Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10181. The feasts of Israel in Leviticus 23 are not a religious calendar that expired with the temple. They are a prophetic outline of God’s programme, given fifteen centuries before the events they picture, and the accuracy with which the first four have been fulfilled is one of the quiet marvels of Scripture. Seven…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10182. Israel is often called God’s prophetic clock, and the phrase is a good deal more than a slogan if you understand what it is claiming. It means that Scripture measures prophetic time by reference to one nation, so that when God is dealing openly with Israel the clock is running and when He…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10183. Ezekiel 36 and 37 are the two clearest chapters in the Old Testament on the national restoration of Israel, and they are also two of the most argued over. Ezekiel promises land, cleansing, a new heart, a new spirit, reunion of a divided people, one king over them and an everlasting covenant of…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10184. Scripture indicates that temple sacrifices will resume during the Tribulation, because several prophecies require a functioning altar which the Antichrist can stop. That is not a comfortable conclusion for a Christian who knows the letter to the Hebrews, and it needs handling with care. Two things have to be said together. A revived…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 10185. A prophetic timeline is only as good as the texts holding it up, so let me set out the sequence I believe Scripture teaches and show you where each stage comes from. What follows runs from the moment the church is caught up to the moment God dwells with His people on a…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 10186. Michael the archangel has a defined job in prophecy, and once you see what it is, several passages fall into place. He is presented as the prince who stands for Israel, and every appearance he makes in Scripture involves conflict on behalf of that nation. What Scripture does not give him is the…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10188. We should not try to identify the Antichrist, and I think Scripture gives us several good reasons why not. That may sound like a dull answer in a culture that loves a candidate, but the history of such attempts is a long catalogue of confident men being proved wrong. Let me give the…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10189. The seven-year covenant of Daniel 9:27 is the agreement that begins the final week of Daniel’s seventy, and it is the event that starts the prophetic clock running again after a long pause. Everything in the Tribulation timetable is dated from it. So who makes it, with whom, and what does it do?…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 5082. The phrase spiritual body has caused more confusion than almost any other in Paul, because English readers hear the word spiritual and think non-physical. That is precisely what Paul does not mean. If he had meant non-physical he would not have used the word body, and the entire argument of 1 Corinthians 15…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 5152. The Christian view of death is stranger than most people assume, because it refuses both of the positions on offer in our culture. It will not say that death is natural and fine, and it will not say that death is the end. It calls death an enemy, and then says the enemy…