Revelation

The Two Witnesses Minister During the Second Half of the 70th Week of Daniel

by Alan Kurschner
written by Alan Kurschner

God has carved out a future chunk of history by ordaining a 7-year period commonly called the “70th Week of Daniel” (and misleadingly called “The Tribulation Period”). This 7-year period is divided in two halves of three and one half years each (1,260 days, or 42 months).

It is noteworthy that in Daniel and Revelation there is only one half of this 7-year period that is the focus of key events–the latter three and one half years. Further, both Jesus and Paul in their discourses on the end of the age use Daniel as a source of their exposition. And the astute student will observe that both Jesus and Paul focus on the events that will unfold during the second half with an emphasis on the midpoint event: the revelation of Antichrist and the genesis of his plan to persecute the Church.

In Revelation we are introduced to two individuals known as the “Two Witnesses” who will minister on behalf of God and whose ministry has a particular purpose. There are often two discussions about these witnesses: their identification, and the time frame they minister in.

It is not the purpose of this article to discuss the former, only the latter. We are told that their ministry will last three and one half years (Rev. 11:3). Though the book of Revelation gives us precise correspondence that their time frame of ministering will be in the latter half of the 70th week of Daniel, there are some, especially with pretribulational assumptions, that force them to minister in the first half of the 70th week of Daniel with no Biblical warrant.

Given the information of when they will die (Rev. 11:7-10), it is demonstrated that they minister during the second half. Consequently, they die and are resurrected after the sixth trumpet is blown (9:13; 11:7) and after the second woe (9:12), but before the seventh trumpet (11:11,14,15).

And since their days of ministering is 1,260, the day of their death signals that the 70th week of Daniel was completed the day before. Thereby, it necessarily follows that the seventh trumpet is blown after the completion of the 70th week, in which the bowls of God’s final wrath will unfold in rapid succession.

There are many who have assumed that the seventh trumpet and the bowls must occur within the 7-year period, but a natural reading does not allow for this; hence the reason why it is common to see forced readings of these events placed in the 70th week. However, numerous students of prophecy are not aware that Scripture teaches an extra 75-day time frame that follows the 7 years, which is made up of a 30-day period and a 45-day period (Daniel 12:11-12). Incidentally, Robert Van Kampen did an exceptionally good job in expounding on these extra 75 days in his book The Sign.

Giving all this as a preface to this subject, I will direct you to this article in which the author unpacks it further.

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General Theology

Health and Wealth “Gospel” Exported to Africa

by Alan Kurschner
written by Alan Kurschner

Pretribulationsim is not the only false teaching that America exports overseas; the prosperity “gospel” is now corrupting Africa and bringing disgrace upon the name of Christ and Biblical Christianity. (I suppose there is more money to be made in the preaching of prosperity than persecution.)
Here is a sad and disturbing article from Christianity Today.
Here are some excerpts from it,

Pastor Michael Okonkwo rises from his gold-coated throne before 4,000 onlookers in Lagos, Nigeria. “Hallelujah!” bellows the self-proclaimed “father of fathers, pastor of pastors,” wearing a glittery green gown. The crowd stands and roars….

…Similar scenes unfold every day in countless venues throughout sub-Saharan Africa, where prosperity-tinged Pentecostalism is growing faster not just than other strands of Christianity, but than all religious groups, including Islam. Of Africa’s 890 million people, 147 million are now “renewalists” (a term that includes both Pentecostals and charismatics), according to a 2006 Pew Forum on Religion and Public life study. They make up more than a fourth of Nigeria’s population, more than a third of South Africa’s, and a whopping 56 percent of Kenya’s. . . .

In its 2006 survey, Pew asked participants if God would “grant material prosperity to all believers who have enough faith.” Eighty-five percent of Kenyan Pentecostals, 90 percent of South African Pentecostals, and 95 percent of Nigerian Pentecostals said yes. Similarly, when Pew asked if religious faith was “very important to economic success,” about 9 out of 10 Kenyan, Nigerian, and South African renewalists said it was…

The worst brand of African prosperity teaching is, perhaps unsurprisingly, an American export. Experts cite various reasons for the spread of this kind of renewalism, better known as health-and-wealth, including:

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Announcements

Prewrath Radio Online Announcement

by Alan Kurschner
written by Alan Kurschner
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As mentioned yesterday, we are on the verge of launching the Radio program (the first ever prewrath radio program as far as we are aware). Just to orient youself to the show, there will be three different mediums to listen to the program.
Option One: Simply click on the link that we will provide each show to download the audio file and listen to it.

Option Two: The Radio program will be podcasted so you can subscribe to the show’s feed so it can be downloaded automatically to your media player (e.g. iTunes).
Option Three: We will (eventually) have a streaming mp3 player for each program; that way if you choose not to download the show to listen to it, you can hear it streamed through the blog. (By the way, we are looking for a very good streaming mp3 player that is compatible with the Movable Type platform. If you know of any, please let us know!)
Also, we have a new blog feed for those who want to subscribe to the blog via their RSS Reader. If you use the previous feed that we provided in the past, it will still work.
Thank you!

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Books

God’s Elect And The Great Tribulation: An Interpretation of Matthew 24:1-31 and Daniel 9

by Alan Kurschner
written by Alan Kurschner
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By Charles Cooper. This book is a scholarly defense for the Prewrath Rapture position.
It has four goals:

(1) to support the prewrath position in its conclusion that insisting on a sharp distinction between God’s work in Israel and His work in the church is a false presupposition that directly contradicts scripture.
(2) to support the prewrath position in its conclusion that Matthew 24:1-31 does apply to the church, the bride of Christ.
(3) to set forth a clear biblical exposition of Matthew 24:1-31.
(4) to correct the false and misleading conclusions about both the timing and fulfillment of Daniel 9:24-27.

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