One of my bloggin' buddies, BR'ER MARC, asked me to explain why I've been saying for some time now that I believe the prophesied "Second Coming" of Jesus Christ will occur in 2029 (or 2028). I promised him that I would do that shortly after the end of the 2016 Presidential Election. Well, seeing as how it now looks as if for Snowflake America the 2016 Presidential Election will N-E-V-E-R end, I figure I better just go ahead and answer Br'er Marc's question now...
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I have no way of knowing how much any of you are already aware of when it comes to Biblical End-Time Prophecies, so if I say some things that seem too obvious and you're thinking "Well, duh!", please don't think I'm trying to insult you. I'm going to explain some very basic ideas, along with the rest, if not for your benefit, then perhaps for someone who may discover this blog bit a bit later.
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Some of what I am going to write is pretty common knowledge, but it will be sprinkled with some insights derived by me via personal teaching from God's Holy Spirit. I am certain that God will guide anyone by His Holy Spirit if that person opens up to God and is willing to accept, by faith, any guidance wherever it leads.
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Most of The Bible has at least two (and in some cases probably three) valid interpretations: 1) that which pertains to the Earth, its history, and the history of mankind upon it. In other words, it applies to man's PHYSICAL being, and 2) a deeper, Spiritual interpretation that applies to God's Spiritual realm, mankind's true identity, which is purely Spiritual, and the process by which we are learning our way out of the physical realm and into the Spiritual realm where we really belong.
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| MY HOLY BIBLE. CONDITION: USED |
First and foremost, it's important to understand that saint Peter gave us the Divine Key that opens the door to understanding Biblical End-Time Prophecy and the "Second Coming" of Jesus (Yeshua) Christ. In fact, I've read the Bible cover-to-cover about 22 times and, other than Peter, I find no indication that any of the other apostles / saints knew that it would be 2,000 years before Christ's prophesied Second Coming. Peter absolutely knew that because he gave us the key that clearly revealed it. But according to my understanding, it seems that even saint Paul did not know this fact. It looks to me like Paul -- at least until close to the end of his life -- actually believed that he'd be alive to witness the return of Jesus.
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But Peter knew that it was two thousand years off, and he all but said so when he gave us the key in 2 Peter 3. He was writing very specifically about the return of Christ, and in part he said:
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2 PETER 3:
Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle ... that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
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But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
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1 Day = 1 Thousand Years
1 Thousand Years = 1 Day
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That is the key to the whole thing.
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But notice how prior to writing the key, Peter was talking about the creation of the Earth. At first glance that might seem to almost be irrelevant to the Second Coming of Christ Yeshua, but it's not. And the reason it's not is because the Genesis Creation account actually ties into the prophetic timeline of Christ's return and the promised 1,000 years of peace (read: Revelation 20).
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Genesis 1 ends by telling us...
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Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
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And Genesis 2 begins...
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Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
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If all of God's creation was completed on the Sixth Day, why was the Seventh Day even mentioned? Why are we told that God "rested" on the Seventh Day, and why did He "sanctify" that day on which He appears to have done nothing but rest? And why aren't we told that he rested on the eighth day, too? And the ninth? The tenth, etc.? In other words, if all of God's work was completed on the sixth day, why bother even mentioning a seventh day?
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Because God established a 7-Day "Week", not an 8-Day or 9-Day week. And it was created as a 7-Day week because 7 DAYS (aka "7 THOUSAND YEARS" -- remembering Peter's key to the prophetic timeline) is the period which God decreed would represent everything He was to do on Earth, from beginning to end, until He completes this Earthly school system and creates a new Heaven and a new Earth (read: Revelation 21).
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A blogger whom I've mentioned to a few folks before goes into some good detail about the 7 different Thousand Year periods at http://2028end.com/the-math You should DEFINITELY check out his website!!
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He has obviously been taught by The Holy Spirit, and I myself wasn't even aware of all those correlations. However, the importance of the 7-Thousand Years in the End-Time timeline I've known about for a long time.
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God specifically mentioned that He was done creating or "working" after the 6th Day, and on the 7th Day He "rested". When we rest, we are at peace. "Peace" is one synonym for "rest". So what God was telling us is that when we get to the "SEVEN THOUSANDTH YEAR PERIOD" of Earth's history, it will be A "DAY" OF PEACE. As Revelation 20 tells us, Jesus is going to put down satan, the anti-Christ and the False Prophet, and they will be "bound" for "a thousand years" of peace on Earth, with Christ Yeshua taking his rightful place as the Holy King and Savior of mankind.
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So, the 7 "Day" Creation story really has a prophecy of Christ's return and millennial reign cloaked within it...
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1 Day = 1 Thousand Years
1 Thousand Years = 1 Day
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It's very interesting to consider that the history of mankind on Earth appears to go back only 6 thousand years. If you forget about all the pagan pseudo-science and stick to only what we can know for sure (e.g., the fact that human writing goes back only about 6 thousand years) and consider that the Biblical genealogies for mankind indicate four thousand years from Adam to Jesus, and that it's been about two thousand years since Jesus was Resurrected and Ascended to Heaven, that puts us right now, in these times, at the end of the six thousand years and about to enter that final (7th) thousand year period. The 7th Day of rest, the 7 Thousandth year in which Christ was Biblically promised to be here to rule over a peaceful Earth.
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We are right now on the brink of the most exciting moment that will ever occur on this planet: Armageddon, the return of the Holy Savior, and the vanquishing of satan for a "Day" of rest on Earth.
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But wait! There's more...
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Throughout The Holy Bible there are allusions to the End-Time scenario and clues to the timing of Christ's return. In fact, sometimes The Bible is remarkably precise. For example in Luke 19:28-44, when Jesus presented Himself for the first time as Israel's Holy King, He said: “If you had known, even you, especially in this YOUR DAY, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes."
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He was holding them accountable, for they could have, and should have, known that very day (April 6) that their prophesied Messiah was going to arrive. Their priests and scribes only needed to do the math in the Daniel 9 prophecy to know that the Man on the donkey was their King and Messiah. Instead, they rejected Him and He became their (and the world's) Eternal Passover Lamb instead.
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So, The Bible don't fool around. Everything we need to know is in there if we study with serious intent, are willing to sometimes challenge traditionally cherished yet questionable dogmas, and humbly accept teaching from The Holy Spirit.
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We know, of course, that the Old Testament and Jesus Himself prophesied in advance that He would be killed and would be Resurrected. And that's just what happened.
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LUKE 24:1-7 says:
Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’”
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"THE THIRD DAY RISE AGAIN". This is also a cloaked prophecy about Christ's return. Just as He returned to life and came back to His people after His crucifixion, it was promised that He would return to us, His people, a second time (read: Acts 1: 9-11).
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Here, saint Peter's key comes into play again. 1 Day = 1 Thousand Years; 1 Thousand Years = 1 Day. When did Jesus return to His people after His Crucifixion? The Bible says, "the third day" He rose again. In fact, it was on the morning of the third day. How long ago did Jesus ascend into Heaven? 2 thousand years ago (or, 2 "days" ago). When does He return to His people? On the morning of the third day. Today (2016), the Sun is arising on the morning of the third day, or third thousandth "year", since Jesus left us. We should be expecting Him any time now, just as the Jews should have been expecting Him on that April 6th when He rode the donkey into Jerusalem.
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There are a number of places throughout The Bible where Christ's Second Coming is alluded to and the timing of it is there to be discovered for people who don't read too quickly and really contemplate a bit deeper everything that is being said. Here's just one example:
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Hosea 6 begins with...
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Come, and let us return to the Lord;
For He has torn, but He will heal us;
He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
After TWO DAYS He will revive us;
ON THE THIRD DAY He will raise us up,
That we may live in His sight.
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There's that Day / Year thing again. We have been living without Christ here bodily for two days (two thousand years), and satan has been having a ball during that time, as The Bible said he would:
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Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.
~Revelation 12:12
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But Hosea tells us that on the 3rd day (during the 3rd thousand year period) Jesus will raise us up (from the influence of the devil) and we will "live in His sight" -- for He will actually be here on Earth with us for that 7th Day (thousand years) of rest from the works of satan.
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There are numerous references to the Apocalypse and Yeshua's Second Coming to be found in The Bible, and some tie into the restoration of Israel as a sovereign nation. Below are some lengthy articles that I think are very much worthwhile reading:
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http://www.therefinersfire.org/jews_return_to_israel.htm
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http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/author-bible-predicted-date-of-israels-return/
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With this third one, all of it warrants consideration, but for our purposes here I will recommend that you initially scroll down and read the section 'This Generation Will Not Pass', from there down to the end of the article:
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http://www.discoverrevelation.com/23.html
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And that's not all!...
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I will conclude this Reader's Digest version of my thinking on this topic by quoting from what I consider to be the best book on Eschatology that I have ever read, (Link>) 'END-TIME PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE' by David Haggith. I'm sure this must be out of print now but inexpensive used copies are surely available online, and I highly recommend acquiring one.
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In chapter 22, 'Millennium', David Haggith writes:
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"Though the modern calendar measures years from the birth of Christ ("The year of our Lord", anno Domini, A.D.), it is probably not accurate enough to show exactly when the seventh millennium would begin, but most historians would agree the calendar is within a decade of being accurate on the birth of Christ. Many historians believe the birth of Christ actually happened in about 4 B.C., in which case, the millennium of Christ's reign would have begun in 1996, by the above reasoning, and obviously that did not happen.
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"There's a second caveat: Many historians would insist more than four thousand years occurred between the beginning of human history and Jesus Christ's birth. That may be irrelevant to interpreting the Apocalypse, however, given that the appropriate calendar to use for Biblical revelation would be the Biblical calendar. Even then, there are discrepancies in the Biblical chronologies between various ancient manuscripts where two manuscripts each have different time spans for the same event. The current Jewish Calendar system, for example, shows only 3,760 years before Christ, which would place the beginning of the seventh millennium near the year 2240. Nevertheless, many historians agree Biblical genealogies count back very close to four thousand years before Christ. (Some say exactly four thousand years.)
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"Then why didn't the seventh millennium begin in 1996? Perhaps Christ's life on earth should also be considered an interlude in the time line, so the prophetic clock may not have started ticking again until He left the earth. Jesus' life was certainly an interruption in the flow of human history. Small as the events of His life seemed in His own time, it's not hard to argue they were the biggest interruption history has ever seen in terms of their consequence."
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All those years ago when I read that, it really struck a chord with me. Although it's surely speculative, something within me -- The Holy Spirit, I believe -- resonated with the idea that Yeshua's life on Earth was an interruption in the prophetic Apocalyptic timeline. It was like the clock was temporarily stopped, as in a Divine chess match, where God makes His move and then stops the clock. When God received Christ back into Heaven after His resurrection, God hit the Apocalyptic clock again and Earth was back on the Biblical timeline leading us to Christ's Second Coming on the morning of the 7th Day.
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Again, this is speculative. Haggith's idea may be incorrect and I may be wrong in considering it so seriously, but given all the other Biblical prophecies pointing to our time, I really don't think so. Knowing that Jesus Christ lived 33 years, I added those 33 years (stopped clock time) to 1996, and that's how I came up with 2029 as the year of Christ's return.
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What I find fascinating is that a couple of other online Bible students, whom I've never met nor conversed with, have come up with the year 2028 by using other methods derived from Biblical clues. Kind of interesting that we're all only 365 days off in our thinking!
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Below is a very helpful chart which illustrates the 7-Day "Week" of Biblical prophecy from Creation to Earth's end:
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To view that chart on a page where it can be enlarged for reading, go to the website 2028 End by clicking HERE.
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It's a very complex topic but I hope this brief explanation has sufficiently illustrated some of the reasons I strongly believe that our Lord will return to us in our own lifetime. There's a whole lot more to this, but I hope this is a decent start.
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Jesus is coming soon. Are we ready for that?
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'ARE YOU READY?' by Bob Dylan
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy.
