70 Years Are Determined - Part 2

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Part 1 left off with a discussion of the missing marker in Daniel 9.  Daniel 9 gives us very important clues regarding the last days.  And it gives us markers for each time period, except one.  There's one marker which is hidden.  And this is the pattern of all the prophets.  Take your pick...Hosea, Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zephaniah, Micah, Malachi, etc.  Each one gives a part of the picture but none describe the whole picture.  Which is why Isaiah 28 explains that we must add precept to precept and line to line; a little here a little there.  And the end of the chapter explains that we must rely on God to help us understand.

Folks, understanding the Bible takes a lot of work.  There are many things I still don't understand.  And I have no doubt I probably got some details wrong here or there.  But I'm confident of my understanding of the outline...the big picture.  And I'm fairly confident about many of the details.  And after discovering the hidden clue of this post, I'm now very confident that 2016 is the year the Day of the Lord (aka the tribulation) begins.

God could have told us how it would all play out, A to Z.  Step by step.  He could also have made it easy for everyone to find gold and diamonds.  But he didn't.  He decided that he would not make it easy to understand his description of the latter days.  And finding gold is hard work too.  That's how it is.  The precious things are hard to come by.  But if you really want to know, you can know.  It's possible to understand.

One Word, Two Generations

When reading some of the prophetic passages we have to realize something.  We have to understand that sometimes God is speaking to two generations separated by a great distance of time.  History does repeat itself.  Not in exactly the same way.  But in similar enough ways for God to be able to say the same things to two different generations.  I believe this is no more true than in the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 2:9
"Therefore I will yet bring charges against you," says the LORD, "And against your children's children I will bring charges.


So he has a problem with those people and their grandchildren?  I guess their children are OK.  No, I believe what he's saying here is exactly what I've been talking about.  He's going to pronounce judgment on this ancient generation, and he's going to pronounce judgment on the last generation.  Is this really a stretch?  Go all the way back to Moses' day.  Even before the children of Israel entered into the promised land after their flight from Egypt.  Look at what Moses said:


Deuteronomy 31:29
"For I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you. And evil will befall you in the latter days, because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands."


Moses was speaking prophetically about the people of his day and the people of our day.  And he was given a revelation of nuclear war.  Look at the very next chapter:


Deuteronomy 32:30
How could one chase a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight, Unless their Rock had sold them, And the LORD had surrendered them?


How is it that two people could cause ten thousand to flee (or be killed)?  How may pilots does a nuclear bomber have?


Jeremiah's Two Visions


Let's look at this a little bit further.  What happens in the first chapter of Jeremiah?  Can I tell you that the first chapter is going to set the stage for the whole book?  He's given two visions.


Verse 11: What do you see?  I see a branch of an almond tree.
Verse 12: Good job. I'm ready to perform my word.
Verse 13: Now what do you see?  I see a boiling pot facing away from the north.
Verse 14: Out of the north calamity shall break forth...


Then people read verse 15 and see "Jerusalem" and then they think "oh, this isn't about me.  This is about a people who lived a long time ago."  Or, "this is about a people who live on the other side of the world."  Folks, if you look at how God uses the word Jerusalem all throughout the Bible, you'll soon realize that sometimes, yes, he's talking about the actual city.  But more often than not he's talking about his people, wherever they may be living.


The branch of an almond tree is speaking of the people of Jeremiah's day.  Verse 12 explains verse 11.  The branch, OK, I'm ready to perform my word.  Now, the boiling pot..."oh, that must be ancient Babylon coming to attack Israel."  Well, that's only half the story.  That did, in fact, happen during Jeremiah's day.  But there's a dual prophecy here.  Look in Jeremiah 50 and 51.  No two chapters in the Bible give more detail of the destruction of a last-day nation to whom God refers by the ancient name of Babylon.  It's a commonly accepted precept that the Babylon of Jeremiah 50/51, ...Revelation 14/17/18, Isaiah 13/18/47...refer to a nation of the last days...our day.  And that's what I believe we see here in the first chapter of Jeremiah.  Why is the pot facing away from the north?


Jeremiah 50:3
For out of the north a nation comes up against her, Which shall make her land desolate, And no one shall dwell therein. They shall move, they shall depart, Both man and beast.
See also:  Jeremiah 1:14-15, 4:6, 6:1, 6:22, 10:22, 50:9, 50:41, 51:48, Zechariah 2:6


Folks, when America is destroyed it'll be a day like no other.  All eyes will be looking at the sky because at midday the land go completely dark. (Jeremiah 6:4-5, 15:8-9)  A great "cloud" will blot out the sun.  (Amos 8:9, Isaiah 13:10, Joel 2:2,10, Lamentation 2:1)  And we'll be looking at the ground as it shakes and as the earth totters to and fro.  But we won't be looking north.  I suspect this cosmic disturbance will interfere with our radar defense system.  We won't even see them coming.

Many Nations and Great Kings


Jeremiah 25
'So I will bring on that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied concerning all the nations.
14  '(For many nations and great kings shall be served by them also; and I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands.)' "


"all that is written in this book"


Really?  All?  What about 50 and 51?  But I thought 50 and 51 speak of an end-time nation?

"shall be served by them also"

Served by them.  It doesn't say they'll serve Babylon.  It says they'll be served by them.  By what?  By the words Jeremiah pronounced against them.

Folks, Jeremiah speaks to two different generations that span a great distance in time.  I apologize for dragging this out, but I had to go into this detail to set up the next part.  In the next part we'll see why all this matters.  We'll see what this hidden clue is that removes any doubt I may have had about 2016.

Part 3 >>