The End-Time Prophetic Timeline 1

Part 1

Can you hear the voices of the prophets screaming, "Israel! Israel!?"

Not everyone does, but those who perceive the sign of times do. Yet again, God is moving in silent loudness. But before I delve into this, let us play a game.

Imagine you are living in 33 AD in Jerusalem, a few months after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Twelve men, who are seemingly drunk at 9 am come professing that the blasphemer you had crucified a few weeks earlier is indeed your Messiah. The people who are attracted to these men are the visitors in the city, who know very little about the man who was crucified. Everyone else in the city knows the story, of how these men stole the body of that blasphemer and hid him. And yet these men claim that their master rose from the dead and ascended to heaven. Imagine yourself in that situation and ask yourself if you would become a follower of Jesus Christ. The sheer number of Jews who rejected Christianity makes the answer to this question clear.

Over the last few decades, a subtle spiritual shift has occurred in the world. Secular and liberal ideas have gradually replaced conservative Christian ideals in most developed countries. A few months ago, I was a silent proponent of this change in Kenya. I could not understand why people had to be held hostage by religious opinions borrowed from a bunch of stories which probably never happened. Hasn't the Bible been silent for the last 2000 years? But, over the last few months, I started opening my Bible and hearing the voice of God. Still, it has taken me over four months to truly understand the most essential aspect of the voice of God; when He speaks, remove the element of time and human wisdom. Nothing happens the way you expect in to happen. Most of the time, we end up glued to what we expect to happen that we fail to perceive what is happening. And that is how we end up thinking that the Bible is silent about the most written about time in Biblical prophecy. Understanding this, however, requires a bird's eye view of God's eternal plan, and not focusing on the "here and now" as we often do.

Acts 1:6-8 ESV So when they had come together, “Lord at this time will you restore the kingdom of Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know the times and seasons that the father has fixed his authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Two thousand years ago, shortly before His ascension, Jesus had a conversation with His apostles revealed the supreme nature of God’s plan and the futility of human wisdom. The Apostles might have been more obedient than the rest of the Jews, but their understanding was just as limited. Around fifty days earlier, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt, paradoxically, under the cheers of the Jerusalem crowd alongside the Apostles. Barely a week before the crucifixion, the crowd spread cloaks on the road for Him acknowledging that He indeed was the Son of David. Yet barely a week later, the Jerusalem crowd was chanting for the release of Barabbas in His place. What changed so quickly?

Mathew 21:8-9 NIV

8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

“Hosanna[b] to the Son of David!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”[c]

“Hosanna[d] in the highest heaven!”

The conversation between the disciples and Jesus in Acts 1:6-7 tell it all; this man Jesus failed to be what all the prophets said the Messiah would be. Didn't the prophet Joel talk about the Messiah coming with authority in Jerusalem and destroying all the enemies of Israel at the Valley of Jehoshaphat? (Joel 3:1 -2) Didn't Isaiah talk extensively about the redemption of the sons of Jacob by the Messiah? (Isaiah 27, 42) Didn't Jeremiah talk about the Messiah restoring Israel after their troubled exile time? (Jeremiah 30.9) As did Zechariah (Zechariah 8), Amos, and many other prophets? How then would this man from Nazareth ride meekly into Jerusalem without any intention of restoring Jerusalem from the Roman Empire oppression, yet claim to be the Messiah? This was, in fact, not the first time God’s plan slipped past the Israelites. Wasn’t Jeremiah thrown into a cistern for relentlessly prophesying about the invasion of Jerusalem by Babylon only for it to happen 40 years after he began his ministry? Wasn’t Zechariah killed in Jerusalem for blasphemy too? Didn’t Jesus grieve for all the prophets Jerusalem killed when prophesying about its destruction? Didn’t the Pharisees swear they would not repeat the same mistake as their fathers did, only to kill John the Baptist and Jesus? Isn’t it prophesied that the final tribulation prophets of the age will be killed in Jerusalem yet again?

Acts 1:7 “It is not for you to know the times and seasons that the father has fixed his authority”

As Jesus explained, God's meticulous plan for the redemption of mankind is expertly planned out in times and seasons. Thousands of years ago, God made a promise to Abraham, that through his offspring, the whole world will be blessed. The Old Testament contains books that skillfully outline this journey to redemption, through writings that trace His bloodline and books from prophets whose messages mostly focus on Him. Nonetheless, when the blessing eventually came, Abraham's offspring did not perceive. And so, the whole world received the blessing while the children of the kingdom were locked out. Jesus prophesied about this, when healing the Centurion's servant (Mathew 8:12) and in the parable of the Wedding Feast (Mathew 22.8). The lack of faith in Israel ushered in the time of the Gentiles. In his address to the people of Jerusalem after being baptized by the Holy Spirit, Peter explains their Spiritual drunkenness through Prophet Joel's prophecy (Acts 2.17; Joel 2.28). But still, at the infancy of this move, Peter refers to the time as "the last days."

The term end-time has been loosely thrown around from that time until now, and in the minds of many, this will continue for another two thousand years or so. But the truth is the Bible is not as silent about this time as many hope it is. Conversely, the Bible has never been louder than it is now.

Zechariah 7.12-14 They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words of the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, great anger came from the Lord of hosts. As I called, and they would not hear," Says the Lord of hosts, "and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate so that no one went to and fro and the pleasant land was made desolate.

The establishment of the early Church all over Europe and Asia was a spectacular move of the Holy Spirit through Paul and other Apostles. But, as Zechariah prophesied, the people of Israel rejected the words of the Holy Spirit and so God kindled their anger against them. And so in 70 AD, the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, as prophesied by Jesus in Mathew 24 and Luke 21 occurred. The Roman army which the Jews had expected the Messiah to liberate them from, surrounded Jerusalem and made the whole city desolate. The Israelites trapped in the city were brutally killed while those who went into hiding resorted to cannibalism to save their lives. The remnant from this city was driven into the gentile nations, and so, the nation of Israel was wiped out of existence.

The spiritual significance of this event to the dispensation of the Gentiles should not be underestimated. It symbolized a total shift in God’s agenda to the Gentiles. Years later, the Al-Aqsa Mosque was constructed at Temple Mount, the previous location of the Second Temple of Jerusalem. The Middle East region gradually became a Muslim stronghold and Christianity faded away from the region. Jerusalem became a Palestine city, thus fulfilling the prophesy by Jesus that it would be trampled upon by the Gentiles during their dispensation. For the next 1800 years, the gospel gradually spread across the Gentile world until it reached the dark continent of Africa. At this point, the Bible was relatively silent, but then, God remembered Jacob.

Jeremiah 30.3 "For behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I will give them back to the land that I gave their fathers, and they shall take possession of it."

The year is 1939, and the descendants of Jacob are spread all over the world. The Promised Land given to them thousands of years ago after leaving Egypt is all but a distant memory. A German dictator, Adolph Hitler, slowly rises the ranks and becomes the commander in chief of the German forces. Because of his anti-Semitic views, he starts a tremendous holocaust that targets Jews who are dispersed all over Europe. Between 1941 and 1945, over 6 million Jews are killed through Nazi persecution. By this time a "kingdom" that Daniel had seen in his visions has risen into a military superpower. Due to the chaos of war, Franklin Roosevelt becomes the first president of the US to serve more than two terms in office. He is greatly popular for his foreign policies, but evidently, the Jews scattered globally are not at the top of his priority list. Towards the end of his third term, his vice president Henry Wallace starts losing the support of the Democratic Party because of his far-left views which were unfavorable for war. And so, the party offers a stern conservative Democrat, Harry Truman, the vice presidential ticket. In 1945, Roosevelt starts his fourth term with Truman as His vice president; by sadly, less than 90 days into the term; the president succumbs to cerebral hemorrhage. In the process, the man that everyone wanted in administration but not the top of it rises to the peak. Instead of taking a more reserved approach in the war as his predecessor did, Harry Truman bombs Japan using nuclear weapons of mass destruction for the first time in history, hence ending the Second World War.

Ezekiel 37:11-14

The Valley of Dry Bones

11 Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. 14 And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”

The Jewish Holocaust of the Second World War seemed like the final blow to a remnant forgotten by God. Israel was nothing more than dry bones at this point. But just when it seemed that all was lost, Ezekiel prophesied to the dry bones and gave them flesh, and breathed into the flesh and gave them life in arguably the teariest prophetic fulfillment yet. In 1948, the Jews scattered all over globally decided to go back and reclaim their home, but the world was afraid of the conflict this would cause in the Middle East. In the moments leading up to Israel's independence, the American State Department did everything to stop the process. But one man was a major stumbling block, President Harry Truman. Many years earlier, while still in school, his teacher had taught him about the prophesied reestablishment of Israel. And here he was, in the position to make the final decision about it. And so, on May 14th, 1948, after receiving a call from Israel's leader, it did not take him 12 days, nor 12 hours, but just 12 minutes to declare Israel as a State. In the process, he earned the title Cyrus, the King that God had prophesied to liberate Jacob in Isaiah 45, a title which could also be given to another leader who came 70 years after him.

Isaiah 45:1 This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of, to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut:4 For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me.