Prophecy Basics

I can feel the troops getting edgy.  The battle looks grim.  For the time being we have cover in the trenches, but the enemy's horde is closing in and we're low on ammo, bloodied, and wounded.  And, it would seem, outmatched and outgunned.  But that's only as it seems.

The Apostle Paul had to deal with a similarly weary regiment nearly two millennia ago.  Many voices in their midst were sowing confusion, causing disillusionment with God's prophetic promises.  That has always been the enemy's most frequent tactic: striking with subtlety from within, where attacks are least expected.  This is also how the central message of our faith is most frequently distorted.

But the topic at hand was Christ's promise to deliver His people from the coming wrath entirely and the subsequent judgment on all nations called the Day of the LORD.

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to Him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the Day of the Lord has already come.

- 2 Thessalonians 2:1–2

This principle extends onward indefinitely because genuine Christians are promised escape before the Day of the LORD.  When the Day of the LORD finally does come, none of the LORD's brethren will be around to be unsettled by it, because they will be in Heavenly Zion rejoicing with the angels.  There are many, once again, unsettling you, imploring you to abandon your blessed hope and to start looking for the antichrist rather than Christ Himself.

Here I simply want to remind you of a few foundational prophetic concepts.  When you understand and hold to these, the dots are connected and the picture becomes clear.  And the clear picture is nothing less than the glorious face of our Savior, which is the next thing we'll see when the next major prophecy is fulfilled—when our faith becomes sight.

So buckle up and get ready, fill your coffee mug, and find a nice, quiet place where your attention is undivided.  This is a big one.  And I hope you'll find it to be a great resource to share with friends and family in the future...

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1. Prophecy Is All About Him

The fundamental problem with all of the various schools of allegorical prophetic interpretation (e.g., preterism, historicism, etc) are twofold: first, they reject taking God's word at face value, leaving it up to private, subjective explication, despite the fact that the prophecies concerning Christ's first coming were anything but allegorical; and, second, they fundamentally misunderstand that the entirety of Scripture is a single, continuous prophecy concerning the Promised Seed's redemption of those with faith and His material and spiritual reversal of the Fall and all of its effects.  There is still a future endpoint to come in which the redeemed are glorified, the Fall is reversed, and the Seed reigns.  This can no more be explained away by allegory than can the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The biblical metanarrative can only be understood when we understand who the Bible is about and what this who must accomplish before the Fall of Mankind is reversed.  (If you've already read Understanding the Bible: The Promised Seed and read through the below diagram, then feel free to skip to Section #2).

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2. The Church Escapes Before The Tribulation

The focus of study of my fellow watchmen and myself these past several years has been on the resurrection and rapture of the Jew + Gentile Church of the Firstborn, the collective Body of Christ, before the onset of Daniel's 70th Week and the Day of the LORD.  This is commonly called the pre-tribulation rapture, though other terms would be equally accurate: pre-Daniel's 70th Week, pre-Time of Jacob's Trouble, and pre-Day of the LORD.  It could also be called pre-wrath, if "wrath" and the word's biblical usage are properly understood.

The two main arguments presented against the pre-tribulation rapture, typically to support the post-tribulation view, are actually logical fallacies called petitio principii ("begging the question").  This fallacy takes the form: "John claims X is true, therefore X is true."  In other words, the claim is reckoned true purely on the basis of it being claimed.  It's like saying God is not a trinity of persons, because I don't believe in the Trinity.

The first argument comes from Matthew 24:29–31 in which Jesus says that the elect will be gathered by angels after the Tribulation.  This is used by some as evidence in itself that the rapture cannot be pre-tribulational.  No doubt the passage is true, but "elect" has a broad usage in the New Testament.  Which elect?  Are there more than one group of elect?  Does the passage refer to all the elect from all time?  The passage does not explicitly define who these "elect" are so we're left with searching other Scriptures for more answers.

This argument can also take the form of a straw-man when it is presented in the sense that "pre-tribbers don't believe in a post-tribulation gathering of the elect, therefore the pre-tribulation rapture is false because of what Matthew 24:29–31 says."  This is a logical fallacy, because pre-tribbers do believe in a post-trib gathering of the elect, therefore we believe in Matthew 24:29–31.  The distinction is that we recognize the biblical teaching that there are different groups of elect, and not all are raised and gathered to God at once.  There are Old Testament saints, some of whom have already been resurrected (Mt. 27:52–53), there were Enoch and Elijah—both of whom were raptured thousands of years before the Tribulation, there are saints who will be beheaded during the Tribulation and resurrected after it (Rev. 20:4), and finally, there is the Church, which is resurrected and raptured before the Tribulation (1 Thess. 4:16–5:9; Rev. 3:10).

The second argument comes from the gospel of John where Jesus says He will raise up believers "in the last day" (Jn. 6:39–44) and later where Martha says the same (Jn. 11:24).  There are a number of significant problems using this as evidence for a post-tribulation rapture, but I'll just touch on three:

First, it is very likely that Jesus was alluding to 1st century Jewish expectations surrounding the Day of the LORD.  This day was not understood to be a single 24-hour period, but a longer, prophetic period of time when God would visibly interfere in the affairs of men to judge all nations and establish His everlasting Kingdom.  Both the Hebrew and Greek words for "day" can take on the same kind of broader meaning as the word "day" in English: "back in my day..."  Thus the point being made is not that all believers will be raised up in a single 24-hour period at the very, very end of the Great Tribulation, but rather that believers would be raised up in, at the time of, or in relation to, the Day of the LORD.

Second, the preposition used in both John 6 and 11 is the same: ἐν, which is usually translated "in", but has a far broader and more variable usage than our English word "in".  There are instances where it is translated at, until, or even before.

Third, let's assume for a moment that Jesus was being hyper-literal and indeed meant a single, 24-hour period of time, this argument suffers from the same problem as using Matthew 24:29–31, which is that no distinctions are made between believers.  Are all believers from all history raised on this same day at the end of the Tribulation?  The answer is clearly 'no' or else Enoch and Elijah would not be in Heaven, the two witnesses would not be raptured mid-tribulation, and Matthew's account of resurrected saints in Matthew 27 would be false.  Furthermore, we're brought back to the fact that virtually all Christians, pre-tribulation or otherwise, who believe in the bodily return of Christ, agree that there will be a resurrection and gathering of saints after the Tribulation.  The real question regards where the Church fits into the equation.

Side Note: Being aware of how logical fallacies are frequently used to attack the Faith can be a great aid in apologetics.  The four most common fallacies I see used are 1. Straw-man (e.g., "Christians are polytheists because they believe in the Trinity"), 2. Ad hominem (e.g., "the pre-tribulation rapture is false because pre-tribbers are deceivers"), 3. Begging the Question (e.g., "the rapture has to be post-trib, because Matthew 24 says the elect are gathered after the Tribulation"), and 4. Appeal to Authority (e.g., "the Revelation 12 Sign is just astrology because X says so").


Now let's review the biblical case for a pre-tribulation rapture:

1. For starters, regardless of the timing, there will be a rapture because the Bible plainly says so.  There is nothing ambiguous about 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17.  Those who've died in Christ will be resurrected.  Those still alive will be changed (1 Cor. 15:51–53).  Then all of those in Christ will be snatched up into the sky by force, joining the Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds.  For those Christians who don't believe in a rapture at all, I'm afraid we have a much larger, irreconcilable disagreement: whether or not to trust the plain words of Scripture.  Furthermore, the rapture is based on multiple promises from Jesus Christ Himself (e.g., Jn. 14:1–3; Rev. 3:10; etc.).  And the promise Jesus gives in John 14 isn't merely to take the Church, but to take the Church to His Father—to the very place Christ was about to go: Heaven.  Do you believe that God keeps His promises?  Do you believe the One who promised is faithful?  Don't bet against Him.  You'll lose.  Instead, trust Him and win.

2. Jesus' promise in Revelation 3:10 to keep the church of Philadelphia "from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world" is pretty explicit.  That alone is enough for me, but there are many other Scriptures that point to a pre-tribulation rapture.  And as we grow closer to His appearing, more and more are being uncovered.  Here are just a few that stand out: Rev. 3:10; 4:1; 5:8–10; 12:5; 20:4; 1 Thess. 1:10; 4:16–18; 5:4; 2 Thess. 2:3, 7; 1 Cor. 15:51–52; Acts 15:14–16; Zeph. 1:14–2:3; Jn. 14:1–6; Isa. 17:10–11; 26:17–21; 57:1–2; 66:7–9; Lk. 21:36; Deut. 32:21.  We've written whole articles on a number of these (see Deuteronomy 32, Isaiah 17, Isaiah 26, Isaiah 66, Zephaniah 2, and Revelation 4–5).

3. Both sides of the pre-trib/post-trib debate have certain verses and passages they tend to gravitate towards, but the fiercest contention centers around 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation 4–5.  Why?  I see the why as very, perhaps insurmountable, evidence for a pre-trib rapture.  You see, there are some pre-trib scholars that see the pre-trib rapture in these two passages and there are some who don't.  In other words, these two passages are not essential for Christians to believe the biblical promise of a pre-trib resurrection and rapture of the Church.  But, if it can be demonstrated that either of these passages describe the pre-trib rapture, then the debate is over before it began.  Case closed.  If apostasia in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 refers not to a "falling away," but rather to a "departure"—specifically the departure of the Church—then the rapture is certainly pre-tribulational (see here).  Likewise, if the 24 elders in Revelation 4–5 represent the glorified Church (they do, see here), then the pre-tribulation rapture is impossible to circumvent.

4. The Great Sign of Revelation 12 that occurred on September 23, 2017, captured the attention of many who were faithfully watching for the LORD's return.  For those who were willing to accept the literal sense of Revelation 12:1–2, God used the Sign to not only show them how close the world is to His coming, but also to uncover a much neglected passage that once served as the foundational prooftext for a pre-tribulation rapture.  And it all connects to Isaiah 66.  Revelation 12:5 tells us that a certain male child born to Israel is raptured to Heaven shortly before Israel enters the Great Tribulation.  Isaiah 66 tells us that this male child 1. is not an individual, but a nation born out of the earth, and 2. this child is born before his mother, Israel, enters the Tribulation.  Here are some articles that unpack this in detail: Who is the Male Child of Revelation 12?, Revelation 12: Escape to a Place Prepared, Conservative Scholars Agree, Woman in Labor: The Prophetic Key

5. The epistles and other early Christian texts testify that the apostles and disciples lived with constant expectancy for the LORD's return (what we now call imminency).  The early Church was well aware of the many events that had to transpire during the final years before Jesus returned to Israel.  The Apostles were intimately aware of these details because Jesus had shared the knowledge with them in His Olivet Discourse.  They knew that an antichrist (called the "man of lawlessness") would arise, the Jewish Temple would be rebuilt, and several years of great tribulation would ensue.  Yet the consistent sense of New Testament Scripture is that early believers lived with a constant sense of expectancy for the LORD's imminent appearing.  Mid-tribulation, pre-wrath, and post-tribulation proponents handle these "imminency" Scriptures in a variety of creative ways, but I have never been presented with a satisfactory argument.  Only the pre-tribulation doctrine interprets the many Scriptures that describe an imminent appearing of Christ with their prima facie meaning.  More about this here.

Bolstering this point, the New Testament consistently uses "thief in the night" imagery when referring to the onset of the Day of the LORD.  This analogy is used by both Christ and His apostles (e.g., Mt. 24:43; 1 Thess. 5:2–4; 2 Pt. 3:10; Rev. 16:15).  When the thief comes, something is stolen suddenly and unexpectedly.  When the owner of the house comes to, he realizes something has been taken away.  The thief represents Christ and we are what is stolen.  Suddenly.  Imminently.

6. The Church is conspicuously absent from Revelation chapters 4 through 19.  The Book of Revelation is primarily about the events transpiring during the Tribulation and the Church is not mentioned one time between chapters 4 and 19.  Even more, Revelation 4:1 is a type or shadow of the rapture in which the Apostle John is "caught up" to Heaven at the sound of a trumpet.  The 24 elders, which most Christian biblical scholars consider to be a picture of the glorified Church in Heaven, are already present in Heaven in chapter 4 and from Heaven John and the elders are able to witness the Tribulation events occurring "below" on earth.  The only other allusion to the Church in these chapters is found in Revelation 12, specifically Revelation 12:5, where a male child that represents the corporate Church is raptured to Heaven before Israel (the woman) enters into Tribulation.

7. The pre-tribulation rapture maintains consistency in biblical symbols, types, and shadows.  Noah and his family escaped before the Flood came.  As a matter of fact, God commanded Noah and his family to enter the ark seven days before the Flood came (Genesis 7:1–10) just as the Church will escape seven years before God's wrath is fully poured out.  Similarly, Lot and his family escaped from Sodom before the city was destroyed.  Furthermore, it wasn't just happenstance that Noah and Lot escaped before judgment—in Genesis 18:22–33 we learn that the reason they escaped beforehand was because God's character was at stake.  On earth, the righteous have never been free from trouble or tribulation.  But when God intervenes to execute judgment Himself, the righteous are always delivered beforehand.

A prime example is the life of Joseph, which perfectly foreshadowed all the major aspects of the life of Christ, including, and up to, the rapture of Christ's Church and the deliverance of Israel during the future Tribulation.  Compare:

• Jesus Christ, a Jew, an Israelite / Joseph, son of Jacob (Israel)
  
  
• Jesus' miracles make His Pharisee countrymen jealous / Joseph's dreams make his own brothers jealous
  
  
• Jesus handed over to death by His own people / Joseph handed over to death by his own brothers
  
  
• Christ in the tomb / Joseph in the pit
  
  
• Christ raised from the dead / Joseph lifted from the pit
  
  
• Christ leaves Israel / Joseph taken to Egypt
  
  
• Having overcome, Christ exalted and seated at the right hand of God, to rule all nations / Joseph exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh; Egypt was the world superpower at the time (ruling all nations)
  
  
• Jesus begins His ministry at about the age of 30 / Joseph enters the service of the king at the age of 30
  
  
• God the Father gifts Christ with an elect body of primarily Gentile saints—His body, His bride, the Church / Pharaoh gifts Joseph with a Gentile bride, Asenath
  
  
• Jesus receives His bride shortly before the seven year Tribulation / Joseph receives his bride, Asenath, shortly before the seven years of famine
  
  
• Christ and His bride remain in Heaven during the full extent of the Tribulation / Joseph and Asenath remain safely tucked away in Egypt, in palaces of splendor, during the full extent of the seven years of famine
  
  
• Israel will enter the Time of Jacob's Trouble, a future seven year period of judgment on all nations; this is the prophetic "woman in labor"; and it happens because of Israel's unbelief in Messiah, thinking He is dead, not knowing He can deliver them / Jacob and his sons enter seven years of famine thinking that Joseph is dead, not knowing He already had all the power to deliver them
  
  
• In the midst of the Tribulation, Israel begins to understand and believe that Jesus is the Messiah / Two years into the seven years of famine, Joseph's brothers discover that he is alive and second-in-command of Egypt
  
  
• God delivers the Israelites in the middle of the Tribulation, taking them to a place prepared outside of Israel for the last half of Daniel's 70th Week / Joseph's brothers and his father Jacob, and their families who remained in Israel, escape the famine, coming to the land of Goshen in Egypt near the middle of the famine where they are provided for by Joseph

The parallels are uncanny and the picture is clear.

Another example was the Prophet Daniel who had been elevated to a high position in Babylon when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were a shadow of Israel being protected during the Tribulation while Daniel was a shadow of the Church, which will be far away from harm.  Though later, Daniel himself becomes a shadow of Israel when he is protected in the midst of the den of lions.

Additionally, Jewish wedding customs in the 1st century, at the time of Christ, were a perfect parallel to the pre-tribulational rapture: the groom came and "purchased" his bride, making a binding, unbreakable agreement to return for her, he then went away to prepare a place for her in his father's house, and then around one year later returned for her with a "shout".  The groom and the bride went into the bridal chamber in the father's house where they remained hidden away for seven days while wedding guests celebrated outside.

8. The pre-tribulation rapture maintains a proper dispensational understanding of Scripture.  Jesus was sent "only to the lost sheep of Israel," yet when His own people rejected Him, God turned His attention to the Gentiles (though not exclusively, as some ultra-dispensationalists mistakenly claim)—primarily through Paul, Barnabas, and company, but also through the apostles themselves.  Daniel's 70 weeks of years, a period set by God to redeem Israel, paused at the end of the 69th week, days before Jesus was crucified.  This pause is commonly called the "Church Age" or the "Age of Grace" and it won't end until the 70th week begins (see Acts 15:12–16).  This 70th week serves two primary purposes: first, the national salvation of Israel (Rm. 11:26), and second, a cataclysmic global judgment on the Gentile nations who have rejected Messiah.  The Church is not in view anywhere in Daniel's 70th week.  Even more—the Tribulation is called the "Time of Jacob's Trouble" (Jer. 30:7).

9. The pre-tribulation rapture was not invented in the 19th century.  Nearly as silly as arguing that the word "rapture" is not in the Bible, is arguing that the pre-trib rapture was invented in the 19th century.  Detractors have often attributed the pre-tribulation rapture's origins to a supposed vision from one Margaret MacDonald in 1830, yet MacDonald never described a pre-trib rapture.

Additionally, it is well known among Bible scholars that whether wrong or right, pre-trib beliefs go back at least to the 18th century (1700s), and in actuality, to the early Church.  You can read more about this here, here, and here.

Some try to use the Apostolic and Early Church Fathers to prove or disprove various doctrines, but it tends to be a faulty exercise as the theologians of the earliest centuries didn't tend to systematize doctrine in the way we do today.  More importantly, their writings are not Scripture.  They were faulty just like we all are and they had many disagreements about doctrine just like we do today.  That being said, not only did many of these prominent early Christian leaders believe in salvation by faith alone (sola fide), but at least five of them placed the timing of the rapture right before the Great Tribulation—at the very latest.  These include Irenaeus (a disciple of the Apostle John's disciple Polycarp), the author of The Shepherd of Hermas, Cyprian, Victorinus, and Ephraem/pseudo-Ephraem (see here, here, and here).

10. The doctrine is maligned, mocked, and hated by unbelievers outside the Church, and legalists within.  The simplicity of the gospel and the all-sufficiency of Christ for salvation and deliverance don't sit well with either group.  That's always been a big red flag for me.  As well as the motivation factor: those who hold fast to the blessed hope, obediently "encouraging one another with these words," (1 Thess. 4:18) are motivated to share the gospel as quickly and with as many as possible now, because they know the LORD's appearing is imminent.  On the other hand, many teachers who hold to the post-tribulation view seem much more motivated to sell survival gear, bunker down, and build their kingdom here.  They take their lamp and cover it with a basket—their coin they bury in the ground (Mt. 5:15; 25:24–30).

I could add so many more points to this list, and in a future study I may do just that.  In the meantime, you can take a look at this list entitled 250 Reasons for the Pre-Trib Rapture.

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3. The Tribulation Is Seven Years

While there are many theories and schools of thought pertaining to Daniel's 70th Week and the Great Tribulation, a plain reading of Daniel 9:24–27 gives us a clear answer: the seven year Tribulation is still to come.  Let's first look at the passage in question:

24 Seventy 'sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.  25 Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.'  It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.  26 After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.  The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.  The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.  27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.'  In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering.  And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

I'll break this down, unpacking some critical points:

1. Messiah is killed after the 69th Week and before the 70th Week.  According to Daniel 9:26 the Messiah is cut off after the first 69 periods of seven, not in the middle of the 70th period of seven (v. 27).  A literal reading of Daniel 9:24–27 presents what I would consider to be an insurmountable problem with theories presented by those who see no gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel (and also the theory that Jesus is the 'he' of v. 27) if we take these Scriptures at face value.

2. Jesus is not the 'he' in verse 27.  The Messiah who is cut off "but not for Himself" in verse 26 is clearly Jesus (no Christians that I am aware of would argue otherwise).  However, Jesus is mentioned in the first half of verse 26.  It's later in the verse, that "the prince" whose people destroy the city and the holy [place] shows up, thus per rules of most recent mention, it is far more likely that the antecedent of 'he' in verse 27 is "the prince" in verse 26.  This, among other contextual reasons, is why there is very little scholarship defending the view that Jesus is the 'he' in verse 27.  Even many preterists and historicists differentiate between the Messiah and prince in verse 26.

Furthermore, whoever this "prince" is, his people destroy Jerusalem and the holy [place].  Whether this refers to the people of the Roman nation in general (classic view of a revived Roman empire) or the more recent views presented by Joel Richardson and Walid Shoebat (Syrian and Turkish conscripts), there is no historical or biblical basis whatsoever to say these people are the Jews.  Thus the prince in verse 27 cannot be Jesus.

3. Jesus never made a seven year covenant.  This has always been the elephant in the room when the suggestion is that the 'he' of verse 27 is Jesus.  Suggesting He is the one who made a seven year covenant would be pure assumption and potentially worse.  The New Covenant in His blood is everlasting.

4. Jesus didn't put an end to sacrifices at His death.  Another elephant in the room.  The continual sacrifices continued on for another ~37 years.  Now someone might respond that He put an end to the need for sacrifices (which is true), but there are two major problems with that view: first, verse 27 plainly says this "prince" interrupts/ceases/ends sacrifices, not that he merely ended the pretext for them.  Second, Hebrews 10 tells us quite plainly that the ancient animal sacrifices could never take away sins, even before Christ's atoning sacrifice (hence Jesus, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world).

5. There is already a biblical basis for prophetic gaps in time, especially when it comes to the period of time before the Day of the LORD.  There is nothing unscriptural about a gap, as if somehow the dispensational pause between the 69th and 70th weeks is false on its face.  It's not.  In fact, there are several examples of prophetic gaps including Isaiah 61:2.  This gap actually occurs mid-verse!  And it's a perfect example, because the gap Jesus alluded to in this verse (see Lk. 4:19) overlaps the 2,000-year gap of Daniel 9:26–27.

Focusing back on Daniel 9: the passage itself distinguishes between a first period of 49 years, a second period of 434, and a final period of 7, so that if there were to be a gap, it would naturally fit between the 49 and 434 or between the 434 and the 7.  Daniel 9:26–27 makes clear where the gap is to be placed: between the 69th and 70th weeks of years.

6. Finally, the purpose of the prophecy is explicitly given (v. 24) for Daniel's people (the Jews) and his city (Jerusalem).  At the completion of the 70th Week: 1. the people and city will have finished transgression, 2. ended sin, 3. made reconciliation for iniquity, 4. brought in everlasting/continual righteousness, 5. sealed up vision and prophecy, and 6. anointed the Most Holy.  None of these things have yet happened for the people or the city, thus the 70th Week has not yet transpired.

Bolstering this point and going back to Isaiah 61:2, based on Luke 4:19 we see Jesus Himself bisecting Isaiah 61:2 by... [drum roll]... the current 2,000 year period of time we're living in that precedes the Day of the LORD.

Acts 15:14–18 provides the basis for this gap.  God would first take "out of" the Gentiles a people for Himself... and only after that happens would the prophecy be fulfilled of Israel and Jerusalem's complete redemption and restoration.  The entire chapter of Romans 11 unpacks this: Israel has been temporarily hardened until the full number (or some would say "fullness") of the Gentiles comes in.  After this, all Israel will be saved.

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4. The Fig Tree Is Israel

Jesus foretold that the generation witnessing certain end time signs would live to see the fulfillment of them all.  There is no statement in the Olivet Discourse that explicitly ties the fig tree to Israel, but the connection is not tenuous, neither is it a recent invention of dispensationalism.  A number of Scriptures allude to Israel as God's fig tree or the Israelites themselves as figs (e.g., 1 Kgs. 4:25; Jer. 24:5; Hos. 9:10; Jl. 1:6–7; Mt. 21:18-20; Mk. 11:12–14; Lk. 3:7–9; 13:6–9; Jn. 1:47–49).

For a nation has come up against My land, strong, and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a fierce lion.  He has laid waste My vine, And ruined My fig tree; He has stripped it bare and thrown it away; Its branches are made white.

- Joel 1:6–7

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstfruits on the fig tree in its first season.

- Hosea 9:10

This by no means eliminates the possibility that Jesus also had a more nebulous application in mind, that those witnessing the birth pangs of the Tribulation can count on Jesus' return being near, but it cannot be denied that Scripture connects the fig tree to Israel.  Furthermore, this was well known in the time of Christ as shown by the very early apocryphal writing The Apocalypse of Peter (probably early to mid-2nd century - source):

And I, Peter, answered and said unto him: Interpret unto me concerning the fig-tree, whereby we shall perceive it; for throughout all its days doth the fig-tree send forth shoots, and every year it bringeth forth its fruit for its master.  What then meaneth the parable of the fig-tree?  We know it not.

And the Master (Lord) answered and said unto me: Understandest thou not that the fig-tree is the house of Israel?  Even as a man that planted a fig-tree in his garden, and it brought forth no fruit.  And he sought the fruit thereof many years and when he found it not, he said to the keeper of his garden: Root up this fig-tree that it make not our ground to be unfruitful.  And the gardener said unto God: (Suffer us) to rid it of weeds and dig the ground round about it and water it.  If then it bear not fruit, we will straightway remove its roots out of the garden and plant another in place of it.  Hast thou not understood that the fig-tree is the house of Israel?  Verily I say unto thee, when the twigs thereof have sprouted forth in the last days, then shall feigned Christs come and awake expectation saying: I am the Christ, that am now come into the world.  And when they (Israel) shall perceive the wickedness of their deeds they shall turn away after them and deny him [whom our fathers did praise], even the first Christ whom they crucified and therein sinned a great sin.  But this deceiver is not the Christ.

The reconstitution of the nation of Israel in 1948 was not only a prophetic sign, it was a mega sign.  Perhaps even the biggest prophetic sign the world will witness until the rapture itself—along with the more recent sign of Revelation 12:1–2.  It's not enough to say Israel came back into being after two millennia.  That doesn't do the situation justice.  Israel came back as a nation after nearly 2,700 years.  It was in 722 BC that the nation of Israel ceased to be.  What was left after that was the tiny Kingdom of Judah and even that was subsumed by Babylon a little over a century later.

The fact that there is a nation called Israel back in the Holy Land after 2,700 years, and it came back into being within this current generation's lifetime, is simply astounding.  With Israel firmly planted, each passing day brings us that much closer to the reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty and all the millennial promises that flow from David's heir sitting upon the Throne.

Learn the Parable of the Fig Tree

God and His Fig Tree

The Fig Tree has Budded

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5. The Antichrist Will Remain Hidden

Speculation aside, the identity of the man of lawlessness cannot be known with certainty until the one restraining him (the Holy Spirit-indwelt Church) is removed.  This is plain from Scripture:

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one now restraining will do so until he is out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed.  The Lord Jesus will destroy him with the breath of His mouth and will bring him to nothing with the brightness of His coming.

- 2 Thessalonians 2:7–8 (HCSB)

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Final Thoughts & Further Reading

I hope this article was a blessing to you.  And I pray that you will share it with your friends and family who are searching, and come back to it when you need a refresher in the future.  I imagine I'll be adding more to this as time goes on.


Further Reading:

MAJOR PROPHETIC MILESTONES

TOP 20 SIGNS OF THE RAPTURE AND SECOND COMING OF CHRIST

10 REASONS JESUS WILL COME BACK IN OUR LIFETIME

AS IT WAS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH

PASSING THE TORCH

THE DAY OF THE LORD

THE OLIVET DISCOURSE

LEARN THE PARABLE OF THE FIG TREE

REVELATION 12: ESCAPE TO A PLACE PREPARED

THE GREAT SIGN

~ MARANATHA ~

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