After reading F.M. Riley's "Consider This!", it helped to
bring into focus many of my own thoughts upon subjects brought up in his post:
http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/aug2005/fmriley824.htm
There were many good thoughts and I wanted to use them as a jumping off place
to ask questions. Consider what follows as solely asking questions and
let the reader reach his or her own conclusions based on his or her answers
to those questions.
F.M. Riley writes:
The “rightly
divided” Word of God is quite clear that the coming “day of the Lord” [Tribulation]
is 2,520 days in length. It is composed of two equal periods of 1260
days [42 months…..three and one-half years] to each period. See
Daniel 9:27, Revelation 11:3, and Revelation
13:5. This is a total of seven years of 360 days
in each year. 2520 divided by 7 = 360. This is what the inspired
Word of God teaches, and I have no intention of trying to explain it away.
The Tribulation will be seven years of 360 days to the year;
a total of 2,520 days.
In response:
Is the Word of God quite clear that the Tribulation is 2,520 days in length
per Daniel 9:27, Revelation 11:3, and Revelation 13:5?
Starting with Daniel 9:27:
And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst
of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for
the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the
consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Daniel 9:27
Is it true that often times Jesus and the preincarnate Jesus spoke purposely
in parables and mysteries? Is it true that the "Word of God is
quite clear" in the above verse, or could this be considered one of these times?
And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in
parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Matthew 13:10-11
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of
God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing
they might not understand. Luke 8:10
If Daniel 9:27 is clear, then when it starts out with "And he", who is the "he"?
Since the verse starts out with "And", don't we need to refer to the verse before
it to find out the proper noun?
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not
for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy
the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto
the end of the war desolations are determined. Daniel 9:26
Don't we have two proper nouns, "Messiah" and "prince"? Do these both
refer to the same person? Is the "prince" the "Messiah"? In Sir
Robert Anderson's classic masterpiece, "The Coming Prince", who is the "Prince"
in the title? (Sir Robert Anderson devotes this whole book to mainly discussing
the ninth chapter of Daniel. He shows from King Artexerxes decree
around the Spring Equinox of 445 B.C., (I think the Spring Equinox, Sir Robert
Anderson has the week before), to "Messiah being cut off", "Palm Sunday" 32
AD, fulfills the 7+62 week prophecy.)
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment
to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be
seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again,
and the wall, even in troublous times. Daniel 9:25
Does reading Daniel 9:25 confirm or change your answer to whether the "prince"
is the "Messiah" in Daniel 9:26? We know that from the commandment to
restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks
and threescore and two weeks. But don't we also know that "Messiah the
Prince" will come two times, the first time as the Messiah, the savior of the
world, and the second time as Prince, the ruler of the world? So why aren't
we given a time period for each? Or are we? The Hebrews were expected
the Messiah to come once as both Messiah and Prince. Yet aren't both the
time periods 7 weeks and 62 weeks given separately in Daniel 9:25? Did
you know that adding 7 (prophetic) weeks to June 7, 1967 when Jerusalem was
recaptured by Israel and the implicit command went forth and was acted upon
to "build Jerusalem" lands one to the exact day on Yom Kippur in 2015, September
23, 2015?
In Daniel 9:27, if "he" is "Messiah the Prince" then what covenant did He confirm,
(which means He did not make the covenant, only confirmed it)? If He confirmed
the "old covenant" then why is the Bible broken into the "old covenant" and
the "new covenant", (covenant/testament are interchangeable words)? Could
the "many" in Daniel 9:27 be the same "many" as in Romans 5:15?
But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence
of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which
is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. Romans
5:15
Could the one week in Daniel 9:27 be based on the time that the confirmer of
the covenant uses, not the time used by the "many"?
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the
Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. II Peter
3:8
Could it be said that He, through the people He used as an instrument of His
Justice, the Prince, cause the sacrifices and oblations to cease in the sanctuary
in 70 AD when the sanctuary, the temple, was destroyed?
Next looking at Revelation
11:3 and Revelation 13:5:
And I will give power unto my two witnesses,
and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed
in sackcloth. Revelation 11:3
And there was given unto him
a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him
to continue forty and two months. Revelation
13:5
Clearly we have 1,260 days followed
by 42 months which is most likely also equivalent to 1,260 days making a total
of 2,520 days. Can we then add these two events together as happening
one right after another? What about:
And the woman fled into the wilderness,
where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a
thousand two hundred and threescore days.
Revelation 12:6
Is not this event just as clearly sandwiched in between these
other two verses? Can we clearly say that this event does not also deserve
to be added to the 2,520 days bringing the total to 3,780 days? This is
a little over 10 years.
F.M. Riley finishes by writing:
Many years ago I made an intensive study
of the Jewish Holy Days given to Israel by God Himself, as recorded in Leviticus 23. I am still studying
those Holy Days today, but I have never had any reason to change my mind
on what the Lord showed me when I first studied them many years ago.
I knew then that the Holy Days were “prophetic,” and I still understand
that truth today. See Colossians
3:16-17.
As I studied the Holy Days, I came
to Leviticus 23:23-32. These verses
tell us about what is today called Rosh HaShanah
[1st day of the seventh month], and about what is today called
Yom Kippur [the 10th
day of the seventh month]. Even back then, knowing that the days are
“prophetic,” it
appeared to me that Rosh HaShanah [Feast of Trumpets] might easily mark
the time for the beginning of “the day of the Lord” [Tribulation].
In Leviticus 23 the date
given for observing Rosh HaShanah is immediately
followed by a demand that the Jews “offer an offering made by fire.” Over
and over again in the prophetic Scriptures the Tribulation is spoken of
as a time of “fiery trial”
for the Jews.
I was also aware that when the Jews
were in their land they only observed one day for Rosh HaShanah; the 1st day of the
7th month as stated in Leviticus 23. But after they were
scattered among all the nations of the earth, the Jewish Rabbis set aside
two days for the observance. This was so that every Jew, regardless
of what time zone they were in throughout the world, would be able to observe
this very Holy Day. Now it should be easy to understand that since
Rosh HaShanah is now a
two day observance, then there are seven days left between
Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Today the Jews use these
seven days as a time to “afflict their souls.” During
these seven days they confess their sins, pray earnestly for forgiveness,
do good to others, and seek to draw near to the
God of Israel. The Jews themselves refer to these days as “the
seven days of awe.”
Let’s make this picture perfectly clear. Rosh HaShanah.....Tishri 1-2. Seven Days of Awe.....Tishri
3-4-5-6-7-8-9. Yom Kippur.....Tishri 10. This sure
gave me the idea that these “Seven
Days of Awe” probably represented the seven year Tribulation.
I reasoned then that since Rosh HaShanah appeared to represent the
beginning of the Tribulation, that Yom Kippur [the Great Day of Atonement]
must represent the end of the Tribulation. What about it? Could
this possibly be the spiritual picture being represented in these Holy Days?
I have held this insight in my mind all these years.
In further
response:
F.M. Riley makes many, many good analogies. Here is picture of God's future
timetable using the fall feasts with as he stated, Rosh Hashana representing
the beginning of the Tribulation and Yom Kippur representing the end.
And the Seven Days of Awe in between representing a time of "Awe-full-ness"
not "Awe-some-ness" for the Jewish people. Using Google on 9/1/05 with
"seven days of awe", it found 79 references.
However, could the 10 days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur better represent
10 prophetic years of tribulation between the Rapture and His 2nd Coming?
Could the last 42 months, (1260 days) representing the time the earth is ruled
by the beast spoken of in Revelation? Using Google again on 9/1/05 with
"ten days of awe", it found over 10 times as many references as "seven days
of awe", at 965 references. And just as between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur
the Hebrew Faith believes there is "ten days to repent" if ones name is not
found to be written in the book of Life on Rosh Hashana (a picture of the rapture
and the passing of a generation of Mercy?), then one likewise has ten years
to repent during the ten years of tribulation possibly between Rosh Hashana
2005 and Yom Kippur 2015 (Yom Kippur 2015 being a picture of the Prince of Peace
coming as Judge over the earth and the passing of a generation of Justice?).
So consider this. The next time someone talks about the "seven years of
tribulation" think about the great deception that is to come and may already
be going on and whether there could be "ten years of tribulation" instead.
Shalom!
Ted Porter
www.EndOfAge.com