Amazing Insight!
Reproduced from: Ellis Skolfied and Fishhouse Ministries. I reproduced this here because of its critical importance, and simply because people need to hear this! It's especially for traditional pre-tribbers who are following along with the Laodicean church of today. You need to come to terms with Daniel's days prophesies...
Besides being given an everlasting land covenant by God Himself, is there any actual proof in scripture that the Jews belong in Israel today? Is it possible that God has unsealed the book of Daniel, clearly showing we are now in Daniel's "time of the end"? We know God sealed the book, in no uncertain terms:
Daniel 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, [even] to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. God followed this up with a crystal clear statement of fact: Daniel 12:9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words [are] closed up and sealed till the time of the end. http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Dan/Dan012.html#4
Most Christians are familiar with the following verse:2 Peter 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/2Pe/2Pe003.html#8
The word that is generally translated as "day", in this verse, is "hemera". But that's not the only translation of this word. From Strong's, New Testament Greek Definition:
2250 hemera {hay-mer'-ah}from (with 5610 implied) of a derivative of hemai (to sit,akin to the base of 1476) meaning tame, i.e. gentle;TDNT - 2:943,309; n fAV - day 355, daily + 2596 15, time 3, not tr 2, misc 14; 389
What happens when we try this translation that each "time" is as a thousand years? Jews - both Messianic and non-Messianic - translation of the Hebrew idiom "time, times and half a time" is somewhat different than most of us Christians may have been taught.
Daniel 12:7: And I heard the man clad in linen, who was above the waters of the river, and he raised his right hand and his left hand to the heavens, and he swore by the Life of the world, that in the time of [two] times and a half, and when they have ended shattering the strength of the holy people, all these will end. http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=16495
Now let's just consider for a moment, what if the Jews actually understand Hebrew idioms better than Christians do, and what if a "time" is equal to a thousand years? A couple of chapters earlier in this same prophecy we find a specific date pin in Daniel 10:1: In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar, and the word was true, and for a long time, and he understood the word and he understood it in the vision. You can Live Search an understanding of the third year of Cyrus to be 533 BC. Or first year of Cyrus as 536.
Now let's put it together: 2-1/2 "times" = 2500 - 533 = 1967. The "times of the Gentiles" in the holy city were fulfilled in 1967 when the Jews finally regained control. The end of the "shattering of the strength of the holy people".
Is this a mathematical accident that spans 2500 years? Does God offer proof that this isn't a one-trick pony? Daniel includes this same term in another verse. In Chapter 7 we see the successive lion, bear, leopard and 4th "terrible" kingdom beasts that would rule the holy land. Then in verse 25 we find: Daniel 7:25. And he will speak words against the Most High, and he will oppress the high holy ones, and he will think to change the times and the law, and they will be delivered into his hand until a time, two times, and half a time.
In the first verse of this chapter we are given another specific date pin:
Daniel 7:1.
In the first year of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream, and the visions of his mind [while asleep] on his bed; then he wrote the dream and said the beginnings of the matters.You can
Live Search the
first year of Belshazzar to be 552 BC. 2500 - 552 = 1948 Israel came in from the wilderness of the nations declaring her independence. The end of the Gentile control of the holy land.
THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS. PROOF OF GOD. What a perfect seal God put on the book of Daniel!!! It wasn't until after the dates of 1948 and 1967 had passed, as we entered Daniel's "time of the end", that anybody (yes, including John Darby) could understand the simple math, and textual significance of these blessed verses. But then Daniel did promise that our knowledge would be increased in these times. Now wasn't that exercise more fun than some futurist fantasy? And particularly more fun than dead doctrinal formalism? And the above study regards FULFILLED PROPHECY, not futurist speculation or guesswork theology.
"The folly of interpreters has been to foretell times and things by this prophecy [Revelation], as if God designed to make them prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men's curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own providence, not the interpreters', be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by Providence."
- Sir Isaac Newton
