At this juncture, for the first time in world history, only one key sign of the times remains to be fulfilled. And before the Rapture can take place, it must happen. Most prophecy scholars have been overlooking this, claiming instead that all signs have come to pass by now and that the Rapture can take place with no further warning. They haven't, and it can't.
The second-most facinating aspect of Bible prophecy is its utter inerrancy, inexorability, and inevatability. If it's prophetic, and it's in the Bible, then it either already has happened, or it darned well will happen -- no if, ands, or buts.
The most fscinating aspect of Bible prophecy is actually twofold: (1) the moat dramatic prophecies in terms of numbers of people immediately affected by them haven't happened yet, and (2) the way events are culminating, it's probable that over 90% of those alive as you are reading these words will still be alive to experience them first-hand. It's sort of like a nose-in airplane crash, where the ones in the front of the plane are the first ones at the scene of the accident. We who are living now are analagous to those folks in the front, and those who'll be born 20 years from now represent the ones in the back of the plane. In this particular crash, it looks like it will be survivable for all in the back of the plane, and either death or a unique and life-changing experience is inevitable for those in the front.
Those who believe that the prophecies pertaining to the Tribulation were fulfilled in 70 A.D. are known as "preterists," and they couldn't be more wrong if they worked 24/7 at it. We'll explore why.
In another article in this website, we see that it is technically possible, within the temporal parameters set forth by Jesus in Matthew 24, for the Bible's final, "end-of-days" prophecies to potentially be as distant as the end of this century. By which time practically everyone alive right now would be dead and gone, and the whole matter would thus be moot. For them. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending upon one's point of view, I'm guessing (but not specifically date-setting) that the almost simultaneous Rapture event and the initiation of the seven-year-long Tribulation Period will happen well before 2020. The reasons for my thinking so will become apparent farther along in this article.
Based on Jesus' own words, the day and the hour of the Rapture is the best-kept secret in the cosmos. But as that time draws inexorably closer and is imminence more and more apparent, it's possible that just before it happens, we may be able to guess accurately at the year, and then perhaps even the month.
Unless you are reading these words after Christmas Day in 2012, you probably know that there are hordes of mostly-low-intellect looney-tunes running around who are convinced that the date will be December 21, 2012. It's likely that all of that ludicrous speculation stems from astronomical (not astrological) observations many hundreds of years ago that determined that the earth would pass directly between the sun and the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Something that actually happens pretty routinely, and always predictably, about once every 26,000 years or so. Among many others, the Maya Civilization -- which had some pretty sharp cookies in it, with respect to mathematical ability, as well as amazing accuracy in astronomy for a people that had never seen a telescope -- decided to base the end date of their calendar on the next time of that passage.
All of which is very interesting, but for all who actually think that there would be any more gravitational exertion on the earth from the galaxy's core on that date than there would have been on it two weeks before or after that date -- or for that matter, any detectable additional pull at all -- I have this deed to a really delightful bridge in New York that I'd like to discuss with them. And nothing else could have any affect whatsoever. It's just an interesting positioning, as when the moon passes between the earth and Venue, producing a short occultation (eclipse) of our sister planet. But nothing more. A lot of sensible people will be laughing at a lot of folks with sheepish looks on their faces on Dec. 22, 2012, unless the Rapture had already happened before December 21. (If, for example, the Rapture had already occurred in November, being concerned about a missed date-prediction would probably be one of the least of their worries.)
WHY the Tribulation Period did NOT take place Circa 70 A.D.
1. Several Prophesied Circumstances still were Impossible back then.
Consider this prophecy made by Jesus:
Matthew 24:33-34 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.
34 I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
It's noteworthy that Jesus used the phrase, "all these things," twice in those two short sentences. Because never before our current day have all of those signs ever occurred concurrently, and some of them not only never happened before, but could not have happened until recently.
2. Many events prophesied by Jesus to happen when he returns have never yet taken place.
Here are some that could never have come to pass until modern times. Most of those listed below were foretold by Jesus as events that would happen right at the time of His return.
Within Matthew 24 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Only since the advent of communication satellites has this been possible. "Sputnik," the first satellite ever, was launched only 52 years ago.
21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now -- and never to be equaled again.
The most terrible distress the world has seen so far came more than 1,830 years after 70 A.D. -- the time that some people these days actually and ludicrously believe was the fulfillment of the events Jesus prophesied: The Holocaust, the Russian pograms, and the millions that died as Mao Tes-Tung came into power. Every terrible time in the past paled compared to those. Such as the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition. The Black Plague was terrible, but far more died in World War II.
But now even those awful events are in the past. And Jesus said that the Tribulation He was prophesying would be unequaled, past, present or future.
It surely didn't happen in 70 A.D.
It didn't even happen in the 1930s and '40s.
But it will happen during the time frame of the generation that started either in 1948 (when Israel became a nation) or after the Israelis captured all of Jerusalem in 1967. Jesus will return in this generation now alive. Probably right after the only remaining prerequisite sign comes to pass.
Oh. And then there also are these signs that have never yet come to pass:
22 If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.
27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
29 Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
30 At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the peoples of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.
31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
3. The Final Perceptible Warning Sign
As mentioned above, all of the foretold prerequisites for Jesus' return -- to trigger the Rapture -- after which the seven-year Tribulation Period will immediately get under way, have already happened, except one. (Interestingly, the Tribulation will begin when the Anti-Christ negotiates and finalizes the seven-year long peace pact with Israel that he later will violate. At which time the world will learn his identity. So those who don't miss the Rapture will (according to the Bible) miss out on learning who that mysterious person is!) Now -- notice the wording of this passage:
Matthew 24:7-8 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
Nations (or ethnic groups) rise up against each other routinely these days, and there's a single famine going on in Darfur. and usually not-too-damaging earthquakes of Richter Scale magnitude 6 are frequent, but greater ones have been occuring in sparsely-populated ares. As this is being written, a cluster of moderate ones occurred in central Italy. Jesus indicate that these fairly normal occrrences would not het herald His imminent return.
The key statement that He made seems to be the "birth pangs" one. Labor pains are characterized by increasing pain and frequency as they progress. Becoming aware of this progression in the case of the intensity and frequency of natural disasters when they begin likely can be one last warning to those who are aware of the significance of that wording.
Such a scenario played out in 2005, but unfortunately was noticed by almost no one. It conformed so well to that pattern that it very well could have been the real thing. But it wasn't. It's very possible that God was doing a dry run, to see how many people would be aware of it, and warn their neighbors. If it was such a test, though, humanity failed it abysmally, with an F-minus. Hardly anyone noticed, even though the progression of events followed that pattern for months. It's 2009 now, and there would seem to be no reason to believe that people would be any more aware if it were to happen again, now. Nothing has changed to indicate that people are any more sensitive to this prophecy now than they were then. Almost everyone will almost surely drift blisfully unaware right into the moment when this happens. Just as Jesus said they would:
Matthew 24:37-44 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.
41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.
44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
Luke 21:34-36 34 Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.
35 For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth.
36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that Jesus' reference to the situation being described in Noah's day was a condemnation by Jesus of the sins that prevailed at that time. In so doing, they miss the actual point Jesus was making.
If Jesus had wanted to provide a litany of the sins being committed by people at that time, there are many truly heinous and loathsome one that He could have cited. But instead, Jesus was describing the normalcy that prevailed prior to the flood. People back then simply were doing the usual things that people always do. Such as eating, drinking, and getting married. Right up until the very day that Noah boarded the ark. Rather than heeding Noah's warning, and preparing for the imminent disaster.
As a result, the flood came upon them in the manner of a thief in the night, and caught them all unawares.
Just as will happen to people when the Rapture hits. Only a tiny number will have watched the signs that Jesus foretold, and taken note of their progression and significance. And of those, they few who try to raise a warning will almost surely be brushed off or laughed at. After all, really important things are going on, to be worthy of their attention.
Such as watching TV sitcome, and a myriad of other everyday activities.
So is the story of Noah and the flood allegorical, as Jesus' parables were? Probably. But whether allegorical or actual, it really doesn't matter. Because just like the story of Lot and his escape from Sodom and Gomorrah, it serves as a "type" of the Rapture to come in the future. To demonstrate that before God visits major disasters upon the world, He does two things first. He provides a specific and detailed warning of the event to come, and He provides a means of escaping the disaster, for those who heed Him. So whether allegorical or real, those stories reveal God's pattern for dealing with humanity with such monumental events that are directly attributable to Him. And given all that Jesus told us, and the other Biblical prophecies related to it, there is no reason to think that the Rapture and Tribulation will not be the real thing. And that all which came before were comparatively minor "dress rehearsal" run-ups to the Main Events.
4. The Rapture Generation Nears Its Fulfillment
Here is why the Rapture will probably happen during the next decade.
Look back at the top of this article, at Matthew 24:33-34. It make it clear that a generation living in our day is the one that will still at least partially be on earth when the cataclysmic End Times events take place. The specific generation is the one bracketed by the 1948 birth of Israel as a nation (or, possibly, the 1967 unification of Jerusalem as a wholly Israeli city) at its start, and the death of its last member at its end. If the circumstance of all of the signs having taken place were the only condition for the time of the Rapture's occaurrance, this could potentially be anytime during most of this century.
But that's not the only indicator. There also is this very important one:
Luke 21:28 28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
That's the kicker! All of the prerequisites except the above-described "birth pangs" progression already have come to pass, concurrently, and continue right now. Once that final, yet-to-be-fulfilled prophecy has begun, the Rapture could hin instantaneously at any moment after that. The key word in the above verse is: "begin."
With good fortune and God's grace, enough of the progression will have happened first to have become noticeable and identifiable as such, and a significant number of people will sound the alarm.
Hal Lindsey Jumps the Gun! On May 1, 2009, he wrote:
"The world is in virtual convulsions trying to avoid catching the latest version of the Swine Flu. For a contagion that has, thus far, proven to be remarkably mild and non-lethal on a global scale, it has disrupted the world's activities in a way few health scares have. Jesus Himself noted that in the last days we would witness a growing cacophony of threats and disruptions. Among the events He described were wars and rumors of war, conflicts and uprisings, earthquakes, famines, climate change, and plagues (or rumors of plagues?) in various places. He illustrated by describing the quickening onslaught as similar to what a woman experiences as she approaches childbirth. The 'birth pangs' will continually increase in frequency and intensity as the end nears. That's a profound description of what is happening before our eyes today."
My Open Response to Hal
May 1, 2009:Sorry, Hal. As astute and knowledgeable as you normally are, it's no cigar on this one. I'm not sure whether or not you were aware of the apparent "dry run" sequence of events that emulated Jesus' predicted "birth pangs" scenario, and could have been the real thing, in 2004-05 -- but it was far more dramatic than anything that's happening these days. I remind you that events of that time frame included the 2004 Tsunami that killed over 250,000, the major earthquake that shattered the Kashmir region, Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans, and Hurricane Rita, which had the highest central wind speed (albeit at sea) ever recorded in a hurricane. Ever closer and closer together, and ever greater in intensity.
By contrast, what we have these days is a half-baked flu virus that makes the common cold look like pneumonia by comparison, a couple of pipsqueak dictators trying to build bombs they could never use in an attack without facing obliteration, some piracy being carried out by teenage amateurs, and an Italian earthquake that managed to louse up a couple of villages and kill a comparative handful of people. Not to mention a recession that seems to be ending, and never even reached the 10.8% unemployment rate of the 1982-83 one. Compared to 2004-05, this supposed birth pangs "sequence" is akin to a pair of duelists fighting it out with cream puffs at 60 yards.
When the actual thing comes along, I have a feeling God will make it considerably more dramatic. (Even though most people still won't put two and two together with it, as this web page points out.)
Meanwhile, without such a sequence occurring first, the Rapture cannot yet happen. As you know.
This is not meant to be at all mean, Hal. You might want to look at my comments above in the light of what Joe Friday used to say on Dragnet. "The facts, please, sir. Just the facts."
-- Craig Chilton
But as we already know from that possible "dry run" in 2004-05, that warning probably will be sounded by almost NO one. (Perhaps by Hal Lindsey, though, when the actual one comes along. If he doesn't cry "Wolf!" too often, first. That's the risk, if one jumps the gun. People have become pretty inured to "This is IT!!" pronouncements.)
Then the "thief-in-the-night" scenario will befall the entire world, in the blink of an eye.
CONCLUSION Any person who thinks these events happened in 70 A.D. would just about have to either have never read Matthew 24. Or is not a Christian believer. Or is illiterate. It is obvious and undeniable to any intelligent Christian that the Rapture, and subsequent Tribulation for those left behind, have to be future events and probably (finally!) near-future ones.
Interestingly, the preterists' notion is SO specious, and SO easy to disprove, one has to wonder just what in the world they hope to gain by promoting it? Because ultimately, all they really stand to accomplish is to inevitably make monumental fools of themselves.
Copyright © 2009 by Craig Chilton, P.O. Box 3007, Evansdale,
Iowa 50707-0007.
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