Every Day, the End Gets Closer

On Tuesday, we introduced you to the truth of the Scriptures' assertations about the End Times.

On Wednesday, we described why the End Times could not have happened until now, and hinted at why the Biblical texts tell us we're closer than you probably think.

Today, we'll explore that more closely, and look at the signs that the world is reaching that moment Christ and Daniel and others have warned us about: the abomination that created the desolation. The AntiChrist.

The Scripture that we noted was the one in all three of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), which was virtually identical. And that's notable because they were significantly different from top to tail, which is why all three are in the Bible to begin with. Matthew wrote his gospel specifically to persuade his Jewish readers that Jesus was the long-prophesied Messiah. Mark was the memoirist of the apostle Peter, and he wrote about the deeds of Christ, rather than the teaching of the most famous rabbi in history. Luke wasn't even present for the ministry of Jesus: he was a Gentile doctor and historian who collected from a wide variety of sources to put together a historical document for a non-Jewish audience. (John apparently wrote his gospel several years afterwards, in hopes of filling in some blanks in the three dominant histories of his Great Friend, and wrote of eight specific miracles Christ wrought. He therefore did not include the Discourse at all.)

Yet all three quote much of the Olivet Discourse, and the fragment I quoted in yesterday's post is identical in all three gospels. Matthew 24:32-35, Mark 13:28-31, and Luke 21:29-32 are almost exact (except for the introductory phrase in Luke 21:29). This speaks to the importance of the Lord's message: This is the most important sign to look for. 

And as we pointed out last time, that sign has almost expired.

But there are more details that we can look at, and Jesus told us point blank where to look - “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." (Matthew 24:15-16). The interesting phrase there to me is the parenthetical, "let the reader understand". Not the listener - the reader! Christ was speaking to His disciples, yet He is specifically warning those who would read His words later! This warning was not for His followers at the time: it was for those who would learn the gospels through text, which wouldn't even be in the next few centuries! ONLY in the days of William Tyndale 1400 years later would the Bible become a book that the common men read.

And He spoke of a specific book of the Old Testament to look at for clues to the coming of the "abomination of desolation" - the writing of the Prophet Daniel. And what did the angel warn Daniel about his prophetic dreams? "But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end." (Dn 12:4a) 

We understand these prophecies now because we see the signs around us...because this is "the time of the end."    


There are four significant dream-prophecies in the book of Daniel. Daniel 2 describes King Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the four kingdoms, starting with that king's Babylonian empire and ending with the kingdom of iron and clay. Otherwise, there isn't much there. The other three, the visions of Daniel himself, are another matter.

Daniel 7 contains this explanation of his vision in the first year of Belshazzar's reign, regarding that fourth kingdom - these are verses 24-27:
As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise,
and another shall arise after them;
he shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings.
He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High,
and shall think to change the times and the law; 
and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.
But the court shall sit in judgment, and his dominion shall be taken away,
to be consumed and destroyed to the end.
And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High;
his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.

In short, this defines the AntiChrist as the king who rises from the ten kingdoms (most presume these to be Europe for reasons too lengthy to explain here) and who rules for 3 1/2 years ("time, times, and half a time" - 1+2+1/2=3.5), before being taken down and given to Heaven and the Messiah in the end. This is the first time we see a script for "the End".

But there's more. In Daniel 9, only four verses speak to the vision of Daniel, but they're biggies. 9:24-27 is probably the most analyzed set of verses in the OT. All of the opening of the chapter is dedicated to how difficult it was to get Daniel this interpretation, so listen up...
“Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

To condense this is difficult, but here we go: The seventy "weeks" are weeks of years, or in other words groups of seven years. (The original Hebrew is seventy "sevens".)  The seventy weeks are divided into a group of seven (49 years), which is how long it took to "restore and build Jerusalem" from scratch for the returning exiles; sixty-two more weeks (434 more years) until an anointed one (Jesus) shall be cut off (killed), which happened 434 years to the week. (The Triumphal Entry took place exactly at 434 years. Amazing.) The last week does NOT come right away, which frankly bothers me, but then the OT prophets were generally unable to distinguish between First and Second Coming events anyway (look at the list in the first sentence: three took place at Christ's first visit; three are planned for His return). In the final week, the AntiChrist will make a covenant with "many" for one week (the last 7 years) and during the last half of that (3 1/2 years) he "shall put an end to sacrifice and offering", meaning that's when he will start the final attempt to eliminate the Jews once and for all. 

But we still don't have a detailed watch list leading into the End Times, do we? Is it really going to sneak up on us completely? Christ told us to watch for it - surely He would give us a way to DO that, right? Well, Daniel does, in chapter 11, which fools a lot of people for one simple reason: it's already been fulfilled! Daniel's 11:2-35 were already a perfect description of the rise, fall, and aftermath of Alexander The Great in the second century before Christ, resulting in the rising up of Judas Maccabeus as the emancipator of the Hebrew people until Pax Romana (the "Roman Peace" - do it Rome's way and nobody gets hurt) led to a tense but still relatively free life for Israel. The problem with this is that it left the last ten verses, 11:36-45, unused and unresolved, without explanation. They appear to speak to the End Times, and have generally been interpreted as "occurring after a ridiculous jump", but never seemed to make sense.

Until now. Because, unbeknownst to anyone until the current days, Daniel 11 is one of those dual Scripture prophecies that show up rarely but more than just this once. It turns out that we can place every one of those verses in context with relationship to the ISIS 'caliphate' and they work at least as well as they did with Alexander. (The full explanation is done on daniel11truth.com, and is explored in such great detail and depth that I won't try to reproduce it here - once you're done here, go read the work done on that site for the closest explanation available.) 

The key verse for our purposes becomes the one that matches perfectly with Christ's warning about watching for the abomination that causes desolation in Matthew 24:15. In Daniel 11, that shows up in verse 31: "Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate." So, what's happened over the last few years, as this pattern has become apparent (for me, it was three years ago, around verse 22 or 23), is the tracking of the events in the middle east that may or may not fulfill the verses of prophecy given to Daniel. (Terminology is sometimes vague, especially when 2600 years and two languages intervene.)

So, where are we right now, if we're waiting to hear verse 31?

Verse 30 is already complete. The next verse could come at any moment.

That's right. We have passed every single landmark which Daniel told us to watch for in and around the Holy Land before the Rapture happens. The very next event in Biblical history will be the sixth seal of the Lord's scroll, which He began opening immediately after His Crucifixion (in Revelation 6:1) and which triggers the exact same events (Rev 6:12-14) as Jesus describes to us in Matthew 24:29-31 - the earthquakes, the full moon of blood, the stars and sky and mountains having unprecedented disruptions. There is NO QUESTION that the two sets of verses describe the exact same event - the Rapture of the Believers, because the next thing we see, in Revelation 7:9, is the great multitude "from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the Throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands" - the saved.

And if YOU are among the saved, you too in the very near future will be counted among "the ones coming out of the Great Tribulation...they (who) have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" - Jesus Christ, your savior and mine. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the Throne will be their Shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (verses 16-17)

Are you among us, friend? Will you be saved from the seven years of hell on earth, and then the eternity of the real hell that will be far worse? All it takes to avoid that horrible fate is to say with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus IS your Lord and Savior. If you're one of those who's put it off while you lived a life of sin - your playtime is up. He is Coming, and He is Coming literally ANY DAY now.

P.S. - One of the things you'll notice when you go to daniel11truth.com is that it's very obviously not a scam for money. You may not agree with the methodology or the conclusions - and believe me, I've studied them hard for three years: I do believe in both - but you won't question the site's honesty. Like me, they just want to see as many people saved as possible, and we are getting frighteningly or ecstatically close, depending on how you look at it. Go over there and spend some time digging through what they have to say. Then revisit my columns this week, and make the only decision a rational person can do. Give your life to Christ before it's too late, because it just about is.