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Appendix
A - The Importance of 1994
“And
I saw the seven angels who stand
before God, and to them were given
seven trumpets.” (Revelation 8:2)
Revelation 8:2 and 1994
For those who
are willing to invest the time to
study, the following sections explain
why I believe that 1994 is the date
the seven angels were given the seven
trumpets, as described in Revelation 8:2. For a
more thorough study on this topic,
please refer to my paper, Great
Clocks from God which can
also be downloaded at http://www.wake-up.org/daystar/ds2000/Great%20Clocks.htm.
- Two
Different Ways of Measuring
Time
In
apocalyptic prophecy, God sometimes measures
time according to the operation of
the Jubilee Calendar in which a day
is translated as a year. For
example, the seventy weeks in Daniel 9:24 contain 490
days (seventy weeks x seven
days/week = 490 days). The 490
days are translated as
490 years because they occur during
the operation of God’s Jubilee
Calendar. History confirms that
this translation is warranted and
correct. On the other hand,
other instances of apocalyptic
prophecy are found when God does not
translate time as a day for a
year. Examples when a day is
to be understood as literal time
include the 1,000 years in Revelation 20:2, the five
months in Revelation 9:5, the 1,260
days granted to the Two Witnesses,
and the forty-two months in Revelation 13:5. One
significant challenge to interpreting
apocalyptic prophecy is understanding
when God uses a day for a year or
literal time.
I believe
there is a rule in Scripture that
answers this question. The
fourth rule governing the
interpretation of apocalyptic
prophecy says, “The presence or
absence of the Jubilee Calendar
determines how God measures time in
apocalyptic prophecy.” In
other words, when the Jubilee
Calendar is operating, God wants us
to translate a day for a year
according to His Calendar. On
the other hand, when the Jubilee
Calendar is not operating, there is
no translation.
A rule of
interpretation has no
exception. As an example, the
“seven times” imposed on
King Nebuchadnezzar does not require
translation because the prophecy
directed at him is not an apocalyptic
prophecy, and the king could not eat
grass for 2,520 years (360 x 7 =
2,520 years). The prophecy
concerning King Nebuchadnezzar was a
“local prophecy” directed
at a specific person. Each type
of prophecy has its own rules, and
they cannot be mixed or merged
without putting the Bible in a state
of internal conflict. There are
five types of prophecy in the Bible
and these were discussed in detail in
the Introduction.
- The
Jubilee Calendar
God created
the Jubilee Calendar. It is
incredibly precise and God put this
calendar in motion two weeks before the
Exodus in 1437 B.C. By divine
decree, God forced Israel to abandon
their use of the Egyptian calendar (a
summer-to-summer calendar) when He
imposed His spring-to-spring Jubilee
Calendar.[1] Three
topics within the Jubilee Calendar
need to be discussed to show how 1994
connects with the book of Revelation.
A. Even
though God required Israel to let the
land rest from cultivation every
seventh year, Israel did not observe
the seventh year Sabbath rest while
in the desert. (This makes sense
since they did not grow crops in the
desert.) However, the wording
in Leviticus 25:2-4 causes
some people to think that cycles of
seven years began when Israel entered
Canaan. This understanding is
incorrect. God started counting
cycles of seven years at the time of
the Exodus and the proof only takes
two steps. First, we have to
align the date of Christ’s death
with the middle of the seventieth
week and second, we have to identify
one Jubilee year.
For reasons
beyond the scope of this study, it
can be proven beyond reasonable
argument that Jesus died on Friday,
April 7, A.D. 30. (For a
comprehensive study on this topic,
see my book, Daniel,
Unlocked for the Final Generation,
pages 196-208 or go to this
link http://www.wake-up.org/Daniel/DanChap6.htm.) Once
the date of the crucifixion is
determined, we learn the synchrony of
the weekly cycle of years because
Daniel 9 declares that Messiah
would die in the middle of
the seventieth week.
Therefore, A.D. 30 has to be a
Wednesday year because Wednesday is
always the middle day of the
week. By knowing A.D. 30 was a
Wednesday year, we can identify all
Sunday years forward and
backward. For example, A.D. 27
and 457 B.C. were Sunday years.
The second
step requires the identification of
one Jubilee year. If one
Jubilee year is known, then Jubilee
cycles can be calculated forward and
backward like days of the week.
Fortunately, there is one Jubilee
year that is easily identified.
It occurred during the fifteenth year
of Hezekiah’s reign.[2] Since
Jubilee years always fell on Sunday
years, this forces Hezekiah’s
Jubilee year to be 702 B.C. All
other dates have to be eliminated
because known historical events do
not align with that Jubilee year.
(Many scholars, knowing nothing about
the synchrony of the weekly cycle of
years and the operation of the
Jubilee Calendar, date
Hezekiah’s Jubilee at 701
B.C. This shows that good
scholarship can get close to the
truth, but sometimes there are
limitations. History can
resolve questions to a point, but
sometimes, history cannot precisely
pinpoint the specific year.)
Jubilee years are forty-nine years
apart and because Jubilee years are
always Sunday years, we can precisely
identify the Jubilee year during
Hezekiah’s reign. By
counting forward or backward in
forty-nine year intervals from 702
B.C., we find that God started the
Jubilee Calendar on Abib 1, 1437
B.C., two weeks before the
Exodus! No other date is
historically possible. (This
topic is discussed at length in my
booklet, Great Clocks from
God or go to this
link http://www.wake-up.org/daystar/ds2000/Great%20Clocks.htm.)
B. God
treats the synchrony of time in a
different way than we commonly treat
time today. First, God counts time
inclusively. Any portion of a
unit of time counts as a whole unit
of time. For example, Jesus
spent a portion of Friday, all of
Sabbath, and a portion of Sunday in
the tomb. Jesus counted this as
three days and three nights.[3] All
prophetic time periods are counted
this way. This explains how
Luke counted A.D. 27 as the fifteenth
year of Tiberius Caesar, even though
Tiberius took office on September 17,
A.D. 14.[4]
History
records that Augustus died on August
19, A.D. 14. Tiberius
maneuvered the Senate for a few weeks
and did not allow it to name him
emperor for almost a month. On
September 17, A.D. 27, Tiberius
became Emperor of Rome at age
56. This means that Luke
followed the Jewish tradition of
inclusive dating and counted the
ascension year of Tiberius as
“year 1,” even though the
ascension year was just a few days in
length before a new civil year began
on Tishri 1. Josephus also
followed this practice when he dated
the reigns of the Herods.[5] The
Mishnah further confirmed this method
of Jewish regnal reckoning.[6]
During the
time of Christ, the Jews also
observed a fall-to-fall civil
calendar. The first month of
this calendar was the seventh month
of the religious year called Tishri.
Tiberius ascended to the throne on
September 17, A.D. 14, during a
Jewish civil year that ended about
two months later (November 11, A.D.
14.) So, Luke counted September
17 to November 11 as “year
1” because Tiberius, counting
inclusively, ascended to the throne
that year. Therefore, the Jews
regarded the following civil year
Tishri 1 to Tishri 1 (November 12,
A.D. 14 to October 31, A.D.
15), as the second year of
Tiberius’ reign.
Luke’s
Account: The Reign of Tiberius Caesar
Year 1 = A.D. 14/14
(September 17 – November 11)
Year 2 = A.D. 14/15
(Tishri 1 to Tishri 1)
Year 3 = A.D. 15/16
(Tishri 1 to Tishri 1)
Year 4 = A.D.
16/17 Etc.
Year 5 = A.D. 17/18
Year 6 = A.D. 18/19
Year 7 = A.D. 19/20
Year 8 = A.D. 20/21
Year 9 = A.D. 21/22
Year 10 =
A.D. 22/23
Year 11 =
A.D. 23/24
Year 12 =
A.D. 24/25
Year 13 =
A.D. 25/26
Year 14 =
A.D. 26/27
Year 15 =
A.D. 27/28 (Jesus baptized
after Tishri 1, A.D. 27)
God also
treats His weekly cycle in a
different way than we commonly
do. For example, God starts
a week with
Sunday, the first day of the week.
We casually define a week as any
period of seven days, but this
is never the case
in God’s calendar. When it
comes to God’s clocks, there is
a big difference between seven days
and a week. God’s seventh
day Sabbath and God’s seventh
year rest for the land are determined
by the first day of Creation and the
first year of the Exodus,
respectively.
C. One
Jubilee cycle contained seven full
weeks of seven years each. Thus, a
Jubilee cycle was forty-nine years in
length. The forty-ninth year
always fell on a Sabbath year that
was synchronous with Israel’s
deliverance from Egypt.[7] The
weekly cycle is the basis for
translating time – “a day
for a year.”[8] The
Year of Jubilee (the fiftieth year)
always fell on the Sunday year that
followed the forty-ninth Sabbath
year. This may seem strange at
first, but the fiftieth year of the
old Jubilee cycle and the first year
of the new Jubilee cycle occurred
simultaneously. This method of
counting time is confirmed by the
Feast of Pentecost.
The Feast of
Pentecost (the fiftieth day) was
always celebrated on Sunday (the
first day of the week). This is
how the countdown to Pentecost
occurred: Passover fell on
different days of the weekly cycle
(like our birthdays). The
priests waited until the first Sunday
following Passover to start counting
off forty-nine days (seven full
weeks).[9] Then,
on the fiftieth day, which was the
first day of the eighth week, Israel
celebrated the Feast of Pentecost.
Many Bible
students believe each Jubilee cycle
was fifty years in length .
However, Jubilee cycles were
forty-nine years in length because
(a) the weekly cycle of seven years
was not interrupted, (b) the
weekly cycle of years remained
synchronous with the year of the
Exodus (year 1), and (c) the seventy
weeks in Daniel 9 totaled 490
years. If Jubilee cycles were
fifty years in length as some people
claim, it would be mathematically
impossible to make the seventy weeks
equal 490 years. The seventy
weeks are 490 years (70 x 7) and 490
years are ten Jubilee cycles (49 x
10).
You may
wonder what the Jubilee Calendar has
to do with Revelation 8:2. The
Jubilee Calendar appears to be
important to Revelation 8:2 because
God’s patience with mankind
appears to be limited to seventy
Jubilee cycles. In other words,
from the Exodus in 1437 B.C. to 1994,
there are seventy Jubilee
cycles. I believe that in 1994
the Jubilee Calendar ended
and Jesus handed the seven trumpets
to the seven angels. I
believe that God’s patience with
sin on Earth ended in 1994 at the
close of seventy Jubilee
cycles. Jesus gave seven
trumpets to the seven angels, and
before the angels could release their
harm on Earth, He told them to
wait. So, Jesus has delayed the
first four trumpets from causing the
overwhelming destruction that is soon
to occur.
Thirty
Jubilee Cycles
Because of
Abraham’s friendship and
faithfulness, God chose
Abraham’s descendants to serve
as trustees of His gospel.
Unfortunately, for about 800 years,
the children of Israel failed to live
up to the covenant they made with God
at Mt. Sinai. After God exiled
Israel to Babylon, He gave the nation
a second chance to become the model
nation that He wanted to make of
them. He graciously granted the
Jews ten Jubilee cycles or seventy
weeks, which is 490 years!
Bible history
reveals that during the Sunday year
of the seventieth week (A.D. 27),
Messiah began His ministry.[10]
However, Israel rejected
Messiah’s message of love,
truth, and righteousness.
Instead, they crucified Him.[11] When
we examine Israel’s history in
light of the Jubilee Calendar, we
discover a stunning fact: God
granted to Israel, down to
the very day, a total of thirty
Jubilee Cycles. (1437 B.C. to
A.D. 34) This precision reminds
me of Israel’s deliverance from
Egypt. “At
the end of the 430 years, to
the very day,
all the Lord’s divisions left
Egypt.”[12] This
precision also highlights the fact
that the Second Coming will occur
on the very day which
God has predetermined. “Blessed
is the one who waits for and reaches
the end of the 1,335 days.”[13]
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