The phrase, “times and seasons,” is used in connection with prophetic events to come. It is used only three times in the Scriptures, the first, in Daniel 2:21. The second, in Acts 1:7, and the third, in 1 Thessalonians 5:1all having to do with future periods of time when God fulfills His prophetic pronouncements.

In Daniel 2:21, it is in the prayer of Daniel  asking God to reveal the king’s dream to him. Following is the context in which that phrase is used, in Daniel 2:20-22:

“Daniel answered and said: ‘Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,for wisdom and might are His.  And He changes the times and the seasons;He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him.’”

This beginning of Daniel’s prayer is like an introduction to the prophecy that was to follow, showing the outline of secular history in the future. Kingdoms were identified in sequential order. These came to be called heads of a seven headed beast that Daniel, then John, revealed in later writings. It tells us that God, who is unchangeable, set up times and seasons in His plan for the ages at different times and for different purposes.

The response Jesus gave in Acts 1:6-7 shows that the era when the nation would be restored to Israel was not yet to be. The ministry of the gospel of His death, burial and resurrection was to be carried out when He would take out of the Gentiles a people for His name. (Romans 11:25 and Acts 15:14)

The times and seasons that Jesus said were in the Father’s authority came to fulfillment when Israel was recognized as a sovereign nation on May 14, 1948. It was prophecy fulfilled! The era of grace continues until Jesus comes for all of His believers at the Rapture and the world enters a seven-year period of judgment. That is the 70th week of Daniel’s prediction for Israel.

The third and final mention of the phrase, “times and seasons,” comes at the end of that era of grace when Jesus returns for His Bride, the church, and the Day of the Lord’s judgment begins for seven years. That is spoken of in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3, just following Paul’s pronouncement of the resurrection of the dead in Christ and living believers, who together meet Him in the air.

It appears there are four lengthy periods of time, or eras, in which God is dealing with mankind, and each one ends with the glaring evidence that mankind cannot exist on their own apart from God.  The four periods of time follow, with major events named during each era. (Note that the eras are chronological, and as much as I can, the internal events are also chronological, even as time, itself, is chronological.

1.       Period from Creation to Abraham:

a.       Creation;

b.       Adam and Eve sinned and mankind was separated from God, and He provided a blood sacrifice to cover their sinfulness;

c.       Man became exceedingly sinful and God destroyed all but eight people with a flood;

d.      Mankind repopulated the earth and rebelled again to build a tower expressing their independence from God;

e.       God’s judgment was to confuse their languages and scatter them around the earth.
2.       Abraham to Christ’ birth:

a.        Abraham called out of and away from his relatives;

b.       God promises to bless Abraham and his generations as well as those who bless them, and curse those who do not;

c.       God promised Abraham a son through whom He would raise up many generations of offspring;

d.       Abraham disobediently fathers a son of a slave woman and named him Ishmael, whose offspring became the continual enemies of Israel;

e.        God promises the land of Palestine to Abraham and his descendants to be their land forever;

f.         Beyond the age of normal reproduction, Sarah bore a son to Abraham, who was the son of promise, and he named him Isaac;

g.       Isaac was given a wife from Abraham’s relatives named Rebecca, and she bore two sons to him, Esau and Jacob;

h.       Jacob took two wives from the relatives of Abraham, Leah and Rachel;

i.        Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord and was renamed Israel by the Lord;

j.        The two wives bore him twelve sons, who became heads of the twelve tribes of Israel;

k.      Throughout the centuries the disobedience of these children of Israel brought repeated judgment upon them from God;

l.        They desired a king like the other nations had, a God gave them one like they wanted, but he was not of the tribe of Judah, who was to be the lineage of kings;

m.    After the third king, now on the proper lineage, the nation split into two parts, Israel and Judah;

n.       Sinfulness ravaged the two sections and their kings, and being overcome by their enemies, captivity resulted—by the Babylonians and finally, the Romans, who ruled over them as a defeated people when Christ was born.
3.       Advent of Christ and the age of the Gentiles:

a.       Birth of Christ, His life, death, burial and resurrection;

b.      The indwelling of believes by the Holy Spirit, at Pentecost;

c.       The Great Commission was given and the preaching of the gospel of grace to all nations;

d.      The development of the church, the body of Christ;

e.        Constantine joins the church (Roman Catholic) into the empire, A.D. 313;

f.        Discovery of America, Christopher Columbus, A.D. 1492;

g.      Protestant reformation, Martin Luther, A.D. 1517;

h.       Colonization of America, A.D. 1620 and its independence, A.D. 1776;

i.        The restoration  to Israel of their promised land;

j.        The falling away from the faith by many;

k.       The confirmation of a covenant with many by the Antichrist for seven years;

l.        The removal of believers from the earth in the Rapture;

m.    Seven years of tribulation upon the inhabitants of the earth;

n.       The rise of a New World Order with a one world government, the seventh head of the beast energized by Satan;

o.       The Second Coming of Christ, destroying the Antichrist and his false prophet and the satanic opposition to Christ.

4.       The reign of Jesus Christ on earth for a thousand years, called the Millennium:

a.        Jesus takes up the throne of David at Mount Zion in Jerusalem, a physical presence as King over mortal mankind on the earth;

b.       He will rule with a “rod of iron,” but with righteous judgment;

c.       Satan will have been bound and imprisoned in the bottomless pit at the beginning of this era;

d.      Only mortal individuals will have been left from the Great Tribulation to inhabit the earth and to replenish its population, perhaps only the remnant one-third of the Jews who were protected by God from the ravages of Satan and his Antichrist;

e.       Under His rule, Christ will maintain peace and no wars will occur;

f.       The lamb shall lie down with the lion, and a child will play by the nest of vipers, and people will live much longer lives;

g.       Inhabitants will be required to observe the Feast of Tabernacles (God dwells among us), annually;

h.      Those who are disobedient will suffer loss of blessings and benefits for their crops and welfare;

i.        At the end of the era, Satan will be loosed from his bonds and soon will raise up an army of a multitude who will oppose the Lord, but will be destroyed forever and ever in the lake of fire;

j.        Then comes the Great White Throne Judgment  in which every one whose name is not found in the book of life is judged on his works and is cast into the lake of fire, also. This is the second death.
Eternity will then open up for the redeemed of the earth, also forever and ever…band ever, and time will be no more!In a broad sense, these are the times and seasons and their content, as laid out in the chronological progress of the events recorded in the Bible. Perhaps you noticed that each one of the eras ends with judgment upon mankind, those in opposition to the Lord.

Another point becomes obvious as one considers the evident inability of mortals to govern themselves. Back in 1 Samuel 8 the clamor of the Hebrews was for “a king like those of their neighbors,” and God gave them one. Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin, but God had designated the tribe of Judah to be the one having the coming lineage of kings (Genesis 49:10). When Saul failed, David, the son of Jesse of the tribe of Judah was ordained king of the Israelite. But as the chronology earlier tells it, that governing mode failed and they were judged and scattered among the nations.

Finally, mankind came to establish an entity that was the best that could be devised—a declaration of independence, God-given rights for liberty and the freedom for the pursuit           of happiness, a government of the people, by the people and for the people; a Constitutional Republic designed to prohibit a monarchy or dictatorship to emerge.

Today we see that arrangement—the very best that humanity could ever have for self-governing, failing at the hands of despotic-minded people, and coming under the judgment of God. Denial of such implications can only find its  base in a hope not supported by current secular events and predictions of coming catastrophes.

So what is God telling us and the universe?

God tells us this, in Isaiah 43:7:

“Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.”

The mystery of godliness, the mystery of Christ in us, the hope of glory, even all the mysteries of God, may well be summed up in the desire of the God of the universe to have fellowship with redeemed mankind, even you and me.

It is evident, in actuality and in scriptural records, that God has gone so far as to take up residence in the form of a man like us with whom we will spend eternity—our Redeemer! We see this in Acts 7:56, where Stephen, as he was dying, saw Jesus standing by the right side of the throne of God, and in 1 John 3:1-3:

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

Those who who divided the Scriptures into chapters and verses did a great service to help us locate a desired statement of truth much more quickly. However, it sometimes presents a problem of segregating parts of a continuing presentation of a topic, with a chapter break. Minds tend to also make a break in the continuity of the topic, as if a new subject is being introduced.

A case in point is the break between chapters four and five of 1 Thessalonians. If one reads this presentation of the Rapture description without regard to the chapter break, Paul gives us an idea and an answer for those silent questions we inwardly ask, of “when” and “how” that event at the end of chapter four might happen.

Here is the passage without the chapter break, 1 Thessalonians 4:15 through 5:4:

“For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive andremain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.”

The continuity of the narrative can hardly be ignored when the chapter break is left out. (The context actually continues for several more verses in chapter five.)

True to what Jesus had said, Paul did not know, either, the day or the hour, but he had taught the Thessalonians these things:

·         This resurrection activity he had just described that the Rapture would herald the beginning of the day of the Lord—an appointed time on God’s calendar when judgment of the earth’s inhabitants would begin.

·         It would happen without announcement, quietly (to the world), as the arrival of a thief in the night.

·         It would be connected to an outcry of “Peace and safety,” from people who would not be among those resurrected.

·         For “sudden destruction” would take place and come upon those who had made the outcry.

·         And finally, as in verse 4, believers will not be surprised at this turn of events, nor will they be victims in the sudden destruction.
Paul’s description of that personal transformation is called a mystery, and so it is:

“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:50-53).

Solomon describes the pattern of life for mortal Man in Ecclesiastes 3:20 and 12:7, in particular those who die in the Lord and their spirit goes to Him:

“All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Then the dustwill return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”

The mystery of the resurrection extends to returning of that “dust” to immortal individuals, as well as changing living mortals into immortal individuals.

When Jesus rose from the tomb on that day, it was on the day of the Feast of First Fruits, the third feast of the series of seven which God had given to Moses in the law. Jesus is called the “first fruits of the resurrection,” which by its very description indicates the beginning of an ongoing process. This resurrection described in 1 Thessalonians 4 is the second phase of that “first resurrection.”

The final phase, then, is told to us in Revelation 20:4-6:

“Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But    the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”

It is clear here that those who have received the mark of the beast cannot be saved, as plainly indicated in chapters 13, 14, 15 and 16 of Revelation. Some apparently believe those who have received the mark can be saved, but the Scripture clearly indicates otherwise.

The rest of the dead who do not live again until the thousand years are over will be the unsaved who will suffer that second death.

These who are in this final phase of the “first resurrection” apparently are those described to John in Revelation 7, who are the results of the ministry of those ordained 144,000 witnesses from the tribes of Israel:

“After these things [ordaining the 144,000] I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’

“Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, ‘Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?’ And I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’

“So he said to me, ‘These are the ones who come out of the great    tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’” (Revelation 7:9-10, 13-14).

The thoughts of this article arose from hearing, in the first instance; a prophecy teacher declaring that the word “but” that begins chapter five of 1 Thessalonians means the writer has changed his topic and the content of chapter five has nothing to do with the Rapture. I suspect that the chapter break has a lot to do with his apparent fixation on the day of the Lord discussed in chapter five as having nothing to do with the Rapture described in chapter four.

He also decided there is no indication in chapter four that the resurrection of the dead in Christ and living believers are resurrected together in the same event. He surmises that the living believers may even be resurrected much later.

Yet, when one reads verses 16 and 17 closely, it clearly tells us that the two groups will be together in the clouds when they meet the Lord in the air. It makes one wonder how an interpretation could be so easily mistaken.

Second, another prophecy preacher of the post-tribulation Rapture proponents has declared that the statement in Revelation 20, “this is the first resurrection,” proves that the taking away of the saints, the Rapture, comes at the end of the Tribulation period.

He apparently has not remembered that Jesus’ resurrection was the “firstfruits” of the resurrection,” thus starting the first resurrection that includes the Rapture and ends with those mentioned in Revelation 20 and are described in Revelation 7.

(It is certainly worth questioning his “post-Trib” Rapture position when we see God ordaining 144,000 Jewish evangelists to preach the gospel of the kingdom to the whole world. If believers in Christ are still here during the seven years of tribulation, why does God ignore the Great Commission which He has given to the Church?

Notice, too, that when referring to the preaching of the gospel during the Tribulation years it is called “the gospel of the kingdom” and not the gospel of grace.

Apparently there is some kind of difference. It also is called before the crucifixion of Christ, indicating that the message of the gospel during the age of the Church was particularly defined   as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. Even before His death, burial and resurrection, Christ’s own preaching was of the “gospel of the kingdom.” (See Matthew 4:23 and 9:35, then Matthew 24:14.)

Again, I am reminded of the manner in which the Lord laid out His Word to the people of Israel in Isaiah 28:13—a format that suggests cross-referencing the topics to arrive at the whole counsel of God on the subject:

“But the word of the Lord was to them, ‘Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little…’”

Along with that is Psalm 119:130, telling us, “The entrance of [His] words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple,” in which “simple” means uncomplicated. In another context Paul mentions a universal truth, “if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle?”

In these last days Jesus said there would be many false prophets; none want to admit that their wrong doing misleading others. Or perhaps these false prophets does not even realize that they are misinterpreting the Scriptures. Luke’s description of the Bereans in Acts 17:11 has long been the baseline on how to determine whether or not the teacher is rightly dividing the Word of God:

“These were more fair-minded [noble] than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures dailyto find out whether these things were so.”

(This article began as a single presentation but there is more to be said about “Times and Seasons” in a second part.)