Addendum

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.

The Great Week

I have concluded there are seven Great Days of seventy weeks each. I like to call this week of seven Great Days, the Great Week. If this structure truly exists, the seventy weeks in Daniel 9 becomes the Great Day of Tuesday. It is most interesting to note that from the Exodus in the Sunday year of 1437 B.C. to the dedication of Solomon’s temple in the Sunday year of 947 B.C., there are exactly seventy weeks or 490 years. (I call this seventy weeks the Great Day of Sunday.) Then, from the dedication of Solomon’s temple to the decree of Artaxerxes in the Sunday year of 457 B.C., there is another Great Day of seventy weeks or 490 years. I call this Great Day, Monday. Then, from the decree of Artaxerxes to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to Saul’s conversion in the Sunday year of A.D. 34, there is another seventy weeks or 490 years. I call this Great Day, Tuesday. I believe this information provides evidence that a Great Week exists. If so, it would be reasonable that there are four more Great Days to make up the Great Week since the prophecy describing the 2,300 days does not end until 1844. If we fill the Jubilee Calendar with four more Great days of seventy weeks each, we end up with The Great Week having seven Great Days. Each Great Day gas seventy weeks each, totaling 3,430 years. (1437 B.C. – 1994)

Counting inclusively, the Thursday year of 1844 falls 150 years short of spring, 1994, the end of the Great Day of Sabbath. We have to ask, “Would God terminate the Great Day of Sabbath with 150 years remaining. No. Inclusive counting forces the seventh Great Day of the Great Week to end on April 9, 1994. The Great Week began on Sunday Nisan 1, 1437 B.C. and it ended 3,430 years (490 x 7) later on Sabbath, Adar 29, 1994.

Once the Great week ends, the Jubilee Calendar with its weekly template of seven Great Days expire. Them, we discover an amazing outcome: All remaining apocalyptic time periods after 1994 occur without translation. If you can accept the premise that all prophetic time periods occurring after 1994 are to be treated as literal units, then everything stated in Scripture will perfectly fold into an even larger calendar called the “Grand Week,” a calendar where a day translates into 1,000 years!

The Grand Week

The Grand Week is a week of millenniums totaling 7,000 years. Each day in the Grand Week represents 1,000 years. When all of the genealogical records, historical events, and prophetic time periods mentioned in the Bible are assembled together, it appears that the Bible only speaks of 7,000 years for the duration of sin. I call these seven millenniums the “Grand Week.” Earth itself will rest from the works of sin during the Sabbath day rest. There is no time period throughout all eternity, past or future, that reveals the love of God like the time He has spent resolving the sin problem! I do not have the words to describe the grandeur of this incredible process. I am sure saints and angels will study the drama of the Grand Week throughout eternity.   

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