EIGHT COMPELLING REASONS WHY: CHRIST IS (NOT) COMING “VERY VERY SOON” #4
I am revisiting an article written some years ago entitled, “Eight Reasons Why the Coming of Christ is Coming Very, Very Soon!” The article proposed to give “compelling” evidence to prove that Christ’s parousia (Second Coming) was, when written, very, very near. Keep in mind that this article was carried in major newspapers in the late 1990s. Be sure to read our first article in our renewed look at the prediction. As you read the article remind yourself of the world wide “excitement” about all the predictions that the rapture was, “without doubt” going to happen in September 2025.... or so we were told! One “prophecy expert” after another, one YT blogger after another, told of their dreams or “revelations” assuring us it was going to happen! One so-called “prophet” claimed that Jesus had appeared to him personally, assuring him of that the rapture was to be in September 2025. Needless to say, all of these so-called prophecies failed giving rise to ridicule from an unbelieving public.
The article being reviewed claims that one of the proofs that Christ’s coming is at hand is because of the current, “Explosion of travel and education.” An appeal is made to the Living Bible translation of Daniel 12:4, “travel and education shall be vastly increased.” It is lamentable that the current ability to travel so freely is offered as proof of the end of the world! I am sure all of the travel agents will be glad to know they are a sign of the end! Maybe we have a new candidate for the mark of the beast! (That’s a joke!)
It needs to be understood that the Living Bible is not a true translation, it is more of a commentary than anything else. As far as being reliable and true to the original text it leaves more than a little to be desired. Thus, to try to prove that the end is at hand based on a highly suspect “translation” is dubious at very best. I have examined all of the translations in my library, and have not been able to find one that agrees with the Living Bible rendition. The LXX (The Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrews Old Covenant scriptures. This is the version that Jesus quoted from very often) renders the verse, “until many are taught, and knowledge is increased,” not a word about the so-called explosion of travel!
In Matthew 24 Jesus alludes to Daniel 12 no less than three times. He predicted the time of the end (Daniel 12:4, 9/ Matthew 24:2-3, 14). He alludes to the unparalleled time of tribulation (Daniel 12:1/ Matthew 24:21). He speaks of the Abomination of Desolation (Daniel 12:11/ Matthew 24:15. There is no doubt therefore, that in Matthew 24, Jesus was drawing on Daniel’s prediction. And significantly, Jesus said all of these things would be fulfilled in His generation (Matthew 24:34)– not 2000 years later.
The author of the article also failed to notice that Daniel was told when his prediction would be fulfilled, and it was not to be in the twentieth century! In Daniel 12:6-7 Daniel records the following words,
One (angel, DKP) said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, ‘How long shall the fulfillment of these wonders be?’ (These wonders include the time of the end in verse 4, DKP) Then I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever, that it shall be for a time, times, and half a time; and when the power of the holy people has been completely shattered, all these things shall be finished.
The holy people was the nation of Israel. Daniel was told that the time of the end, when “many shall run to and fro” would be when Israel was completely shattered! There is only one time in history that qualifies as the time of the fulfillment of this prophecy.
Daniel was written after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B. C.. Yet he foresaw a time when Israel would be completely decimated. That can only be the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Some commentators claim that Daniel was written in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, and was written ex eventu (after the fact, but written as if it were a prophecy) this simply will not work. They claim that Daniel 12:7 spoke of the capture of Jerusalem at that time (second century B. C.). Consider the following.
Josephus, first century Jewish historian and eyewitness of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, chronicled the history of the city. Here is what he said about the events of AD 70:
And thus was Jerusalem taken, in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, on the eighth day of the month Gorpeius . It had been taken five times before, though this was the second time of its desolation; for Shishak, the king of Egypt, and after him Antiochus, and after him Pompey, and after them Sosius and Herod, took the city, but still preserved it; but before all these, the king of Babylon conquered it, and made it desolate, one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight years and six months after it was built. But he who first built it. Was a potent man among the Canaanites, and is in our own tongue called , the Righteous King, for such he really was; on which account he was the first priest of God, and first built a temple , and called the city Jerusalem, which was formerly called Salem. However, David, the king of the Jews, ejected the Canaanites, and settled his own people therein. It was demolished entirely by the Babylonians, four hundred and seventy-seven years and six months after him. And from king David, who was the first of the Jews who reigned therein, to this destruction under Titus, were one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine years; but from its first building, till this last destruction, were two thousand one hundred and seventy-seven years; yet hath not its great antiquity, nor its vast riches, nor the diffusion of its nation over all the habitable earth, nor the greatness of the veneration paid to it on a religious account, been sufficient to preserve it from being destroyed. And thus ended the siege of Jerusalem.”
So, while Daniel foretold the total destruction of Israel / Jerusalem, according to Josephus, the time of Antiochus did not fit that description.
Daniel– and Josephus - agrees perfectly with Matthew 24. Jesus said of Jerusalem’s fate, “The time is coming in which not one stone shall be left standing on top of another” (Matthew 24:2). That sounds like a complete destruction, does it not?
Daniel and Jesus agree. The time of the end was to arrive with the fall of Jerusalem, and that happened in A.D. 70. To apply Daniel 12 to any other event yet future is a denial of what he and Jesus said. All the travel agents can rest easy!
So, Jesus and Daniel told us when Daniel’s prophecy of the increase of knowledge would take place. It would be in the first century. What then, did the “increase in knowledge” refer to, if it did not, as so many claim, refer to the advent of computers and AI?
Keep in mind that with the writing of the book of Malachi, it was widely believed among the ancients Jewish commentators that the Holy Spirit had abandoned Israel. From Malachi until John the Baptizer there was no prophet! The voice of the prophets fell silent. (Be sure to read my series on The Significance of the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit on this site. Here is a link to #1) But Joel and Isaiah foretold that the Spirit would be poured out in the last days before the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord (Joel 2:28-32).
What this means is that the “increase of knowledge” promised by Daniel was reference to the return of the prophetic office of the Spirit! And without doubt, that did happen in the first century. This means that the appointed time of the end foretold by Daniel was in the first century, falsifying the claims of the modern would be prophets who assured us, over and over and over again, that the end is near in our day and in our generation. They are simply wrong.
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