These last few weeks in the world have been very significant in many ways. I will outline only some of these. The regular readers of RaptureReady know Daymond Duck presents happenings quite regularly. I will only touch on these things now and again.

I will begin with the United States. Though I am not a resident, I try to understand what happens in the USA, as the events are significant. One advantage I have is in being able to get news from the USA freely because it is not canceled or blocked, as is the case often with American residents because of your many left wing media outlets.

I reject the idea that the USA will feature in the Tribulation, as some try to make out. The whole initial focus is on the Revived Roman Empire as the fourth kingdom from which the world ruler/Antichrist will come. America was never part of that. No one can make predictions, but I feel the UN and the WEF could be most significant for the emergence of this world ruler/Antichrist.

There are none so blind as those who swear allegiance to a system as robotic slaves and who cannot think so as to see right from wrong. We call that “blindness” a delusion, even a deception. Blindness has ascended on the world from the pit and most of those who do not belong to Jesus walk in blindness, in increasing blindness in these days.

To walk in blindness is to live in darkness. The people of the world are divided into light and darkness. Here is the quote Matthew used from the Old Testament – Matthew 4:16 “The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light, and to those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, upon them a light dawned.” The coming of the Lord in the first advent was a light dawning. The same will be true for the Second Advent, the coming in glory to end the world’s Tribulation darkness.

We are in that darkness in the world, the children of light in the darkness. When Jesus was rejected and killed, darkness came even more upon the world (especially Israel), but in recent times, it has increased as hearts grow more wicked. Our Western nations had light in past revivals, but light rejected is darkness embraced, and it is the state of our nations, especially in those that had past encounters with the gospel but have now rejected the light.

The condition of the White House is tragic. What is supposed to be the leadership of the free world is intense darkness. Some of the media is asking, “Who runs the White House?” It is that bad. The President is demented, physical and mental systems shutting down. Just today, a CNN doctor called for Biden to take a neurological test. They all know now he is with the fairies, as we say here. For ages, there was a great cover-up about Biden’s state, but the USA is starting to see that. A con job was done on the people from all the left-wing media to keep them in this intense darkness. Only Fox and Sky News Australia have been revealing the true state of affairs.

The Democrats know it is essential that Biden be examined for cognitive assessment because if he can be declared as neurologically incapable, then they can appoint a Democrat name for the Presidential election in three of the states that can put no one else on the ballot if Biden just pulls out. Personally (right or wrong), I think in the next few short weeks, Biden will be replaced by Harris, the giggling feather brain. She will lose even worse to Trump.

There is such ignorance with people now. They don’t know right from wrong; they have no concept of Christian things; they are candidates for hell. Socialism sends people to hell faster than any other system. Communism is the stronger degree of socialism.

Let us move on. Great Britain has just had its elections, and there was a massive turning to the Labour Party. Labour in Britain is very left-wing; in other words, it is socialism, some of it Marxism. Conditions in Britain will proceed from bad to worse. There are places the police won’t touch because they are coming more and more under Islamic control.

It has been my opinion for a long time that in the Tribulation, it will be a rule of socialism and/or Communism, so it is no surprise that we see the nations of Europe hardening that way. Australia is already Marxist to a stronger or weaker degree. The USA is moving that way, especially under the younger Democrats.

Those of us who are older belong to a generation that knew freedom, particularly personal freedom. We know our lives are being squashed today into a socialist mold. We are dying out. The younger generation, whose minds are saturated with demonic contemporary music and are the victims of a corrupt education system, are the advocates of change; that is, socialism and abolition of religion. That means opposition also to Israel.

All that indicates the closeness of the Tribulation. That means the closeness of the Rapture. The new Prime Minister is Sir Keir Stamer, and he has become the darling of the left-wing media just as Biden has been the darling of the same media in the USA.

One of Britain’s problems is the increasing Islamic population. These people riot and protest against the British system of life, calling for its downfall. Does that happen in the USA? It certainly does in Australia. Just in this last week, Islamic mobs defaced the Australian war memorial and hung banners all over the icons of Parliament House. That is a hatred for Australian soldiers and veterans, but nothing is done against it by the Marxist Australian govt. These people get away with lawlessness.

France is experiencing a whole breakdown of society. There is rioting and mayhem in France, caused by radical socialists following the first round of elections where a somewhat conservative national group had success (some call that “the far right”). This is a serious matter because the nation will become ungovernable. France is being run by riots. There is another word for that – anarchy!

We are seeing the rise of modern Western anarchy. Black Lives Matter belongs to that, as do climate activists and Islamic mobs in Western nations. The radicals now try to determine policy and direction, and they are godless and hateful of Christians and Jews.

Socialists worldwide now are militant. They march and riot under the banner of “social justice,” which means they want communist ideals; or black lives matter, which means they want to overthrow the existing system of democracy; or climate change, which means to institute a communist agenda on the West.

Marine Le Penn is the politician who gained the initial support in France, but the left is calling on supporters to take up guns. Macron, the current President, is a left-wing politician. Macron’s government has 19 millionaires in the government and is largely based on support in Paris and support coming from the elite of France, with all the Provinces being neglected. The people have had enough, those who live in the Provinces.

You remember the French Revolution when the great division existed – the rich elite under the king of France and the poor peasants – and there was an uprising. In Australia, the support of the socialist Labor Party is strong among the elite, the academics, and the rich. In the USA, a lot of the support for the socialist Democrats comes from the elite, the rich and the privileged, film stars, and big tech companies who like to reject Christian content and use censorship to cancel out some Christian videos from YouTube and other media (Google).

It is all the same. Communism is very much alive, and today, it has become more violent to achieve its aim.

Just side-tracking for a moment. There is increasing scrutiny against Christians, and we are being spied on to see what we watch. I am passing this on to you if you are interested. Google search is the worst. I use Duck Duck Go for searches and use Firefox, and very importantly, use Ad Blocker Ultimate, which is free and fantastic (you just download to Firefox or Windows or Safari preferences. I don’t know Windows – I am Mac. Doing that, I think, helps overall.

IRAN. Did you know Iran is on the march in the Middle East? It is arming radical groups all over the Middle East, every one of which hates Israel. It threatens extermination of Israel.

Xi of China wants to take over all of Asia and spread its influence all over with the Belt and Road initiative. China is also spreading its tentacles into the Middle East. It probably will continue to do so, as China most certainly will be part of the Kings of the East who come across as part of the Armageddon war against Israel on the eve of the Second Coming.

Why is it that in Australia, the USA, Britain, and France, there is this new generation clamoring for the installation of extreme left-wing policies/Communism? Have you wondered why this is?

The generation under 40 today is radical. In the British election, the videos of the election results with the new PM showed so many cheering young women. Why is it that the younger generation is becoming so radical? Those who read this and are my age (80) and even younger remember the great threat Communism was to the world and to our democracy in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

We knew about it in schools and knew the atrocities of totalitarian Communism. We were educated in what this was all about. The media reinforced it. Why did it change? Well, people become materialistic and then complacent. They forgot about educating the following generation about the evils of Communism. Socialism began to rise, then radicals turned it into Communism, and people now clamor after it. The left-wing media sides with it.

Hand in hand with the rise of extreme socialism is the fact that the Christian gospel is failing and is being legislated against. Men and women are hard in their hearts and reject and hate all Christian things. A godless generation will bring about its own destructive end.

Putin is desirous of re-establishing a new Soviet Union. The man is satanic. North Korea is reported as sending one million soldiers to Russia. There is a very active axis of evil made up of Communism and Islam.

How is this going to play out in the days ahead? Firstly, while the Lord tarries, socialism will gain ground because this is what will rule in the Tribulation along with drug-induced, false, satanic religion. Also, we will see more violence and hardening of resolve to implement Communism.

So, what is happening? The world is preparing itself for the second horse, the red one. Revelation 6:3-4 “When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, ‘Come,’ and another, a red horse, went out, and to him who sat on it, IT WAS GRANTED TO TAKE PEACE FROM THE EARTH, and that men should slay one another, and a great sword was given to him.”

The great armaments race will burst forth as a collapsing dam. I do not believe nuclear weapons will be used. By the way, there has been a great influx of videos on YouTube pushing the idea of a close World War 3 and associated nuclear disasters. Is that an accident? No, I think it is strategic. The world is being prepared. Lots of movie releases in the past two decades on YouTube deal with apocalyptic themes, disasters, and warfare. These themes are gaining traction, for the real thing is coming, but the saints of God won’t be here – raptured!

In the Revelation verses, it says, “it was granted to take peace from the earth,” and that is universal. This will not be some local skirmishes but worldwide conflicts. I do believe a lot of it will be civil wars and internal wars as well, involving Islam and radical groups and ethnic conflicts as we had in the breakup of the Yugoslavian Federation. The “great sword” means severe conflicts, and they will be widespread. There will be no peace on earth at all for this period. There will be a great loss of life. Those days are close, and the world is armed and waiting for it.

The Lord described that time this way: Matthew 24:6-7 “You will be hearing of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.” It will be horrible for those on earth.

Straight after those words about the coming wars, the Lord said this: Matthew 24:8 “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.” Labor pains are just beginning with the red horse. Can you imagine how bad the labor pains get after that? Well, Revelation describes the judgments that follow after, and it is horrific, but will people repent and turn to Messiah who is coming? Most won’t.

That is how I see the current developments. There will be changes and tweaking as more things happen. May the Lord bless and keep us.

ronaldf@aapt.net.au

 

 

 

 

Ezekiel was among the Jews from the southern kingdom of Judah captured and exiled to Babylon in 597 BC. Four years later, in 593 BC, Ezekiel had his first vision and prophecy, in which he saw the Cherubim and God’s glory. God called Ezekiel and commissioned him to proclaim the word of the LORD to the rebellious House of Israel (Ezekiel 3:1).

This was Ezekiel’s first prophecy, and it occurred seven years before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the death of thousands of Jews. Those who survived were deported to Babylon in 586 BC. 137 years earlier, in 723 BC, the city of Samaria (and what was left of the northern kingdom of Israel) was taken by the Assyrians, and the inhabitants were killed or deported throughout the Assyrian kingdom. However, some of them remained or made their way to the southern kingdom of Judah.

Ezekiel’s word from God was a prophetic warning of judgment on Jerusalem, a city that would soon be besieged. The entire prophecy, found in Ezekiel 4:1-7, carries the weight of impending doom. This prophecy, delivered by Ezekiel, would be fulfilled in the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem starting in 588 BC and ending in 586 BC (some say 589-587 BC).

Ezekiel 4:1-3 vividly describes how the prophet was to re-enact the siege. He was to take a clay tablet on which the city of Jerusalem was drawn and build a miniature siege wall against his clay Jerusalem, along with the camps of siege armies and their battering rams. This was not a mere re-enactment but a symbolic act of immense responsibility, as Ezekiel was to lay siege to the miniature replica of Jerusalem, bearing the weight of his people’s destiny.

Ezekiel was also instructed to set an iron plate between himself and the city. This symbolized the barrier between God and Jerusalem, meaning God would not intervene in the coming siege. Verse 3 says, “This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.” The absence of God’s intervention in this prophecy underscores the inevitability of the coming siege, a fact that would have been deeply unsettling to Ezekiel’s audience.

In verse 3, ‘Israel’ stands for the kingdom of Judah. After the captivity of the ten tribes (the northern kingdom of Israel) by the Assyrians in 723 BC, the kingdom of Judah (the southern kingdom) represented the whole nation. Hence, prophets writing after this event constantly addressed their countrymen as the house of Israel without distinction of tribes. In the Book of Ezekiel, the name ‘house of Israel’ occurs 83 times and ‘house of Judah’ only five times. However, God distinguishes between the two ‘houses’ (kingdoms) in verses four and five. One of the five mentions of the house of Judah is found in Chapter 4, verse 6.

God told Ezekiel, “Lie you upon your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that you shall lie upon it you shall bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shall you bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when you have accomplished them, lie again on your right side, and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed you each day for a year” (Ezekiel 4:4-6).

The days Ezekiel was to lie on his sides corresponded to the years of iniquity (a day was symbolic of a year) for the two kingdoms of the 12 tribes of Israel. So, the 390 years of iniquity refer to the northern kingdom of Israel (10 tribes), and the 40 years of iniquity refer to the southern kingdom of Judah (2 tribes). The nation of Israel split up into two kingdoms after the death of Solomon in 930 BC. Solomon’s sins, as an old man, are revealed in 1 Kings 11 and are the reason God tore 10 tribes out of his son’s hands. God didn’t do it in Solomon’s life because of his love for David.

“For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon.  And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods” (1 Kings 11:4-8).

These numbers of years of ‘iniquity’ are a mystery for most students (and scholars) of prophecy, especially for the House of Israel, as their kingdom lasted for only 207 years. So, how do you get 390 years out of 207 years? The House of Judah was in existence for 344 years, but which 40 years of iniquity was Ezekiel referring to? There were many evil kings of Judah (and their citizens) recorded in the Bible, such as Rehoboam, Abijah, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah who reigned collectively far more than 40 years. So, which 40 years of iniquity was God referring to for the House of Judah?

The English word ‘iniquity’ means immoral or gross injustice or sin. The Hebrew word from which iniquity is translated is ‘avon.’ In the KJV, avon is translated as iniquity 220 times and as punishment five times. There are two main theories regarding how this word is used in Ezekiel 4:4-6 and which translation is correct.

THE YEARS OF PUNISHMENT THEORY

The first theory is that the numbers 390 and 40 represent the years that the two kingdoms must atone for and are, therefore, the lengths of their punishments. With this theory, the two numbers are added together (390 + 40 = 430 years) and are the Israelites’ collective punishment.

If the punishment was to begin at the time of Ezekiel’s prophecy or when Jerusalem was besieged in 588 BC or destroyed in 586 BC and was to last for 430 years, then the end of the punishment phase would be 158 or 156 BC. The Jews were still fighting the Greek/Syrian armies of the Seleucid dynasty at this juncture. It appears their punishment was still ongoing, so this can’t be the correct interpretation.

Most adherents to the punishment theory believe the 70 years of judgment (punishment) that Jeremiah spoke of in Jeremiah 25 & 29 must be figured in and subtracted from the 430 years. This leaves 360 years of punishment for the children of Israel. It is thought that the 70 years of Jeremiah 29 started in 606/605 BC when the first Babylonian invasion of Judah and Jerusalem began. This invasion led to the captivity and deportation of tens of thousands of Jews. The 70 years ended in 537/536 BC when more than 40,000 exiles returned to their homeland (the first regathering of the Jews).

The majority of Jews did not repent of their sins after 70 years and did not return to Judah. They stayed as colonists in what is now Iraq-Iran. 360 years later, the Jews still did not fully return to Israel, and many were still “going after other gods.” Nothing significant happened regarding an end to their punishment from God at this time. They were still under the subjugation of foreign nations.

However, I first encountered an interesting idea in Grant Jeffreys’ book Armageddon—Appointment With Destiny (2004), which addresses why Ezekiel’s prophecy wasn’t fulfilled at this time. Since nothing historically significant occurred for Israel after the 360 years, Grant and other Bible scholars believe this prophecy foretold the second major regathering of Israel, not the first regathering after Babylon.

The reasoning behind this theory is found in the Book of Leviticus. Four times in chapter 26, God tells the children of Israel that if they did not repent and obey God’s commandments, they would be punished seven times more for their sins. Now, take the 360 years and multiply it by 7, and the product is 2,520 years.

Grant (and many others) believed these are not regular 365.25 calendar years but are biblical years of 360 days per year. Many scholars believe there are several instances in prophetic scripture where biblical years (or prophetic years) are used, such as Daniel’s 70 sevens prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27). Author’s note: I no longer adhere to a ‘prophetic year’ either with Ezekiel’s or Daniel’s prophecy. I believe these timelines are reckoned by the Jewish lunar-solar calendar that the children of Israel have always used.

According to this theory, the end of the banishment/punishment and subsequent regathering to Israel would be accomplished in 2,520 years, each 360 days long. Multiply 2,520 years by 360 days, and the product is 907,200 days. Converting this figure into our Gregorian calendar year of 365.25 days, by dividing 365.25 into 907,200 days, we reach a total of 2,483.8 calendar years.

Therefore, Israel’s worldwide captivity would end after 2,483.8 years had elapsed from the spring/summer of 537 BC (at the end of Jeremiah’s 70-year prophecy). This was the year Sheshbazzar led more than 40,000 exiled Jews from Babylon to their homeland after Cyrus the Great, the Persian King, proclaimed the Jews could go home and rebuild their Temple. Now add the 2,483.8 years to 537 BC (during the spring/summer season), and we come to the spring of 1948. On May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independence of the reborn state of Israel.

“The Jewish people celebrated the end of their tragic worldwide dispersion and captivity at the exact time prophesied thousands of years earlier by the prophet Ezekiel.” {1} Armageddon – Appointment With Destiny by Grant Jeffrey.

Grant figured 536 BC for the start of the 2,520 prophetic years. I think he is off by one year, as it should be 537 BC. Using the calendar converter at 360calendar.com Calendar Converter, if we subtract 907,200 days from May 14, 1948, BC, we come to July 21, 537 BC (on the Julian calendar) or Av 16, 3224 AM on the Jewish calendar.

Although interesting, I don’t think that the 390 + 40 years is the number of years in which Israel was judged/punished for several reasons. For one, it requires three prophecies by three prophets, Moses (Leviticus 26), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25 & 29), and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 4:4-6), to fulfill the required timeline. Another reason is that I don’t believe ‘punishment’ is the correct translation in this particular scripture. I believe ‘iniquity’ or ‘sin’ is what the author (ultimately God) had in mind. Also, the northern kingdom of Israel had been conquered and dispersed throughout the Assyrian kingdom for 186 years before the start of the 2,520 years (in 537 BC). How could these years not be included in the ‘collective’ punishment?

Jeremiah had this to say about the ‘punishment’ longevity of the Babylonian captivity:

“For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

“Then shall you call upon me, and you shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive” (Jeremiah 29:10-14). 

This doesn’t sound like punishment to me, but reconciliation toward the House of Israel after only 70 years.

The Jews were allowed to return to the land of Judah and build a new Temple, which was completed in 516 BC. They had relative peace under the reign of the Persians and then the Greeks under Alexander. In 142 BC, under the leadership of Simon Maccabeus, the Jews secured their independence from the Seleucid empire and established the Judean Hasmonean dynasty, which endured until the Roman general Pompey conquered Judah and Jerusalem in 63 BC. The Romans allowed the Jews to remain in their homeland until 135 AD, when the entire Jewish population of Judah was deported and replaced with Gentiles. This was when the great Jewish diaspora throughout the nations commenced.

However, playing devil’s advocate, there are some interesting parallel typologies between the first regathering (beginning in 537 BC) and the second major regathering of the Jews (beginning in 1948 AD) to their ancestral homeland. The regathering of the Jews to Judah and Jerusalem began in 537 BC. 79/80 years later, in 458/457 BC. Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, sent Ezra to Jerusalem to oversee the Jews in ensuring the proper observance of the Mosaic Law and to supply needed material for the temple. Some say this was the start of Daniel’s 70-weeks prophecy (I personally believe it was in 444 BC when Nehemiah was sent to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and the city).

1948 AD is the second major ‘aliyah’ (regathering) of Jews to their homeland. If you adhere to Grant’s theory of 2,520 years (360 days per year) of banishment or punishment for Israel, then 1948 could be the fulfillment of Ezekiel 4:4-6, as the Jews are once again in possession of their ancestral homeland. When 79/80 years are added to 1948 AD (second regathering), the year 2027 or 2028 AD comes into view. See Sevens (rev310.net) for more information regarding this timeframe.

Regardless of whether this is the correct interpretation of Ezekiel’s prophecy, the number one sign that we are living at the end of the age is Israel’s rebirth as a nation in 1948. In Matthew 24:32-34, Jesus said that the generation being born when the first signs (of the end of the age) appeared would not pass away before all was fulfilled. That means that at least some of the people who were born around 1948 will still be alive when He returns.

In Psalm 90:10, Moses gives 70 years as the average lifespan and 80 years for the strong. According to several sources, the current average lifespan (for both sexes) for the world population is 73.4 years. In 2024, we are currently 76 years from 1948. Given Israel’s current situation, it’s not too far-fetched to assume something historical and prophetic might occur regarding the nation in the coming years.

Sometime in the near future, Israel will build a third temple in Jerusalem in which the Mosaic Law will be reinstated (near the beginning-middle of the 70th week of Daniel 9:27), and sacrifices and offerings will be made on the altar there. I don’t know when or even how it will become possible, but I know by the word of God that a temple will be built in Jerusalem during the end times, and then the man of sin will do his dirty deed (read Daniel 9:27, 12:11; Matthew 24:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

In the next article, we will examine the years of Iniquity theory regarding the 390 and 40 years of Ezekiel 4:4-6.

Randy Nettles

rgeanie55@gmail.com

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