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January 8, 2012 |
| Introduction to Bible Prophecy | ||
In this lesson we will take a very general look at Bible prophecy and explain things like what it is and what it is for.
The first thing to understand is the word Prophecy. The world uses the word to mean predictions of the future. But the Bible uses the word to mean the word of God given through a man. Sometimes the word of God instructed men in what to do or what not to do. Sometimes it told of future events.
The men who delivered God's words were called prophets. But not all prophets were alike. Here are a few of the major prophets:
Isaiah – Isaiah's messages are fairly short and quite cryptic. Isaiah has no respect for time. The messages he gives jump around in time wildly. One sentence can be talking about the first coming of the Messiah and the next sentence about the second coming.
Ezekiel – Most of Ezekiel's messages were warnings to the people of the Kingdom of Judah that God was going to punish them if they didn't change their ways. They didn't and they and he were taken off to Babylon. After that his messages describe the end-times, including the return of Israel to the land, the battle of Gog and Magog, and the world after that. His writings while in Babylon describe complete events.
Daniel and John (Revelation) – The messages are highly symbolic and tend to sweep through large periods of history. Daniel has an important message about the first coming but most of his messages sweep through the time period from his time to the end times. John's messages are directed to the early churches but the bulk of them sweep through the end-times period.
Sometimes prophecies themselves are hidden. For example the Jewish feasts also serve as descriptions of the first and second coming. Because the first coming is now history we understand how Jesus fulfilled the feast of Passover and the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost).
The short answer is that mankind has free choice. Here is an example of what I mean. If God appeared to a man on the street and said "Tomorrow at this same time and place you will be struck by a car and killed" where would that man be the next day? I'd like to think that a Christian would be standing there, but another man would be on the other side of the planet.
God cannot lie; therefore descriptions of the future must be obscured.
But there are exceptions to this. Sometimes God has given great detail, for example giving the name of the King who would conquer Babylon.
When they are fulfilled we see the power of God for no man could do that.
They provide encouragement and insight to his people as we look forward to their fulfillment.
Prophecy validates the authenticity of the Bible. Some people claim that the Torah was made up by ordinary men while the Israelites were in Babylon. But that can't be true because prophets from that time or before described events after that time.
In Genesis 3:15, Adam and Eve have just sinned and God says to the snake "he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." The 'he' referred to here is Jesus.
It is very valuable for Christians to understand the prophecies that have been fulfilled. These are tools they can use to prove the Bible is the word of God.
But detailed study of unfulfilled prophecies is really a personal choice. But there are some concepts that all Christians should know, such as there is a deceiver coming who will deceive all who are not strong in faith.
Those who do study the unfulfilled prophecies need to understand what they are getting into. There are no right answers but there are a lot of wrong answers. There are some people who claim to be Christian but whose every act is dedicated to spreading false ideas that sound good.
Around the time of Jesus there were a large number of people who believed his arrival was imminent. The basis for this was Daniel's prophecy of 70 weeks. But they didn't have good dates for the Babylonian captivity, 350 years before, when Daniel wrote it. There was so much speculation of this type that the "rabbis placed a curse on anyone trying to calculate the time of the coming of the Messiah."1
We do not see any mention of this in the Bible but we do see a man named Simeon beginning at Luke 2:25. "26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Messiah."
So there were many people who were sure that the coming was imminent. But in the end many of them missed it because they were looking for a different kind of Messiah.
So the lesson in this for those who study unfulfilled prophecy is to be aware of the various interpretations but to keep their eyes open.
First, be careful with what you see of prophecy on TV. Odd (not!) how the ones who spread lies have the money to do so.
The word Tribulation does not appear in the Bible, but it is a valid Biblical concept given a modern name. There is general agreement that the Tribulation consists of two periods of roughly 3.5 years that complete God's plan for mankind's self governance (having failed miserably). This period ends with the Second Coming which leads into a 1000 year period where God rules mankind. After that comes the judgment day.
The markers that indicate the start of these two periods of the Tribulation are the beginning of Jewish sacrifices and the termination of Jewish sacrifices.
For Jewish sacrifices to begin again two things are required, a temple, a location, and a perfect red bull as a sacrifice to cleanse it. During the time of Moses the temple was no more than a tent, so the temple could be as simple as that. But the location must be on temple mount in Jerusalem and no Muslim is going to allow that2 right now.
The sacrifices are brought to an end when the Anti-Christ attacks Jerusalem, conquers it, and does something or places something in the temple that is abhorrent to God.
The first half of the Tribulation period is expected to be one of wars and natural disasters. In the first half the Anti-Christ and False Prophet are building their power base. In the second half they are fully empowered and killing those with a testimony of Jesus.
On TV you only hear of the Anti-Christ. Most Christians don't realize that there are actually two major baddies at the time. While the Anti-Christ is the nemesis of Christians his authority comes from the False Prophet.
The word Rapture also does not appear in the Bible, but it is a valid Biblical concept given a modern name. It describes the event where Jesus returns with a shout and the dead are resurrected and the living are translated to new bodies that cannot perish. First the dead and then the living ascend to be with him. This is covered in detail in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians.
We know there is a Tribulation period and a Rapture event. The problem comes with the placement of the Rapture within the Tribulation period. There are three models for this.
You will find this model almost everywhere. Most churches teach it to the exclusion of the other models. You can easily find massive amounts of information about it.
I need to be forthright here. I do not agree with this model.
This model accepts that the Rapture happens coincidently with the beginning of the Tribulation period. The founding principle is that Christians are not to experience any wrath so they are removed before things get bad.
Generally the adherents to this model also accept that the Holy Spirit is withdrawn from mankind at this time. It is also generally accepted that the Christian era of grace and mercy is over and the world reverts to the Law of Moses.
They also accept the Rapture as being different from the Second Coming. The Rapture is considered to be a fly-by event and not a real coming.
This model came into existence around the mid 1800s. Its author needed a Pre-Tribulation Rapture in order to support a point he was making about the Jews in the end-time.
The Mid-Tribulation Rapture is a response to some of the problems with the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. Careful readers of the Bible noticed that the bad things that occur in the first half of the tribulation period are natural events and wars. Perhaps they are greater in number or severity but they hardly constitute wrath. We've already seen world-wide floods (Noah), nuclear war and 9.3 earthquakes.
This model accepts that the Rapture happens when the Anti-Christ and False Prophet enter the temple and put an end to the sacrifices. The founding principle is that the wrath Christians are to be saved from cannot be the wrath of natural events and wars and that it must be the wrath of the Anti-Christ and False Prophet.
The origin of the Pre-Wrath model is lost in time. It accepts that the Rapture occurs very late in the Tribulation period, perhaps as late as the last 10 days. The founding principle is that the Rapture removes Christians so that they do not experience God's wrath on mankind, which is clearly marked in Revelation as coming late in the Tribulation period3. It accepts that the Jewish Fall Festivals describe the major events of the wrath period and what follows just as the Spring Festivals described the First Coming.
This model notes the following about the other models:
Given these models which differ very widely in what Christians would experience in the Tribulation period, what is a Christian to do? Christians should live their lives as though it is Pre-Tribulation and strengthen their faith as though it is Pre-Wrath.
1 The Advent Hope for Human Hopelessness, Samuele Bacchiocchi, Chapter 7, part 2, section 3, Daniel's Messianic Prophecy
2 From Facebook, Zion Defense League
3 Revelation 15, 16
4 Revelation 12:17