He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” (Matt. 16:2-3)

So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. (Matt. 24:15-16)

For then there will be great distress (Great Tribulation), unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. (Matt. 24:21)

When it comes to developing any kind of time line concerning the End Times, the watershed event has to be the Abomination that Causes Desolation. Why? Because from that time forward, the Bible gives a very clear sequence of events.

First, the Abomination is the event that kicks off the Great Tribulation, a period of judgments 3 1/2 years long.(Matt 24:15,21)  After the Great Tribulation, the Lord returns and following His return the Millennium begins. After the Millennium comes Eternity. Any one on Earth during this time will be able to predict these events with reasonable accuracy.

Second, we who study prophecy can also count backward from the Abomination that Causes Desolation and predict the sequence of events leading up to it by applying our knowledge of Scripture.

How Does That Work?
Well, we know that the Abomination involves the anti-Christ standing in the Temple in Israel, proclaiming himself to be God. (Daniel 9:27 and 2 Thes. 2:4)

But that can’t happen until some other things take place first.  Obviously the anti-Christ has to be revealed. And the Jews have to build their Temple.  This is something that can’t happen until they experience a change in attitude causing them to demand a Temple regardless of the consequences. Today less than 1 in 4 citizens of Israel want a Temple built, but even if every one of them did just the hint that they were going to build one would send the rest of the world into a tizzy. It simply wouldn’t be permitted.

Some major event has to take place to convince the Jewish people that building a Temple in Israel is the right thing to do in spite of all the trouble it could cause, and some world leader has to have enough clout to convince the rest of the world, especially the Moslem Middle East, to let them do it.

Daniel 9:27 also reveals that as the End of the Age approaches, a leader from among the people who destroyed the Temple in 67 AD will confirm (enforce) a 7 year covenant with Israel that includes permission to build a new Temple, and that in the middle of this period he will commit the Abomination that Causes Desolation. That explains the persuasive world leader. He’s the anti-Christ, and he wants the Temple built for reasons that have nothing to do with Israel. The unanswered question in Daniel’s prophecy is why the Jews would desire a Temple at that particular time.

Our knowledge of the Old Testament tells us that a Temple was necessary to fulfill the requirements of the Levitical worship system. So then, because of the uproar it would create, it seems logical to assume that the Jews would only want a Temple if they felt it was absolutely necessary for the Nation of Israel to re-instate their Old Covenant worship of God.

How Does That Happen?
Toward the end of his two-chapter prophecy that speaks of a great end times battle between Israel and its neighbors (Ezek. 38-39), Ezekiel noted that God is going to use this battle to reveal Himself to Israel and the world once again. The way He’ll do this is to give Israel a decisive victory in the face of such overwhelming odds that everyone on Earth will realize that only God could have done it. Ezekiel wrote that following the battle God would gather all His people alive at the time to Israel, not leaving any behind. (Ezek. 39:28)

So this battle is the event that compels a national return to God in Israel. And when all the living Jews in the world are suddenly drawn to Israel because God has called them there, they’ll demand a Temple so they can resume their Old Covenant relationship with Him. If He was calling them through the Messiah into a New Covenant relationship they wouldn’t need a Temple, so it has to be a resumption of the Old Covenant. Their New Covenant call, prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31, happens later during the time of the Two Witnesses (Rev 11) and they’ll respond to it toward the end of the Great Tribulation, according to Zechariah 12:10.

Also on the heels of Ezekiel’s battle, the anti-Christ will emerge with a plan to restore peace to the Middle East. He first appears as a peacemaker as foretold in Daniel 8:25. He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power. I prefer the King James translation of the second sentence, which begins, “By means of peace he will destroy many …”. So the battle of Ezekiel 38-39 creates the circumstances for both the anti-Christ and the Temple to appear on the scene, setting the stage for the Abomination that Causes Desolation.

Connecting The Dots
Using our Bible knowledge to back into the present from the Abomination that Causes Desolation, so far we find the sequence looks like this.

The Abomination can’t happen till the Temple’s built. But that can’t happen till a 7-year covenant is confirmed permitting its construction. (By the way, this 7-year period is often called Daniel’s 70th week because it’s the last week of years in a prophecy consisting of 70 weeks of years given to Daniel in about 538 BC.Dan. 9:24-27)

The 7-year covenant can’t happen till someone from among the descendants of the Roman people emerges with a plan for peace in the Middle East. And that can’t happen till the battle described in Ezekiel 38-39 puts the Middle East in all out war.

Ezekiel’s battle can’t happen until God is ready to reveal Himself to Israel again, bringing Jews from all over the world to Israel clamoring for a Temple so they can re-instate their Old Covenant relationship with Him.

For all of my 25 plus years as a student of prophecy, scholars have been expecting the Battle of Ezekiel 38.  Yet the conditions that make it possible have never been met.  For one thing, the participants are not all in place, but more importantly Israel has never known a single day of peace, let alone the prolonged period necessary for them to be described as a peaceful and unsuspecting people, the way Ezekiel did (Ezek. 38:11).  Something has to happen to make them feel like they no longer have a threatening enemy while leaving Iran, Russia, and the other nations Ezekiel identified in position to attack.

Recently, several writers, myself included, have seen two other Old Testament prophecies as likely preludes to Ezekiel 38.  In Psalm 83 it appears that all of Israel’s next door neighbors will rise up in an attack intended to destroy the Jewish nation, and Isaiah 17 specifically mentions Israel’s destruction of Damascus.  The defeat of Israel’s neighbors fills in two more blanks in the end times sequence.  First, it explains why none of them are mentioned in Ezekiel 38, when logic dictates that they should be right in the thick of things.  Second, it reveals how the Jews can be caught with their guard down.  With Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, Lebanon, and the others defeated, Israel will finally have some breathing room. Since Russia and Iran have traditionally used these neighbors as proxies rather than having a face-to-face confrontation, Israel may feel there’s no longer any threat from them either.

But Wait, There’s More!
And neither God’s revelation to Israel nor the emergence of the anti-Christ can happen until the Church is gone, for two very good reasons.

1. In Acts 15:14 James clearly prophesied that after the Lord had taken the church He would return and rebuild the Temple. Simon has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written: “After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it” (Acts 15:14-16).

After the Lord has taken the Church, He’ll return and rebuild the Temple. Two Greek words are critical to our understanding of this passage. The one translated tent also means Tabernacle, a reference to the Temple. The one translated taking means to lay hold of, or take up in order to carry, or carry away. I believe it’s a veiled reference to the Rapture of the Church preceding God’s return to Israel.

If so, it’s consistent with God’s way. He seems to focus either on Israel or the Church, never both at once. In the greater context of the passage James was illustrating this very point from the other end of the Church Age. He told the gathered Apostles that God was setting Israel aside while He took from among the Gentiles a people for Himself. But after He had taken them, He would return to restore Israel.

Later, Paul alluded to this sequence in Romans 11:25-27. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israelhas experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”

As I’ve pointed out before, in Paul’s day the phrase full number was a nautical term that stood for the number of crewmen necessary before a ship could legally set sail.  Apparently God has assigned a specific number to the church before it can be raptured.  When that number is complete, the Church will “come in” to the place prepared for us.  Come in was another nautical term meaning “to arrive at the intended destination”, which Jesus described as His father’s house in John 14:1-3. Then God will turn again to Israel, reversing the hardening of Israel’s heart, taking the blinders from their eyes, and offering salvation once more.

2. In 2nd Thessalonians 2:6-7 Paul explained that the anti-Christ could not be revealed until the power that’s restraining him is taken out of the way (literally out of the midst). To most evangelical scholars the power Paul wrote about is the Holy Spirit as resident in the Church.  Since this power is sealed within us (Ephe 1:13) it stands to reason that if the Holy Spirit is taken we have to go too. Here’s another hint of the Rapture of the Church, this time preceding the appearance of the anti-Christ.

So if the Rapture has to precede both the revelation of God to Israel and the revelation of the anti-Christ to the world, then the Rapture has to precede the battle of Ezekiel 38 as well.  Since no one knows what the full number of the Church is, no one can know in advance exactly how long before Ezekiel 38 the Rapture will take place. It could literally happen any day, and there’s no day more likely than any other.  For that reason we can’t locate it any more specifically in the End Times sequence than to say that it must precede Ezekiel 38.

But apart from that, the sequence of events will go like this. The Battle of Psalm 83/Isaiah 17, the Battle of Ezekiel 38, anti-Christ’s appearance as a peace maker, the 70th week of Daniel begins, the Abomination that Causes Desolation takes place, then the Great Tribulation, the Second Coming, the Millennium, and Eternity. The first of these could be very close. So close that you can almost hear the footsteps of the Messiah.

From the email I’ve received this week, it’s obvious that healing is a Biblical subject of  singular importance and diverse understanding. It’s clear to me that many have formed their opinions from either hearsay or personal observation rather than God’s word.

After years and years of studying what the Bible says about healing it seems to me that while Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8) and while He said that anyone with faith would do the things He did (John 14:12) the results we’re experiencing in the Western Church today are far different than those described in the Bible.  A logical mind can only conclude that something has changed and since it’s not Him, that leaves only us.

To prove my point, count the number of times when you’ve personally witnessed someone being healed.  Not heard about, but personally witnessed.  If you’re like most people you won’t know of very many, maybe not any.  Somewhere along the way there’s been a disconnect, and while I work to find it I am trying to sound the alarm, hoping others will join me in the search.

I lack the resources to examine them personally, but I’ve received first hand reports from people I trust indicating that in some parts of the world, faith healing and other miraculous works are much more prevalent than in the West. So far I’ve received credible reports from China, India, Africa and Iraq. I view this as confirmation that it has to be us.

Got Faith?
Those of you who’ve reminded me of the famous people we all think should have been healed but weren’t, please remember this.  We can only estimate how much faith we have by comparing ourselves with our contemporaries.  We have no idea where we fall on God’s scale.  Could we be favorably compared with those who came before us?  We have no way of knowing.  Many of us think we have great faith, but do you think anything you’ve ever done in faith would qualify you for inclusion in Hebrews 11? Do you know anybody alive today whose faith could?

Elijah challenged the 400 priests of Baal to a public test of faith before a crowd of thousands.  As an old man Daniel faced the lions all night long as they got hungrier by the minute.  According to tradition John preached the Gospel while being lowered into a cauldron of boiling oil, and then kept on preaching while it bubbled away around him.  Paul walked into city after city knowing that he would  likely be beaten severely enough to require supernatural healing before he left.  Could even our most successful “men of God” pull off anything like that today?  Name the mega pastor, Christian author, or televangelist whose work would qualify them. Now think of the growing number of pastors who won’t give an altar call to their own congregation for fear of offending someone!  How the mighty have fallen.

Do you suppose Jesus was looking at mankind’s steadily weakening faith between His day and ours when He asked, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8)  In the margin of my Bible, I wrote, “Not much.”  Faith grows from a day by day dependence on God to fulfill his promises to us.  We’ve had things so good for so long that we haven’t needed even a faith the size of a mustard seed to prosper.

Here’s How It All Began
When preparing the Children of Israel for entry into the promised land, God had Moses tell them these things.

He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your forefathers to give you.  You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young.  The LORD will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. (Deut. 7:13-15)

It’s our nature to look to God when we have nothing and are struggling, and He blesses us in return. When I first became a believer, I concluded that one of the most popular products my company sold was not pleasing to God so I stopped selling it.  Finding a way to make up for this huge loss in revenue was stressful, so I began getting up early in the morning to pray for guidance and give thanks for the blessings I’d received.  Each morning I spent an hour on my knees in the living room before anyone else got up. The Lord blessed me through that time and brought me Christian clients with needs I could meet in a way that pleased Him. The lost revenue was more than replaced.

Remember Who Got You Where You Are
Someone wrote that religion gives birth to prosperity and the daughter consumes the mother. I believe he meant that God has always promised abundance to those who follow Him, but eventually man will make prosperity his religion and abandon God. Here’s how God warned His people against this.

Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.  Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down,  and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied,  then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God. (Deut. 8:11-14)

You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. (Deut. 8:17-18)

As the blessings multiply and we become more secure it usually becomes harder to take the time to pray.  We begin to feel that we no longer need to spend valuable time asking the Lord for direction.  Also our confidence grows and we begin to believe our success is self generated. That means we don’t spend as much time giving thanks.  As I got busier and began traveling more, it was harder to devote that hour each day so I began trying to do two things at once, praying while I exercised or while I drove to work. It wasn’t the same, and I saw how easy it would be to justify stopping altogether. I was saved by a series of contracts the Lord sent me that gave me an uninterrupted hour each day on flights to various cities in the Western US.  In a 10 year period I logged nearly 2 million miles into my frequent flier account, almost all of them on flights 60-90 minutes long. I often wonder how different things would have been had I simply convinced myself that I was too busy to pray any more, or that my success was due to my own talent and skill so I no longer needed to thank the Lord or seek His direction.

It Doesn’t Take Much
The generation of Israelites who came into the promised land experienced some of the most faith building miracles of all time.  But in Judges 2:10 we read this incredible statement.

After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.

Within a span of one generation the people had forgotten the Lord and what He had done for them. The Book of Judges records one of the lowest points in their history. They showed that it doesn’t take much to destroy the faith of a nation. Just one generation of neglecting the Word of God.

And in His letter to the Church at Ephesus (Rev. 2:1-7) the Lord commended the believers there for remaining true to His word.  But He also criticized them, saying they had forgotten their first love.  They had become so busy in service to the King that they had forgotten the King!

“Remember the height from which you’ve fallen,” He said. (Rev. 2:5) He didn’t need their acts of service, and He really missed their company. They were only one generation from the cross.  They went to church every week and spent time doing good works on His behalf.  Yet they had forgotten Him.

With individuals it happens even faster.  Stop praying for a day or two and you’ll miss it.  Stop for a month and you’ll forget it. Oh, you’re still going to Church and may even be involved in a project or two, or serve on a committee or board. Maybe you go around looking for people to minister to and pray for.  You may even refer to yourself as a follower of Jesus, not just a believer.

Sometimes we call this “maturing in the faith” meaning we’re not so dependent any more.  We don’t need direction. We know what to do and we’re doing it.  We forget that Jesus said we’re to become like little children. Little children are naive, trusting, and dependent. The most powerful believers among us stay that way.  They never mature.  They never get to the point where they don’t ask for His guidance or feel the need to express their gratitude.  They never substitute works for faith, or become so busy in service to the King that they forget the King.

We Need More Exercise
In all likelihood we’re entering a time when the world as we’ve known it will be no more, perhaps forever.  Our security will be shaken, our freedoms will be restricted, and our faith will be tested.  Some of us will find ourselves back at square one after it’s too late to start over. Now’s the time to  begin exercising our faith.

The faith to be saved was a gift from God (Ephes. 2:8) and keeping you saved is His job (2 Cor. 1:21-22). But you can exercise your faith to make it stronger by reading your Bible daily (Romans 10:17) and talking with the Lord about what you’ve read, asking for guidance in how to apply it.  Faith only gets stronger when it’s accompanied by action (James 2:17).  After praying for direction, do something you’re not sure you can do, trusting that God will give you the ability as you need it.  You can begin with something as little as talking about the Lord with someone, helping out in a food kitchen or rescue mission, or visiting a sick person.  He’ll point you to bigger things from there. Each time you take a step of faith, your faith will grow to prepare you for the next step.  Above all, pray about everything, be fearful of nothing, and give thanks for anything.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  (Phil. 4:7) You can do this.