The Hebrew word for sabbath is sab-bat, and its meaning is ‘intermission.’ The first time the word sabbath is mentioned in the Bible is in Exodus 16:23. After the children of Israel left Egypt and came into the wilderness of Sin, they complained about lack of bread; so God rained down heavenly manna upon them (for 40 years). The people could gather and cook the manna for six days, but not on the seventh. They were told to take enough manna on the sixth day so they could have ‘leftovers’ for the seventh day. The 7th day was to be a day of rest, a sabbath to the Lord.

The first time God elucidated the importance of the sabbath is in Exodus 31:13-17 when Moses physically received the Ten Commandments (two tablets of testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God) on Mt. Sinai. Look at the importance of this fourth commandment:

“Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever does any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed” (Exodus 31:15-17).

The weekly sabbath is a day of rest. If the ancient children of Israel worked on this day, they would be put to death. God was very serious about this commandment, as He is about all of them. The seventh day of the week, the sabbath, is considered a Feast of the Lord, albeit a weekly one and not an annual event. The seventh day of rest, after the six days of creation, is the main reason why the number 7 represents completion and perfection in the Bible.

Throughout the book of Exodus, most of the Feasts of the Lord are introduced, but it is in Leviticus 23 where all of them are given and explained in detail. It is interesting to note that the first Feast mentioned is the weekly sabbath of rest. The remainder of Leviticus 23 is in regard to the 7 annual Feasts of the Lord. The Lord required certain days of these Feasts to be work prohibitive (no servile work therein), but only the three fall Feasts specify they are a sabbath. These fall Feasts are Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) – on the first and eighth day. An informative site for these particular Feasts of the Lord is located at: Ancient Calendars, Feast Days, & Daniel 12:11: Part 3 :: By Randy Nettles (raptureready.com)

In addition to a weekly day of rest for the people and work animals, God also required a year of rest for the land of Israel every 7 years. This is called the Sabbath year or Shemitah (Shmita) year and is described in Leviticus 25:2-7:

“Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land. And the sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, your male and female servants, your hired man, and the stranger who dwells with you, for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land—all its produce shall be for food.”

Every 7th year, the people of Israel were instructed to grant a release for the debtor (forgive debts owned by fellow Israelites) according to Deuteronomy 15:1-3. Also, Hebrew slaves were to be set free for nothing (Exodus 21:2). The reason for this release of debt and servitude is given in Deuteronomy 15:4, “there may be no poor among you; for the Lord will greatly bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance.” However, this remedy was conditional, “only if you carefully obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe with care all these commandments which I command you today” (Deuteronomy 15:5). The reward for this obedience would be a blessing from God, as described in verse 6.

To show how important the Shemitah year and the number 7 were, God went even further by multiplying the Sabbath year (and potential blessings) and creating the Jubilee.

“‘And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family” (Leviticus 25:8-10).

The word ‘jubilee’ (yo-w-bel), interestingly enough, means a ram’s horn, as a shofar, in the Bible. The year of the Jubilee involved a release from indebtedness and bondage. All slaves were set free, and prisoners and captives were released. All property was returned to its original owner. Like the Sabbath year, all labor was to cease for one year. The land would provide for the people’s needs because letting the land rest would result in bountiful crops during the years immediately before the 7th and 49/50th years. Also, the residue of crops and the wild grapes that weren’t cultivated would provide food for the people and animals.

Throughout the years, I have been asked repeatedly what I thought about the Shemitah years (cycles) and the Jubilee and how they relate to the end times; in particular, how they relate to the prophecy of Daniel’s 70th Week/Sevens (Daniel 9:24-27). My usual reply is that since there have never been any biblical or secular sources that confirm that Israel ever obeyed any of these commandments, there is no real prophetic significance regarding them or trying to date them. To have a final future Shemitah year or Jubilee, there has to be a first one.

For the blessings to come true, the children of Israel would have had to keep all of the Day/s of Atonement. If they didn’t keep this holy annual event for six straight years, there would be no Shemitah year in the 7th year. If they didn’t keep all of the Shemitah years of rest for the land and people, there would be no Jubilee; so it is meaningless to try and figure out when these cycles begin and when they end. More on this later. Of course, God would make certain that the land had its 7th (and 50th) year of rest, one way or the other.

The Jubilee and the Shemitah year were to be a time of rest for the people, work animals, and the land. They were meant to be Sabbaths unto the Lord. The promise of God’s blessing for obeying His Sabbaths, as well as His retribution for disobeying, are given in chapter 26 of Leviticus. The curse of not obeying God and neglecting His Sabbaths are discussed in verses 33-35:

“I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall rest – for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it.”

God also warned the children of Israel that if they did not obey Him, and did not observe all His commandments, and if they despised His statutes; or if their soul abhorred His Judgments so that they did not perform all His commandment but instead broke His covenant, He would punish them 7 times more for their sins (vs.18). God doesn’t stop there but promises 7 times more plagues in vs. 21, and 7 more times of punishment in vs. 24, and 7 more times of chastisement in vs. 28. The cost of disobeying God’s commandments, including the Shemitah years and Jubilee, add up (or should I say multiply) in an exponential manner. In this case, 7 is the number for complete punishment.

History has shown us that the children of Israel, through the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel, chose to disobey God by transgressing against His commandments; especially the 1st commandment (you shall have no other God besides me) and the 4th commandment (keep the Sabbath day holy), which includes the Shemitah years and Jubilees. The devastating result was exactly what God told them through his prophet Moses, which he recorded in his books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

The northern Kingdom, Israel, was overtaken by Assyria in 722 BC. They were scattered throughout the kingdom of Assyria and would never return as a nation. The southern kingdom of Judah was destroyed in 586 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and its citizens were mostly killed or taken captive back to Babylon.

Jeremiah was a priest in Jerusalem when God called him to be a prophet in the 13th year of King Josiah’s reign. He prophesied mostly about the coming destruction of Judah and Jerusalem for their sinful rebellion against the Lord. He prophesied during the reigns of Judah’s last five kings, from 626 BC to 580 BC.

In 605 BC, Jeremiah prophesied about a 70-year desolation and captivity that God would bring about through His vessel, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. These 70 years of captivity in Babylon were to be a judgment and punishment from God because of the Jews’ apostasy against His word and will. The main reason for this judgment is given in Jeremiah 25:6-7, which talks about their worshipping other gods.

It is thought by most Bible teachers that the 70-year judgment started in 586 BC and ended when the second temple was rebuilt and completed in 516 BC. Others suggest the starting point was 605 BC when the first group of Jews (including Daniel and his three friends, Hanniah, Mishiel, and Azariah) was deported to Babylon, and the end was 535 BC when reconstruction of the temple began in Jerusalem.

The 70-year captivity was not to be the Jews’ only judgment, however. There was still the matter of neglecting the 4th commandment and not obeying the Sabbath and keeping it holy. We are not talking about the weekly Sabbath, for the Jews didn’t have a problem with that; but they did have a problem with the Shemitah/Sabbath year and Jubilee.

In approximately 539 BC, Daniel the prophet was still in Babylon and was reading the prophecy of Jeremiah regarding the 70-year captivity. Realizing the 70 years were nearing its completion, Daniel began to pray, asking God’s forgiveness for the sins of his people and pleading for the restoration of Jerusalem and Israel’s imminent return to their land. It was a truly righteous prayer and is found in Daniel 9:1-19. Before Daniel could finish his prayer, the Angel Gabriel appeared and gave him the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks (Sevens) as outlined in Daniel 9:24-27.

By praying fervently to God and asking for forgiveness of Israel’s corporate sins, Daniel was attempting to bring about the promise of restoration found in Leviticus 26:40-42: “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me, and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt— then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land.”

However, I believe Daniel forgot the remainder of this chapter. “The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; they will accept their guilt, because they despised My judgments and because their soul abhorred My statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 26:43-45).

The angel Gabriel told Daniel that there was to be an additional 490 years (70 weeks of years) of judgment for the children of Israel because of their disobedience and neglect of the Sabbath years. Evidently, the children of Israel had neglected 70 of them. God was fulfilling his word that was given in Leviticus 21:18, whereas God promised his people that if they did not obey Him, He would punish them 7 more times for their sins. Mercifully, He did not punish them further, as He described in verses 21, 24, and 28. God would punish them by way of subjugation and separation from the promised land of Israel and Jerusalem so the land would get the sabbath rest that it didn’t get while they were in the land.

Here are Gabriel’s words: “Seventy weeks (of years) are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy” (Daniel 9:24).

Gabriel then explained the timing and breakdown of the 490-year judgment. “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times” (Daniel 9:25).

It would begin when a command or decree was issued for the Jews to return to the land of Israel/Jerusalem and restore and build Jerusalem (streets and wall to be rebuilt). After 69 weeks or 483 years, the long-awaited Messiah would come, only to be killed, and then the city and the sanctuary would be destroyed again. Can you imagine Daniel’s shock and dismay when hearing of this heavenly verdict?

In Part II, we will examine the rest of Daniel’s prophecy and how it relates to the Shemitah year cycles and the end times.

Randy Nettles

nettlesr@suddenlink.net

 

Various industries use key metrics to gauge the overall health and trajectory of trends that impact their health and stability.

Financial analysts check the various alphabet indexes. Farmers keep an eye on the short- and long-term weather forecasts. Movie production companies, TV networks, and streaming services perform constant data analysis related to audiences’ felt needs and entertainment preferences. You get the picture. Name the industry, and it is guaranteed there are a handful of key metrics they keep an eye on to forecast the future and make decisions.

Christianity is not an industry (or at least it shouldn’t be), but as believers, there are a handful of key metrics to keep our eyes on in order to understand where we are (generally speaking) on God’s timetable. Before I get to those metrics, I want to argue the case that God does indeed have a plan—including a specific timeline that only He knows. I dare not date-set (Matthew 24:36), but God has. Here’s the proof.

In Acts chapter 1—wedged in between the question from the apostles about Jesus if he was about to restore the kingdom to Israel and just before the familiar verse where Jesus gave his followers what is known as the great commission (1:8)—Jesus said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority (Acts 1:7).” Did you catch that? By logic, Jesus implied that the Father has times (plural) and dates (plural) set—including the day Israel’s kingdom would be restored (and by extension other specific end-time dates).

The word used for times is chronos, from which we get the word chronological. It has to do with sovereignly managed sequences. The word used for dates is kairos, or appointed times. It has to do with specific opportune times when things have come to a head (kairos comes from the word kara or head).

Think of chronos as the sequential time a stalk of wheat needs to grow. Think of kairos as the moment the wheat stalk sprouts its head and is ready for picking. God is sovereignly involved in both, but God-ordained chronos events always ultimately lead to God-ordained kairos events—when things have reached their designated end.

If you think about it, that makes total sense. God is (among other attributes) omniscient—all-knowing. He is also outside of time, for He created it. In any case, God the Father knows ALL of the key dates (rapture, return, start of the kingdom age, etc.), but we do not. We walk by faith as we wait. But notice also that Jesus didn’t dissuade them from asking such questions about the timing of eschatological events. We find the same phenomena when the disciples asked Jesus about end-time events in what is known as the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21), where Jesus provided his second-longest recorded teaching—and it was all about the signs and details of the end in response to the disciple’s questions!

For the apostles, they were not to worry about either, because in the very next verse (1:8) they hear Jesus’s last words before he left the earth that they would be his witnesses to the world—beginning where they were (in Jerusalem) and then ultimately to the ends of the earth. (By the way, Acts 1:8 also serves as the outline for the book of Acts—beginning in Jerusalem and ending in Rome.) This “witnessing” would take time. We call that the church age. But following the church age will be the kingdom age. The chronos of the church age would have a logical kairos end before the kingdom age can begin. We seem to be nearing the kairos moments related to the end of the church age.

Now back to those metrics. There are a handful of key factors we can keep an eye on to gauge where we are on God’s timetable. We can’t know the day or hour, but Scripture tells us we can know the season (Matthew 16:3, Luke 12:56, Hebrews 10:25). This list of metrics is by no means exhaustive but is meant to provide an easy-to-follow, clear, and compelling list that can show us how close we must be. If you have never studied eschatology but are—perhaps for the first time—realizing that there is something different about the times in which we live, then this post is for you! Here are 3 simple, clear, compelling metrics to evaluate for yourself to see if you think we are rapidly heading for the kairos moment of the church age as things seem to be coming to a head.

1. ISRAEL

Every Old Testament prophet except for Jonah predicted that Israel would become a nation again in the end times after a long period of time when the Jewish people were scattered all over the world with no homeland. This is exactly what happened on May 14, 1948. That was a kairos moment—an appointed date. In fact, one Old Testament prophet said that Israel would be “born in a day (Isaiah 66:8).” The prophecies that foretold Israel would be reborn all describe this super-sign event in the context of the end-times. Joel 3:1-2 even provides time clues, letting us know that when Israel would become a nation again, that would be in the same general time frame that all end-time events would take place.

Joel 3:1-2

“In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will put them on trial for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel, because they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land.”

There are scores of specific details the Bible prophesied about Israel and the Jewish people both chronologically and in terms of special specific appointed moments that were prophesied in Scripture. If you have never taken the time to study this aspect of the Bible, I highly recommend it. Your faith will be strengthened, and your eyes will be opened like never before.

2. GLOBALISM (vs. National Sovereignty)

When most people hear the term globalism, they usually just think of the modern interconnectivity of global trade, commerce, travel, and culture. But what I’m referring to here is the widespread, specific, and intentional efforts of the world’s most powerful influencers (international bankers, political leaders, and global-scale business leaders) to bring about a one-world government. Please fact-check me on this. Do not take my word for it. Dig into the founding documents, websites, articles, and interviews of people in (and/or connected to) these organizations and initiatives, and you will see that it is an established fact that they are trying (more now than ever) to bring about a one-world global government. It is important to note that this is not a left vs. right issue. Prominent people from both sides of the aisle are globalists.

The World Economic Forum

The Great Reset

The United Nations

The 2030 Agenda

The Council on Foreign Relations

The Trilateral Commission

The Council of the Americas

The Americas Society

The Forum of the Americas

The Institute for International Economics

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Those are what you might call open globalist groups and initiatives. There are many smaller entities that coordinate to assist the organizations and initiatives listed above.

So, what does this have to do with eschatology?

Well, the Bible teaches that after the rapture, the chaos will quickly lead to a one-world government (see Daniel chapters 2 and 7; Revelation chapters 13, 17), which will install a single leader whom we commonly refer to as the antichrist. Don’t let the familiarity of those terms and passages breed contempt or form caricatured notions in your mind. Look around you as you research the various globalist initiatives.

In order for a one-world government to almost immediately form after the rapture—it is necessary that the plans and framework for such a thing must already be in place. And they are—along with all of the technology necessary to pull it off. These facts are out in the open for all who are willing to take a look. This explains why great lengths are currently being taken to weaken America’s national sovereignty. Our country is quickly becoming a shell of its former self. This fact is sad but true—and it lines up with Scripture, as you see further below. Thankfully, our true citizenship is in Heaven. We can draw comfort from that even as our heart breaks as we watch our once strong country weaken at an unprecedented rate.

3. THE EZEKIEL 38 WAR

I’ll make this section as brief as I can, but if you have never studied it or heard about it before, you’ll need to take some time to process the details. Ezekiel 38 and 39 contain the most detailed account of any end-time battle. I have written about it extensively in books and articles (see here, here, and here), so I’ll keep it brief and high-level for the purposes of this article.

Ezekiel 38 and 39 detail an end-time battle that will take place after the people of Israel are back in their homeland, having been scattered and mistreated all over the world for a long period of time. Check. That part of the prophecy is fulfilled. After returning to their homeland and recovering from war (i.e., WWII, Israel’s War of Independence, The Six-Day War of 1967, the Yom Kippur War, etc.) and becoming militarily strong and financially secure (check/fulfilled), a group of nations that do not border Israel will be led by Russia, Iran, and Turkey to attack Israel specifically from her north—but Syria will not be one of them.

All of the nations listed are Islamic nations who currently want to destroy Israel—except for Russia, which will be there leading the pack to take something valuable from Israel (oil, gas, natural resources, technology, et al). Russia will serve as a guard for the others, but the main partnership will be with Russia, Iran, and Turkey. This partnership is currently in place, and Syria is merely a puppet state being run by those 3 nations.

On the opposite side of the equation, nobody will come to Israel’s rescue (but God…and He will show up in a major way). Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, England, and “her young lions” (possibly America) will merely protest the invasion but will not come to Israel’s aid in any meaningful way. If this attack were to occur today—this is exactly what would take place. The stage for this end-time confrontation is almost fully set. I believe it will be a power grab in the aftermath of the rapture. Even the recent horrific abandonment of the people (and billions of dollars of US military equipment) of Afghanistan further set the stage for Ezekiel 38.

The Convergence of Events

Those are 3 metrics we can keep an eye on with relative simplicity to see how close we are to the events of the tribulation—and keep in mind that the rapture will occur prior to the tribulation period. This unprecedented convergence of events (and there are dozens more) HAS NEVER BEFORE OCCURRED IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. That should get our attention.

Before I close, I’d like you to read one more section of Scripture carefully and slowly and see if it does not describe our day exactly. These are specifically stated as end-time attributes. They have always been true in pockets and in seasons, but in our day, these conditions are global and worsening—at the very same time everything else is converging.

In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, we read, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

Now For Some Good News

Lastly, some good news. God’s appointed times are in His hands—and so is your life. You are here at this time on purpose and for a reason. We need not fear. I’ve been told that the Bible says 365 times not to fear—one for each day of the year, plus an extra one in case you need a spare! We can rest assured that God will act at the very time we are ready and his perfect timing has arrived. If you do not know Christ, now is the time to receive him as your savior. Don’t wait. The massive convergence of specifically prophesied end-time events is upon us. Turn to Christ today. If there is a tug at your heart right now, do not ignore it.

The one metric you should watch the most is your relationship with Christ. If you are a believer, draw closer to him in these trying times, and he will sustain you. If you are not yet a believer, please do not let another moment go by without calling on the name of Christ for salvation. He already paid the cost for our sins. We can’t earn it; we must simply accept it.

“But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

Todd Hampson | toddhampson.com