Dr. Tony Evans — God’s Prophetic CalendarChristian books
Many of you remember many years ago, there was a TV show called “Early Edition,” and that’s where a man would get tomorrow’s newspaper today, so he knew what was coming because he got the future given to him in advance. And so he knew what he needed to do in light of what the newspaper said tomorrow because he got it ahead of time. Prophecy is God’s newspaper telling you what’s coming tomorrow so you have the information today. The Bible is the website. Jesus is the passcode. And if you really want to understand what’s happening in our world and where we are going: prophecy, the predicting of the future. God can make no prophetic mistakes because of his perfection.Christian books
The Bible is full of prophecies, things that were predicted in advance, including the birth of Jesus, the fact that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, the fact that he would ride on a donkey on Palm Sunday. All of that is predicted 700 and more years in the Old Testament before it ever happened in the New Testament, because God is impeccably perfect in his prophetic pronouncements. So anything God says is going to happen, you can bank your bottom dollar it is going to happen precisely as he said it would happen. So to ignore prophecy as given by God is to ignore the future. So the Bible is God’s prophetic syllabus giving us an outline of things to come. And so today, I would just like to survey the prophetic calendar.
In Matthew 24, verse 3, the disciples ask a question. They said, “What are the signs of your coming? What do we look to as a sign of your coming”? Jesus then responded to them and he said to them, he says in verse 6, “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place. But that is not yet the end, for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom in various places. There will be famines,” which can be pestilences, “and earthquakes, but all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs”. God will not give us a date and time of his arrival. Jesus says that the signs that you are to look for are not only the conflicts, but the rumors that surround it and the scope of them. There will be nation against nation and there will be rumor against rumor and this will bubble up. He says, “But it is not yet time”.Christian books
So let me start off by letting you know that I am not saying that what we are seeing today is proof positive Jesus is coming tomorrow. What I am saying is it could be. Right now, you are in what the Bible calls the church age. It’s called in Luke chapter 21, verse 24, the times of the Gentiles. The church age comes to a conclusion at the Rapture. The reason why it is not the end yet is there is an event that will take place before the end-time clock gets punched and that event is called the Rapture. The Rapture is when Jesus Christ does not come back to earth. He comes back to the clouds and we are raptured up to meet him. If Jesus Christ were to come today, everyone in this house who has trusted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior would leave this place. If I’m gone and you’re still here, that’s ’cause you not saved.
So before this service is over, we want to give you a opportunity to do that, but we wanna make sure that you are part of the Rapture. We come, the dead in Christ, those who have already gone ahead of us, will come with him. Those who are dead will get new bodies, new glorified bodies, so the glorified bodies will meet the returning soul and spirit, and we will have our glorified existence. We who are alive will be changed. Everything wrong with you in the Rapture will be made right immediately. In 1 Corinthians 15, we read these words: “Behold, I tell you a mystery,” verse 51 says. “We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye”.
Let me tell you what the twinkle of an eye is. A twinkle of an eye is faster than a blink. It’s the twitch of the eye. It’s faster than a blink. You will be changed, and it says, “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed”. So the Rapture takes place, boom, in a twinkling of an eye, all of those who are believers in Christ will be raptured up to meet the Lord. We will have reunion with those who have already gone before us, and we will be taken to heaven for the Judgment Seat of Christ. The Judgment Seat of Christ will take place while an event I’ll talk about in a moment is taking place on earth, where believers are given their rewards for their faithfulness to the Lord between the time of their conversion and the time of their death or the Rapture.
So what God will be looking at when he raptures us is, how faithful were you as a follower of Christ? Faithfulness means consistency over time. When the Rapture takes place, it inaugurates a seven-year event. That seven-year event is called the Tribulation. This time of Tribulation, it’s called Jacob’s Trouble. Christians, those who have accepted Christ, are in the Rapture. When the Rapture happens, that opens up the Day of the Lord. It’s called the Day of the Lord because now it’s the day of man.
You say, “How can there be a God who allows all these tragedies, all these difficulties, all this pain, all this”? ‘Cause today is the day of man, and he has allowed man to do things based on their decision making. Once the Rapture happens, it is no longer the day of man. It is now the Day of the Lord and he is going to take over completely. It is during this time of Tribulation, this seven-year period prophesied in the book of Daniel. It’s called the 69th week leading to this time of international upheaval where God will intervene directly. Satan will be released to a full… now, you think Satan is rough now, you haven’t seen anything yet. Most of the book of Revelation is about this time of Tribulation, this time of Tribulation when there will be complete upheaval in the world. The Tribulation revolves around a figure. There will be wars and rumors of wars. There’s going to be all this conflict. And Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will show up.
This will be an international figure who will purport to bring order to a world in chaos. And his name is called the Antichrist. So there is a man who does not keep rules, lawlessness, who will become manifested, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god and object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. So the Antichrist will display himself as deity. Do you not remember when I was still with you, I was telling you these things, and you know what restrains him now so that in his time he will be revealed. In other words, we don’t know who he is yet ’cause he’s being held back. He could be very much alive right now but not yet revealed. He says for the mystery of lawlessness, it’s a secret, is already at work. Only he who know… now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the world.
Okay, when the Holy Spirit is removed, the Restrainer, you and I are removed. That’s the Rapture, because you and I are indwelt with the Holy Spirit if you’ve accepted Christ. The Holy Spirit is the Restrainer. So when the Holy Spirit, the Restrainer, is removed and he indwells every believer, he takes the believers with him in the Rapture. When he takes the believers with him in the Rapture, now the Restrainer is gone. When the Restrainer is gone, which means the saints who he indwells is gone with him, now the man of lawlessness will be revealed. “Then the lawless one,” verse 8, “will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming That is, the one who is coming is in accord with the activity of Satan and with power and signs and wonders”.
Why will he be believed? Because he’s gonna bring miracles with him. He’s going to bring miracles with him. What Jesus is to God, the Antichrist is to Satan. Jesus is the incarnation of deity. The Antichrist is the incarnation of the devil. So, that helps you to understand, by the way… if you look at Revelation chapter 13, Revelation chapter 13, you discover the unholy trinity. So we know about the Holy Trinity, but there’s an unholy trinity. You’ve got in verse 1 the dragon, which we’re told in chapter 12, is the devil. Then you’ve got the beast in verse 1, “and I saw a beast and they worshiped,” verse 4, “the dragon because he gave authority to the beast”. So you’ve got three figures in chapter 13. You’ve got the dragon, the first beast, and the second beast, that is, you’ve got Satan, the Antichrist, and the false prophet.
That explains verse 18: “Here is wisdom. Let him who is understanding calculate the number of the beast. For the number is that of a man. And his number is 666”. Six-six-six. Why is 666 important as a trinitarian number? Six and six and six. Six is the number of man. Man was created sixth. Man was created sixth. There will be a trinity that will deal with man. God the Trinity wants to deal with man now. The devil the trinity, the devil, the Antichrist, the false prophet, that trinity will deal with men during the Tribulation period. So it is the number of man, or the number of the unholy trinity, dealing with the human race during this period of time we call the Tribulation period, but this is the Antichrist, and the Antichrist will bring havoc, verse 10, “And with all deception of wickedness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved”.
When you reject God, you open up to the devil. When you reject God’s Word, you open up to the devil. There are only two words: man’s word and God’s Word. The question is, whose word are you gonna believe? And the problem is he will be so tricky with his miracles, tricky with his deception, that you’re gonna believe his word just ’cause he looks like he’s g
Leave a Reply