The Cautious Watcher

The Prophecy Watchers have been on alert for the last 20 years.  We have read the Scriptures, we have watched the Heavens, we have deduced the times.  We have correctly identified thousands of significant prophetic events, compelling numerical distances between dates, extrapolated Hebraic meanings from those numeric dates, and correctly concluded that we are indeed living in the last days.

With the publication of the Harbinger, the discovery of the blood moons and their historical significance, and the availability of free Stellarium softwarem the Watcher community has been on heightened alert since 2008.  As the book of Daniel has opened, our understanding of the Scriptures of the End Times has multiplied at a breakneck speed, the Holy Spirit has poured out the anointing on His Servants far and wide.

An example of this is the knowledge of the fulfilled Spring Feast at the first coming of the Lord Jesus.  Those of us who have been at it for a while take that revelation for granted these days but I have to stress that a mere 7 years ago even the most ardent and learned of Watchers was unaware of this amazing fact.  I was blown away in 2013 by the Rosh Hashanah Rapture.

Feasts of God

Prior to the Fall Feast in 2013, the Watcher Community went into overdrive.  I was absolutely part of that movement, albeit on this little blog, but I have a loyal following and regular readers and so many of you will remember when that journey began in earnest.  I could effectively compile a list in 2013 of why the Rapture could occur on the Feast of Trumpets that year.  The same held true for 2014.  In 2015, the comprehensive list was so long that it became one of the most visited blog posts in the history of Abigail and Dolley.  We so eagerly awaited Rosh Hashanah 2015, I had a countdown on my computer.  I did a great 30 Days of Birth Pangs series.  My Rapture Box was full, my unbelieving neighbor had a letter and a key to the house (in case the animals don't get Raptured) and we were ready to go!

Then the Lord sent the largest dust storm in modern Israeli history and totally screwed up everyone's "count down" clocks.  We waited, we watched, we moved the countdowns... we kept looking up and then we got through the whole Fall Feast Season 2015 and we were still here.  I do not know of a single, reliable teacher that actually "set the date" but boy oh boy we all sure did hope and pray.  It was hard and disappointing.  Many of us were in a funk for quite a while!

The events have continued to unfold, prophecies are still being fulfilled.  Even the 2016 Fall Feast had a glimmer and good reason behind a rapture that year.  The 2017 Fall Feasts have as many "proof" texts and signs in the Heavens behind them as the 2015 Season did, maybe more.  I love the excitement, I love reading about the Blessed Hope but I am very cautious these days. The Revelation 12 and Birth of the Child being the Church is an interesting and compelling interpretation of Scripture, the times, and is perhaps a unique revelation for such a time as this.  Perhaps, it is not.  It is worth noting that this particular season is marked with a vitriol and division I have never seen within the body of Christ and the Watcher community.

This is where we must be very cautious!  No mystery interpretation should divide believers.  We must not be dogmatic about anything other than the core of the Gospel as expressed in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds

The thing is, the lists we put together in all these years are STILL valid, they still mean something, just like the current signs, interpretations, writings, theories, and hopes do for a final fulfillment in 2017 do.  Friends, I have to encourage you, if we are celebrating Thanksgiving 2017 on this Earth and not hanging out at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, that will be okay, too.

Downward Spiral to Judgement

The break neck speed of world events is beyond the comprehension of man.  The acceleration, since the last Blood Moon is staggering and those with eyes to see are dizzy with the warning of it.  Like an evil funnel, the closer we get to the bottom the faster the time between catastrophes and the severity thereof.  Let no man deceive you, we are on the precipice of judgement.

Downward Spiral of World Events

For the born again believer, these are exciting times for they signal the soon return of the Lord Jesus Christ.  These are fearsome times for the rest of humanity; right at the door, destruction draws nigh.  This downward spiral is a warning, a harbinger of judgement that will befall the world, and individual man.

God is merciful and it is His wish that no one should perish that all would come to faith in His Son and have ever lasting life but I have to tell you that He is also a God of utter righteousness.  He is fearsome to behold, He is a God of Wrath, and a perfect Judge.  In the Days of the Gospel of Love we have failed to understand or to teach that falling into the hands of the Living God without the covering of the Son's Blood is a terrible thing.

We have failed to tell unbelievers that they are enemies of God (Romans 5:10) and we fail to tell them that their eternal fate is choosing to send themselves to Hell.  In our desire to woo them into the Kingdom we neglect the Outer Darkness, we have to warn not just woo.

Signs in the Heavens the Harbinger Continues

Abigail and Dolley readers I once again find myself looking to the sky, the infinite, the Creator.  Last month, the book, The Harbinger came into our household.  My husband was enthralled and encouraged me to read it; I was busy but committed that I would.  The Lord insured that I would be a lot less busy... I read it last week.  From the opening chapters, I was hooked.  I devoured it like a starving man who wanders into marriage supper of the Lamb.

The omniscience of the Lord, His guiding hand, and His divinity are scattered throughout the pages.  We know in our hearts that He is bigger than we understand but we tend to make Him pocket sized.  We do not trust the supernatural, we doubt the still small voice, we dismiss miracles as coincidence.  This is a grievous offense and has no place in a believer's heart or life.  For His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.

So God shows up in a BIG way and I begin to eat the strong meat of this Word.  I highly encourage everyone to read the prophetic word in the Harbinger, it is from that worldview that I write.  I will also assume that you have a fundamental understanding of End Times Prophecy because this will be a blog, not a scholarly article citing chapter and verse.  It is truth from this Pre-Tribulation believers point of reference and any small error I may make will be entirely my own.  My blog, my rules.

Every seven years Elul 29th is the end of the Shemittah or Sabbath year.  All accounts are wiped away and all debits and credits are returned to zero.  This command is only given to Israel but starting with 9/17/01, it came into play in America.  We had the largest stock market crash in our history to date, 6 days past 9/11.  This was our warning, repent and turn back to God.  We failed.  Seven years later, on Elul 29 (9/29/08), we had a global economic collapse.  We were called to repent as a nation, we did not.  Prophetic circles began to buzz, what would the next Shemittah year end Elul 29th bring?  What date is it?  (I need to remember to set a calendar reminder to divest before 9/13/15).  The date happens to always herald Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of the Trumpets.

This made me go, hmmmm.... it has long been surmised that the Rapture of the Church would take place on Rosh Hashanah, what better time than during all that trumpet blowing?  So I keep digging and I find there is a solar eclipse on the same date.  Sun signs are signs to the world and Moon signs are signs to Israel, so this date holds significance for both Jews and Gentiles.  The solar eclipse sent me to the Heavens....

Genesis clearly tells us that He created the stars, the sun, the moon to be signs for us. Not surprisingly, there is some pretty amazing stuff in the celestial calendars for the past few years and in the next couple of years; the researcher in me was on a roll.  Now, after the Fall, the Natural World was tainted by the stain of sin.  We live in a fallen world where EVERYTHING (except the Word of God) is tainted.  If you are going to investigate anything in truth, you must first deal with the sin element in it.  The sin element in astronomy is astrology and the Christian church has thrown the baby out with the bathwater.  We ignore it, we don't teach it, and frankly, we just don't understand it.  The Lord himself said numerous times that there will be signs in the heavens and that we are fools to not look for them.

This is where you need to be careful, well the whole subject requires care, but I have to point out here that when Jesus speaks directly about the Second Coming, he is talking to Israel not the Church.  The Second Coming and the Rapture are two different events, don't confuse them.  Now, I have to restate, when we are talking about the Moon, we are talking about Israel, keep that in mind.

Blood Moon

A Blood Moon Tetrad is an occurrence of 4 Lunar Eclipses on the Jewish Feast days of Passover and the Tabernacles.  They call it a total lunar eclipse a blood moon because the diffused rays of the sun through the Earth's atmosphere can make it appear red, historically this scared the crap out of everybody.  A BMT (as they are called) has occurred 7 times since Jesus ascended into Heaven and each time it was a sign to Israel.  BMT's herald a terrible period of trouble for Israel followed up in deliverance.  When you add in the solar eclipse calendar to the lunar eclipse calendar, you get an even deeper picture.  When you add in the Elul 29 Shemittah, you get something else all together.

We had a Blood Moon Tetrad that coincided with the rebirth of Israel in 1948.  So Holacaust, then birth of the nation, then BMT 1949-1950.  19 years later, 1967-1968 we have the Yom Kippur war or the 6 day war and Israel regains their capital, Jerusalem.  48 years later, we have another BMT 2014 - 2015.

Coincidentally this is the second time the spacing between triple occurrences has been 19-48, the year Israel was born again.  If you play with that number you see that by adding 1948 years to  the destruction of the temple in 70 AD you get 2018.  Folks in 2009 and 2010 were using this figure to predict a 2011 Rapture... we see where that got them... still here.  I am not trying to set dates, what I am trying to do is to get you to THINK.

There are youtube videos and charts everywhere but I couldn't find one that had everything I wanted to publish.  My handwritten notes and charts won't cut it, I may not be a professional, but I do have my standards...  I encourage you to watch the video and check out some of the charts, do your own research.  A number of charts have great info but some enterprising soul determined we were going to be Raptured in 2011 or 2012 and they may have false information on them.  Others are pdf formatted only and blogger won't let me embed a pdf file, so for all you visual folks check out the below:

Lunar and Solar Chart 2014-2015

The above chart fails to note the two solar eclipses that occur on 4/29/14 (Yom Hashoah/Holocaust Memorial Day) and 10/23/14 (Rosh Chodesh Chesvan).  Whether they are significant or not, I can not say but felt the above was not inclusive and they warranted mention.

It is also noteworthy that in the 7 weeks model of Daniel, the number of days in a 7 week period is 17640.  Using the Biblical calendar we see that  9/23/2015 is exactly 17640 days from the recapture of Jerusalem on 6/7/1967.  Which happens to be on Yom Kippur.

Now, I'd like to be Raptured as much as any believer reading this blog, I'd like it to be today.  While the above information is intriguing there are two celestial signs in Revelation 12 that I am not convinced we can pinpoint. It takes place at the exact middle of the Tribulation and corresponds chronologically with the Abomination of Desolation. "A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars".   Computer models can place the Woman but not "a huge red dragon,with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems" where "the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth."  Now can God make a dragon appear in the sky when he wants it too?  Yes, of course, he made the one below captured by the Hubble.  The point is we have no conclusive evidence of the Dragon that will appear at the same time as the Lady of the Apocalypse. 

Red Space Captured by Hubble

The Bible say there will be signs in the Heavens of His return.  We often hear quoted in Christendom that "That no man knows the hour or the day of Christs return, only my Father."  Did you know that is an idiom for a Jewish Wedding?  If I say to you as modern American Christian, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..."  You know I am talking about a wedding.  The same is true for "No man knows the hour or the day."  In Jewish marital customs after the betrothal the groom returns to his Father's land to build his new bride a home.  He was not released to go pick up his bride until his father said the house was ready.  When people would ask when he was returning to his bride he would answer, "No man knows the hour or the day only my Father knows."  Using that logic we can see that we are not be ignorant.  

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6 Now concerning how and when all this will happen, dear brothers and sisters, we don’t really need to write you. For you know quite well that the day of the Lord’s return will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night. When people are saying, “Everything is peaceful and secure,” then disaster will fall on them as suddenly as a pregnant woman’s labor pains begin. And there will be no escape. But you aren’t in the dark about these things, dear brothers and sisters, and you won’t be surprised when the day of the Lord comes like a thief. For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. 

Again, we are told it is the uninformed that will be surprised, not the elect.   If you read carefully, you will see that each time Jesus talks about the End Times he notes the signs in the Heavens and says the wise will see the sights and not be ignorant of His coming, it is only the uninformed that will be surprised.  

We as a church are called to be waiting for his return, I for one am keeping my lamp full of oil, how about you?