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PROPHECY: "The 7 Year Tribulation and The 70 Weeks"
July 24, 2014


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TODAY'S WORD
The Seven Year Tribulation: a phrase that almost everyone who has spent some time in the Christian church has heard. Can you find it in the bible? Have you tried? Well, the answer is that it is simply not there. There is no direct mention of it anywhere in the bible. Those theologians who have come up with this idea have drawn it from a prophecy that almost no one has heard about let alone studied: The Seventy Weeks prophecy of Daniel. Very few people in the church today even bother to read the Old Testament, let alone enter into a serious attempt to understand the prophecies that are there. Those of Daniel are especially difficult because our Lord told Daniel that it would be those who are wise who will understand those things that he was shown by God. (Daniel 12:10)

God has sent messages of judgement and trouble to be poured out upon the Earth. These have been coming forth through His prophets to America for many decades. The church and its' leaders seem to collectively shrug their shoulders and say, "these cannot happen until the seven year peace treaty is ratified". Where do these pastors get these ideas from? There is no biblical basis for it, apart from this false link to the last seven of Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy. Yet pastors, leaders and their members use phrases such as these to enable their hearers to stick their heads in the sand with respect to any soon coming judgement, whether it be in our land of America or anywhere else where these types of deceived believers dwell. They err as Israel did before them, believing that God would bring no trouble upon His chosen people. They err, as Judah did when Christ appeared before them and they could not possibly accept him as their messiah because in their minds, Elijah had to come first and they were certain that Elijah had not yet come. They were mistaken then as these Christian believers are in error now.

I just finished reading a book titled "The Seventy Weeks" by Robert Caringola. Written in 2013, it is available on Kindle as well as in paperback edition, so it is easily obtained and I highly recommend it. I found it to be quite an excellent work in putting forth old things in a way that will allow the novice to gain some important insight into things that will help acquire that very wisdom that God spoke to Daniel about.

While reading this book, I saw a reference to "The Approaching End Of The Age", by H. Grattan Guinness, written in 1880. I sought for this book on the internet, found a free download of it and then began to study it. Towards the back of the book, I found something that I could scarcely believe:

The calendar of "The Times Of The Gentiles", by H. Grattan Guinness (From Nabonassar, First Emperor of the Baylonian Empire, who acceded to the throne in 747 BC to Romulus Augustus, last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, who fell in 476 AD. This time period covers an ASTONISHING One Thousand, two hundred and sixty lunar years. (A time, times and half a time as described in Daniel 12:7). It is available at this link: Calendar of "The Times Of The Gentiles" Part 1. This calendar also contains the portrayal of the entire 490 years of Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy and displays it as completely fulfilled in 34 AD. A chart of this classical view is depicted here: Classical View Of The Seventy Weeks (Dominant Through 1850)

The second portion of the calendar covers the time period from 395 AD to 1878 AD, the time of the publication of the calendar. It covers the rising of the Roman Catholic church and each Pope is listed, where it is easy to see how the one thousand, two hundred and sixty year time frame is fulfilled several times in terms of Papal political and temporal authority. This is important documentation of the Book of Revelation prophesied time frames of "a time, times and half a time", "42 months" and the three and a half years that is implied therein in apocalyptic symbolic form but which is clearly revealed here, in this calendar, to have found a fulfillment in the form of the Papacy several times over in the one thousand, two hundred sixty year periods. It is available at this link: Calendar of "The Times Of The Gentiles" Part 2

The appendix includes the comments of H. Grattan Guinness that were affixed to the calendars in the appendix of his book "The Approaching End Of The Age" are also available at this link: Calendar of "The Times Of The Gentiles" Comments

Guiness's book utilizes the day for a year approach in the interpretation of scriptural prophetic time periods. 1,260 days is meant to symbolize 1,260 years, and so on. Modern theologians have, for the most part, discarded this view, but they take it up again, where it is convenient for them to do so and this prophecy about Daniel's seventieth week, or the seven year tribulation period, is just one case where they make use of it. Some teachers today believe that a seven day Jewish wedding symbolizes a seven year marriage supper of the lamb, where the church is whisked away and has a feast with the bridegroom for seven years. This supposed allegory, only tangentially biblical, is the other so called biblical proof that there will be a seven year tribulation period, or seven year marriage supper, as you may choose to look at it. In any event, this allegory, in combination with the stretching out of Daniel's seventieth week to cover some seven year period still future seems to be scant biblical support for a doctrine that is trumpeted about as if it were established Christian doctrine. The biblical proof seems to be very thin, if not totally non-existent. After all, what if the wedding feast actually endures for SEVEN LITERAL DAYS?

Robert Caringola's book, "The Seventy Weeks", does an excellent job of laying out the fulfillment of the Daniel chapter 9 prophecy concerning the seventy weeks, or 490 years of time as they were fulfilled in God's dealings with the Jews between the decree of Artaxerxes in 457 BC and 34 AD (The period of 1 BC to 1 AD covers 1 year of actual time). I had a certain question answered when I read it about the final seven years of the four hundred ninety years that are symbolized by the term "Seventy Weeks" that has puzzled me for more than 25 years, but I found that when I went into study of the Guinness Calendar, my question was also answered there. Guinness knew my answer in 1880 and I felt so cheated in being deprived of this information for so long.

The twentieth and twenty first centuries have seen much speculating concerning the fulfillment of prophetic things. We have been told that Israel will sign a seven year peace treaty with the anticipated anti-christ, who everyone expects will be some type of political rock star who will rise to power in Europe. This scene has been depicted in "Left Behind" movies so almost all of us have either seen them, read the books or are familiar at least with the story line. This expected anti-christ will supposedly break the peace treaty after he rebuilds the temple in Jerusalem. After this, we are told to expect the rapture of the church and then, after we are gone, the tribulation period is expected to begin. Pastors argue over pre, mid or post in terms of just when in this seven year tribulation period they expect the church to exit the Earth. So many seemingly important pastors and theologians have taught these things that most believers accept these things as common knowledge and accepted fact. They are most assuredly not!. They are believed and taught by charismatic, full gospel people and also by Southern Baptist preachers. This is what is referred to as the "Futurist School" of interpretation of the prophetic scriptures. It is dominant now and has been for more than a hundred years, but certainly it was not so before that. Furthermore, all of this depends on how we are to properly interpret the Seventy Weeks prophecy of Daniel. Most specifically, is it right to break off the final seven years of the 490 years and deem it to apply to some time period in the near future at Christ's return? There is no biblical precedent for doing anything like this and it is therefore reckless to do so. Furthermore, careful study of the Guinness Calendar will show that all 490 years of the Seventy Weeks prophecy were fulfilled by 34 AD. They were fulfilled in 490 years of direct succession, one year flowing to the next. Every single month of that 490 years was needed to fulfill God's prophesied actions as He had announced through Daniel that these 490 years were determined by God upon Daniel's people: The Jews. (Daniel 9:24) It is not proper to split the fulfillment and apply it to a later expectation when it has already been fulfilled in the fact that God allowed only the Jews and the Jews alone to receive the gospel during the first 3 and 1/2 years after Jesus returned to heaven. After that, in 34 AD, the gospel went to the Gentiles, but not until after the 490 years had expired. We do not find it in scripture until Acts 8:4 that missionaries felt the leading of the Holy Spirit to go forth to preach the word to all nations as Jesus had instructed them to do 3 and 1/2 years earlier.

God began restoring the baptism of the Holy Spirit to the church between 1840 in Armenia to 1910 in America and in various places around the world. During that time, we also saw the rise of this futurist scheme of interpretation of the prophecies. The publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1917 seems to clearly mark the establishment of the futurist scheme, which arose with Maitland, McDonald and Darby in the nineteenth century and Clarence Larkin in the early twentieth century. Larkin, the famous biblical chart maker, seems to have done the most, along with Scofield, to widely disseminate these views. Yet Larkin, who was a great graphic artist, was not much of an accountant, for his chart on the seventy weeks contains mathematical errors. Larkins Chart of The Seventy Weeks Of Daniel (Note only 474 years from 445BC to 30AD) Today, we can simply do an internet search to view Larkin's charts along with a host of others. Concurrent with that seems to be fact that the historical school of interpretation began to gather dust and cobwebs. It was ignored and people no longer studied the old works. The historical school primarily looks back at history to see when the events of prophecy have been fulfilled. One hundred years later, almost no one is familiar with some of the greatest books ever written about biblical prophecy.

I will list a few of them here. You should obtain copies while you can get them for free on the internet in pdf form:

1560--Geneva Bible, With Footnotes (You need to get the 1560 edition, not the later ones)
1643--Joseph Mede--Key of Revelation (freely available in pdf)
1701--Robert Fleming--Rise And Fall Of the Papacy (freely available in pdf)
1733--Isaac Newton--Observations On Daniel (freely available in pdf)
1754--Thomas Newton--Dissertations On The Prophecies (freely available in pdf)
1862--E.B. Elliott--Horae Apocalypticae (freely available in pdf)
1880--H. Grattan Guinness--The Approaching End Of The Age (freely available in pdf)

Even a cursory study of these books will cause the reader to realize the complexity of engaging in historical study. The books tend to be quite large and the language used tends to be of a higher level of complexity than that which we are accustomed with today. It is easy to grasp that the futurist approach is much simpler: you only need to concern yourself with two generations: the one alive just after Christ returned to heaven and the one that will be alive just prior to His return. But simpler is not necessarily better and it is not necessarily correct. The historical approach requires a study of 1900 years of church history that the futurist approach ignores. It does bring forth a question. Would a prophecy given to the church in 90 AD ignore over 1,900 years of church history? Did it have nothing to say to believers who went before us? To me, this strains credulity.

Consider this time line:


-------457 BC-------------------------------27 AD--------------------------30 AD----------------------34 AD
........<-----------------483yrs-------------><-------------3.5yrs----------><------------3.5yrs------>=490 Years (70 weeks X 7)
(457BC)Decree of Artaxerxes----(27AD)Christ commences ministry---(30AD)Christ crucified-----(34AD)Gospel preached to Gentiles

You can check it all out on the Guinness calendar for yourself at Calendar of "The Times Of The Gentiles" Part 1 where you can pick up the timeline at 457 BC on the bottom of page 588 and follow it forward to 34 AD on page 596.

Now, please let this information sink down into your spirit from your eyes and mind. The entirety of the 490 year prophecy has been fulfilled as given to the prophet Daniel in the form of a word symbolically delivered to him that spoke about Seventy Weeks. It was completely fulfilled at 34 AD. Now, please give careful thought to what this means. Please allow it to slay any sacred cows you may be holding on to. There is no requirement that this prophecy must go forward in time to any future period beyond 34 AD! Since this is the case, it can no longer be used to prop up any false prophecy, originated by Jesuit false teachers, writing circa 1580, about a future seven year tribulation period at the time of the second advent of Jesus. This means that the covenant among many that Daniel was told about in chapter 9 referred to the gospel and the gospel alone that was confirmed by the blood of Jesus. It has nothing to do with any speculative future peace treaty at the time of the second advent of Jesus. None of the false teachers can prop up a teaching about a future seven year tribulation period or a future seven year peace treaty without total reliance on the last seven years of the 490 years of Daniel 9 having application to some time still future to us today in 2014. I have shown that absolutely cannot be the case. Daniel 9 was fulfilled in its' entirety in 34 AD! They have nothing in the bible with which to base these things upon without Daniel chapter nine and it is gone: entirely fulfilled.

Why were these valuable historical insights, commonly known by theologians in the nineteenth century, cast aside and forgotten by the generations which came forth and participated in the restoration of the fulness of the gospel? Why was it necessary to become stupid simply because we gained the ability to speak in tongues? Why did our spiritual fathers deem it necessary to embrace doctrines that trace their origin not to Martin Luther and the other Reformation fathers but to their avowed enemies, the Jesuit black robed priests of the Roman Catholic church? Did they not know that the Jesuits had their genesis as a counterweight to push against the Reformation movement and to stem the tide of its' progress? Can any spiritual fruit of the Jesuits be anything but evil? Why did historical school leaders not participate in charismatic renewal? I have my own theories and I will postulate a few of them at this point:



1) I believe that as the twentieth century proceeded, diligent study has been devalued. Everything must be obtained quickly in these modern times or it is not viewed as being worth the effort. The obtaining of expertise in historical matters involves much study.

2) I believe that historical leaders became puffed up in pride and were therefore abased by God. They were blinded as to their need for the fullness of the gospel and the Holy Spirit. They believed they had all they needed from God, and so the restoration of the fullness of the gospel went to those who were more simple of mind and not to the learned theologians, who were disqualified from moving forward in the things of the Spirit because pride had gone before their fall.

3) I believe that leaders of charismatic renewal wrongly rejected these things that historical leaders had received from God because of and through an uprising of pride within their movement in that they would not accept those things that had arisen from non-charismatic circles. Their thought was to denigrate anything that had arisen from a non-charismatic author. In falling victim to pride, the charismatic renewal has now been abased and condemned to general ignorance concerning things that were well understood by careful bible students only 150 years ago. Further on in that vein, our charismatic fathers were given over to an evil spirit when they took up the false teachings of the Jesuit Francisco Ribera (1580) as he originated the teachings of the seven year tribulation, the rebuilt temple, the future anti-christ and the pre-tribulation rapture of Christ. Our entire generation is now eaten up with Jesuit teachings! Students and teachers today wallow in an appalling ignorance of church history and other historical matters that I have only touched upon in this article in a most cursory way.

Finally 4) It has fallen to the prophetic movement which began around 1980 and had reached full steam by about 1990 to restore the knowledge and wisdom that had been gained by serious Christian scholars through diligent prayer and study over 1900 years of Church history. We as prophets are combining the wisdom once obtained and now forgotten with the power of ministry through the fulness of the Holy Ghost. Walking in all wisdom, we are declaring today the word of the Lord as we have heard it on the mountain of God. But there are many adversaries. As it was in Jeremiah's day, there are many false prophets today after the order of Hananiah, who assure all who hear them that all will be well in America's future. These modern Hananiah's have access to the pulpits of America that deny true prophets any invitation to speak. These deceivers litter your TV screens. They are your prophets for profit. You buy your prophetic DVD's from these peddlers. Can you be free of God's judgement through your spiritual intercourse with such men and women?



I do not wish to carry much more forward with this tract. That which I have presented is enough for the twenty first century reader to digest. I will probably write more along these lines, but let us say that if that which I have had to say about the Seventy Weeks prophecy is correct, and I believe I am correct, then there is going to be NO SEVEN YEAR PEACE TREATY and there will be NO SEVEN YEAR TRIBULATION PERIOD sent from God.

God does however, in His word, warn us that He will turn us over to a strong delusion to believe a lie if we are not found to be lovers of the truth. What if a seven year peace treaty is sent, but the sender of it is the devil? After all, Muslims tout their own prophecy that their future Mahdi will enter into a seven year peace treaty with Israel. Are we to even begin to believe that Muslim prophecy originated with God? If not God, then who revealed this thing to them that modern day evangelicals and charismatics also cling to so fanatically? Will He not send a seven year peace treaty forth to destroy the believers in Jesus Christ through the sudden evaporation of a false hope? Beware! Your enemy, the devil, prowls around, seeking someone to devour.

Realize then that the only thing that is a condition precedent to the return of Christ in His second advent is the "tribulation of those days" that Messiah mentioned in Matthew 24:29. As His only calling card is world trouble, look up, for your redeemer is drawing nigh.

CONCLUSION
Please bear with me just this little bit more. I have explained these things to people whom I love. Some of them are very smart people who have walked with the Lord a very long time. A fog seems to begin to cover their eyes as I make these explanations and I have wondered before the Lord about this. What is this fog that clouds the mind of the modern believer, so that he or she seems unable to apply the powers of concentration long enough to evaluate these arguments to see whether they do indeed have merit? One whom I was most recently sitting with only began to see the truth of what I was saying after I began to explain it for the third time.

We, as believers in Jesus Christ, have been taught these things for a time period that is now entering the fourth generation. When I came to Christ in 1987, the internet did not yet exist for me. I availed myself of Study bibles, books that were available in the Christian bookstores and those parts that were taught on television and radio. Every teaching that I either heard or read was in substantial agreement that we were going to have a rapture of the church at some point during a seven year peace treaty that would be violated in the middle of it by antichrist. During the early 1990's, I became aware that there was a substantial disagreement in the church about the timing of the rapture. Then, that disagreement widened further when Marvin Rosenthal penned his book entitled "The Pre-Wrath Rapture Of The Christian Church". He was thrown out of the ministry that he headed as a result of his rapture view. Yet, all of these disagreeing voices agreed that there would be a seven year tribulation period, still future that would be marked out by a seven year peace treaty. It is hard to see outside of the box you have been placed in. All those who have argued these points have played their games on the same ball field of the seven year tribulation. I am here to tell you that in all likelihood, they have all been playing a game on a ball field that was not laid out by the Lord God of Israel.

Think about this for just one minute, as I close. We may very well be looking at a seven year peace treaty that will be made by the Mahdi, representing Islam. This treaty will be made with Israel. The Muslims are all expecting it. Almost all Christians are expecting it. The Jesuits have taught the Roman Catholics to expect it. So, let us assume that we will have it. It will begin and it may or may not be known at the time whether it is THE SEVEN YEAR treaty. Perhaps it will have a stated seven year duration and perhaps it will not. In any event, Christians are waiting for it to be violated in the midst of it. Christians have been taught that Israel will rebuild the temple during this seven year time period and recommence animal sacrifice on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. So, let us assume that all of this transpires as Christians, Muslims and Roman Catholics expect that it will. They will be looking, as every day passes, for the rapture. Let us assume that first a month passes, and then a year passes and then three years pass, and still, there is no rapture. Let us assume that a fourth year passes with still no rapture? Will there be questions? Oh you better believe it. Let us then assume that a sixth year passes and then a seventh year is fully completed, with no rapture. Let us also assume that during this seven years, persecution of believers rises exponentially, so that the people of God are being trodden down in the streets. And still, no rapture? What will the heart condition of those believers be in that hour? Will it not likely be identical to that which was seen in the cultural revolution in China under Mao Tse Tung where 20 million believers in Jesus Christ were tortured and killed. Corrie Ten Boom reported that almost all of those Christians were believers in a pre-tribulation rapture and that many of those fell away from the faith. Could this...might this future time period that is coming wind up being that which was seen by Isaiah in Chapter 28 when he wrote:

"Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves."



Stephen L. Bening

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