When Will the Tribulation Begin? The 70th Week of Daniel

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. And again, good to have everybody back, and we'll get right into the book where we left off last week. And once again, we want to invite all our television people to get a Bible and pencil and a paper and join with us. If we leave you with questions, why, feel free to call us on our 800 number. We'll be glad to talk with you, answer whatever questions you may have. Now we're going to pick right up where we left off, and I know some may be out in television who have lost us over the last several weeks. Remember when we were back here in our study of Genesis, we had gotten as far as Abraham sending his servant, you remember, into a far country to get what for his son? The bride. And you remember that's what catapulted us then into the New Testament for the last several weeks is because we wanted to show you how clearly that was a parallel for God sending the Holy Spirit into the world to call out a bride for His Son, which of course is the body of Christ. And then I didn't feel right about just showing that and then go right back to Genesis without carrying on at least a brief overview of the rest of the end time events as we see them coming upon us—the seven years of tribulation, the return of Christ, and the setting of His kingdom. So we're going to cover that, like I said, not in detail like we would if we were in a verse-by-verse of the book of Revelation, but just to give you here as well as our television people just a little bit of a glimpse of what is immediately, we think, ahead for this old planet. All right, now if you'll be back with me in Daniel chapter 9, where last week we saw that there were 490 years in this complete prophecy concerning Israel, but 483 years were fulfilled at the crucifixion, which means there were seven years unfulfilled. And these seven years will have the time clock triggered by the signing of a peace treaty between the Antichrist and Israel. And so this big push for peace in the Middle East, they may get some kind of a peace together, but it's not going to last, it's just going to be a makeshift thing. But the real peace treaty will be when this man Antichrist, who I feel will come up out of the United States of Europe—now you want to remember in 1992, by the end of the year, they hope to have the whole thing put together so that all of Europe will be a federated United States of Europe, even as we are in America. And then out of that federation of European nations, I feel—now I know there are others who feel he'll come out of maybe the Arab nations, the Muslim world—but I think the Antichrist will come out of the revived Roman Empire, as we see Western Europe now fulfilling. And now in verse 27 of Daniel 9, he, this man Antichrist, the prince that shall come, up in verse 26—now someday we'll study this in detail if the Lord tarries, but for now it's just an overview—this man Antichrist shall confirm or sign or make a covenant with many—that is, with many Jews who will be back in the land, as we see they are tonight—and he shall make a covenant with many for how long? One week, seven years. Now the minute they sign that seven-year peace treaty, Israel is going to just lay down her defenses. Israel is going to feel so secure that this man, with all of his charisma and seemingly all of his economic and military power behind him from Western Europe, is going to be able to guarantee her safety and her borders. And so Israel will almost think he is the Messiah, and he's going to be benevolent. When he signs this seven-year treaty, he's going to give Israel permission to have temple worship, and so if the temple isn't built by this time, it soon will be, and Israel will come back under the law. Temple worship, I think they'll go back into the sacrifices and the whole nine yards. And if you'll just read a little bit about the mentality in Israel today and how more and more the Orthodox are gaining momentum over the secular. But this man will sign a seven-year treaty with the Jews, but, and I'll read on, in the middle of the week. In other words, as I've got it up here, here's the seven years, and at the midpoint, after three and a half years or after 1260 days, he's suddenly going to turn on the Jew, and look what it says. In the middle of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. Now, if you don't read that verse just casually and read it carefully, in order for something to cease, it has to what? It has to start. So what this verse is telling us is that by the midpoint of the seven years, Israel will have been enjoying sacrificial temple worship and with the blessings of the man Antichrist. Now this is why Paul said in 2 Thessalonians that as soon as the church and the indwelling Holy Spirit is taken out, then shall that wicked one be revealed. Now he won't be revealed to the world in general as the awful, satanic individual that he will be three and a half years later, but he is going to be revealed enough that he will be the one to sign this seven-year treaty with Israel. And it's a seven-year treaty made in hell, if I may use that expression, but Satan is still lurking in the background. Oh, he's prompting all this, but as yet he has not indwelt him. Now when you get to the midpoint, as we see here, at the middle of the week, when he causes the sacrifice and the oblation to stop, and for the overspreading of abominations. Now you know what abominations in Scripture are. Those are various human acts that God hates. With no ifs, ands, buts about it, He hates them, and this man is going to come in and he is going to defy God at every turn, and he shall make it. Now again, you've got to be a good student of language. What's the it? The temple. This temple that Israel will have built and will have been using for worship, he's going to make the temple desolate. How? Even unto the consummation, or until the end of that seven years, and all that's been determined by prophecy shall be poured upon the desolate, or the desolator. Now we get from a previous portion in Daniel an historical act by a literal, historical little king by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes. Now Antiochus was not a great man so far as world history was concerned, but he was a great man in Scripture because he, like the man Antichrist, when he overran the little nation of Israel back there, oh, when would that have been, about 200-300 B .C., he also decimated and defiled the temple by sacrificing a sow, a hog, on the altar. And you know what that did to the Jew? Oh, it was just horror. And I think that's what this man is going to do as well. When he comes into the temple, he will defile it, he will desecrate it, he will permit, he will perform acts of abomination, and it will be epitomized by the offering of a hog on the altar there at the temple in Jerusalem. Then, in order to pick up what's going to take place at that midpoint, now go with me to Matthew 24. Matthew 24. Now remember, for the first three and a half years after signing the seven-year treaty, Israel is going to have a relative amount of freedom to worship. The man Antichrist, I think, will still be up in his headquarters in Europe. The only thing that Israel is going to have happen that is really going to put them in a bind for a while will be what I think is the great Russian invasion of Israel. Now, that's Ezekiel 38 and 39. I'm not going to have time in this half hour to touch on it except to say that I think the red horse of Revelation 6 will be that great Russian invasion. Now, I know a lot of you will probably look at me and say, but Russia is all done. Oh, no, they are not. Don't you believe it? If you believe in writing to your representatives in Congress, you better write and tell them not to lay down our arms because of Russia. We better be more on guard than ever before. Now just for an aside to make you think and give you something to chew on, I'm always careful to say that this is my own speculation. I can't prove it from Scripture. I don't even pretend to, but I've always asked my classes when I've taught the red horse of Revelation 6, and I think it is the northern invasion of Ezekiel 38 and 39, I like to ask my class people, now if you were a Russian general or if you were the chief of staff and all of his advisers, and you saw that you were getting ready to invade the Middle East and Israel in particular, as Ezekiel says he will, what's the first move that you would make before you would do anything? Well, I know what I would do. I would unload everything I had on North America because they're the only ones who would have any means of counteracting me. And so this is what I really think is going to happen. I think that just prior to that great invasion of Israel early, probably within the first year of the tribulation, the Russians will unload everything they've got on America and we'll be off the scene because I can't find America anywhere in prophecy, nowhere. Prophecy only deals with Western Europe, Russia, the Orient, and Africa. And so I personally think, like I say, it's only a conjecture. Don't say that I've taught it from the Bible, that this is my own idea, that the Russians will still unload, they will wipe us off the face of the map, but Ezekiel 39 says that even though God destroys those invading Russian armies on the hills of Israel, God will destroy them, just like He destroyed the Syrians back under Elijah's time. God will destroy the Russian armies, but chapter 39 says, a fire shall fall on their homeland and will annihilate the Russian homeland. Now again, just go back to common sense. If Russia unloads and destroys our North American continent, what have we got out there that can still retaliate? We've got a bunch of submarines, and they'll unload everything they've got on the Russian homeland, and that will be a mutual annihilation, and then that leaves the Scripture prophecy open and, I think, in perfect accord of what will transpire. So don't worry if you're a believer. We won't be here. We're going to be gone. But I'll tell you what, if you're an unbeliever and there's a possibility you'll be left into this seven-year period, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. It would scare me to death. Now you talk about nuclear winter. I think it's coming, and I'm not a prophet of doom. I think I'm as optimistic as most people, but I can see what the prophetic Word says, and I can see that certain things have to happen. And then you see—now, we're not teaching Revelation, but the next horse in Revelation chapter 6 is the pale horse, remember? And that pale horse depicts famine and pestilence. Now if you knock out the great agricultural areas of Russia and the great food production areas of our Middle West, how much has the world got left? Not much. And with those great areas of agricultural production off the scene, the remaining billions of people in the Orient and those in Europe and Africa are going to be getting awful hungry. And so the world indeed will come under terrible famine, terrible inflation. As the Russians see, it can happen when there's a shortage of something. You've got runaway prices, and nobody can afford even what little there is. And this is the picture for the opening days of the tribulation. And like I said, Israel is going to enjoy the blessings of her temple worship, but she's going to have to put up with this tremendous invasion and that tremendous loss of life. Now I've had several who argue—friendly, not a vicious argument—but I've had some say, but now, Les, that just doesn't fit, because Ezekiel says that the Jews are going to be seven years burying the dead and cleaning up the residue of all the equipment that has been destroyed. Now to that I think I've got the answer. And that is that all through Scripture, any part of a year—I don't care if it's only three days—in Scripture, any part of a year is considered a full year. So when the Bible says that Israel will be seven years cleaning up and burying the dead and cleaning up the equipment, that tells me that this invasion could take place ten months—eleven months—after the Antichrist signs the treaty, and Israel, according to the scriptural reckoning of time, would still have the full seven years to fulfill the cleaning up the mess and have it all done before Christ returns and sets up the kingdom. So that time frame doesn't scare me, but see, a lot of people say, well, it can't happen in the tribulation. It has to be before, otherwise there's not enough time to fulfill the seven years. But always remember that—that any part of a day, any part of a year is considered a whole. In fact, I was thinking the other evening on these very same things. Do you remember that when Jesus gave the parable of hiring those workers for the vineyard? He hired some in the morning, and they said, we'll work for so much. Remember? He hired some at noon, and they worked for the same amount. And then He hired somebody about an hour before sunset. And how much did they get? The whole day's wage. Why? Any part of a day is considered a whole. Any part of a year is considered a whole. Now, you see, the chronologists were having fits of reconstructing time back in the Old Testament because of this very thing. The Old Testament record may say that so -and-so reigned ten years, and they knew that he only reigned a little over nine. But see, the Bible considered that little part of the tenth year as a whole year, and that's all the way through Scripture. In fact, that's my answer for Christ being crucified on Friday, and yet can be stated as having been in the grave three days and three nights, because if He was crucified on Friday, He went into the grave before six o'clock that evening. That was a day. Then He was in the grave all day Saturday, and then He came out of the grave after midnight on Sunday, and that fulfilled the three days and the three nights, because any part of a day is considered a whole. Now, you may not swallow that, but whatever. Now come back with me to Matthew 24, and we're going to see what happens when the Antichrist moves into the temple in Jerusalem at the midpoint of the seven years. Matthew 24, verse 15, Matthew 24, verse 15, and Jesus is speaking to the twelve all through Matthew 24 and 25. And so as He speaks to the twelve, He is also speaking then to the whole nation of Israel then as well as when this happens. So I maintain that all of chapter 24 is tribulation ground. Even the introductory verses 1 through 14 are all tribulation, that is, seven years. Now, it's not the great tribulation, the last half, but it's the first half. And then when you get to verse 15, He says, "...when," now it is Jesus speaking, remember, to the twelve. He says, "...when you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation," remember what Daniel called it, the abomination of desolation, "...spoken of by Daniel the prophet." Now there's proof that Daniel is legitimate, because Jesus refers to him as a prophet. "...when you see him stand in the holy place," that is, in the temple, "...whoso readeth, let him understand. Then let them who be in Judea flee to the mountains." Why? Verse 17, "...let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house, neither let him who is in the field return back to take his clothes. Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that are giving nurse in those days! Pray that your flight be not in the winter." Do you see how appropriate this is for a cross-section of Jews? Yeah, I've got time enough. All right, let's go back. Verse 17, "...when the Jews of Jerusalem suddenly realized that the Antichrist has come into their temple, and has defiled it, and has forced them to begin to worship him instead of Jehovah, Jesus said, When you see that happen, flee to the mountains." Now, who's going to flee? This is not the 144,000. This is a cross-section of Jews in the area of Jerusalem and Judea. Now who are they? "...let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house." Now I like to ask the question, if you know anything about the Middle East at all, what kind of people have their patio on the top of the house? Well, the wealthy, the retired, those who are no longer engaged in everyday work. And so here we have the older retired people with probably a little more wealth and a little more time for ease. Now he better get down off of his housetop patio and not worry about any clothes in the closet. He better get out of town. All right, look at the next one. "...neither let him who is in the field return back to get his clothes." Now, what age group and what kind of people do you have doing the everyday labor of field work and construction and what have you? Well, you're younger people. See, I'm going to put the class from 25 to 45. Men and women both. Not necessarily one or the other, but whatever they are in that age group, they too better get out of town and not even take time to go back and get their clothes. Now move on. Verse 19, "...woe unto them who are with child." Now, what have you got? You've got your young women, see? You've got your young mothers-to-be. And then in the next statement, you've got nursing mothers carrying their little ones. Now, you see what a cross-section of society we've got here? You've got retired people, you've got the working people, you've got the young mothers, the mothers -to-be. It's a complete cross-section of a society. And then verse 20. Remember I told you Israel will be back under the law? What had they better pray for? Oh, that this isn't on the Sabbath day because Israel's law limited how far they could walk on the Sabbath day, see? So he says, pray that it's not on the Sabbath day so you'll be free to go that hundred miles or so down into the mountains southeast of Israel. I think it'll go into Moab. The Red Rock City of Petra is a distinct possibility. Then verse 21. Now, just as Jesus is speaking, and He knows what He's talking about. For He says, "...then when the Antichrist moves into the temple and defiles it at the midpoint of the tribulation, then shall be great tribulation," now watch the language, "...such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time nor ever shall be." Now listen, there have been some tremendous calamities in this earth's history. Those of you who have heard me teach the Flood, what was it? Oh, it was instantaneous cataclysmic destruction that wiped out everybody. What have the Jews gone through in their history? Well, the most recent, of course, was the Holocaust in Hitler's Germany. My, when you read some of the accounts of what those people were subjected to, you wonder how a human being can even maintain their sanity. But you know what? That was a Sunday school picnic compared to what's coming. I've often said if I was a Jew, the last place they could get me to go would be Israel. But you see, they go there blithely, no comprehension of what's coming. But Jesus said that when this last three and a half years break, except for these, and I call them the escaping remnant. Now when they see this group of people in Math 24, when they see what's happening and they can remember what Jesus has said here, this escaping remnant is going to flee to the mountains. And once they get there, God is going to protect them just like He did Israel in the wilderness under Moses. He's going to feed them there. He's going to protect them from all the ravages of the tribulation, and they're going to be there completely safe for three and a half years. But I always point out, and I haven't got time I don't think, to go back to Revelation chapter 12 where it's laid out so clearly that they go out in unbelief. Oh, they recognize the God of heaven. They can recognize that there's a power beyond them, but they still will not recognize the Christ. They will not recognize God the Son. And so they go down into that refuge in the mountains for three and a half years of God's sovereign protection in unbelief. But all the Old Testament, the book of Revelation, and other areas make it so plain that when they see Christ returning at His second coming, this group of Jews, and I have no idea how many it could be. I think several hundred thousand, maybe more. When they see the returning Christ in all of His power and His glory, the Old Testament says, shall a nation be saved in a day? Yes. And that little nation of Israel, the remnant of course, will suddenly realize that He was the one that they had crucified because Zechariah—now I think I've got time to go back to that just before we close. Go back to Zechariah, back in the Old Testament. Now that's the next to the last book in the Old Testament, so you should be able to find that rather quickly. In Zechariah, Zechariah chapter 12, verse 10. Zechariah chapter 12, verse 10. Boy, we're winding down. That old clock is running ahead of me again. I've got just two verses I want you to see before we close. Zechariah 12, verse 10. "...and I will pour upon the house of David, upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplications. They shall look upon Me whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son." Now flip the page to chapter 14—no, chapter 13, verse 6. Chapter 13, verse 6. "...and one," that is of these Jews in this protective area in the mountains, "...and one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? And he," Christ, "...shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends." Now isn't that plain? Oh, they're going to see Him, and they're suddenly going to have their spiritual eyes opened, and they're going to believe Him, and the nation will be saved in a minute. Announcer Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. 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