2017 - SIGNS AND APPOINTED TIMES (B. Wachtel)
Most people are familiar with the Genesis account of creation. God made the heavens and earth in six days and rested on the seventh day. In the 14th verse of Chapter 1 God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: The word “seasons” here also translates as “appointed times”. In Ex 31:17 and Gen 2: 2-3, we are told that the seventh day was “made for man” in that he could rest from his own labor. It was to be remembered and kept as a Holy Sabbath. Why do you suppose it was so important to the Almighty that we remember the seventh day, and to keep it holy? (Ex 20:8) Is there something more to be learned from six days of work followed by a seventh day rest?
Most Christians are familiar with the idea of a six-thousand-year plan for mankind to have dominion over the earth followed by a one-thousand-year Kingdom of God ruled by his Son Jesus. Peter tells us “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day (2 Peter 3:8).” This statement is made in the context of comparing the old heavens and earth destroyed by the flood, with a promised new heavens and earth, and that God is not slack concerning that promise. If Peter is making a literal correlation here, then God not only rested on the seventh day of creation, but he will also rest during the 7th Millennium while his son rules in his stead.
The Jubilee’s Cycle
What other evidence do we have that this is in fact God’s appointed timeline? Let’s begin with some circumstantial evidence. We are told that the Law of Moses was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Gal 3:24). So what are some of the lessons taught in the precepts of the Law that refer to appointed times? We know that the 7 Jewish feast days were all prophetic in nature. They were all symbolic of events that would be fulfilled by a future Messiah. A proper understanding of these feasts would have helped the people recognize who that promised Messiah would be. The lesson for us is, three of the seven feasts are yet to be fulfilled: Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles. More on these three later.
We find in Leviticus 25, something that in my experience is rarely talked about in the Church: God’s Jubilee cycle. The Jubilee is symbolic of God’s grace and represents the forgiveness of debt and the return to one’s inheritance. They were to count out seven times seven years, (or forty-nine years), and then on the 10th day of the 7th month, (on the Day of Atonement), blow the rams horn throughout the land to consecrate the fiftieth year as a jubilee year. Everyone returned to their own property, their own family, and their debts were forgiven. This sounds an awful lot like what will ultimately happen just prior to the kingdom of God. At the sound of the last trumpet, all believers will inherit the Kingdom through the Grace of the Almighty.
So, let’s see if the math fits. How many 50 year jubilees are equal to 6000 years? The answer is 120. Is there any biblical significance to the number 120? Well, since we are referring to the Law of Moses, lets first look at Moses himself. Moses died when he was 120 years old. We are specifically told that he left Egypt when he was 40 years old and returned to Egypt when he was 80 years old. His life therefore was divided into 3 sets of 40 years. 40 years in Egypt, 40 years in Midian, and 40 years wandering in the desert. Immediately after his death at 120 years, Joshua (Yahushua) led the people into the promise land.
Now, on a Jubilee time scale, we also have a similar pattern of 3 sets of 40. The birth of Abraham occurred in the 40th Jubilee Cycle, 2000 years from Adam. 2000 years later, at the 80th Jubilee Cycle, came the birth of our Lord Jesus. Adding another 2000 years, brings us to the current Jubilee cycle where Jesus (Yahushua) will ultimately lead the people into the promise land. (Jesus and Joshua do in fact share the same Hebrew name, meaning Yah is Salvation, the confusion coming from the historical Greek transliteration of the name of Yahushua).
What other 120’s do we see in Scripture? Gen 6:3 – “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.” The fact that men lived far beyond 120 years prior to the flood and within a few generations of the flood dropped to a more consistent elderly age of 70 to 80 years (Psalm 90:10) “…The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years “– When God declared men’s days to be 120 years maybe there was more being implied. Could he also have meant that men’s mortal days on earth would encompass 120 jubilee cycles, or 6000 years?
In Lev 12: 1-6, the Mosaic laws of childbirth are given. If a woman bears a daughter, then she is unclean for 80 days (written as two weeks, plus three score and six days, or 14 days + 66 days =80). If a woman bears a man child, than she is unclean for 40 days (written as 7 days + 33 days = 40). Since there is no apparent biological or medical difference between the birth of a boy or a girl, I submit that this must be symbolic of a greater lesson. Perhaps the daughter represents 80 jubilees of uncleanness from the fall of Adam until the birth of the man child (Jesus) and afterward 40 more jubilees of uncleanness until the purification of transforming into the Kingdom of God.
It is interesting that there were 120 scribes, sages and prophets known as the ‘Great Assembly” who compiled the Tanakh or Old Testament. There were 120 priests blowing trumpets at the dedication of Solomon’s temple, and 120 disciples present on the day of Pentecost. On both occasions, the glory of God filled the house. (2 Ch 5:12-14, Acts 1:15) Much symbolism is made throughout the scriptures regarding wheat. I find it notable that the time between the planting of spring wheat seed and the harvest is four months, or 120 days.
Things get more interesting as we move forward to more modern times and look closely at the re-establishment of the state of Israel and more current events. This year, 2017, marks the 120th anniversary of the First Zionist Congress; held on Aug 29th- 31st, 1897, in Basle Switzerland. This Congress included Jews from 17 countries who gathered for the purpose of this stated goal "Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law." This year, 2017, marks the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One. The British Empire overthrew the Ottoman Turk Empire and subsequently announced the Balfour Declaration on Nov 2nd, 1917. This declaration allowed the Jews to begin returning to Palestine with the hopes of a national homeland. The events of 1917 could very well be viewed as a Jubilee type event with the Jews being legally able to return to their rightful inheritance. The original timing of the Jubilee cycle is difficult to confirm because it has been completely abandoned since the Babylonian Captivity. The possibility of the 1917 date is strengthened however when we look another 50 years ahead. The Jews regained another inheritance by capturing their ancient capital city of Jerusalem in the Six Day War, June 5-10, 1967. Rabbi Shlomo Goren, born in 1917, was the first to blow the shofar (Rams Horn) at the Wailing Wall at the age of 50. If 1917 and 1967 prove to be Jubilee years, then adding 50 more years brings us to this present year of 2017. And finally, 2017 on the Jewish calendar is year 5777; the number 5, meaning grace, and 777 meaning triple perfection. Is this simply all coincidence?
Sign in the Heavens? – Sept 23, 2017
Rev: 12:6 - "And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars: And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered.”
On November 20, 2016, Jupiter (the King planet) entered into the body (womb) of the constellation Virgo (the virgin). Jupiter, due its retrograde motion, will spend 9 ½ months within the womb of Virgo. This length of time corresponds with gestation period of a normal late-term baby. After 9 ½ months, Jupiter will exit out of the womb of Virgo. Upon Jupiter’s exit (birth), on September 23, 2017, we see the constellation Virgo with the sun directly in front of it from the Earth’s perspective (the woman clothed with the sun). At the feet of Virgo, we find the moon. And upon her head we find a crown of twelve stars, formed by the usual nine stars of the constellation Leo with the addition of the planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars.
This Alignment of planets and constellations can be verifiably shown to have never occurred in the past 7000 years using a free open source software program called Stellarium.
Remarkably, the moon at her feet is the new moon, and Sept 23rd this year is a special High Sabbath that falls between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (Shabbat of Returning) Feast of Trumpets and 7 days prior to the Day of Atonement.
Sept 21st, 2017 (Day of Trumpets) Mentioned in the book of Leviticus as Yom Teruah, translated as the Feast of Trumpets, or the Day of the Sounding of the Shofar.
Sept. 23rd 2017 - 3rd day of the Feast of Trumpets (High Sabbath) (New Moon)
Sept 30th 2017 – Seven days later - (Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur) (High Sabbath) Holiest day of the Jewish calendar – 10th day of the 7th Month – New Year
If this isn’t enough to make you say hmm, consider the fact that Sept 23rd falls 33 days after a full solar eclipse cuts directly through the United States from Oregon to Florida and the much discussed 4 Blood Moons or Lunar Tetrad which occurred in 2014 and 2015 all coincided with the Biblical Jewish Feasts. The April 15, 2014 and April 4, 2015 Total Lunar Eclipses occurred at the same time as Passover, while the October 8, 2014 and September 28, 2015 eclipses occurred during the Feast of Tabernacles. This phenomenon of four consecutive blood moons coinciding with Jewish feast days has only occurred three times since Columbus found America in 1492 AD. The last one being the Tetrad of 1967-1968, which, of course, happens to be the previously discussed year when Jerusalem was recaptured in the six-day war and possibly the last Jubilee year.
I am not a prophet or a date setter. I consider myself a watchman. My goal is to have oil in my lamp and be fully awake when Christ returns. I study the scriptures with an eye to that which may be hidden behind the obvious intent of the passage. Seek and ye shall find for God rewards those who diligently seek him.
Now is a time of great excitement due to the obvious fulfillment of scripture in our times. It is also a time of great concern for the world around us. We are told in Luke 17:26 and Matt 24:37 that the days of the coming of the Son of Man will be as the days of Noah. The 6th chapter of Genesis tells of the wickedness of mankind, the continual violence and that “the thoughts of the human heart were only evil all the time.” The current state of the world is drastically more immoral than just a couple of decades ago; and we thought it was bad then. Today’s Society mirrors exactly what Paul writes in Romans 1: 28-32 (Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.)
In conclusion, if 2017 passes without fanfare or incident, and it certainly may, we are still very likely to be that last generation Spoken of in Matt 24:34. I wouldn’t sell the farm and go stand on a hilltop as some have when the second coming appeared imminent. I would suggest however, that we live every day in eager anticipation; urgently preparing as though he is coming tomorrow. God has an appointed end time and that point is drawing nearer every day.
Oh, and by the way, the next lunar tetrad is in 2033; exactly two thousand years since Christ’s death and resurrection.
God Bless
B Wachtel