THE GAME

THE GAME

                A football game, though it is set up to last for one hour, can last twice that or perhaps even more because the clock only runs when the ball is in play. And this is how Bible prophecy operates as well. The entire plan of God for Israel was placed within a framework of 70 weeks or 490 years. So we see this 490 year period divided into 7 weeks, or 49 years as Israel returned from captivity in Babylon to restore the city and the sanctuary. Then we have an additional 62 weeks leading to the Messiah.

                But when the Messiah was cut off after the 62 weeks it is as though the clock stopped ticking. The game could only be finished by Daniel and His people in conjunction with their Messiah and so when they rejected and cut off their Messiah, the mandates in Daniel 9:24-27 could not be completed and in fact they cannot be completed until the times of the Gentiles is completed and the Jews look upon Him whom they have pierced and they are once again reconciled to their Messiah.

                Concerning that final 7 year period there is much said. There is a prince coming who is of the people that destroyed the temple in A.D. 70. God’s people were scattered into all of the nations of the world.

                Now I know that many teach that the 70^th week was contiguous with the other 69 weeks, that Jesus was cut off in the midst of the 70^th week and that there was another 3 ½ years leading to the time when the Gospel went to the Gentiles and so that marked the end of God’s dealings with the Jews forever.

                This idea, of course is refuted by Paul in Romans 11 where he says that when the times of the Gentiles is complete, that God will pick up His irrevocable promises to Israel and He will save them in the end as promised.

                This view is also refuted by Jesus who placed the Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the Holy Place, as an end time event connected to the time of Jacob’s Trouble and the end of time and the return of Christ. Jesus said:

                When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place (whoso readeth let him understand) Then let them which be in Judaea flee to the mountains” and He goes on to say that there will be a time of great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no nor ever shall be. Mt. 24:15-21

                Again Paul places these events connected to the final temple and the final 7 years to the time period just before the second coming of Christ. In 2 Thess. 2:3-4 the people had asked questions concerning the coming of the Lord and our gathering to Him. So Paul said:

                “Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition (the prince who is to come who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing Himself he is God.”

                So the second coming of Christ cannot happen until the man of sin, (the antichrist) poses as Christ and comes into the temple claiming to be God. So this implies a literal third temple must be built, and the prince who is to come will confirm a covenant with the people (the Jews) for one week (the missing 70^th week) and in the midst of this final week of years he will cause their sacrifices to stop and he will declare that he himself is God and from that moment on, all hell will break loose in what is known as the “Time of Jacob’s Trouble.” And those who refuse to take the Mark of the Beast will have to flee Jerusalem and Judaea and go to a place where God will protect them for the remaining 3 ½ years.

                So then again in Revelation chapter 11 we see an angel measuring he temple and the outer court has been left out, because it has been given to the Gentiles and as we can see today, the temple mount has mosques on it so that even when the temple is rebuilt there, there will be no room for the outer court. So Daniel, Jesus, Paul and John the revelator all agree that a temple will be in existence in the last days and sure enough we see plans for the third temple literally coming into play in our time and everything is being set up just as the Bible describes it. (See Rev. 11:1-2)

                There are many texts speaking about Israel’s return to their land in the last days. One such text ties their return in with the time of Jacob’s Trouble saying:

                For, lo, the days come saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah saith the Lord; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they shall possess it. And these are the words that the Lord spoke concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the Lord, We have heard the voice of trembling, of fear and not of peace. Ask ye now and see whether a man doth travail with child? Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it, (Jer. 30: 3-7)

                This view of the final 7 years is not new as some would claim. In fact many of the early church fathers agreed. Lactantius wrote about the rebuilt temple in the last days prior to Christ’s return in his book “The Divine Institutes.” He described the seven year Tribulation period and the persecution that will be brought about by the antichrist: “Then he will attempt to destroy the temple of God and persecute the righteous people; and there will be distress and tribulation such as there never has been from the beginning of the world.”

                Another early church father Victorinus, also wrote about the Third Temple. His “Commentary on the Apocalypse” explored the prophecies found in the book of Revelation. Victorinus wrote about the False Prophet, the partner of the coming Antichrist, saying the False Prophet, the partner of the coming Antichrist will place an image or statue of the Antichrist in the rebuilt temple.

                Irenaus taught that the new Temple would be a genuine Temple built by religious Jews… and in his book “Against Heresies he affirmed his understanding of the Scriptures about animal sacrifice being reinstated in the future Temple.

                Sir Isaac Newton, an avid student of Bible prophecy concluded that a literal temple would have to be rebuilt in Jerusalem in order for last day prophecies to be fulfilled.              Unfortunately a large group of Bible scholars in the mid- 1800s final gave up on the idea that Israel would ever return to their land, or that Bible prophecy would ever be literally fulfilled and so they resorted to allegorical method thus rendering end time Bible prophecies toothless and without literal meaning.

                So now here we stand. Israel has been back in their land for 70 years. They are making plans for the third temple, in fact they are ready to build it at a moment’s notice and they are awaiting a covenant to be fulfilled that will grant them the right to build their temple and we see the forming of the antichrist global system that will take over the temple and commit the abomination of desolation in the temple..

               

                We see all end time prophecies coming to pass literally and physically and yet, since the church in times past built their doctrines on the allegorical method of interpretation and since they have denied that the literal Jews will build a literal temple and that a literal antichrist will come into the literal temple and declare himself to be God… they all seem to live in ignorance of exactly where we are in time and instead of picking up on what the people of the reformation knew when they came out of pagan Christianity, they are actually going back to Rome today to join forces with the False Prophet and His global religion.

                Still I don’t intend this article to be a doctrinal argument, but a wake- up call. All of these events are literally taking place right before our eyes.

                Some believe that the Pope will be the antichrist and he will indeed be a vital part of the antichrist system, but he is more or less fulfilling he role of the False Prophet rather than the antichrist as he gathers the religions together into one global religion. And the problem I have with his being the actual antichrist is that He can’t be both the Beast and the woman who rides the Beast and Revelation 17 describes the false church of the last days as the woman who rides the beast and then at the end of the chapter, it shows that the ten kings who reign with the Beast will hate the false church and destroy her.

                So we need to watch and pray and we need to stay on the alert because this covenant that Trump and Kushner and friends are working on could actually be the covenant that will be confirmed with the many, by the coming antichrist. This peace deal of the century that they are working on doesn’t make Kushner or Trump the antichrist, but the antichrist is said to confirm a covenant already made.

                Are we that close to the end? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, our world is descending into deep trouble. The UN recently put out a report saying that one million species of animals, birds, fish, plants and insects are due for extinction by 2020 and this poses an imminent threat to the survival of the human race as well. We are about to run out of food as the oceans die and changing weather wreaks havoc on our crops. Even our sun and our entire solar system are acting erratically as electromagnetic forces and radiation and cosmic energies fluctuate and act up, causing distress of our own planet’s core.

                The world is in turmoil as imminent war seems to be forming on every border, as laws continue to eat away at our freedom, as genocide of Christians goes on in many places and the globalists work on a “Solution” that we can recognize as the antichrist system. We are in the most precarious of times when even the mass death of honey bees could send the planet into starvation mode. Even now huge locust clouds are multiplying in the Middle East. Even a small swarm of locusts can eat the equivalent of 35,000 people every day. Floods and droughts are forcing thousands of farmers out of business and our fling with pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers and other chemicals, not to mention GMOs threaten to turn our soil into desert waste land and our oceans into sludge pools.

                Again, I am not trying to establish prophetic doctrines here or to argue with anyone’s understanding of these things. All I am saying here is that we are wading deep into end time events and much of the church seems to be asleep and unaware of our situation. Part of it is due to bad doctrinal interpretations of prophecy, and part of it is simply that we have become part of the world rather than a called out people. We have built our foundations upon times of ease and armchair prophecies and we have become too set in our ways to even question what we think we believe.

                Bible prophecy looks much different in reality than it does on paper. Remember, Jesus was rejected by His own people at His first coming simply because their traditions had carried them way off course. Jesus no longer fit their understanding. And I would propose that end time events no longer fit our understanding either.

                There are unexpected things taking place right now, such as the global implementation of Noahide Laws that don’t seem to fit in with the views of the Protestant reformers. Do we understand that these Noahide Laws include the beheading of Christians for idolatry because we believe Jesus to be God in human flesh? Do we understand that these Noahide laws are being embrace by the nations of the world including the USA and are being introduced into our schools and governmental institutions even as the bible and Prayer are being shoved out? It is quickly becoming illegal to use the name of Jesus in public or to quote the bible.

                The antichrist system is being set up right under our noses and we don’t recognize it simply because our traditional understanding makes us blind to other possibilities. We need a new renaissance in Bible study and prayer and devotion to God. There are, in fact, huge breakthroughs being made in our understanding of Bible prophecy and end time events, but they are often anything but conventional.

                We need to look at scripture with fresh eyes and a new call for the Holy Spirit to grant us understanding of what we read and what we see going on in the world. Instead of leveling our guns at everyone who sees it a bit differently than we do, we should pray for discernment and understanding.  The game is back in play and the clock is beginning to tick again as the times of the Gentiles draws to a close. Romans 11:25