The “Times of the Gentiles”… the current Age.

 

    Below is summary of the “Times of the Gentiles” which is the 3rd trimester of God’s plan.  I have included Chapter 17 from the book in its entirety for your reading.

 

 

Chapter 17

“Times” of the Gentiles (3rd Trimester)

   

  First let’s look at the “Times of the Gentiles” in general as we did for the first and second trimesters of the Lord’s plan.  Then we will look in more detail in later chapters to see what we can learn that will allow us to make logical conclusions about this overall period and the part of it that is yet to be completed.

 

“For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written.”

                                                           

“They [Jews] will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”         

Luke 21:22 & 24

                                               

    The “Times of the Gentiles” is the third and final trimester of God’s plan: the “harvest season” of God, and the Age of Grace…Christianity. There are just over 2,029 years from the birth of Jesus until his second coming. There are a few things of interest from the two verses above. The punishment of the Jewish nation will continue until the end of this period of time. The punishment decreed was the elimination of the Jewish homeland and the scattering of its people throughout all the nations of the world for the third time in history. This occurred during 67 to 70 A.D. and continued until 1967 A.D. when Jerusalem was recaptured from Jordan (a period of roughly 1,897 years). We will look at this in further detail later. What is of interest is that God states the punishment would continue “until” this period of history is complete. We can conclude from this declaration that the Jewish retaking of Jerusalem in 1967 and the signing of the Jerusalem Law in 1980 signals the time of the Gentiles is drawing to a close.

 

    This trimester also covers the birth, life and death of Christ. Since this is the most momentous event in the history of man you can be sure God’s calendar and plan are built around this key marker. Each trimester clearly has one or two of these events that allow the ability to check the authenticity of the Bible’s accounts and the Lord’s plan. The flood allowed us to independently verify the overall time of the first trimester. The building of the first Temple and Ezra’s letter from the Persian King Artaxerxes I provided the checkpoints for the Age of Law (Times of the Jews – second trimester). This period is no different. We will examine details of the major historical events pertaining to this period that are necessary to prove the third trimester is identical in time to the previous two discussed.

 

    Lastly, this stage of the plan covers the Christian church, the rapture and the second coming of Christ. Table 17-1 shows a simplified timeline of this Age. It will be used as the basis for further developmental work.

Table 17-1

Date

Season Day

Event

   2 B.C.

Day 0

Christ’s Birth

29 A.D.

Day 1

Christ’s Ministry

33 A.D.

Day 1

Christ’s Death

67 to 70 A.D.

Day 2

Temple Sacrifices stopped

685 to 692 A.D.

Day 10

Dome of the Rock Built

1967 A.D.

Day 59

Jerusalem recaptured

 

Day 60

The Rapture

 

Day 60

The 2nd Coming

2028 to 2030 A.D.

Day 60

The “appointed time”

 

    As you can see from the chart, the dates of the rapture and the second coming have been left blank for now. We will look at these important pieces of God’s plan further, building on the previous work and make some educated guesses as to when they might occur based on the Bible, our knowledge of God’s plan, and some deductive reasoning.

 

    Since the current date is June 2007 A.D., it is self evident that these events must occur after this and before the appointed time. This gives us a time frame of roughly 22 years to explore. This will be the most exciting part of our analysis for some and terrifying for others because of all the unbelievable things we will uncover.

 

    This part of God’s plan is the easiest to verify since historical records are more recent. However, it is also the hardest in that this period is incomplete and therefore extrapolations are being made based on the symmetry of the other trimesters and view of God’s overall plan. What's more, all biblical references to this period are strictly prophetic in character since all books of the Bible were written before 100 A.D.

 

    Secondly, the use of the word “Time” is of interest in the verses from Luke. The first use is in the context of its normal use and is describing a one-time (singular) event: the punishment of the Jewish nation. However, overlooked is the plural use of the word in the second biblical passage. It could have easily been used in its singular form and would then denote no special attention just as it did in the first verse. But by using the plural form, God is giving us more clues (support) to what His plan is. This use of the word “Times” is used in prophecy in various places to denote “two” of a specific time period… usually interpreted to be years. However, in the context of God’s plan, it denotes two S-months or as we already know… 2,000 “prophetic” years or really 2,029 years and two months.

 

    Further support of this position is the fact that the Jewish chastisement is now over 1,900 years long and counting and would finish at the “end of the Age” according to Luke. Since there is a difference of roughly sixty-two years from the retaking of Jerusalem in 1967 A.D. until the completion of 2,029 years from Jesus’ birth, we can logically conclude that the Age of Christianity will be in the 2,000-year range and not continue on indefinitely since forty more years have already passed with the Jews return to Jerusalem.  The longer this situation continues, the more untrue Luke’s passage becomes that this event would happen at the end of the “Times of the Gentiles”.

 

    This time period started the second Jesus was born and ends with Christ’s second coming. Almost all with any knowledge of this theological topic will tell you that no one knows the exact date of Jesus’ birth. A few will tell you they do know it precisely and many will tell you it was December 25th.  Not only that, but the scholars throughout history cannot even agree on the year He was born. Historians are in full agreement when Julius Caesar died (44 B.C.) or when Alexander the Great conquered Persia (332 B.C.); events that preceded Christ’s life by many years, but they can’t agree on a date for something more recent in history? It is understandable that His birth date might be harder to find, but clearly with all the commotion surrounding His death that date should not be in question.  What forces are at work to keep this argument going for almost 2,000 years?  The interesting thing is we don’t really need to know Jesus’ date of death or his birth date any more accurately than we already do for proving the years in the third trimester since these years are already assumed to be 2,029 long based on symmetry from the other two trimesters!  But we will examine these topics never the less to see what we might uncover.

 

    Part of the problem finding these important dates has to do with the calendar systems being used at the time (as we have seen earlier) and the assumed or not assumed credibility of historian’s records of these facts. If you have ever read the newspaper or listened to the news then you can get an idea of what I mean. Every incident that I was ever involved with, that was reported in the newspapers or was covered by the TV news, was misrepresented in some aspect of the truth. Let me repeat the word “every”. Not one of those sources ever got the story entirely right. Yet when I read the newspapers and watch news reports, I find myself believing everything they say as entirely true! I have to remind myself repeatedly that there is something wrong with everything they report! I bet the movie and sports stars that are on the media’s radar know exactly what I am talking about. However, most people subconsciously believe what they see or read in the news is one hundred percent reliable. Sadly, the news of today becomes the history of tomorrow and those that write and report it, the historians of yesteryear!

 

    Future historians will use many of those sources as if they were one hundred percent accurate without ever thinking about the reality that there is something wrong with all this information. Josephus is quoted many times by secular scholars to prove the Bible wrong or in error, when in fact these scholars should be doing just the opposite! There is only one source that is reliable and that is the Bible. When there are discrepancies between the Bible and a secular source, it is the worldly resource that should be questioned! We will use the Bible where possible for the third trimester, but as mentioned earlier, those passages are prophetic in nature after the first century A.D. and so secular sources will have to be used as best we can to fill in gaps.

 

    The Bible has a lot to say about the beginning of this period of time and a lot to say about the end of this period of time, with almost nothing to report for the 2,000 years in between (so we won’t need to rely much on secular sources). Therefore, we will concentrate on those areas, which should be enough to prove that the length of the third trimester is identical to the length of time of the other trimesters. This will provide more evidence that God has a plan. Besides, these areas are the most interesting as they deal with Christ’s first and second coming.