Beginning in early 2011, I did an intensive and very illuminating seven year study of Biblical prophecy that culminated in my yet unpublished book The Prodigal Son Prophecy. I set myself the task of interpreting prophecy from the Hebrew cultural perspective of the Apostles and the OT Prophets de novo (from scratch) as if none of the modern Christian theories had been published, in the same way that an appeals court judge would systematically reconsider all of the evidence in a legal case without accepting any rulings of the lower court as conclusive.
In this process I used the Bible itself almost exclusively – the whole Bible — letting Scripture interpret Scripture and assuming a literal meaning of the text wherever a literal meaning seemed intended. I looked to outside sources only for peripheral questions like the historical context of Biblical events and deeper study into the nuances of Greek and Hebrew words and phrases.
Some of the conclusions I reached in that intensive project confirmed various elements of traditional Christian interpretations from the various eschatological camps, some did not, but in the end I had formed my own comprehensive model which harmonized all of the prophecies without resort to intellectual gymnastics to obscure or dismiss logical contradictions from the text. While I do not hold firm opinions on every specific aspect of prophecy, I believe I have a very sound and trustworthy framework for interpreting all past, present and future prophetic events that is superior to commonly followed models in the church today.
In brief summary, following the leading of the Holy Spirit, I used the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24-25 as a literal chronological timeline and aligned it with the Book of Revelation: recognizing that what Jesus revealed to John in that book was an expanded and augmented version of that same chronology. To decode the timeline of Revelation, I divided the roughly 25 events it records into four categories based upon the perspective of the passages from inside or outside of time, and oriented toward or from heaven or earth. I also looked to the Old Testament to understand the meaning of the symbols and idioms in the text, which helped immeasurably in the timeline alignment process.
In parallel to that endeavor, I studied the entire body of Old Testament prophecy to get a sense of the key prophetic themes that unify them when taken as a whole. I discovered the most dominant common theme related to the division and reunification of the two Hebrew houses: the most serious crisis of the Abrahamic covenant, caused by Jacob’s bigamy with Leah and Rachel, splitting the package of the specific promises of the covenant into two parts, one each being inherited by the two competing households and their descendants.
The second most dominant theme was the establishment of a future literal Millennial Kingdom on earth, where the newly reunified twelve tribes of the two houses would be ruled by the Messiah in a post-Armageddon regenerated earth.
I then reviewed the New Testament prophecies in light of the promise of future reunification of the Hebrew houses and recognized Christianity as the vehicle by which God accomplishes it.
Thus, the Parable of the Prodigal Son contains not just a profound truth about God’s mercy toward sinners, but a prophecy of the reunification of the House of Israel (Rachel’s household) with the House of Judah (Leah’s household) in the Holy Land at the dawn of the Millennial Kingdom. The latter scenario is one that those with a non-Hebrew perspective of the Bible will “see without seeing and hear without hearing” until they actually study the Old Testament passages that illuminate the text.
I have decided to finally publish The Prodigal Son Prophecy since I think there is a possibility that we may be watching last days events unfolding before us. Starting this week I will publish it as a series of videos based upon and accompanied by the text, posted on YouTube in a new playlist bearing the same title as the book.
The prophetic model that I have created does not predict any specific date when the timeline actually starts, but explains the timing and sequence of events once it does. There are numerous clues that the start may be very soon, including the imminence of the building of the Third Temple in Jerusalem and the rapid rise of apostasy and sexual deviance. These clues raise the question of whether the Coronavirus pandemic is a “pestilence” in the context of what the Bible calls the “beginning of sorrows.”
A significant element of prophecy from the Hebrew cultural perspective are the cycles of sevens in Leviticus 25, including both the seven year “shemita” Sabbath cycles, and the fifty year (7×7+1) Jubilee cycles. Presumably, “Daniel’s 70th Week” (a key component of modern Christian eschatology on which I agree) is a seven year shemita cycle following a Jubilee.
Liberation of the land is the celebratory theme of Jubilee years. Thus, it is seems likely that the liberation of the Holy Land from the Islamic Ottoman Empire by the British in 1917, followed by the issuance of the Balfour Declaration inviting Jews to resettle there, was a Jubilee year in God’s calendar. The liberation of eastern Jerusalem exactly fifty years later in 1967 adds an exclamation point to that presumption. And if those were Jubilee years, the next would necessarily have fallen on either 2015 (under one system of counting) or 2017.
It is also assumed in my model that the Lord will return during the lifespan of the generation born in the “season” when the “fig tree” puts forth its leaves per Matthew 24:32-34. The “fig tree” is symbolic not of all Israel, meaning the 12-tribe House of Jacob, but of the House of Judah per Jeremiah 24.
There are other variables in the equation, but for the sake of brevity, let me summarize by saying that IF Rosh Hashana, 2017 marked the start of the 70th week, the all important half-way point when the Antichrist would be revealed would be on or near Passover in early to mid April.
That seems unlikely at this point, but within the realm of possibility, depending on how various ambiguous prophetic scriptures shake out. If within the next three weeks we see massive earthquakes, the outbreak of new wars, and a Jewish physical reclamation of the Temple Mount, then hold onto your hats. Otherwise, the current crisis – at least in the short term – would seem to be of more earthly than heavenly significance.
