The Times and the Seasons
God's appointed times will happen exactly to the day. When God made a covenant with Abraham He said, “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.” (Genesis 15:13-14) Stephen also reiterated this (Acts 7:6). “Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt” (Exodus 12:40-41). Note that from the time that Jacob entered Egypt until there arose “a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8) was 30 years, then began their four hundred years of affliction. But on “the selfsame day”, the children of Israel departed “with great substance”, as we are told, “they spoiled the Egyptians” (Exodus 3:20-21; 12:35-36).
God is indeed the great appointer of “times and seasons”. Consider also the time appointed of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel. Daniel was given a most amazing prophecy and vision concerning the precise day the King of Israel would be revealed to them.
“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. 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. 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…” (Daniel 9:24-26).
God's appointed time for the Kingdom to come, with the presentation of the King of Israel, happened with such amazing accuracy, right to the very day. The commencement date of this appointed time happened when the commandment went forth, after the fall of Babylon, by Artazerxes, who decreed that the Jews should go back to their nation to “restore and build Jerusalem”. This decree can be found in Nehemiah 2:1-4, 5-6, 17-18. Now from this decree, “unto the Messiah the Prince” would be precisely 483 years. That day can be counted, exactly to the day, on Palm Sunday, when Jesus came riding on a donkey in fulfillment of Zechariah 9:14, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.”
Now the leadership of Israel rejected Him and according to the Scriptures, He was “cut off, but not for himself”. But consider what Jesus had to say upon His rejection. “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” (Luke 19:41-44)
Nationally speaking, Israel did not know, nor recognize the time of her visitation, the “DAY” that Messiah the Prince was revealed unto them. It is no wonder that when Peter acknowledged that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), that Jesus “charged … his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ” (Matthew 16:16). The appointed time of His revelation had not yet come. His brethren at one time said, “shew thyself to the world” (John 7:4, 6-8), but Jesus replied, “My time is not yet come”, “my time is not yet full come”. God's timing is perfect and precise. How often He had to tell others, “mine hour is not yet come” (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20). God is in total control of the times and the seasons. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1), and they will be fulfilled in the exact timing He has appointed.
It is God's great pleasure to reveal Himself and His appointed times to His children, to those whose, “names are written in heaven. In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. And he turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.” (Luke 10:21-24)
Like the children of Issachar, who “had understanding of the times” (1 Chronicles 12:32), so in Israel, there were those who knew from the prophet Daniel, the exact timing of the coming Kingdom of David and their Messiah. At that time, there were those who were “waiting for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25), who “looked for redemption in Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38), who “waited for the kingdom of God” (Mark 15:43), who “thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear” (Luke 19:11).
And what shall we say of the days in the midst of which we are now living, knowing that it is the “latter times”? It should be no puzzle why even conservative politicians seem to be playing into the narrative of “the Great Reset” that will usher in the Great Tribulation. We are told that people's minds will become seared as with a hot iron as seducing spirits and doctrines of demons flourish (1 Timothy 4:1-2). Like the days of the Exodus, Pharaoh had so hardened his heart against God, that the LORD helped him along in his madness. God's appointed time for Israel's deliverance had come on the exact day, the appointed time of four hundred years had come (Genesis 15:13, Exodus 12:40, 41, Galatians 3:17). And what about the case of Ahab? Like Pharaoh, he had so hardened his heart against God, that God allowed a lying spirit to move him to his own destruction.
“And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so.” (1 Kings 22:19-22)
These same seducing spirits will “go forth” to deceive the world (1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 3:13, Matthew 24:4-5, 11). It is no surprise then how we see the whole world in unison, following the harping of the kings of the earth and the rulers of this world, who have so hardened their hearts against God, so quickly marching towards Armageddon. Like Ahab, like Pharaoh and his hoards, like the pre-Flood inhabitants, God shall destroy His enemies (Psalm 37:1-2, 9-11).
According to the LORD's times and seasons, there is yet one week (7 prophetic years) determined upon Israel and Jerusalem (Daniel 9:24, 27), the “time of Jacob's Trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7, Daniel 12:1). It “MUST shortly come to pass” (Revelation 1:1), and will come to pass with precision this world knows nothing about.
As to the timing of Daniel's Seventy Weeks, the disciples asked the Lord, “wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” (Acts 1:6-7) It was not for them to know for their immediate mission was to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8, Mark 16:15). However, in Paul's later writings, he told the church at Thessalonica, “But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” (1 Thes 5:1-11)
What a privilege we have to see God's appointed times laid out before us, the period known as the “latter times” immediately preceding the coming Kingdom of Christ. What a blessed hope we have by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1Peter 1:3; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, Acts 24:14-15), where in hope, we “wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
Now Antichrist shall “think to change times and laws” (Daniel 7:25), and we are beginning to see the preparatory stage for it now, but in a restrained form, until we are “taken out of the way” (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8), even the rapture of the Church (2 Thessalonians 2:1). But even then, Antichrist shall not have the power he so desires, until the testimony of the Two Witnesses' is complete during the first 3-1/2 years of the Tribulation, and they are slain by Antichrist (Revelation 11:3, 7). Not until the last half of the “great tribulation” (Deuteronomy 4:29-31, Daniel 12:1, Matthew 24:21-22, Joel 2:1-2, Revelation 7:14), shall he "change the times and the laws", for they “shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time”, then “he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High” (Daniel 7:25).
At that time he shall stop the sacrifice and the offerings of the Jews in their new temple (Daniel 9:27, Matthew 24:15), and set himself in the temple of God and cause the whole world to worship his idolatrous image (2 Thessalonians 2:4, Revelation 13:14-15). “And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” (Revelation 13:5-7)
“And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done” (Daniel 11:36). The world cannot see this grand and terrible panorama that is before us because they are asleep with slumber and are intoxicated with the spirit of antichrist (1 John 4:3), the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2).
Klaus Schwab and his minions at the World Economic Foundation think they are so smart, but He who sits in the heavens shall laugh, He shall have them in derision (Psalm 2:4-5). They see themselves as the manufacturers of some manmade utopia, or worse, as they “destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18). What a joke. Like the days of Noah, “all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (Genesis 6:12). Violence, corruption, wickedness and evil (Genesis 6:5, 11-13) was the new normal of those days, and even is now. The storm clouds are looming, they are darkening the horizon, the Day of Wrath (Isaiah 13:6-9, 10-11) is nigh at hand. The night cometh when no man can work. While we have yet a little Light, may the Lord find us each doing precisely His will for each of us, for like the clap of unexpected thunder we could be out of here.
Now one might be tempted to be troubled at all the commotions that are facing the world today, but Jesus said, “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” (Matthew 24:6) Jesus said the world, would reel into convulsions like the birth pangs of a woman in labor, and that there would be “upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” (Luke 21:25-26)
He does not want us to be troubled or fearful of that which must come to pass. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:7-10).
“For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:15-18)
We have such exceeding great and precious promises from our Lord in His Word, and His perfect love for us ought to cast away all our fears (1 John 4:18), especially His promise to His own. “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:1-3)
“…Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.” (Daniel 2:20-22)
Maranatha
Last Update: 6/9/2021