And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be 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: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Matthew 24:3-8
I think it's fair to say that the 20th century was the beginning of birth pains. We've had two world wars, a forty-year cold war, more recorded natural disasters than anyone would care to count. We’ve seen the rise of three substantive empires (American, EU, and China), as well as the fall of three substantive empires (Ottoman, British, and the Soviet Union). We've seen the inconceivable rise in every field of knowledge known to man. We’ve seen the transformation of technology go from horse and buggy to space ships and everything in between. We’ve split the atom, doctored the gene pool, and uncovered quantum physics. However, the most significant event of the 20th is seeing the ancient nation of Israel resurrected from the ash heap of history to become a thriving, powerful, sovereign nation. So knowing all this, what do we do with this information? I mean, what I’m sharing here isn’t exactly “new” news.
Well, all of this has got me thinking about time again, and God’s excessive use of numbers in Scripture. As a side note, if you think the Bible is for simpletons and is a bunch of moral tropes, you are sadly mistaken. There is a reason why the Bible has been the most popular book for the past two thousand years. There is also the reason the Bible has never been disproven. I digress.
Not only does God love to use numbers to express His plans and patterns, but God also loves to use types to emphasize His plans and intentions to us long before they happen. Let’s take God’s use of the number seven in the Bible. This is not intended to be an in-depth review of Biblical numerology, but a summarized look to present/support the meat of this article. For a more in-depth and fascinating review of the number seven in the Bible, see here or here.
The number seven is used 735 times (used 54 times in the book of Revelation). When adding sevenfold or seventh, it goes up to 860 times. Seven is considered one of the perfect numbers and signifies completeness and perfection. It is used almost exclusively in dealing with the nation of Israel, thus, you will see the bulk of its references in direct correlation to Israel in some form or manner.
There are:
Seven days of Creation
Seven major divisions in the bible
Seven men of God (specifically mentioned as such) in the Old Testament
Seven baptisms
Seven parables
Seven miracles
Seven presentations of the Gospel
Seven churches in Revelation
Seven judgments in each Seal, Trumpet, and Bowl judgment
More specifically (referencing time)
7 Days- Week
7 Weeks (or Sabbaths) = 49 + 1 = 50
7 Months- Feasts
7 Years- Rest for the land
7 x 7 Years= 1 Jubilee
70 Years- Punishment
70 x 7 Years= 490 years (i.e. Israel’s prophetic cycle)
I think you get the point.
For the most part, when God uses the number seven, Israel must be taken into consideration. Going back to what I said in my opening salvo, the most significant event of the 20th century, is the resurrection of the nation of Israel. Without which, this would just be another century no different than the previous 18 that followed Israel’s diaspora courtesy of the Roman Empire. Interesting is the fact that in the same century that Israel is brought back to life, so has a united Europe come back to take on the mantel of the Roman Empire 2.0.
Although I’ve used this timeline in the past, I thought it pertinent to bring it back and update it considering the years which have since passed. This is specifically dealing with the before-during-after of the rebirth of Israel. Notice all the sevens.
Timeline
1897-2017= 120 years (time span limits)
o Theodore Herzl first Zionist Congress
1917-2017= 100 years (outer limits of a generation)
o Balfour Declaration (allowing European Jews to go back to their land)
o Collapse of the Ottoman Empire realigns the Middle East
1947-2017= 70 years (judgment, testing, heptad)
o United Nations issues Resolution 181 on 25NOV47 (Jewish partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab state)
1948-2018= 70 years (judgment, testing, heptad)
o 15MAY48- Israel declares itself a nation
1967-2017= 50 years (Jubilee, liberation, freedom)
o 5-10Jun67- Six-Day War (Jews reclaim and unite all of Jerusalem)
1977-2017= 40 years (testing)
o Camp David Accords begins (begins Land for Peace Initiative)
1987-2017= 30 years (related to the Temple)
o Temple Mount Institute created
2017= Year Zero
o Pres. Trump declares Jerusalem Israel’s eternal capital (first US president to do so)
2018-2028=10 years (Psalm 90:10, 2 Peter 3:8-9)
2018= Year +1
o Pres. Trump moves US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
2019= Year + 2
o BREXIT finalized
o Trump recognizes the Golan Heights as part of Israel
2020= Year +3
o COVID-19 Pandemic sweeps the world
o Abraham Accords (normalization between Israel and Arab states)
2021= Year + 4
o Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel’s longest-serving PM) replaced
o the US bungles Afghanistan withdrawal
o AUKUS (US, AUS, UK) security alliance formed
o COVID Vaccine (mRNA) mandates
2022= Year +5
o Russia invades Ukraine
o NATO tested (will need to be disbanded and rebranded)
o Cyber-attack?
o New Pandemic?
o Israel strikes Iran?
o China invades Taiwan?
2023= Year +6
o ??
2024= Year + 7
o Next US elections
Assessment
So moving forward, we know that there are still certain events we should expect to happen prior to the start of the 70th Week of Daniel. We would call this time between the Rapture and the official start of the 70th Week of Daniel “the gap.” How long this gap is, is anyone’s guess, but my guess is around 3.5 years. We also know that within the 70th Week itself, several things need to happen. So based on my above-abbreviated timeline, are we seeing those things? For instance:
Anticipated Pre-Tribulation Events
1. Crisis, natural disasters, wars (and rumors of wars), geopolitical stage setting
2. Technology for a global digital currency to exist (Rev. 13:16-18)
3. Technology continues to advance at a frightening pace
4. The Rapture of the Church catches the world off guard (Rev. 3:10, 1 Thess. 4:13-18, 1 Cor. 15:51-55)
5. The US goes from a world superpower to a world super-dumpster-fire almost instantaneously
6. Without a strong or capable US, the War of Gog and Magog happens (happens prior to the Tribulation due to time constraints set forth in Ezekiel 39:9-10)
7. Reclamation of the Temple Mount by Jews for new Temple (Luke 21:24, Rev. 11:1-2)
8. Discovery of the perfect red heifer (this is currently ongoing)
9. Ten Kings to come together to form some kind of geopolitical alliance (Rev. 17:12)
10. We need the arrival of a False Prophet candidate to help shepherd the new global religion (Rev. 13:11-15) I’m sorry guys, but despite being a full reprobate, Pope Francis isn’t the guy. He’s 85 years old and wouldn’t live long enough to last the full 7+ years to make it to the end.
11. Arrival of the Two Witnesses (Mal. 4:5-6, Rev. 11:3-14)
Tribulation Events
1. The “covenant” between Israel and the “many” (Dan. 9:27)
2. Technology for a global digital currency is implemented (Rev. 13:16-18)
3. The Little Horn (Antichrist) rises up and supplants three of the ten kings
4. The rest of the Seal Judgments are released sequentially (red, black, pale, etc.)
5. The Trumpet Judgments
6. Abomination of Desolation (signals time of Jacob’s Trouble)
7. The Bowl Judgments
8. Armageddon
9. Second Coming of Christ
The Days of Noah and Lot
That was intended to be a very brief summation of both the time leading up to the Tribulation and the Tribulation itself. I realize I skipped a lot. Let’s move on to some interesting and overlooked correlations to the Days of Noah and Lot.
1. Noah’s Ark: I don’t know if this has any real prophetic significance or not, other than the fact that no other generation that I know of, has had not one, but two, full-size representations of Noah’s ark built to scale (one in Europe and one in the US). I believe we are the only generation (I mean since Noah’s) that has had the technology to do this.
2. Homosexuality and the rest of the pervert alphabet are not just being legalized but are being normalized in large portions of the world. You literally cannot watch anything on television or at the movies, or at sporting events, or anywhere, without it being thrown in your face.
3. Violence: One half of the world is uniting under the many guises of the: New World Order, the Great Reset, the Agenda 2030, etc. Even within the west, many of the subgroups are becoming increasingly tribal (conservatives, progressives, anarchists, etc.) The other half of the world is also becoming tribal: India’s Hinduization, Russia’s Duginism revamping of “Eurasia,” China’s Middle Kingdom Complex, Islamic regimes repeated attempts to bring back the caliphates and the sultanates (Al Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, Iran, etc.). I see these clashes as coming to fruition by the time the rider on the red horse (Rev: 6:3-4- Seal 2)
4. Occultism/Supernatural: As the western world increasingly becomes “post-Christian,” what we see filling that vacuum is mysticism, paganism, and Luciferianism. The west has become infatuated with the idea of superpowers, reviving ancient myths, and the occult. Go to any bookstore, and go to the teen section and see what dominates the fiction section there. Go to Netflix or any other streaming service and see what dominates there. Same with video games and online gaming. Pop culture and soon, the rest of our culture is becoming increasingly darkened by the stain of occult themes and propaganda.
5. Return to Babel: Jesus mentions the days of Noah and the days of Lot as being similar to the time when He returns. Well, what happened between those days? The Tower of Babel incident (Gen. 11). We are once again returning to a time when technology (artificial intelligence, language translator apps, etc.) is minimizing the language barrier to such a degree, you don’t even really need to learn other languages.
6. Population: Many bible experts believe the antediluvian population exceeded several billion before the flood. Genesis 6:1 states: Now it came about, when mankind began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them…So we are now (at 8.5B people) at the largest population since before the flood.
Conclusion
There is a lot of speculation here, but if Trump's official recognition of Jerusalem being Israel's eternal capital means anything prophetically (I believe it does- or it would have been done long ago), then I'm using that as year zero. I mean, the Jerusalem Embassy Act was signed into law in 1995, and the three subsequent presidents ahead of him could have easily done it (I.e. Clinton, Bush, Obama). Yet, they all took the option to pass and kick that particular can down the road.
On the other end, Trump could have recognized Jerusalem and moved the embassy in 2020, or 2021 (as his last political act) and thrown all the speculation into the wind, but he didn’t. Rather, he did it exactly 70 years from the UN Resolution 181 (which allowed for the state of Israel to be reborn). Furthermore, I believe he is the first gentile ruler since at least Cyrus to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital (Isaiah 44:24, 26, 28). An argument can be made that he (Cyrus) didn't officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel's "capital" since that would imply the national status of Israel (or Judah back then), but the point remains- God moves kings and rulers to do His bidding (Acts 17:26).
So if my points about 2017 or the number seven have any merit at all (it may or may not), then using 2017 as year zero, I would simply count forward seven years which takes us to the world's only superpower's next major election. A superpower I might add, that isn't mentioned anywhere by name or type in bible prophecy.
Apologies upfront for yell-typing, but I need to be clear by declaring this as loudly and boldly as possible: I AM NOT SAYING THE RAPTURE IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN 2024. I have no idea when the Rapture will actually happen. I know and affirm Matthew 24:36 which clearly states that "no man knows the day nor hour." I am predicting neither the day nor the hour. I just find all of this convergence extremely interesting is all, and exciting.
However, if God does allow for Trump to be reelected in 2024 (against all odds as it was in 2016 and perhaps with a divine sense of humor), he would be the second president in US history since Grover Cleveland (1885-1889, 1893-1897) to win office in two non-consecutive terms. I mean, I'm not implying that Trump is a godly saint (neither were Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Truman, and Nixon for that matter) but He used them to accomplish His own purposes specifically for furthering the nation of Israel. Furthermore, what is Trump if not the very symbol of everything the globalists and progressives hate and loathe? And IF by divine providence a Rapture does happen that year, then technically, it would both literally and figuratively be at "the last trump." That is all I'm saying.
Have a great weekend! Maranatha!
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1 Corinthians 15:52-53 (KJV)