INTRODUCTION
In my last Upward Trek, I demonstrated that imminence was not a random variable but a probability variable based on objectively discernable phenomena. The rapture is imminent in the same way that a volcanic eruption is imminent. The signs of eruption move from distant imminence to near imminence to immediate imminence. So the signs of the rapture move from distant imminence to near imminence to immediate imminence. But whether volcanoes or the rapture, capitalizing on these signs is a matter of ranges and probabilities. They can’t and don’t point to any day or hour with certainty. I doubt we can even know the year of the rapture with certainty. Those that attempt to pinpoint the rapture are seeking a degree of accuracy which the data does not permit.
Throughout the church age, believers looked around and saw signs which told them that they were in the last days in the broader sense, and they lived with the hope that things could accelerate in their lifetime and culminate with the coming of the Lord. They looked for and longed for this day. As we approach the end of the age, and the world descends into the chaos that shall prevail in the tribulation, various signs stand out as prime indicators that we are on the cusp of the tribulation. These signs fall into two classes. Mathematical and stage setting.
Are you surprised that I mentioned mathematical signs? You shouldn’t be. God gave believers a mathematical formula that enabled them to calculate the season of the Messiah at his first coming. This formula, found in Daniel 9:24-27, yielded a definite date. But the precision was misleading. They had no idea what event the date was associated with. Were they counting to His birth? His inauguration? His revelation of himself publicly? His overthrowal of the Romans? As events unfolded, they figured out that the formula took them to the triumphant entry, when the crowds cried out, “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
THE MATHEMATICAL SIGNS
Now there are two mathematical signs that we have been given in the New Testament which enable us to recognize the season of the Lord’s second coming.
The first is the Sabbath sign. This does not concern the weekly Sabbath. Nor does it concern the Sabbath year in the Shemitah cycle. It concerns a Sabbath millennia. The godly will labor for six long millennia, then they will enjoy a millennium of rest. This we see when we compare 2 Peter 3:8 (in context), Hosea 5:14-6:2, and the promised rest in Hebrews 4. There were 4000 years from the garden to the cross. And there are 2000 years from the cross to the kingdom. If the cross was Passover AD 33, then the kingdom will begin at Passover, 2033. This means that the tribulation would likely begin in the spring of 2026. But this accuracy is just as misleading as the dating of the Messiah at the first coming. We have no idea whether the rapture is four weeks, four months, or four years prior to the beginning of the tribulation. Moreover, the disruptions in the solar system that affect the earth (as seen in Luke 21:26) will make it impossible for man to calculate the day and hour of the second coming proper. Now, if this formula be correct, and I believe that it is, we are not amiss if we find ourselves regarding the window from the summer of 2022 to early spring 2026 as prime rapture watch time.
The second mathematical sign is the rebirth of Israel. This sign is found in Matthew 24:32-35. It has three parts. The first part is the fig tree, a well-known type of Israel. On May 14, 1948 the cursed fig tree, the nation of Israel, came back from the dead. When this renewed nation put forth its tender branches and leaves, that miraculous fact demonstrated not only that it was alive, but also that summer (the harvest) was near. The second part is the parallel observation (notice the “likewise”) that when the prophetic signs in the chapter start to come to pass during the seventieth week (signs which involve the reborn Israel), those watching them can rest assured that the second coming is very close, even at the door. The third part is the promise that the generation which witnesses these signs, starting with the regeneration of the fig tree, will not pass away until all be fulfilled. God gives us his conception of a generation in Psalm 90:10, “As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years. Or if due to strength, eighty years.” The sense I draw is that the generation which saw and remembers the rebirth of Israel will yet have members alive when the tribulation signs unfold and the Messiah descends from heaven. If we add 80 years to 1948, we come up with 2028 which seems a hair early. But we don’t need to get hyper-technical with this verse. Folks are living a decade longer now on average than they did back then.
With both of these mathematical signs there is a brief window of very near to immediate imminence. If the rapture doesn’t happen in this window, we will find ourselves in the tribulation. But we know that can’t and won’t happen. Therefore we conclude that the rapture must happen in the near future and could happen in the very near future.
THE STAGE-SETTING SIGNS
Now there are also three stage-setting signs which suggest that we are rapidly nearing the rapture. Though each of these have been part of the expanding mystery of iniquity for a long time, yet they have only recently reached a degree of development which suggests that the last days are truly upon us and that the rapture could happen in the near future.
The first is the geo-political sign of the Russian juggernaut. This is developed in the prophecy of Gog and Magog’s attempted invasion of Israel in Ezekiel 38-39. This sign involves a triad of major players: Russia (the Scythian nations mentioned), Turkey (a mixture of the Scythian and northern nations mentioned) , and Iran (Persia). It involves a quartet of major players if we include Germany (Gomer).
Fifty years ago, there was no indication that this event was on the immediate horizon, though savvy students of prophecy could clearly see things developing which pointed to the coming scenario. For instance, the Soviet Union had a strong presence in various Middle Eastern and African nations that figure prominently in the last days. But Turkey and Russia had a turbulent relationship. Not to mention, Turkey was allied with the West as a member of NATO. On top of that, Iran was still an ally of America and on more or less friendly terms with Israel.
Today things look very different. Iran is now Israel’s greatest and deadliest threat. Turkey’s ambitions to join the EU have dimmed, and her membership in NATO seems ambiguous at best. Turkey and Russia are strong trade partners. And there are indications that their agendas in Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa and in Syria are converging. The recent trilateral meeting between Russia, Turkey, and Iran is disconcerting. Russia’s relationship with Israel is deteriorating. Russia has a strong military presence in Syria, including peace-keeping troops on the Israeli border. Russia’s empire-building expansionism has already swallowed up Crimea and the Donbass in Ukraine and will likely continue until it engulfs the entirety of Ukraine, the Baltic states, and the Black Sea nations (Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria). Russia’s relationship with the West is growing more strained. Putin recently declared America Russia’s greatest threat. And there are indications that Russia and Turkey are on the path to embrace, for political and economic advantages, the same anti-Israel policy that is held by Iran and Israel’s Arab neighbors.
These recent developments point to accelerated stage setting for the Gog and Magog War. If the patterns continue, we will soon see increased Russian troop presence in Syria and the other nations that border Israel. Ditto for Turkey and Iran. But the church will not see the final stages of the buildup for the Gog and Magog War. We go up in the rapture before the stage is fully set, perhaps even two or more years prior. The torch of the testimony of God here on earth will revert to Israel once again, and a remnant will be gloriously saved.
The second is the sign of the same perversion that reigned in Noah’s day. This sign is mentioned in Matt. 24:37. As the former world became completely overwhelmed with perversion (sexual and genetic) before God answered with the judgment of the flood, so the present world is quickly being overwhelmed with the same kinds of perversion which God will answer with judgment from heaven. On the current trajectory the world will be entirely defiled within a decade. This steeply—exponentially—
The third is the sign of the great reset of the New World Order. The governments of the world, both shadow and formal, are changing the laws and the times (Dan. 7:25). They are taking counsel against the Lord, determined to free themselves from his bands and cords (Ps. 2:1-3), following lies they were taught by lying spirits (1 Tim. 4:1). On the plea of overpopulation, they shall hinder marriage and childbirth. On the plea of reducing carbon pollution, they shall restrict the consumption of God-given foods like meat and dairy and provide mankind with vegan options, or worse, soylent green (algae) and soylent brown (insects). They shall restrict farming and ranching. On the plea of health crises they shall mandate health care provisions which, in the name of healing, lead to serious health issues and infertility. All of these things are part of a depopulation agenda that is aimed at reducing the world’s population to five hundred million within the next decade.
The new world order advocates are working toward a totalitarian government where ninety-nine percent of the world is reduced to mere serfs, without freedom or property, who are totally dependent on the oligarchy to provide them with basic life needs and entertainment. They will be under continual surveillance, their thinking managed by thought police and social grading. All of their banking and shopping will be digital, a medium that can be turned off for any and every infraction. This will make it difficult for men to survive unless they allow Big Brother to do all their critical thinking for them. Their carbon footprint will be monitored: what they buy, what they eat and how much, how they travel and how far. Some Americans laugh when you say this stuff is coming. But these things are already being implemented in different parts of the world. And the new world order advocates in the West would implement this entire platform in a heartbeat if they could get away with it. In the mean time, they are rolling it out incrementally.
As it stands, if the new world order shadow government is able to pull off their timetable, we will be in their despotic system within a decade—the world trapped in a digital economic system, buying and selling regulated by political correctness and carbon footprints, energy consumption severely limited, the whole world crushed by a famine of basic foodstuffs. But there is no reason for the church to fret. We will not see the fullness of these things, for we aren’t going into the tribulation. We will make our exit before the curtain rises for the last act.
CONCLUSION
When we look at where we are, deep into the gauntlet of iniquities that are the stage-setting for the tribulation, deep into the mathematical countdowns that point to the end, and racing toward a head on collision with the events of the tribulation—like the Gog and Magog War, the world engulfed in perversion, and the dystopian system of the last days—we find ourselves looking at a narrow window of imminence before us. If the Lord doesn’t take us out of the world soon, we will blow right through this window of imminence, come to the end of imminence, and find ourselves in the tribulation itself. Now we know this can’t actually happen, but it does make a point. Imminence isn’t randomness. Imminence is known nearness based on objectively discernible phenomena. And when the signs of the nearness of the tribulation switch from soon to very soon, the rapture will be at the very doors if we haven’t already gone up.
Eyes wide open, brain engaged, heart on fire,
Lee W. Brainard
Here are some related links you might be interested in:
Imminence on the Accelerator
Imminence on the Accelerator (video)
The End of Imminence (video)
No Comments