Now that we’ve jumped ahead in the Revelation vision to see the ending, let’s go back to the start of the 7th Day, the Day of the Lord, to see “the things which must shortly take place” (Rev. 1:1). In Daniel 7 we saw the little horn—the Antichrist—rise to power. He spoke pompous words against the Most High. Bent on destroying Israel once and for all time, his invasion sweeps across the Promised Land. Then God turns out the lights, halting the invasion in its tracks. When the lights come back on, it is the dawn of the Day of the Lord. The heavenly realm is revealed and the whole world sees Christ coming for His Bride.
       Hosea’s prophecy of a 3rd Day revival of the Jews after their two-Day timeout comes to pass. The Jews’ acceptance of the Messiah triggers the last half of Daniel’s 70th Week prophecy to be reinstated. God’s plans for His people are back in motion as they are grafted back into the Branch. “And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again” (Rom. 11:23).
      End-Time Lesson: With the success of the initial invasion, the Antichrist’s plan for his coalition of Middle Eastern armies hasn’t changed. He intends to persecute the newly revived “saints of the Most High.” But now, God has entered the war on Israel’s behalf!
      Daniel 7:26 shows us the rapture and the heavenly court being seated. Because the Antichrist intends to change God’s predetermined times and laws, the court “shall take away his dominion.” Armed with our two-edged sword—our heavenly declarations voiced in agreement with God’s written Word—we begin to consume and destroy that dominion forever. Satan’s counterfeit one-world order shall come crashing down.
       As with the plagues God brought against Egypt through Moses, the trumpet and bowl judgments consume slowly, giving the rebellious people and armies a chance to repent. This operation highlights God’s mercy as well as His justice. Not surprisingly, Rev. 9:20-21 reveals their hearts and intentions. “But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”
      All throughout this operation, the counterfeit trinity of the Antichrist, the False Prophet, and the Dragon are doing their best to establish the kingdom of darkness upon the nations. The Antichrist erects an image of himself, just as Nebuchadnezzar had done, and orders the people to worship the image. He causes the people to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads. No one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
        Of course, the Bride is already seated in Heaven with Christ, for we are not appointed for that wrath. But those who were left behind at the rapture will have to deal with the ramifications of God’s judgments against evil. If they have subsequently accepted Jesus as their Savior, they will have to put their faith in God’s written promises.
         Again, as with Moses and the final plague, the final 7th trumpet brings sudden destruction. “Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’ And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth” (Rev. 16:17-18).
       Daniel 7:27 reveals the effect of this final trumpet sounding.  “Then the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole Heaven, shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him.” Israel shall become the natural head of the nations, under the delegated authority of the heavenly court. The rest of Christ’s 1,000-year reign shall unfold in relative peace, although any violation of God’s just government shall be dealt with swiftly.
        At the end of the 1,000 years, there shall be one final rebellion. Hard to believe, yes, but we’ll explain how it is possible. Stay tuned!

      As we’ve stated throughout this series, God’s chronos plan is scattered through the types and shadows of the Old Testament and the accounts of the Old Covenant prophets. In this way, it remained hidden until the appointed time for portions of the plan to be revealed. We see this same principle in action in Jesus’ ministry.
      Quite often He taught the people using parables. He didn’t develop this teaching technique just because He was fond of telling stories. No, it was intentional. For one thing, the images He described were drawn from the people’s everyday lives. He used these real-life examples to help the people picture the ways of Heaven that were so different from the ways of their world.
        These word pictures were not always obvious. It is the nature of a good parable to draw in the listeners, pique their interest, and propel them to seek out more about the meaning of the story. When His disciples asked Jesus to clarify the meaning of the parable, He willingly explained the spiritual truths displayed in the word pictures. This is why Jesus prayed that they would have ears to hear and eyes to see.
        End-Time Lesson: Two prominent parables highlight the chronos of the plan. Both are recorded in Matthew 13—the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Wheat and Tares. The Parable of the Sower describes our current assignment of preaching the Gospel and making disciples. We are the sowers and the seed we scatter is the seeds of God’s Word from our own personal testimonies. [Hint: John 1:1 calls Jesus the Word.] Believers have been sowing the Word concerning Jesus’ finished work for almost two thousand years.
        This assignment will be taken over by the newly revived Jewish saints who have finally accepted Jesus as their Savior when they see Him come to gather His Bride at the rapture. They pick up the baton and run the rest of the race for the remainder of Christ’s 1,000-year reign, for we are now seated with Christ before the throne of God.
        As Jesus explained the parable to the disciples afterwards, the key to spreading the Word of God around the world is the soil in which the seeds of God’s words are planted. No matter how anointed the message, some will refuse to hear it (stony ground). Some will hear it but it will not produce anything in them because the weeds of this world—the counterfeit messages—will choke it out. And some will fall on softened ground. The seeds will take root and produce a godly harvest.
      Then Jesus offered another parable, one that highlighted the prolonged growing season—the two great Days of the Church Age. In this scenario, the field workers notice tares amidst the crop of wheat. Tares are a particularly difficult weed to remove because the plants look similar to the wheat. Tares leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Hmm, sounds a lot like lawlessness.
       The workers are stunned because they know they only sowed good seeds. They can’t figure out how these bad seeds got into the field. But the owner knows: “An enemy has done this.” Our enemy (Satan) loves to destroy a potential crop of believers. 
        The owner tells the workers not to remove the tares from the field. They will be harvested at the end of the “growing season,” in the fullness of the times. The owner then tells the workers that at the final harvest, the tares will be removed first, bound, and thrown into fire. Then the true harvest will be gathered into the barn.
          In case you’re wondering, the barn is the new heavens and new earth. The harvest is the righteous crop of believers who trusted in Jesus after the rapture, whose names are written in the Book of Life. As for the tares, they are bound by their decision to reject Jesus and pursue their own ways apart from God. Bound by their own choices, the just God cannot keep them from the destination of the one they served. For the Lake of Fire—eternal damnation—was not prepared for mankind, but for Satan and his rebellious evil forces. Having rejected the Kingdom of Heaven, the unbelieving “tares” are sent to what they have chosen—the dwelling place of the kingdom of darkness.
         This gleaning process is what is the final judgment. We call it the Great White Throne Judgment because it takes place before God’s throne in the 3rd Heaven. It happens immediately after the final rebellion of Satan at the end of the Day of the Lord. The rebellion comes to a fiery end with a fireball sent from God—foreshadowing what is to come for the tares. Jesus turns over the Kingdom to the Father and the final judgment begins as God separates the tares from the wheat.

     Despite what you may have been taught, this is how Scripture describes Christ’s second coming. “And in that Day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south” (Zech. 14:4).        
     Hopefully by now you know that the Day in question is the Day of the Lord, the 7th and final Day in God’s prophetic great Week. We know this because verses 6 and 7 describe the same final sign of celestial darkness that will signal His second coming, as Jesus taught in the Olivet Discourse. We’re meant to make the scriptural connections so we can glean more details about this earth-shattering event.
        End-Time Lesson: The final sign of darkness has halted the initial invasion of the Antichrist that has killed one-third of the Jews in the surprise attack. They thought they were at peace and safe.  The war for Jerusalem has begun. Israel cries out to God to come down and save them. He does, in the form of the risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
        Zechariah’s prophecy goes on to say that the Jewish remnant flee through the newly-formed valley escape route. We see this same scene in Revelation 12. When the male Child is caught up to Heaven (the rapture), the woman (Israel) is “given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent” (vs. 14). The time element given here is the first 3½ years of Christ’s millennial reign that correspond to the last half of Daniel’s 70th Week.
       When Jesus descends to Mt. Zion, the whole world sees Him coming. “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him [the Jews who called for His crucifixion]. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him” (Rev. 1:7).
       Our Lord issues two commands: “Arise and Shine.” The first command releases the earthly bodies of the dead in Christ from the earth while the second command instantly changes the mortal bodies of those who are alive in Christ at His coming. In a twinkling of an eye, the entire Body of Christ receives our glorified, immortal bodies.
        When the Jewish remnant sees Jesus taking us back to Heaven to be seated as the heavenly court, they finally recognize Jesus as the Messiah. A crucial detail is that they not only see Jesus, they also make their “blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” confession of faith. That is, they finally acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God, the firstborn from the dead through His resurrection. Thanks to the gathering, He is the firstborn of many brethren (His Body, the Church).  Those who make this vital confession of faith are now called saints (Rev. 13:7), set apart unto God. The resurrection of the Body of Christ triggers their acceptance into the family of the redeemed.
         Our Lord takes His Bride to our prepared place in Heaven before the throne of God as promised by Jesus (John 14:1-2). The newly revived Jewish saints escape to their prepared place in the wilderness to be nourished by the 3rd Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. Because they have seen and declared as Elisha did, the prophet Zechariah affirms that they shall receive a double portion of the Church’s mantle. “Ask the Lord for rain in the time of the latter rain. The Lord will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone” (Zech. 10:1).
      When the Church was established, it received the early rain at Pentecost—the outpouring of the Spirit to empower them to be His earthly witnesses. At the last Day, when the Church is taken to the 3rd Heaven, the newly revived Jewish saints shall receive the latter rain—the outpouring of the Spirit to empower them to take over our assignment of preaching the Gospel and making disciples.
      This is when the earthly kingdom is restored  to the Jews as promised to David.  They become the delegated head of the nations under the direction of the heavenly court of Christ and His joint-heirs. Jerusalem becomes the praise of the earth (Is. 62:7).
       This prophetic scenario clears up the third misinterpretation of end-time events alluded to in the previous blog. (3) The whole world sees Jesus coming to gather His Church. The remnant of Jews see this as well, despite them missing their visitation and piercing Him. They see and cry out as Elisha did for his “father.”  The Jewish saints finally recognize Jesus as the Son of God, which means they also finally acknowledge God Almighty as God the Father. So what’s the big deal? This means there cannot be a so-called secret rapture. It’s time for the Church to see and declare God’s true end-time scenario as given in the Scriptures. We need to see both the signs and God’s appointed times to be in the know.

     In Part One we saw how the Apostle Peter asks the question: “Has God cast away His people?” Then he proceeds give the scriptural answer based on God’s prophetic great Week of the plan of redemption. No, they have not been replaced, just cut off. This mystery of blindness will be lifted at the appointed time when they are grafted back into God’s plan. We also noted a peculiar analogy that Peter mentions, that of the prophet Elijah. His story clues us into a crucial element of the last Day of God’s plan, the Day of the Lord.
        It has to do with the gathering of the Church at the rapture when Jesus comes again and takes us to Father’s House in Heaven. And it has to do with the restoration of the earthly kingdom to Israel as promised to David. Seeing what Elijah foreshadows will clear up three vital misinterpretations of end-time events.
       (1) When Jesus comes for us, we don’t remain on the earth during the final 1,000-year Day; nor do we go up and meet Him in the air, and then come back down immediately as if we are riding a divine Ferris Wheel. We reign from above, from God’s throne room, in the place of all authority the heavenly government of Christ and His joint-heirs. Afterall, now clothed in our glorified, immortal bodies, and perfectly holy and conformed to Christ, no mortal person could bear to stand in the presence of that heavenly glory if we were to come back down to the earth.
       (2) Christ’s second coming does not mean that no one else can be saved during His millennial reign. The restrainer mentioned in 2 Thess. 2:6 is not the Holy Spirit as some guess because Scripture tells us that there is a latter rain outpouring of the Spirit during the Day of the Lord that mightily empowers the newly revived Jewish remnant that has recognized their Messiah. Though it is true that the Church is no longer on the earth to preach the Gospel to the unsaved, God has something else in mind. You have to see it, to understand it. So we will hold off on the 3rd misinterpretation until we see what Elijah has to say about it.
         The End-Time Lesson of Elijah and Elisha (2 Kings 2). Elijah is in Gilgal and his protégé is right there with him. He knows that God is about to take up Elijah to Heaven in a whirlwind, so he is sticking close. Elijah tells him to stay behind in Gilgal while he goes to Bethel. The younger prophet-in-training will have none of that, so the two of them set off on their journey. Once there, the school of the prophets likewise know that Elijah is about to be caught up to Heaven and inform Elisha of it. Already in the know, he tells them to keep quiet.
        Elijah repeats the scene, telling Elisha to stay behind because God has sent him to the River Jordan. No surprise here—Elisha refuses again and follows the elder prophet to the river, which is at full strength this time of the year so they cannot cross. Elijah takes off his mantle, his outer cloak that signifies his position and calling, and slaps it against the water. The water parts just enough so the two of them can cross over. Elisha is impressed!
          Elijah knows this is the end of the road, so he turns to Elisha and says, “Ask! What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you?” Elijah responds, “Please let a double portion of your spirit [anointing] be upon me.” To which Elijah responds, “You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall not be so.”
        As they continued on and talked, it happened. Suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them. Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. Seeing this awesome sight, Elisha cries out, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen!” So he saw Elijah no more.
          What Elisha does next is the crucial shadow. He tears off his own clothes, symbolic of his old nature and position, and tears them in two. He picks up Elijah’s mantle that had fallen when he left. Elisha goes back to the bank of the river, strikes the waters with the mantle as Elijah had done, and gets the same result. Elisha crosses over the river and begins performing miracles. He had received not only the mantle, but a double portion of the anointing! So what’s the big deal? Stay tuned for Part 3!

       God chose Moses to deliver His people from the house of bondage saying, “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments” (Deut. 7:6-9). God brought them out of bondage to bring them into the land He had allotted for Himself to give to them.
     Fast forward several thousands of years later to another triumphant entry recorded in Luke 19:37-44. “Then, as He [Jesus] was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying: ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”
         Moments later Jesus is weeping over the city of Jerusalem and prophesies the destruction of their temple saying, “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. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Lk. 19:41-44, emphasis added).
           As a nation, the Jews had rejected the first “visit” of the Messiah. Forty years later (AD 70) their Temple was destroyed and no stone was left unturned. They were scattered across the world.  The Apostle Peter asks a question that is still debated today: “Has God cast away His people?” (Rom. 11:1). No, they have not been replaced. Peter then gives an interesting analogy that deserves a closer look. He compares the situation to a time in the prophet Elijah’s life when he is frustrated by the people’s response to God’s correction. He wastes no time in complaining to God.
         God’s response? In effect, He always has “a remnant according to the election of grace.” Paul describes this same situation as the mystery of blindness in Romans 11. God is still in control. It is all part of God’s prophetic great Week of the plan of redemption. It is unfolding at the appointed time. Israel, the “natural branch,” is cut off temporarily because they rejected Jesus. This “blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25b). The plan shifts from an emphasis on the ethnic lineage of Abraham to an emphasis on spiritual identity in Christ (Rom. 3:21-23).
       Notice a seemingly small word full of prophetic significance--until. There is a time limit to the time of Jacob’s trouble. At the appointed time, they will be grafted back into the Olive Tree because the “gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (v. 29).
         End-Time Lesson: Peter had an understanding of the times and seasons of God’s plan (2 Pet. 3:8). He describes this same shift in Romans 9, quoting the prophets Hosea and Isaiah. God would choose others to be His people (Gentiles), who through adoption would be called sons of the living God. Still, a remnant of Israel would be saved at the appointed time. For now, during this present Messianic Age that features the Church as the Body of Christ, any Jew who accepts Jesus as the Messiah is likewise placed “in Christ” by faith, election by grace once again.
       Stay tuned to find out what Hosea prophesied and Elijah foreshadowed concerning Israel’s position and the appointed time.