End Times Bible Prophecy

What the 66% Who Believe Jesus Will Return in 2008 Don’t Know But Should

An Ipsos poll says that 25 percent of adults believe it is at least somewhat likely that Jesus Christ will return to Earth in 2007. Of white evangelical Christian adults it’s 66%. Want to know why Jesus won’t come in 2007, before most find out in Jan 1, 2008?


Update: Although this article is from 2007, it is far from being outdated! In fact, it is even more pertinent in 2008 for those who wish to gain prophetic discernment than it was a year ago. Find out how I knew the Second Advent would not happen in 2007 and why the it will not happen in 2008, either. (Yet, I'm sure if another poll was done for 2008, most Christians would still believe the Return of Christ could happen in 2008!) Read on:

When I first heard the results of this poll, I was quite surprised at how large a percentage of the people actually believe that Christ could return in the new year. Of course, I'm not a typical person on this subject as I have been studying Bible prophecy seriously for many years. From those studies I have learned a few details about the end times roadmap that the people surveyed do not know. If they had surveyed me, I would have looked for a box to check that said Jesus' return was "scripturally, legally impossible" in 2007, not just "highly unlikely". How do I know this and how can I be so sure?

Legal Prerequisites To Jesus' Return

It's very simple actually. There are several prerequisites given in Bible prophecy for the return of Jesus Christ and none of them are present or fulfilled today. This makes it impossible for Jesus to come in 2007 or even in the few years following 2007.

What are these prerequisites? I can give you many examples. Here are a few:

According to Daniel 9:27, Isaiah 61:1-2, and Luke 4:16-22 Jesus must return in a Sabbath year. Only one out of every seven years is a Sabbath year and 2007 is for sure not one of them according to the historical sabbath year cycle followed by Ancient Israel. While the Rabbis of Judaism say that 2007-2008 is a Sabbath year, that conclusion is based on the Talmud, not on the consensus of Scripture and the best historical evidence. Christians assume that the Jews are accurate on such things such as the Biblical calendar, but they have diverged much from the Old Testament. For example, they celebrate Pentecost/Shavuot on a fixed date (Sivan 6) instead of a floating date arrived at by counting 50 days from the sabbath during Passover week, as Scripture has it falling sometime between Sivan 6 and 12 and always on a Sunday (Lev 23:15-16). They have the year starting in the Fall/6th Biblical month of Tishrei instead of the Spring/1st month as the Bible has it (Ex 12:2). They teach that the Jubilee comes every 50th year instead of every 49th year according to Scripture (which is the 50th year using inclusive reckoning from year one of the start of the seven sabbath cycles you are to count). Thus, it's not a stretch to claim that their Sabbath year reckoning is wrong, too. Also according to Daniel 9:27 and Matthew 24:15, Jesus must return after a 3½ year Great Tribulation that starts with the standing up of the abomination of desolation statue and the stopping of daily animal sacrifices on the Temple Mount. There are no sacrifices even started to be stopped, nor a temple even under construction yet. The Antichrist must rule over the world for 42 months according to Revelation 13, and forcing everyone to take a mark in their right hand or forehead. The Antichrist has not even appeared on the scene and begun to grab power. Perhaps most clearly of all, we have not seen the events of the sixth seal happen yet. The sixth seal occurs in Revelation 6, some 13 chapters before Jesus returns in Revelation 19. If you read Revelation 6:12-17 carefully you'll see that it depicts a global cataclysm on earth that literally sends the entire population panicking and running for cover in response to the literal events. Most people ignore this prophecy because they simply cannot make sense of it literally with everything else they have been taught. That leads to the typical practice of Bible prophecy interpretation today, not accepting the plain words for what they say and taking poetic license with them.

Why don't Christians know these prerequisites? Most are simply not taught End Times Bible prophecy. This should not come as a shock because there are other parts of the Christian Bible that Christianity ironically de-emphasizes, such as the Old Testament or especially "the law" (which themselves contain keys to unseal Revelation!). The few who do study Bible prophecy are usually exposed to prophecy teachings which are based on allegorizing or ignoring many verses to arrive at a preconceived pre-tribulation rapture position. This creates a psychological barrier to understanding the prophecies for what they plainly, literally say.

Confused, Just Like the People of the Sixth Seal

This confusion is a sad and dangerous situation according to the Bible. It tells us already what the people who today believe that Jesus can return at any moment are going to think and say at the sixth seal. It's recorded in verse 16 of Revelation 6. When the sixth seal happens it will fall upon a global population who is Bible prophecy illiterate. Seeing the events of the sixth seal happen all around them, they will therefore incorrectly conclude that what they are witnessing is "Judgment Day" or the wrath of God and the Lamb.

Revelation 6:16-17 (HCSB) — 16 And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 because the great day of Their wrath has come! And who is able to stand?”

The population then won't realize that this is only the "beginning of sorrows" which leads next to the wrath of Satan for 3½ years, only then followed by the seven bowls of God's Wrath (for about 10 days). It's ironic that when most Christians today read this very quotation, they make the same mistake of believing it and that the sixth seal is the wrath of God! They completely miss that it's not God, Jesus, an angel, or the apostle John labeling the sixth seal as the wrath of God, but the biblically illiterate masses! Other errors follow as a result of this assumption, such as the idea that the seals, bowls and trumpets are parallel events instead of serial, etc. Note: I am not in any way putting down those who do not understand the Bible or believe in a pretrib rapture as the Bible is a very difficult book and it's near impossible to find a teacher with wisdom to understand it properly. But Paul warned that those who do not cultivate a love for Biblical truth that they act on by diligently searching the Scripture as good Bereans (Act 17:11) will be under strong delusion in the end times (2The 2:10). The belief that the sixth seal is the wrath of God is just one consequence of the typical Christian focus on Jesus and the Gospels but ignoring the study of the prophecies. I can't tell you how many emails I get from Christians telling me to stop teaching prophecy and just teach about Jesus. My reply is why exclude any part of the Bible in our studies, especially one that promises direct blessings for studying and keeping it? (Rev 1:1-3).

In conclusion, according to the Bible, Jesus won't be returning in 2007 or in any soon coming year. The belief that the Second Advent is near breaks Scripture which is supposed to be our guide, not fictional books like "Left Behind". However there are other prophecies that are coming soon which are largely overlooked by Christian prophecy experts who teach that the rapture is the next event. These are what we were commanded to "pray and watch" for by Jesus in Luke 21:36 so that we can "escape all things".

If you want to learn what Bible prophecy itself really literally says check out Know the Future.

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What the 66% Who Believe Jesus Will Return in 2007 2008 Don't Know But Should...

Update: What I said (and was right about) for 2007, also applies to 2008, so read on: An Ipsos poll says that 25 percent of adults believe it is at least somewhat likely that Jesus Christ will return to Earth in 2007. Of white evangelical Christian adults it's 66%. Want to know why Jesus won't come in 2007, before most find out in Jan 1, 2008? »» Read Featured Article

 
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