A most relevant Scripture for this moment on God’s prophetic timeline is:
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25).
More than 1,200 enthusiastic believers “assembled together” the week before last in Norman, Oklahoma, during the Prophecy Watchers conference. As if on cue, a profound event occurred to highlight the reason Gary Stearman, Bob Ulrich, and Mondo Gonzales have Prophecy Watchers as the name of their ministry. Israel, God’s timepiece, as we sometimes refer to that prophetic nation, was attacked on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
All eyes and ears of the gathered prophecy watchers in Norman were affixed upon the ongoing “war,” as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has termed the conflict.
As I understand, more than two thousand people live-streamed the conference. So I sense that the very core of believers yearning for Christ’s return were tuned in to the conference and that the Lord might have, in His own omniscient orchestration, made sure the observing eyes and ears of His eternal family who are yearning for His Son’s call to the Church were affixed on and attuned to the brutal, beastly assault on His chosen nation and people yet again.
Of course, all the speakers at the conference, myself included, were bombarded with questions about what this war might mean. I’m sure readers of this commentary are asking the same.
Let me say that I, too, am asking the same questions regarding what all this might mean.
Like all of you who are intensely interested in what’s going on, my own interest revolves most specifically around: What does it all mean in terms of the nearness of the Rapture?
I believe that is a perfectly appropriate question to ask, based upon Hebrews 10:25 quoted above.
The key phrase here, of course, is “as ye see the day approaching.” This goes to the very heart of our Lord’s desire to be faithful members of His heavenly family. We are told we should gather with fellow children of God while we see or watch for the approaching day.
The “assembling together” phraseology isn’t merely a suggestion to go to church regularly but a command to come together as one in watching developments pointing to that day. I believe “that day” refers to the time of Tribulation and, more importantly, to the Day of Christ when the glorious dawn breaks for all believers—that spectacular instant when Christ calls us to Himself in the Rapture.
Watching for that day is not an exhortation to only those who attend prophecy conferences. It is a command to all believers in Jesus Christ, who has secured forever their place in God’s eternal family.
Again, we are commanded by Jesus as to what we should be doing as we see the day approaching:
“What I say unto one, I say unto all. Watch” (Mark 13:37).
“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your head; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).
All conference attendees in Norman were stunned to have such a powerful signal to be “looking up” when the news of the attack on Israel suddenly came. The word “coincidence,” as Hal Lindsey has noted, is not in God’s vocabulary. The atrocity against Israel has immense significance.
This present Israeli war will have profound ramifications, I believe, based upon all the many other things we see as we watch the day approaching.
If you don’t know the One who has all of this otherwise frightening confluence of end-times signals under complete control, follow what our God Instructs so you will become a member of His eternal family. You will then be able, through Holy Spirit discernment, to see with clarity that “day” approaching.
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).