Shortened Days

       When Jesus stood on Mount Olivet, looking down on the Temple that would be destroyed within a generation or so, He described the kairos signs that would mark Days 5 and 6 in God’s prophetic Week. It would be 2,000 years of conflict, persecution, pestilence, scarcity—we know it only too well. In Mark 13:19, Jesus warned, “For in those days there will be tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the creation which God created until this time, nor ever shall be.” If you’ve been following these blogs, you know that the Church has existed in tribulation for the entire Messianic Age.
        End-Time Lesson: In short, we have lived in the tribulation all our lives. We are still in it. Yet the chronos tells us that it shall end in our not too distance future. Within this decade, we shall see the sixth and final sign that signals the end of this age and the coming of the Lord at the rapture. Jesus goes on to say, “And unless the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake, whom He chose, He shortened the days.”
       This doesn’t mean God will suddenly change His mind and decide enough is enough with all this lawlessness. As much as we would certainly approve of such a change of heart, that is not how God rolls. He never changes. His Word is sure. He has set the predetermined chronos times. We can count on it—literally, counting the chronos march of 7,000 years!
         So what, then, is shortened? The lives of the elect. To understand what this means, we have to look back into the whole counsel of God’s Word where two shadows cast an outline of what is to come. That is, Enoch and Elijah. The Bible records that both men did not see death. They were miraculously transported to Heaven before the end of the typical time allotted to mankind in those days (the early Days). In short, their days were cut short. Psalm 90 informs us that the typical length of “the days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years.”
       In terms of the One who is from everlasting to everlasting, our time on this earth seems like grass that sprouts in the morning, grows throughout the day, and is cut down and withers by the end of the evening. That’s what 70-80 years looks like in terms of eternity! But that is not the end of the story for the elect—those who have been called out and set apart because they have called upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Those of us who are alive when Jesus comes at the dawn of the 7th Day, shall have our lives shortened.
         I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you won’t mind one bit! In the amount of time it takes for you to blink, your mortal body will be changed. The glory of heaven will engulf you and you shall be glorified in Christ. Paul understood this shortening of our days. In fact, He acknowledged that we are predestined for this as the elect, for even as Christ was glorified on the 3rd day after the crucifixion, we whom He called, whom He justified, shall also be glorified on the 3rd Day when counting from Jesus’ ministry (Romans 8:30).
        When our Lord comes, Matthew records that “He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” You see, our days may be cut off, but for those who have already passed over, they shall come with Him so that we all can be carried back together to Father’s House, compliments of an angelic limousine service of fiery chariots!