The Disciple's Road

Martyrs, Cataclysms, and More

Posted on January 18, 2017 by russellmckinney

Bible Prophecy in Chronology series (post #9)

Seal #5 (Revelation 6:9-11): The Martyrs Under the Altar

When Jesus breaks the fifth seal on the seven-sealed scroll that serves as the title deed to the earth, the reader is introduced to martyrs under heaven’s altar who are crying out to God to avenge their deaths (Revelation 6:9-11). These martyrs cannot be martyrs from the church age because they are described as disembodied “souls.” If they were martyrs from the church age, their souls would have been reunited with their resurrected and glorified bodies at the Rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:14). So, who are these martyrs? There are two plausible interpretations.

Interpretation #1: They are the souls of all the martyrs from the Old Testament era. Abel was the Old Testament’s first martyr (Genesis 4:1-8) but he certainly wasn’t the only one. And since the Old Testament believers have no part in the Rapture, the Old Testament martyrs would be existing in heaven as disembodied souls at the time of Revelation 6:9-11. (Their bodies won’t be resurrected, glorified, and reunited with the souls that once inhabited them until Christ’s second coming: Daniel 12:1-2, Job 19:25.) Furthermore, the fact that the passage talks about an altar and blood reminds us of the imagery of the Old Testament blood sacrifices and how the sacrificial blood was poured beside the base of the altar in the tabernacle/temple (Exodus 29:12, Leviticus 4:7). Lastly, John doesn’t serve as an eyewitness to the deaths of these martyrs because their deaths apparently have already occurred sometime in the past. All John sees is the aftermath of what has previously happened.

Interpretation #2: These are the souls of all the martyrs who are slain in the early part of the tribulation period. With this interpretation, the order goes as follows:

the Rapture occurs
the 144,000 Jewish evangelists begin their ministry and immediately win multitudes to Christ
many of these new Christians are put to death as they take their stand for God and His word in the midst of the rise of the Antichrist (seal #1), the warfare (seal #2), the famine (seal #3), and the pestilence (seal #4)
the deaths of these martyrs become a part of the death toll of one-fourth of the world’s population (Revelation 6:8)

Even though both interpretations make sense, it’s the second one that is favored by virtually all modern commentators, and I myself think it’s the better option. As I see it, there are three good reasons for identifying these martyrs as martyrs from the early part of the tribulation period. Those reasons are:

The martyrs want to know when God will judge and avenge their blood “on those who dwell (not dwelt) on the earth.” That wording makes it sound like their murderers are still alive on the earth at the time of the 5th seal.
If the martyrs are the Old Testament martyrs, why do they wait until this particular time in the tribulation period to begin crying out for their murders to be avenged? Abel, for example, would have been waiting for approximately 6,000 years for God to avenge his murder. Shouldn’t he be able to hold out for another few years until the close of the tribulation period and the second coming of Christ?
Rather than be granted immediate approval for their request, the martyrs each receive a white robe and are told their avenging must wait for more martyrs to fall. The matter of the white robe begs the question, “Wouldn’t all the martyrs from the Old Testament already have such a robe?”

Of course, there is no debate as to the identity of the future martyrs for which these first martyrs must wait. They can’t be anyone other than more people who get saved under the evangelizing of the 144,000 and get martyred for their faith sometime later. In Revelation 7:9-17, John sees a great multitude in heaven standing before God’s throne. Each individual from this multitude is clothed with a white robe and holds a palm branch in hand. John is told, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation…” (Revelation 7:14). And how will so many tribulation believers end up martyred? The answer is, the Antichrist. Later on in The Revelation, John writes, “Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or in their hands” (Revelation 20:4). These are the martyrs for which the martyrs from the fifth must wait.

Seal #6 (Revelation 6:12-17): Cataclysms Upon the Earth

Following the fifth seal, Jesus breaks the scroll’s sixth seal, and when He does the earth is hit with “a great earthquake.” Either simultaneous with this earthquake or in the aftermath of it, the sun becomes “black as sackcloth of hair” and the moon becomes “like blood.” Also, as if all this isn’t enough, stars begin to fall from the sky, the sky recedes like “a scroll when it is rolled up,” and every mountain and island is “moved out of its place.” You talk about terrifying, cataclysmic events! It’s all bad enough that the inhabitants of the earth, no matter of how rich and mighty they are, try to hide themselves “in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.”

Entire books have been written to explain exactly how all of these astounding events could come to pass. For example, some have theorized that volcanic eruptions could turn the sun black and the moon blood red. Likewise, the “stars” falling from the sky could be either the rocks blown out by the volcanic eruptions or meteors/asteroids striking the earth.

Then again, some have presented the possibility that all this could be John doing his best to describe the effects of the dust, ash, and debris that is blown into the atmosphere during a nuclear detonation. For that matter, maybe the blast itself is what causes the great earthquake. Such a detonation could account for the receding of the sky as well. Studies have shown that a nuclear blast has a strange effect upon the sky in that it causes a temporary vacuum in the atmosphere until the air comes rushing back into the vacuum. Perhaps this could be described as the sky “receding.”

While I certainly find the nuclear detonation theory intriguing, I can’t fully embrace it because of the quote that is given from some of the eyewitnesses to these cataclysms. As these eyewitnesses seek shelter in the caves and rocks of the mountains, they say to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Revelation 6:16-17). I find it interesting that these people don’t attribute these cataclysms to the armies of the world or nuclear war. They don’t say, “Oh no, someone has dropped a bomb on us!” Instead, they immediately start talking about God and the wrath of Jesus. Evidently they have previously heard some preaching on Bible prophecy either before the Rapture or after it but refused to believe in Jesus as their Savior.

Seal #7 (Revelation 8:1-6): The Trumpet Judgments

As we come to Christ breaking the scroll’s last seal we are immediately confronted with something different. John writes, “When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour” (Revelation 8:1). It’s the only time of silence mentioned in The Revelation. As for what brings about the need for this silence, we can only speculate. Perhaps it’s the fact that the scroll is now completely open and unrolled. Or, perhaps it’s the sheer awe and magnitude of what the seventh seal contains. If that’s the case, it’s an eerie silence before a colossal storm.

And what does that seal contain? It contains seven more judgments that will play themselves out in the first half of the tribulation period. These judgments are called the Trumpet Judgments because each one is introduced by a certain angel blowing a certain trumpet. As hard as it is to believe, these judgments will be even worse in intensity than the Seal Judgments.

And that’s where we will pick up the story next time. Keep in mind that we are still in the first three-and-a-half years of the seven-year tribulation period. Even though we’ve already read about 25% of the world’s population dying off, things are about to get even worse as the midway point of the period approaches. Also keep in mind that it’s the Lord who is in charge of this whole operation. He is the one sending down these judgments. Revelation 6:16 uses the phrase “the wrath of the Lamb.” That’s not a Jesus with whom the world is familiar, is it? But it’s a role He will surely play sometime in the future, and that’s why it’s so important to know Him as Savior now.

Posted in Prophecy, Series: "Bible Prophecy in Chronology" | Tagged martyrs in the tribulation period, nuclear war in Revelation?, silence in heaven, the martyrs under heaven's altar, the seal judgments, the souls under heaven's altar, the trumpet judgments, the wrath of the Lamb | Leave a comment

The 144,000

Posted on January 16, 2017 by russellmckinney

Bible Prophecy in Chronology series (post #8)

When last we left our studies in Bible prophecy, Jesus had broken four of the seven seals on a scroll that serves as the title deed to the earth. The breaking of these four seals had produced the first four of the so-called Seal Judgments that will strike the earth in the opening half of the tribulation period. In these first four judgments, we were introduced to four symbolic riders on horses, riders known as “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” These riders had brought the Antichrist, warfare, famine, and death to the earth, and in their wake had left one-fourth of the world’s entire population dead.

Simple reasoning, then, tells us there are still three seals left on that scroll, and Jesus isn’t about to leave those unbroken. However, before I move on to the opening of those remaining three seals, I need to devote a post to a group of men known as “The 144,000.” This has to be done because the events of the fifth seal simply cannot be understood apart from this group.

The question is often asked, “Will people get saved during the tribulation period?” The Bible’s answer is a clear and emphatic, YES. As a matter of fact, multiplied millions of people will accept Christ as their Savior during the tribulation period, enough so that the period is often described as the greatest time of revival the world will ever know.

But how will all of these people hear about Jesus? I mean, if the true church is gone because every Christian has been raptured away, who will preach the gospel following the Rapture? I’ll tell you who. It will be 144,000 specially chosen Jews – 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. These Jewish evangelists have been called “144,000 apostle Pauls.”

It’s a shame that the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, and some other religious groups have laid claim to being the 144,000 evangelists of Revelation chapter 7. While the Bible does teach that, in a sense, Abraham is the (spiritual) father of “all those who believe” (Romans 4:9-12, Galatians 3:6-9), this in no way gives anyone the right to spiritualize the meaning of Revelation 7:1-8 and thus do away with its distinctly Jewish flavor. To do so is to imply that God has completely written off literal Israel for all time, an assertion that simply cannot be supported by scripture. To the contrary, Romans 11:1-36 explains that Israel’s current rejection of Jesus is not final and that God isn’t finished with Israel. So, as Harry Ironside says in his commentary notes on Revelation 7:1-8: “Whenever I meet people who tell me they belong to the 144,000, I always ask them, ‘Which tribe, please?’ They are invariably confused for lack of an answer.”

One of the best ways to understand how God gets His evangelistic work done in the world is to analogize Jews and Gentiles as two trains. Throughout the centuries of Genesis chapters 1-11, God got His evangelistic work done by means of the Gentile train as He worked through Gentiles such as Adam, Enoch, and Noah to teach others about Himself. The Jews, after all, weren’t even in existence yet during those centuries.

Things changed, though, in Genesis chapter 12 as God called the Gentile Abram (Abraham) to leave his home in Ur and head out to a land that God would show him. Not only did God promise to grant Abram (Abraham) and his wife Sarai (Sarah) a son, He promised to make Abraham into a great nation through which the entire world would be blessed. That calling was the beginning of the Jewish people – the Jewish train we might say – as Abraham became the first Jew and the father of the Jewish nation.

Beginning with Abraham, then, and going all the way up through Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, God primarily worked through the Jewish train to get His evangelistic work done in the world. The Jews had God’s mark of circumcision upon their males. The Jews had God’s law. The Jews had God’s chosen land of Canaan. The Jews had God’s prophets, priests, and kings. The Jews had God’s tabernacle and temple. The Jews had God’s sacrificial system. The Jews had God’s holy scriptures. The Jews had God’s promise of a Messiah who was to come. You talk about a well-equipped train! And God wanted the Jews to take all of those spiritual advantages and blessings and use them to be a spiritual light unto the world and to teach the Gentiles about Him.

By in large, though, the Jewish nation failed at the task assigned to them, and that failure reached its climax when the nation’s religious leaders rejected Jesus as the promised Messiah and got Him crucified instead. Therefore, in the aftermath of that rejection, there came a time when God, to use our analogy, pulled the Jewish train off onto a sidetrack and began working primarily through the Gentile train to get His evangelism done. The beginning of this change is found in Acts chapter 9 as God called Saul of Tarus, who would become better known as the apostle Paul, to bear His name before Gentiles (Acts 9:15). The change then continued as Peter evangelized a group of Gentiles led by a man named Cornelius (Acts 10:1-48), and Paul and Barnabas headed out on their first missionary journey to Gentiles (Acts 13:1-3). What was happening? God was easing the Jewish train over onto a sidetrack so that the Gentile train could become His primary means of getting His evangelistic work done in the world.

Nowadays, the Gentile train continues to roll on as God’s primary vessel for evangelism. The vast majority of Christians are Gentile. The vast majority of churches are Gentile. The vast majority of preachers, pastors, and Bible teachers are Gentile. The vast majority of missionaries are Gentile.

As for the unsaved Jews, they exist as a spiritually blinded people (Romans 11:1-7) whom God simply cannot use for His work of saving souls. This is a sad but true reality, and this status quo will continue until the moment of the Rapture. Immediately following the Rapture, however, it’s the Gentile train that gets pulled over onto the sidetrack as the Jewish train begins to roll once again as God’s main means of evangelizing the world. And who will be the ones conducting that Jewish train? The 144,000 Jewish evangelists.

As for the description of these Jews, first we’re told they are “redeemed from the earth” and “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (Revelation 14:3-4). This means that these Jews will place their belief in Jesus Christ as Savior and thus become Christians (Galatians 3:13, Ephesians 1:7, Titus 2:14). Since they miss out on the Rapture, their salvation experiences must occur immediately following it in the earliest days of the tribulation period.

Second, these Jews are called “servants” of God (Revelation 7:3). The Greek word used for “servants” is doulos, which is a word that Paul and others used to describe the most dedicated relationship with Jesus. Some translations translate the word as “bond-servants.” Others go with “slaves.” As you can tell, these 144,000 Jewish evangelists will be far from “casual Christians.”

Third, these Jews will be “virgins” “who were not defiled with women” (Revelation 14:4). While marriage is God’s plan for most lives, and God certainly uses married people in His service, both Jesus (Matthew 19:12) and Paul (1 Corinthians 7:32-34) spoke words of praise for individuals who, in God’s will, remain unmarried so they can devote themselves completely to the things of the Lord. The world is saturated with illicit sex now, and we can only assume this saturation will grow worse as human history marches forward. We can imagine, then, how bad it will be in the tribulation period after the world’s Christians have been raptured away. In spite of it all, though, these 144,000 will remain virgins and keep themselves from defilement. This will prove them as worthy candidates for their divine calling.

Fourth, these Jews will be “firstfruits to God and to the Lamb” (Revelation 14:4). This phrase can be understood in various ways. It can mean these 144,000 will literally be the first people to get saved in the tribulation period. Or, it can mean they will be the first of the remnant of Jews who will accept Christ as their Messiah in the tribulation period. Then again, it can also mean that, like the Old Testament law’s firstfruits offerings, they will be set apart especially for God (Leviticus 23:9-14, Deuteronomy 26:1-11).

Fifth, these Jews will carry “the seal of the living God” upon their foreheads (Revelation 7:1-4). Will this seal be a visible mark? It’s possible. Historically speaking, God’s mark upon Jewish males was circumcision, and that was certainly a visible mark (Genesis 17:1-27). But, on the other hand, it’s also possible that this special seal won’t be visible. The New Testament teaches that the indwelling Holy Spirit serves as the seal for each Christian (Ephesians 4:30), but others can’t see this seal.

About all we can say for sure about the seal the 144,000 Jews will carry is that it will be a seal of protection. We know this because we’re told that in the tribulation period no harm will be allowed to come to the sea or the trees of planet earth until each of the 144,000 receives his seal (Revelation 7:1-3). This means that no matter what happens upon the earth during the events of the tribulation period, these 144,000 Jews will be protected from harm until they have fulfilled their ministry.

And how long will that ministry be? It will last for the first three-and-a-half years of the tribulation period. But that will be long enough for them to evangelize the entire world. Have you ever heard Christ’s words from Matthew 24:14? “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come”? If you’ve heard those words, do you know the specific context in which Jesus spoke them? He spoke them as a part of The Olivet Discourse, His greatest teaching on the tribulation period.

You see, the ultimate fulfillment of Christ’s promise about the gospel being preached in all the world and the end coming has nothing to do with current internet sites or the satellite ministries of televangelists, as helpful in evangelistic work as these might be. No, the ultimate fulfillment of the promise will take place in the tribulation period after the Rapture, and it will happen by way of the 144,000 sealed and protected Jewish evangelists who take the gospel into the whole world of human civilization.

And how many people will these Jews win to Christ? The Bible doesn’t give us an exact number, but it does describe the group as “a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues” (Revelation 7:9, 13-14). Prophecy expert David Reagan tells the story of how he once called Zola Levitt, a Jewish Christian, and asked his thoughts on the ministry of the 144,000. Levitt told him, “Before the tribulation is over, we (Jews) are going to convert more people to Jesus than you Gentiles have done in the past 2,000 years.” He’s probably right.

Still, on this subject, there is one last thing that I should probably mention. Many students of prophecy take 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 to mean that no one who hears a clear presentation of the gospel and has a chance to get saved before the Rapture will get saved after the Rapture. According to the popular interpretation of the passage, because these people “did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” God will “send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie (the Antichrist),” and that delusion will keep them from believing in Jesus as Savior.

Even if this popular interpretation is accurate (and I tend to believe it is), it still leaves open the matter of just how much pre-Rapture rejection it will take to condemn a person. As noted prophecy teacher Charles Ryrie writes, “Is listening to a gospel message in church or on the radio or TV and not receiving the message sufficient?” Ryrie then goes on to point out that indifference to the gospel might not be the same as outright hardness in rejecting it.

In the end, Ryrie admits that the question is a very difficult one to answer, and I agree with him. That’s why I would strongly encourage anyone who hears the gospel in this pre-Rapture time to act upon it and believe in Jesus as Savior. Counting on one of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists to win you to Christ in the tribulation period is way too dicey. You just never know what kind of state you will be in during those strange days, and it might just be that the message that will sound more appealing to you at that time will be the message (the lie) of the Antichrist rather than the message of Jesus Christ.

Posted in Evangelism, Prophecy, Series: "Bible Prophecy in Chronology", Witnessing | Tagged and this gospel will be preached in all the world, Charles Ryrie, David Reagan, God will send them strong delusion, God's means for evangelizing the world, Harry Ironside, who are the 144000?, will people get saved in the tribulation period?, Zola Levitt | Leave a comment

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Posted on January 13, 2017 by russellmckinney

Bible Prophecy in Chronology series (post #7)

If I asked one hundred people to name the Bible’s hardest book to study, my guess is the majority of people would name The Revelation. The irony of that choice is that The Revelation is probably the easiest book in the entire Bible to outline. That doesn’t mean that everything about the book is easy to interpret, but, speaking as a preacher, an easy-to-divide outline always helps. Once you get to chapter 6, the book basically becomes a chronological walk through the events of the tribulation period and beyond. Is this chronology in perfect precision order? No. Is there some overlap to the events? Absolutely. This doesn’t detract, though, from the fundamental event-by-event timeline that is presented. So, with this post, we’ll begin taking our walk through those events.

To set the stage for the walk, I need to explain Revelation chapter 5. The apostle John, who has just experienced what we might call a “Revelation rapture” (Revelation 4:1-2), watches as Jesus – symbolically depicted as “the Lamb” – takes a certain scroll from the hand of God the Father (Revelation 5:1-7). The mere transfer of this scroll from the hand of God the Father to the hand of Jesus prompts a great heavenly worship scene (Revelation 5:8-14). The ones doing the worshiping are the four living creatures (most likely cherub angels) that surround God’s throne, the 24 elders (a group that symbolically represents the entirety of the church), and many other angels. Clearly, this scroll is a big deal, and Jesus now having it is an even bigger deal.

And so what is this scroll? In the ancient world, such parchment scrolls served as the title deeds in land purchases (Jeremiah 32:6-15). Therefore, this scroll has been called the title deed to the earth. The scroll has writing not only inside it but also on its back, and it is sealed with seven seals (Revelation 5:1). In such scrolls, the writing on the back was a summary of the writing found inside the document, and the writing on the inside contained the details of the transaction. The seals all had to be broken before the entire scroll could be read.

As for the scroll that Jesus takes in hand, the way it works is simple: Whenever Jesus breaks one of the seven seals, a corresponding event takes place down on earth. These events are commonly called “the seal judgments.” At the beginning of chapter 6, Jesus starts breaking the seals, and thus begins The Revelation’s record of the tribulation period. The breaking of the first four seals produce the riders that are known as “the four horsemen of the apocalypse.” These riders will be our subject for this post.

Seal #1 (Revelation 6:1-2): The Rider on the White Horse

Christ’s breaking of the scroll’s first seal causes a rider on a white horse to ride out “conquering and to conquer.” This rider is the Antichrist. In the symbolic imagery, he carries a bow but no arrows. This shows that he will initially play the role of a man of peace. I have explained in previous posts how he will come to power by overthrowing three of the kings of an alliance of ten kings that will constitute a revived Roman empire in the end times (Daniel 7:8,24). Following that coup, the other seven kings will give their power and authority over to him (Revelation 17:12-13), which will give him complete control of the entire empire.

At some point very shortly after the Antichrist comes to power, he will sign a seven-year treaty with Israel (Daniel 9:27). These seven years will be the tribulation period, the last “week” of “The 70 Weeks Prophecy” (Daniel 9:20-27). While it can be argued that the clock on the tribulation period starts ticking at the moment of the Rapture, the better understanding is that it starts ticking the moment the Antichrist signs that treaty. What the Bible doesn’t tell us is how much time elapses between the Rapture and the signing of that treaty. Clearly, though, it can’t be long. My guess is a few days or a few weeks at the most.

Christ’s most extensive teaching on the end times is called the Olivet Discourse because He gave it while He was on the Mount of Olives. The teaching is found in Matthew chapters 24 and 25, Mark 13:3-37, and Luke 21:5-38. It is noteworthy that Jesus opens the teaching by saying, “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many” (Matthew 24:4-5). We can easily imagine that as He spoke to His apostles in general terms about false messiahs, He had in mind the ultimate false messiah that would one day come. It isn’t a coincidence that the Antichrist is depicted as riding a white horse. In Revelation 19:11-21, we find the account of Jesus returning to this earth for His second coming, and that account puts Jesus on a white horse as well.

Seal #2 (Revelation 6:3-4): The Rider on the Red Horse

With Christ’s breaking of the scroll’s second seal, a rider on a fiery red horse heads out to “take peace from the earth.” This rider is the symbolic embodiment of war. So, at this point in the early days of the tribulation period, peace is taken from the earth and the killing begins. Jesus, in the Olivet Discourse, described it this way: “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…” (Matthew 24:6-7)

A good question to ask, though, is, “Why does warfare break out at this particular time?” After all, if the Antichrist comes in as a man of peace, he won’t be the one stirring up this hostility. What then is the trigger that starts it? The Bible doesn’t give us that answer, but by reading between the lines a bit we can come up with a couple of possibilities.

First, the effect of millions of people suddenly vanishing off the face of the earth in the Rapture really can’t be overstated. Think about the confusion. Think about the chaos. Think about the news reports. Think about the fear. Think about the paranoia. Think about the attempted explanations. Think about the world’s leaders panicking. Think about the different nations accusing each other of being behind the disappearances. That is a setting ripe for countries to go to war. It’s also ripe for individuals to perpetrate violence on other individuals, which might also be a part of the words “that people should kill one another” (Revelation 6:4).

Second, remember that 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 teaches that a great “falling away” will accompany the revealing of the Antichrist. This makes perfect sense in the wake of the Rapture. You see, the Rapture will remove all the authentic Christians from the world’s churches. This will leave only fake Christians and spiritually lost church members to carry on the services of organized religion. And how long will it take for the attendees to realize the hollowness of the post-Rapture “churches”? Not very long. Rather than provide people with answers for the current state of things, these spiritually bereft “churches” will help escalate people’s tensions, anxieties, and fears. Think of it this way: If the world has known the warfare that it has known with Christians here playing the role of salt and light, what kind of a powder keg will it become when they are gone?

But does the Bible name any specific war that might break out in the earliest days of the tribulation period? It would seem so. Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 describe a war that will take place in the “latter days” (Ezekiel 38:16). For this war, the nation “Magog” will head a coalition force that comes into the land of Israel “like a cloud” (Ezekiel 38:16) and goes to war against Israel. “Magog” will be led by a prince identified as “Gog,” which literally means “ruler.” According to Ezekiel 38:5-6, the other countries in the coalition will be Persia (Iran, east of Israel), Ethiopia (south of Israel), Libya (southwest of Israel), Gomer (Germany, northwest of Israel), and Togarmah (Turkey, north of Israel). What’s most impressive about this coalition is that it’s far flung enough in scope for the locations of these nations to form a clockwise ring around Israel. The only gap in the ring is the Mediterranean Sea to Israel’s immediate west.

Since the leader “Gog” is described as coming from a place “far north” of Israel (Ezekiel 38:14-15, 39:1-2), most commentators identify him as the leader of that land we now call Russia. This goes along with the Jewish historian Josephus, who identified Magog as the land of the Scythians, which was located in what is now Russia. For that matter, “Magog” is the translation of the Hebrew word Rosh, and according to Wilhelm Gesenius, a famous expert in Hebrew, Rosh should actually be translated as Russia.

And how will this war go for Russia and her allies? Fatally. For starters, God will strike the land of Israel with a mighty earthquake that will throw the coalition forces into confusion (Ezekiel 38:18-20). That earthquake will then be followed by “pestilence” as well as “flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone” (Ezekiel 38:22) as God slays every last soldier of the coalition forces (Ezekiel 39:1-5). The slaughter will be so great that it will take the people of Israel seven months to bury the bodies of all the dead foreigners (Ezekiel 39:11-16). In addition to all this burying, the people of Israel will gather up the weapons from the slain armies and somehow use those weapons as fuel for their fires for seven years (Ezekiel 39:9-10).

Okay, so when will this infamous invasion of Israel take place? It will occur at a time when Israel will be dwelling in safety and peace in its own land and operating with its guard down (Ezekiel 38:10-15). I promise you that none of that applies to Israel’s current state, and so we must be dealing with a future event. And what could cause Israel to feel safe enough to uncharacteristically drop its guard this way? I would suggest that it’s that peace treaty Israel signs with the Antichrist and his revived Roman empire. If this interpretation is correct, it means that very, very shortly after the signing of that treaty, Russia’s coalition army will roll into Israel and quickly meet its doom. This would explain how the people of Israel could use that weaponry as fuel for seven years (the seven years of the tribulation period), with the number seven being only slightly rounded up and used generally. Then again, it’s also possible that Israel using those weapons as fuel for seven years might extend into the time of Christ’s Millennial Reign upon the earth, which will begin with His Second Coming at the conclusion of the tribulation period.

Seal #3 (Revelation 6:5-6): The Rider on the Black Horse

When Jesus breaks the scroll’s third seal, a rider on a black horse takes his ride. This rider is the symbolic embodiment of famine. Evidently the Russian coalition’s war against Israel will not be the only warfare that breaks out in the early days of the tribulation period. Keep in mind that Revelation 6:2 says the rider on the red horse was granted the power to take peace from the earth, not just a handful of nations. Well, history has proven that times of great warfare are often followed by food shortages because of the destruction of crops and the interruption of manufacturing. This in turn causes skyrocketing prices for the food that is available. Mix all these factors together and you come up with a time of famine. In Christ’s Olivet Discourse, the order is the same. His words, “And there will be famines” follow His words about warfare (Matthew 24:7).

In the symbolism involved with the rider on the black horse, the wildly inflated prices are vividly portrayed. First, the rider holds a set of measuring scales in his hands. The picture is that in those days food will be measured out as carefully as gold. Second, as the rider heads out carrying the scales, John, who is still experiencing heaven’s viewpoint of the events, hears a voice saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and wine.” It’s the math here that’s important. In Bible times, a denarius was the standard equivalent of one day’s pay (Matthew 20:2), and a quart of wheat or three quarts of barley were only enough to prepare one meal. This means that in the opening stages of the tribulation period, following the time of warfare, food will be so scarce and expensive that the average person will have to work a full day just to pay for one meal.

Please note, though, that I said the “average” person. Did you catch that other part about “do not harm the oil and the wine”? Even during this time of famine and incredible inflation, luxuries such as oil and wine (Psalm 104:15) will still be available to the rich. As is always the case in trying economic times, the rich will fare far better than the commoners and poor people in the tribulation period.

Seal #4 (Revelation 6:7-8): The Rider on the Pale Horse

The fourth horseman of the apocalypse rides out with Christ’s breaking of the fourth seal. This rider rides a pale horse and is the symbolic embodiment of death. Here again history points the way by showing us that times of warfare are often followed by times of famine, and those times typically produce death on a large scale. It’s a sad cycle.

And just how many people will die during the first year or two of the tribulation period? We’re told the death toll will equate to a full one fourth of the world’s population (Revelation 6:7-8). That’s incredible. Right now there are over 7 billion people on the earth and that number increases each year. 25% of 7 billion is almost 2 billion people!

You ask, “But how will all these people die?” Four causes of death are named in Revelation 6:8. First, people will die from the “sword.” This refers back to the various wars that will mark the beginning of the tribulation period. Second, people will die from “hunger.” This refers back to the famine that follows all that warfare. Third, people will die from “pestilence” (NASV). This matches up with the Olivet Discourse since Jesus listed “pestilences” right on the heels of “famines” (Matthew 27:7, Luke 21:11). Furthermore, it makes sense logically because poor people cannot afford proper medical care, and in that kind of a world diseases, plagues, and pestilences are allowed to flourish. Fourth, people will die “by the beasts of the earth.” The best way to interpret these beasts is to take them as literal. Just as the Rapture and the opening events of the tribulation period will bring chaos, confusion, and calamity to people, the world’s animal kingdom will be adversely affected as well as man will become the hunted rather than the hunter in many situations.

Still, though, as bad as 25% of the world’s population ending up dead is, it isn’t even the most tragic part of Christ’s breaking of the scroll’s first four seals. The most tragic part is that Death, the rider on the pale horse, won’t be riding by himself. According to Revelation 6:8, “and Hades followed with him.” I can’t take the time here to get into a thorough teaching on the Greek word Hades, but for the purposes of this post just know that it is that place we call “Hell.” The King James translation even translates Hades as “Hell.”

The point then is that the souls of all those people who die in the opening part of the tribulation period go straight to Hell, not to Heaven. You see, the fact that Hades (Hell) follows the rider on the pale horse is yet another piece of evidence that shows that every Christian will be removed from the earth by way of the Rapture before the beginning of the tribulation period. If this wasn’t the case, then Revelation 6:8 should read: “And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades and Heaven followed with him.” But that’s just not what the verse says, is it? And would you believe that at this point in the timeline that Jesus lays out in the Olivet Discourse, He actually adds in, “All these are the BEGINNING of sorrows” (Matthew 24:8)? Could things really get even worse as the tribulation period steamrolls forward? Unfortunately, the answer is, yes. For more on that, just stay tuned.

Posted in Prophecy, Series: "Bible Prophecy in Chronology" | Tagged Gog and Magog, Jesus taking the scroll, one fourth of the world's population dead, Russia's invasion of Israel, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the rider on the black horse, the rider on the pale horse, the rider on the red horse, the rider on the white horse, the title deed of the earth, wars and rumors of wars | 4 Comments

The Antichrist

Posted on January 11, 2017 by russellmckinney

Bible Prophecy in Chronology series (post #6)

Before we shift this series into a full-blown event-by-event study of the tribulation period and beyond, we need to devote an entire post to that man scripture calls “the Antichrist.” I have already mentioned him in previous posts and will have more to say about him in coming ones, but this man is such a pivotal figure in Bible prophecy that he merits an entire post himself. What we are going to find is that even though the Bible doesn’t name him by name, it certainly gives the world a ton of information to use to identify him once his time has come.

Let’s start with seven of the titles the Bible gives him:

the Antichrist (1 John 2:18, 1 John 4:3)
the man of sin (2 Thessalonians 2:3)
the son of perdition (2 Thessalonians 2:3)
the lawless one (2 Thessalonians 2:8)
the beast (Revelation 13:1-4)
the little horn (Daniel 7:7-8)
the prince who is to come (Daniel 9:26)

Now, let’s list five of his impressive abilities:

His Ability in Politics (Daniel 7:1-8): These verses describe four successive empires in terms of beastly symbolism. The first beast, a lion with eagle’s wings, depicts Babylon. The second beast, a bear raised up on one side with three ribs in its mouth, depicts Medo-Persia. The third beast, a leopard with four wings, depicts Greece. The fourth beast, a ten-horned, iron-teethed creature, depicts Rome. In the end times, the final version of the Roman empire will be centered around ten kings (Daniel 7:7-8, Daniel 7:23-24, Revelation 13:1, Revelation 17:12). The Antichrist is symbolically described as an eleventh horn (a “little horn”) or “another” king who will arise from this Roman empire and somehow “pluck out by the roots” (uproot, overthrow) or “subdue” three of the ten kings (Daniel 7:7-8, Daniel 7:24). Following this impressive political feat, he will take control of the entire empire as the other seven kings will “give their power and authority to him” (Revelation 17:12-13).
His Ability in Oratory (Revelation 13:5): The Antichrist will have a mouth “speaking great things” (Revelation 13:5) and “pompous words” (Daniel 7:8,11). Much of his rousing oratory will involve speaking blasphemy against God (Daniel 7:25, Daniel 11:36, Revelation 13:5-6).
His Ability in Religion (Revelation 13:11-15): Just as ancient Babylon’s legendary king Nebuchadnezzar understood the value of having a one-world, man-created religion that involved a gigantic image (Daniel 3:1-7), the Antichrist will as well. He will work with a false prophet who is demonically empowered to perform great miracles, including calling fire down from heaven, and the two will have an image of the Antichrist built. A law will then be enacted that forces everyone to worship the Antichrist by worshiping the image of him. Anyone who refuses to do so will be executed. The false prophet will even somehow cause the image to speak (Revelation 13:11-15).
His Ability in Commerce (Revelation 13:16-18): The false prophet will also institute an economic program wherein everyone will be required to receive a mark either on their right hand or forehead. Without this mark, no one will be able to buy or sell. The mark will be some kind of name or a number that represents the Antichrist.
His Ability in Warfare (Daniel 11:36-45): The Bible indicates that the Antichrist will be peaceful during the early part of his reign. Even though he initially goes forth “conquering and to conquer,” he is symbolized as a rider who has a bow but no arrows (Revelation 6:2). This means that his early rise to power will be accomplished by means other than military. Even when he signs his seven-year treaty with Israel, it will be a peace treaty, not a treaty signed at the edge of a sword (Daniel 9:27). But as the years of the tribulation period continue to roll, he will begin flexing more and more of his might as a military leader. Daniel 11:36-45 describes some of the Antichrist’s military maneuvers. In addition to these maneuvers, the Antichrist and his army also end up at the battle of Armageddon at the close of the tribulation period (Revelation 19:11-21).

Here now are some other random items of information about the Antichrist:

His title “Antichrist” can be understood two ways. On the one hand, it can mean that he is against everything about Jesus. Under this definition, the Antichrist’s main purpose is not so much promoting himself as it is criticizing Jesus. On the other hand, it can mean that he presents himself as another option to Jesus. Under this definition, his main purpose is presenting himself to the world as another Messianic option besides Jesus. The fact is, both definitions fit the Antichrist and the things he does.
His deeds will be “according to the working of Satan” and will be marked by “power, signs, and lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). Revelation 13:2 says, “The dragon (Satan) gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.” This element of the supernatural and miraculous will make the Antichrist so much more than just the latest hotshot political figure on the world scene. If you question how millions of people could line up to the take the Antichrist’s “mark of the beast” and fall down and worship his image, you aren’t factoring in the signs and lying wonders that will swirl around the man.
He will somehow survive an assassination attempt which will elevate him to “God status” around the world. Revelation 13:1 symbolically depicts the Antichrist as a beast that has seven heads, ten horns, and wears ten crowns. But then Revelation 13:3 talks about one of the heads being mortally wounded. Many students of prophecy interpret this symbolism as an assassination attempt on the Antichrist’s life. The fatal wound, however, will somehow be healed, and all the world will marvel and follow the Antichrist (Revelation 13:3-4). This will be the Antichrist’s grandest and most impressive feat, mimicking the resurrection of Christ. (I’ll have more to say about this “resurrection” in a later post.)
There is at least a possibility that he will be a homosexual. The New King James Version translates the original Hebrew of Daniel 11:37 as: “He shall regard neither the God of his father nor the desire of women…” That aligns with the way the translators of the King James Version, the New American Standard Version, and the Amplified Bible translate the Hebrew. If this translation is accurate, it opens up the possibility that the Antichrist will have no regard for the desire of women, which would mean: (a): He might be a homosexual (b): He might be so consumed with achieving world domination that he won’t have time for a woman or (c) His celibacy might be merely another aspect of him imitating Christ’s ministry as Jesus showed no sexual desire for women, either. However, it should be noted that translators are not in agreement on how the original Hebrew of Daniel 11:37 should be translated. As evidence of this, translations such as the English Standard Version, the New International Version, the New Living Translation, and the Revised Standard Version all render the verse something along the lines of: “He will show no regard for the gods of his ancestors or for the one desired by women…” Obviously, that rendering changes the meaning completely and dismisses the idea that the Antichrist might be a homosexual.
Anyone who denies that Jesus Christ was God in human flesh is displaying the same basic spirit the Antichrist will take to its furthest degree. The apostle John is the only Biblical writer who actually uses the term “Antichrist.” Interestingly, however, John never uses the term in The Revelation. Instead, he uses it in 1 John 2:18 as he says, “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know it is the last hour.” John then goes on to explain that these lower-case ‘a’ antichrists were people who once attended churches but eventually fell away from the church (1 John 2:19) and began to deny that Jesus was actually God in human flesh (1 John 2:22-23). He returns to this same subject in 1 John 4:3 as he says, “and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist…”

Now, for the last section of this post I want to address what is probably the single most debated question about the Antichrist. That question is: Will the Antichrist be a Jew or a Gentile? By way of covering both possible answers to this question, I’ll give you five pieces of evidence that can be used to promote each answer. I myself am of the opinion that the Antichrist will be a Gentile, but if you reach the conclusion that he will be a Jew you’ll have plenty of company.

The Evidences That the Antichrist Will Be a Jew

Daniel 11:37 says the Antichrist will not regard “the God of his fathers.” While this term “the God of his fathers” could theoretically refer to any god and the race of any father, it is classically considered a Jewish phrase especially in regards to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Jesus was a male Jew. If the Antichrist is to be a counterfeit Jesus, it makes sense that he would be a male Jew as well.
Many believe that the Jewish people will come to look upon the Antichrist as their long-awaited Messiah. Certainly, if it turns out that he plays the primary political role in helping them get a new temple built, this belief could be correct. But would the Jews accept a Gentile, no matter how much he helps them, as their Messiah? That is highly doubtful.
In John 5:43, Jesus says to a group of unbelieving Jews, “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.” Some take these words to be a prophecy that one day the Jewish people will accept a Jewish false Messiah, the Antichrist.
In Genesis 49:17, as a part of the elderly Jacob pronouncing prophecies upon his sons, he says concerning his son Dan, “Dan shall be a serpent by the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider shall fall backward.” There are some who couple this prophecy up with the fact that in Revelation 7:1-8 the tribe of Dan is omitted from Israel’s list of tribes and conclude that the Antichrist will come from the Jewish tribe of Dan.

The Evidences That the Antichrist Will Be a Gentile

Daniel’s prophecies make it clear that the Antichrist will rise to power from an end-times version of the Roman empire. The fact that it is a Roman empire suggests that he will be a Gentile. Furthermore, Daniel 9:26-27 explicitly states that he will come from the people who destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. Again, that would be the Romans. As for the word about him not regarding “the God of his fathers,” that could be a reference to the Catholicism that has long dominated Rome.
In Revelation 13:1, John says, “Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea…” As I mentioned earlier this “beast” is the Antichrist depicted in symbolic imagery. Furthermore, based upon Revelation 17:15, a common interpretation of the symbolism of this “sea” is that it refers to the Gentile nations of the world. So, if the Antichrist rises up from such a sea, he must be a Gentile. Even if this interpretation of this “sea” as being symbolic and representing the Gentile nations of the world is incorrect, another plausible interpretation is that John was literally standing on the shore of Patmos when he experienced this part of his revelation. This would mean that he was referring to the Aegean Sea which surrounded Patmos. The Aegean Sea, of course, is in actuality a part of the Mediterranean Sea, and when we think of the Mediterranean we think of Rome, which brings us back to the Antichrist’s connection to Gentile Rome.
In the symbolism of Revelation 13:2, the Antichrist is a beast that has the mouth of a lion, the feet of a bear, and is like a leopard. This symbolism echoes the prophet Daniel’s depictions of the three Gentile empires that preceded the mighty Roman empire (Daniel 7:1-8). Daniel symbolically depicted Babylon as a lion, Medo-Persia as a bear, and Greece as a leopard. The meaning of Revelation 13:2 then is that the Antichrist will come from the lineage of these empires. Even more than that, he will possess many of the same leadership characteristics as the great rulers of these empires, men such as Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus the Great, and Alexander the Great. And since these empires were all Gentile and their leaders were Gentiles, it makes sense that the Antichrist will be a Gentile.
We know from Daniel 9:27 that the Antichrist will make a seven-year covenant (treaty) with the Jews and break it three-a-half-years into it. It seems strange that a Jew would have to go to the trouble of creating a formal treaty with his own people. Getting back to the possibility that the Jews will accept the Antichrist as their Messiah it also seems strange that a Messiah would have to sign such a treaty with his followers. Furthermore, once the Antichrist breaks that treaty, he will begin an incredibly intense persecution of the Jews. Would a fellow Jew do that?
Matthew chapters 24 and 25 make up Christ’s most extensive teaching on the tribulation period, and in Matthew 24:15 He talks about a time when “the abomination of desolation” will be seen “standing in the holy place.” The “holy place” is the Jewish temple of the tribulation period, and the phrase “the abomination of desolation” comes from the book of Daniel. In Daniel 11:31, Daniel prophesies about “the abomination of desolation” in the context of a prophecy centering around a “northern king.” Prophecy experts are unanimous in identifying this “northern king” as Antiochus Epiphanes, who once led 20,000 soldiers against Jerusalem, temporarily abolished Jewish worship at the temple (Daniel 8:9-11), and desecrated the temple’s altar by sacrificing swine upon it. This despicably blasphemous act was what Daniel called “the abomination of desolation.” What all this means in regards to Christ’s use of the term is that there will come a time in the tribulation period when the Antichrist will perform his own despicably blasphemous act in the Jewish temple of the tribulation period. This act will be akin to the Antiochus Epiphanes abomination. (And I’ll specify what that act is in a later post). The point, then, is that Antiochus Epiphanes was what we call a “type” (a “foreshadowing”) of the Antichrist. For one thing, he and the Antichrist are the only two Bible characters who share the term “the abomination of desolation.” For another, they also share the title “little horn” – the Antichrist being described by it in Daniel 7:7-8,24 and Antiochus Epiphanes being described it in Daniel 8:9-14. And since Antiochus Epiphanes was a Gentile, specifically a Greek Gentile from the Syria/Asia Minor kingdom ruled over by Alexander the Great’s General Seleucas, many believe the typology requires that the Antichrist be a Gentile.

Posted in Prophecy, Series: "Bible Prophecy in Chronology" | Tagged Antiochus Epiphanes and the Antichrist, bible names for the Antichrist, identifying the Antichrist, many antichrists have come, the abomination of desolation, the Antichrist as a homosexual, the antichrist as an orator, the antichrist as the little horn, the antichrist at war, the Antichrist from the tribe of Dan, the antichrist survives an assassination attempt, the beast from the sea, the false prophet and the image to the Antichrist, the mark of the beast, will the Antichrist be a Jew or a gentile? | 5 Comments

Will Christians Go Through the Tribulation Period?

Posted on January 9, 2017 by russellmckinney

Bible Prophecy in Chronology series (post #5)

(Unless otherwise noted, all references are from the N.K.J.V.)

One of the most disputed questions about Bible prophecy is: Will Christians (the church) go through the tribulation period? Another way to word the question is: When will the Rapture take place in regards to the tribulation period? Some sincere students of prophecy contend that Christians will go through the entirety of the tribulation period. This is called the post-tribulation Rapture. Other equally sincere people contend that Christians will go through the first half of the tribulation period. This is called the mid-tribulation Rapture. And then there are those folks, every bit as sincere, who contend that Christians won’t go through any of the tribulation period. This is called the pre-tribulation Rapture.

It is not my purpose in this post to belittle anyone else’s interpretation or point of view, but I do want to present the evidence for a pre-tribulation Rapture. Yes, I’m in the pre-trib. camp. But it isn’t because I just don’t like the idea of me and my family possibly having to experience the tribulation period. I’m in the pre-trib. camp because I’ve reached the honest conclusion that this is what the Bible teaches. You say, “I need some evidence on that, Russell.” Okay, let’s get to it.

Evidence #1: The book of The Revelation is organized in a very specific way.

By in large, the book of The Revelation is organized in a chronological, step-by-step, event-by-event order. Chapter 1 finds the apostle John in persecution exile on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. While he’s there Jesus appears to him one Sunday and thus begins the incredible revelation that makes up the book. Jesus tells John, “Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this” (Revelation 1:19). That’s the outline for the entirety of the book.

Part 1 — “the things which you have seen” — is recorded in chapter 1 as John had seen Jesus. Part 2 — “the things which are” — is recorded in chapters 2 and 3 as Jesus relays messages through John’s writing to seven specific churches that were located in the Asia Minor region at that time. Finally, part 3 — “the things which will take place after this” — is recorded in chapters 4 through 22 as all the future events of the tribulation period and beyond are unfurled.

Clearly, then, a major division in the book occurs with the opening verses of chapter 4, and this division leads into the bulk of the book. So, what happens to John in those opening verses? He sees a door standing open in heaven, hears a voice like a trumpet that says, “Come up here,” and finds himself immediately standing before God’s throne in heaven (Revelation 4:1-2).

If all this sounds familiar, compare it to the description of the Rapture that is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-53. By doing so you’ll see why many prophecy experts make the case that John experienced what we might call a Revelation version of the Rapture. That case is further bolstered by the fact that the 24 elders that John subsequently sees in heaven (Revelation 4:4, 9-11) symbolically represent the church, which is comprised of all Christians. The song they sing in Revelation 5:8-10 leaves no doubt as to their identity.

What makes John’s experience so important to the debate about when the Rapture will take place is that it took place after Christ’s messages to those seven churches. Consider this: The words “church” and “churches” are used 19 times in Revelation chapter 1 through 3, but neither word is used again until Revelation 22:16, which is a verse found in the context of John closing out the book. As for the events of the tribulation period, they are laid out in chronological order beginning with the opening of chapter 6 and ending with the closing of chapter 19. Again, though, the church is never mentioned in all those chapters. This is excellent evidence that the church will be raptured away before the beginning of the tribulation period.

Evidence #2: The early Christians were looking for Jesus Christ, not the Antichrist.

First, in Titus 2:12-13, Paul says that Christians, “…should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Notice that Paul doesn’t say that Christians should be looking for the Antichrist, the tribulation period, cataclysmic events, etc. There isn’t any “hope” in all that.

Second, in Philippians 3:20-21, Paul says of his fellow Christians, “…we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body…” It’s hard to misunderstand what Paul is saying in these verses. Not only were he and his fellow Christians eagerly awaiting Jesus, they understood that when He came He would transform their earthly bodies into glorified bodies like His. That is as plain a reference to the Rapture as one can find.

Third, in Colossians 3:4, Paul says to the Christians of Colosse, “When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Here again we have a clear reference to the Rapture. Those early Christians believed that when Jesus appeared, they would immediately be with Him, not on the earth but in glory.

Fourth, the Christians of Thessalonica were confused by recent events in view of their expectancy of the Rapture. Do you know why we have Paul’s classic description of the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18? It’s because those Christians had expressed their concern to him over the fact that some of their fellow Christians had died and Jesus hadn’t returned yet. Those deaths had caused the surviving members of the church to lose hope in the coming of Jesus. That’s why Paul explained to them about the Rapture and told them not to “sorrow as others who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13) and to “comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18). The point here is that those Thessalonian Christians weren’t expecting the Antichrist, the tribulation period, and all the rest of it. Not only were they expecting Jesus at any moment, they were expecting Him to come before any of their fellow church members died.

Fifth, we have Paul’s words from 1 Thessalonians 1:10. There he encourages those Christians of Thessalonica to, “…wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” While it’s true that the phrase “wrath to come” might refer to God’s eternal judgment rather than the events of the tribulation period, it cannot be denied that this verse shows again that Paul and those early Christians were waiting for Jesus Christ, not the Antichrist. (For the record, the promise that the Christian will be delivered from God’s wrath, whatever exactly that specifically means, is also found in 1 Thessalonians 5:9 and Romans 5:9.)

Really, though, in light of what had happened when Jesus had ascended to heaven, how could those early Christians not have been looking for Him to return? Remember that as Christ’s followers had stood there, having just watched Jesus disappear into a cloud, two men in white apparel — no doubt angels — had said to them, “This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

You see, that’s the event those early Christians were expecting each and every day. Jesus had disappeared into the clouds and He would surely come back to snatch them away into the clouds (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Even old John himself, who wrote The Revelation, remembered Jesus saying to him and the rest of the chosen 12, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:2-3, N.A.S.B.).

Evidence #3: Jesus Himself spoke of an escape from all the tribulation period.

In Matthew chapters 24 and 25, Jesus gives His most extensive teaching concerning the tribulation period. As a matter of fact, the term “the tribulation period” stems from His words in Matthew 24:21 as He says, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.”

Matthew isn’t the only gospel writer, however, who provides us with a record of that particular teaching. Luke’s account of it is found in Luke chapter 21, and even though he doesn’t give us nearly as much of the teaching as Matthew does, he includes a few quotes that Matthew doesn’t. One of them is Luke 21:36, which in Luke’s gospel serves as Christ’s closing statement to the teaching. And what does Jesus say to close out His most detailed teaching on the tribulation period? He says, “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to ESCAPE ALL these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man (Christ’s favorite title for Himself).” So, how could it be possible for anyone to escape all the events of the tribulation period and come to stand before Jesus Himself? You got it: the Rapture.

Under this same heading, it should also be noted that Jesus promised the Christians of the church in Philadelphia that He would keep them from (not through) the tribulation period. This promise is found in Revelation 3:10, and it’s a part of Christ’s words via John to that church. Jesus says to those Christians, “Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.” The phrase “the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world” simply cannot refer to anything other than the coming tribulation period. No other “hour of trial” ever involved “the whole world” simultaneously. Therefore, if Jesus promised to keep those Christians of Philadelphia from the tribulation period, it shows us that He promises the same for all Christians. After all, He sees each one of us as being part of the same body (Ephesians 5:23).

Furthermore, many students of prophecy apply a secondary interpretation to each of the churches to whom Jesus speaks in The Revelation. Under this secondary interpretation, each church represents not only a literal body of believers that was in existence during John’s lifetime but also a distinct era of church history. For example, the first church to whom Jesus speaks — the church of Ephesus — represents the earliest decades of the church age. Those decades began with Christians having a zealous love for Jesus, but over the course of the years that zealous love waned somewhat. Next, the second church — the church of Smyrna — represents the era when the Roman government leveled its most intense persecution upon the church.

On and on the interpretation goes like that, making its way chronologically down through the major eras of church history by having each of the seven churches represent an era of that history. Under this interpretation, then, the sixth church to whom Jesus speaks — the church in Philadelphia — represents the era in which the Rapture will take place. That’s why Jesus said as a part of His remarks to that church, “Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.” Obviously, the “hour of trial” He is describing must involve “the whole world” (not just the Roman empire), and it will test “those who dwell on the earth” (a phrase that is very different from “those who are part of the church,” “those who are believers,” etc.).

By putting all of this together, we can see that the phrase “the hour of trial” can be taken to be a reference to the tribulation period, the Christians who live in the era just prior to the beginning of that time will be kept from that hour, and the seventh church — the church of the Laodiceans — can be understood to figuratively represent the false church that will continue to meet in the tribulation period after the Rapture. Because every “member” (for lack of a better word) of that false church will in actuality be a lost unbeliever who missed the Rapture, it makes perfect sense that Jesus says of that church, “I will vomit you out of My mouth” (Revelation 3:16).

Evidence #4: The Holy Spirit has to be removed for the Antichrist to be revealed.

The passage here is 2 Thessalonians 2:6-8. In those verses, Paul says to the Christians of Thessalonica: “And now you know what is restraining, that he (the Antichrist) may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one (the Antichrist) will be revealed…”

Okay, so who is this “He” who is doing so much restraining that the Antichrist can’t be revealed until He is taken out of the way? The answer is: God the Holy Spirit. No single individual or human institution is big enough and powerful enough to restrain the devil from unleashing his masterpiece of destruction upon the earth. Only God can handle that job. And where does God the Holy Spirit dwell upon this earth? He dwells inside the bodies of born-again Christians (Romans 5:5, Romans 8:5-11, 1 Corinthians 6:19, 2 Corinthians 5:5).

Ask any true Christian why he/she doesn’t do certain sinful things they’d like to do, and the answer you’ll get is, “It’s because the Holy Spirit inside me brings me under so much conviction.” You see, the Holy Spirit is a restrainer of evil even among Christians. So, if you think this world is morally deplorable now, just imagine how much worse things will get when all the restraining that God the Holy Spirit is doing through Christians is taken out of it.

It should be understood, though, that there will be people who get saved during the tribulation period (I’ll talk more about that in another post) and the Holy Spirit will have a ministry during those years. Whatever is meant by the Spirit being “taken out of the way” it doesn’t mean that He will retire to heaven and never been heard from again. What it does mean is that in the tribulation period the Spirit will no longer play the role of restrainer. During those years the “mystery of lawlessness” that was already at work in Paul’s day will run loose and rampant to the fullest degree, and as a part of that the Antichrist, who is called not coincidentally “the lawless one,” will be fully revealed upon the earth.

As an aside thought here, let me point out that we Christians don’t give ourselves enough credit for the job we’re doing in holding back Satan’s tide in this world. In 1 John 4:4, the same John who wrote The Revelation says to Christians, “…He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” The “He” who is inside each and every authentic Christian is none other than God the Holy Spirit, and when you get multiplied millions of Christians around the world allowing the indwelling Holy Spirit to work and minister through them, it makes for a powerful restraining force against Satan’s evil tide. That force is gone, though, at the moment of the Rapture, and that will allow the Antichrist to step forward to the spotlight of the world stage and start ushering in Satan’s tribulation-period agenda.

Now, in closing, let me say one final thing concerning Christians going through the tribulation period. For the most part, those who teach that Christians will go through all or part of the tribulation period cite as their reason the idea that Christians must somehow be “purged” through the trying events of those years to be made ready for heaven. Oftentimes you’ll hear it described as the bride of Christ (the church) being made spiritually spotless and without blemish for her wedding.

While I do understand this line of thought, there are two facts that it doesn’t take into account. First, just because a Christian is forced to endure trying times, it doesn’t automatically mean that the Christian will repent of his/her sins. To the contrary, sometimes trying times can cause the Christian to become angry with God and frustrated to the point of sinning all the more because living a holy life doesn’t seem to be helping. Could this not happen to Christians in the tribulation period?

And then, second, the truth of the matter is that millions of Christians have already missed their opportunity to be “purged” and made ready for Jesus by way of the tribulation period. They missed it by dying and going to heaven before the period began. Is there any valid reason then why God would force the Christians who have the misfortune of being alive when the period begins to go through it? Surely there isn’t. Therefore, this becomes yet another piece of evidence that the Rapture will take place before the tribulation period and Christians really will miss all of those dark and trying days.

Posted in Prophecy, Series: "Bible Prophecy in Chronology", Uncategorized | Tagged evidences for a pre-tribulation rapture, Holy Spirit removed for the Antichrist, pre-tribulation rapture, way to escape the tribulation period, will the church go through the tribulation period? | 6 Comments

The Tribulation Period

Posted on January 7, 2017 by russellmckinney

Bible Prophecy in Chronology series (post #4)

The tribulation period is a seven-year period that Bible prophecy teaches will come upon this earth. These seven years will be unlike anything human history has ever experienced. They will be so devastating, catastrophic, and horrific that Jesus said if God didn’t bring them to a close, no one would be left alive upon the earth (Matthew 24:21-22).

As is so often the case with Bible prophecy, we must go to the book of Daniel to find the beginnings of this subject. In Daniel 9:20-27, we have the record of how the angel Gabriel came to the prophet Daniel and gave him what is known as “the prophecy of the 70 weeks.” This prophecy is without doubt one of the most important prophecies in all of scripture. The term “70 weeks” comes from the King James translation’s rendering of the passage. In the K.J.V., Gabriel says to Daniel, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city” (Daniel 9:24).

What we must understand, though, is that the Hebrew word that is translated in the K.J.V. as “weeks” is shabua. In Hebrew, a shabua is a unit of measure that is used to designate a collection of seven things. Just as the English language uses the word “dozen” to refer to a collection of twelve, the Hebrew language uses shabua to refer to a collection of seven. Therefore, what Gabriel literally said to Daniel was, “70 sevens are determined upon your people and upon your holy city.” As a matter of fact, this is exactly how the N.I.V. translation translates the phrase. In the same vein, the New Living Translation translates it as “seventy sets of seven.” Furthermore, since the context for the entire chapter involves years of Jewish history (Daniel 9:2), these “sets of seven” obviously refer to years of Jewish history. Putting it simply, Gabriel told Daniel about a 490-year period involving the Jewish people.

Now, Gabriel got very specific as to when this period would begin. It would begin with “the issuing of the decree to restore and build Jerusalem” (Daniel 9:25, N.I.V.). Keep in mind that as Gabriel was speaking to Daniel, Daniel and his fellow Jews were living in Babylon as exiles from their homeland. The Babylonians had been responsible for that exile and the destruction of Jerusalem, but now a new world power had arisen and defeated the Babylonians. That new world power was Medo-Persia (an alliance between the Medes and the Persians). Even though Daniel didn’t know it as Gabriel was speaking to him, the Medo-Persians would deal kindly with the Jewish exiles in Babylon by allowing them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it.

As for identifying the specific decree that Gabriel had in mind, there were three separate Medo-Persian decrees that involved the Jews returning to Jerusalem. First, in 538 B.C. Persia’s Cyrus the Great issued a decree that authorized the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s temple. The Bible mentions this decree in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23, Ezra 1:1-4, and Isaiah 44:28. Second, in 517 B.C. Darius the Mede issued a decree that basically just reaffirmed the previous decree that Cyrus had made concerning the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s temple. The Bible records this decree in Ezra 6:1-12. Third, in 445 B.C. the Persian ruler Artaxerxes Longimanus issued a decree that allowed for the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s wall, its streets, and by in large the entire city itself. The Bible’s account of this decree is found in Nehemiah 2:1-10.

So, which of these three future decrees did Gabriel have in mind as the starting point for the 490-year period? Most prophecy experts identify the third decree, the one from Artaxerxes Longimanus in 445 B.C., as the beginning of Gabriel’s prophetic word. This makes sense because this decree is the only one of the three that deals with the restoration and rebuilding of the actual city of Jerusalem. The first two merely involved the rebuilding of the temple. If you need more specificity on the date for that third decree, scholars tell us it was given on March 14, 445 B.C.

Continuing on now with specifics of the prophecy, Gabriel told Daniel that the 490-year period would be divided into three parts. Part #1 would consist of 7 “weeks” (49 years), and by the end of those years Jerusalem’s wall and street would be rebuilt (Daniel 9:25). Part #2 would consist of 62 “weeks” (434 years), and after those years the Messiah would be “cut off” (Daniel 9:26). Part #3 of the prophecy would consist of the last “week” (7 years) of the 490 years, and as a part of it an unnamed person referred to as “he” would “confirm a covenant with many for one week (7 years)” (Daniel 9:27).

By the way, as we are interpreting the years of this prophecy, we should understand that a year on the Jewish calendar was 360 days, not the 365 that we Gentiles know so well. For example, the Bible says that the flood of Noah began on the 17th day of the second month (Genesis 7:11) and ended on the 17th day of the seventh month (Genesis 8:4). That’s five months, right? However, it also says that the waters decreased at the end of the 150 days (Genesis 8:3). And what’s 150 days divided by five months? 30 days per month. In terms of prophecy, we see this same thing in Revelation 11:2-3, where 42 months equates to 1,260 days, which again equals 30 days per month.

Okay, so now we are ready to start putting all this together. Actually, we don’t have to because it’s already been done for us. More than a century ago Sir Robert Anderson wrote a book entitled The Coming Prince, and in that book he painstakingly worked out the specifics of “the prophecy of the 70 weeks” as follows:

March 14, 445 B.C.: The 490-year prophetic period begins with the issuing of the decree from Artaxerxes Longimanus concerning the restoring and building of Jerusalem.
The prophecy’s first 49-year period (7 “weeks”) + the second 434-year period (62 “weeks”) = 483 years (69 “weeks”).
483 years at 360 days per year = 173,800 days
Beginning at March 14, 445 B.C. and counting 173,800 days forward brings you to April 6, A.D. 32.
According to Anderson, April 6, A.D. 32 was the day that Jesus rode that donkey into Jerusalem in what is known as His triumphal entry. That entry was Jesus publicly and dramatically fulfilling the Messianic prophecy from Zechariah 9:9 (Matthew 21:1-11, Luke 19:28-40). This was the “Palm Sunday” before Christ’s resurrection the following Sunday. However, the Jewish religious leaders hated Jesus, ignored His claim to be Messiah, and began plotting all the more to have Him killed. This they accomplished a few days later by persuading the Romans to crucify Him. All this fulfilled Gabriel’s prophetic word that the Messiah would be “cut off” at that time.

Is Anderson’s well-known and often-used interpretation and computation correct? It certainly could be. Even if it’s off a few days, a few years, or in some other way, it at least offers us a good example of how “the 70 weeks prophecy” might hash itself out in time and history. One thing is for sure: God knows all the relevant dates, actions, and outworking of the prophecy, and He’s the one keeping score. That’s why we don’t have to obsess over every last detail and date. All we have to do is trust Him and know that the future is in His capable hands.

But there is one thing that we really need to understand today about “the prophecy of the 70 weeks.” Once Jesus was “cut off,” the clock on the prophecy stopped ticking, and it hasn’t started ticking again yet even though some 2,000 years have now passed. You see, Gabriel didn’t tell Daniel about the church age, which began after Christ’s resurrection on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-39) and runs until the moment of the Rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53). Gabriel didn’t explain the church age to Daniel because “the prophecy of the 70 weeks” is all about the Jewish people, Jerusalem, and the Jewish temple. For that matter, the church age isn’t mentioned anywhere in the entire Old Testament. The church age exists between the end of the 69th “week” of Gabriel’s prophecy and the beginning of the 70th “week.”

And just when will that 70th “week” begin? That’s an answer that Gabriel did give Daniel, even though Daniel couldn’t have possibly understood it all in his time. Gabriel said, “And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city (the rebuilt Jerusalem) and the sanctuary (the rebuilt temple) (Daniel 9:26). The “prince who is to come” is a reference to the Antichrist (and I’ll talk about him more in a later post), and the people who destroyed the rebuilt Jerusalem and the rebuilt temple were the Romans in 70 A.D. approximately 40 years after Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. This means that the Antichrist will rise to world power from a revived Roman empire. Once he is in power, he will “confirm a covenant (treaty) with many for one “week” (seven years) only to break that covenant midweek (three and a half years into it) (Daniel 9:27). And what other name do those seven years of that last “week” go by? The tribulation period. The seven-year tribulation period is the 70th “week” of “the prophecy of the 70 weeks.”

As I begin to close, let me describe what’s going to happen at some point in the future. The Antichrist, who will have risen to power from an end-times Roman empire, will sign a seven-year treaty with the nation of Israel. Many believe that, as a part of this treaty, provisions will be made that will allow the Jews to build a new temple in Jerusalem. This belief might hold true, but I’m not ready to teach it as absolute, undeniable fact. What I will say with total certainty is that the moment the Antichrist puts pen to paper and signs the treaty with Israel, the old clock on “the prophecy of the 70 weeks” will start ticking again.

First and foremost, those last seven years will have to do with God’s dealings with Israel. That won’t mean, though, that the Gentiles on earth at that time won’t also come under the sway of what God unleashes. You can read about it all in Revelation chapters 6 through 19, Mark 13:3-37, Matthew 24:3-51, Luke 21:7-36, Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39, and various other passages. Trust me, it won’t be a time for the faint of heart.

But will Christians be on the earth to experience it? Ah, that’s an excellent question, one that I’ll answer in my next post. So, until then, keep sorting all this information out for yourself and take the time to study all these passages. Even though it’s unlikely that the angel Gabriel will ever pay you a personal visit, if you own a Bible you have even more prophetic light to work with than Daniel did.

Posted in Prophecy, Series: "Bible Prophecy in Chronology", Uncategorized | Tagged 30 days in a prophetic month, 445 B.C., Artaxerxes Longimanus, Daniel's 70 weeks, Daniel's 70th week, March 14, Sir Robert Anderson, the tribulation period | Leave a comment

The Rapture

Posted on January 5, 2017 by russellmckinney

Bible Prophecy in Chronology series (post #3)

When it comes to God’s prophetic schedule, the next event due up is the Rapture. You won’t find the word “Rapture” anywhere in our English translations of the Bible, but the best passage on the subject is 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18. In these verses, the apostle Paul makes a promise to the Christians of Thessalonica, and it’s a promise that extends to all Christians. He writes:

But I do not want you to be ignorant (uninformed), brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep (died), lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if (because) we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus (died as Christians). For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep (dead). For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

The Greek word that is translated as “caught up” in this passage is harpazo, and it means: to catch, to force, to pluck, to pull, to seize, to take, or to snatch. My favorite description of the Rapture is “the great snatch.” As for the actual word “Rapture,” before the New Testament was translated into English it was translated into Latin, and the Latin translation of harpazo is rapere. From the Latin rapere we get the English rapture.

The sequential order for the Rapture is laid out very clearly in scripture. It goes as follows:

Jesus descends from heaven and into “the clouds.”
The deceased bodies of all the Christians who have died from the beginning of the church age (the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:1-47) until the moment of the Rapture are resurrected, glorified, and snatched up to meet Jesus in the air. There they will be reunited with the souls that once inhabited them, Jesus having brought those souls with Him from heaven.
The Christians who are alive on the earth at the time will be caught up to meet Jesus in the air. Even though their bodies will have no need of resurrection, the bodies will be transformed into glorified ones just like the resurrected, glorified bodies of the deceased Christians. Likewise, since the souls of the living Christians will still be inside their bodies, there won’t be any need for those bodies to be reunited with the souls that once inhabited them.
All Christians, now in glorified bodies that are fit for eternity, will return to heaven with Jesus and will never again be separated from Him.

Now, the vital thing to understand about the Rapture is that it is not the same thing as Christ’s second coming. They are two completely different events. At the Rapture, Jesus comes only to earth’s sky; at the second coming, His feet literally touch down upon the earth. At the Rapture, Christians are snatched up to be with Jesus; at the second coming, Christians come back down to earth with Him. At the Rapture, Jesus comes with salvation; at the second coming, He comes with judgment. At the Rapture, the world won’t really know what just happened; at the second coming, every eye will see Him as He is.

“But why,” you ask, “won’t the world know what just happened at the Rapture?” It’s because the entire Rapture will play out in less than one second! The New Testament’s other classic Rapture passage is 1 Corinthians 15:51-53. In these verses, Paul writes to the Christians of Corinth:

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep (die), but we shall all be changed – in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

The Greek word that is translated in this passage as “moment” is atomos. As you can see, it’s the Greek word from which we get our English word “atom.” This means that the Rapture will play out in an atom of time. That’s why Paul can say that it will be over and done with “in the twinkling of an eye.” You see, he is describing an event that will strike so unexpectedly and be over with so instantaneously that the world’s population won’t know what hit it. Christians will literally be here one second and gone the next. For this reason, the Rapture is sometimes called “the secret Rapture.”

If you think I’m exaggerating the miraculous rapidity of the Rapture, let me point you to the story found in Acts 8:26-40. I won’t retell the whole story, but it’s the story of Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch. What we need to focus upon is what happens immediately after Philip baptizes the eunuch. Verses 39 and 40 say:

Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.

Wow. Did you catch what just happened there? As soon as Philip and the eunuch came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit “caught Philip away.” Guess which Greek word is used there for “caught away.” You got it, it’s our word harpazo, the same word that is used for the Rapture. Therefore, we might say that Philip was raptured sideways to Azotus, which was located some twenty miles north of where Philip and the eunuch were. As for how Philip left the eunuch, the passage merely says: “the eunuch saw him no more.” Do you know what you call that? You call it being unexpectedly snatched in an atom of time and being suddenly caught away in the twinkling of an eye.

Alright, now that we have a good understanding of what the Rapture is and how it works, I want to close this post by answering some commonly asked questions about the Rapture. Since the number seven signifies completion in scripture, I’ll go with seven of these.

Do the bodies of the Old Testament believers get resurrected and glorified at the Rapture? No. Those bodies get resurrected and glorified at Christ’s Second Coming, not the Rapture (Job 19:25-27, Daniel 12:1-3).
If Jesus descends from heaven “with a shout,” “with the voice of an archangel,” and with “the trumpet of God,” how will earth’s inhabitants not hear all that? Evidently they will hear something in that split second, but everything will happen so quickly that they won’t have time to mentally process what they hear.
Will Christians literally just vanish off the face of the earth? Yes. Illustrations about cars crashing as they suddenly lose their drivers or planes crashing because they lose their pilots really aren’t far-fetched. Such things could happen.
Will children under the so-called “age of accountability” be taken in the Rapture? I believe they will. Just as I believe that the souls of children that are miscarried, aborted, or die very young go to heaven (2 Samuel 12:22-23, Jonah 4:11), I believe that children under the age of accountability at the time of the Rapture will be taken in the Rapture.
How will God be able to resurrect and glorify Christian bodies that have either long ago turned to dust or experienced some kind of dismemberment (lost a leg in a war, lost a finger in an accident, got blown up in an explosion, got eaten by a shark, etc.)? All I know is that the God who created Adam out of the dust of the ground and Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs can handle any procedure involving the human body. No Christian will be forced to spend eternity in a body that is in any way lacking.
What appearance of age will the Christian bodies have after resurrection and glorification? It’s impossible to answer this question with certainty because the Bible simply doesn’t tell us. There is some speculation that since Jesus was 33 when His body was resurrected and glorified this is the appearance of age that every Christian body will have in eternity. While this idea makes some sense, it’s mere speculation. All we can say for sure is that a glorified body will be perfect, pristine, and eternally awesome. Surely children will be “grown up” in eternity and the elderly will be “young” again.
Will graveyards, cemeteries, and mausoleums be disrupted by the Rapture? When we think about the aftereffects of the Rapture, the natural inclination is to envision graves blown out from the inside, mausoleums with the roofs torn off them, and church cemeteries that look like fields of open pits. However, we need to remember that Christ’s resurrection didn’t alter His tomb in any way. Yes, the circular stone that served as the entrance to it was rolled away by an angel, but that was to let eyewitnesses in, not to let Jesus out. Jesus, in His resurrected, glorified body must have simply passed straight through the rock of that cave. So, if His glorified body could do that, I suppose we should assume that every glorified body can.

Posted in Christ's Second Coming, Christ's Resurrection, Christ's Return, Prophecy, Resurrection, Series: "Bible Prophecy in Chronology" | Tagged in a moment of time, in the twinkling of an eye, what does harpazo mean?, where do we get the word rapture, will children get taken in the rapture, will the rapture be a secret rapture? | Leave a comment

Discerning the Signs of the Times

Posted on January 3, 2017 by russellmckinney

Bible Prophecy in Chronology series (post #2)

In my first post from this series, I explained that the human race has been living in the “last days” time period of history ever since the birth of Jesus. But the real question on most people’s minds is: Are we living in the final, closing days of that period? That’s a question that is open for debate, and in today’s post I’m going to offer my opinion.

To get things started, I’ll name four pieces of evidence that seem to suggest that we are living in the closing years of the “last days.” Each one of these is produced by taking the Bible in one hand and real-life events in the other. See what you think.

The rebirth of Israel as a nation: You won’t study the Bible’s record of future events long before you run into some event involving the nation of Israel. Okay, so what’s the big deal? The big deal is that in the year A.D. 70 the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem, burned the Jewish temple, and put an end to Israel as a formal nation. Because of this, for centuries students of Bible prophecy had a major problem understanding future events in the light of Israel’s current status. All that changed, though, after World War II as in the wake of the Holocaust the United Nations approved a plan that would create two states in the land of Palestine: one Arab, one Jewish. The new state of Israel was officially declared on May 14, 1948. Since then Israel has been a formal nation and held a portion of their ancient homeland of Canaan (Israel, Palestine).
The reuniting of Europe: The book of Daniel teaches that the coming Antichrist will rise to power from what Daniel’s prophecies describe as a Roman empire revived in the end times. The ancient Roman empire, you’ll recall, in its heyday ruled over much of Europe. Once that empire fell, Europe remained divided into independent, autonomous countries for many centuries. Leaders such as Charlemagne, Napoleon, and Hitler all tried to unite Europe under their rule the way it had once been under Rome, but they all failed. However, what no dictator could do from a military standpoint the nations of Europe have now done from an economic one. The roots of this uniting can be traced back to the days following World War II, but the current edition of the union is known as the European Union, which replaced the previous European Common Market. Many students of prophecy see the European Union as a revived Roman empire.
The explosion in technology: Daniel 12:4 says that in the time of the end “knowledge shall increase.” Surely we have to admit that the 20th and 21st centuries have seen a veritable explosion in knowledge – certainly technological knowledge if nothing else – and this explosion can be understood to have a definite bearing on certain prophetic passages. I’ll mention two examples. Example #1: Revelation chapter 13 describes the coming Antichrist and his right-hand man, the False Prophet. The chapter famously says that these two men will require the citizens of earth to receive a mark (the “mark of the beast”) on the right hand or in the forehead. Without this mark no citizen will be able to buy or sell anything. The means of implementing such a mark, complete with the mark’s impact on buying and selling, used to befuddle prophecy experts. Now, though, in this day and age of computer chips, scanning devices, bar-code technology, etc., anyone who has ever checked out at Walmart understands how the “mark of the beast” could work. Example #2: Revelation chapter 11 describes a time when the Antichrist will kill two men who are described as God’s “two witnesses” and people across the whole world will see their bodies lying in the streets of Jerusalem. For centuries it simply wasn’t possible for people across the whole world to witness any singular event. But now we have satellites, televisions, the internet, computers, and smart phones, and if a major news event happens in Jerusalem we can all see it instantaneously.
The army of 200 million: Revelation 9:16 talks about an army of 200 million soldiers. While there is some debate as to whether this is an army of humans or an army of demons, the best interpretation is that it’s an army of humans who do the bidding of the four powerful demons (fallen angels) that are described in Revelation 9:13-15. If this interpretation is correct, the passage teaches that the army of 200 million will kill a third of mankind and the four demons will get the credit for the kills. That’s astounding enough, but what makes this prophecy even more incredible is the fact that when it was written there weren’t even 200 million people alive on the earth! That’s why for centuries an army of 200 million soldiers seemed like a fantasy to those who studied prophecy. It’s little wonder that many of them concluded that the army must be one of demons rather than humans. However, in this 21st century, world population numbers have now reached a point where China alone could send out an army of 200 million. This, of course, is to say nothing of China forming an alliance with some of the other countries of the far east (Japan, North Korea, South Korea, India, etc.). Along these lines, it’s probably not a coincidence that Revelation 16:12 talks about an alliance of “the kings from the East.”

Okay, I’ll admit that these pieces of evidence make a compelling case that we really are living in the closing years of the “last days.” However, before we run off completely unchecked with this idea, we should give a hearing to a couple of pieces of evidences that don’t quite fit the idea, at least not yet. Again, see what you think.

The lack of a rebuilt Jewish temple: Some of the prophecies that involve the nation of Israel center around a rebuilt Jewish temple. Prime examples of these prophecies are 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, Revelation 11:1-2, and Daniel 9:27. The obvious problem here is that the last Jewish temple was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70 and there hasn’t been one since. In 1987, an organization called The Temple Institute was founded in Jerusalem. This organization is devoted to the goal of building a new Jewish temple, complete with a full priesthood as well as authentic reproductions of the ancient priestly garments and ritual items that were used in temple services. This means that the building of a new Jewish temple (the one that is mentioned in prophecy) could take place in a relatively short amount of time if the Jews ever cleared all the political, logistical, and geographical hurdles to build it. It hasn’t happened yet, though. I should point out that many prophecy experts assert that the new temple will be built after the Rapture (and I’ll talk about the Rapture in the next post), and I myself tend to agree with that assertion. In all honesty, though, there isn’t anything in scripture that indicates that the temple has to be built after the Rapture.
The numbers problem in the European Union: I’ll readily concede that the current European Union might be the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecies about a revived Roman empire in the end times. The problem, though, is that Daniel describes that revived empire as being a division of ten. I won’t go into all the symbolism and prophetic interpretation of Daniel’s prophecies, but we see this division of ten in the ten toes of the image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2:1-45 and the ten horns of the fourth beast in Daniel’s dream in Daniel 7:1-28. For that matter, we see the same thing in the symbolic description of the Antichrist wearing ten horns in Revelation 13:1, with these horns being fully explained in Revelation 17:12. What all these passages teach is that the revived Roman empire the Antichrist will use as a springboard to power will be a union of ten. But how many countries are currently a part of the European Union? 28. I suppose it’s possible that the European Union could eventually set up ten districts or regions to categorize all these countries into broader territories. That might fit Daniel’s prophetic profile. It’s also possible that Britain’s recent “Brexit” vote to leave the European Union could start a domino effect that whittles the Union down to ten countries in the near future. As of now, though, the high number of countries in the European Union poses a problem for prophecy students who think the E.U. is the fulfillment of Daniel’s end-times prophecy.

Well, I trust that this post has offered a balanced take on the question: Are we living in the final, closing days of the “last days” time period? And now I’ll humbly offer my best current answer to the question. After studying Bible prophecy for over twenty years now, I am of the opinion today that the table is just about 100% set for the events that are prophesied to take place in the closing last few years of the “last days.” As I’ve pointed out, every single detail might not be precisely in place at this very moment, but I don’t think we should ignore the table, the tablecloth, the plates, and the silverware simply because the napkins aren’t on the table just yet. We’d be foolish to do so. That’s my opinion, anyway.

Of course, I could be wrong. I mean, it’s not like I claim to have any hidden knowledge that isn’t available to anyone else. Furthermore, I’m certainly not about to start setting dates and encouraging people to sell their homes and businesses so that we can all head out to a mountaintop to wait on Jesus to come. All I’m saying is that it seems to me that an awful lot of things are currently firmly in place for the Bible’s record of the closing years of the “end times” to start coming to pass. Jesus Himself rebuked the Pharisees of His day for not being able to discern the signs of the times (Matthew 16:2-3). That shows us that He expects us to keep up with what’s going on in our world in regards to scripture and prophecy. And when we do that today it really is hard not to think that this whole thing might be winding down a lot faster than most people realize.

Posted in Prophecy, Series: "Bible Prophecy in Chronology", Uncategorized | Tagged an army of 200 million, are we living in the closing years of human history?, Israel's rebirth as a nation, knowledge shall increase in the end times, the Brexit vote in prophecy, the European Union in prophecy, the Temple Institute, will there be a new Jewish temple? | 1 Comment

Are We Living in the Last Days?

Posted on January 1, 2017 by russellmckinney

Bible Prophecy in Chronology series (post #1)

A farmer and his wife were lying in bed. It was midnight and the wife was asleep, but the farmer hadn’t dropped off yet. Suddenly the grandfather clock out in the living room began to bong. The old clock’s bonging was a familiar sound to the farmer, and he began to count off the bongs. Bong. “That’s nine.” Bong. “That’s ten.” Bong. “That’s eleven.” Bong. “That’s twelve.” “Okay,” the farmer thought, “now I can get to sleep.” But then the old clock got hung up and just kept on bonging. Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. In a panic, the farmer shook his wife and said, “Honey, wake up, wake up.” The wife groggily opened her eyes, rolled over to look at him, and asked, “What’s the matter? What time is it anyway?” The farmer answered, “I don’t know, but it’s later than it’s ever been.”

Obviously, we are always living in a time that is later than it’s ever been, right? But are we living in the so-called “last days”? Would it surprise you to learn that the Bible answer is, yes? If it does, then you’ll really be surprised to hear that we’ve been living in the “last days” for over 2,000 years. According to scripture, the “last days” time period began with the birth of Jesus Christ that night in Bethlehem. As Hebrews 1:1-2 says:

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, who He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds. (N.K.J.V.)

This one passage might be enough to make the case, but the fact is that multiple other passages also teach that we are living in the “last days” period. Here are some more (all from the N.K.J.V.):

He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. (1 Peter 1:20-21)

Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. (1 John 2:18)

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy….And from such people turn away! (2 Timothy 3:1-5) (Notice that Paul encourages Timothy to “turn away” from such people, which implies that Timothy would be encountering them, which implies that Paul and Timothy were living in the “last days.”)

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. (James 5:1-3)

“But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh…” Acts 2:16-21 (The point of this passage is that the fulfillment of the prophet Joel’s “last days” prophecy (Joel 2:28-32) began on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13) and will carry on up through the incredible days described in Acts 2:19-20.)

Of course by now you might be asking, “But how can a period of time at least 2,000 years long and counting be described as the last days?” Well, consider a couple of meanings for the word “last.” First, the word can refer to the numerical end of something. For example, I might say, “I ate the last cookie.” Used in this way, “last” means that no more will follow. The “last days” time period fulfills this definition in that it concludes God’s dealings with the human race before Christ’s second coming. Think of it this way: Christ’s first coming began the “last days” and His second coming ends them. The “last days” are that period of time sandwiched between the two bookends of Jesus walking the earth.

Second, the word “last” can also convey the idea of being the most advanced version of something. For example, a car company might say of its latest model, “This car is the last word in luxury.” In that sentence, “last” means that no matter what cars are produced in the years to come, they’ll never outdo the luxury of that particular model. So, when the Bible uses the phrase “last days,” “last hour,” or “last times,” it means that the era that Christ’s birth ushered in for the human race is the most advanced version of God’s revelation to mankind that will exist before Christ’s second coming. We now have the life, death, burial, resurrection, miracles, and teachings of Jesus at our disposal, not to mention the Holy Spirit who comes to indwell each individual who believes in Jesus as Savior. And what is all this revelation? It is nothing less than the most advanced revelation from God that is available until Jesus returns to walk this earth again.

Now, the New Testament does provide us with many of the distinguishing characteristics that earmark this time period. The relevant passages are: 1 Timothy 4:1-5, 2 Timothy 3:1-7, James 5:1-8, 1 John 2:18-23, 2 Peter 3:1-4, and Jude verses 3-19. The sins described in these passages were being committed in the days in which the New Testament was being written and they are still being committed today. Certainly over the course of the centuries there have been ebbs and flows to the frequency and intensity of the sins, but there has never been a time since Christ’s ascension back to heaven that the sins haven’t to some degree been on display in the human race. We might think of this package of sins as the box in which humanity exists and will continue to exist until Jesus returns to the earth.

Still, though, my guess is that none of this information I’ve provided in this post has answered the question you really want answered, which is: Are we living in the last days of the “last days”? That, admittedly, is a different question, and in my next post I’ll offer my answer to it. Until then let me encourage you to read those passages that name the distinguishing characteristics of the “last days” time period. As you read them, I think you’ll find that by in large they read like a copy of today’s newspaper or the latest news feed on an internet site. And why wouldn’t that be the case? After all, mankind has had over 2,000 years and counting to perfect those sins.

Posted in Prophecy, Series: "Bible Prophecy in Chronology" | Tagged are we living in the last days?, it's later than it's ever been, the last days | Leave a comment

The State of the Blog (2016)

Posted on December 28, 2016 by russellmckinney

W.A. Criswell was the longtime pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Each new year, on the first Sunday, he would preach a message entitled “The State of the Church.” In these messages he would talk to the congregation about the church’s accomplishments from the previous year and goals for the upcoming year. He would also provide the most current information on the church’s programs, missions work, budget, financial state, etc.

Along these lines, I’d like to use this post to offer what you might call “The State of the Blog.” This will be just a general overview of where things stand right now with this blog. The information is geared toward my regular readers, but anyone is welcome to read it. I hope everybody finds it informative.

In August of 2009, I took the advice of my publisher and began writing the blog as a way to promote my book Straight Talk About God’s Will. What I didn’t know at the time was that the blog would make much more of an impact and have a much longer shelf life than the book. That first year I wrote 114 posts which received a total of 5,172 views. Obviously, many of those viewers were repeat viewers who checked in on the blog regularly, but it’s not like it was just one member of my family visiting the blog over 5,000 times. So, I was very pleased with that first year.

After that initial burst of writing, I scaled back sharply in 2010 and only wrote 29 new posts. The great thing about a blog, though, is that your old posts remain on the site to be found by new viewers each day. That, coupled with the views of the new posts, allowed my views for 2010 to increase a bit to 5,285. Then came 2011, my most prolific year for new material. That year I wrote 198 new posts and the views almost doubled to 10,067. The following year, 2012, I added another 107 posts and the views reached 15,671.

It was along about here, though, that I hit a wall in terms of writing. It’s not that I had run out of things to say or subjects to tackle. The problem was that I was fried. Writers aren’t robots, and sometimes you just have to go on hiatus and regroup. So, in 2013, I only wrote 5 new posts. Again, though, new readers kept finding the old posts and that allowed the views for the year to remain virtually the same as the previous year at 15,126.

And that’s when something really weird happened. In 2014, even though I didn’t write one new post, the blog’s views jumped to 25,924. The funny thing is, I didn’t even know it was happening because I wasn’t paying attention. You see, I had left the blog on the internet as a site frozen in time and had walked away. I hadn’t even bothered to periodically update my personal information, modernize my format, or provide a current picture of myself. None of that mattered, though, as people continued to visit the site each day and read something from it. Go figure.

I didn’t write any new posts in 2015 either, and I guess my inactivity (to say nothing of the now very outdated looking site) finally caught up to me as the views fell to 11,261. Still, though, considering the fact that I didn’t lift a finger to put any work into the blog that whole year, it was a pretty good year in terms of views. Then came 2016, and the blog’s status quo continued into September. That’s when I finally revisited the site, took a fresh look at the numbers, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the views were holding up reasonably well. For all intents and purposes, I had considered the blog-writing season of my life closed and had abandoned the site, and yet people had continued to find and read stuff that I had written. Again, go figure.

So, that’s when the Lord began to rekindle my fire for the blog. I could hear His still, small voice inside me saying, “For over 20 years as a pastor you’ve been wanting the opportunity to teach the Bible to more people, and here I’ve given you a platform for reaching far more people than you’ve ever reached through your pulpit ministry.” Not long afterward I gave the site a new format, updated my personal information and picture, and started writing new posts. Since October 3rd – my 50th birthday – I’ve written 37 new posts, and as of today the blog’s views for the year stand at 14,189. If I had updated the site and started writing new posts in January rather than October, my guess is that 2016 would have broken the 2014 high in views of 25,924.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about this past year is that the views have come from no less 137 different countries around the world. Can you believe that? I’m still having trouble getting my mind wrapped around it. Here is a random sampling of the numbers:

United States (10,296 views)
Canada (474 views)
United Kingdom (447 views)
Australia (262 views)
India (261 views)
South Africa (253 views)
Norway (137 views)
France (31 views)
Italy (29 views)
Vietnam (12 views)
China (10 views)
Japan (7 views)
Egypt (4 views)
Israel (4 views)
Fiji (1 view)

I’ll tell you, folks, the internet is an amazing thing, and kind of scary. I’ve had 6 views each from Namibia and Estonia and 5 from Qatar, and I didn’t even know those three places existed. All I can say is, God bless all those readers.

There are now 490 posts on the blog and the total number of views since 2009 currently stands at 102,698. The top three posts on the all-time list of views are: Does God Want Everyone To Get Married?, How Does a Worm Get Inside an Apple?, and What Does the Bible Teach About Divorce & Remarriage?. I will say, though, that if the all-time views for #2 and #3 were combined and that total doubled, it would still fall far short of the views for Does God Want Everyone To Get Married?. The views for that post are now just under 10,000. That humbles me because I wrote that post as a part of a series on marriage, and I only wrote it because I didn’t want the single readers to feel completely left out of the series. That just goes to show how much I know.

Getting back to 2016, the top ten most viewed posts for the year were:

Does God Want Everyone To Get Married? (1,618 views)
How Does a Worm Get Inside an Apple? (990 views)
What Does the Bible Teach About Divorce & Remarriage? (190 views)
Why God Hates Gambling (179 views)
What a Bird’s Nest Can Teach Us About God’s Will (167 views)
The Importance of Spanking a Child (161 views)
Church Attendance In the Summer (151 views)
Should We Pray Silently To Keep Satan From Hearing? (151 views)
Oral Roberts & “Seed Faith” Giving (127 views)
The Importance of Individuality In a Child (127 views)

In regards to the most popular new posts from 2016, here are the top five:

Okay, Maybe I Wasn’t Finished (38 views)
A Story From the Lighter Side of Politics (31 views)
Is God Good All the Time? (part 1 of 3) (23 views)
A Bruised Reed & A Smoldering Wick (21 views)
False Expectations (16 views)

By the way, I should point out these numbers don’t factor in the number of people who read each of these posts when the post served as the blog’s home page. Hang with me here. When I publish a new post and the alert goes out to the 58 people who follow me via email and the 21 others who follow me on WordPress, if those people read the post that day or anytime before I publish a new post, their views get lumped into the general, nonspecific category of Home Page/Archives. The same can be said for any readers that visit the blog from the Facebook page or Twitter. This explains why 8,285 of the site’s 14,156 views this past year got filed under Home Page/Archives.

Think of it this way: For the most part, no new post gets its own listing on the “views” list until I’ve published another post to replace it as the site’s home page. So, because of this, each new post will get read by considerably more people than its views will eventually indicate. The exact number of extra readers will always be dependent upon how many people read the post when it is the home page, and that number varies from day to day. How often I publish new posts has a lot to do with it too.

Well, anyway, that’s enough of the technical jargon. Now let me close this out with, first, an announcement and, second, a word from the heart. The announcement is that I plan to devote the month of January to posts concerning Bible prophecy. I’m going to call the series “Bible Prophecy In Chronology.” I’ll be writing about topics such as: The Rapture, The Antichrist, The Tribulation Period, The Mark of The Beast, The False Prophet, The Battle of Armageddon, Christ’s Second Coming, and Christ’s 1,000 Year Reign. These posts will begin January 1, and I’m going to try to publish a new one every other day. If I can stick to that schedule, it will produce 15 posts in January. That should complete the prophecy series but if I have to spill over into the early part of February I will. I’m excited about the series and hope that you’ll join me for that journey.

And now for the word from my heart. I simply do not have the language skills to convey how much I appreciate you, the readers of this blog. When I sit down at a computer, work hard to write what I feel is a worthy post, and then hit the “Publish” button, I have absolutely no idea what to expect in return. I feel like a cook for a buffet-style restaurant. It doesn’t matter how many items I prepare or how good they taste, if nobody shows up to eat it’s all for nought. Thankfully, though, every single day some people show up at the blog site to eat, and for that I am beyond grateful. So, as we move now toward 2017, I’ll keep cooking and I hope you’all keep eating. I’ve enjoyed getting back into “blog mode” these past few months and, Lord willing, I’m going to continue churning out new posts for the foreseeable future. How He will use the blog in days to come is anybody’s guess, but if His track record in that department is any indication the blog’s readership will be just fine.

Posted in Personal, Uncategorized | Tagged Disciples Road blog, stats for Disciples Road blog, W.A. Criswell the state of the church | Leave a comment

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