Apostles and Elders Organizing the Church

Some reasons why the first rapture is not a year or two before the Tribulation starts:

1) Rev. 7.9 are the overcomers (not all Christians) "before throne" in 3rd heaven by being first raptured before the Tribulation starts. Then "when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour" (8.1) not a year or two. The Tribulation is "7 trumpets" (v.2). Then the "first angel sounded" (v.7) for the 1st trumpet. Only those Christians who were watchful (Matt. 24.42), prayerful (Luke 21.36) and keep the word of His patience (Rev. 3.10) will escape the hour of trial that is to come upon the whole world by being raptured beforehand.

2) Sept. 14, 2015 Feast of Trumpets is that day during the Total Lunar Tetrad. It can't be Sept. 5, 2013 because the Tetrad has not started yet by then.

3) Sept. 25, 2014 is not feasible because there are seven sets of seven (17,640 days) from June 7, 1967 to the Day of Atonement Sept. 23, 2015. Therefore, 2015 should be the year of the first rapture.

4) Satan reacts to this most spectacular event as he knows then his time is short so the 2,520 days begins on this day to start the countdown. The 2,520th day is Tisha B'Av Aug. 7, 2022 when the 1st and 2nd Temples were destroyed. Jesus steps down on Aug. 7, 2022 (the 1260th day) to reign in the 3rd Temple newly constructed.

5) "Our gathering together unto him.... Let no man deceive you by any means: for [that day shall not come], except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition" (2 Thess. 2.1,3). First the Antichrist is revealed, known by his covenant or peace treaty for 7 years.

From the 1260th day to the 1290th day the Son of Man judges the nations. Then 45 days more to the 1335th day He sets up Israel as the center of all nations. The 1335th day is Oct. 21, 2022 after Tabernacles. Simchat Torah is Oct 18. There is an interesting congruency because there again is seen the 4 days of inspection from Oct. 18 to Oct. 21.

The Temple must be completed with 2300 days (Dan. 8.14) left to Tisha B'Av. There are exactly 2300 days from the 4th day inspection of the lamb April 21, 2016 (Passover is Friday April 22) to Aug. 7, 2022. Thus, the Temple must be completed by April 20, 2016. There are 220 days from Feast of Trumpets Sept. 14, 2015 to April 20, 2016. 2300 + 220 = 2,520 days.

A Mistaken Notion Concerning Co-Death with Christ

The conditions for passivity in a believer may come about through a wrong interpretation concerning the truth of “death with Christ.” Paul says that “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2.20). Some misconstrue this to connote self-effacement. What they deem to be the summit of spiritual life is “a loss of personality, an absence of volition and self control, and the passive letting-go of the ‘I myself’ into a condition of machine-like, mechanical, automatic ‘obedience’.” (Penn-Lewis, WOTS, 86) They thereafter must harbor no feelings; they should instead renounce all consciousness of personal wishes, interests and tastes. They must aim at self-annihilation, reducing themselves to corpses. Their personality must be totally eclipsed. They misapprehend the command of God to mean a demand for their self-effacement, self-renunciation and self-annihilation so they may no longer be aware of themselves or their needs but may be conscious only of the movement and operation of God in them. Their misconception about being “dead to self” means for them the absence of self-consciousness. So they endlessly deliver their self-consciousness to nought till they sense nothing but the presence of God. Under this mistaken notion they assume they must practice death; on each occasion therefore when they become aware of “self” or are conscious of personal wants, lacks, needs, interests or preferences they consistently consign these to death.

Since “I have been crucified with Christ,” they argue, then I no longer exist. And since it is “Christ who lives in me,” then I no longer live. I having died, I must practice death—that is, I must not harbor any thought or feeling. Because Christ is alive within me, He will think or feel in my place. My personality is annihilated, therefore I will obey Him passively, permitting Him to think or feel for me. Unfortunately these people overlook what Paul further said about “the life I now live in the flesh.” Paul died, and yet he has not died! This “I” has been crucified, nevertheless “I” still lives in the flesh. Paul, upon having passed through the cross, still declares of himself that “I now live”!

This confirms that the cross does not annihilate our “I”; it exists forever. It is “I” who will one day go to heaven. How can salvation ever benefit me if somebody else goes instead of me? The true purport of our accepting co-death with Christ is that we are dead to sin and that we deliver our soul life to death; even the most excellent, most righteous and most virtuous soul life we deliver to death. God beckons us to deny the desire to live by our natural power and to live instead by Him, leaning upon His vitality moment by moment for the supply of every need. This does not in anyway imply that we are to destroy our various functions and settle into passivity. Quite the reverse is true: such a walk with God requires us to exercise our will daily in an active, consistent and believing manner for the denial of our own natural energy and the appropriation of divine energy. Just as neither the death of today’s physical body means annihilation nor the death of the lake of fire suggests extermination, so co-death with Christ in the spirit cannot denote effacement. Man as a person must exist; his will must continue: only his natural life must die. This is the teaching of the Holy Scriptures.

The consequences of a misconception of the truth such as this are (1) the believer himself ceases to be active; (2) God cannot use him because he has violated His operating principle; therefore (3) the evil spirits seize the opportunity to invade him since he unwittingly has fulfilled the prerequisites for their working. Due to his misinterpretation of the truth, and his practicing of death, he becomes a tool of the enemy who has disguised himself as God. Alas and alack, this misapprehension of the teaching connected with Galatians 2 has come to be in many cases the prelude to deception.

After such a “death” as this the individual is deprived of any feeling. He cannot feel for himself, nor can he feel for others. He gives those around him the impression of being like iron and stone, utterly devoid of feeling. He does not sense the suffering in others nor is he sensitive to how much pain he has given people himself. He has no ability to sense, to distinguish or to discern things within or without. This person is totally unaware of his own manner, attitude, and action. He speaks and acts without exercising his will and knows not from whence his words, thoughts and feelings originate. Without having made any decision through his own volition these words and feelings nonetheless flow like a river. All his actions are mechanical; no knowledge has he of their sources; he is only spurred on by an alien power. Strange to say, however, unconscious of self as he is, yet is he most sensitive to the treatment accorded him by others. He tends to misunderstand and hence to suffer. In any case, this “unconsciousness” forms both the condition and the consequence of the enemy’s penetration. By. it the evil spirits are enabled to work, to attack, to suggest, to think, to press or to suppress without the slightest resistance from the believer who is completely unaware of anything.

Let us consequently keep in mind that what people commonly term “death to self” in essence signifies death to the life, power, exercise and activity of self; in no way does it refer to the death of one’s personality. We must not efface ourselves and render our personalities non-existent. This is a distinction we must comprehend. When we say without self, we mean without any self-activity, not without self-existence! If a Christian accepts the interpretation which envisages a loss of personality and refuses to think, feel or move, he shall live as one in a dream. Though he conceives himself to be truly dead, entirely selfless, and intensely spiritual, his consecration is ‘not towards God but is as to the evil spirits.

But even following repentance the believer’s mind is not liberated totally from the touch of Satan. As the enemy worked through the mind in former days, so today will he work in the same manner. Paul, in writing to the Corinthian believers, confided that he was “afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11. 3). The Apostle well recognizes that as the god of this world blinds the mind of unbelievers so will he deceive the mind of the believers. Even though they are saved their life of thought is as yet unrenewed; consequently it remains the most strategic battleground. The mind suffers the onslaughts of the powers of darkness more than any other organ of the whole man. We should realize that satanic spirits are directing special attention to our minds and are attacking them unrelentingly—“as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning.” Satan did not assail Eve’s heart first but rather her head. Similarly today, the evil spirits first attack our head, not our heart, in order to have us corrupted from the simplicity and purity which is towards Christ. They fully understand how it is the weakest point in our entire being, for it had served as their fortress before we believed and even now is not yet entirely overthrown. Attacking the mind is the easiest avenue for them to accomplish their purpose. Eve’s heart was sinless and yet she received Satan’s suggested thoughts. She was thus beguiled through his deception into forfeiting her reasoning and tumbling into the snare of the enemy. Let a believer accordingly be careful in his boast of possessing an honest and sincere heart, for unless he learns how to repulse the evil spirits in his mind he will continue to be tempted and deceived into losing the sovereignty of his will.

Paul continues by telling us from whence this danger comes: “if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted” (v.4). The peril for the Christian is to have false teaching injected into his thought life so as to lead him astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. These are the works the “serpent” is perpetrating today. Satan has disguised himself as an angel of light to lead saints to worship with their intellect a Jesus other than the Lord, to receive a spirit other than the Holy Spirit, and by these to propagate a gospel other than the gospel of the grace of God. Paul pronounces these to be nothing else than the deeds of Satan in the Christian’s mind. The adversary translates these “doctrines” into thoughts and then imposes them upon the mind of the Christian. How tragic that few appreciate the reality of these activities! Few, indeed, who would ever think that the devil could give such good thoughts to men!

It is possible for a child of God to have a new life and a new heart but be without a new head. With too many saints, the mind, though their heart is new, is still quite old. Their heart is full of love whereas their head is totally lacking in perception. How often the intents of the heart are utterly pure and yet the thoughts in the head are confused. Having become saturated with a mishmash of everything, the mind lacks the most signal element of all, which is spiritual insight. Countless saints genuinely love all children of God, but unfortunately their brain is stuffed with a hodgepodge of theories, opinions and objectives. Quite a number of God’s best and most faithful children are the most narrow-minded and prejudice-filled. Already have they decided what is the truth and what truth they shall accept. They reject every other truth because these do not blend in with their preconceived notions. Their head is not as expansive as their heart. Moreover, there are other children of God whose mind can conceive no thought whatever. No matter how many truths have been heard they can neither remember nor practice nor communicate them to others. These have certainly heard a lot, yet they possess no ability to express any of it. For many years they have received truths, but not even a little can they supply for the needs of others. Perhaps they may even brag how full they are of the Holy Spirit! What creates such symptoms is an unrenewed mind.

Man’s head damages people more than man’s heart! Were believers to learn how to distinguish the renewal of heart from the renewal of head, they would not commit the mistake of believing in man. Christians ought to realize that even one who maintains a most intimate fellowship with God may nevertheless unknowingly have accepted Satan’s suggestions in his mind, which consequently precipitate errors in his conduct, words and viewpoints! Aside from the plain teaching of the Bible no man’s words are entirely trustworthy. We must not live by a man’s words just because we admire or respect that man. His utterance and conduct may be most holy but his thought may not be spiritual. What we therefore observe is not his speech and behavior but his mind. Were we to believe, because of one’s life conduct, that what a worker says is God’s truth, we would then be making man’s word and demeanor our standard of truth instead of the Bible. History is strewn with innumerable cases of sanctified saints who propagated heresies! The simple explanation is that their hearts were renewed but their minds remained old. We will undeniably acknowledge that life is more important than knowledge. Indeed, the former is a thousand times more consequential than the latter. Nonetheless, after some growth in life it is essential to seek the knowledge which proceeds from a renewed mind. We should see how urgent it is for both heart and head to be renewed.

If a Christian’s mind is not renewed his life is bound to be lopsided and narrow. Work becomes nigh to impossible for him. The popular teaching nowadays stresses that there should be love, patience, humility and so forth in the Christian life. These traits of the heart are highly significant, since nothing else can replace them. Even so, can we regard these as meeting all our needs? They are important but not inclusive. It is equally vital for a person’s mind to be renewed, enlarged and strengthened. Otherwise we shall witness an unbalanced life. Many hold that spiritual Christians should not be common sensical, as though the more foolish they are the better. Now except for the fact that such spiritual believers live a little better than the rest, they have no other usefulness and cannot be entrusted with any work. To be sure, we do not advocate worldly wisdom and knowledge, because God’s redemption does not call for employing our former sin-stained mind. But He does desire it to be renewed as is our spirit. God wishes to restore our thought life to the excellent state it had when He created it so that we may not only glorify God in our walk but may glorify Him in our thinking as well. Who can estimate the multipled number of God’s children who, due to neglecting their mind, grow narrow, stubborn and obstinate, and even sometimes defiled. They fall short of the glory of God. The Lord’s people need to know that if they want to live a full life their mind must be renewed. One of the reasons why the kingdom of God lacks workers today is because too many cannot undertake anything with their head. They neglect to seek its renewal after they are saved and hence permit their work to be obstructed. The Bible declares emphatically that we must “be transformed by the renewal of our mind” (Rom. 12.2).

Does the Bible give us any clue as to when Jesus returns?

Jesus said, "You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" (Luke 12.56)

"Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh" (Matt. 24.32).

The word “now” marks the beginning of the second part. Since the Lord gives this part of His prophecy on the Mount of Olives—a place where there are many fig trees—He quite naturally could use the fig tree as an illustration.

“When her branch is now become tender”—This speaks of the return of life. “And putteth forth its leaves”—This means the manifestation of life.

The fig tree represents the Jews (Jer. 24.2,5,8). Earlier the Lord had cursed the fig tree which possessed only leaves but had no fruit. In reality the curse was upon the Jews who possessed the outward rituals but had no reality.

"And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away" (Matt. 21.19).

"And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet" (Mark 11.13).

“Summer” (Matt. 24.32) is the season of growth as winter is the season of withering and death. In the summer, life shows its greatest vigor, the air is warm, and the days are bright. It is a golden season, and therefore it stands for the kingdom.

The Jews today are in the winter time. Winter points to tribulation, particularly the Great Tribulation. Spring speaks of rapture (see S.S. 2.10-14); summer speaks of the kingdom (see Luke 21.30-31). In Luke 21.29-30 we have the words “and all the trees”—which phrase represents the nations (see Daniel 4.10-17 and Judges 9.8-15). When “all the trees ... now shoot forth” (Luke 21.29-30), this is a signifying that nationalism will have been greatly developed among many peoples and nations.

Let us understand that the preceding verses in Matt. 24.4-31 form a part and are not a break with what follows; and hence the thoughts in the earlier part are continuous into the next. The major difference between 24.4-31 and 24.32-25.46 lies in this: that the one part speaks about the Jews while the other part speaks about the church.

“All these things” (v.33)—Such words should be connected with 23.36 (“All these things shall come upon this generation”), with 24.6 (“these things”), and with 24.8 (“all these things”). “All these things” have reference to the beginning of tribulation these past 20 centuries, as reflected in such things as false Christs, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, and so forth.

“He is nigh” (v.32)—“It is nigh” (mg.) is the more accurate rendering of this phrase in the Greek text. The “it” points to the kingdom. The kingdom is near, “even at the doors”: this agrees with Luke—“Even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh” (21.31).

We know Jesus returns soon after Israel becomes a nation again because Matt. 24 says "the fig tree" representing Israel "when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near" (v.32) pointing to the millennial kingdom when Jesus reigns on earth in person.

How long has Israel's branch been tender? Certainly no later than May 14, 1948 when she became a nation again. The nearness of the summer would in the backdrop of the past 2000 years not be longer than a lifetime which is 75 years according to Ps. 90.10; not a generation of 30 to 40 years, but a lifetime of 70 to 80 years in the context of a wicked generation that continues to this day and up to the point when Jesus returns.

"So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors" (v.33).

What things? Israel a nation again as described by the "holy place" (v.15) of the 3rd Temple in Israel and to be built by the Israelites.

In order to determine when the 7-year Tribulation starts we need to observe specific events first that must take place, before that great and terrible day of the Lord.

The parousia of our Lord (and commencement of the day of the Lord that spans the 7 years of the Tribulation) begins with overcomer Christians raptured first to 3rd heaven "before the throne" (Rev. 7.9) for keeping the word of His patience (3.10) before the 1st trumpet (8.7) of the Tribulation. He then comes on the clouds through the Tribulation period followed by meeting the saints "to meet the Lord in the air" at the start of the last trumpet (11.15; 1 Thess. 4.14-18; cf. 1 Cor. 15.23,50-52). After all this, He finally steps down on the mount of olives to return just as He left (Zech. 14.4, Acts 1.11, Rev. 1.7).

We find complete harmony in Joel 2.31, Acts 2.20 and Rev. 6.12.

"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come" (Joel 2.31). "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come" (Acts 2.20). "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood" (Rev. 6.12).

Would the earthquakes in Haiti 2010 and Japan 2011 qualify as a great earthquake? 320,000 people died in Haiti, 2nd most deaths of any earthquake in history, and the most deaths per capita (1 in 27 people). The earthquake in Japan was the 4th greatest we have ever recorded in history in magnitude. It was the greatest financial loss, and all 50+ of its nuclear power plants were shut down. Back to back, year over year, never has such devastation ever occurred.

We know that in 2014/15 is the the 8th feast red blood moon Total Lunar Tetrad since Christ on passover, tabernacles and again on passover, tabernacles. It won't happen again for nearly 600 years 2582/83. The 6th was when Israel became a nation (1949/50) and the 7th was was when Israel entered Jerusalem (1967/68). Armistice treaty was signed in 1949.

What are the chances a unique black sackcloth sun total solar eclipse will occur in proper sequence in between, that is in the year 2012 or 2013?

There are 4 kinds of solar eclipses, the rarest which is the Hybrid occurring about 5% of the time. And there are 3 kinds of Hybrids, the rarest which is the H3 occurring 5% of that 5% so it is the rarest of all solar eclipses. The H3 concludes as a total solar eclipse to produce that black sackcloth effect. It is even more rare when it is a long version according to NASA when it lasts for 1 minute 30 seconds or more. On Nov. 3, 2013 there is just such a long H3--the 4th since Christ. It won't happen again till 2172.

So, in conclusion, just before the the Tribulation these 3 events take place in exact order. What immediately follows is the Tribulation that lasts 7 years concurrent with Daniel's final seven of 2,520 days (Dan. 9.27). Incidentally 2,520 is the smallest number divisible by all numbers from 2 to 10. Take notice!

There are 2,520 days from Feast of Trumpets Sept. 14, 2015 to Tisha B'Av Aug. 7, 2022. Tisha B'Av was when the 1st and 2nd Temples were destroyed. Jesus returns to reign in the 3rd Temple on earth for 1000 years.