Are we in the end times? Is the rapture at hand? The short answer is yes, but not the way most people expect. To figure out the time of the end, first we need to look to Jewish tradition and the rules God laid out for Israel in Leviticus.
First as we know on the seventh day of creation God rested from his work. In Leviticus God set down all the rules for good and healthy living. He said that the seventh day would be observed as a sabbath day of rest. Conversely every seven years was to be a year of cancelling debts, something we still practice today in secular society. Also every seven years you are to rest your fields from harvest and leave them fallow so they can replenish. Next there was the Jubilee. Jubilee means ram’s horn in Hebrew and is defined in Leviticus 25:9 as the sabbatical year after the seven cycles of seven years, which totals to forty-nine years. The fiftieth year was to be a time of celebration and rejoicing for the Israelites. The ram’s horn was then to be blown on the tenth day of the seventh month to start the fiftieth year of redemption.
The Year of Jubilee was to be a year of rest for Israelites and the land. The Israelites were to have a year to rest from their work, and the land was to rest to produce a bountiful harvest after its rest. So the pattern here is certain cycles of seven’s are to be for rest from your work and trials.
Jewish tradition holds that after 6000 years there will be a sabbatical millennium, and that is when their messiah will come and conquer the world. Of course the new testament of the Bible in revelation tells us of the 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ on earth. As Christians we believe this is the second coming, to Jews it means the first coming. Either way the first day of the seventh millennium should begin the sabbatical thousand years of rest.
Where are we on the calendar then? According to the Jewish calendar we are in 5782 years since creation. The Hebrew calendar is 360 days instead of 365 days. But they have a leap month every 2-3 years to make up the difference. This is done to maintain the seasons otherwise they would drift into different times of the year. Our calendar works the same way by adding a day every 4 years, in this way the seasons are always the same time time of year on the calendar. Now the Bible actually goes by the lunar calendar which is 354 days a year, so what we need to do is add 11 days a year for 5782 years and we will come out to the proper year. It comes out to about 180 years. We add that to 5782 and we come up with 5962, which means we should be within 38 years of the millennial reign of Jesus Christ on earth.
One sign that we look for to date the end and the rapture is the re establishment of Israel. The Bible speaks of the great dispersion of Israel to the nations. This happened in 70 AD. When the Romans sacked Jerusalem. The Bible also speaks of God re gathering of his people from the nations. This happened on May 14th 1948 when the United States and the United Nations recognized them as a sovereign nation after almost 2000 years of non existence. Continually in the Bible God warns Israel about their need to listen to him. Repeatedly they turn away. The prophet Jeremiah prophesied to Israel hat if they didn’t repent of their ways they would be conquered and taken into exile for 70 years. This happened beginning in 605 BC. The Babylon king nebuchenezzer invaded Israel on 3 separate occasions, the first was 605 BC. the second was 597 BC. and the third was 586 BC. 70 years after the first invasion, Cyrus of Persia who had defeated Babylon, issued a decree tat Israel was free to return home and rebuild their temple. The first exiles left in 586 BC. exactly 70 years after the first invasion, the second wave of exiles left in 527 BC exactly 70 years after the second invasion and the Temple was completed in 516 BC exactly 70 years after the final invasion in 586 BC. We see another pattern here that happens throughout the Bible. Most prophesies happen in three’s.
Now back to the present, we see Israel reconstituted in 1948. Now what we didn’t see was Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Telaviv was made the capital because of conflicts with the muslims that lived there. Through the years the muslim nations attacked Israel but each time it was actually Israel that gained ground until they controlled half of Jerusalem. Now every US president since had promised to move our embassy to Jerusalem and recognize it as the capital, but none of them ever did it until Donald Trump. On May 14th 2018 the United States opened it’s embassy in Jerusalem recognizing it as the capital of Israel. Exactly 70 years to the day of when Israel was reborn in their homeland. The reason this is significant is the Bible tells us that the generation that sees Israel reborn will see the end. If this prophecy is correct we have seen the first 2 of 3 events that signal the end. Of course the third event will be the second coming of Jesus Christ.
We are near the end, at most there are 38 years left, but there is no way to know the exact time God put all this into motion, so it could definitely be at any time. With the things that are happening right now I think it is clear the end has begun. .
Next time I explain in detail how we can know to almost the exact day when the rapture will happen.
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