Consider This!

I Stand By What I Wrote!

    In regards to the study that I sent to Five Doves entitled “Consider This.” 

    I have already had a couple fellows write to inform me that my calculations were wrong.  Both of these brothers indicated that according to their own count using a 365.2422 day calendar year, my calculations just were not right.  Is that so?

    Folks, I stand by what I wrote.  Period!   I did not make an error in my calculations. 

    What some are trying to do is fit their scheme of the coming Tribulation events into the present 365.2422 day calendar.  Sorry, it just won’t fit.  Folks, the inspired Word of God rightly points out that the coming Tribulation will be 7 years of 360 days to the year.  That is a total of 2,520 days, or 12 months of 30 days to the month.  Anyone making calculations for the coming Tribulation that is not using the 360 day calendar is making a mess of God’s Word, and I say that without apology. 

    The fact is, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when speaking of the “great tribulation,” Matthew 24:21, said, And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened,” Matthew 24:22.  Now just who is it that is going to tell us that the Lord was wrong; that the Lord Himself made a mistake, or didn’t know what He was talking about?  Well?

    May I remind our readers that when the Lord declared, “those days shall be shortened,” the Lord Himself was living in a calendar year of 365.2422 days to the year, just as we are today.  But He quite evidently knew that the calendar year would return to 360 days per year, just like it was prior to 701 B.C..  Yes, many “Christian” people have never studied historical chronology, and do not realize that in 701 B.C. all the nations and peoples of the world changed their calendars from a 360 day year to a year of 365.2422 days per year.  Folks, this is documented history.  Look it up for yourself. 

    Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out  that if the year is shortened from 365.2422 days per year to 360 days per year, over a 7 year period that would amount to shortening those seven years by over a whole month of time.  Right?  I said, “Right?”  Is that your  phone ringing? 

    Well, now how would that happen?  Easy!  In Psalm 102:25-26 the Scripture says, “Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of Thy hands.  They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed.”  Does this say that the Lord is going to “change” the heavens?  It does!  See also Isaiah 34:4 and 51:6. The present order or arrangement of the heavenly bodies in our solar system is going to be changed.  Who said so?  The Lord said so!  In Matthew 24:35 the Lord said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away…..”  This expression in the Greek text literally means, “to pass; pass by; to go past; to come past; to fly by; to fly past.”  See Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, page 488, Strong’s No. 3928.  The very same expression is used in 2 Peter 3:10 where Peter stated, “But the day of the Lord [Tribulation] will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away [pass by; come past; fly by] with a great noise,…..”  These Scriptures (and many similar passages) makes it very plain that our solar system is not going to continue with the same order or arrangement that presently exists.  Wake up, folks.  A great shake-up is coming.  In fact, it is at the door.  We are already seeing changes being wrought in the heavens, and we are just seeing “the tip of the iceberg;” the worst is yet to come.  Peter said “the day of the Lord” would “come” [begin] with such changes, and that such changes would continue “in” [during] that time.  Do you believe God’s Word, or don’t you? 

    Now wouldn’t it be a very simple thing for Almighty God to have one of these heavenly bodies, as it flys past, to “nudge” the earth just a wee bit closer to the Sun, shortening earth’s orbit around the sun by 5.2422 days per year?  Restoring a 360 day year to the earth, just as it had prior to 701 B.C.?  Well? 

    Folks, quit chasing and espousing men’s opinions and get back to the Holy Scriptures.  God’s Word plainly teaches that the Tribulation will be 7 years of 360 days to the year.  If your scheme of things doesn’t agree, I don’t have to guess who is wrong. 

    I stand by what I wrote!  “Even so, come, Lord Jesus,” Revelation 22:20.

                        Pastor F. M. Riley