A Timeline Concerning the Rebuilding of the Wall

It is heavy upon me to dig into the question of the rapture and the timeline of such.  Actually, I am not a person that has focused on prophecy, for reasons that will be evident in a moment.  However, I am aware that the impotency of the church to be salt and light is, in part, due to the information I will present here.  Someone said, “Why should I fight when I’m going to take flight”?  That, of course, refers to the doctrine of the rapture.

Why does it matter?  For those who have not considered this question, why does it matter what anyone believes?  Why not “live and let live”?  The problem is this.  The doctrine of the rapture has made the church, at least the western church where it is preached more than in other parts of the world, it has made it passive and ineffective against the evil of society.  It has made it ineffective in terms of spiritual warfare.  If, as Jesus said, the church is to be “salt and light”, and if salt preserves, then by looking at the world around us, the church has failed.

Yes, the church does good.  It opens hospitals and orphanges.  It opens schools.  It does great charity works around the world.  It helps people in times of disaster.  It preaches the gospel.  It prays for the sick.  It helps people in their struggles to overcome problems and addictions.  There are numerous good works the church does.  The church does a lot of good work.

There is one problem though.  The one thing the church does well is take the broken pieces of humanity, after they have been cast aside, the dregs of society, and help them back to life.  The church is the Good Samaritan.  But the one thing the church does not do is take a stand against the corrupted, ruling forces of this world.  It has used the doctrine of the rapture as its escape door.  “Why should I fight, if I’m going to take flight”?  The church is willing to pick up the broken pieces of the dregs of humanity, but it is not willing to engage in the battle with what brought about the breaking of humanity in the first place.  Now, with any sweeping statement like that, there are exceptions to that general statement.  I do know of some churches engaged in the cultural battle. But they are not the majority.  When is the last time your church called for a regular prayer meeting to pray about the state of the nation or for God to move out corrupt rulers and move in more righteous leaders?  Recognize that there has only been one perfect one among us, and that is Jesus Christ, but certainly there are people with more integrity than what is currently on the scene.

All that is in preface to this.  What if the rapture does not occur as is commonly preached now?  The fact is, the doctrine of the rapture did not start until after the Protestant Reformation.  The Protestants were being persecuted by the Catholic church.  That led to them calling the Pope the anti-Christ.  A Jesuit priest named Ribera (alt. Rivera) created an elaborate doctrine that the church would have to be taken out of the way (by means of a rapture) before the anti-Christ would appear.  That doctrine continued on later in 1830, being brought through a message to a young girl and it went onto Darby and Scofield and onto today.  There is a lot of information, but that is the short version.  Here is a link to more information. If you scroll down the page, you will see more details about these things.

Moving on to another important point in all this.  The only way for the above theory to work is to destroy the historical model of prophecy that had been in continuance until the time of the Reformation.  In other words, the prophecies (and there are many in the Bible) were in a continuous state of being filled and would continue to do be filled until Christ comes on this earth a second time.  There were no “gaps” in the time line.

With the theory of the rapture, there had to be a lone “week” that would be fulfilled at the end of time.  It is common understanding that in prophetic time one day stands for a year.  Thus, one week would be seven years.  So seven weeks would be 7 X 7 or 49.  Again, due to the length of this post and time limits, I might go back and get some references, but it in the Bible, there is a correlation between a day and a year.   For example, every day that the children of Israel searched out the land and did not go in, they were punished with a year of wandering the wilderness.  There are other places where a day refers to a year.

So let’s go to Daniel, which is where the angel Gabriel appears to Daniel to talk to him about the end times.

Daniel 9:21-27  KJV

21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.  22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding.  23  At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.  24  Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.  25  Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks,:  the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.  26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.  27  And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of the abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

According to commentaries of the 18th and 19th century, the rebuilding of the wall was considered under by the command of Artaxerxes in 457 B.C.    The command was given in Ezra 7:11-26.  (Roger Rusk, The Other End of the World, pp. 54-58).  Instead of putting the one week (Dan 9:27, above) out into the future after the rapture let’s do the math.

…command to build Jerusalem – 7 weeks, it took 49 years to finished and was finished from 457 B.C. to 408 B.C.

then, it is mentioned, threescore and two weeks…

threescore is sixty, plus two is 62 weeks

62 X 7 =  434

408 B.C. plus 434  years comes to 26 A.D.

Add 7 more years and that brings it to 33 A.D. the year of Jesus’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection.

That leaves the problem of the wording above…

and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease

We know that Jesus was the last sacrifice, and so he caused the sacrifice to cease.  I will go over the rest of the wording in a minute, but right now I am focused on the math.  However, if it is the middle of the week, that would mean that Jesus was crucified at 30 A.D., which he was not.

However, we find as we study history, that there is a range in which it is believed Jesus could have been born.  I am linking to some information here, but it has been pointed out by others as well.

Quoting from that link:

Since Christ was born two years before his [Herod the Great's] death this gives us a range of 6 BC to 2 BC for Christ’s birth year – See more by clicking here.

Therefore, if Jesus was  born at 3 BC instead of  of the year “0″ between BC and AD, then it would have made him 33 at the time of crucifixion.  That would have made the middle of the week referred to in Daniel the correct time of his death, commonly acknowledged as 33 years, and take the last half of the week into the resurrection and early beginnings of the church.

I said I would go back to the wording in Daniel, after finishing the math part of the discussion, and I will now.  I realize that many people apply these words in a different manner, but the only way that makes sense to me is to apply to Jesus the Christ.  [Comments will be in brackets]

Seventy weeks [7 weeks to build the wall + 62 weeks to go to Jesus at age 30 as explained above + 1 week, the midst of which Jesus was crucified]

are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, [Jesus was the last Lamb slain before the foundation of the world to satisfy God's claim of justice against fallen mankind]

and to make an end of sins,[the redemptive work of Christ]

and to make reconciliation for iniquity, [the redemptive work of Christ]

and to bring in everlasting righteousness,[the redemptive work of Christ]

and to seal up the vision and prophecy, [prophecies of the redemptive work of Christ]

and to anoint the most Holy.  [Jesus began his ministry reading out of Isaiah 61:1  The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me....

25  Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks,[49 years, as discussed above]

and threescore and two weeks, : [62X7=434 years as discussed above]

the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. [there were challenges building the wall during the 49 years

26 And after [after, not exactly at...after]

threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:[the redemptive work of Christ, it is recognized that Jesus died for the sins of the world, not himself]

and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; [the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem in 70 AD]

and the end thereof shall be with a flood,[the word "flood" refers figuratively to an rapidly advancing army, as mentioned in this link]

and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. [Jerusalem was totally destroyed]

27  And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: [Jesus established the new covenant with his death, and the establishment of the church after receiving the Holy Spirit at the Day of Pentecost showed the new covenant was in effect and the Lord was with them]

and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, [Jesus caused the sacrifice to cease, because he was the last Lamb slain from the foundation of the world]

and for the overspreading of the abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the the consummation,[the crucifixion was the consummation of all the prophecies concerning Jesus and the redemptive work of Christ]

and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.[Christ's redemptive work was and is poured upon the desolations of mankind]

Now I realize that a lot of what is written above is interpreted differently by the rapture group.  I am really not into prophecy and don’t claim to be any kind of prophetic teacher.  The reason I wrote this is because my greater concern is that I see the church being controlled by this doctrine of the rapture, or perhaps stalled, bound, complacent, or ignorant would be better words.  The point is, if the church thinks the rapture is imminent, then it will not do anything to resist the corruption of this present age.  And that, precisely, is what the rulers want.  If you study it out, you find out the corruption and the horrible things that go on are due to a company of people who are satan worshippers, and they in turn control key figures of society, banking, politics and commerce, and are able to sway great masses of people simply by controlling key figures.  This is the system that spews out the broken people of society that church picks up and helps, by why not deal with the root of the system and then there won’t be so much carnage?  What better way to control the church that to have a doctrine that keeps people focused on leaving the earth rather than fighting corruption.  Because if there is not a rapture, then the future of the church, and its children, and posterity, the future world will be one created by the activity or inactivity of the church.  This is because God puts the requirement to be salt and light on the church.  In II Chronicles 7:14, God puts the necessity for change on the church.  Sinners are sinners.  God knows that.  It is the church that must pray.

There is so much more that can be said about all of this.  The point is to awaken people to the idea that the rapture is a new idea, a modern one started with Rivera and later, and because the church focuses on it, the church ends up dealing with the end result of the church not being the salt and light and the effects of that on mankind.  The church deals with the cast off of society after they have been destroyed by the workings of the world’s satan worshipping rulers.  Jesus said to “lay the ax to the root of the tree”.  It is time for the church to focus on prayer and active response by leading of the Holy Spirit against the satanic forces operating in and through society at all levels.

(c) All Rights Reserved.  Cheryl Jones.

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