In these days there seems to be rising a disturbing trend in the study of the Bible.

For the record – Gematria only works with the Torah.  It does not work for the 66 books of the Bible nor anyplace else.  It has other applications, but pure numerical study is contained within the Torah alone.  Attempts to delve beyond these constraints fall into Kabbalah, numerology, mysticism and occultism.    More on this in a bit.

Any attempts to mathematically calculate exact prophecy dates in the Bible are errant at best – and outright deception at worst.  The study of numbers in the Bible exists for confirmation purposes only.  It is NOT a predictive tool under any circumstances! 

 Theomatics or any other “code” revelation that runs contrary to the plain text of the scripture must be avoided.  I have watched such practices literally deceive people into accepting and believing things which – by common sense – cannot be true.  I have seen the utter destructiveness as these teachings rip people apart on the inside as they fail to ascertain the truth apparent to their own eyes.  I have seen people run from God as they believe they have been abandoned by him for their failures.

No matter which way you attempt to lay out the Book of Revelation the same conclusion still holds true – we are not in the tribulation – as of February 2014 (update – not in the tribulation as of December 2015).  We are close, but we are not there.  Consider the actual judgments listed in Revelation.  For instance, the fourth rider in Revelation 6 brings the extermination of one quarter of the world’s population.  That would be the death of nearly two billion souls with the efforts of one rider.  There is no figurative interpretation possible as the given judgment is very specific in its destructive description.

Consider the plagues that bring bitter waters and death to one third of all sea life.  Whether or not you ascribe this to the entire world as the Bible states, or you chalk it up to the known word at the time of John it will make no difference.  One third of the sea life in either circumstance brings you to the same place – hundreds of millions of dead and floating carcasses in every body of water effected.  That is multiplied millions of dead fish, crabs, lobsters, sharks, whales and everything else that comes with the waters.

Also, remember that with either premise – a seven year tribulation or a three and a half year tribulation – you still end up at the same place.  These judgments are not allegorical for man made events that occur over many years.  You have two choices – seven years or three and one half years.

Now, I am a proponent of seven years for two simple reasons.  First, the Bible lays out the agenda and actions of the Antichrist before the Abomination of Desolation.  Many people fail to realize this.  In the Book of Daniel we actually see the actions of the Antichrist before be marches on Jerusalem and the Temple.  There is a tremendous amount of detail given in Daniel 8:23-27, 9:21-31 (9:32-45 details events from the Abomination of Desolation forward) concerning the efforts of the Antichrist to secure power.

Secondly, the Book of Revelation actually provides timing indicators that show the two witnesses are ascribed to the first 42 months and that they are responsible for rebuilding the Temple.  When you look at the chronological markers (the three woes, the seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, etc.) you can literally build the seven year timeline with no re-interpreting, no allegorical references or hidden “mystical” clues.  Literally, the first woe comes before the second, the second woe comes before the third – and so on.  These chronological markers also allow you to distinguish between the outlining of events and the chapters that explain what has just occurred.  We detail some of these timing markers in the page on proof of the seven year tribulation.

Here is the link to “Biblical Proof of a Seven Year Tribulation”:

http://tribulationrisingcom.fatcow.com/addendum-2-proof-of-a-seven-year-tribulation/

Mystery Babylon is one such example.  In Revelation chapter 17 and 18 we see the description of what happens to Mystery Babylon.  In chapter 17 we see the judgment against the apostate Roman system that effectively sells out what remains of Christian Europe to the rising tide of a Babylonian Islamic empire.  In chapter 18 we see the judgment against the capital of the Islamic empire fall on one day through an act of massive and total judgment.  We see that this occurs, however, after the Antichrist has already invaded Jerusalem and captured the Temple.  Now, many people see these verses and simply assume that this is the chronological fulfillment of these scriptures.  However, with careful reading comprehension we can determine that chapters 17 and 18 are the explanations of events that began back in chapter 14, and runs through the second 42 months of the tribulation.

Revelation 14:8 – And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

There are multiple examples of this type of chronology in the Book of Revelation.  Many times these markers – or key lock verses as I call them – are missed simply because we read right over them.  Not only do these key lock verses exist in Revelation, but they also exist in the other prophetic books of the Bible – Old and New Testament.  They are the key to proper placement of the different verses of prophecy in scripture.

Now, a word of warning; anytime somebody wants you to discard the given, plain or obvious meaning of the scripture it is a red flag.  Here are a few more things to watch for:

Anybody that does not rely on God to open the eyes of the person they are trying to “teach”.  Anytime there seems to be a heavy emphasis on the teacher instead of God it is a red flag.

Is the teacher able to “teach” you where you are (again, trusting that God can open the eyes and ears of anybody He so chooses), or do they insist that the only way to “open your eyes” is to effectively isolate you from others.  Again, God gives a voice to those He calls to teach.  A teacher that cannot reach his students at their level is a teacher that has the wrong message.  If the Lord will not give them a voice then there is a reason.  Remember also this – God is capable of giving the exact words that each of us must hear to know the truth.  If you are struggling to understand then prayer is in order.  The righteous teacher knows that it is not by their hands that learning is accomplished – it is by the Lord’s hand.

If it seems as though there is too little emphasis on prayer and a bit too much emphasis on the teacher then you have a red flag.

Does the teacher offer something that will show the “perfection” of God even beyond what God is doing himself?  I worked with a gentleman once that was Hindu.  After one particular conversation where he effectively acknowledged all that I said, yet he offered one “nugget” concerning his beliefs:

“If I can show you something that can help you get closer to God then why wouldn’t you be interested?”

Remember this – the Lord Jesus Christ already offers a personal relationship where he will provide all the answers you could ever hope for.  He already listens to you personally and will literally answer your prayers.  I’m not sure what Dave thought he could offer as you can’t get much closer to God than a personal relationship where you talk to Him directly.

Beware of “enlightened” questions that are designed to show the wisdom of the teacher, yet unknowable to the student.  Remember, any answers the teacher provides MUST be scripturally founded.

Never forget this – when the Lord provides a revelation to a believer He ALWAYS confirms it with scripture.  The Lord may take you to the scripture the next time you study, or move you to turn on the TV and flip to the local Christian station – or even cover it in church on next Sunday – all completely by surprise to you.  Two things are assured when this happens – you will know the Lord has provided proof and that it was done in such a way that there can be no mistake that it was God.

Also, when the Lord provides prophetic revelation he will always provide the scriptural basis for the revelation.  Stated differently, the “new” idea floating around in your head can ALWAYS be found somewhere in the scripture.  Everything that occurs in the New Testament can be found in the Old Testament.

If the teacher that is trying to sell you on their “revelation” cannot provide clear scriptural evidence then they are a false teacher by the definition of the Bible.  If a teacher ever attempts to convince you that you must “forget” something you learned to grasp their “concept” then it is a red flag as well.  No revelation from God EVER requires you to forget or put down the plain meaning of the text.  Also, revelations from God will never contradict the rest of the Bible.

Remember this – everything in the Bible meets the litmus test of common sense.  If a teacher attempts to teach you something that runs contrary to what you can plainly see then you have a red flag.  The example of the tribulation applies here.  When you read through the scripture you can see that we are not in the tribulation.  Common sense dictates that in no manner have we seen the devastation caused by any of the judgments.  There is no allegory that can replace one third of the sun being darkened, the people of the earth collectively hiding in underground shelters during an earthquake that moves every island and mountain upon the earth or two billion people dying from famine, bad food and beheading.

Now, I mentioned something at the start of this article.  Why Gematria can work in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) is that unlike the rest of the Bible the Torah was directly dictated by God to Moses.  What that means is this – God literally spoke to Moses and said “write this down”.  Every letter, every character – every word is specifically placed.  The Rabbis are so careful of this that should even one mark be out of place when a new Torah scroll is written it will void that entire section of the scroll – which must be rewritten to insure perfection and thus, the integrity of the scroll.

The rest of the Bible was inspired of God, given to the men that wrote it – but done so according to their common understanding.  When Daniel looked upon the visions God gave him he was to record the words and scenes, yet he was permitted to do so in his understanding.

This is why Gematria can work and other attempts at “Bible codes” do not.  Now, there is a Bible code that was found in the 1990’s that holds promise (shown in the famous book of the same name “The Bible Code”), but even this was researched under the efforts of Rabbis that were highly educated in the Torah, the Talmud and Gematria.  Only time will tell on this.  It could prove to be just as false as every other attempt at mathematical calculation.  For the record, I once again state:

Any attempts to mathematically calculate exact prophecy dates in the Bible are errant at best – and outright deception at worst.  The study of numbers in the Bible exists for confirmation purposes only.  It is NOT a predictive tool under any circumstances! 

Understand, that as someone with a background in mathematics and engineering, I am aware more than most at the perfection of God present in mathematics.  However, as it is with anything else of the Lord – Satan always seeks to counterfeit.  I spend a great deal of time in this project detailing how the Lord reveals His truth through mathematics and numbers.  Yet, His efforts never contradict His word.  No man knows the day, nor hour means exactly that.

Other efforts such as Theomatics are blatantly false doctrines which rely on the adherent to discard obvious reality in favor of justifying their “findings” as they work their codes.  Such systems of occultism can be recognized by their reliance on finding “perfect numbers of God” such as 111, 222, 333, 444, 555, etc. through various forms of division and other mathematical formulas.  For the record, such systems will go by different names, but they are forms of numerology and mathematical divination.  In some forms they border on outright witchcraft.

Many practitioners of such occultism will claim to use their “science” to predict the future – going so far as to provide evidence of correct predictions that they have made.  Of course, all such proof is always provided after the fact – including the prediction itself.  There are a few such practitioners that do publish vague predictions on the internet before the fact.  Yet, their “work” is no more specific than a carnival psychic that plays a fool a minute.  You can find greater accuracy in predictions from the common fortune cookie.

The practitioners of such systems and doctrines are very secretive as well.  Most teaching occurs away from normal modes of communications.  There is always a tease and an agreement with what you hold – they simply want to take you just “a bit further”.

If a teacher will not tell you what they believe outright and upfront – then they are false.  If a teacher must hide what they are pushing behind similar assumptions, then they are false.  I see this all the time.  The false teacher wants you to assume that they are in agreement with you.  They will hide their true intentions behind pieces of the truth.

Also, if you have to dig out the position they hold, then they are a false teacher.  I see this all the time as well.  False teacher will present mountains of “facts”, yet what they believe is not readily apparent.  If you have to search through endless words and “studies” just to find what the teacher truly believes – that teacher is false.

A mountain of facts is only useful if you know from the outset what is being defended.  If the teacher truly believes what they are teaching is truth, they will have no fear in coming out from the beginning and declaring it.

On a side note – All timing “equations” given in the Bible are for confirmation after the fact – not for predicting the future.  We are to watch the signs of the times and to know the seasons.  We can even know that the coming of the Lord is “at the door”.  We can look to the Bible for the giving of days that we may know that the soon return of the Lord is, well – soon.  We can look to upcoming events and signs in the stars and know that they are the best possibility to match prophecy.

Remember this as well – such confirmations will be word for word from the Bible.  A day is a day, especially in the case of those that attempt to turn the 1,260 days, 1,290 days, 1,335 days – or any other “days” into years.  This becomes a real problem, as many false doctrines seek to turn the days given in Daniel into years to justify how “almost” fulfillments throughout history are the literal fulfillments of future events in the Bible.  When Daniel says “days”. as he does in the example of 1,290 day – it is the Hebrew word “yom”.  There is only one meaning for this word – a period known as a day, consisting of 24 hours.  It cannot be years.

Another example is the countless attempts to declare Barack Obama as the Antichrist based on a visit to the Temple Mount.  There is a reason why the actual Third Temple is the understood and accepted site of the coming Abomination of Desolation.  A full study reveals literal language that can describe only a literal Temple.

The Abomination has not occurred.  It was not fulfilled on March 22, 2013.  If you have somebody trying to sell you on this idea, ask yourself this:

Do we have the mark of the beast yet?

Has the False Prophet instituted an image that require the entire planet to worship Obama or die?

Is every last financial transaction yet tied to this mandatory, forced worship of Barack Obama?

Now, this does not mean that Barack Obama cannot fulfill an even darker destiny.  Just as many now see the current Pope as the most likely candidate for the False Prophet.  It simply means that if Barack Obama makes the deal that Jesus refused, his time as the Antichrist has not yet come.  If he has made the deal then that time will come, and fairly soon judging from all of the things we now see coming to pass.

With all of this said, we can even know that the events of the end times must chronologically fulfill the feast days and know which feast days are the best match.  We cannot, however, know which Feast of Trumpets will see the return of the Lord for the church.  Even when a particular feast day becomes the strongest possible candidate we still cannot know the day nor hour due to reasons covered in this article.  We can strongly suspect – we simply cannot know.

This is further complicated by the fact that another feast day can be a strong second possibility thereby giving a second set of date possibilities.  Even if the possibility is a distant possibility it must still be taken into consideration.

So that there is no misunderstanding – there are many scholars that see the patterns of the Lord throughout the Bible.  They study these patterns to understand prophecy on a greater level.  You can know the intentions of God on a deeper level when you know his patterns:

Malachi 3:6 – For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 – The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

These patterns can even enhance your understanding of Biblical prophecy and the times of the end.

They cannot, however, give you the keys to predicting the exact date on the calendar for which something will occur until AFTER the rapture and the signing of the seven year treaty with Israel.  After that we will know exact dates as they are clearly given in the Bible.  As we mentioned earlier, we can know that the Feast of Trumpets is fulfilled with the rapture.  We can even suspect that a particular Feast of Trumpets is the best likely candidate.  We simply cannot know for sure until after the rapture has occurred.  Even the signing of the seven year treaty is an unknown until it is actually signed.

After that it is open season on dates for prophecy.

As we were saying, the emphasis of such code systems will be the “proof” that God is real, or showing the “perfection” of God.  These are very lofty claims which serve to silence criticism as “proving” God is surely a righteous task.  Yet, these claims never seem to address the fact that God is quite capable of showing each of us His perfection in the most personal way possible.

Also, there is another problem with such codes – they are based on the premise that mankind has every variable of the given equations of God.  The 70 weeks of Daniel is a prime example of this.  I have seen nearly every possible attempt to stretch the 70 weeks into 70 consecutive weeks that lasts 2,000 years.  I have seen it calculated on the 360 day calendar, the 365 day calendar, the current Jewish 354 day calendar – and every calendar in between.  However, with a bit of careful reading comprehension we can see that the 70 weeks are not consecutive weeks – at least not between week 69 and 70.  When you start to look at the 70 weeks carefully you can see that they are counted in covenant time.  That is, they are based on the making and breaking of covenants and decrees concerning Israel.

The 70 weeks stopped at the new covenant of Christ and resumes with the coming covenant with the Antichrist.  It stopped with a rejected covenant and resumes with an accepted covenant.  We see examples of covenant time with the keeping of what seems to be incomplete generation’s lists also.  Furthermore, we can see that God keeps time in Jubilee cycles and sabbatical cycles as well.  Here is where the equation reference comes in.

To calculate the prophetic times of God requires the knowledge of certain things.  First of all, exactly which method of time is God currently using?  We know that the 70^th week of Daniel starts with the accepted covenant, yet what about until then?  While it is a solid bet that God is using either sabbatical time or Jubilee cycles, we do not know which – nor do we know the actual date we are on.  We can estimate fairly closely, yet absent a single continuous timekeeping effort we simply cannot know where we sit in world history absent only the signs of the times of the seasons.  Did you know that you can currently go online and find at least four major Jewish calendars – each with a different date?  Some of them are as much as 400 years in difference!

There are other considerations to the setting of dates as well.  There are rabbinical differences in the placement of the harvest cycles and the feast days.  There is a school of thought that the fall feasts should actually occur after the start of fall on the calendar and likewise for the spring feasts (each occurring after the equinox for both spring and fall).  There is also a school of thought that the first barley harvest determines the spring feasts as well.  Now, the point is not to endorse one view over another – only to acknowledge that differences exist.  As we stated in the prior paragraph you can go online and find no less than four prominent Jewish calendars that range from two months difference to the aforementioned 400 years difference.

Bringing this point back to the rapture I have been able to calculate a potential “bandwidth” of possible dates for the Feast of Trumpets that can go as much as 1.5 prophetic months (45 days) before and after the recognized date on most Jewish calendars – including those used officially in Jerusalem!  That is a possible swing of up to 90 days for the Feast of Trumpets.  When you figure in the Feast of Pentecost as a secondary possibility for the rapture then it provides a six month window spread over the spring and fall for the rapture (which ever feast day is fulfilled by the rapture of the church, the other feast day will be fulfilled by the rapture of the 144,000 Jews – for the record we cover how Trumpets is the rapture of the church, but the Pentecost fulfillment must be mentioned here for intellectual honesty).

Talk about no man knows the day nor hour!

My point is simply this – watch carefully the things that take you in when it comes to scripture.  There are many differences in the Body of Christ, yet most really do agree with each other on major issues.  Beware any message that claims truth, yet strives to avoid the light of public scrutiny.

That will always be a red flag.

One final point.  If you have a teacher that must constantly remind you that the Bible tells us that false doctrines will arise in the last days, and that this is the justification they are using to sell you their new doctrine – it is a solid bet that you have a false teacher on your hands.

The truth never needs selling.  It speaks for itself.  If there words cannot carry weight without a sales job, then there is a reason it does not resonate.  The Holy Spirit will confirm the truth of their words if they are indeed true.

The Lord has been doing this for the church for 2,000 years.

I see this every time somebody rails against the rapture as a new and false doctrine from 1830, created by one woman.

Their “revelation” of the origins of the rapture comes for a single book published in 1983, written by a single man, that admits he is biased against the rapture.

Talk about new doctrines of demons!

In the name of our Most Blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.