Foundational Concepts to Understanding Bible Prophecy

(Second in a Series of Seven titled “Are These Days the End Times?”)

Dr. Roger G. Ford, Ph.D., P.E.

Dr-ford.net

2019

Introduction

In the first of this series, we covered many essential things from the right way to study God’s Word, the meaning of prophecy and why prophecy is controversial, why prophecy is important, why man’s ideas about how we arrived at this point in time compared to what the Bible tells us are different, the time that has elapsed from Creation to now (about 6,000 years), and an introduction to what should come next in the biblical timeline (the Rapture).

It is very important for all of us to fully understand the Word of God and the prophecy He has in store for us all. Why? So, we can accomplish God’s will in our lives and answer the age-old question, “Why am I here?” In order to fully understand the Bible, we need first and foremost the Holy Spirit Who enlightens us with His Wisdom to understand His Word. And, you only receive the Holy Spirit when you accept the Lord Jesus Christ not only as Savior/Redeemer, but as Lord of your life. But, secondarily, we must read God’s Word as what it is – the Truth, the TRUE Truth, and not spend time trying to read into the Bible what we want it to say. We have to take God’s Word as it appears, clear, without error, and profitable for us in our lives. To try to overlay our own preconceived notions over the Word of God is to blatantly deny God Himself and call into question what He has to tell us. It is blatantly saying that we know and are more savvy than God Himself!

We found out that about a third of the Bible was future, unfulfilled prophecy, when it was written, and there is a significant amount of Bible prophecy that is still in our future today. Many of the Old Testament prophecies have, indeed, come true, such as, for example, all the 300 or so prophecies concerning the first coming of Jesus Christ as Suffering Servant. Now, in order to discern what the remaining unfulfilled prophecies mean to us, we have to add to our understanding certain things we will cover at this time. Isn’t it amazing and incredibly wonderful that our God loves us so much that He wants us to know His plan for our and humanity’s future?

In this second-of-seven investigations into Bible prophecy, we will see what foundational concepts need to be fully understood in order to be able to not only read prophecy from God’s Word with understanding, but to grasp the reasons why God is telling us what is to come in our immediate future. I know that presentations about the details of prophecy (like what’s next) are exciting, even awesome, and we will get to them in due time, but we first need to know many things in order to know the truth of how God wants us to be enlightened. We will now look at very interesting subjects that are needed to fully grasp what God has to say to us about what is next for us, for the Jews, and for the rest of the world.

We will look at the order of Creation versus Evolution to see that we have been deceived into worldly thinking – not biblical thinking. Next, we will look at the age of the Earth because, again, what we are taught does not line up with the Bible. From the true age of the Earth we see how God has used certain times across the centuries, ages, dispensations, to prove to us as humanity that we need Him not only for salvation, but for everyday existence. Then we will see the hidden meanings in the Feasts of Israel as they relate to Jesus Christ, and finish with the significance of the restoration of the Nation of Israel and how that fits into the End Times prophecies.

Order of Creation vs. Evolution

God tells us in Genesis 1 and 2 that He created the heavens and the Earth in six literal days and rested the seventh day. These are days, “yom” in Hebrew, which always refers to literal days when associated with “the evening and the morning” as Genesis states, not eons of millions or billions of years as the evolutionists, the God-deniers, want us to believe. And, yes, I said “believe” simply because nothing is a “fact” unless it can be proven. The evolutionists claim that evolution is a fact, even a “proven” fact, but nothing could be further from the truth! To prove something by repeatable demonstration is the definition of scientific fact, and evolution has never been proven, shown to have happened even once or shown to be repeatable at any level making it a belief not a fact. There exists micro-evolution which we would call adaptation and inner-species variation. This happens all the time. Consider how many breeds of dogs exist all due to selective breeding. But they are all still dogs, aren’t they? But there has never been any animal that turned into a completely different animal over eons of time. That is called macro-evolution or rising higher in complexity from one lower species to a completely different species like a monkey to a man, or a dinosaur into a bird as the evolutionists want us to blindly accept. Macro-evolution has never happened – in fact, it could never happen, and we will discuss why not.

Some Adversarial Sunlight Appears

Evolution scientists (an oxymoron), and I point to the absurdity of that title since they do not use established scientific principles in their work, claim that ALL legitimate, credible scientists accept and endorse evolution as the definitive explanation for how everything came into existence. But wait! More than 1,000 highly influential scientists from around the world have gone on record with their doubts about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. They hail from institutions such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Tulane, Rice and Baylor, the National Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, the British Museum and MIT’s Lincoln Library.

“We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life,” they say in a statement. “Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.” The scientists include the best in molecular biology, biochemistry, biology, entomology, computational quantum chemistry, microbiology, psychiatry and behavioral sciences, astrophysics, marine biology, cellular biology, physics and astronomy, math, physics, geology and anthropology, according to Evolution News, an online publication of the Discovery Institute in Seattle, which promotes the theory of intelligent design.

PBS had claimed “virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true.” But biologist Douglas Axe, director of the Biologic Institute, argued peer pressure is obscuring the truth. “Because no scientist can show how Darwin’s mechanism can produce the complexity of life, every scientist should be skeptical,” he said. “The fact that most won’t admit to this exposes the unhealthy effect of peer pressure on scientific discourse.” The list of signatories now includes 15 scientists from the National Academies of Science in countries including Russia, Czech Republic, Brazil, and the United States, as well as from the Royal Society. Many of the signers are professors or researchers at major universities and international research institutions such as the University of Cambridge, London’s Natural History Museum, Moscow State University, Hong Kong University, University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in France, Ben-Gurion University in Israel, MIT, the Smithsonian, Yale, and Princeton.

What Evolutionists Say and the Absurdity of It

Evolutionists want us to believe that life sprang forth from non-life – that somehow distinct inorganic elements along with some unusual event, such as electrical or thermal or magical, came together and formed a living cell or a one-celled animal. From that initial form of life, evolution took over and produced everything that we see around us, but that process took millions upon millions of years of death, random events, failed and successful mutations and genetic formation, then some truly marvelous mutations that first, violated the Second Law of Thermodynamics (nothing can improve, all things degrade), then proved beneficial to natural selection, the survival of the fittest, and the ascending process of higher forms of life began. From Goo to You by way of the Zoo! Understand that all of this violates every law of physics that exists, but evolutionists have to say these things, even claim they are “facts”, because they have no other explanation since they will NOT admit that God is the Creator with Whom we ALL have to deal! They must want desperately to cling to their selfish, sinful lifestyles to deny that there is a Holy God that does not tolerate sin! Or, peer pressure to remain in good standing in the academic, scientific, and archeological world is extreme and unforgiving (satanic?).

Definition of Science

The basic problem with evolutionary theory is that life comes from life, not from inorganic substance, it can come from no other source! God gave life through His Omnipotent power. Inanimate matter cannot come to life. The next problem with evolutionary theory (again, it is a belief, NOT a “fact” as claimed) is that it is thoroughly, demonstrably, conclusively NOT “scientific”! Why, you may ask? Because it violates the definition of science. Mirriam Webster defines science as “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths, or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method.” And what is the “scientific method”? “A method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.” Did you get that? Any theory must be thoroughly tested over and over with positive results in order to be labeled a “fact”. The scientific method REQUIRES these steps:

1. Make an observation or observations.
2. Ask questions about the observations and gather information.
3. Form a hypothesis — a tentative description of what’s been observed and make predictions based on that hypothesis.
4. Test the hypothesis and predictions in an experiment that can be reproduced.
5. Analyze the data and draw conclusions; accept or reject the hypothesis or modify the hypothesis if necessary.
6. Reproduce the experiment until there are no discrepancies between observations and theory. “The reproducibility of published experiments is the foundation of science. No reproducibility – no science.”

HMMMMM. If a “theory of evolution” cannot be tested and repeated thus proving its validity, then it is not “scientific” nor a “fact”, it is just a theory that must be believed on faith, or, in other words, a fairy tale since it is not supported by God.

Some will say Creationism cannot be repeated either, it must also be believed. Of course, that statement is true. But, and here I say this with pointed exclamation, Creation itself is so irreducibly complex that scientists cannot even explain (1) how a human cell can be so complex, or (2) how the Sun can continue to produce energy through nuclear fusion (a process scientists have tried to master and cannot even though we have tried for decades to do so), constant energy that is seemingly unwavering, consistent, and producing continuously without sign of being used up, or (3) how do we explain how a tiny hummingbird that weighs a couple of grams can fly across the Gulf of Mexico, some 3,000 miles, and survive? Man cannot explain any of these phenomena much less anything else in detail in the universe such as how a leaf can use photosynthesis to produce food for the tree (an incredible 70 chemical reactions done in precise order) using the carbon dioxide in the air and release oxygen for us to breathe. Scientists have been unable to duplicate the photosynthesis process in the laboratory even though every leaf on every tree does it every day. To me, that proves that there is a Master Designer/Creator whose name is God. Proof positive! And there are thousands of similar examples of the wondrous complexity and intricate design in Creation we could list thus proving that life is a miracle straight from our Designer/Creator Jesus Christ!

Order of Creation

What is fascinating to me is the order of evolution versus the order of Creation. It’s as if God wanted to show us just how absurd evolutionary theory really is and test us at the same time as to whether we believe Him or some men who tell us evolution caused the universe as we see it. Evolutionists say that, for example, birds evolved from reptiles, from dinosaurs, over millions of years. Yes, that’s right. From scales to feathers, from lungs to air sacs, from solid bones to hollow bones, from walking skeleton structure to flight skeletal structure. Seems implausible, and it is because it didn’t happen that way at all. Feathers are completely different than scales since scales are just hard skin and feathers have pinions that are attached to bone! But the most amazing thing is that in God’s Creation order, birds are first, then mammals. Evolutions says birds evolved from dinosaurs MILLIONS of years ago while the Bible says they all were made in one week, together, and distinct from one another. On day five, God made birds and sea creatures. God made mammals on the sixth day showing us that what evolution says is incorrect. And, fortunately, God had made plant life on the third day of Creation so the birds and sea creatures could eat since all creatures ate plants.

Star Formation

Evolutionists say the stars formed out of the chaos known as the Big Bang, that gases swirled together and compressed into stars and planets. But, again, there are many problems. First and foremost, nothing can never turn into something. Nothing can do nothing, that’s obvious. So, if there ever was a “cosmic egg” that blew up and caused everything from the “Big Bang”, then where did the “cosmic egg” come from? From nothing? But nothing can do absolutely nothing. Nothing is the absence of everything – no matter, no space, no energy, no nothing. Ridiculous! Isaiah 45:18 says it all, “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.”

Then, there are laws of science that have never been seen to be violated. One of those laws is Boyle’s Law which states that gases in the vacuum of space disperse not compress. So, according to evolution, the origin of all the stars and planets was a miniscule speck of unimaginable energy coming from no one knows where instantly and for some unknown reason exploded in the Big Bang, thus creating the universe, then gases swirled together billions and billions of times forming stars and planets and solar systems. But, according to accepted scientific laws, gases in a vacuum cannot compress! This completely destroys the evolutionary position that somehow stars compressed from the gases from the Big Bang. To add to that, in all of recorded history, no one has ever seen or recorded a star being born even though to support the evolutionary stance of the universe being 15 billion years old (the Big Bang happened that long ago according to them), a star would have to emerge every 20 minutes or so to explain the vast number of stars we can detect. God, on the other hand, started, not with gasses and a Big Bang, but with the Heaven and the Earth and water. He didn’t even make the Sun and the Moon until the fourth day! At that time, He also made the stars, all at once in a single day, billions of galaxies, each one containing billions of stars! Who should we believe, the evolutionists or the ever truthful, faithful, omnipotent God?

Insects versus Birds

Evolutionists say insects came before birds which came after lizards and dinosaurs. Consider this. If that were true, there would not have been any plant life left for the dinosaurs and lizards to eat. If insects came before birds, and evolutionists say they preceded birds by millions of years, the Earth would have been destroyed by unimaginable numbers of insects without anything to control their reproductive rate. Insects reproduce at unimaginable rates. One pair of potato beetles over one season can produce 60 million offspring. There are supposedly over a million species of insects, so imagine how many would cover the Earth without birds to eat them?

Second Law

Probably the most egregious claim of evolution is that changes over millennia of time has resulted in increased complexity, the evolution of lower forms of life into higher forms, and the sudden appearance of all kinds of life without any evidence of transitional forms. Why is this so egregious, so absurd? Because of the violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I know this sounds very ominous and something most people could care less about, but these three laws are not that hard to understand:

1. The First law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms. In any process, the total energy of the universe remains the same.
2. The Second law of thermodynamics says that entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium, and entropy is the measure of disorder and randomness in a system. In other words, disorder and deterioration increase over time, order does not.
3. And the Third law of thermodynamics says that as temperature approaches absolute zero (minus 460 degrees Fahrenheit), the entropy of a system approaches a constant minimum.

The most tested foundational laws of science from every scientific discipline known to man clearly show the impossibility of the Big Bang as an explanation for everything including our very existence because nothing improves over time. Yet these same laws are perfectly compatible with recent creation of the universe by God, which is exactly what the Bible teaches!

What all of this simply means is that the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is totally accepted by all scientists, be they evolutionists or creationists, says over time that everything degrades, nothing improves. Can we say it more clearly? Evolution from lower forms of life to higher forms of life does not nor never has happened! Look around you in the here and now. How many things have you ever seen that get better over time? Be honest! Nothing, right? Everything rusts or dissolves or decomposes or gets dirty or starts stinking or falls down. So how can a life form IMPROVE or even change into something larger, more powerful, even develop intelligence like monkey to man? The answer? It CANNOT! It NEVER has! It NEVER will!

The point of all of this is to show that when man tries to explain life as we see it, he comes up with absurd theories that are often disproven by the very laws that science knows to be true and unwavering. Why? Because of some of mankind’s inability or choice to believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator God! Trusting in God and His Word makes explanations about the universe easy, understandable, and believable. Evolution, at its very foundation, is an inconsistent belief, not fact, easily disproved and thoroughly unsatisfying due to the incomprehensible claims that cannot be proven and are blatantly absurd in their assumptions.

Death versus Development

There is a grave danger in accepting what evolutionists shovel at us, specifically that the Earth is billions of years old and death and destruction have been occurring since the formation of life itself – that countless millennia have passed in the “development” of man and our world today. In fact, accepting the error of evolution as “fact” destroys the basis for Christianity! How, you say? Because evolution requires millions and millions of years of death, decay, and disorder for mutations to emerge into higher and more complex levels of creatures resulting in what we see today.

Belief in evolution requires the acceptance of billions of years of death and impossible increasing complexity of life over time or a development of higher forms of life over time which violates every scientific law imaginable. In reality, evolution is a record of death – NOT development! Evolution is a continual screeching of nails on a blackboard or incessant blaring of a thousand sirens in a Christian’s ears because it is a lie straight from the corrupted mind of the enemy himself and a mortal and spiritual danger to Christianity!

Why is evolution a danger to Christianity? Because the Bible says death came about because of the first man’s sin, his disobedience to God through a willful act in defiance of God’s Word. Adam and Eve were created perfect in the Garden of Eden, capable of living forever with only one stipulation. Genesis 2:16,17 says, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” So, death entered into creation through disobedience of God.

Man was originally created as an eternal being, both spiritually and physically. In fact, man was created in the image of God with three components, body, mind, and spirit (or body, soul, and spirit) indicating that each of us is totally unique and individual because each of us has our own soul/mind completely separate from everyone else who has ever been born. But, Adam disobeyed God and caused a change in man’s existence. When Adam disobeyed God, he not only placed a limitation on his physical life meaning his body would age and eventually perish, but his spirit, his spiritual life would also “die” meaning he was separated from God eternally as well. When Satan tempted Eve with the famous line in Genesis 3:4,5, “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil”, he deceived her because he was speaking of immediate physical death, not eternal spiritual death!

We also know that “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) Therefore, sin and death entered into existence when Adam disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden some time after Creation which, according to the Bible’s genealogies, was a brief 6,000 years ago, not billions of years according to evolution. We must always remember too that, “It is better to trust in God, than to trust in man.” (Psalm 118:8) God told us through Paul in the Book of Romans, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” (Romans 5:12)

So, from all of this, we can conclude that evolution’s fairy tale about eons upon eons of death and mutation leading to our present day could not be true because sin caused death and the original sin was committed by Adam only about 6,000 years ago according to biblical genealogies. So what, you say? What does that have to do with evolution and Christianity? Something very simple yet devastating to our faith. If evolution is true, then the Bible is false! If evolution is true, then God is a liar! If evolution is true, then salvation through faith in Jesus Christ’s death on the cross of Calvary in payment for our sins is meaningless and He died in vain! One CANNOT accept evolution as “fact” and believe in God’s Word at the same time! To do so is to poke God in His eye and diminish Him.

To believe in evolution is to deny the Holy Spirit’s leading which is the very definition of the unforgivable sin. The unpardonable/unforgivable sin or “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit” is mentioned in Mark 3:22-30 and Matthew 12:22-32. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter” (Mark 3:28), but then He gives one exception: “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin” (verse 29). What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit? There is no pardon for a person who dies in his rejection of Christ. The Holy Spirit is at work in the world, convicting the unsaved of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). If a person resists that conviction and remains unrepentant, then he is choosing hell over heaven thus blaspheming the Holy Spirit and committing the unpardonable sin.

Christianity depends on trusting in and living for God and God’s Word. To accomplish that lofty goal, we must accept the free gift of salvation through the shed blood of Christ and make Him Lord of our life. To turn away from what the Word of God very clearly tells us is to deny the Truth, and that is precisely what we do when we acknowledge the lie of evolution. Remember that the foundation of evolution is the attempt to explain everything WITHOUT God! We have God because we know His Son. So, why believe in evolution’s lies in any way? None of it is true. Trust the Word!

Age of the Earth vs. Evolution

Those of us that believe the Bible is inerrant and, therefore, that the Earth is quite young rather than very, very old, would have a much easier time in life if we just gave in to evolutionists and start using the millions and billions of years arguments for the way things really are. But the problem with that is that those extreme year descriptions have no basis in fact, but, and more importantly, actually bring into question and doubt the very fundamental beliefs of Christianity. If we say that it makes no difference when God (or even IF God) created the Heavens and the Earth, as many Christians and some churches have given in to saying, then we sound either insincere or unsure when we say we believe that God is Creator God or Jesus is the Word and He made all things (John 1:3).

The evolutionary time periods for the Earth and the universe, 4.6 and 15 billion years respectively, most certainly did not come from the Word of God. Those enormous time periods came from man’s so-called wisdom born out of skepticism that there is even a God at all. We are all bombarded with evolutionary thinking in schools, in museums, on television, when we search on-line, literally everywhere, with these ridiculous timeframes for the appearance of life on Earth, even the formation of the topography of the Earth. So, even Christians want to “get along” in society by acquiescing to using the long ages instead of staying biblical. Some Christians start doubting God’s Word by inferring that the “days” of Genesis are not real 24-hour days but eons of centuries to conform to evolutionary numbers.

What “Giving In” to Evolution Means

But this “giving in” to false data is dangerous when examined in the long term. Henry Morris, Founder of  the Institute for Creation Research in Dallas points to a cascading set of conclusions that lead Christians away from the Truth of the Bible if and when they turn to modern claims of so-called “science” that has never been proven to be fact and is in essence just a fairy story – evolution. Dr. Morris lists the following downward trending conclusions that result when the bible is abandoned and evolutionary thinking is adopted:

1. God cannot be a God of Mercy and Grace after all since literally billions of years of death and destruction had to have taken place for mankind to evolve from a lower form of life.
2. Death must not be the wages of sin as the bible says because violence, pain, and death ruled on the Earth long before sin came in through Adam. Plus, the Earth was “very good” when God finished with it implying God is sadistic and cruel, taking pleasure in observing the suffering and death of His creatures.
3. The Bible cannot be authoritative since science contradicts so much of the Word causing us to question other things in the Bible like salvation, Heaven, and everlasting life.
4. Jesus is our Creator and He was Creator before He became our Savior. But Jesus told us in Mark 10:6 that He created Adam and Eve, male and female, “from the beginning”. Evolution says the race of men took millions upon millions of years for man to rise from the ooze making the Bible a myth.
5. If death was not an important part of the penalty of sin for so many millions of years, then Jesus’ death on the cross accomplished very little indeed.
6. The, if Jesus’ death on the cross was not significant, then we have no real Savior. We still have sin and death today, so what the Bible tells us about the promises of future salvation is questionable. And if eternal life in the future is in question, why should we care anything about prophecies of the future?
7. Finally, why should we believe in God at all, what the Bible makes Him out to be, the holy, personal, loving, omniscient, omnipotent, righteous God that died for our sins?

If we compromise our faith in any way, we open the door wide for the enemy to shovel in the wisdom of man, his pseudo-science, and the questioning of whether God matters in our lives. It may seem convenient to adopt the old-Earth philosophy, make us look acceptable to the world out there, look more “intelligent’ to the unbelieving world, but a traitor to the Truth, a Judas to the Savior, a false believer calling into question our faith and our ability to witness and proclaim the Gospel.

Ancient Scientists and Bible Accuracy

The Truth is that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of the One True God, the Omnipotent Creator, the King of kings and the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. The real and truly unquestionable facts of science and history, of many of the original scholars of science in the past like Louis Pasteur (1822 1895), Isaac Newton (1642 1727), Johann Kepler (1571 1630), Robert Boyle (1726 1691), Charles Babbage (1792 1871), Isaac Newton (1642 1727), James Clerk Maxwell (1831 1879), Michael Faraday (1791 1867), and a hundred more, support the Word of God in its entirety, without question, boldly, and completely. On the other hand, there is absolutely NO genuine scientific, repeatable, proven evidence for evolution at all. We do well to believe in God’s Word as written, without parsing, without question, with no personal interpretation.

We can look and not see. By this I mean not examining God’s Word to appreciate His Truth. My favorite, obscure testimony to the veracity of God’s Word is found in the Book of Job written, perhaps, before any other book in the Bible since Job lived contemporaneously with Abraham some 2,000 years before Christ. Back then, I believe men were smarter than today, but technology had not progressed to the point that it has today either. The Book of Job tells us many things of God, especially in Chapters 38 through 42. One reference to God and His Creation is in Job 38:31, “Can you bind the sweet influences of Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion?” These two names represent star constellations in the night sky easily seen from our Northern hemisphere perspective, especially Orion with its three straight-line-arranged formation – Orion’s Belt. But what we miss if we are not careful and what even Job could not know is hidden in the descriptions of the two constellations. Only in this modern age starting in the 1800’s have we determined that, indeed, the stars in Pleiades (the Seven Sisters) are moving toward each other be it ever so slowly (“bind”) and the stars in Orion are, indeed moving away from each other (“loose”) in an unnoticeable way. God made the heavens so He knows their motion. He told us these constellations from our perspective were moving and how they were moving in respect to each other 4,000 years ago. If that doesn’t impress you, then your heart is in need of warming up!

Evolution’s Whoppers

It helps to show the absurdity of what evolution requires us to accept without inquiry, without thinking, without evidence. Evolutionists will have you believe that the Earth is 4.3 to 4.54 billion years old. Let’s see, there is a significant and unexplained gap there, a gap of 0.24 billion years or 240 million years – quite an error factor wouldn’t you say? So, is this believable? Where did that error come from? Does it make any logical sense, or is it just a SWAG, a Scientific Wildly Assumed Guess!

1. Here are some examples of the obvious errors of evolution that really make no sense: The Earth has a magnetic field due to its magnetic molten core that repels the Sun’s incoming solar and stellar radiation that continually bombards Earth and does great damage to life, causing harmful mutations and likely contributing to the aging and death of living things. Indeed, if these rays were not impeded and filtered by earth’s magnetic field, life here would be impossible. According to evolutionists, the Earth’s magnetic field is about 4 ½ billion years old. The strength of the magnetic field has been reliably and continually measured since 1835. From these measurements, we can see that the field’s strength has declined by about seven percent since then, giving a half-life of about 1,400 years. This means that in 1,400 years it will be one-half as strong, in 2,800 years it will be one-fourth as strong, and so on. There will be a time not many thousands of years distant when the field will be too small to perform as a viable shield for earth.

1. However, and more interestingly, calculating back into the past, and assuming a constant half-life which may or may not be true, the present measurements indicate that 1,400 years ago the field was twice as strong. It continues doubling each 1,400 years back, until about 10,000 years ago it would have been so strong the planet would have disintegrated–its metallic core would have separated from its mantle. The inescapable conclusion we can draw is that the earth must be fewer than 10,000 years old. Without millions and billions of years, evolutionary history completely falls apart.
2. Far from proving evolution, carbon-14 dating actually provides some of the strongest evidence for creation and a young earth. Radiocarbon (carbon-14) cannot remain naturally in substances for millions of years because it decays in relatively short time periods. For this reason, it can only be used to obtain “ages” in the range of tens of thousands of years. Scientists from ICR (The Institute for Creation Research) examined diamonds that evolutionists consider to be 1–2 billion years old and related to the earth’s early history. Diamonds are the hardest known substance and extremely resistant to contamination through chemical exchange. Yet the scientists discovered significant detectable levels of radiocarbon in these diamonds, dating them at around 55,000 years—a far cry from the evolutionary billions!
3. The gravitational pull of the moon creates a “tidal bulge” on earth that causes the moon to spiral outwards very slowly. Because of this effect, the moon would have been closer to the earth in the past. Based on gravitational forces and the current rate of recession, we can calculate how much the moon has moved away over time. If the earth is only 6,000 years old, there’s no problem, because in that time the moon would have only moved about 800 feet. But most astronomy books teach that the moon is over four billion years old, which poses a major dilemma because less than 1.5 billion years ago the moon would have been touching the Earth!
4. In recent years, there have been many findings of preserved biological materials in supposedly ancient rock layers and fossils. Consider that geologists determine the age of rocks from the fossils found in those rocks and paleontologists determine the age of fossils from the age of the rocks they find them in. In other words, circular reasoning without foundation. One such discovery of fossilized material that has left evolutionists scrambling is a fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex femur with flexible connective tissue, branching blood vessels, and even intact cells! According to evolutionists, these dinosaur tissues are more than 65 million years old, but laboratory studies have shown that there is no known way for biological material to last more than thousands of years. Evolutionists are completely wrong about how recently these dinosaurs lived.
5. It’s amazing what basic mathematics can show us about the age of the earth. We can calculate the years of human existence with the population doubling every 150 years (a very conservative figure) to get an estimate of what the world’s population should be after any given period of time. A biblical age of the earth (about 6,000 years) is consistent with the population of the Earth today. In contrast, even a conservative evolutionary age of 50,000 years comes out to a staggering, impossibly high figure of 10 to the 99th power which is greater than the number of atoms in the universe! Clearly, the claim that humans have inhabited the earth for tens of thousands of years much less millions of years is completely absurd!
6. When solid rock is bent, it normally cracks and breaks. Rock can only bend without fracturing when it is softened by extreme heating (which causes re-crystallization) or when the sediments have not yet fully hardened. There are numerous locations around the world (including the Grand Canyon) where we observe massive sections of strata that have been tightly folded, without evidence of the sediments being heated. This is a major problem for evolutionists who believe these rock layers were laid down gradually over vast eons of time, forming the geologic record. However, it makes perfect sense to creationists who believe these layers were formed rapidly in the global, catastrophic Flood described in Genesis.

Does the age of the earth really matter? While each of these evidences reveals reasons why the earth cannot be billions of years old, the real issue is not the age of the earth. Instead, the real issue is authority. God’s infallible Word must be our ultimate authority, not the unstable foundation of evolutionary human reasoning. Are we trying to fit our interpretations of the world (evolution) into Scripture, or will we simply let God speak for Himself through His Word?

If we can’t trust the first chapters of Genesis, why should we believe when Scripture says that faith in Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation? (Romans 10:9; Acts 4:12; John 14:6) But when we take Scripture as written, it’s clear that the earth can’t be more than a few thousand years old. And from a biblical worldview, the scientific evidence agrees!

Dispensations

We have talked about how God has always had a plan for the redemption of mankind to bring us back into fellowship with Him as it was in the Garden of Eden. God’s gift to us of His written Word dramatically shows His Compassion, His Mercy, His Grace, His Love for us. His plan for our salvation has always been working, but the Savior did not appear for 4,000 years after Creation. Why wait so long to deliver the Savior promised so early in Genesis 3:15 while Adam and Eve were still in the Garden? Could it be that God’s Plan is segmented into stages to demonstrate to mankind that there is only one way to God? That man’s mind and man’s ideas of how to approach and please God will NOT work back in the past, today, nor in the future. There is only one way to God and that is through His Son Jesus Christ.

We are familiar with the two Testaments of the Bible, so we already are familiar with two ages or times that are different from each other in many ways, but each demonstrates to us that God is forever the same, faith is the only way to God, but our circumstances as humans can vary greatly. In the Old Testament, mankind had to come to God through faith while in the New Testament the same was and is true with the exception that in the New, Jesus is known and in the Old He was not – just hoped for.

When we examine the two Testaments more closely, we can see more times or ages emerge that directly answer questions that man has for God as to whether we can please Him by doing things, living our lives our own way. Those times or ages are referred to as “dispensations” by theologians.

Often, when one is asked about the Dispensations of God, the response is, “What is a dispensation?” The easiest answer is an age or a length of time that God has used to teach mankind a lesson. Formally, the dictionary refers to dispensation in a number of ways from a special permission or release from a rule or a law to an act of providing something to people, dispensing something. It can mean a general state or ordering of things; specifically, a system of revealed commands and promises regulating human affairs or a particular arrangement or provision especially of Providence (God). The best way to look at a dispensation is that it is a scheme over a period of time according to which God carries out his purposes towards men. Systematic Theology, whose author was the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary Lewis Sperry Chafer, views Scripture as an unfolding revelation and doctrine or as a process of on-going “dispensing” of God’s message of redemption to man. As the best example of a dispensation of God is the “Age” we currently live in – the Church Age, also know as the Dispensation of Grace.

Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “In many separate revelations (dispensations) – each of which set forth a portion of the truth – and in different ways God spoke of old to our forefathers in and by the prophets. But in the last of these days He has spoken to us in the person of a Son…”

The Greek word “oikonomia” signifies a disposition of affairs entrusted to someone. Thus 1 Corinthians 9:16, 17, the King James Version says, “For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me,” the Revised Version (British and American) “I have stewardship entrusted to me.” In Ephesians 1:10, God’s own working is spoken of as dispensation. “Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.”

Later in Ephesians, Paul emphasizes the complete fulfillment of His will in Ephesians 3:1, 2, “For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward”. Finally, Paul refers to his ministry as administration of God passed to him and intended to be given to a lost humanity in Colossians 1:25, “Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God”.

There are actually seven dispensations that each answer a different situation or question or excuse that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we cannot please God on our own. We have tried many times to please God through our own efforts, failing miserably each and every time. Some in each age or dispensation have come to faith in God which was counted as righteousness for salvation, but the huge majority in each age were lost as it is today. So, why do we fail so miserably in each age? Because we are sinners, we are born that way – completely sinful with the penalty of death hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles. But Jesus was not a sinner. He lived a perfect life, sin-free as a human, so He could sacrifice His perfect human life for us thereby satisfying the Law and covering our many sins with His shed blood, for the Bible says in Hebrews 9:22 that there is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood. And, since Jesus’ blood was sin-free, His sacrifice covered all sin, past, present, and future for all men, for all time. The only act on our part is the act of the humility of repentance and acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. Then we know that Jesus was raised from the dead and sits on the right of the Father in Heaven until He comes back for us in the Rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

Belief in God, faith in God, submission to God in our lives has always been the only way to God. But God has also known that we are hard-headed as humans determined to do things our own way. That’s why God allowed different ages to occur to show us that our way will not work when trying to please God. The universally accepted number of seven dispensations is spread out from Eden through today and on to the Millennium. Those seven dispensations are the dispensations of Innocence, Conscience, Human or Civil Government, Promise, Law, Grace, and the Millennial Kingdom.

The questions from God to mankind and God’s answer for each of the dispensations are the following: (1) Dispensation of Innocence (Garden of Eden) – With only one rule, can I trust you to obey me?; (2) Dispensation of Conscience (from the Fall to the Flood) – Now that you know that I expect you to obey me, can I now trust you?; (3) Dispensation of Human Government (from the Flood to the Tower of Babel) – Can you govern with a ruler and do well without me?; (4) Dispensation of Promise (from Abraham to Moses) – If I promise to bless you Israel, will you trust in me?; (5) Dispensation of the Law (from Moses to the Resurrection) – If I define sin to you, will you cease to sin without me?; (6) Dispensation of Grace (from Pentecost to the Rapture – Your sins are forgiven through Jesus’ shed blood, will accept the gift on faith?; and (7) Disposition of the Millennium (from the Second Coming to the Great White Throne Judgment) – If I am visible and you can hear me, will you obey? Of course, the answer to all of God’s questions was and will be “NO!” We cannot make it without God in any way because we are born sinful, prideful, arrogant, and obstinate. The dispensations actually prove that we cannot please God on our own, no matter what we try or how hard we try, without Jesus and we will continue to prove this until the New Heavens and New Earth.

Understanding the dispensations and their order, especially the future, actual end of Dispensation 5 (otherwise known as the Tribulation) and the Millennium that follows, gives us insight into prophecy and how everything fits together. Without this knowledge of the ages and man’s failures to please God on our own, we cannot fully see why we are at the end of times, more specifically the Last Days of the Last Days!

Feasts of Israel

Now we come to a subject that is obscure to say the least to our modern, non-Jewish minds, but exceedingly important to understanding and accepting prophecy. What are the Feasts of Israel? They are given to us in the Old Testament as requirements for the Jewish people to celebrate throughout the year. In fact, three of the seven feasts were to be celebrated personally in Jerusalem by each and every Jew meaning three times per year everyone had to “go up” to Jerusalem and celebrate the feasts. (To “go up” to Jerusalem applies to elevation since everywhere in Israel Jerusalem is higher than all surrounding land, and that’s why regardless of where anyone was, they always “went up” to Jerusalem) I would guess that when seeing this topic, most would wonder why look at the Feasts of Israel when studying prophecy. The major reason is, frankly, because they are Jewish, found in the Old Testament, and have great prophetic meaning to us today which we will soon see.

“Let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day: things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17) This statement by the Apostle Paul refers to the Jewish Feasts as a “mere shadow” of things to come, the substance of them being found in Yeshua, Jesus, the Messiah. What Paul is saying here is that the feasts were prophetic types, or symbols, that pointed to the Messiah and which would be fulfilled in Him. So, if the feasts point to Jesus Christ, and Jesus is not finished with us because He has not returned yet in the Second Advent, then there could be meaning in the feasts for our future since some of the feasts were fulfilled in Jesus’ First Advent but not all of them.

Origin and Timing of the Feasts

The feasts were a part of the Mosaic Law that was given to the Children of Israel by God through Moses (Exodus 12; 23:14-17; Leviticus 23; Numbers 28 & 29; and Deuteronomy 16). The Jewish nation was commanded by God to celebrate seven feasts over a seven-month period of time, beginning in the spring of the year and continuing through the fall. The first three feasts Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits occur in rapid succession in the spring of the year over a period of eight days starting in March/April. They came to be referred to collectively as “Passover.”

The fourth feast, Harvest, occurs fifty days later at the beginning of the summer, roughly in June, and occurs at the time of the major harvest of the year. By New Testament times this feast had come to be known by its Greek name, Pentecost, a word meaning fifty which is the time between Passover and Pentecost.

The last three feasts, Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles, extend over a period of twenty-one days in the fall of the year, roughly in the September/October timeframe. They came to be known collectively as “Tabernacles.”

The Nature of the Feasts

Some of the feasts were related primarily to the agricultural cycle. The feast of First Fruits was a time for the presentation to God of the first fruits of the barley harvest in Spring. The feast of Harvest, Pentecost, was a celebration of the major harvest of the year or the wheat harvest in Summer. And the feast of Tabernacles was in part a time of thanksgiving for the harvest of olives, dates, and figs in the Fall.

Most of the feasts were related to past historical events. Passover, of course, celebrated the salvation the Jews experienced when the angel of death passed over the Jewish houses in Egypt before the Exodus that were marked with the blood of a lamb. Unleavened Bread was a reminder of the swift departure from Egypt that was so swift that they had no time to put leaven (yeast) into their bread and allow the bread to rise before baking.

Although the feasts of Harvest and Tabernacles were related to the agricultural cycle, they both had historical significance as well. The Jews believed that it was on the feast day of Harvest, Pentecost, that God gave the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. And Tabernacles was a yearly reminder of God’s protective care as the Children of Israel tabernacled or lived in temporary tents in the wilderness for forty years.

The Spiritual Significance of the Feasts

All the feasts were related to the spiritual life of the people. Passover served as a reminder that there is no atonement for sin apart from the shedding of blood. Unleavened Bread was a reminder of God’s call on their lives to be a people set apart to holiness and leaven (yeast) was a symbol of sin. They were to be unleavened that is, holy before the nations as a witness of God. The feast of First Fruits was a call to consider their priorities, to make certain they were putting God first in their lives. Harvest or Pentecost was a reminder that God is the source of all blessings, even produce.

The solemn assembly day of Trumpets was a reminder of the need for constant, ongoing repentance. The Day of Atonement was also a solemn assembly and a day of rest and introspection, a day to contemplate personal sin. It was a reminder of God’s promise to send a Messiah whose blood would cover the failure to meet the demands of the Law with the mercy of God. In sharp contrast to Trumpets and Atonement, Tabernacles was a joyous celebration of God’s faithfulness, even when the Children of Israel were unfaithful, and His dwelling with mankind once again someday.

The Prophetic Significance of the Feasts

What the Jewish people did not seem to realize is that all of the feasts were also symbolic types. In other words, they were prophetic in nature, each one pointing in a unique way to some aspect of the life and work of the promised Messiah:

1) Passover — (Pesach) – Pointed to the Messiah as our Passover lamb whose blood would be shed for our sins. Jesus was crucified on the day of preparation for the Passover, at the same time, 3:00 in the afternoon – the time of the evening sacrifice at the Temple, that the lambs were being slaughtered for the Passover meal that evening.

2) Unleavened Bread — Pointed to the Messiah’s sinless life, making Him the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Jesus’ body was in the grave during the first days of this feast, like a kernel of wheat planted and waiting to burst forth as the bread of life.

3) First Fruits — Pointed to the Messiah’s resurrection as the first fruits of the righteous. Jesus was resurrected on this very day, which is one of the reasons that Paul refers to him in I Corinthians 15:20 as the “first fruits from the dead.” Jesus’ Resurrection was the First Phase of Three Phases of the Resurrection of the Righteous. The Second Phase is the Rapture, and the Third Phase is the Resurrection of the Old Testament Saints along with the Tribulation Saints.

4) Harvest or Pentecost — (Shavuot) – Pointed to the great harvest of souls, both Jew and Gentile, that would come into the kingdom of God during the Church Age. The Church was actually established on this day when the Messiah poured out the Holy Spirit and 3,000 souls responded to Peter’s first proclamation of the Gospel.

The long interval of three months between Harvest and Trumpets pointed to the current Church Age, a period of time that was kept as a mystery to the Hebrew prophets in Old Testament times. That leaves the three fall feasts which are yet to be fulfilled in the life and work of the Messiah. Because Jesus literally fulfilled the first four feasts and did so on the actual feast days, it is safe to assume that the last three will also be fulfilled and that their fulfillment will occur on the actual feast days. We cannot be certain how they will be fulfilled, but most likely they will have the following prophetic implications:

5) Trumpets — (Rosh Hashana) – Points to the Rapture when the Messiah will appear in the heavens as a Bridegroom coming for His bride, the Church. The Rapture is always associated in Scripture with the blowing of a loud trumpet (I Thessalonians 4:13-18 and I Corinthians 15:52)

6) Atonement — (Yom Kippur) – Points to the day of the Second Coming of Jesus when He will return to earth. That will be the day of atonement for the Jewish remnant when they “look upon Him whom they have pierced,” repent of their sins, and receive Him as their Messiah (Zechariah 12:10 and Romans 11:1-6, 25-36).

7) Tabernacles — (Sukkot) – Points to the Lord’s promise that He will once again tabernacle with His people when He returns to reign over all the world from Jerusalem for a thousand years (Micah 4:1-7) called the Millennial Kingdom.

8) Hanukkah – The Feast of Dedication. Hanukkah (sometimes transliterated Chanukah) is a Jewish holiday celebrated for eight days and nights. It starts on the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev, which coincides with late November-late December on the secular calendar. In Hebrew, the word ” hanukkah” means “dedication.” The name reminds us that this holiday commemorates the re-dedication of the holy Temple in Jerusalem following the Jewish victory over the Syrian-Greeks in 165 B.C.E. Could this be fulfilled when Christ’s Millennial Temple is dedicated perhaps at the end of the Great Tribulation leading into the Millennium?

So, could the Feasts of Israel be a clue as to when Jesus fulfills what is coming in Bible Prophecy? If past fulfillment centered on the first four of the seven, eight including Hannukah, feasts which happened exactly ON the feast days, it could be that the Rapture, the Second Coming, the Millennial Kingdom, and the dedication of the Millennial Temple all come to pass on future feast days. What year? Signs point to a year very, very soon.

Restoration of Israel

The last subject to cover is the most significant happening in the history of man. Why do I say this? Because the restoration of the Jewish nation on May 14, 1948, marks the starting date for the End Times! The idea of a “latter day” restoration of Israel is integral to the dispensational premillennial view of the Lord’s second coming.  To better understand the issues involved, let’s first take a look at several arguments for a latter-day restoration of Israel:

From the Old Testament

God has promised to restore His people to Israel (Jeremiah 29:14) from all over the world to wherever the Jews had dispersed, not just Assyria and Babylon. Ezekiel Chapter 37 prophecies the reunification of Israel and Judah in the dry bones prophecy which certainly has not ever happened in all of history since the divided kingdom in 931 B.C. Israel is back in their land today and growing steadily ever since the Nation of Israel was once again established on May 14, 1948! The return prophecies made to those from Israel who had been restored are found in Zechariah 8:1-8.

People who had come back from Babylonian captivity to Jerusalem in 536 B.C. did not have peace and safety, so Zechariah must be referring to later events which translates to events occurring today. The expression “in the latter days” found in Jeremiah 30:24 confirms that there will be a final return of the Jews to Israel just before the Second Coming. There is the promise of physical and economic restoration in Isaiah 35:1; and 61:4, not just political and religious restoration, but also the land itself along with ancient ruins. Amos 9:14,15 says that along with promise of victories over their enemies, the Jews will no longer be pulled up from the land suggesting victory over any who would try including their close-in enemies, which during the Psalm 83 war God will eliminate, and the Ezekiel 38 and 39 war in which God will eliminate Israel’s far-out enemies including Russia and all of the Islamic nations that are Israel’s enemies. This should be very good news for the Jews in Israel today with all of the dangers that are presenting themselves.

From the New Testament

The return of Jerusalem to the custody of the Jews found in Luke 21:24 starts with the city to be trodden down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles are fulfilled. This “trodden down of the Gentiles” ended on May 14, 1948, with the Jewish nation coming to life after over 1800 years since 135 A.D. and Hadrian’s destruction of Jerusalem and Israel and re-naming the country Syria Palaestina and Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina. (Note: The land of Israel was NEVER Palestine when Jesus walked the Earth!) The re-establishment of the Hebrew language has also happened after being dormant for decades. Then, in 1967, the Jews regained complete control of Jerusalem indicating the fulfillment of End Times prophecy.

The Apostles came to Jesus and asked Him about the end of the world, and how would people living then know it was happening. Matthew 24: 2-6 says, “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 rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”

So Jesus begins to tell them about how things will gradually heat up and increase until we reach the time that we call the Last Days. The Book of Matthew continues, giving more and more details and time clues until we reach the “big clue”, the biggest one of them all. Stating in Matthew 24:32, Jesus says, “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”

He tells them that the generation of people that will be alive on the earth when the Last Days come about, would witness what He called the “fig tree” blooming, and putting forth it’s leaves. And He equated that with the fulfillment of His End Time prophecy. Throughout recorded history, some biblical history as well, nations have always been typified by “types and figures” to describe them. Russia is the “bear”, America is the “eagle”, England the “lion”, and Israel the “fig tree”. Yes, Israel is referred to as  a fig tree in the Bible. In the Old Testament, figs were identified with the nation of Israel by the prophets. Hosea wrote: ‘I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness, I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree in her first time” (Hosea 9:10). Jeremiah received the vision of two baskets of figs, which represented Israel: “Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah” (Jer. 24:5).

So Jesus was saying that when you see ISRAEL re-blooming, that generation would be the one that would be on the earth and living when the Last Days would occur. Israel’s Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the entire nation disappeared in 135 A.D., and Israel bloomed again on May 14, 1948, 1,813 years after their destruction at the hands of the Romans. The generation that witnessed the re-birth of Israel, the WWII generation, still have not passed away. They are still alive and with us today, and we are the people that Jesus said would be alive on the earth when the Last Days would happen. That time is right now. The time of the “last days” that Jesus referred to, is not “in the future” and it’s not “coming soon”. It is here right now. Ever since 1948 all the major players have been taking the stage and playing the parts that God said they would.

This Generation?

Also very significant is that the restoration of Israel to being a nation again happened exactly 70 years ago, the very definition of a generation. Psalm 90:10 says, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off and we fly away.” Couple this generation definition with Matthew 24:30-36, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.  Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.  Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.  But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” Combine these prophecies and the inescapable conclusion from them and you determine that our generation, the one alive today seeing all of the signs of the End Times, will be the terminal generation, the generation that gets raptured, the generation who knows that Jesus is about to appear in Glory on the Earth!

The rebuilding of the temple will occur so that the Antichrist can enter it and demand worship of himself (2 Thessalonians 2:4). I believe that because of Matthew 24:1,2, “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down”, that the location of the new Tribulation Temple is NOT where the Dome of the Rock stands.

Daily sacrifices numbering in the hundreds were performed in the Temple in Jesus’ day. Massive amounts of water were needed to take care of all of the sacrificing, and the Gihon Spring is located down the hill from the “Temple Mount” of today, placing the location of Herod’s Temple to the SOUTH of the Dome of the Rock and even South of the El Aksa Mosque. Josephus, first century writer, detailed that the Antonian Fortress which held a legion of Roman troops (6,000) “looked down” onto the Temple in Jerusalem with a large distance between them. That places the Temple somewhere South of the southern wall of the so-called Temple Mount of today.

What this also does is dispel the belief that the Wailing Wall that the Jews have prayed at for so long is in reality just the Western wall of the old Antonian Fortress, not the Temple. Remember, Jesus said “not ONE stone would be left upon another”. When Titus came to destroy the Temple in 70 A.D., he had given orders NOT to destroy it! But, one of his soldiers set fire to the temple (its roof was wood). The fire melted all of the gold plating on the walls, and the gold ran down between the stones. The Romans tore the Temple down to the last stone getting to the gold thus fulfilling Jesus’ prediction. All of this means that as soon as the Jews realize that the Temple was not on top of Mount Moriah where the Dome of the Rock is located today, they can begin building their Temple to the South NOW! What this analysis shows, if true, is that the Jewish Temple could go under construction any day, or, as I believe, the setting up of a tabernacle, a tent like Moses did, will be done even more quickly. If we are that close to the Tribulation Temple, how close is the Rapture?

Conclusion

We have covered many foundational concepts that are absolutely necessary to completely understand Bible Prophecy and to be able to discern how prophecy relates to our lives in the here and now. We covered the order of Creation as stated in the Bible versus evolution’s lame explanations for our world today. We looked at the real age of the Earth at 6,000 years based on the Bible and scientific facts and how the evolutionists hope we will continue to believe millions of years have passed since the so-called Big Bang.

The definition and relevance of dispensations, which is a biblical word, was covered so that we can understand that our Gracious Lord has been very patient with us as a human race allowing us to try to prove that we can be good and earn salvation on our own. The next subject was the Feasts of Israel and how they are a picture of God’s salvation of man starting with Jesus’ sacrifice on Passover all the way to His Second Coming and Millennial Kingdom as the Feast of Tabernacles represents.

The last and really the most important subject we covered is the amazing restoration of Israel to nation status after being completely non-existent for over 1800 years. This restoration is the very start of the End Times, the start of the birth pangs, the beginning of the culmination of man’s existence on the Earth prior to Christ’s Millennial Kingdom. Add to that the passing of 70 years since the May 14, 1948, date, the knowledge that 70 years is a generation, and the statement of Jesus Himself that the generation that sees the signs of the times is THE terminal generation, and you should conclude that we are about to be raptured off this planet to be with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!