End Times in Chronological Order - Harvest House

1 End Times in Chronological 15/3/12 3:18 PMCopyrighted material Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Ver-sion, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permis-sion. All rights marked niv are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved marked nasb are taken from the New American Standard Bible , 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. ( )Verses marked nkjv are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nel-son, Inc. Used by permission. All rights emphasis in Scripture quotations is added by the photo Fotolia/sdecoretCover by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, MinnesotaTHE END Times IN Chronological Order Copyright 2012 by Ron Rhodes Published by Harvest House Publishers Eugene, Oregon 97402 of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataRhodes, Ron.

2 The end Times in Chronological Order / Ron Rhodes. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 978-0-7369-3778-8 (pbk.) ISBN 978-0-7369-4263-8 (eBook) 1. Bible Prophecies End of the world. 2. End of the world Biblical teaching. 3. Bible Prophecies Chronology. I. Title. 2012 236'.9 dc23 2011042310 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the in the United States of America12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 / LB - SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 End Times in Chronological 25/3/12 3:18 PMCopyrighted material Contents Preface.

3 7 1. Introduction to Biblical Prophecy .. 9 2. Prior to the Tribulation .. 23 3. The Rapture .. 41 4. The Results of the Rapture .. 55 5. The Church with Christ in Heaven .. 67 6. The Invasion of Israel .. 73 7. The Beginning of the Tribulation: The Emergence of the Antichrist .. 87 8. The Beginning of the Tribulation: The Temple and Signs of the End .. 95 9. The First Half of the Tribulation: The Lamb and His Witnesses .. 109 10. The First Half of the Tribulation: Judgments, Martyrdom, and Apostasy .. 117 11. The Midpoint of the Tribulation .. 127 12. The Second Half of the Tribulation .. 149 13. The End of the Tribulation .. 163 14. After the Tribulation, Before the Millennial Kingdom .. 177 15. During the Millennial Kingdom .. 187 16. After the Millennial Kingdom.

4 205 17. The Eternal State .. 215 Bibliography .. 229 Notes .. 233 End Times in Chronological 55/3/12 3:18 PMCopyrighted material 91 Introduction to Biblical ProphecyIN THIS CHAPTERYou Can Trust Prophetic 9A Literal Approach Is Best .. 12 You Can Understand Prophetic 17 You Can Trust Prophetic ScriptureWe are living in strange Times . One very popular and influential author an Emergent christian says we cannot be certain about anything, including such biblical doctrines as prophecy. We should therefore dismiss any concern for such things as evidence, proof, debate, and arguing for one position over another. All is ambiguous, we are told. As I read this author s book, it struck me that one paragraph after another was brimming with self-defeating arguments. For example, he seemed completely certain that he was correct about his position that we cannot be certain about anything.

5 He also asserted that there are no good reasons for what we believe and then provided what he considered to be good reasons for holding that there are no good reasons for what we believe. This kind of sloppy thinking is a reflection of our current culture. End Times in Chronological 95/3/12 3:18 PMCopyrighted material The End Times in Chronological Order10A Certain and Trustworthy RevelationIn the Scriptures, God has provided everything He wants us to know about Him and how we can have a relationship with Him. God is the one who caused the Bible to be written. Through it He speaks to us today just as He spoke to people in ancient Times when its words were first given. We are to receive the Bible as God s words to us and revere and obey them as such. As we submit to the Bible s authority, we place ourselves under the authority of the living Bible is not merely a human product it is God-inspired.

6 Inspiration does not mean simply that the biblical writer felt enthusias-tic, like the composer of the Star Spangled Banner. The biblical Greek word for inspiration literally means God-breathed. Because Scripture is breathed out by God because it originates from Him it is true. Biblical inspiration may be defined as God s superintending of the human authors so that, using their own individual personalities and even their writing styles, they composed and recorded without error His revelation to humankind in the words of the original manuscripts. In other words, the original documents of the Bible were written by men who were permitted to exercise their own personalities and liter-ary talents but who wrote under the control and guidance of the Holy Spirit, the result being a perfect and errorless recording of the exact message God desired to give to humankind.

7 Both the Old and New Testaments repeatedly claim to be of divine origin. In Zechariah 7:12, for example, the prophet refers to the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. This is a claim that the writings ( words ) of Moses and the Old Testament prophets were of divine origin. Likewise, in 2 Samuel 23:2, David wrote, The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; his word is on my tongue. Both the divine origin and the human instrument of Scripture are mentioned here. The writings came from God but were mediated through a prophet of apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 likewise affirms that Scrip-ture comes from God: All Scripture is breathed out by God and End Times in Chronological 105/3/12 3:18 PMCopyrighted material Introduction to Biblical Prophecy11profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

8 Several things are important in this text. First, Paul refers to all Scripture (the entire Old Testament), which Timothy learned from his Jewish parentage (verse 15). Second, the actual writ-ten text has divine authority the Scripture (Greek: grapha). Third, these writings were inspired, or more literally, God-breathed. Finally, they have divine authority for faith and practice. Because they are the Word of God, they are authoritative for the people of Peter 1:21 provides a key insight regarding the human divine interchange in the process of inspiration. This verse informs us that no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The Greek word translated carried along literally means forcefully borne along. Even though human beings were used in the process of writing down God s prophecies, these men were all literally borne along by the Holy Spirit.

9 The human wills of the authors were not the originators of God s message. God did not permit the will of sinful human beings to misdirect or erroneously record His message. Put another way, God moved, and the prophet mouthed these revealed truths. God revealed and man recorded His Word to Interestingly, the Greek word translated carried along in 2 Peter 1:21 is also found in Acts 27:15-17. In this passage the experienced sailors could not navigate the ship because the wind was so strong. The ship was being driven, directed, and carried along by the wind. This is similar to the Spirit s driving, directing, and carrying the human authors of the Bible as He wished. The word is a strong one, indicating the Spirit s complete superintendence of the human authors. Yet just as the sailors were active on the ship (though the wind, not the sailors, ultimately controlled the ship s movement), so the human authors were active in writing as the Spirit directed.

10 This assures us that the prophetic Scriptures truly did derive from God and not mere human Times in Chronological 115/3/12 3:18 PMCopyrighted material The End Times in Chronological Order12 Jesus Confirms the Divine Authority of ScriptureChrist Himself indicated we can fully trust the prophetic Scriptures. His view of Scripture can be stated briefly in six statements: 1. Scripture is divinely authoritative. Jesus Himself declared to Satan, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). 2. Scripture is imperishable. Jesus declared, Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abol-ish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished (Matthew 5:17-18).