Prophecy update as of Sunday 20 March 2022

A very short summation of what I understand of end-times prophecy as of Sunday 20 March 2022

God, help me to make this useful for someone. - Jeff


THE MESSAGE OF SALVATION IN THREE VERSES

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 - 1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; 2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.  3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.


THE 'MORAL' OF THE STORY

God wins.


DISCLAIMER

I am a layman trying to make sense of everything.  This will forever be a work in progress.


BEFORE WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW

Forever in the past, in the present, and forever in the future, God exists in three aspects:  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  God the Father is the aspect of perfection.  God the Son is the aspect of salvation, compassion, and mercy.  God the Holy Spirit is the aspect of God's continual work in the hearts of mankind.

This is what we call the 'Trinity'.

The whole point of it all is God wanted a family of people who knew the difference between good and bad and resolved to make the right choice.  These are Heiser's words, and it's the closest explanation I can come to answering the question: 'Why?'.

Christ's death and resurrection were ordained from before the world was created, and in this plan, God decided to choose from his creation a 'people of example'.  Of course, this is the Hebrew/Jewish people.

The Jews are no better than anyone else and no worse.  We all must face God.  The Jews are unique in that they are the chief instrument by which God would give his his instrument of salvation: himself.

The chief prophecies of the book of Genesis are vv. 3:15 and the innumerable verses that point to the Hebrew/Jewish people taking possession of the land of Canaan for their own under God's law and authority.  This possession would be eternal.  This possession has not happened yet.

On the keeping of all of this, God has placed his character and reputation.  Such is his power, he can and will keep these promises.

The entire Old Testament may be summarized thusly: we cannot overcome the dark angels of our natures alone.  We cannot overcome our own sin and God's standards of perfection.  We need a saviour, and God is sending that saviour.

The historical Jesus of Nazareth is that saviour.  The historical Jesus of Nazareth is the utter fulfilment of the Old Testament and all Jewish law as God intended it.  Jesus may or may not conform to Jewish law formulated after his time, but again, in the way God intended Torah and the Law to worked out, Jesus is the personification and physical manifestation of that perfect keeping of both in exactly the God originally intended.

The culmination of all the Old Testament and the four Gospels is Jesus' Crucifixion and Resurrection ca. AD 30 or so.  One would think Christians would remember the exact date, but to make sure no-one can ferret out end-times prophecy too well, God, I believe, has allowed the dates of both events to be at least a little obscured.

Without the physical Crucifixion and the physical Resurrection, we all need to start attending rabbinic synagogue or our local Unitarian church, as (as Paul said), Christianity would be a fraud.


GENERAL THOUGHTS BEFORE WE MOVE ON

In discerning end-time prophecy, the sixty-six books of the Bible agreed upon by nearly all of Christianity as canon are what we go by.  We only can have faith the ancient church fathers in selecting these sixty-six books had the Holy Spirit as their guide and got it right.

Both end-time and past-time prophecy can be found in every book of the Bible.  It seems to me if one looks even in the books of Chronicles, one will even find prophetic material of one sort or another.

There is no 'chief' book of end-times prophecy, but some are more overt than others.  Past-time prophecy is found in the Old Testament and in the four Gospels until the Resurrection.

Regarding end-time prophecy, every book in the Bible serves a purpose.  Genesis sets the reason why the rest of the Bible is needed.  Very brief overviews of the end-times are given in Matthew and Luke by Jesus himself.  

Revelation provides a very broad framework of the end-times, but the most detailed portions of end-times holy writ is found in the book of Daniel, without which the discerning of even a coherent outline of the end-times is mostly impossible.

All the other books of scripture to one extent or another fill in gaps left by Daniel and Revelation or elaborate on certain topics.  Daniel is unique in scripture in that it has all three biblical languages: Hebrew, Syriac, and Koinia Greek (loan-words in the Syriac).

The thing we must always remember is the whole of prophecy both past-time and end-time together constitutes a sort of twelve-dimensional puzzle no-one has been able to figure out completely.  Only God can do that.

That being said, God gave us Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah and all the rest for a reason.  Of course, they all teach us how to live lives in keeping with God's will.  This is a reflection of the coming eternal state.  Therefore, every verse of scripture is end-time prophetic from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22.


FIRST PRINCIPLES

We let scripture interpret scripture.  We also realize when the bible talks of the whole earth in an end-times context, it mostly means what we call the Middle East, Asia Minor, and North Africa.  The world of the biblical writers through Malachi, Nehemiah, and Ezra was centered on Israel and the Fertile Crescent.  How this pans out will be way too detailed for this document.  Such discussion will be for another project.


FROM THE ASCENSION THROUGH 13 May 1948

Jesus is thought to have been born ca. 3 BC.  The Resurrection is therefore thought to have been ca. AD 30 with the Ascension happening 40 days following.  

The events of the book of Acts are thought to have occurred from that point through ca. AD 60-80 with John receiving the Revelation ca. AD 90.  At that point, revelation suitable for scripture is forever closed.

John is thought to have died ca. AD 90.  At this point, the Apostolic Age ends and soon thereafter, I'm sure, the last direct witnesses of the Crucifixion, Resurrection, life, and ministry of Jesus both before and after the Resurrection pass from the world and into glory, taking with them their memories and direct contact with God the Son.

The history of end-times prophetic thought is mind-boggling and directly informs to various degrees the sentiments of entire societies, the post-1600 Americans not the least.  That history is not dealt with here.

What is dealt with are two points I make briefly.  God grants free will to all, yet he knows how that free-will will be used, yet he allows it for his purpose; such is a paradox.

Secondly, the whole of history since before the Resurrection points to the Resurrection and beyond that to the physical return of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to the earth.

Thus, we have the Shoah, the colossal hulk of Chinese history, the destruction of native American civilization, the age of Colonization, the coming of Islam, and so much more: the world wars, Napoleon, the storming of the Bastille, and on and on...

But in the 19th century came glimmers of the foreshadowing of the return of the Jewish people to their homeland - the *final* return, mind you.  The Zionist movement was founded, and the Second World War gave the last great push to...


14 MAY 1948

On this day, the State of Israel declared her independence, and against all odds, the Jewish people had a home in their own land again.

But they did it wrong.  Too many times (once is too many), they were not nearly as good to the Arabs already living there as they should have been.  That alone is enough gristle for an entire library.

When we support Israel, we ask them (and ourselves) to be introspective.  Unfortunately, Hamas is not introspective.

On this day, everything changed.  The Palestineans became immediate pawns for the Arab world, the Jews had their homeland, and the entire Muslim and Arab worlds were antagonised against the Jews, who in the wake of the Shoah had sympathy from their great ally, the United States, and from countries all around the world.

Thus, the Israeli War of Independence was fought, and it is no fluke the very edge of 'Israel proper' in Jerusalem falls just short of taking in any part of the true Jerusalem: the Old City.  The Temple Mount was still in Jordanian hands and would be so until...


THE SIX-DAY WAR

Fought between Israel and her Arab neighbours from 5 to 10 June 1967, it represents the current zenith in modern Israel military power and competence.  Never again has the State of Israel fought a truly successful war, even if the 1973 Yom Kippur War was a 'victory' of sorts.

The Six-Day War was important for two events.  On 7 June, the Israeli Defense Forces captured the Old City of Jerusalem, and with it, the Temple Mount.  That same day came the most oddball concession in the history of the world.

"The brigade’s chief communications officer, Ezra Orni, retrieved an Israeli flag from his pouch and asked Gur whether he should hang it over the Dome of the Rock. “Yalla,” said Gur, go up. Achmon accompanied him into the Dome of the Rock. They climbed to the top of the building and victoriously fastened the Israeli flag onto a pole topped with an Islamic crescent.

Except then the flag was quickly and unceremoniously lowered. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, watching the scene through binoculars from Mount Scopus, urgently radioed Gur and demanded: Do you want to set the Middle East on fire? Gur told Achmon to remove the flag. But Achmon couldn’t bear the notion of lowering the Israeli flag, and so he instructed one of his men to do it instead.

It is, in retrospect, an astonishing moment of religious restraint. The Jewish people had just returned to its holiest site, from which it had been denied access for centuries, only to effectively yield sovereignty at its moment of triumph. Shortly after the war, Dayan met with officials of the Muslim Wakf, who governed the holy site, and formally returned the Mount to their control. While Israeli soldiers would determine security and stand at the gates, the Wakf would determine who prayed at the site, an arrangement that would effectively bar non-Muslim prayer. The Temple Mount was no longer in Gur’s hands."

    Halevi, Yossi Klein.  The Astonishing Israeli Concession of 1967.  June 7, 2017.  The Atlantic.                  https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/israel-paratroopers-temple-mount-                1967/529365/ accessed 19 March 2022.  Web page.  Digital.

And in that moment, the greatest conflict driver in the world was set.  The arrangement with the Jordanian Waqf continues to this day, it did prevent a third world war breaking out right then, and it won't be changed until someone yet to be revealed becomes the midwife for that happening.

Moshe Dayan had no idea of how right he was.  It was not God's time for a Jewish flag to fly over the Temple Mount.  Not yet.


1978 - 1979

During these two years, the Middle East was changed utterly.  The Muslim world reeled from the Siege of the Grand Mosque and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  And in the wake of the peace brokered at Camp David between Israel and Egypt, the Arab world reeled.

But the great event in that time was the Iranian Revolution, which deposed the Shah and brought in Shia Islamic government under the leadership of Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

Israel got a new enemy and a giant prophetic plate moved in the bowels of the earth.


THE FALL OF THE SOVIET UNION

The CCCP was not too big to fail.  It was simply too big to stick around.  As far as I can tell, the West (mostly the U. S.) outspent the Russians, and they could not compete.  Or as I heard someone say many years ago (cannot remember the source), it was a strategic withdrawal.  Whatever the case, it changed the world, but then again, has not the world been changing constantly?

Geopolitics - churning, thrashing, swirling, ever changing its hue, different facets of multitudinous prisms arching their beams of light here and there...


9-11

The most documented event in the history of the world.  We didn't have cell phones en-masse in 2001, but there were plenty of cameras around to catch the horror.  To be clear, those cameras were always there catching whatever was going on.  

Yes, for fifteen years following, New York was the safest city on earth, but the cost...  How many people saw their eternal doom or eternal bliss that day?  This is one reason why murder is wrong: it deprives one of the mortal chance to choose Christ.

And with that, the world was introduced in terrible fashion to radical-Islamic terrorism.  No other religion or cause has more adherents who want to kill and maim as radical Islam, composed of hundreds of organizations fundeded by sovereign governments and boasting perhaps millions of members with a drive like no other.  We in the West don't understand any of this.


THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

Who can conquer the Afghan spirit which has been hijacked by radical Islam?  Of course, not nearly all Afghans are radicals or want to hurt anyone, but enough people are in that country who do want to go for jihad.

The U. S. thought it could do what it would later succeed in doing in Iraq, at least for a time: giving the country a lasting democratic system.  

We had a cassis belli, though: the Taliban were harbouring the organisation which destroyed the Twin Towers and murdered three thousand people.

The Taliban government fell in a matter of months, but as we would do in Iraq, we won the war, but lost the peace.  And in August 2021 in a botched-from-far-away operation, the United States withdrew with its tail between its legs.


THE WAR IN IRAQ

If Mark Davidson's first 'Signpost' really was Saddam Hussein's career, that signpost - and possibly the white horseman of Rev. 6 - ended their ride with the U. S. general withdrawal from Iraq in 2011.

The War in Iraq had a cassis belli, too: what we thought were weapons of mass-destruction were housed somewhere in that country, and we had to take out Saddam once and for all.  No such weapons were ever found, but who knows if they were not skilfully hidden in the vast Iraqi desert or were spirited away to somewhere else.


DAESH

2014 was an evil year in Mesopotamia and the world.  With plenty of help from Turkey and perhaps others, Daesh had its breakout party, becoming a possible candidate for the white Horseman (per Christopher Mantei ca. 2019).

Daesh (so-called 'ISIS') was something in my opinion the world had never seen before: a religious cult, a street gang, and a terrorist organisation rolled into one.  

I believe it was also a direct foreshadow of the army of the coming Antichrist.


2014 TO THE PRESENT DAY

For the United States, even without COVID-19, it has been a time of deception and societal confusion along with an erosion of trust in our institutions and each other.  Everyone is committing a grave sin of one sort or another, and for those in opposition, there is no grace and any hope of redemption.  

Defund the police!  Make America Great Again!

COVID-19 has brought death to millions around the world, the destruction of entire industries, disruption, excuses for cutbacks, uncertainty, and an unprecedented and unprecedently-uniform global response.

It's okay to not have your wits about you so long as you have your mask on.

As an Atlantic headline read last year, 'America is on hold, and it wants to speak with a manager."


UKRAINE

All agree what is going on is horrendous.  All disagree on how Vladimir Putin should have been handled all these years.  Well, whatever mistakes the West has made now lie before it in bodybags and bombed out Ukrainian hospitals and high-rises.

But what Putin has done is worse.  He may have been wroth over whatever promises were broken, but he still did not have to give the order to invade.

Or did he?

After all, once Donbass realized he was willing to help them in their separatist causes, Russia's hands were tied.  Reneg on those promises and we have two new terrorist organization on our hands who would gladly perhaps reach out to the radical elements in Chechnya and other places.

How long ago did Donbass have this understanding from Russia regarding help?  For when that happened, everything that has happened since has been inevitable.  The present invasion is merely the culmination of a cascade of mistakes.

But Vladimir Putin may have made the biggest mistake of all: better to have a terror-Donbass than to unwittingly aid and abet the rise of the final Beast kingdom led by the Antichrist.  Not good for business, Mr. Putin, not good for Russia or her people, and not good for you.


WHERE WE ARE AS OF 19 MARCH 2022

We await one of two events, both of which could happen simultaneously: the end of the leadership of Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei of Iran and a Turkish invasion of eastern Greece.  The former is imminent (thought it could be years down the road), and latter would need a catalyst - such as finding the biggest gas field ever somewhere in the Aegean Sea.

Whatever the catalyst for a Turkish invasion, Daniel 11:2 implies such a thing will happen, and in many other portions of Daniel and the rest of the Bible, the ancient geographical name 'Yavan' is used to denote eastern Greece once inhabited by the Ionians.

Turkey's coming invasion of Yavan will be successful (if I am reading things right), and from here on out, we will call the Republic of Turkey by the ancient name 'Yavan'.

As for the Ayatollah, may he come to faith in Christ, if he hasn't done so already.  He has been 'ailing' for as long as his country has been 'weeks away from a nuclear bomb'.


PUTIN OPENS PANDORA'S BOX

The United States will be distracted by Ukraine and a possible third world war which could directly result from it.  Going into the seismic geopolitical shifts going on right now in Europe and elsewhere due to the conflict would be too detailed for this document, but know this: Europe is more united than it has been in decades, and Germany is starting to slowly rebuild its military.

China know if she does not make a go for Taiwan soon, she will never get a better chance.  This, in turn, makes for a fabulous window of possibility for North Korea.  Finally, the United State could be so stretched thin by all of this, Iran will see a clear pathway to Shia glory.

But there is a stopgap on this: the 'four kings' prophecy in Daniel 11: 2.  Aside from prophetic events, anything in the natural could happen before the end of the leadership of the current Ayatollah - anything except the invasion by Iran of Mesopotamia and the rest of the Middle East per Daniel 8.


THE END OF THE AYATOLLAH'S LEADERSHIP IN IRAN

When Aytollah Khamenei is done, there will arise, per Daniel 11:2, a third king of a distinct set of four (as implied by the verse) followed by a fourth who will be 'richer' than the previous three and who will be more powerful.  It is this fourth 'king' who will initiate the Iranian invasion of Mesopotamia, the Arab world, and perhaps even into the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia.

This invasion will be a blitzkrieg unlike any the Middle East has seen since Alexander the Great or Daesh.  If a number of people are reading scripture correctly, Iran and her proxy-allies will get all the way to the Mediterranean coast of Syria and Lebanon, but (if scripture is read correctly) will not invade Israel at all save possibly in the Negev to get to Egypt's Catherine Peninsula (once called 'Sinai Peninsula', but 'Catherine Peninsula' is my new name for it).

Iran's invasion will be the Shia's greatest hour of power, wealth, and glory, and it will be terrifying.  Goodbye, perhaps, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait (for sure), and even as far as Mecca, possibly.  Iran cannot as yet logistically have a shot in invading Israel directly, though once Mecca is conquered for the Shia, surely Jerusalem will be Iran's next - and final - target.


YAVAN'S RESPONSE

Yavan will not take this sitting down.  Not Sunni Yavan.  No Shia will rule over a Sunni country, and Yavan will not be beholden to any country but herself, Shia or otherwise.  If old Turkey has been consistently obsessed with anything, it's been her sovereignty above all, religious considerations or no.

Per Daniel 8 and 11, she will strike back with even more ferocity than Iran showed with her own invasion.  If people are reading scripture rightly, the Shia cause will fall as Sunni Yavan overthrows (seemingly) the independence and perhaps the very existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, bringing Ali's cause of old to an end and bringing what will surely be a last denouement to the Sunni-Shia conflict.

Super-Iran will become 'Super-Yavan' as Yavan - not Iran - will become for a time the undisputed master of the Middle East, her Ottoman glory restored save only in Israel.  


THE DIVISION OF YAVAN

Daniel 11 is the chief biblical text that takes us from the Yavani counter-invasion into Iran all the way to the coming of the Antichrist.  In vague, but clear terms, it details the division of Yavan into four regions: the 'king of the north' (Yavan, Syria, and northern Iraq, possibly); the 'king of the south'(Egypt and perhaps Arabia with it); Iran; and one other, it possibly being eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus.

If Daniel is being read correctly, the Antichrist will emerge from the region of today's Turkey, northern Syria, and northern Iraq.  He will be called as he is in the Old Testament, 'the Assyrian'.


YAVAN AND EGYPT GO AT IT - GETTING TO THE EVE OF THE 70th WEEK OF DANIEL

Yavan will want Egypt to play ball on its terms.  Egypt (ancient region what matches today's named specifically in Daniel 11) will not go for that, and armed conflict and intrigue will ensue during which Yavan will be prevented from conquering too far west (into Europe proper, perhaps).  It may be western Greece in all of this will survive, but no-one can be sure on that.

Again, the text to read is Daniel 11.

In the midst of this, a great leader will emerge in Yavan who will (or might) attempt to both invade Isreal or make peace with her (the latter, possibly), indicating just how militarily powerful the Jewish state may be by this time.

This great leader will come to nothing, and he won't be the Antichrist, anyway.  And the world won't know, presumably, the last leader of Yavan will be the Antichrist until later, anyway.

For some random dude no-one has ever heard of and probably worked night-shift at McDonald's will somehow and by no violence take full control of Yavan.  He will at some point overthrow the three divisions of the former 'Super-Yavan', declare himself as Caliph (!) at some point, and strengthen some sort of covenant involving Israel and many other countries, thereby bringing about the final seven years of this age of the world.

This 'random dude' will not have had any power or honor before, but he will become the last 'sultan' of Turkey, the last Caliph, and the most horrifying creature to have ever walked the face of planet earth.  He is the opposite of all that is good.  He is the Antichrist.


THE LAST SHABUA - THE FINAL SEVEN YEARS

Leviticus and Numbers talk of the ancient (and God-codified) Hebrew agricultural practice of letting fields lie fallow every seventh year.  Each seven-year period is called a 'shabua', and the seventh year of each shabua is called a 'shmita year'.

Every seven shabua (forty-nine years) plus the first year of the shabua following is called a Jubilee Cycle (fifty years in total), with the fiftieth year being the same as the first year of the following Shabua.  This fiftieth year is called a 'Jubilee year'.

The final or 'shmita' year of each seven-year shabua is one where debts are forgiven and other good things happen.  Unfortunately, the ancient Hebrews were really bad at keeping the shmita-years.  So much so, God decided to allow the Babylonian Captivity to let the land of Israel rest fallow until the back-shabua were accomplished.

This is a greatly oversimplified explanation.

Let's just say God takes the fallow-land practice personally.

Per Daniel 9: 24-27, all the back-shabua were accomplished in Babylon with the land of Israel lying fallow for seventy years and in these verses, the angel Gabriel gives Daniel an exact timeframe between his own time and what turns out to be the Crucifixion of 483 years.  However, Gabriel also includes one last shabua, but that shabua is to be deferred until the end.

That last shabua is the 70th Week of Daniel.  At the end of that week, the present age of this world will come to a close.

When Antichrist 'strengthens' a 'covenant with many', the 70th Week of Daniel begins, even if it might be the public at-large will not know it.

The book fo read on all of this is Nelson Walters' 'Seventy Times Seven'.


A RADICAL-MUSLIM ANTICHRIST?  NO REVIVED ROMAN EMPIRE?

The book to read is Joel Richardson's 'The Case for an Islamic Antichrist'.  But I can give some details in this document which already grows longer and longer, no matter how much I try to pare it down.

The scripture to read is Daniel 2, and I will assume you are familiar with that and all biblical texts.

Nebuchadnezzar's statue...  The head of gold, the chest and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, the legs of iron, and his feet...partly of iron and clay.

The kingdom of gold is Babylon.  "Thou art this head of gold." (Daniel 2: 38b)  The chest and arms of silver are universally thought to be the Medo-Persian empire.  The empire of Alexander the Great is thought to be the belly and thighs of brass.  But what of the iron?

Let's take a little time to look at Daniel 2:40

    "And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and     bruise."

The iron has been thought to have been Rome.  After all, Rome was divided into two, and its conquests certainly were not fun for the conquered.  

Yet Greek culture conquered Rome.  And like the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, and Alexander, Rome ruled the city of Babylon, too...but only for one year.  Rome had stretched herself too thin, and when Trajan died on his way home, Hadrian had the legions depart the Euphrates, Rome having ruled over Babylon one year.

Is there an empire who fits the criterion of crushing and ruling over Babylon better than Rome?

Is there an empire which not only conquered militarily, but also culturally, destroying every culture and society in its path?

Yes, there is, and that empire is the succession of Islamic Caliphates and Muslim-controlled countries, even if Britain and France technically controlled the Fertile Crescent for a time after World War I.

The iron is Islam - a religion and political system rolled into one.  Differing caliphs and kings, but the same Allah with Mohammed his prophet whose teachings united the varying Arab kingdoms that sprung up in North Africa and the Fertile Crescent.

And yes, the Conquistadores visited the Americas followed by the inhuman Three-Fifths Compromise in the States and so much more.  There are hardly any countries without some sins of colonisation and slavery of one sort or another, and in a number of Muslim-majority countries, slavery of one sort or another still exists.

It is from a revived (and radical) Islamic caliphate the Antichrist will arise while the world (and Evangelical Christians in the States!) look to Europe and the Revived Roman Distraction.  Yes, Europe will become powerful, but no-one will want to go toe-to-toe with the radical-Islamic Beast and his radical-Muslim False Prophet.  Yes, the Antichrist will have a sidekick.

And before we move on with the 70th Week of Daniel, we must take a brief look at the nature and character of this individual,...


THE ANTICHRIST

Christ is compassion, inclusion, and sometimes 'tough-love'.  He is fairness, justice, mercy, and truth.  He is love, joy, happiness, and sobriety.

The word 'anti-' in this particular biblical context does not mean 'opposed to', but rather 'opposite'.  This is agreed upon universally.

Thus, the Antichrist is everything Jesus is not, and Jesus is everything the Antichrist is not.  As for the term 'Antichrist', we see it in 1 and 2 John, but it's easy to reconcile John's description of him with the rest of scripture.

Pastor John Hagee more than once has described Antichrist as someone who will 'make Hitler look like a choir-boy'.  Hagee nails it.

Every serial-killer is an antichrist.  Hitler and Göring were antichrists.  The Conquistadores were antichrists along with all the slave-owners.  The final Antichrist will be worse than all of these.  

And unlike more than a few serial-killers, I believe Antichrist will be perfectly sane.


ANTICHRIST'S RISE TO POWER

As for his ethnicity, the Bible does not say, but it stands to readon he will almost certainly be Middle-Eastern, North African, Pakistani, or any other Muslim-majority ethnicity, but he will not be Jewish.  Moreover, he will arise from Yavan, northern Syria, or northern Iraq.

I believe Antichrist will rise to power nonviolently (as I believe scripture indicates - read and research for yourself) by way of Islamic scholarship.  He will be able to parse and synthesize Sharia and Islamic jurisprudence like no-one before him and slowly gain his reputation as the most effective 'evangalist' for radical-Islam the world has ever seen.

Joel Richardson and many others believe he will claim to be the Madhi (Islamic Messiah) with his sidekick, the False Prophet being the Islamic 'Isa'.  Certainly ex-Muslims can speak to this far better than I.

And it must be made clear I strongly believe many Muslims will reject both men outright as anything except frauds and monsters.  For that is what both men will be.

And at some point, Antichrist will take the reigns of military power, bringing together by diplomacy or other means the countries which will be the ten toes of iron in Daniel 2.  For as there are two legs and two feet, so have there been Shia and Sunni.  The Antichrist will be both Sunni and Shia while being neither save a theological creature of himself.


THE TEN TOES COME TOGETHER

I currently put the finishing touches on the ten-nation confederacy as coming before the covenant (Daniel 9: 27) is finished.  This will include the defeat and subjugation of Egypt.  It will not be a pretty sight, and I fear Egypt will wail at this.


THE TRIBULATION BEGINS

The 'Tribulation' is the last shabua, the 70th Week of Daniel, and the last seven years of the present age of this world and human history.  

The 'Great Tribulation' is the last three-and-a-half years of this seven-year period and the last three-and-a-half years of the 70th Week of Daniel / last shabua of the age.

The Tribulation begins at the 'confirming' or 'strengthening' of the covenant with 'many' by Antichrist (or possibly someone else).  If we are able to know exactly when this covenant is put into full effect, we will know we've a little more than seven years.

Those seven years will be hell on earth.


THE BUILDING OF THE THIRD JEWISH TEMPLE

For decades, Protestants around the world have been obsessed with watching for a spotless or near-spotless red heifer (per Numbers) to be born in Israel or somewhere else in the world.  Such a creature (per Numbers) would need to be sacrificed and its ashes ritually used to purify the Jewish people so that the Temple may be rebuilt.

It turns out the sacrifice of the red heifer is so elaborate it logistically cannot happen unless permission is given by the Waqf and Israeli government for it to take place.  Unless I am mistaken, it cannot be done by night or by any degree of stealth.  Part of preparing for the ceremony is building a stone bridge over the Kidron Valley (I could be wrong on this), among umpteen other things.

The red heifer sacrifice is necessary for the Temple to be built, but it may be a legalistic loophole could be found by present-day Jewish authorities, allowing them to bypass it altogether.  

Permission to construct the Temple will be interwoven in some way with the 'covenant' of Daniel 9: 27 that starts the 70th Week of Daniel.  It may be the covenant will be finalized in secret, but the building of the Temple will be no secret.

Moreover, it is far more likely Antichrist will want the covenant publicized as much as possible.  Hence, the world after years of wars, pestilence, and destruction will welcome 'Peace in the Middle East at last!'.

And to start off, it seems 'peace' is exactly what Israel will get while Antichrist as Caliph tries to make war on everyone else as the daily sacrifices in Jerusalem are resumed after thousands of years.


PAUSING TO GAUGE THE HORSES

Read Revelation 6.  They give you the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which is one of the great motifs of all literature, if nothing else - a motif that entered pop-culture long ago.

Each of the Four Horsemen corresponds to the first four Seals in Revelation 6.  The white horse and rider are first, followed by red, black, and pale green.

The timing of the Horsemen/first four Seals in Revelation 6 is an open question.  As to the first Seal/white Horseman, Davidson puts it as the career of Saddam in Iraq.  Again, Mantei puts it at the rise of Daesh, while Nelson Walters puts each of the seven Seals as corresponding to each year in the Tribulation.  We simply don't know for sure, and I will leave it at that.  All theories are compelling.


THE FIRST THREE-AND-A-HALF YEARS OF THE TRIBULATION

Wars and rumors of wars, to quote Matthew 25.  It is possible the subjugation of Egypt happens during these years.  Certainly during this time (per Daniel 11), Antichrist is prevented from moving too far westward and decides to attack Israel instead.

All the while, Mystery Babylon (Revelation 19) is flourishing, controlling the Antichrist, though this will not always be the case.  

While the Antichrist and his caliphate are doing their thing, presumably in Arabia, a city is growing which will become the greatest economic center of the entire world and the greatest in human history.  The current hot candidate for this city is NEOM in Saudi Arabia.

All during the first half of the Tribulation and going into the second half, Babylon the Great (Rev. 19) is flourishing, imparting to the world its own brand of religion, slavery, and general debauchery.

Gee-whiz, this stuff is complicated.  Many threads of happenings going on at the same time...

Finally, in the last months of the first three-and-a-half years of the Tribulation, Israel will be besieged by Antichrist.  

It is at this point 'those who are in Judea' are instructed in Luke 21 to 'flee for the mountains'.  Jews.  Muslims.  Everyone who wants to flee must flee literally now or never.

For what is to come will be beyond hell-on-earth.  

THE CONQUEST OF ISRAEL BY ANTICHRIST & ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION

Israel will not be able to withstand the full might and terror of the Caliphate armies.  Israel's defences will fail, and when they do, the armies of the Antichrist will pour in like roaches in the movie 'Creepshow', but in a giant river.  You think I'm kidding?

It is at this moment a day comes when Jerusalem herself will fall and with it the Old City and finally the Temple Mount.  Presumably at this moment, Satan and his angels are cast down from Heaven, removing their ability to influence events from above, but giving them the ability to persecute Jews, Christians, and others in a more physical way.

Finally, the Antichrist himself ends the daily sacrifices, walks into the Temple, does something horrible with the Ark, and declares himself to be God - all this while or after his armies set up something horrible on the Temple: the Abomination of Desolation or 'the Abomination that Causes Desolation'.

Per Daniel 9: 27 and Matthew 24, this is the absolute sign - given by Jesus himself as he refers to Daniel's writings - that we are in the end-times.  The setting up of the Dome of the Rock so long ago was merely a foreshadowing.

It is at this point the world will, if hasn't come to its senses, already, truly see Antichrist as he truly is.  The entire earth will gasp and groan.  

It will be the darkest day for mankind since the Crucifixion.  

And Antichrist's breakout party.

It is at this point, Antichrist begins persecuting the Jews, but a few are able to make it to the mountains of Edom and Moab in Jordan.

It is also at this point we meet the Antichrist's second-in-command, his sidekick...


THE FALSE PROPHET

It is thought by Sonia Azam and others this individual will act as the Islamic 'Isa'.  Revelation 13:11-15 describes him thusly:

11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. 12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, 14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. 15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

It is clear from this passage the False Prophet (who probably will be Middle-Eastern/North African/Pakistani, but probably not Jewish) will be Antichrist's 'prime minister', if you will.  A combination of Hitler's Göring, Speer, Goebbels, and others...

And it is this False Prophet who enacts...


THE MARK OF THE BEAST

Revelation 13:16-18:

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Why do we study Bible prophecy?  In part to know enough context to place this event in its proper chronological place.  If at this writing you've taken the COVID-19 vaccine, you have NOT - I repeat, NOT - taken the Mark of the Beast.

The Mark cannot come before all else I've described here: the end of the present Ayatollah onto the conquest of Jerusalem.

The Mark is a deliberate act of worship of the image of the Antichrist/Beast and/or of the Antichrist.  It is a deliberate act of *worship*, and everyone taking the Mark will know exactly what they are doing.

It is for this reason I believe no-one not cognisant enough or old enough to take the Mark on their own will be forced to take the Mark.  This bit is my speculation only, however.

If you take the Mark of the Beast, you will be in Hell forever with Satan and his angels.  The Bible is absolutely clear on this, and even as a child, I understood this bit perfectly.

I believe Christians will be around for the Mark of the Beast, and I believe they/we will all have to make the choice of torture and death leading to eternal life or normalcy leading to eternal fire.

What choice will we make?


THE FIFTH SEAL

Per Revelation 6, this denotes the martyrdom of Christians following the failed persecution of Jews.  If Satan cannot destroy the Jews in toto, he will go after the Christians.  As we see Vladimir Putin's own brand of vindictiveness, he and all of us will shudder at Satan's vindictiveness and spite in the persons of Antichrist and the False Prophet.

It will be the time of the most brutal persecution of Christians (and anyone else!) in all history.  I give this event little time here, but how does one describe horrors we cannot imagine?
 
But there is hope.  And more than hope.  We will suffer in the Tribulation, but in the end, all those who believe in Jesus, plus all those who are not cognisant to where they can make a choice one way or another will be at the feet of our saviour!


THE GREAT APOSTACY

This is the falling away from faith of innumerable people around the world on a scale heretofore never imagined.  The foundational text is 2 Thessalonians 2, and it will occur at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by the Antichrist.

Pestilence.  Disruption.  War.  Famine.  The world is more than tired of all of this.  It is traumatized, and the worst hasn't even come yet!  To paraphrase a little, the hearts of many will indeed grow cold, and to that frost we are all susceptible.


THE LAST EXILE

Somehow, the Jewish remnant who has made it to the mountains in southwest Jordan east of the river and east of the mountains (presumably) will find help and will make their way south to NEOM or other places along the way.  I am fuzzy at this writing, but I believe this is how things will go.


HOW THE REST OF THE WORLD IS FARING

Not well, to be sure...  The Bible does not say specifically about areas outside the Caliphate (which is never specifically named anywhere in scripture).  Whether the United States, Brazil, or other places are still on the map is an open question.  It is clear from my reading of scripture the United States is no longer the great and might giant she once was.


THE SIXTH SEAL

There seems to be in Revelation more than one earthquake mentioned.  However, it has been conclusively proven Revelation is not a 'through-composed' chronological document.  There is at least one huge chiastic structure, and John receives more than one vision.  It seems, though, he receives his visions one after another, but I will need to do more research on that.

My suspicion is the two or three earthquakes mentioned in Revelation are all the same event.  If that is the case, there is much for the earth to have to endure following that, as the Trumpet and Bowl judgements have not yet sounded or been poured out.

The earthquake mentioned in the Sixth Seal, I believe to be the 'great earthquake' mentioned elsewhere.  However, do Rev. 6: 12-14 occur one right after the other?  V. 14 is an event clearly when Jesus comes on his white horse.

Very often, the Bible packs a certain group of events together, which can be unpacked from other verses elsewhere in the text, proving or at least giving some indication the certain group of events are not one-after-the-other-immediate.

In other words, one bit of text will have gaps in its narrative taken care of by text elsewhere.

This seems to be confirmed by the presence of 'wrath' in v. 17.  This is the 'Wrath of God', and debate rages as to whether the 'Day of the Lord' is one day, a few days, or longer.  What is clear is 'the Day of the Lord' is the time of the end of the age and a culmination of much that has been going on.  It is God's judgement upon the earth, but whether Christians will see it or not is an open question, for now, we get into...


THE RAPTURE

The foundational text is 1 Thessalonians 13-18.

At some point, God will resurrect all dead believers and all of the dead who never had a chance to make that choice, bring them into Heaven, and give them new and glorified bodies.  He will then do the same with all those still living.

It is thought this will occur after the Sixth Seal or at the very end after the Wrath of God or sometime around then.  It is also thought this will happen sometime before the start of Daniel's 70th Week, but more and more, doubt is being cast upon this theory of Rapture-timing.

What?  No Pre-Tribulation Rapture?  Not in this narrative.  It is too complicated to get into here, but there is enough evidence in scripture to throw much doubt on the veracity of a 'taking up' of the Church before the start of Daniel's 70th Week, a very attractive prospect and a hopeful one.  But probably a wrong one.

And certainly those who preach exclusively a Rapture of the Church before the Tribulation / 70th Week of Daniel are playing a dangerous game.  What if 'Pre-Trib' doesn't sail?  What then will happen to the faith of those who put their hopes of escaping the Tribulation?  Some will fight through, but others will be disillusioned.

This will be part of the Great Apostacy.


THE 144,000

The foundational text is Revelation 7, and if I read scripture rightly, these 144,000 Jews will be 'sealed' and make their appearance in some way following the Abomination.  They will all be believers, I think, but this subject is still so inscrutable to me as to cause me to not discuss it any further here, as I still don't know exactly what is going on with them.

And neither does anyone else.

If they appear at this time, though, they probably are contemporary with...


THE TWO WITNESSES

There is some debate on whether they are symbolic of the Church or are two actual people (or both).  If they are two actual people, most commentators say they will be Moses and Elijah, as they never actually died (supposedly, in the case of Moses).

They will live at the Temple Mount and troll the Antichrist and False Prophet for '1260' days until they are killed outright and are resurrected and brought up to Heaven three days later.


THE WRATH OF GOD

Whether the Rapture happens before or after is an open question.  What is not an open question is the Wrath of God containing the Trumpet and Bowl judgements found in Revelation.


THE PHYSICAL RETURN OF CHRIST TO THE EARTH aka THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST

Most of us have been taught about Revelation 19:11-16 when Jesus at the Battle of Armageddon descends on his white horse, trailed by the raptured saints and angels to fight the Antichrist and his armies.

This is true, but this in fact is merely the final return of Jesus to the earth.  He actually physically returns at least once before to personally judge those in Edom persecuting the Jews as well as cause havoc elsewhere.  This is a complex series of events which involves finally the Jews freed from captivity at Petra (that place will be no shelter) and elsewhere and being brought by Jesus to Mt. Sinai in Saudi Arabia.

At some point during all this, Christ is finally revealed in the hearts of the Jewish remnant, and the national repentance of the Jewish people takes place.  

This repentance may happen even before Christ's first return to the earth.  

I am still confused on this, and commentators differ on the timeframe for all of this.  They are united, however, in the salvation of the Jews coming before Armageddon.  

So much for the Church being the new Israel!

Near to the end of the age, Jesus re-takes Jerusalem in some way, but at the last moment, leaves to Rapture the Church in order to descend with his army to fight...


THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON

By this time, Antichrist will have assembled an army of two-hundred million people or demons (not sure which), and it may be this army of evil will come to fight Antichrist, but I believe the former is true rather than the latter.

This will be the greatest military force ever assembled until Christ and his own army descend through the clouds as they are literally rolled back as a scroll and the white-horse return of Christ takes place with much panache.

It is not clear if the saints actually fight anyone or not when they descend with Christ at the Battle of Armageddon.  It is clear Jesus himself does fight the Caliphate armies and Antichrist, finally killing him and the False Prophet and casting them both (after presumably resurrecting them) into the Lake of Fire.

I am more unclear on the exact turn of events at the end of all of this than I am at the start with the Signposts of Mark Davidson (presumably coming true), which seem absolutely quaint by this time.


THE AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON - START OF THE MILLENNIUM

Satan and his angels are cast into the Abyss for a thousand years.  By this time (in Heaven, I think), Jesus has been crowned king of the earth with his full authority restored/given to him by the Father (Trinity doctrine is very strange.).

The glorified saints reign with Christ for a thousand years, and they all take care of the mortals still on earth, ministering to them during the Battle and afterwards.

It is thought by a number of commentators Jesus will descend on his white horse on a Yom Kippur.  We don't know the year, but Yom Kippur is the best candidate-day of the year for this to happen.

This is the Millennium or the 'Millennial reign of Christ', during which, I believe, there will be a baby boom beyond the reckoning of all avarice as well as enough food to feed everyone.  I have no idea how this will happen, but it is my pure speculation mankind's dreams of 'Star Trek' will finally come true in one way or another.

Space-colonies galore!


THE LAST BATTLE

The Millennium is foretold extensively in Isaiah and elsewhere in oblique terms.  And when it is done, mankind who is still mortal will have to make a final choice between God or Satan.  For Satan will be released from the Abyss to have one more go.

The devil will assemble an uncountable number of mortals to fight alongside with him, they will all surround Jerusalem, and in a flash, they will all be burned to a crisp.

At this point, Heaven and Earth will 'pass away' per Revelation 20, and everyone not resurrected at the Rapture will be resurrected into glorified or not-so-glorified bodies.  All will now be immortal both physically as well as spiritually, but those who rejected Christ will at the Great White Throne judgement (which may be synonymous with the 'Sheep and Goats' judgement and the 'Judgement Seat') be cast into the Lake of Fire, joining the Antichrist and False Prophet.

It is my belief Death itself will be the last to be thrown to the Lake of Fire.  And of course, Satan and his angels are thrown in at this time as well.

And with that, the scene changes to a new Heaven and a new Earth as we see descending from above the...


NEW JERUSALEM AND THE ETERNAL STATE

Revelation 21-22 is the foundational test, and it will be some sort of cube about fourteen hundred miles cubed.  We will all live in that for eternity, but knowing God, it will be of such holiness we cannot even begin to imagine.

There will be peace, inclusion, survival, love, belonging, friendship, and compassion.  For the author of all will be there, and while we will certainly mourn for those cast into the Lake of Fire, we will know everything we have seen with them is right and just.

Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus, and so shall we.  But in time, every tear will be wiped away, and all will be well and sober.

Thanks be to God!

Jeffrey Ragsdale
20 March 2022

P. S.: I hope to revise this document about once a quarter. - JR