Knowing the Times: A Fresh Look at Biblical Concepts
This article offers a fresh look at biblical concepts of time, to the intent that we might know more about the impending "day of the Lord" that comes as a thief on unbelievers.
Here are several concepts.
1.
The Signature of God by Grant Jeffrey includes a chapter on the numerical signature of God as seven.
God made the world in six days and rested the seventh day.
From antiquity, cultures world-wide have had a weekly cycle of seven days.
The 4th Commandment says to remember the Sabbath day as the 7th day which is to honor God who created the world in six days and ceased, Exodus 20:8-11.
2.
But the Bible also teaches that a thousand years are like a day, 2Peter 3:8.
Since God gives man six days to do his work, he also gives us 6,000 years.
The book of Revelation points to a time when the saints will live and reign with Christ for a thousand years, Revelation 20:4.
We somehow think those periods may be exact, but if I said Christ died or rose 2000 years ago, it's not exact, but close.
In a similar way, biblical reckoning tied to the second coming may be helped by considering another concept that is linked to what happens when Christ returns.
3.
In Bible times, they could work their land, trim their trees and harvest their crops for six years, but they were to rest the land and themselves on the seventh year.
Leviticus 25.
And after seven cycles of seven, in the 49th year, they were to blow the trumpet to announce the jubilee year.
It meant that if you have become in debt and were someone's servant to pay off the debt, your debt was cancelled and you were free.
If you had a piece of land as a part of your inheritance and you sold it for money, it was returned to your family on the jubilee year--you could not permanently impoverish your children by giving away their inheritance.
This jubilee concept is linked to the second coming when our debts are cancelled and when this earth returns its land to the original owner--God! 4.
But the 50th year was also the first of the next sequence so that jubilees were 49 years apart.
The is seen in the famous Messianic prophecy of Daniel 9:24--"Seventy weeks [of years] are determined...
" is computed as 70 x 7 or 490 years, so that it's not an exact 500.
In 1,000 years, like Peter's text above, 20 jubilees would span 980 years, leaving 20 years left over, but where do they fit? 5.
Based on a New Scientist article, the European edition of TIME Magazine published this factoid: "May 5, 2000: The date that Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will line up with the sun and moon--the first time in 6,000 years.
" January 17, 2000.
This factoid fits with Ussher's Chronology and that of Sir Isaac Newton who invented calculus.
He calculated the world would be 6,000 years old in the year 2000.
With 6,000 years behind us, and 980 years of 20 jubilees to reign with Christ (?), this would leave 20 years leading up to the 2nd coming.
With 2013 being 13 years since the solar system alignment, we should expect the possibility that the last seven years could begin this year.
If so, we should see huge events this spring to include an unprecedented earthquake as suggested by Joel 2:10,11; Zechariah 14:1-5; Revelation 8:5.
Here are several concepts.
1.
The Signature of God by Grant Jeffrey includes a chapter on the numerical signature of God as seven.
God made the world in six days and rested the seventh day.
From antiquity, cultures world-wide have had a weekly cycle of seven days.
The 4th Commandment says to remember the Sabbath day as the 7th day which is to honor God who created the world in six days and ceased, Exodus 20:8-11.
2.
But the Bible also teaches that a thousand years are like a day, 2Peter 3:8.
Since God gives man six days to do his work, he also gives us 6,000 years.
The book of Revelation points to a time when the saints will live and reign with Christ for a thousand years, Revelation 20:4.
We somehow think those periods may be exact, but if I said Christ died or rose 2000 years ago, it's not exact, but close.
In a similar way, biblical reckoning tied to the second coming may be helped by considering another concept that is linked to what happens when Christ returns.
3.
In Bible times, they could work their land, trim their trees and harvest their crops for six years, but they were to rest the land and themselves on the seventh year.
Leviticus 25.
And after seven cycles of seven, in the 49th year, they were to blow the trumpet to announce the jubilee year.
It meant that if you have become in debt and were someone's servant to pay off the debt, your debt was cancelled and you were free.
If you had a piece of land as a part of your inheritance and you sold it for money, it was returned to your family on the jubilee year--you could not permanently impoverish your children by giving away their inheritance.
This jubilee concept is linked to the second coming when our debts are cancelled and when this earth returns its land to the original owner--God! 4.
But the 50th year was also the first of the next sequence so that jubilees were 49 years apart.
The is seen in the famous Messianic prophecy of Daniel 9:24--"Seventy weeks [of years] are determined...
" is computed as 70 x 7 or 490 years, so that it's not an exact 500.
In 1,000 years, like Peter's text above, 20 jubilees would span 980 years, leaving 20 years left over, but where do they fit? 5.
Based on a New Scientist article, the European edition of TIME Magazine published this factoid: "May 5, 2000: The date that Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will line up with the sun and moon--the first time in 6,000 years.
" January 17, 2000.
This factoid fits with Ussher's Chronology and that of Sir Isaac Newton who invented calculus.
He calculated the world would be 6,000 years old in the year 2000.
With 6,000 years behind us, and 980 years of 20 jubilees to reign with Christ (?), this would leave 20 years leading up to the 2nd coming.
With 2013 being 13 years since the solar system alignment, we should expect the possibility that the last seven years could begin this year.
If so, we should see huge events this spring to include an unprecedented earthquake as suggested by Joel 2:10,11; Zechariah 14:1-5; Revelation 8:5.