Addendum
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Revelation 8:2 and
1994
For those who are
willing to invest the time and study,
the following sections explain why I
believe that 1994 is only possible
date for the event described in
Revelation 8:2. For a more thorough
study, please refer to my booklet Great
Clocks from God.
1. Two
Different Ways of Measuring Time
In apocalyptic
prophecy, God sometimes
measures time according to the
operation of the Jubilee Calendar. In
such cases, a day is translated as a
year. For example, the seventy weeks
in Daniel 9:24 contains 490 days
(seventy weeks x seven days/weeks =
490 days). The 490 days translated
as 490 years because they occur
during the operation of God’s
Jubilee Calendar. Moreover, history
confirms that this translation is
warranted and correct. On the other
hand, there are places in apocalyptic
prophecy where God does not translate
time as a day for a year. For
example, the 1,000 years in
Revelation 20:2, the five months in
Revelation 9:5, the 1,260 days
granted to the Two Witnesses, and the
forty-two month in Revelation 13:5
are to be understood as literal time.
I believe there is a
rule found in Scripture that answers
the question of determining when
prophetic or literal time is to be
used. The fourth rule governing the
interpretation of apocalyptic
prophecy says, “The presence and
absence of the Jubilee Calendar
determines how God measures time in
apocalyptic prophecy. In other words,
when the Jubilee Calendar is
operating, God wants us to translate
a day for a year according to His
Calendar. On the other hand, when the
Jubilee Calendar is not operating,
there is no translation.
Note: A rule of
interpretation has no exception. The
“seven times” imposed on
King Nebuchadnezzar does not require
translation because (a) that prophecy
is not an apocalyptic prophecy, and
(b) if it did, the king could not eat
grass for 2,520 years (360 x 7 =
2,520), which of course, is
impossible. The prophecy concerning
King Nebuchadnezzar was a “local
prophecy” directed at the king.
Each type of prophecy has its own
rules, and they cannot be mixed or
merged. There are five types of
prophecy in the Bible and these are
discussed in detail in the chapter
titled, “Getting Started with
the Book of Revelation.”
2. The
Jubilee Calendar
God created the
Jubilee Calendar. It is incredibly
precise and God put this calendar in
motion two literal weeks before the
Exodus in 1437 B.C. By divine decree,
God forced Israel to abandon their
use of the Egyptian calendar (a
summer-to-summer calendar) when He
imposed His spring-to-spring Jubilee
Calendar on them. (Exodus 12:1)
Although this is not the place to
present the function and fullness of
God’s Calendar, four topics with
the Jubilee Calendar need to be
discussed to show how 1994 connects
with the book of Revelation.
A. Even though
God required Israel to let the land
rest from the cultivation every
seventh year, Israel did not observe
the seventh year Sabbath rest while
in the desert. (This makes sense
since they did not grow crops in the
desert.) However, the word in
Leviticus 25:2 cause people to think
that cycles of seven years began when
Israel entered Canaan. This
understanding is incorrect. God
started counting cycles of seven
years at the time of the Exodus and
the proof is simple. It only takes
two steps. First, we have to align
the date of Christ’s death with
the middle of the seventieth week and
second, we have to identify one
Jubilee year.
For reasons beyond the
scope of this study, it can be proven
beyond reasonable argument that Jesus
died on Friday, Nisan 14 (April 7),
A.D. 30. (For a comprehensive study
on this topic, see my book, Daniel,
Unlocked for the Final Generation,
pages 196-208.) Once this date is
determined, the synchrony of
the weekly cycle of years becomes
known because Daniel 9 declares that
Messiah would die in the middle of
the seventieth week. Therefore,
A.D. 30 has to be a Wednesday year
because Wednesday is always the
middle day of the week. Now that we
know that A.D. 30 was a Wednesday
year, we can identify all Sunday
years forward and backward. For
example, A.D. 27 and 457 B.C. were
Sunday years, and A.D. 1844 was a
Thursday year.
The second step
requires one Jubilee year. After we
positively identify one Jubilee year,
Jubilee cycles can be calculated
forward and backward. Fortunately,
there is one Jubilee year that is
easily identified. It occurred during
the fifteenth year of Hezekiah’s
reign. (Isaiah 37:30) Since Jubilee
years always fell on Sunday years,
this forces Hezekiah’s Jubilee
year to be 702 B.C. All other dates
have to be eliminated because known
historical events will not align.
(Many scholars, knowing nothing about
the synchrony of the weekly cycle of
years and the operation of the
Jubilee Calendar, date
Hezekiah’s Jubilee at 701 B.C.
This shows that good scholarship can
get close to the truth, but sometimes
there are limitations. History can
resolve questions to a point, but
sometimes, history cannot pinpoint a
specific year.) The point of knowing
that 702 B.C. was a Jubilee year is
this: Once we know the location and
synchrony of one Jubilee year,
Jubilee cycles can be calculated. By
counting forward or backward in
forty-nine year intervals from 702
B.C., we can find that God started
the Jubilee Calendar on Abib 1, 1437,
B.C., two weeks before the Exodus! No
other date is historically possible.
B. God also
treats His weekly cycle in a
different way than we commonly treat
time today. First, God
counts time inclusively. Any portion
of a unit of time counts as a whole
unit of time. For example, Jesus
spent a portion of Friday, all of the
Sabbath, and a portion of Sunday in
the tomb. Jesus counted this as three
days and three nights. (Matthew
12:40) All prophetic time periods are
counted this way. This explains how
Luke counted A.D. 27 as the fifteenth
year of Tiberius Caesar, even though
Tiberius took office on September 17,
A.D. 14. (Luke 3:1)
God also treats His
weekly cycle in a different way than
we commonly do. For example, God
starts a week with Sunday, the
first day of the week. We
casually define a week as any period
of seven days, but this is never
the case in God’s Calendar. When
it comes to God’s clocks, there
is a big difference between seven
days and a week.
God’s seventh-day
Sabbath and God’s seventh year
rest for the land are determined by
the first day of Creation and the
first year of the Exodus,
respectively.
C. One
Jubilee cycle contained seven full
weeks of seven years each. Thus, a
Jubilee cycle was four-nine years in
length. The forty-ninth year always
fell on a Sabbath year that was
synchronous with Israel’s
deliverance from Egypt. (Leviticus
25:8) The weekly cycle is the
basis for translating time –
“a day for a year.”
(Numbers 14:34) The year of Jubilee
(the fiftieth year) always fell on
the Sunday year that followed the
forty-ninth Sabbath year. This may
seem strange at first, but the
fiftieth year of the Old Jubilee
cycle and the first year of the new
Jubilee cycle occurred
simultaneously. The Feast of
Pentecost confirms this method of
counting time.
The Feast of Pentecost
(the fiftieth day) was always
celebrated on Sunday (the first day
of the week). This is how the
countdown to Pentecost occurred:
Passover fell on different days of
the weekly cycle (like our
birthdays). But to calculate the
Feast of Pentecost, the priests
waited until the first Sunday
following Passover to start counting
off forty-nine days (seven full
weeks). (Leviticus 23:15,16) Then on
the fiftieth day, which was the first
day of the eighth week, the Feast of
Pentecost was celebrated.
There is needless
confusion over the length of Jubilee
cycles. Jubilee cycles are forty-nine
years in length because (a) the
weekly cycle of seven years is not
interrupted, and (b) the weekly cycle
of years remains synchronous with the
year of the Exodus (year 1), and (c)
the seventy weeks in Daniel 9 totals
490 years. If Jubilee cycles are
fifty years in length as some people
claim, it would be mathematically
impossible to make the seventy weeks
equal 490 years. The seventy weeks
are 490 years (70 x 7) and 490 years
are ten Jubilee cycles (49 x 10).
You may wonder, what
does the Jubilee Calendar have to do
with Revelation 8:2? The Jubilee
Calendar appears to be important to
Revelation 8:2 because God’s
patience with mankind appears to be
seventy Jubilee cycles. In other
words, from the Exodus in 1437 B.C.
to 1994, there are precisely seventy
Jubilee cycles. For reasons
forthcoming, I find that God’s patience
ran out and Jesus handed the seven
trumpets to the seven angels in the
spring of 1994. If you can accept
this premise for a moment, then the
delay described in Revelation 7 is
consistent with everything written in
the Scripture about this matter. For
example, suppose God’s patience
with sin on Earth came to an end in
1994 – at the close of the
seventy Jubilee cycles. The seven
trumpets were given to the seven
angels, and before the angels could
begin their mission of harm, they
were told to wait. The destruction
caused by the first four trumpets has
been delayed for fifteen years thus
far!
Thirty Jubilee Cycles
Because of
Abraham’s friendship and
faithfulness, God chose
Abraham’s descendants to serve
as trustees of His gospel.
Unfortunately, this choice proved to
be disappointing to God. For about
800 years, the Jews failed to live up
to the covenant they made with God at
Mt. Sinai. After their exile to
Babylon, God gave Israel a second
chance to become the model nation
that He wanted to make of them.
He graciously granted
the Jews ten Jubilee cycles –
seventy weeks – 490 years! (For
comparison, at the time of this
writing, the United States has been
in existence for 233 years.) Bible
history reveals that during the
Sunday year of the seventieth week
(A.D. 27) Messiah began His ministry.
(Luke 3) However, Israel rejected
Messiah’s message of love,
truth, and righteousness, and they
crucified Him. (Acts 10:39) When we
examine Israel’s history in
light of the Jubilee Calendar, we
discover a stunning fact: God granted
Israel, down to the very day,
a total of thirty Jubilee cycles.
(1437 B.C. to A.D. 34) This precision
reminds me of Israel’s
deliverance from Egypt. “At
the end of the 430 years, to
the very day, all the
Lord’s divisions left
Egypt.” (Exodus 12:41,
italics mine) This precision also
highlights the fact that the Second
Coming will occurs on the very day
that God has predetermined. “Blessed
is the one who waits for and reaches
the end of the 1,335 days.” (Daniel
12:12)
Forty Jubilee Cycles
for the Gentiles
When Israel’s
thirty Jubilee cycles ended, God
started over. He wanted to give the
Gentiles their chance as trustees of
His gospel. God raised up a brilliant
young Jew, Saul of Tarsus, and made
him an apostle to the Gentiles in
A.D.34. As a result, the Christian
Church soon had more Gentile
believers in it than Jewish converts.
Because there is a New Covenant, the
Christian church did not displace
Israel; it replaced Israel. God
abolished the Old Covenant by
creating a New Covenant. This
redefined Israel. Believers in Jesus
are now the heir of Abraham
(Galatians 3:28,29) History confirms
that God granted forty Jubilee cycles
to the Gentiles! (A.D. 34 to 1994)
The proof of this assertion requires
three steps:
First, we know that
the Jubilee Calendar could not end at
the cross because (a) Jesus’
death occurred during the middle
of the seventieth week. (A.D. 30 was
a Wednesday year), and (b) from our
study in Daniel 8 we know that the
2,300 days began before the
cross continue uninterrupted until
A.D. 1844. This means the 2,300 days
are translated (a day for a year)
past the date of the cross without
interruption until 1844. So,
at a minimum, we are forced to
recognize that the Jubilee Calendar
with its day/year translation
continued until the Thursday year of
1844. The Jubilee Calendar could not
end in 1844.
This brings us to the
second step. At this point in our
discussion, we know the Jubilee
Calendar is divided into three units
of time: (a) a week of seven years,
(b) seven weeks of seven years and
(c) seventy weeks of seen years.
Since history indicates that God
granted the Jews thirty Jubilee
cycles to the very day, this
indicates that the seventy weeks in
Daniel 9 is one Great Day, one unit
of time.
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