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!

       In His teaching about the signs of this age (the Messianic Age), His second coming, and the rapture—known as the Olivet Discourse—Jesus listed five traits of the tribulation that would extend across Days 5 and 6 of God’s prophetic great Week. That is, wars and conflict, famine and lack, pestilence and earthquakes, false religious and religious wars, and persecution. A final sixth sign of total darkness will signal the end of this age.
     End-Time Lesson: This extended time period would also be characterized by the falling away, culminating in the fullness of the transgressors. Stay tuned for more on what that means. Scripture also indicates that the Jews will rebuild another temple in Jerusalem and reinstate the animal sacrifices. This may seem like a good thing, something Christians should be praying for in support of the Jews. But that is not how God will see it. Again, stay tuned for why this is the case.
       Since this rebuilt temple will share the “Temple Mount” with the Islamic shrine known as the Dome of the Rock, we can expect conflict to follow. In fact, Scripture tells us that the rebuilding of the temple and the renewing of the sacrifices will cause the initial invasion of the Antichrist’s coalition of armies as the Day of the Lord draws very near (1 Thess. 5:1-3; Joel 2:1-11). This, of course, means that we will see the rise of the Antichrist before this pivotal invasion.
       The last thing we will see before that Day is total celestial darkness—a deep darkness—over  the entire earth at one time (Acts. 2:20; Matt. 24:29-30; Luke 21:25-28). When the Day dawns, all the world will see Christ coming in the clouds to gather His Bride at the rapture. They will see all of us return to Father’s House in the 3rd Heaven as promised. From there we will rule over the earth for the entire 7th Day and millennial reign of Christ. We will not come back—at least not to this earth. We will descend to the new heavens and to the new earth that God creates at the end of the 7th Day and reign with Christ for all eternity.
           But I’m getting ahead of myself. Now glorified and perfected at the rapture at the start of the last Day, we are seated as the heavenly government. You see, the Church doesn’t “escape” because we can’t handle what is happening on the earth. We are delivered from the wrath of that Day. In fact, we are raised up in order to execute God’s vengeance against evil via the seven trumpet and bowl judgments.
            But before we do, we will hear nothing. Heaven will go silent for about one half hour (Re. 8:1). It is a solemn occasion, to say the least. The silence will be shattered by the sound of a trumpet, and so shall begin the shaking of the heavens and the earth. We will see this, but only from the safety of the throne room. So shall 3½-year war for Jerusalem begin, which shall end with the defeat of the Antichrist and his forces at the Great Supper of God. 

     When Jesus taught His disciples about what was to come after His death and resurrection, He told them that the Temple He had just visited for the last time would be completely destroyed shortly. On top of that, Jesus described the difficulties and persecution they would face afterward. He called these signs of the age the beginning of sorrows and tribulation. The Greek word for tribulation is the feminine form of the noun for distress, which is why Jesus referred to the signs of this age and His coming as birth pains.
       He went on to explain, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And 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” (Matt. 24:29-31).
        End-Time Lesson: Jesus is very clear here. He will come again after the tribulation. We will know that the tribulation is over when we see the final sign in the sun, moon and stars over the whole earth at one time. If you read through the list of the signs, they include conflict, warfare, ethnic cleansing, pestilence, famine, earthquakes, and persecution. In Revelation 1:9 John refers to himself as our brother and companion in the tribulation. So we know that the early Church experienced the tribulation of those Days.
        The early Church saw these signs, and we are still seeing these same signs as the mystery of lawlessness continues. Laying aside any preconceived ideas we may have about the timing of the tribulation and the rapture, we must ask ourselves, have we seen the final sign of total celestial darkness over the whole earth at one time? No. So we must conclude that this age has not yet come to an end.
          This also means that the tribulation of these Days is not yet over. So why is there so much confusion over this issue? It may surprise you that there is no Scripture that directly talks about a 7-year tribulation. That idea comes from a misinterpretation of the 70 Weeks Prophecy concerning the future of the Jews recorded in Daniel 9. The key sticking point is the final 70th Week. The prophecy correctly prophesied when Jesus the Messiah would come, to the exact year. It also foretold that the people would be scattered and their Temple would be destroyed by the “people of the Prince.”
         The whole chapter is about the Messiah and the things He would do, including bringing a restful end to the sacrifices. But some Bible teachers couldn’t accept the fact that the Jews would destroy their own Temple, so they introduced another person into the prophecy, even though there is only one subject grammatically in the passage. Still, they decided to insert the Antichrist because it made more sense to them that this other evil character would destroy the Temple. However, this does not fit the rest of the prophecy that lists the objectives to be accomplished. Only Jesus the Messiah could accomplish the divine tasks.
        This addition to God’s Word itself generated even more confusion because of other events that had to happen. It led to various theories of a pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, mid-wrath tribulation, and a post-tribulation rapture. Since we know God is not the author of confusion (1 Cor. 14:33), we must be willing to lay aside our man-made misinterpretations and go by what Jesus taught.
        We have to recognize the extent of the “tribulation of those Days.” The only way the apostle John could be in the tribulation and we can be in the tribulation is that it is an extended period of time. It spans the two great Days or 2,000 years of the Messianic Age—what Jesus referred to as a prophetic Today and Tomorrow (Lk. 13:32).
        Four times in John 6 Jesus said He would “raise us up at the last Day.” We know the last Day is the Day of the Lord, the 7th Day when counting from Adam and the 3rd Day when counting from Christ. So we know the general timing of His return. From Jesus’ own words, we now know the kairos signs that must be seen. We now have the double witness of the time and the season. This means the rapture cannot be an any-moment, signless event. Our Lord will come again only once; there cannot be a “sort-of” coming before His second coming. Jesus warned us not to be deceived by false declarations of His coming (Matt. 24:4-5).
         When we let Scripture interpret Scripture, we lose nothing that a pre-tribulation rapture provides. We are gathered to Christ before the mark of the beast and the command to worship his image. We do not experience the wrath of that Day, but we do execute it as the heavenly court. We don’t have to contrive an unscriptural secret coming in order to make the prophetic passages fit together. No passage needs to be forced into place. No passage needs to be ignored. God’s inspired Word fits the pieces together for us.

       Jesus’ first coming was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a huge paradigm shift of the greatest magnitude. Jesus not only triumphed over sin in His own life, He also broke the power of sin over the lives of believers. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). It was a crucial element of the divine to-do-list given in Daniel 9:24. But not all of the prophecy’s objectives were dealt with during Jesus’ earthly ministry. It was not yet the appointed time.
         When Jesus encountered the demon-possessed man in the land on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, the demons cried out, “What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” (Matt. 8:29, emphasis added). It is noteworthy that even these wicked, unclean spirits acknowledged Jesus as part of the divine Godhead. They knew better than the Jewish religious leaders! They also had some inkling concerning God’s chronos times, even though they could not know it fully because it was hidden in the mystery of God (Mark 4:11; 1 Cor. 2:7).
       We know from Colossians 2:15 that Jesus triumphed over the principalities and powers of the air that influence this world. We know He disarmed them and took the keys to Hell and Death. What does this mean? Was Satan no longer the god of this age? Was the evil hierarchy over the earth pulled down and forced to leave? If so, where did they go since God is the creator of the whole universe?
       If this were true, we would not have seen the persecution and wickedness at work in the earth, not only in the early years of the Church being established, but in every time period of history since then. No, evil and the so-called gods never left! Their ability to twist and deceive God’s Word remained. How is this possible? It’s possible because God created every human being with a will and the ability to choose for themselves who they would worship. With His first coming, Jesus tore down the veil between God and His Holy Place, and mankind, but it is only experienced when each person chooses to believe in Jesus as their Savior—the only Way to be reconciled to God.
        End-Time Lesson: This is why Jesus commissioned us to continue His ministry on the earth. Part of this assignment is the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18). None of the Gospel commissions mention pulling down the evil strongholds directly. No, they simply say to take the authority we have in Christ and stand in victory against them. Make no mistake. They will come down, but not until the appointed time, after we have been raptured and perfected.
            It’s worth taking the time to quote Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 4. “Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.  But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” This is the victory we have through Christ triumphing over the enemy. The bondage of sin and death no longer hangs over any believer. We can stand against the wiles of the enemy in the armor of Christ.
         "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” This is the condition of those who choose to reject Christ. As long as mankind chooses to align with evil, Satan and his forces still have influence over the earth. For now, anyway. But as the demons recognized in Jesus’ time, there is coming a time when that shall change.
         In the meantime, 2 Thess. 2:7 confirms, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.” The mystery of lawlessness is the counterfeit of the mystery of Christ. Every believer is a member of His Body. We are expected to walk in the ways of Christ, becoming more and more like Him—what the Bible calls godliness. We can think of it as Christ-likeness. But we have to be intentional in growing in the ways of the Kingdom of God. We have to make the right choices to obey the leading of the Spirit.
           The flip side of this is that those who choose to reject Christ and go their own way through human pride, likewise grow in the ways of the kingdom of darkness. This is why evil seems to be accelerating in our time. It may seem as if the “gods have returned,” but they never left. They only gained more influence over the nearly two thousand years since Christ’s first coming.
         This delusion is why ignoring God’s times and seasons is so dangerous. It focuses our attention on the things of this world instead of the things of God. No wonder so many Christians are troubled and without peace and hope. For those who choose to acknowledge God’s great prophetic week, we recognize the lawlessness, but we know that the appointed time is very near.
         When the Day of the Lord dawns with the rapture at Christ’s second coming, the heavenly court will be seated with Christ in the 3rd Heaven. Then it shall be “the time.” Then and only then will the directive be declared for the archangel Michael to lead a host of angels and go to war with Satan and His angels. Michael shall triumph over them and cast them out of the heavenlies. Satan will be temporarily incarcerated in the Pit of Hell until the end of the Day. Then he shall be released to allow one final choice for all those on the earth in the 7th Day. Those who join the rebellion shall be destroyed by a fireball from Heaven. Satan and his evil forces shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, along with Hell and Death—the final enemy underfoot. Then and only then will the “gods” be gone once and forever!
          God will make a new heavens and a new earth uncorrupted by sin. God’s city, the New Jerusalem, will come down to the new earth, and eternal righteousness shall prevail! Until that appointed time, we can only do what Jesus did. We can resist the devil in our own lives. We can deliver people from demonic influence as led by the Spirit. But we cannot pull down the evil hierarchy in the heavenlies because it is not yet time. This is no way diminishes Jesus’ finished work. We continue to do the works He did, doing only what the Father has spoken as His will (John 5:30). 

     Psalm 1 paints a picture of life on this earth. It compares the lifestyle of the godly and the ungodly during the six great Days allotted to mankind in God’s chronos agenda. It’s the path of the sinners and scornful versus the path of fruitful trees that bring forth life and whose leaf never withers.
     Psalm 2 paints the parallel picture of this scene from the perspective of God’s throne in Heaven. The nations plot vain plans to break their bondage of accountability to God the Creator. He simply laughs at their foolishness. For He has declared the beginning from the end, and His will shall come to pass, for His Word always accomplishes His purposes.
        The decree of righteous judgment has been written for all to see. They can pretend it doesn’t exist. They can pretend that it doesn’t apply to them because they are “enlightened” and “woke.” Yet, the Psalm ends with God giving them fair warning to “kiss the Son” and become part of His Bride. Otherwise, the just God will have no choice but to give them what they have chosen by aligning with evil—the wrath of that Day, God’s vengeance against evil.
         End-Time Lesson: A prominent evangelical teacher has written a book about how the wrathful God of Revelation presents a terrible picture that is undermining the spread of the Gospel. How sad that this man has fallen for the scoffers’ delusion and deception. Having cut the cord with the Truth, he fails to acknowledge that choices always have consequences. The sinners and scoffers make wrong choices, and then blame God for the consequences.
         We see this same mentality in the mystery of lawlessness that is running rampant in our time. The “enlightened” way of prosecutors to lighten sentences has removed the severity of the consequences of the lawbreaker’s choices, which only serves to encourage more lawlessness. And now we have preachers and teachers applying that same “logic” to God’s kingdom, denying the reality of Hell and judgment. They want to remake God according to their own image, even if they don’t bother to use wood or stone or some other earthly material.
          Here’s what God has already declared, and what shall take place shortly, whether the scoffers believe it or not. For He knows the horrible consequences of removing accountability. That is, there can then be no justice for anyone.
         “Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:29-31).
       Don’t be surprised when those in the world mock the resurrection and the rapture as they did when Paul preached it, standing amidst their man-made religious idols. They may laugh at us, but God shall have the last laugh, though it will grieve Him deeply. For He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:4-5).