathered and
collected over a few thousand years and there may be a great many other
prophetic writings that never made it into the collection of books called the
“holy bible” today.
The Old
Testament itself verifies that there were indeed other prophetic books that are
not present in our English bible:
Samuel, Nathan, Gad, Ahijah &
Iddo:
29 Now the acts of David the king, first and
last, behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the
book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer,
30 With
all his reign and his might, and the times that went over him, and over
29 Now the
rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the
book of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the
Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam
the son of Nebat? KJV 2 Chronicles 9:29
While the
book of Samuel did indeed make it into our modern bible in 1&2 Samuel those
others listed did not and neither Elijah nor Elisha have their own books [as
far as we know] and Elijah was regarded as an important prophet to the Jews of
ancient times and possibly the modern times as well.
While much is
made of the writings of modern fictitious author’s claiming their writings
represent a possibility of truth such as Michael Baigent’s “The Jesus Papers”
and Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” or
the latest Hollywood movie blockbuster escapade such as “Angel’s and demons”
claiming secret knowledge exists about or in ancient manuscripts of “dubious”
origin --- which makes an excellent story line or plot --- we may never know
what other ancient writings might be held in the longest lasting ‘Christian’
institution’s Vatican archives in some forgotten dusty corner or overlooked
shelf or might be unearthed through archeology as sometimes happens in the case
of the dead sea scrolls --- not to
mention what ancient writings or manuscripts some of the Jews might possibly
possess and not realize the value of in some forgotten or little known books.
We would stress
however as we have done in our first article at our website that not all
ancient documents represent truth --- just because of their vast age --- human
beings of past eras were essentially no different to us in modern times and no
doubt had their entertainments, in writings of a fictitious nature just like us
and their scholars of those early times were called philosophers who made like
our modern scholars do with their theory of evolution --- “educated guesses”
about God and the nature of the universe and life on earth. Click here to read our rebuttal of the nonsense in “The Jesus
Papers” and then use the “back” button on your browser to return to this
paper.
The word of
God however doesn’t deal in guesswork and prophecy will undoubtedly prevail in
giving the final proofs of the authenticity of the bible and man will be left
without excuse in not giving credit where credit is due in acknowledging his
creator.
What is
abundantly clear is that even the bible’s Old Testament and even the New
Testament writings as they currently stand are not all of the books ever
written but represent a tiny but necessary “nucleus” that gives us quite a good
picture of God’s dealings with His earthly children nevertheless.
A remark was
made along these lines by one of Jesus’ disciples in the New Testament in
closing an important book of the bible as follows and reveals some quite
interesting by-play between two major players in the New Testament chronicles
as well as those remarkable statements at the end of that book:
20 Peter
turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was
the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said,
"Lord, who is going to betray you?")
21 When
Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?"
22 Jesus
answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to
you? You must follow me."
23 Because
of this, the rumor spread among the brothers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that
he would not die; he only said, "If I want him to remain alive
until I return, what is that to you?"
24 This is
the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know
that his testimony is true.
25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were
written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the
books that would be written. NIV John
21:20-25
21 Peter
seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? [KJV]
What did this
particular man do indeed?
Did the
apostle John who wrote the astonishing book of Revelation in 66-67 AD “remain
alive” until Jesus returned in 67-70 AD to “end the age” of the old
covenant?
Apparently he
did.
Did Jesus come
soon to end the age as prophesied in the pages of Revelation itself?
--- or delay that return for 1940 plus years to “end the age” in our day --- as
many think? --- apparently so and apparently not --- in that order.
Q. Did Jesus delay His return as King of kings
and Lord of lords to rule over this earth from His chosen future site
for His throne i.e. the
A day of the LORD is coming when your
plunder will be divided among you.
NIV
Zechariah 14:1
On that day his feet will
stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount
of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with
half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. NIV Zechariah 14:4
A. Since we know the Mount of Olives has not been
split into two at this present time then --- Yes, indeed --- He did --- and
still as yet has not “officially” taken up His position and residence on the
Mount of Olives as rightful ruler and “Lord of all the earth” that He fully
qualified for by sacrificing His life in exchange for ours and overcoming
Satan’s Temptations. [Matthew
4:1-11]
Many Old
Testament prophecies, Ezekiel’s last 8 chapters being the foremost in dealing
with the location of Jesus’ future throne and inclusive of the evidence in the
book of Revelation show that Jesus will actually rule from the Mount of Olives
where His throne and sanctuary will be and Revelation pictures New Jerusalem
descending on the Mount of Olives and apparently few understand this phenomenal
revelation correctly:
And he
carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed
me that great city, the holy
When the
[2] Ezekiel’s “day of the Lord” as
follows:
Again,
although a lengthy prophecy of 27 verses we are quoting it in full --- in
conjunction with some of Jeremiah’s work --- because parts of some of
these Old Testament prophecies have been
used in quotes by those religious leaders who should know better to
supposedly support their ideas that some OT prophecy is referring to our
English speaking modern nations being involved on the receiving end in some of
these doom and gloom scenarios when clearly Jeremiah shows exactly when this
prophecy of Ezekiel’s concerning the “wrath” of the day of the Lord occurred in
the past and to whom:
1 The word of the LORD came to me:
2 “Son of
man, this is what the Sovereign LORD says to the
3 The end
is now upon you and I will unleash my anger against you. I will judge you
according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices.
4 I will
not look on you with pity or spare you; I will surely repay you for your
conduct and the detestable practices among you. Then you will know that I am
the LORD.
5 “This is
what the Sovereign LORD says: Disaster! An unheard-of disaster is coming.
6 The end has come! The end
has come! It has roused itself against you. It has come!
7 Doom has
come upon you--you who dwell in the land. The time has come, the day is near;
there is panic, not joy, upon the mountains.
8 I am about
to pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against you; I will judge you
according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices.
9 I will
not look on you with pity or spare you; I will repay you in accordance with
your conduct and the detestable practices among you. Then you will know that it
is I the LORD who strikes the blow.
10 “The
day is here! It has come! Doom has burst forth, the rod has budded, arrogance
has blossomed!
11
Violence has grown into a rod to punish wickedness; none of the people will be
left, none of
that crowd--no wealth, nothing of value.
12 The
time has come, the day has arrived. Let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller
grieve, for wrath is upon the whole crowd.
13 The
seller will not recover the land he has sold as long as both of them live, for
the vision concerning the whole crowd will not be reversed. Because of their
sins, not one of them will preserve his life.
14 Though
they blow the trumpet and get everything ready, no one will go into battle, for
my wrath is upon the whole crowd.
15
“Outside is the sword, inside are plague and famine; those in the country will
die by the sword, and those in the city will be devoured by famine and plague.
16 All who survive and escape
will be in the mountains, moaning like doves of the
valleys, each because of his sins.
17 Every
hand will go limp, and every knee will become as weak as water.
18 They
will put on sackcloth and be clothed with terror. Their faces will be covered
with shame and their heads will be shaved.
19 They
will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be an unclean
thing. Their silver and gold will not be able to save them in the day of the LORD's
wrath. They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it,
for it has made them stumble into sin.
20 They
were proud of their beautiful jewelry and used it to make their detestable
idols and vile images. Therefore I will turn these into an unclean thing for
them.
21 I will
hand it all over as plunder to foreigners and as loot to the wicked of the
earth, and they will defile it.
22 I will
turn my face away from them, and they will desecrate my treasured place;
robbers will enter it and desecrate it.
23
“Prepare chains, because the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of
violence.
24 I will
bring the most wicked of the nations to take possession of their houses; I will
put an end to the pride of the mighty, and their sanctuaries will be
desecrated.
25 When
terror comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none.
26
Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor upon rumor. They will try to get a
vision from the prophet; the teaching of the law by the priest will be lost, as
will the counsel of the elders.
27 The
king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with despair, and the hands of the
people of the land will tremble. I will deal with them according to their
conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them. Then they will know that
I am the LORD."
NIV
Ezekiel 7:1-27
Verse 11
shows that none would be left in Jerusalem and verse 2 shows that the
last of the recognized Israelites [the Jews and those Israelites from the other
tribes living amongst them from the their earlier Assyrian captivity
that “swelled” the populations of Judea when many fled to their brethren the
Jews] would be driven out of the holy land altogether. Although this prophecy does not actually
have the words “Day of the Lord” included in the body of the narrative ---
other prophecies show this depiction of the Babylonian captivity as “a day of
the Lord”.
Putting these
verses together you have an approximation of what the final day of the Lord in
Revelation is also called i.e. “the great day of His wrath” and that is
essentially what the Day of the Lord means in any case:
…. the
time is come, the day of trouble is near ….
in the day of the wrath of the Lord:
KJV Ezekiel 7:7 & KJV Ezekiel
7:19
…. For the great day of his wrath is come;
KJV Revelation 6:17
Whoever
compiled the order that the prophetic books as they appear in modern bibles,
placed Jeremiah’s book before Ezekiel’s and yet Jeremiah’s Lamentations
shows very
clearly when this horrific period of Jewish prophetic --- written in advance
--- history --- of Ezekiel’s prophecy --- had Jeremiah literally and actually
in tears when it was finally fulfilled in reality.
When the full
reality struck --- Jeremiah who had been delivering messages from God
beforehand was completely horrified, overwhelmed and appalled and devastated in
heart when the actual events were played out all around him when he saw the
mothers with their children and all the horrors of war finally come to pass
among God’s chosen and previously protected peoples and he asked quite
naturally as many of us who have been or are fathers and mothers would do today
--- How could God be so cruel? [Lamentations 10-12 &18-22] and many
atheists today also declare that if God exists how could he allow such
suffering we see around us today in our age in modern times and notice
Jeremiah’s last words in these passages of Lamentations:
In the day of the LORD's
anger no one escaped or survived [verse 22 first part]
No-one in Jerusalem with the exception
of perhaps Jeremiah who was in the thick of things apparently escaped or survived
that siege unscathed according to Jeremiah
but other parts of scripture show that he and some Jewish royal
princesses and their household servants were later taken down into Egypt as
captives of the Babylonians so they must have apparently been “out of town”
during the siege of Jerusalem itself or fled with the king and his sons when
they left during the last stages of the siege as Jeremiah 52 shows clearly
enough and weren’t slaughtered with the king’s sons. But several hundred people
were taken captive from the siege of
1 How the
Lord has covered the Daughter of
2 Without
pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob; in his wrath he has
torn down the strongholds of the Daughter of
3 In
fierce anger he has cut off every horn of
4 Like an
enemy he has strung his bow; his right hand is ready. Like a foe he has slain
all who were pleasing to the eye; he has poured out his wrath like fire on the
tent of the Daughter of
5 The Lord
is like an enemy; he has swallowed up
6 He has
laid waste his dwelling like a garden; he has destroyed his place of meeting.
The LORD has made
7 The
Lord has rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary. He has handed over
to the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have raised a shout in the house of
the LORD as on the day of an appointed feast.
8 The LORD
determined to tear down the wall around the Daughter of
9 Her
gates have sunk into the ground; their bars he has broken and destroyed. Her
king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and
her prophets no longer find visions from the LORD.
10 The
elders of the Daughter of
11 My eyes fail from weeping, I am
in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are
destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
12 They
say to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like
wounded men in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their
mothers' arms.
13 What
can I say for you? With what can I compare you, O Daughter of
14 The
visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin
to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and
misleading.
15 All who
pass your way clap their hands at you; they scoff and shake their heads at the
Daughter of
16 All
your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they scoff and gnash their
teeth and say, "We have swallowed her up. This is the day we have waited
for; we have lived to see it."
17 The
LORD has done what he planned; he has fulfilled his word, which he decreed
long ago. He has overthrown you without pity, he has let the enemy gloat over
you, he has exalted the horn of your foes.
18 The
hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of
19 Arise,
cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart
like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives
of your children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.
20 “Look,
O LORD, and consider: Whom have you ever treated like this? Should women eat
their offspring, the children they have cared for? Should priest and
prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 “Young
and old lie together in the dust of the streets; my young men and maidens have
fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger; you have
slaughtered them without pity.
22 “As you
summon to a feast day, so you summoned against me terrors on every side. In the day of the LORD's
anger no one escaped or survived; those I cared for and reared, my
enemy has destroyed." NIV
Lamentations 2:1-22
One might well ask why God allowed the
recording of five full chapters of one of His servants and prophets railing
against and bemoaning the sheer misery and suffering that Jeremiah went through
in apparently losing loved ones that were precious to him --- along with all the
other inhabitants of Jerusalem in seeing the capital city of their once strong
nation completely and utterly devastated by God in the Babylonian siege and
captivity in which these five chapters graphically describe those ancient
events as few other prophets have done as completely and comprehensively [as
Jeremiah did in Lamentations] elsewhere in the other prophetic books.
Ezekiel
apparently lived through captivity of the land of Judah and was among the rest
of the captives by the river Chebar [KJV] or Kebar [NIV] [Ezekiel 1:1] and was
sent to portray the siege of Jerusalem which he was to prophesy against in
Ezekiel 4&5 of his prophetic book before the devastating events unfolded
for Jeremiah who was evidently “trapped on the inside in that horrific siege”
of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. It would
appear therefore that Ezekiel and Jeremiah were contemporaries and their
prophecies covered pretty much the same Babylonian captivity and events
surrounding that era of prophetic Jewish history.
Why do we call this
period “prophetic” Jewish history? Because Moses prophesied in Deuteronomy
30-31 --- exactly what would happen --- centuries in advance of the actual
events and Ezekiel’s and Jeremiah’s prophetic books including Lamentations
shows the fulfillment of Moses’ prophecies almost to the letter and
shows the true horror of what God has ever only done once before and will never
do again to his people and that includes the modern descendents of those
peoples today i.e. The Jews, The UK, America, Canada, Australia & New
Zealand [ the scepter and birthright peoples] or the other nations of Western
Europe’s shorelines comprising the rest of the modern descendants of ancient
Israel.
The implications are
that God will never again withdraw His favour from His chosen
peoples and allow them to either go into captivity or be destroyed completely
as these prophecies of Moses and many others such as Ezekiel, Isaiah and
Jeremiah show very clearly. In the
second Diaspora --- the Jewish society that God set up under Daniel, Ezra,
Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah was once again destroyed but Jesus had the right
to demolish that evil generation and nation that existed in His day --- because
they had Him murdered in cold blood and showed their creator no mercy or regard
almost exactly like their forefathers did in thumbing their noses at God’s laws
in their evil practices before God withdrew His favour in those
evil days exactly as He said they would in Moses writings.
Some
religious leaders who should know better --- but apparently don’t ---
have claimed that Ezekiel 5:12 is a prophecy for our modern English speaking
nations and as we’ve tried to point out to them and others to no avail ---
verse 5:5 shows clearly that Ezekiel’s prophecy in Chapters 4&5 were
describing the siege of Jerusalem that Jeremiah clearly suffered through as
shown in the book of Lamentations.
If our
readers were to read all of Lamentations for themselves which we might warn are
extremely depressing they would see the comparison to the selection that we
chose above in Lamentations 2:1-22 above to the rest of Ezekiel’s chapter 5
which we now quote [unavoidably, in order to prove the point] in full from
verse 5 onwards to the end of the chapter --- the conclusions from that
comparison are unmistakably clear in showing that the Jews of that Babylonian
captivity brought on themselves all those horrors because they did even more
evil than the pagan nations around them did [verse 6-7] and the only good
news among all that terror was that God promised never to do what he did then
to the Jews --- ever again in verse 9 :
….. I will
do to you what I have never done before and will never do again.
NIV
Ezekiel 5:9 last part.
Although
Jeremiah rather gruesomely describes women cooking and eating their own children
here in these few verses from lamentations shown below --- notice the
underlined verse 10 in Ezekiel repeated here for comparison to show they were
both prophesying of the same time and place i.e. the Babylonian siege of
Jerusalem:
Therefore in your midst fathers will eat their children, and
children will eat their fathers NIV Ezekiel 5:10
With their
own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their
food when my people were destroyed. NIV
Lamentations 4:10
Modern
religious leaders have indeed confused Ezekiel 5:12 as supposedly occurring at
the time of Jesus’ return in the future but this clearly also occurred in the
siege of Jerusalem of the Babylonian captivity --- which was clearly ‘a day of
the Lord’ of the past and not the future:
5 “This is
what the Sovereign LORD says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center
of the nations, with countries all around her.
6 Yet in
her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the
nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not
followed my decrees.
7
“Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: You have been more unruly than
the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You
have not even conformed to the standards of the nations around you.
8
“Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself am against
you,
9 Because
of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will
never do again.
10
Therefore in your midst fathers will eat their children, and children will
eat their fathers. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all
your survivors to the winds.
11 Therefore
as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all
your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will withdraw my
favor; I will not look on you with pity or spare you.
This next verse is the one most often cited as supposedly
referring to our modern English speaking nations and most often against the USA
--- when clearly it says no such thing and is entirely a reference to
Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem.
12 A third
of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third
will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the
winds and pursue with drawn sword.
There is not a single Jew anywhere in the world worth his
salt who understands prophecy even a little that would ever assign these
prophecies to modern America --- of that we are absolutely sure --- but modern
Evangelists and religious leaders do so --- so why do modern Christian
religious leaders persist in claiming these prophecies are for modern times? It
beats us! We have no answer for the “apparent ignorance” that is displayed
among some seemingly well educated Christian leaders who claim what they teach
is “true” prophecy but seemingly strays far from what is actually the case in
the prophetic scriptures.
13 “Then
my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be
avenged. And when I have spent my wrath upon them, they will know that I the
LORD have spoken in my zeal.
The Jews know what
happened to their forefathers and when and they know that verse 14 onwards of
Ezekiel 5 happened to Jerusalem of the past and all the rest besides covered in
Jeremiah, Isaiah etc. It’s only the many
prophecies concerning their Messiah and Saviour that they are unsure of
that appear in so many places in the Old Testament.
The Jews were expecting a “physical” messiah of the line
of David and couldn’t accept the “spiritual” Messiah they got instead ---who to
say the least was way beyond their expectations.
14 “I will
make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of
all who pass by.
15 You
will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the
nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and
with stinging rebuke. I the LORD have spoken.
16 When I
shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to
destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply
of food.
17 I will
send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless.
Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against
you. I the LORD have spoken." NIV
Ezekiel 5:5-17
So
we ask --- since when have modern Americans ever defiled Solomon’s
A little
common sense as well as a little logic says never so how then could Ezekiel 5:12 ever apply to modern
12 A third
of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third
will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the
winds and pursue with drawn sword.
Notice to
whom God through the prophet Ezekiel clearly lays the blame for the destruction
of His people of those times:
2 “Son of
man, prophesy against the prophets of
3 This is
what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their
own spirit and have seen nothing!
4 Your
prophets, O
5 You have not gone up to the breaks in the
wall to repair it for the house of Israel so that it will stand firm in the
battle on the day of the LORD.
6 Their
visions are false and their divinations a lie. They say, "The LORD
declares," when the LORD has not sent them; yet they expect their words to
be fulfilled.
7 Have you not seen false visions and
uttered lying divinations when you say, "The LORD declares," though I have not
spoken?
8
“`Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because of your false
words and lying visions, I am against you, declares the Sovereign LORD.
9 My hand will be against the
prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They
will not belong to the council of my people or be listed in the records of the
house of
Modern ministers of religion who claim
they are teaching true prophecy would do well to take notice of what God said
about ancient prophets who followed their own imaginations in
claiming they are the only ones with the truth and their own ideas and
traditions and their words are coming from the authority of God and
saying the Lord says this and the Lord says that when He said no such thing. In
another place in scripture God says this of the Jewish religious leaders of His
day which we quote in KJV and NIV for clarity:
7 Ye
hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
8 This
people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips;
but their heart is far from me.
9 But in
vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
KJV
Matthew 15:7-10
7 You
hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 “`these
people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
9 They
worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' "
NIV
Matthew 15:7-9
And in yet another place in OT scripture:
To the law
and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is
because there is no light in them. KJV Isaiah 8:20
What is the Testimony? Clearly the “testimony” is the testimony of
the spirit of prophecy and the prophetic books as the New Testament affirms in
Revelation:
And I fell
at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy
fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship
God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. KJV Revelation 19:10
[3] Ezekiel forecasts another
“different” day of the Lord:
Would anyone claim this one is for our
future? Definitely not because it gives the timeframe very clearly in verse 10
as emphasized:
1 The word
of the LORD came to me:
2 “Son of
man, prophesy and say: `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "`Wail and
say, "Alas for that day!"
3 For
the day is near, the day of the LORD is near-- a
day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.
4 A sword
will come against Egypt, and anguish will come upon Cush. When the slain fall
in
5 Cush and
6 “`This
is what the LORD says: "`The allies of
7 “`They
will be desolate among desolate lands, and their cities will lie among ruined
cities.
8 Then
they will know that I am the LORD, when I set fire to
9 “`On
that day messengers will go out from me in ships to frighten
10 “`This
is what the Sovereign LORD says: "`I will put an end to the hordes of
11 He and
his army--the most ruthless of nations-- will be brought in to destroy the
land. They will draw their swords against
12 I will
dry up the streams of the
13 “`This
is what the Sovereign LORD says: "`I will destroy the idols and put an end
to the images in
14 I will
lay waste Upper Egypt, set fire to Zoan and inflict punishment on
15 I will
pour out my wrath on Pelusium, the stronghold of
16 I will
set fire to
17 The
young men of
18 Dark
will be the day at Tahpanhes when I break the yoke of
19 So I
will inflict punishment on
NIV Ezekiel 30:1-19
An interesting note
as a proof of fulfilled prophecy:
There has never
been a natural Egyptian born ruler of the Egyptian pharaoh’s royal lines to our
knowledge --- ever since this prophecy was fulfilled completely as God
pronounced --- and Egypt has never been restored to the power it once enjoyed
as a “major power” thousands of years ago.
So what’s the obvious
conclusion that can be drawn? --- When God prophesies and pronounces something
through His prophets --- it sticks --- and cannot be undone or reversed by
man. Let the skeptics argue over those prophetic
facts in Ezekiel 30 that were ‘transformed’ by fulfillment from words in a
prophetic book into past and modern secular history of the Egyptians in
“reality” and are a matter of record that would be difficult to deny.
[4] Many
modern religious leaders have quoted parts of this “Day of the lord” prophecy
from Joel below and have claimed it is for our future and occurs at the
second coming:
1 Blow the
trumpet in
2 a day
of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading
across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old
nor ever will be in ages to come.
3 Before them fire devours,
behind them a flame blazes. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden,
behind them, a desert waste-- nothing escapes them.
4 They
have the appearance of horses; they gallop along like cavalry.
5 With a noise like that of chariots they leap
over the mountaintops, like a crackling fire consuming stubble, like a mighty
army drawn up for battle.
6 At the
sight of them, nations are in anguish; every face turns pale.
7 They
charge like warriors; they scale walls like soldiers. They all march in line,
not swerving from their course.
8 They do
not jostle each other; each marches straight ahead. They plunge through
defenses without breaking ranks.
9 They
rush upon the city; they run along the wall. They climb into the houses; like
thieves they enter through the windows.
10 Before them the earth shakes, the
sky trembles, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine.
11 The
LORD thunders at the head of his army; his forces are beyond number, and mighty
are those who obey his command. The day of the LORD is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it? NIV Joel 2:1-11
It reads a little like a description
of modern nuclear warfare and so many have supposed it is for our day --- If
our readers think it could be --- then they might need to guess
again. Joel 1:6-20 gives the clues for
this one as follows:
6 A nation has invaded my land, powerful
and without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has laid
waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and
thrown it away, leaving their branches white.
8 Mourn
like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the husband of her youth.
9 Grain offerings and drink
offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD. The
priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD.
10 The
fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine
is dried up, the oil fails.
11
Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the
barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
12 The
vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and
the apple tree-- all the trees of the field--are dried up. Surely the joy of
mankind is withered away.
13 Put on sackcloth, O
priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the
night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and
drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Declare
a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in
the land to the house of the LORD your God, and
cry out to the LORD.
15 Alas for that day! For the
day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
16 Has not
the food been cut off before our very eyes-- joy and gladness from the house of
our God?
17 The
seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. The storehouses are in ruins, the
granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up.
18 How the
cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks
of sheep are suffering.
19 To you,
O LORD, I call, for fire has devoured the open pastures and flames have burned
up all the trees of the field.
20 Even
the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has
devoured the open pastures. NIV Joel
1:6-20
There are a couple of possibilities
here as to which of the two Diaspora’s this is referring to i.e.
Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian/Chaldean invasion or the coming of the Roman army
and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 67-70 AD.
Both of these armies --- Babylonian
and Roman caused the Jewish sacrificial systems to cease and the
Verses 9&13 show the sacrificial
systems were to be cut off clearly enough in these passages of prophetic
scripture.
Verse 14 shows the
Furthermore, the last half of Joel 2
gives us more than enough clues to piece this prophecy together correctly
regarding the” timeframe” in which this prophecy occurs and thereby identifying
the army involved --- an explanation follows this lengthy but necessary quote
because if our readers desire to understand prophecy then a little serious
reading is required to arrive at the “correct” conclusions and comparisons to
other prophetic books are also necessary to get “the big picture” regarding the
truth of prophecy and even some New Testament scripture from time to time to
flesh things out better and make the meaning clearer overall :
12 `Even
now, ` declares the LORD, `return to me with all your heart, with fasting and
weeping and mourning. `
13 Rend
your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious
and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.
14 Who knows?
He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing-- grain offerings and
drink offerings for the LORD your God.
15 Blow
the trumpet in
16 Gather
the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the
children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and
the bride her chamber.
17 Let the
priests, who minister before the LORD, weep between the temple porch and the
altar. Let them say, `Spare your people, O LORD. Do not make your inheritance
an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the
peoples, `Where is their God?'`
18 Then
the LORD will be jealous [compassionate or passionate] for his
land and take pity on his people.
19 The LORD will reply to them: `I am sending you grain, new wine
and oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of
scorn to the nations.
20 `I will drive the northern army far from you, pushing
it into a parched and barren land, with its front columns going into the
eastern sea and those in the rear into the western sea. And its stench will go
up; its smell will rise. ` Surely he has done great things.
21 Be not
afraid, O land; be glad and rejoice. Surely the LORD has done great things.
22 Be not
afraid, O wild animals, for the open pastures are becoming green. The trees are
bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.
23 Be
glad, O people of
24 The
threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new
wine and oil.
25 `I will repay you for the years the locusts
have eaten-- the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the
locust swarm -- my great army that I sent among you.
26 You
will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of
the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people
be shamed.
27 Then
you will know that I am in
* 1. We’ve isolated this part of Joel’s prophecy because
the apostle Peter recognized and identified this part as referring to the first
Pentecost in Roman times [ NIV Acts2:15-21] and this is highly significant
to our understanding of the rest of this prophecy and to whom it refers as our
readers will see in the following explanation below.
28 `And
afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters
will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
29 Even on
my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
30 I will
show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of
smoke.
31 The sun
will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great
and dreadful day of the LORD.
*2. We’ve isolated this verse also and the explanation
below reveals exactly why.
32 And everyone who calls on the name of the
LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be
deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD calls. NIV Joel 2:12-32
The incredibly fascinating thing about
Joel’s prophetic book is that Joel 1, 2&3 actually contain references to three
distinct and separate “days of the Lord” --- two in the past and one for
our future --- the same one Zechariah and John in Revelation describe for us in
their prophetic books accorded to their names but in reality are the
Lord’s/God’s writings because all prophecy are “His pronouncements” and not
man’s writings as many who would claim the bible is supposed to be and they
would like to relegate it to mere myth … but our Lord and our God will have
a few things in store for the skeptics in the not too distant future which will
stand their hair on end and send shivers down their spines when prophecy is
fulfilled in “actuality” in our future.
Even Jeremiah --- a true prophet of God was overwhelmed by the reality
and actuality of God’s pronouncements when they came to pass showing Jeremiah
to be a sensitive, passionate and compassionately, caring man of God.
This following
analysis will show our readers how and when and to whom the first part of Joel
2 was referring in prophecy and any thinking reader should be able to follow
along easily enough because it doesn’t take a university degree to understand
the word of God --- luckily --- for us common ordinary men:
At first it
was a little difficult for us to place a “timeframe” on Joel’s prophecies
---one of us even thought as many might today the description given Joel 1-11
especially verses 4-9 describing the “precision marching” of these horsemen was
either a description of the modern 200 million man army of Revelation 9:16
involving modern day tanks etc that run right over the opposition or the Roman
armies that did pretty much the same thing to their opposition --- because
these characteristics were very distinctive and unusual as shown here:
4 They
have the appearance of horses; they gallop along like cavalry.
5 With a noise like that of chariots they leap
over the mountaintops, like a crackling fire consuming stubble, like a mighty
army drawn up for battle.
6 At the
sight of them, nations are in anguish; every face turns pale.
7 They
charge like warriors; they scale walls like soldiers. They all march in line,
not swerving from their course.
8 They do
not jostle each other; each marches straight ahead. They plunge through
defenses without breaking ranks.
9 They
rush upon the city; they run along the wall. They climb into the houses; like
thieves they enter through the windows.
Verses
3&10 would tend to throw any researcher off a little by the sheer
destruction of this army described and again any researcher might think these
are descriptions of “modern warfare” [nukes] especially because the heavenly
signs are included as follows:
1 Blow the
trumpet in
2 a day
of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading
across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old
nor ever will be in ages to come.
3 Before them fire devours,
behind them a flame blazes. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden,
behind them, a desert waste-- nothing escapes them.
10 Before them the earth shakes, the
sky trembles, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine.
Since we know
there will be 200 million man army in our future invading Jerusalem and the
holy land [Revelation 9:16] [Zechariah 14:2] the last part of verse 2 above tends
to make one think that these passages of Joel must be referring to Revelation’s
200 million man army because Joel seems to be saying there will never be an
army as big ever again --- and certainly no ancient armies were ever as
big as 200 million.
….. a large and mighty army
comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to
come.
The “deciding factors” that place Joel
2 in the past and not in our future:
1.
9 They rush upon the city; they run along the wall. They
climb into the houses; like thieves they enter through the windows.
Although modern tanks
and planes might rush upon their enemies’ cities --- they certainly don’t run
along walls or climb into houses through their windows --- making these troops
obviously men therefore.
2. 20 `I will drive the northern army far from you, pushing
it into a parched and barren land, with its front columns going into the
eastern sea and those in the rear into the western sea. And its stench will go
up; its smell will rise. ` Surely he has done great things.
[a] This army is
clearly driven away from the holy land at some stage.
[b] the 200 million
man army of Revelation 9:16 is completely destroyed. Zechariah 12:9 14:12,
Isaiah 66:16-19, 24 & Revelation 19:14-21
[c] Secular history
shows the Roman armies of the second Diaspora of 67-70AD although they marched
with machine-like precision were neither driven away from the holy land nor
destroyed at that time and the Roman Empire and its armies continued to hold
sway over the earth till 1450 AD when Constantinople was finally taken and the
last eastern half of Roman Empire “officially” ceased to exist at that time.
So, a little
amateur detective work, a little logic, a little common sense and a simple
process of elimination leaves us with the only other “massive army” that was
eventually driven away from the holy land by the Medo-Persian Empire which
replaced the Chaldean/Babylonian one being obviously Nebuchadnezzar’s army who
apparently were as highly organized as the Roman armies in their precision
marching and “double timing” and seemingly running into battle like horses and
rolling over their enemies without seeming to suffer much harm --- because they
apparently immediately closed up ranks when a soldier was “downed” or lost and
who’s to say some Roman general somewhere later down the track didn’t copy
Nebuchadnezzar’s style of military techniques in training the early Roman
Armies --- as the two Empires were only 500 years apart [give or take a few
years] and records of Nebuchadnezzar’s conquests and methods may have been
known to the early Romans --- after all we have records that go back far
beyond 500 years --- even considering those lost in the dark ages [middle ages]
through the superstitious burning of books that occurred in our past and the
loss of the famed Alexandria library etc.
Furthermore
everything written from verses 12-27 in Joel 2 are completely consistent with
and “match” perfectly with Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai’s and Zechariah’s
prophetic books covering the period following the Babylonian captivity
and the restitution of the remnant of the Jews that were restored to the holy
land when God did indeed have compassion on them once more and Jerusalem and
the Temple were re-built during those prophetic book’s times of writing.
*1. The Apostle Peter’s identification of
the period that Joel’s prophecy in verses 28-32 cover is critical in verifying
and thereby showing as Joel seemed to know that there was yet another “day of
the Lord” to follow “the day of the Lord” of the Babylonian captivity. It must be remembered that Peter was still a
Jew though converted to becoming a follower of Christ and a ‘spiritual Jew” as
a result of his conversion and understood prophecy through having been most
probably taught “the law the prophets” as all Jews were from their youth ---
and it follows that his understanding would have been increased by the receipt
of the Holy spirit at conversion.
*2
just as important
though is Joel’s statement in verse 32 being totally consistent with Daniel
12:1 as follows below showing Joel knew of a future day of the Lord or “time of
stress/trouble” as Daniel puts it --- to come after the Babylonian
captivity’s day of the Lord:
"At
that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as
has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that
time your people--everyone whose name is found written in the book--will
be delivered. NIV Daniel
12:1
Compare Joel 2:32 to Daniel 12:1 above:
32 And everyone who calls on the name of the
LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be
deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD
calls. NIV Joel 2:12-32
It’s clear
that Joel was thoroughly familiar with Daniel’s prophecies.
It would
further seem that Joel was either familiar with Zechariah’s writings or seeing
similar visions of similar periods of time:
Compare the last half
of Zechariah 12 to Joel 2:28-32
10 “And
I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of
11 On that
day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in
the plain of Megiddo.
12 The
land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan
of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and
their wives,
13 the
clan of the house of Levi and their wives, the clan of Shimei and their wives,
14 and all
the rest of the clans and their wives.
NIV Zechariah 12:10-14
While these two are very similar --- Joel’s seems to be
an expansion of a slightly later time that seemingly includes more than just
the Jews than Zechariah’s one on the same theme of out-pouring out of the holy
spirit --- but it would seem both are very close together in time sequence and Joel’s
could be a reference to the Gentiles receiving the holy spirit under Paul’s
ministry instead --- and Zechariah’s actually a reference to the first
Pentecost. Could Peter actually have been mistaken? --- it seems unlikely that he was mistaken
though.
28 `And
afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your
sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young
men will see visions.
29 Even on
my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
30 I will
show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of
smoke.
31 The sun
will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great
and dreadful day of the LORD.
32 And everyone who calls on the name of the
LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be
deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD
calls. NIV Joel 2:28-32
The problem being with Peter’s assessment is that there
didn’t seem to be any deliverance in Jerusalem or Mount Zion in the days of the
67-70 AD great tribulation because the Jews were scattered and removed from
Jerusalem and so verses 30-32 could actually be applying to “ a day of the
Lord” to occur in our day ahead instead of the 67-70 AD fiasco.
If as we have discovered on numerous
occasions that arbitrary chapter divisions sometimes skew things --- the
beginning of Joel 3 which seems to be exclusively dealing with the events of
second coming actually begins at verse 30 of Chapter 2 and the translators
started chapter 3 at the wrong point then there is no contradiction of Peter’s
assessment in that case about the outpouring of Gods spirit signaling the
beginning of the “last days” whether or not it was at the first Pentecost or a
little later under Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles.
John’s statement in the book of Revelation however seems
to support Zechariah’s prophecy down to the ground as being at the time of “the
great tribulation” as follows:
Look, he
is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who
pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen.
NIV
Revelation 1:7
Compare Revelation
1:7 to Zechariah 12:10 as follows:
10 “And I
will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of
There would have indeed been a great deal of mourning at
the time of “the great tribulation” portrayed in the synoptic gospels of
Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 when both Zechariah and John in Revelation
report that those Roman soldiers who pierced Jesus’ side with a spear would see
him coming on the clouds to end that age with the destruction of Jerusalem and
the temple and the previously “restored” Jewish nation under Daniel, Ezra,
Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah once again.
It would indeed explain why each of
the clans was mourning apart from the others --- they were being
“scattered” once again at that time and would not have been able to mourn
together as a united group because of the disintegration of their nation.
There remains
one more day of the Lord on the list of past already fulfilled days of the Lord and then we can move onto
the future of the one most spectacular and final Day of lord to come in our modern times covered in many
OT prophecies and the book of Revelation:
[5] Some modern churches would love this next NIV translation of “a day of the
Lord” that appears in Zephaniah 1:1-18 that we are going to quote. Why? Because
it seemingly supports their notion that Malachi 4:1shows the earth is
going to be burnt up at Jesus’ second coming and even the apostle Peter’s
prophetic words at first seem to support that notion as well in this New
Testament passage which in turn seems to support a statement by the apostle
Paul which we quote here as well, first:
1 But of
the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
2 For
yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
3 For when
they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail
upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4 But ye,
brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
5 Ye are
all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the
night, nor of darkness.
6 Therefore
let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
KJV 1
Thessalonians 5:1-6
9 The Lord
is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is
longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish but that all
should come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief
in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and
the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that
are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing
then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye
to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking
for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being
on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
KJV 2
Peter 3:9-12
2 Peter 3:9-12 would seem to support Malachi 4:1 as
follows and seemingly vindicate the surface of the earth being “burnt up” at
the “second coming” notion or viewpoint:
1 For,
behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and
all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them
up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But unto
you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his
wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
3 And ye
shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your
feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. KJV Malachi 4:1-3
The
last of the past “Day of the Lord” references:
[as far as we know
--- we believe we’ve covered them all fairly thoroughly.]
1 The word of the LORD that came to Zephaniah
son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah,
during the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah:
2 “I will sweep away
everything from the face of the earth," declares
the LORD.
3 “I will
sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the
fish of the sea. The wicked will have only heaps of rubble when I cut off man from
the face of the earth," declares the LORD.
4 “I will
stretch out my hand against
5 those
who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who bow down and
swear by the LORD and who also swear by Molech,
6 those
who turn back from following the LORD and neither seek the LORD nor inquire of
him.
7 Be
silent before the Sovereign LORD, for the day of the LORD is near. The LORD
has prepared a sacrifice; he has consecrated those he has invited.
8 On the
day of the LORD's sacrifice I will punish the princes and the king's sons and
all those clad in foreign clothes.
9 On that
day I will punish all who avoid stepping on the threshold, who fill the temple
of their gods with violence and deceit.
10 “On
that day," declares the LORD, "a cry will go up from the Fish Gate,
wailing from the New Quarter, and a loud crash from the hills.
11 Wail,
you who live in the market district; all your merchants will be wiped out, all
who trade with silver will be ruined.
12 At that
time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent,
who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, `The LORD will do nothing,
either good or bad.'
13 Their
wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. They will build houses but
not live in them; they will plant vineyards but not drink the wine.
14 “The great day of the LORD
is near-- near and coming quickly. Listen! The cry on
the day of the LORD will be bitter, the shouting of the warrior there.
15 That day will be a day of wrath, a day of
distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a
day of clouds and blackness,
16 a day
of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the corner
towers.
17 I will
bring distress on the people and they will walk like blind men, because they
have sinned against the LORD. Their blood will be poured out like dust and
their entrails like filth.
18 Neither
their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the LORD's
wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for
he will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth." NIV Zephaniah 1:1-18
Why would we
quote prophetic scripture that seemingly supports the “scorched earth” view
held by some in Christianity? i.e. that the earth will be burnt up at Jesus’
return?
We haven’t --- because it doesn’t. How
so?
For a start,
there’s a serious flaw involved with the NIV’s translation of Zephaniah 1:1-18
in places and the KJV gives the “correct” rendering in verse 2 as follows:
I will utterly
consume all things from off the land, KJV
Zephaniah 1:2
…..and I
will cut off man from off the land, KJV Zephaniah 1:3
……for he
shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
KJV
Zephaniah 1:18
As our readers can see for themselves
this entire prophecy is just one more reference to the Babylonian captivity’s
“Day of the Lord”.
There’s nothing new there. Clearly God did not wipe man off the face of
the earth or this current article could not be written. The problem in this case is the modern New
International Version’s loose translation of scripture for these passages.
[Zephaniah 1: 2, 3&18]
The last two quotes before Zephaniah’s
i.e. that we gave above are simply referring to the same point in time when God
renews the face of the earth.
Malachi sets
no timeframe and simply says …… in the day that I shall do this … but the apostle Peter qualifies and
elaborates a little further and hints that it will be after the millennium ---
sometime after the day of judgment:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by
the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and
perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one
thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years
as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack
concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to
us-ward, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to
repentance. KJV 2 Peter 3:7-9
The most logical
time for the burning up of Man’s works is therefore after the great white
throne Judgment [Revelation 20:11-12] when all that have ever lived have been
raised to life to be judged which reputedly lasts a period of 100 years after
the 1000 years of Jesus’ reign.
Nearly every
past day of the Lord has come suddenly and unexpectedly just like “a thief in
the night” even though they were prophesied about by God’s prophets sometimes
years in advance --- simply because man refuses to believe what God clearly
says in his word for mankind --- and the longer God/Jesus delays His direct
intervention in world affairs the less man believes it is going to happen as
prophesied.
What is clear
in prophecy is that God’s rule is coming to this earth and when it does it will
be permanent and man will no longer govern Himself from that day forward.
What is very
clear to us is that although Daniel’s prophecies were “sealed” to the time of
the End in his day --- Haggai’s and Zechariah’s prophecies were not sealed and these
two prophets were contemporaries of Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah even though
Daniel was located at the Babylonian and then the later kings including
Darius’s the Mede’s headquarters at the time in which Haggai and Zechariah were
located in Jerusalem. Daniel was not
told a great deal about the Roman Empire or the fate of his peoples overall but
only in a general and summary way but was given a glimpse of what would later
happen in the apostle John’s day approximately 500 years into Daniel’s future
in chapter 7 of Daniel.
Zechariah
However was given a great deal of information through visions concerning the
fate of the Jews of the future and the timing of the arrival of the Saviour
ahead in our day and age and his prophecies were more significant than many
scholars might credit.
We are now
ready having covered all the lays of the Lord of the past we could find
and listing them as we’ve done to show our readers the difference between “final” day of the Lord to come in our
future and what others have mistakenly assumed were references to that
particular Day of the Lord ahead of us in our day.
We felt it
was absolutely necessary that our readers understood that other Day of the Lord
references have been completely misunderstood and that this has added to the
confusion of modern churches and resulted in divisions into more and more
diverse groups with widely varying views and a whole host of teachings about
prophecy that have serious flaws that block the way to the truth of what is
actually ahead in our future according to God and His prophets and true
servants who faithfully recorded what God revealed to them through His holy
spirit.
We can only
show and thereby share with our readers what our 5 year research has uncovered
in prophecy.
Many others a
lot smarter than us have been working on and researching prophecy a lot longer
than we have.
Our Jewish
brothers in fact have been researching prophecy for thousands of years and yet
their understanding has been lacking because in not acknowledging their true
Messiah and Saviour they are not really aware how important the prophetic book
of Revelation really was and is in bringing all prophecy together
in the way that it does.
Our Christian
brothers are no better off than the Jews because they have misunderstood
prophecy also and have added doctrines that cloud the truth of what prophecy really does have to offer by
way of understanding what our future really does hold in store for us in the
years ahead.
Many teach
that there will be a modern version of Daniel’s “abomination of desolation” set
up in modern day Jerusalem but what our research has uncovered shows there
simply will be no repetition of the “abomination of desolation”
being set up in Jerusalem of the future because as prophecy also shows God no
longer regards Jerusalem as holy and will not do so again until Jesus sets foot
on the Mount of Olives and His “presence” makes it and that destined to be
“great mountain” holy indeed, once again --- i.e. there can be no “extra”
abomination of a city that is no longer “holy” to God at this time in our
present era:
The consensus among the present
world’s three major religions or at least the three that claim
1 "Listen to this, O house of Jacob, you
who are called by the name of
2 you who call yourselves citizens of the holy
city and rely on the God of
Clearly Isaiah knew what few
Christians and apparently few Jews of today understand and that is that the
modern Israeli’s are not the whole house of Israel as many believe but are
clearly named by Isaiah as “Jacob” of the line of Judah [house of Judah] and
are called by the name of Israel --- which clearly shows they are not necessarily
all Israel as they currently seem to believe.
There is almost a note of clear
condemnation even in the second verse about Jews invoking the God of Israel -- but not
in truth or righteousness— and
why would that be? Could it have
something to do with the fact the Jews only acknowledge one member of the God
family i.e. the Father and ignore His son completely and are totally unaware
that “the Holy one of Israel” was in fact their true messiah, Jesus, the Christ
--- Who came into this world to fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies
concerning Him becoming their future King?
One of those prophecies is a major one
showing the Jews in detail from their own prophetic writings of the book of
Isaiah [an acknowledged major prophet] the nature of their future Messiah and
coming king of the line of David:
1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is
the arm of the Lord revealed?
2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender
plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and
when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him;
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried
our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he
was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and
with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of
us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet
he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a
sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment:
and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the
living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and
with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any
deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he
hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he
shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and
shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;
for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with
the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath
poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and
he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. KJV Isaiah 53:1-12
Clearly, the apostle John, a later and
in fact the last human prophet [and designated as a brother of those who
have the testimony of Jesus which is “the spirit of prophecy” i.e. “a prophet”
--- by one of God the Father’s holy
angels --- Revelation 19:10] that indeed prophesied before the end of
the Old Testament age in 66-67AD before the great tribulation began ---
in 67-70 AD --- tells us that Jerusalem, because the Jews crucified their
God [and ours] there in that city’s location --- is no longer regarded
as Holy in God’s sight --- until He returns to a mountain [ the Mount of
Olives] from which He ascended and to which He will descend again --- in our future.
And their
dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called
In the
visions of God brought he me into the
This is
the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about
shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house.
KJV Ezekiel 43:12
The prophet Zechariah reveals that
when “that battle of that great day of God Almighty” [Revelation16:14] --- is
due to be fulfilled in prophecy “the Day of the lord” will come and the one who
engages in that battle will set foot on the Mount of Olives and it will then
become automatically holy ground by virtue of the fact that a member of the God
family sets His foot and His throne there:
1 Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy
spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against
Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses
rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into
captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight
against those nations, as when he fought in the day of
battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the
mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and
the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and
toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the
mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. KJV Zechariah 14:1-5
He said: "Son of man, this is
the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet. This is where I
will live among the Israelites forever. The house
of
As we have
shown in our work and research into prophecy --- no prophecy is ever “repeated”
--- once given it is fulfilled at some point in time.
There simply
is no “duality” of prophecy. It is an unproven and “un-provable” theory only
--- that cannot be backed up by scripture.
While there
are “types and antitypes” shown in some prophecy --- this is not duality
either.
There is what
we have termed ongoing or “timeless” prophecies --- these are or can be
fulfilled over sometimes vast quantities of time in part or in full starting
from the point at which they were given. The entire book of Revelation is the
prime example of this principle of what could also be likened to “slow release”
or “continuing prophecy” over a nearly 1,940 year period right down to our day
and beyond.
Other
‘timeless” prophecies fall into the “promise” category and these are usually
for the most part “unconditional” ones such as the ones given to Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob that apply to the Israelite peoples and their descendants as a whole
or the two different and distinct houses of Israel as they currently exist
today in the national descendants of those peoples of the “Scepter” and
“birthright” promises.
There have
been “conditional” promises in the past such as those of Deuteronomy 28 --- but
due to the failure of those Israelite houses to live up to those conditions ---
a NEW Covenant came into being with the “first advent” of the Messiah, Jesus
the Christ, alleviating the need for our Lord to carry out the second half of
Deuteronomy 28 upon any of our modern day descendants of ancient Israel
[including the Jews] in the full strength that he did to those nations that He
chose at that time for Himself to be His peoples forever.
Because of
the New Covenant then what is known as “the curse” of “total” destruction is no
longer applicable because of the sheer grace and mercy of the one member of the
God family known in modern times as Jesus Christ having sacrificed Himself for
the love of the creation he brought into being with his own two hands on behalf
of and in complete harmony with His Father.
Jesus was and
is the “Hands on” God of creation that laid down His Godly life to spare that
creation from the full penalty of God the Fathers’ and His own holy laws and
Deuteronomy 28’s curse also and is known in both Old and New Testaments as the Lord
of the whole earth:
5 The hills melted like wax at the presence of
the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
6 The heavens declare his righteousness, and
all the people see his glory.
KJV Psalm
97:5-6
NIV Micah
4:1-13
1 In the last days the mountain of the LORD's
temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised
above the hills, and peoples will stream to it.
2 Many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the
mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will
teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go
out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
3 He will judge between many peoples and will
settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords
into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up
sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
4 Every man will sit under his own vine and
under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty
has spoken.
5 All the nations may walk in the name of their
gods; we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.
6 "In that day," declares the LORD,
"I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and those I have
brought to grief.
7 I will make the lame a remnant, those driven
away a strong nation. The LORD will rule over them in
8 As for you, O watchtower of the flock, O
stronghold of the Daughter of
9 Why do you now cry aloud-- have you no king?
Has your counselor perished, that pain seizes you like that of a woman in
labor?
10 Writhe in agony, O Daughter of
A “prophecy within a prophecy” and there are many of
these showing the second coming of Jesus and the coming of a specific
future “day of the Lord” the one called “the battle of that great day of God Almighty”[
Rev16:14] This future battle depicted
here in Micah is the pre-battle that confirm Zechariah’s prophecies
[Zechariah14:1-4] and the aftermath of that battle when Jesus intervenes by His
coming also shown in Joel 3 and Isaiah 66.
11 But now many nations are gathered against
you. They say, "Let her be defiled, let our eyes gloat over
12 But they do not know the thoughts of the
LORD; they do not understand his plan, he who gathers them like sheaves
to the threshing floor.
13 "Rise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion,
for I will give you horns of iron; I will give you hoofs of bronze and you will
break to pieces many nations." You will devote their ill-gotten gains
to the LORD, their wealth to the Lord of all the earth. NIV
Micah 4:1-13
The avowed enemies of the Jews gloated over Jerusalem’s
destruction in the past and according to prophecy they will do so again in our
future when it is invaded but this is not “duality” either, but an ongoing and
age lasting hatred and enmity against the Jews that began in antiquity and
continues today in our age between descendants of Abraham’s children of Jacob
and Esau’s lineage but verse 13 shows that deplorable situation will not
continue past the second coming and many prophecies show Jerusalem will not be ever
be destroyed again nor the Jews as a nation --- as they were in the two
recorded Diaspora’s of the past.
Then said
he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth. KJV Zechariah 4:14
3 And I will give power unto my two witnesses,
and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in
sackcloth.
4 These are the two olive trees, and the two
candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. KJV Revelation 11:3-4
Some Christians think that the
“curses” of Deuteronomy will fall on our modern English speaking nations of
today but prophecy reveals otherwise and very specifically whom those curses
will fall on instead.
The Chapters
that follow Deuteronomy 28 show that these blessings and cursing of Deuteronomy
28 were “a part” of the Old covenant agreement only and show that God knew
fully that those Israelites even when they did come into the “promised land”
would not be able to keep the Old Covenant at all.
In the last
chapter of the Pentateuch [first five books of the Old Testament] this was said
of Moses:
1 Then Moses climbed
2 all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and
Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea,
3 the Negev and the whole region from the
4 Then the LORD said to him, "This is the
land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, `I will give
it to your descendants.' I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not
cross over into it."
5 And Moses the servant of the LORD died there
in
6 He buried him
in
7 Moses was a hundred and twenty years old
when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.
8 The Israelites grieved for Moses in the
plains of
9 Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the
spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid
his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the LORD had
commanded Moses.
10 Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel
like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
11 who did all those miraculous signs and
wonders the LORD sent him to do in
12 For no one has ever shown
the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of
all
NIV Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Whoever wrote this last chapter
[possibly Joshua] attests that Moses was fit and healthy for a man of 120 years
of age with good eyesight and apparently capable of climbing a mountain at that
ripe old age.
And, furthermore, he was certainly not
feeble minded either which makes his explanation of what the Law of the
“blessings and curses” represented to the ancient Israelites and that he
specifically states was to go with the Ark of the covenant as “a testimony”
against the Israelites i.e. a part of the “Old” Covenant ---- entirely credible
--- given his advanced age.
Chapter 30 then represents Moses’
explanation and also an incredible prophecy and we quote it in full because of
what it shows regarding Deuteronomy 28 which some claim applies to our day and modern descendants such as
America and the British Commonwealth countries and is supposedly prophecy against
those modern nations and so
we set the record straight on that score as follows:
1 When all these blessings and curses I have
set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your
God disperses you among the nations,
2 and when you and your children return to
the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul
according to everything I command you today,
3 then the LORD your God will restore your
fortunes and have compassion on you and
gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you.
4 Even if you have been banished to the most
distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you
and bring you back.
5 He will bring you to the land that
belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make
you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.
6 The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts
and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart
and with all your soul, and live.
7 The LORD your God will put all these curses
on your enemies who hate and persecute you.
8 You will again obey the LORD and follow all
his commands I am giving you today.
9 Then the LORD your God will make you most prosperous
in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your
livestock and the crops of your land. The LORD will again delight in you and make
you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers,
10 if you obey the LORD your God and keep his
commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the
LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too
difficult for you or beyond your reach.
12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to
ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we
may obey it?"
13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to
ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may
obey it?"
14 No, the word is very near you; it is in
your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
15 See, I set before you today life and
prosperity, death and destruction.
16 For I command you today to love the LORD your
God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you
will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to
possess.
17 But if your heart turns away and you are not
obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,
18 I declare to you this day that you will
certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the
19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses
against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.
Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
20 and that you may love the
LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is
your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your
fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. NIV
Deuteronomy 30:1-20
This is quite an incredible prophecy
laying out what amounts to the “Assyrian captivity” of Israel and the
“Babylonian captivity” [first Diaspora of the Jews] in verses 1-4 well before
any of those captivities did indeed occur in recorded biblical history and
reality.
The Jews were the only ones who
“returned” to the Lord under Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah and
as verse 3 of Moses’ prophecy suggests it would happen because the Lord would
have “compassion” on them.
The Jews did indeed take possession of
the promised land 70 years after the Babylonian captivity [verse 5] and they
will indeed become more prosperous than their forefathers because they will set
themselves to seek the Lord again in our future and Zechariah and Haggai played
an important role as prophets of God at that time that the Jews were returned
to the holy land in encouraging the Jews to return to God at a critical pivotal point in God’s
plans to have his Son born a Jew in a “restored” Jewish society
when those same Jews didn’t feel it was time to re-build Solomon’s temple at
all --- according to Haggai:
This is
what the LORD Almighty says: "These people say, `The time has not yet come
for the LORD's house to be built.'"
NIV Haggai 1:2
Through Zechariah’s encouragement and
the prophecies given to him at that time the re-construction of the Jewish
society began:
9 This is what the LORD Almighty says:
"You who now hear these words spoken by the prophets who were there when
the foundation was laid for the house of the LORD Almighty, let your hands be
strong so that the temple may be built.
10 Before that time there were no wages for man or
beast. No one could go about his business safely because of his enemy, for I
had turned every man against his neighbor.
11 But now I will not deal with the remnant of
this people as I did in the past," declares the LORD
Almighty.
12 "The seed will grow well, the vine will
yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop
their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of
this people.
13 As you have been an object of cursing among
the nations, O Judah and Israel, so will I save you, and you will be a
blessing. Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong."
14 This is what the LORD Almighty says:
"Just as I had determined to bring disaster upon you and showed no pity
when your fathers angered me," says the LORD Almighty,
15 "so now I have determined to
do good again to
NIV
Zechariah 8:9-16
1 In the eighth month of the second year of
Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the
son of Iddo:
2 "The LORD was very angry with your
forefathers.
3 Therefore tell the people: This is what the
LORD Almighty says: `Return to me,' declares the LORD Almighty, `and I will
return to you,' says the LORD Almighty.
4 Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the
earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the LORD Almighty says: `Turn from
your evil ways and your evil practices.' But they would not listen or pay
attention to me, declares the LORD.
5 Where are your forefathers now? And the
prophets, do they live forever?
6 But did not my words and my
decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers? "Then they repented and said,
`The LORD Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as
he determined to do.” NIV Zechariah
1:1-6
This is confirmation of verse 3 of Moses prophecy of
Deuteronomy 30 by Zechariah many years later in biblical history showing God
would have mercy and compassion on His people and we know this was done through
the restoration of a remnant of around 42,000 souls [in round figures] under
Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah.
12 Then the angel of the LORD said, "LORD
Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from
13 So the LORD spoke kind and comforting words
to the angel who talked with me.
14 Then the angel who was speaking to me said,
"Proclaim this word: This is what the LORD Almighty says: `I am very
jealous [passionate] for
15 but I am very angry with the nations that
feel secure. I was only a little angry, but they added to the calamity.'
16 "Therefore, this is what the LORD says:
`I will return to
An ongoing or “timeless” prophecy beginning at that time
of the 70 years restoration after the Babylonian captivity and will also be
fulfilled completely in our future. We had to create “a new classification” for
our own use in our studies to “define” this type of prophecy which some could
mistake as the false notion of duality i.e. a former and latter fulfillment of prophecy.
17 "Proclaim further: This is what the LORD
Almighty says: `My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the LORD will
again comfort
The “four horns” prophecy confirming Daniel’s 4 world ruling
Gentile Empires [Daniel 2:37-40 and Daniel 7:3-7] to come against
18 Then I looked up--and there before me were
four horns!
19 I asked the angel who was speaking to me,
"What are these?" He answered
me, "These are the horns that scattered
20 Then the LORD showed me four craftsmen.
21 I asked, "What are these coming to
do?" He answered, "These are
the horns that scattered
The “Craftsmen” are indeed an unusual prophetic
designation for what are undoubtedly angelic beings and we’ll share our
[speculative] thoughts on those later in the conclusion of this article in part
two.
7 The LORD your God will put all these curses on
your enemies who hate and persecute you. Deuteronomy 30:7
Zechariah 8:11 amounts to a promise
[prophecy] that God will not ever visit such total destruction as a nation on
the Jews that He did as Ezekiel chapters 4-5 reveal very clearly. [Notice verse
12 of Ezekiel 5 particularly once again - such total destruction
will never occur again]
11 But now I will not deal with the remnant of
this people as I did in the past," declares the LORD
Almighty.
Moses was truly a phenomenal prophet
who had no equal --- not even Elijah or Elisha who was “seemingly” given a
double measure of Elijah’s stunning powers --- came anywhere near close to what
Moses achieved.
What we need to understand about
prophets though is that the powers they were allowed to wield on behalf of God
was not an inherent power within themselves but was coming directly from God as
a direct result of their closeness and obedience to God. The same was true of
Jesus’ disciples and apostles. No closeness to God = No power of the Holy
Spirit to perform miracles in God’s or Jesus’ name --- whether prophet or
apostle.
Even Elijah’s “resurrection” of a
woman’s child did not occur until he prayed for God’s intervention to resurrect
and to restore the woman’s child to life.
17 Some time later the son of the woman who
owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped
breathing.
18 She said to Elijah, "What do you have
against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my
son?"
19 "Give me your son," Elijah replied.
He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying,
and laid him on his bed.
20 Then he cried out to the LORD, "O LORD
my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by
causing her son to die?"
21 Then he stretched himself out on the boy
three times and cried to the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this boy's life
return to him!"
22 The LORD heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's
life returned to him, and he lived.
23 Elijah picked up the child and carried him
down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said,
"Look, your son is alive!"
24 Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know
that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the
truth." NIV 1 Kings 17:17-24
We need to further understand that
there is nothing “magical” in any item of clothing such as Elijah’s cloak.
[mantle] and it wasn’t Elijah’s spirit that was resting on Elisha as the Jews
of that day believed but the “spirit of God” that was indeed able to perform twice the power or the miracles that
Elisha may have done in comparison to Elijah’s. [In reality --- God’s]
9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha,
"Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?" "Let me inherit a double portion of
your spirit," Elisha replied.
10 "You have asked a difficult thing,"
Elijah said, "yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be
yours--otherwise not."
11 As they were walking along and talking
together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated
the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.
12 Elisha saw this and cried out, "My
father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!" And Elisha saw
him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart.
13 He picked up the cloak that had fallen from
Elijah and went back and stood on the bank of the
14 Then he took the cloak that had fallen from
him and struck the water with it. "Where now is the LORD, the God of
Elijah?" he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and
to the left, and he crossed over.
15 The company of the prophets from
Clearly neither Elijah nor Elisha were
given the full measure of the Holy spirit that Jesus had otherwise Elisha’s
request would not have been met by God.
The same is true of the Apostles who were able to perform incredible
miracles in Jesus’ name with just a down-payment or ‘earnest” of the spirit as
it is expressed in the New Testament:
21 Now he which stablisheth us with you in
Christ, and hath anointed us, is God;
22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the
earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
KJV 2
Corinthians 1:21-22
It is clear that nobody is given the
“full measure” in this life of the Holy Spirit that Jesus had from birth ---
and that would include the prophets of old as well.
Notwithstanding Satan’s servants are able to
duplicate some of God’s miracles on Satan’s behalf because Satan used to be
a very powerful angelic being --- but he can still only now do only what God
allows --- but that’s a different issue and we are currently dealing with the
day of Lord here and what it will mean for all of us in our future.
No modern day scholar in their right
mind would dare claim that Moses’ prophecy of Deuteronomy 30 was written
hundreds of years after the fact as they do indeed claim of Daniel’s prophecies
in their desire to defame and declaim the authenticity of the word of God’s
“prophetic accuracy” as we have already shown in other articles at our website.
Were these curses of Deuteronomy 28
written down for future generations and not just oral? You bet they were! And were they to go with the other statutes
and ordinances --- as “part and parcel” of the Old Covenant?
We’ll simply let Moses answer that one as
follows in Deuteronomy itself:
24 And it came to pass, when Moses had made an
end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,
25 That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the
ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying,
26 Take this book of the law, and
put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a
witness against thee.
27 For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck:
behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against
the Lord; and how much more after my death?
28 Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes,
and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven
and earth to record against them.
29 For I know that after my death ye will
utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have
commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye
will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger through the work
of your hands.
30 And Moses spake in the ears of all the
congregation of
Were the Deuteronomy 28 curses a part
of the Old Covenant then? Were they an essential part of the Pentateuch as
well? What a silly and completely
redundant question --- of course they were!
Unmistakably so!
The
New “covenant” however completely negates the power of these curses over modern
day descendants of ancient
How any modern day Christian of
whatever faith and persuasion could ever claim these Deuteronomy curses still
apply and are prophecies against our peoples today in the face of the Isaiah
42-45 chapter promises and the Jeremiah chapter 31 promises and the New
Covenant founded on “better promises” is completely beyond us to comprehend!
Did God/Jesus know that His peoples
would be utterly faithless and totally unable to ever keep the Old Covenant?
Again we’ll simply let Moses’
incredible prophecies tell that story!
1 Then Moses went out and spoke these words to
all
2 "I am now a hundred and twenty years old
and I am no longer able to lead you. The LORD has said to me, `You shall not
cross the
3 The LORD your God himself will cross over
ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will take
possession of their land. Joshua also will cross over ahead of you, as the LORD
said.
4 And the LORD will do to them what he did to
Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, whom he destroyed along with their
land.
5 The LORD will deliver them to you, and you
must do to them all that I have commanded you.
6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or
terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor
forsake you."
7 Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in
the presence of all
8 The LORD himself goes before you and will be
with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be
discouraged."
9 So Moses wrote down this law and gave it to
the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD,
and to all the elders of
10 Then Moses commanded them: "At the end
of every seven years, in the year for canceling debts, during the Feast of
Tabernacles,
11 when all
12 Assemble the people--men, women and children,
and the aliens living in your towns--so they can listen and learn to fear the
LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of this law.
13 Their children, who do not know this law,
must hear it and learn to fear the LORD your God as long as you live in the
land you are crossing the
14 The LORD said to Moses, "Now the day of
your death is near. Call Joshua and present yourselves at the Tent of Meeting,
where I will commission him." So Moses and Joshua came and presented
themselves at the Tent of Meeting.
15 Then the LORD appeared at the Tent in a
pillar of cloud, and the cloud stood over the entrance to the Tent.
We’ve quoted almost the entire chapter
in its full context with suitable emphasis in underling important points
so our readers can get the full “feel of the atmosphere” under which these
prophetic words from verses 16-21 shown below were given as an astonishing
prophecy showing that both God and Moses knew full well that the Israelites
could never keep the Old Covenant --- EVER.
16 And the LORD said to Moses: "You are
going to rest with your fathers, and these people will soon prostitute
themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will
forsake me and break the covenant I made with them.
It is important that we understand that Moses had just
told the Israelites and Joshua that God would lead them and never forsake
them --- and yet this verse shows that God says on the day that they
break His covenant with them --- which He, God clearly knew in advance would
happen --- He would forsake them!
17 On that day I will become angry with them and
forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many
disasters and difficulties will come upon them, and on that day they will ask,
`Have
not these disasters come upon us because our God is not with us?'
18 And I will certainly hide my face on that day
because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods.
19 "Now write down for yourselves this song
and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it
may be a witness for me against them.
20 When I have brought them into the land
flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their
forefathers, and when they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other
gods and worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant.
21 And when many disasters and difficulties come
upon them, this song will testify against them, because it will not be
forgotten by their descendants. I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into
the land I promised them on oath." Deuteronomy 31:1-21
It is indeed difficult to discern or understand God’s
purposes and motives in making the Old Covenant with a people He knew had no
hope of ever keeping it.
We know from later prophecy that God’s anger with His
chosen peoples was temporary and His compassion towards them “infinite” --- as
Isaiah’s 42-45 chapters and Jeremiah’s 30-31 prophecies clearly show --- and
King David poses the burning question for us:
8 Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his
promise fail for evermore?
9 Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in
anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.
KJV Psalms
77:8-9
These two verses of prophecy below show that God still
delivers on His half of His promises and covenants no matter what we may do in
the long run and Moses also knew this fact:
22 So Moses wrote down this song that day and
taught it to the Israelites.
23 The LORD gave this command to Joshua
son of Nun: "Be strong and courageous, for you will bring the
Israelites into the land I promised them on oath, and I myself will be with
you." NIV Deuteronomy 31:22-23
Why
was God’s anger so intense? Because the Israelites eventual betrayal of God
left only one option for the Lord of Creation to “save” His beloved creation
--- complete self-sacrifice of Himself
on their behalf and the institution of the “New Covenant” to achieve
that desired goal and the Old Covenant had to die as well as the old priesthood
to fulfill that “better covenant” founded on “better promises” as these
scriptures also reveal beyond doubt and perhaps not surprisingly --- but very
appropriately, we should find this in a
book called “Hebrews --- and we echo the
Apostle Paul’s words” with of course the full context:
1 The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high
priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in
heaven,
2 and who serves in the sanctuary, the true
tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.
3 Every high priest is appointed to offer
both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to
have something to offer.
4 If he were on earth, he would not be a
priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law.
5 They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and
shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when
he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that you make everything
according to the pattern shown you on the mountain."
6 But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as
the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and
it is founded on better promises.
7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no
place would have been sought for another.
8 But God found fault with the people and said
: "The
time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the
house of
9 It will not be like the covenant I made with
their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out
of
10 This is the covenant I will make with the
house of
11 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a
man his brother, saying, `Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the
least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will forgive their wickedness and will
remember their sins no more."
13 By calling this covenant "new," he
has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging
will soon disappear. NIV Hebrews 8:1-13
That Old Covenant did indeed
“disappear” at the “end of the Age” in 67-70AD and the New Covenant Age began
“officially” from that point onwards and that New Covenant Age will never End.
Our modern age will be dramatically changed
however from current human rule to divine rule at the return of its world
ruling King.
Our age will be “changed” in the 1000
year “Rest” or what is commonly referred to as the millennium.
The disciples in the synoptic Gospels in
the so called Olivet discourse were not enquiring about the end of an age 1940
“plus” years into their future --- they very obviously had no knowledge or
understanding of or and concept of our
modern age --- therefore --- they were
asking about the End of their age --- the Old Testament age --- and
Jesus gave them their answer in full about when their age would end [ 67-70AD]
--- but He also answered their other natural query as to when He was going to
return as King of kings and Lord of lords and He told them through “prophetic
parables” that His coming as King of
the earth would be delayed ---
but that he was coming “soon” to establish His kingdom [Daniel’s fifth “stone”
kingdom] immediately after 67-70AD and the Old Testament age had ended:
The revelation
of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take
place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, NIV
Revelation 1:1
Eventually, as it grew from the
foundations of a physical kingdom and will become a “spiritual” kingdom with
eternal rulers [saints] over that physical kingdom whose foundations were “cut
out of the mountain [Old Israel] without hands [not a human devised kingdom]
and was to be immediately established after the Old Testament age ended and
built on the prophet Jeremiah’s “foundations” and the evidence in secular
history points to a previously established Jewish colony in the previously
established Jewish colony in ancient Ireland and later “royal line of David”
being transferred to England.
Christianity
today believes that all it has to do is preach the Gospel to the whole world
and then the “end of our age” will come --- nothing can be further from the truth --- because the gospel
was preached to the whole world by Jesus’ original disciples and apostles and
the “end of the age” already came in 67-70 AD and that prophecy was fulfilled
at that time as all prophetic scripture shows very clearly.
All of
Christianity has missed a vital statement that Jesus made in Matthew 23:39
showing that He will not return until
the Jews acknowledge Him --- as follows below with the full context
of all the surrounding verses showing exactly why “the great tribulation” was
to come upon that 67-70AD generation of the Jews:
34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise
men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog
in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.
35 And so upon you will come all the
righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous
Abel to
the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered
between the temple and the altar.
36 I tell you the truth, all this will come upon
this generation.
37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the
prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed
to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,
but you were not willing.
38 Look, your house is left to you desolate.
39 For I tell you, you will not see me
again until you say, `Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'
" NIV Matthew 23:34-39
Zechariah,
a major prophet --- linking and securely “binding” the New Testament
book of Revelation to the Old Testament
Was Zechariah
such a minor prophet as many scholars would have us believe?
What
criterion do scholars use to make such claims?
Is it length
of chapters that make a prophet a major one in scholarly eyes? Zechariah’s
prophetic book has 14 chapters and Daniel’s only 12 but Daniel is regarded as a
major prophet so in that case why not Zechariah as well?
Is it number
of years over which prophecies are given?
Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s were
given over relatively long periods of time in comparison to Zechariah’s. If
that’s the criterion then Zechariah would indeed fall into a minor prophet
category along with Haggai because their entire books included in scripture
were written in only a matter of months.
Both Haggai’s
and Zechariah’s prophecies were given to them in the second year of the
Medo-Persian king Darius’ rule a mere couple of months apart. [Haggai 1:1 & Zechariah 1:1]
It is
extremely significant however that Daniel was still alive and well in the
year before Haggai’s and Zechariah’s prophecies were given [Daniel
9:1] and their prophecies followed almost straight after Daniel’s understanding
about Jeremiah’s prophecies began to come to Daniel at that time regarding the
restoration of the Jews to the holy land after 70 years:
1 In the first year of Darius the son of
Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the
Chaldeans;
2 In the first year of his reign I
Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the
Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in
the desolations of Jerusalem.
Daniel makes a
significant and lengthy prayer after which the archangel Gabriel comes
[Daniel 9:21] to
reveal important prophecies to Daniel with which all serious students of
prophecy should be thoroughly familiar i.e. the “seventy week’s” prophecy:
3 And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek
by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: KJV Daniel 9:1-3
The seventy
weeks prophecy was significant for a number of reasons by not only showing the
coming of the Messiah [Daniel 9:25] but also the end of the Babylonian
captivity as full punishment for the Jews forefathers’ transgressions, to bring
in “everlasting righteousness” by the New Covenant with the anointing of the
holy one [ i.e. Jesus, verse 24] and also showing the future coming of the
Romans and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the wars of the Jews
in the historian Josephus’ times and the ending of the Old covenant at that
time. [Daniel 9:26]
The New Covenant Age was to usher in everlasting righteousness.
Everlasting means everlasting or another way of expressing it would
be “age lasting” and therefore our New Covenant age will never end.
The New
covenant was to be confirmed for one week and in the middle of that week
after 3 ½ years of “the great tribulation” and exactly as foretold by the angel
Gabriel --- as revealed to Daniel --- the Old Covenant sacrificial system was
to end with the abomination of desolations --- one of which was the Roman army
standing in the holy place:
14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be
preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end
come.
15 When ye therefore shall see the
abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy
place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
KJV
Matthew 24:14-15
But when ye shall see the
abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet,
standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them
that be in
20 And when ye shall see
21 Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the
mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not
them that are in the countries enter thereinto.
22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are
written may be fulfilled.
23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to
them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the
land, and wrath upon this people.
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword,
and shall be led away captive into all nations: and
As it happens
we don’t share that view of scholars that Zechariah was a minor prophet at all
--- because “the great tribulation” that was delivered to the Jews of 67-70AD
seems to have come about “partially” because of their murder of Zechariah ---
one of God’s crucial prophets in setting up the society in which Jesus was to
be born in His day and without which contributions made by Zechariah and his
contemporaries, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Haggai --- such a Jewish society would
never have existed:
35 And so upon you will come all the
righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous
Abel to
the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered
between the temple and the altar.
36 I tell you the truth, all this will come upon
this generation.
The “Great”
tribulation was “intense” punishment visited upon the Jews just as prophesied
by the angel Gabriel and given to Daniel to record in advance in the seventy week’s prophecy and attested to in the
New Testament synoptic gospels --- but
nobody in the Christian world of today seems to think it odd that Gabriel’s
intricate prophecies given to Daniel from Chapter 9 right through to chapter 12
stop completely short of the Roman
Empire and finish in Chapter 11 with Alexander the Greats’ empire’s
demise and only makes a brief note of the Great tribulation in chapter
12 and no mention of the Roman Empire otherwise --- which should have logically
followed on from Chapter 11 of Daniel:
1. And
at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the
children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there
was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy
people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the
book. KJV Daniel 12:1
Even at the
time of the Babylonian captivity and their first destruction as a nation and
the Jews subsequent “first Diaspora” they were still in the general locale
of the holy land and could be easily restored to that land of Judea as prophecy
shows they were indeed --- but the second destruction as a nation with the same
destruction of the “restored” temple and “restored” Jerusalem under Daniel,
Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah was to
be even greater than the Babylonian captivity according to
Daniel 12:1 above.
The seventy
week’s prophecy of Daniel 9 clearly shows that the archangel Gabriel knew the
Roman Empire was to follow the Greco-Macedonian one of Alexander the great and
yet Daniel is told to seal up his book of prophecy until the time of the end without
any explanation of the coming Roman Empire of that age but Daniel was comforted
by Gabriel by the archangel giving Daniel a glimpse of the ultimate salvation
of His peoples nevertheless:
2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth
will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the
heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and
ever.
4 But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words
of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will
go here and there to increase knowledge." NIV Daniel 12:4
Daniel took a great deal of interest
in the fourth World ruling empire and wanted to know about it especially in the
7th chapter of Daniel in his earlier vision and his prophetic
visions troubled him greatly and even in the 12th chapter Daniel asks about the fourth empire
once again not fully realizing that the vision given him in the seventh chapter
visions actually amounts to a summary of the fate of the Roman Empire and of
course he couldn’t have known that his seventh chapter was in effect a preview
of the book of Revelation as these verses clearly show:
13 "In my vision at night I looked, and
there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He
approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.
14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign
power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His
dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is
one that will never be destroyed.
15 "I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and
the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me.
16 I approached one of those standing there and
asked him the true meaning of all this.
"So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things:
17 `The four great beasts are four kingdoms that
will rise from the earth.
18 But the saints of the Most High will receive
the kingdom and will possess it forever--yes, for ever and ever.'
19 "Then I wanted to know the true meaning
of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others and most
terrifying, with its iron teeth and bronze claws--the beast that crushed and
devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left.
20 I also wanted to know about the ten horns on
its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them
fell--the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and
a mouth that spoke boastfully.
21 As I watched, this horn was waging war
against the saints and defeating them,
22 until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced
judgment in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they
possessed the kingdom.
23 "He gave me this explanation: `The
fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be
different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth,
trampling it down and crushing it.
24 The ten horns are ten kings who will come
from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the
earlier ones; he will subdue three kings.
25 He will speak against the Most High and
oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints
will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time.
26 "`But the court will sit, and his power
will be taken away and completely destroyed forever.
27 Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of
the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the
people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all
rulers will worship and obey him.'
28 "This is the end of the matter. I,
Daniel, was deeply troubled by my thoughts, and my face turned pale, but I kept
the matter to myself." NIV Daniel
7:13-28
Daniel apparently sees in addition to
his vision of Gabriel and overhears in that vision in Daniel 12 two angels
discussing the timing of things concerning the end of the age and the
establishment of the fifth “stone”
5 Then I, Daniel, looked, and there before me
stood two others, one on this bank of the river and one on the opposite bank.
6 One of them said to the man clothed in linen,
who was above the waters of the river, "How long will it be before these
astonishing things are fulfilled?"
7 The man clothed in linen, who was above the
waters of the river, lifted his right hand and his left hand toward heaven, and
I heard him swear by him who lives forever, saying, "It will be for a
time, times and half a time. When the
power of the holy people has been finally broken, all these things will be
completed."
As wise and intelligent and talented
and thoroughly educated as he was from all his experiences at Nebuchadnezzar’s
royal court and several following kings including Darius of Zechariah’s day ---
Daniel still didn’t connect his visions of Chapter 7 with what he has been told
and overhears in chapter 12 of Daniel and there was no need of course for
Gabriel to repeat what He’d already given to Daniel previously in chapter 7 and
so when Daniel asks where all this prophecy fits into the scheme of things he
is simply told to go his way and so clearly Gabriel and the other angel were
being exceptionally kind to Daniel in not repeating things that were clearly
beyond his understanding and might have continued to trouble him for the rest
of his life otherwise.
8 I heard, but I did not understand. So I
asked, "My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?"
9 He replied, "Go your way, Daniel,
because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end.
10 Many will be purified, made spotless and
refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will
understand, but those who are wise will understand.
11 "From the time that the daily sacrifice
is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there
will be 1,290 days.
12 Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches
the end of the 1,335 days.
Daniel is told about events that will
unfold around the time of “the abomination of desolation” and basically told
not to worry about it --- but he is again comforted this time by one of the
other two angels with these words and assured that he will rise up to be
resurrected at the end of the [last] days [of human rule] --- which we know to
be the second coming that is yet ahead of us of the New Testament age today.
13 "As for you, go your way till the end.
You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your
allotted inheritance." NIV Daniel
12:8-13
What is abundantly clear is that
Daniel’s prophecies were sealed to the time of the end of the Old Testament
age.
In order therefore for Daniel’s
prophecies to be understood today in our time now then the implication is that
they would have been unsealed sometime in the past before our modern era. If they weren’t unsealed then at some time
in the past we would not be able to understand them even now.
Daniel’s prophecies were the only ones
that angels told any of the Old Testament prophets should be “sealed” at
all.
The apostle John on the other hand was
told not to seal his prophecies given him in the book of Revelation:
Then he
told me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because
the time is near. NIV Revelation 22:10
Zechariah’s
prophecies are almost completely in tandem with the Book of Revelation
in covering what is clearly missing in Revelation and also in Daniel’s final
Chapters --- i.e. the fate of God’s chosen Jewish peoples.
However the
fates of the last dregs of the “image” of the earlier
Zechariah --- The “Bridging” prophet
between Daniel and John’s Revelation
Christianity
cannot explain Jesus’ seeming delay of 1940 long years [plus] until our
day to set up His kingdom according to prophecy which still hasn’t seemingly
occurred as yet as far as their understanding goes.
Jesus’ told all His disciples and even the apostle
and later “prophet” John in the book of Revelation that He was coming soon
to end the age and put an end to the Old Covenant and by implication set
up His kingdom shortly thereafter:
The
revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what
must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his
servant John, NIV Revelation 1:1
"Behold,
I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this
book." NIV Revelation 22:7
Then he
told me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because
the time is near. NIV Revelation 22:10
"Behold, I am coming soon! My
reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.
NIV Revelation 22:12
20 He who testifies to these things says, "Yes,
I am coming soon." Amen. Come,
Lord Jesus.
21 The
grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen. NIV Revelation 22:20-21
How could Jesus make the claim over
and over in the book of Revelation that the time was near and
that He was coming soon after the apostle John completed the book of Revelation
and distributed it to the seven Asian churches and then NOT come soon as
promised?
The answer should be obvious to any
bible student of prophecy by now ---- He came “as promised” and ended the age --- after the gospel
had been preached in all the world
of that day and age as a witness by His apostles and the end did indeed come and verse 7
of Revelation chapter one reveals that he would do so in John’s day:
Look, he is coming with the
clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him;
and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen. NIV Revelation 1:7
Jesus did indeed promise the end would
come after the gospel was preached in the entire world of that day and the only
way those Roman soldiers who pierced his side with a spear could possibly have
seen Jesus coming on the clouds of that day was if they were still
alive at the time:
Jesus taught that “the great
tribulation” was the beginning of birth pains [ NIV] or sorrows [KJV] or
troubles. What were those birth pains
or sorrows and troubles signifying then?
8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 "Then you will be handed over to be
persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of
me.
10 At that time many will turn away from the
faith and will betray and hate each other,
11 and many false prophets will appear and
deceive many people.
12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love
of most will grow cold,
13 but he who stands firm to the end will be
saved.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be
preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end
will come.
15 "So when you see standing in the holy
place `the abomination that causes desolation,'
spoken of through the prophet Daniel--let the reader understand--
16 then let those who are in
Clearly all these things [signs] would
be “signaling” the End of one age and the beginning of another age i.e. a
pivotal time or transitional time for the kingdom of God to begin its growth
from the Old Testament age into an eternal kingdom of the new age --- a
permanent transition to an age that will have no end i.e. the New Testament age
in fact --- just as the angel told Daniel:
to bring in everlasting
righteousness, NIV Daniel 9:24 which
translates into
and means in effect Age lasting
righteousness i.e. eternal righteousness.
A little commonsense and logic should
show us that there’s absolutely no reason why God would want to end the age
of the New Testament founded on better promises. It makes no sense if we take the time to
think about it logically.
Can those who teach prophecy finally
understand that their eschatology i.e. their STUDY of END TIMES is faulty? And
--- that they have been looking at prophecy arse backwards? I.e. seeing things
from our time backwards instead of from the prophet’s times forwards.
According to the “ten virgins” parable
[Matthew 25:1-13] most will not have enough oil of “prophetic
understanding” until it is almost too late to acquire it and some because of
their persistence in teaching their own ideas instead of the truth will find
themselves shut out of the Kingdom of God when the King of that already
established kingdom returns to this earth to take up the rule of the Kingdom
which He says He has prepared since the foundations of the world:
31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory,
and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the
throne of his glory:
32 And before him shall be gathered all nations:
and
he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from
the goats:
33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand,
but the goats on the left.
34 Then shall the King say unto them on his
right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world: KJV Matthew
25:31-35
So logic alone should tell us that the
Then said
he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth. KJV Zechariah 4:14
4 These are the two olive trees, and the two
candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. KJV Revelation 11:3-4
Q. When was the New Testament “Age”
founded?
A.
From 67-70 AD till now. Will it
end? NO.
Then the obvious conclusion is clear
enough --- Daniel’s fifth “stone” kingdom i.e. New Zion or the
Notice the wording in Matthew 24:8
again in both the NIV and KJV for greater clarity:
8 All these are the beginning of birth pains. NIV
Matthew 24:8
All these are the
beginning of sorrows.
KJV Matthew 24:8
Jesus inferred that much worse was to
come --- after the great tribulation
of 67-70 AD.
Did that come to pass?
Try the dark ages [the Middle Ages]
The 100 years’ war. The Black Death
[Bubonic plague] The religious wars of the crusades. Then
there’s the ongoing and myriads of smaller wars since that time. Then the many inquisitions that came with the
extended reign of the
We discovered in our research that the
book of Revelation was “missing” the fate of God’s peoples in its prophetic
pages and yet the very last words written by the apostle/prophet John were
these:
21 The
grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen. NIV Revelation 22:21
Who
were those to whom John was invoking God’s grace be with and that were His i.e.
God’s people?
If we remember to look at prophecy through
the eyes of the prophet and not from our day backwards then the answer
should be obvious to even the most casual prophecy student using only a tiny
amount of logic.
Remembering there was no
America, and no UK or British Commonwealth, no Canada, no Australia, no New Zealand et al then the answer
is clear enough --- John was asking God’s grace be with the Jews --- the
only recognized people of God of that age.
Surprised? We shouldn’t be.
Not if we also remember that all 12
original apostles and the 13th apostle Paul, and the early church
were all Jews except for those who become “spiritual” Jews and also
become as a result of conversion and “circumcision of their hearts” --- and
this included any Gentile so converted to the New Testament faith --- “heirs”
according to the promises and are reckoned as being Abraham’s children from the
moment of their conversion because Abraham was called “the father of the
Faithful” and both the “birthright” and “scepter” promises came into being
because of one that one man’s faith --- a man we might add who was not a Jew.
Interesting, isn’t it? Prophecy is indeed fascinating for the truth
that it reveals.
Oh, but we haven’t reached the really
interesting parts yet. What happens in our future is there in prophecy as well,
but a great deal of what happens centers around the Jews and their enemies.
Just as we discovered that the fate of
the people that God calls His own “chosen” physical peoples or nations are not
covered in the book of Revelation with the exception of the saints who feature
strongly and almost exclusively in the book of Revelation --- neither does the
book of Daniel cover the fates of God’s chosen “physical peoples” to any great
degree beyond Daniel’s day --- but only in a general way and in a
general reference --- but not specific details.
The Book of Daniel only covers events
or fates to occur to God’s peoples up to the time of the “end of the age” and
then mostly by the interactions of their enemies as they come into contact with
God’s peoples. To be sure the prophecies
of Daniel cover a span of time longer than that but only in a general way but
still with no coverage of Daniel’s people otherwise than the mention in Daniel
12 that many would sleep in the dust of the earth and rise in a later resurrection.
The first three verses of Daniel 12
are in fact almost complete references to the saints mostly with only a few
words covering the protected status of the “physical” peoples of Daniel
in a general way:
1 "At that time Michael, the great
prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of
distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But
at that time your people--everyone whose name is found written in the
book--will be delivered.
2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth
will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the
heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and
ever. NIV Daniel 12:1-3
Can our readers guess by now which
prophet relegated to the status of minor prophet by modern scholars has both
the fates of the Jews and their enemies and the saints covered and the two
witnesses even mentioned in his prophetic book --- along with Joel, Jeremiah,
Isaiah and even Ezekiel as back-up to what his 14 chapters covers in regard to
the fates of all God’s chosen peoples including the Joseph and Ephraim
contingents of our modern nation’s descendants of ancient Israel and that’s not
even mentioning its phenomenal coverage of “the Day of the Lord” and all
written over mere weeks or months --- just like the book of Revelation’s 22
chapters? That’s right --- Zechariah!
What is God’s “criterion” as opposed
to scholars “opinions” as to what constitutes a major or minor prophet?
Purely
and simply --- Content --- not necessarily volume!
Zechariah
the “bridging” prophet’s content is extremely important to our understanding of
prophecy therefore because it aligns Old Testament and the ‘cusp’ or “pivotal”
New Testament prophecy of the book of Revelation together in an unmistakably
coherent way that few today understand fully.
Most of Christianity picture Jesus in
a sentimental way in a meek and mild “soft” way and as often as not “softly spoken”
or as a babe in a manger or typically handsome with long hair and soft and
kindly eyes and a glowing heart on a body hanging from a Roman Cross as the
renaissance painters portrayed Him in their day.
Do our readers want a real description
of the real Jesus as he is today and will be when He descends from God the
Father to the
12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking
to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands,
13 and among the lampstands was someone "like
a son of man," dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a
golden sash around his chest.
14 His head and hair were white like wool, as
white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.
15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a
furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.
16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and
out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun
shining in all its brilliance.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though
dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the
Last.
Do
our readers want proof that this is speaking of Jesus and not God the Father?
18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I
am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
19 "Write, therefore, what you have
seen, what is now and what will take place later.
20 The mystery of the seven stars that you saw
in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars
are the angels of the seven churches,
and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. NIV Revelation 1:12-20
God the Father was never dead.
Jesus placed His hand on John in
vision and declared he who he was --- "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the
Last.
That expression "like a son of man,"
[verse13 above] was often used in prophecy to describe
angels and Jesus appears today or will appear when He arrives to rule earth ---
whenever He is visible --- just like the angels who were apparently able
to either tone down their brilliance so as not to blind human beings or “seen”
in a visual “visionary” form to onlookers for the same reason.
According to
Old and New Testaments though --- those who are pure of heart will be able to
“see” God at some stage in the future
25 I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will
stand upon the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in
my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him with my own eyes--I,
and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
NIV Job 19:25-28
Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they will see God. NIV Matthew 5:8
As for Jesus being
softly spoken --- when He returns --- prophecy shows that He will speak with
all authority and power of the Living God --- just as he did as a human when he
taught the Jews in His day.
Jesus taught
them so forcefully and authoritatively that they were astonished and marveled
at Him and what He taught and the whole of Mark 12 being just one example of
the case in point and the “denarius” scenario is the most often quoted and is just one instance where the Jews were
trying to trap Jesus into some error or other:
13 Later they sent some of the Pharisees and
Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words.
14 They came to him and said, "Teacher,
we know you are a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay
no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance
with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
15 Should we pay or shouldn't we?" But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. "Why
are you trying to trap me?" he asked. "Bring me a denarius and let me
look at it."
16 They brought the coin, and he asked them,
"Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied.
17 Then Jesus said to them, "Give to Caesar
what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." And they were amazed at him. NIV Mark
12:13-18
It is clear
that the Jews of that day fully understood that Jesus didn’t mince words or
speak softly when it came to the truth and when approached by those Sadducees
that didn’t believe in the resurrection --- laid things out for them in no uncertain
terms and not particularly politely:
24 Jesus replied, "Are you not in error
because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?
25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry
nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
26 Now about the dead rising--have you not read
in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, `I am
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' ?
27 He is not the God of the dead, but of the
living. You are badly mistaken!"
NIV Mark
12:24-28
One of the most well known and often
quoted of Jesus’ teachings among modern Christianity concerns what many people
think does away with the Ten commandments because in another place Jesus said
“a new command I give you”:
34 "A new command I give you: Love one
another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
35 By this all men will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another."
NIV John
13:34-35
But this along with those two often quoted verses
in Mark is actually a confirmation of the Ten Commandments “in summary” in
these next few verses of Mark:
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard
them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments,
which is the most important?"
Most of Christianity either Sunday or
Sabbath keeping --- often quote these two verses as being Jesus’ whole
answer:
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'
31 The second is this: `Love your neighbor as
yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." NIV Mark 12:30-31
Hardly anybody --- to almost nobody
--- ever quotes what Jesus said is the single most important Commandment ---
even before those two that summarize the Ten Commandments and verse 29
actually should be included as a whole:
And Jesus
answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O
Why would
Christianity almost never quote this most clear and unmistakable statement from
Jesus? Is it because they simply don’t understand it?
Most likely
they don’t --- How so? --- because it doesn’t gel with long established doctrines
of the “Trinity” seemingly --- does it?
Not only seemingly then --- but certainly not!
It fits with the Jewish and Muslim notion of
one God though doesn’t it?
So it’s
either conveniently passed over or ignored completely because it doesn’t fit
with human ideas or notions about God.
What has this
got to do with “the day of the Lord” and Old Testament prophecy?
MUCH! Religious leaders simply do not pay close
attention to what Jesus said in either the Old or New Testaments about
Himself, His first or second comings, His Kingdom, the true nature of His
relationship with God the Father or keeping the seventh day Sabbath Holy
[included as one of the Ten Commandments and included in both New and Old
Testaments and both Old and New Covenants] --- the least observed commandment
by the majority of mainstream Christians in fact [but was already in force
before either covenants and was commanded to be kept forever by all mankind ]
--- among a great many other things.
Christianity
simply passes over or ignores much
prophecy that doesn’t fit with
their
cherished notions or human ideas or in fact change prophecy to fit their
theories or human opinions often without realizing they are doing so.
It’s little
wonder then there is so much confusion amongst Christianity regarding the
uniformity or lack thereof of its teachings as a whole --- especially in the
area of prophecy.
There’s such
a wide ranging body of opposing opinions in just about any field of religious
study that even the building of Ezekiel’s third Temple mentioned in the last
eight chapters of Ezekiel has been through the gamut of various opposing views
that nobody [including Jews and Christians alike] seems to be able to agree on
at all as this excerpt from a Wikipedia article on “the Third Temple” from the
Christian viewpoint shows well enough:
While there are a number of
differing views amongst Christianity with regard to the significance or the requirement
of a third temple being built in Jerusalem, most believe that the New
Covenant (spoken of in Jeremiah 31:31-34)
is marked by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
in the believer (Ezekiel
36:26-27)
and that, as such, the body is the temple. Paul
illustrates this concept in his letter to the believers at Corinth:
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in
you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at
a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV)
This idea is related to the
belief that Christ himself, having claimed to be and do what the temple was and
did, is the new temple (John 2.19), and that his people, as a part of the
"body of Christ" (meaning the church), are part of this temple as
well (2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:19–22; 1 Peter 2:4–5). The result,
according to N. T. Wright, is that the earthly temple (along with
the city of
[Paul] refers to the church, and indeed to individual Christians, as the
‘temple of the living God’ (1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19). To Western Christians, thinking
anachronistically of the temple as simply the Jewish equivalent of a cathedral,
the image is simply one metaphor among many and without much apparent
significance. For a first-century Jew, however, the
In the teaching of both Jesus and
Paul, then, according to Wright,
God’s house in
Ben F.
Meyer, also, argued that Jesus applied prophecy regarding
[Jesus] affirmed the prophecies of salvation with their end-time imagery
Some would therefore see the need
for a third temple as being diminished, redundant, or entirely foreclosed,
while others take a position that the building of the third temple is an
integral part of end-time prophecy. The various perspectives
on the significance of the building of a third temple within Christianity are
therefore generally linked to a number of factors including: the level of
literal or spiritual interpretation applied to what is taken to be "end-time"
prophecy; the perceived relationships between various scriptures such as Daniel, the Olivet
discourse, 2 Thessalonians and Ezekiel (amongst
others); whether or not a dual-covenant is considered to be in place;
and whether Old Testament promises of the restoration of Israel remain
unfulfilled or have all come true in the Messiah (2 Corinthians 1:20). Such
factors determine, for example, whether Daniel 9:27
or 2 Thessalonians 2:4
are read as referring to a still-future physically restored third temple.
The
“opinions” of scholars and even archeologists and other researchers are no
better with wide ranging views on the “authenticity of the bible” itself with
an increasing majority of “experts”
tending towards a negative view of the scriptures of the bible [ and therefore
--- by implication prophecy as well ] as either “fabricated” or just sheer
myth.
It would seem
overall that any work that tends towards ‘disproving’ the bible is more
acceptable --- works such as Michael Baigent’s “the Jesus papers”, “the DaVinci
Code” and many others like that produced by a professor of archeology and his
associates called the “The bible unearthed” which also appears at Wikipedia ---
seem more believable to most than any that might tend towards affirmation of
the truth that is contained in all scripture and prophecy.
The specific
“Day of the Lord” that occurs at the second coming
We would ask
whose opinions might stand the test of time and be ultimately proven true ---
God’s or man’s?
We’ve already
given some few prophecies in this article of that future day of the Lord but in
part two we’ll list all those that are relevant because we’ve already listed
those that aren’t relevant that many teach otherwise.
It is indeed
a shame that some modern scholars lack a little wisdom and through pride and
arrogance and also ignorance of the word of God continue to make lofty but
totally unproven pronouncements against the word of God because in all
likelihood they may be among those who cry out these words below --- if
they are not able to curb their denigration of the bible as fantasy -- because
they are indeed walking a very thin line in “almost” pronouncing themselves enemies
of God:
15 And the kings of the earth, and the great
men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every
bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the
mountains;
16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on
us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the
wrath of the Lamb:
17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to
stand?
KJV
Revelation 6:15-17
Where will
their lofty and “educated” pronouncements against the word of God be when
prophecy unfolds and is fulfilled in reality?
Will it still be coming out of the same place it does now?
It’s indeed a
shame they don’t use what God gifted them to think with instead of what they
sit on.
One would
think that this world’s “modern” education would dispel ignorance --- but that
indeed is a “true myth” if ever there was one.
Incorrect knowledge or understanding is worse
than useless and equates very well with ignorance.
The “theory
of evolution” taught in schools as fact is a classic case in point and is
almost a man-made ‘modern superstition’ or religion in its own right that
relies on “faith” that God doesn’t exist --- but unlike the word of God --- the
theory of evolution is totally without
proof --- but man can choose for the time being to claim that this that
or the other fossil is the “missing link” and continue to think he is just an
animal because oftentimes he certainly acts like an animal [there is a
resemblance in that regard] and ignore God’s statements that he is made in the
image of God for a much higher purpose than just to exist for a few years and
then perish like the flora and fauna of this planet.
Similarly some Christians supposedly
look forward to “the Day of the Lord” because many believe the myths promoted
by their leaders that they are going to be either taken to a place of safety or
be wafted up to heaven in a great rapture and stay there until the rest of the
world is punished for its sins and burnt to a cinder and in this they also
ignore the God they are supposedly worshipping and what His word really says as
opposed to what they think it does --- also without proof.
Here’s what God says about “desiring”
the Day of the Lord:
18 Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD!
Why do you long for the day of the LORD? That day will be darkness, not light.
19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the
wall only to have a snake bite him.
20 Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not
light-- pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?
21 "I hate, I despise your religious
feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies.
NIV Amos
5:18-21
Those verses above were actually said
of ancient
Here’s
exactly what God said about our modern English speaking people’s ancestors of
the House of Joseph i.e.
Out of all the quotes of those who
pronounce their own ideas of doom and gloom for our modern English speaking
peoples very rarely to almost never do you see these passages of Amos quoted:
1 Hear this word, O house of
2 "Fallen is Virgin
3 This is what the Sovereign LORD says:
"The city that marches out a thousand strong for
4 This is what the LORD says to the house of
5 do not seek
6 Seek the LORD and live, or he will sweep
through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will
devour, and
7 You who turn justice into bitterness and cast
righteousness to the ground
8 (he who made the Pleiades and Orion, who
turns blackness into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters
of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land-- the LORD is his
name--
9 he flashes destruction on the stronghold and
brings the fortified city to ruin),
10 you hate the one who reproves in court and
despise him who tells the truth.
11 You trample on the poor and force
him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will
not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink
their wine.
12 For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous
and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
13 Therefore the prudent man keeps quiet in such
times, for the times are evil.
14 Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God
Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.
15 Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the
courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of
Joseph. NIV Amos 5:1-15
Practically the only verses that are
ever quoted of these in Amos that are clearly speaking of the House of Israel
and Joseph’s peoples of Ephraim and Manasseh
--- not Judah or the Jews who were also of the house Israel is verse 3.
[ this lament was expressly for our peoples of ancient times but some have used
verse 3 supposedly in an incorrect context claiming Modern America’s downfall
in their gloomy prognosis’ of our future supposedly showing our defeat in
war.] If any of the other verses are
quoted on the odd occasion it’s usually in that context of
Are
we any different today?
There are echoes of our ancient
ancestor’s character traits in these verses in the way we often treat each
other in modern times.
Are these verses then strictly for our ancient ancestors
or ongoing or even “timeless” messages for us today as well?
This one verse stands out especially clearly in regard to
our religious practices and teachings of today which are clearly “divisive” and
at “odds” with each other:
14 Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty
will be with you, just as you say he is.
And this verse is almost tailor made for our modern civil
court systems:
15 Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts
Will God destroy our modern nations of
Perhaps the LORD God
Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. NIV Amos
5:15
What
then is really ahead in our future when the Day of the Lord and that “
Well that’s exactly what this article
will show in part two in detail
and the prophet Zechariah holds many clues in his prophetic book as we’ve shown
in other articles at our site and when all the relevant prophecies are brought
together just as the Book of Revelation does indeed do in an “overview” ---
none of our readers should be left in doubt any longer.
Expect
some unusual surprises that nobody in any church teaches.
End of Part I