PITP #02

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)

In a world that calls the cross foolishness, the prophetic word stands as a light shining in a dark place—and it all points to Christ's certain return.

The Cross as Foolishness in Our Day

I was surprised Monday night reading an Associated Press article about Cynthia McFadden's ABC interview with President Bush. Bush said that creation is not incompatible with evolution. When asked whether Scripture is literally true, he answered in his very George W. way, "Probably not. No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it." He affirmed the New Testament has good stories and the lesson that God sent His Son—and there is some truth there. But I read that against 1 Corinthians 1:18: "the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness."

I'm not insinuating that President Bush is one of the perishing, but he has undoubtedly become very politically correct after eight years in the White House. In that same interview he said the God he prays to is the same God people of other faiths pray to, and that the Scriptures are not literally true but contain great stories. In our culture today, if you believe the Bible is true—that evolution from "the goo to the zoo to you" isn't fact—you might be labeled a simpleton. If you believe God speaks and you speak to Him, you may be called crazy. There is a growing hostility toward Christianity and toward the biblical worldview we hold here at Calvary Chapel.

The More Sure Word of Prophecy

In this environment, the prophetic texts of the Bible become even more important. Notice what Peter says in 2 Peter 1:16-21. He says we have not followed cunningly devised fables, for he was an eyewitness of the majesty of Christ—he heard the Father on the mountaintop say, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." But he also says, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place."

This more sure word is "of no private interpretation," for "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." As Hebrews declares, God who in past times spoke to our fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son. Peter is saying we have something even more certain than eyewitness experience: the prophetic word that God gave to His holy men.

What Jesus Left Out at Nazareth

Early in Luke's gospel, Jesus came to Nazareth and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath (Luke 4:16-21). He was handed the scroll of Isaiah and read: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor... to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Then He closed the book, gave it back to the minister, and sat down. In that day, when a rabbi sat down, it was time for teaching—we see the same pattern when Jesus sat on the mountaintop in Matthew 5 and on the Mount of Olives in Matthew 24. All eyes were fastened on Him, and He said, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears."

More interesting than what He read is what He left out. Turn to Isaiah 61:1-2. The full text reads, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn." Jesus stopped at the comma. He came the first time to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. He will come a second time to proclaim the day of vengeance and to comfort all who mourn. In that single comma of Isaiah 61:2 sit almost 2,000 years—the gap between the first and second coming.

The Year of Grace, the Day of Vengeance

Notice the word year—"the acceptable year of the Lord." He is coming again to proclaim the day of vengeance. I am thankful that the time of God's grace is longer than the time of His wrath. Jesus said in Matthew 24:21-22 that unless those days of great tribulation were shortened, no flesh would survive. The time of God's wrath poured out on a Christ-rejecting world is nowhere near as long as the 2,000 years of grace we have lived under.

Remember last week's key word: comfort. In Isaiah 39 God told Israel He would judge them through Babylon, and in the very next chapter He says, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." The comfort came after the trial—the remnant would return and the Messiah would come. So here in Isaiah 61, after the day of vengeance comes the time of comfort, "to comfort all that mourn in Zion." There is a coming day when God will comfort all who mourn among the children of Israel, regathering His people as He has already begun to do.

The Sign of His Coming

The disciples asked the key question in Matthew 24: "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age?" On the Mount of Olives, in the Olivet Discourse, Jesus answered. In the first fourteen verses He describes wars, rumors of wars, pestilence, and earthquakes—but He calls these only "the beginning of sorrows," not the end.

Then in verse 15 He tells us plainly: "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place... then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains." Then, verse 21, "shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world." Many Jews in Jesus' day—even Josephus—believed Daniel's abomination of desolation had already been fulfilled by Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century B.C., when he offered pig's blood on the altar and provoked the Maccabean revolt. But Jesus says it is still future. Antiochus was only a type of the coming Antichrist.

Daniel's Seventy Weeks

For the meaning of all this, go back to Daniel 9:24-27. "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon the holy city"—Jerusalem—to finish the transgression, make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, seal up the vision and prophecy, and anoint the most Holy. The passage continues: from the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; and "he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week," and in the midst of the week cause the sacrifice to cease. There is the abomination of desolation.

I've studied this passage for some time and found remarkable things. Consider Sir Isaac Newton—arguably one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, the inventor of calculus, advanced in physics and astronomy. He was also a great theologian and Bible scholar who spent the last twenty years of his life studying the prophetic Scriptures, especially Daniel. He translated Daniel from Hebrew and was fascinated by the seventy weeks. He believed Daniel's prophecy concerned both Christ's first and second comings, and—250 years ago—he insisted Israel would become a nation again, even though most theologians of his day said Israel was now only a spiritual entity. Newton said no; it would be literally fulfilled.

1948, 1967, and the Counting of Days

Newton understood the sixty-two weeks as sixty-two seven-year periods running from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem (458 B.C.) until Messiah the Prince—434 years. But he believed the remaining seven weeks of years (forty-nine years) pertained to the second coming: when Israel became a nation again and began to rebuild Jerusalem, one could count forty-nine years to the coming of Messiah the Prince.

On May 14, 1948—sixty years ago this year—Israel became a nation after the United Nations decree of November 1947. But Israel did not take Jerusalem until June 7, 1967, at the end of the Six-Day War, when Israeli paratroopers came weeping to the Western Wall. They began to build Jerusalem "even in troublous times," exactly as Daniel 9:25 says.

Now count forty-nine years from June 7, 1967. The Jews follow a lunar calendar of 360 days, not our 365¼-day solar calendar. Take 360 × 49 = 17,640 days. Add that to June 7, 1967, and you arrive at September 23, 2015—which is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And after forty-nine years comes the year of Jubilee, the time of great rest and rejoicing. The very last day of this forty-nine-year period is the Day of Atonement, and the next day begins the Jubilee. Remember: after the day of vengeance comes the time of comfort and rest.

Signs in the Sun, Moon, and Stars

The prophet Joel speaks of this. In Joel 3:15 the sun and moon are darkened and the stars withdraw their shining, and the Lord roars out of Zion, "but the LORD will be the hope of his people." Jesus speaks of the same in Matthew 24 and Luke 17; Isaiah does too—references to solar and lunar eclipses.

In 2014 and 2015 there is a remarkable series. A total lunar eclipse falls on Passover, April 15, 2014; another on the Feast of Tabernacles, October 8, 2014; another on Passover, April 4, 2015; and another on Tabernacles in 2015. NASA calls four consecutive total lunar eclipses a "tetrad," and these fall on Israel's feast days—Passover, Sukkot, Passover, Sukkot. This has happened before: 1967-68, 1948-49 (Israel's founding), and 1492-93 (the year the Jews were expelled from Spain and Columbus sailed).

There are solar eclipses too. One falls on March 20, 2015—the first of Nisan, the religious new year—and another on September 13, 2015—the Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah. Because the Feast of Trumpets falls on the first of the month at the new moon, the Jews observed it over two days and called it "the feast that no man knows the day or the hour." What did Jesus say? "No man knows the day or the hour."

The Dark Time and the Nations

There is more. On August 1, 2008, there was a total solar eclipse; another comes July 22, 2009, and another July 11, 2010. On the Hebrew calendar all three fall on the first of Av. From the seventeenth of Tammuz to the ninth of Av is "the dark time" in Israel. The seventeenth of Tammuz is when Moses came down and broke the tablets at the golden calf. The ninth of Av is the saddest day in Israel: the first temple was destroyed in 586 B.C., the second temple in A.D. 70, both World Wars connected to it, the Russian pogroms, Columbus's expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, and the 2006 expulsion of Jews from the Gaza Strip.

Jewish rabbis teach that a solar eclipse means bad news for the nations and a lunar eclipse means bad news for the Jews. The August 1, 2008 solar eclipse fell on the first of Av. Has it been bad news for the nations? Two months later, on the first of Tishri—the Feast of Trumpets, October 1—the Dow Jones dropped 777 points, a 7% loss of $700 billion, on the first day of the seventh month. A coincidence is "a noteworthy alignment of events without obvious connection." I don't believe in coincidence.

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God

In Psalm 19, David says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech... There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard." God has set a tabernacle for the sun in the heavens. The astronomer Kepler found in the 1600s that the stars move in perfect, synchronized order, so precise we can calculate exactly where they will be two hundred years from now or two thousand years ago.

As we saw last week, Satan always perverts the creation of God. The stars were given to declare God's works, but with Satan's help man convolutes them into astrology—"the stars tell me what's in it for me." Genesis 1:14 says God made the lights "for signs, and for seasons." The word for signs is the Hebrew oth, a distinguishing mark, signal, or warning. The word for seasons is moed—an appointed time, meeting, or feast—the same word used in Leviticus 23 for "the feasts of the LORD." The stars are an appointment, a calling for everyone to gather because God is doing something.

The Constellation of the Coming One

The oldest book in the Bible names constellations. In Job 38:31-32 God asks, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season?"—Mazzaroth being the Hebrew word for the zodiac, the constellations—"or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?" In Job 9:9 he says God "maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades." Job clearly understood these things; I believe he received that understanding from the Lord. Arab tradition holds that the constellations were passed down from Adam through Seth and Enoch.

Each of the twelve major constellations has three minor ones—forty-eight in all—and every major civilization associates the same star pictures with them, each telling a story. Consider the constellation Boötes. In Joel 3:9-12 God says, "Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war... Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen." The word assemble shares the Hebrew root of the star Arcturus, which means "to gather"; the word come is the Hebrew bo. Arcturus is the brightest star in Boötes—a man coming forward with a spear in his right hand and a sickle in his left. His brightest star, in the knee, means "to gather"; a star in his forehead, nakar, means "the pierced one." The picture is the King, the pierced one, coming to judge and to gather.

Joel continues: "Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe... Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near." Revelation 14:14-20 shows the same: One like the Son of Man on a white cloud with a golden crown and a sharp sickle, reaping the harvest of the earth, and another angel gathering the clusters into "the great winepress of the wrath of God." This is the pierced One who comes to judge and to gather His elect.

The Gamma-Ray Burst of 2008

This becomes remarkable when you learn that on March 20, 2008, NASA observed the brightest and largest gamma-ray burst they had ever seen—the only one ever recorded visible to the naked eye. A gamma-ray burst occurs when a star implodes and explodes, sending out rays near the speed of light. This star was 7.5 billion light-years away, yet NASA said the ray was aimed perfectly at Earth—one website described it as a beam "the thickness of a pencil" directed precisely at us. What are the chances—unless there is a God who did it on purpose? And it happened in the constellation Boötes, the One who comes, the pierced One coming to judge and to gather.

Two thousand years ago, the magi watched the stars and saw a sign that the King was coming, journeying west to Jerusalem and on to Bethlehem, as Micah 5:2 foretold. They knew the Messiah was coming because they saw something in the heavens. And this gamma-ray burst happened on the Feast of Purim—the day the nations gathered to destroy the Jews, yet Israel was allowed to stand. On Purim 2008, in the very constellation that speaks of Christ returning to reap and gather His elect, the heavens spoke again.

Watch, for He Is Coming

I am not setting dates—do not leave here telling anyone that Miles set a date for the Lord's return. I am telling you to watch, because He is coming. In Matthew 24:22-31 Jesus warns that false christs and false prophets will arise with great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven... and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven... And he shall send his angels... and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds." Then He says, "Now learn a parable of the fig tree... when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors."

In Luke 17, Jesus describes two harvests. "Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles"—better, the fowls—"be gathered together." As it was in the days of Noah and Lot, people ate and drank and married until judgment fell suddenly. "Remember Lot's wife"—there is your memory verse for the week. "Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it." Then, "In that night there shall be two in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left." For a long time I heard this taught as the rapture. But notice the disciples' question: "Where, Lord?" And He answers, "Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." These are taken for judgment—the multitudes in the valley of decision.

What Manner of Persons Ought We to Be

The day is soon approaching. What manner of persons ought we to be? "Be ye holy; for I am holy." That is the response when we consider these things. In Matthew 25 every kingdom parable carries one point: be watchful, be awake, for the day is coming. First Thessalonians 5 says the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night—but it comes upon those who are asleep; "ye are not of the night," so be sober and watch. As Jude says, the Lord comes with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment—prophecy spoken by Enoch, who walked with God and was not, for God took him.

People ask me when the rapture will happen. We know there is an event called the rapture: the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to be forever with the Lord. We know from Jude and Revelation 19 that He returns with His saints, riding on white horses. Whether pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib, we can discuss another night. Whatever the case, He is coming. As I once heard Mike McIntosh say on the radio: "I pray for a pre-tribulation rapture; but if I see the man who appears to be the antichrist and the temple rebuilt, I'll start praying for mid-trib; and if I see the abomination of desolation, then I'm just looking forward to the Lord coming—because you can count the days." After that, Scripture is clear: three and a half years to the day until He comes.

Prophecy Coming True Before Our Eyes

Even non-Christians are speaking of the end of the world. Someone called me, upset, saying we are in the midst of a "financial Armageddon." The Mayan calendar mysteriously ends December 23, 2012—three and a half years from the 2015 passages we have been examining. Who knows? All I can say is: watch.

In Revelation 2-3 Jesus writes to seven churches. To Laodicea, the lukewarm church, He says, "I counsel thee to buy of me... white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear." To Sardis, the dead and sleeping church, He says, "Be watchful... If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief." And in Revelation 16:15, "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame."

"The thief in the night" was a title for the chief priest, who walked the temple at night to make sure the Levites were watching. If he found one asleep, he took fire from the altar and set the man's garments ablaze. You can read about this on the Temple Institute's website, and Josephus records that it actually happened—a sleeping priest was awakened, taken by surprise, and cast off his burning garments, left naked and ashamed. Oh, that we would not be left naked and ashamed, but be the wise virgins with oil in our lamps, ready and watching.

Why God Hides the Hour

I believe God has not made the exact moment of His return clear for a reason. If you knew He would come next Tuesday at two o'clock, you might live it up until then. The Lord wants us ready at all times, expecting His soon return. We have the more sure word of prophecy, and He will come again.

Twenty-five hundred years ago, in Ezekiel 36, God said Israel would become a nation again—and on May 14, 1948, in a single day, she did, just as Isaiah asked, "Shall a nation be born at once?" In Ezekiel 38, God said there would be an alliance between Persia and Gog and Magog—the Scythians, associated in the encyclopedias with the Russians. Persia became Iran in 1935. Russia and Persia never had an alliance in 2,500 years—until just a few years ago. And not only these, but a list of radical Islamic nations join them.

The Gathering Storm and the Lord's Defense

Isaiah 17 makes clear that Damascus will be destroyed and left a ruinous heap, with a great loss of life in Israel at the same time. Damascus—the capital of Syria, one of the most ancient continually inhabited cities—has never ceased to be a city, but Isaiah 17 says it will. If Israel preemptively strikes Iran or Syria, I do not believe our new administration will be able to stand behind her, and the world community will cry out for embargoes against Israel. If America's financial system declines, I believe we may see an exodus, part two—Jews leaving New York and Hollywood and returning to Israel, making her an island unto herself, "a cup of trembling" as the prophets said.

Meanwhile, watch Russia. Putin, now prime minister, may yet return as president under extended term limits, possibly until 2021. We will see a continuing alliance of Iran and Russia coming against Israel. But Ezekiel 38 says God will defend His city miraculously, "that the heathen may know me." There is a great atheist push today—signs on buses asking "what if there is no God?" But when the Lord defends His people and prophecy comes true, no one will be able to deny it was the Lord. And if in the twinkling of an eye millions are gone, they'll just say aliens took them. Behold, He comes.

Closing Prayer

Father, we are living in times that Your word has more to say about than any other time in history. We are seeing history and prophecy come to pass right before our eyes. Help us to be watchful, ready, and expectant. Just as we talked about on Sunday, You have called us to occupy until You come and to preach the gospel. Stir us with such a fire and passion to share the truth of Your word with those who don't know You, so that on the day You come, we with many others will be riding on horses with You.

We look forward to the day when You set foot on the Mount of Olives and it splits down the middle, when You will rule and reign upon the earth—that time of great Jubilee, of rest and comfort. We know it comes after a great tribulation like the world has never seen, a fearful time and not something to celebrate. But we are excited about Your return. Fill this body with anticipation of Your soon coming, and help us to speak boldly the truth. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.