In Genesis 2:2-3 we find where God first established His pattern of 6 days of labor and the 7th for completion and rest.

By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Then in Psalm 90:4 we find where God views a thousand years as just a day in His sight.

For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night.

Respected Bible scholars agree that except for some minor discrepancies, all considerations indicate that mankind has been on the earth 6,000 years since creation and that 2,000 years have, or are about to, elapse since Jesus Christ was born and crucified.

In Mark 9:2-4 the Lord Jesus gave a demonstration of what it will be like in the day of His final coming in glory with His saints. "Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves, and He was transfigured before them. His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. And Elijah appeared to them with Moses and they were talking with Jesus."

It is interesting to note that the Scriptures make special mention of this tremendous event having taken place "after 6 days."

Exodus 20:9-10 reminds us that mankind is appointed to work 6 days and that the seventh is to be devoted to the Lord. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work; you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates."

Turning to Hebrews 4:1-10 believers can find the blessed promise from God that they too will partake in the 7th day rest of God.

With the conclusion of 6,000 years of man's labor and the dawning of the start of the 7 thousandth we as believers, are strongly encouraged in 2 Peter 3:8-9 to "not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years."

Why are Christians not to forget this particular point? The Holy Spirit did not have Peter record this instruction over a vague generalization. It is a direct instruction for believers to recognize that God is counting the passing of each thousand years as we count a day.

Our revelation thus far is that after 6,000 years of man's labor upon the earth, the redeemed will be permitted to enter into the 1,000 year Sabbath day of rest reserved for the Lord.

Going back through the Bible we now look at the biblical clues referring to the 3rd day and what these revelations portend. In Scriptures such as Luke 18:33 we can read of the prophecies that Christ would rise again on the 3rd day.

...and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again."

Jesus came and shed His blood for the sins of the world almost 2,000 years ago (or just 2 days from God's perspective). For 2 days He remained hidden in the grave, but then on the third day He was resurrected and revealed Himself in victory and glory.

The Scriptures repeatedly make reference to the return of Christ in the context of a wedding. As can be confirmed by Revelation 19:7, a wedding takes place at the time of Christ's coming.

"Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready."

Jesus once attended a wedding according to the biblical record where He blessed the event with a miraculous provision of wine, which is a symbol of His own blood that he would one day give for His bride.

What is of special interest is that the Scripture found in the Gospel of John 2:1 makes specific mention that Jesus attended this wedding on the 3rd day.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there...

Now turning to Hosea 5:15 & 6:3 we are told that the Lord would be offended by the Jews at some time and would then return to His place. To return to His place would mean that He first had to leave Heaven.

I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me. (Hosea 5:15)

"So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth." (Hosea 6:3)

We also are shown that His coming to this earth would be in two outpourings like an early and late rainfall.

Reading verses 1-2 of Ch. 6 concerning this powerful prophecy we find overwhelming evidence to support that the Lord's 2nd coming will be after the end of 2,000 years as God considers a day and during the start of the third.

"Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. "He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him.

The prophet Hosea is found speaking prophetically for the house of Israel. He declares that the time has come for them to return to the Lord. He describes 2 days wherein they have been afflicted after offending the Lord, just as has happened during the 2,000 years since Christ's first coming. He prophesies that after these 2 days, during the morning of the 3rd day, God would revive them (their soon to happen spiritual awakening), raise them up (the dead to be resurrected) and they will then live in His sight (the Millennial Reign of Christ).

Israel receives her spiritual outpouring during the first 3½ years of the tribulation after Russia and its confederates are defeated according to Ezekiel 39:29.

"I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel," declares the Lord GOD.

This, in our opinion, provides convincing evidence that the Lord's coming back to the earth will take place after the end of 2,000 years of absence and at the beginning of the 3rd thousand.

When considering the fact that many Bible scholars believe Israel's grand Jubilee of Jubilee years will take place within the first decade of this 3rd millennium since Christ returned to Heaven, then the time of the catching up of the Church to glory must be near at hand. As exciting as this thought might be, it must be balanced with the realization that this observation is only speculation.

According to God's promise to the Church found in 1 Corinthians 15:50-55 & 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, the day is coming when every true believer living on the earth will suddenly be transformed into glorious, immortal beings who will be caught up into the heavens to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds.

Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory. "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:50-55)

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18)

Inquisitive speculators utilizing the following formula and "conjecture" can find fascinating, theoretical grounds for considering how close we "may" be to this unfathomable event.

In Ezekiel 3:24-4:17 it was prophesied that Israel would be besieged for 390 years and that Judah would likewise suffer for an additional 40 years. There is no clear period in history where this 430-year duration was fulfilled.

Arthur E. Bloomfield in his book "The End of the Days" puts forth the proposition that the prophetic countdown began with the Babylonian siege of 586 BC. The captivity lasted for 70 years just as was prophesied in 
Jeremiah 25:11 & 29:10.

'This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. (Jeremiah 25:11)

"For thus says the LORD, 'When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. (Jeremiah 29:10)

The prophecies of Jeremiah do not state that the siege would end at that time, but only that the Jews would be allowed to return to their land. The siege was to continue until the completion of the 430 years. Israel therefore had 360 years remaining as long as they obeyed God's command and returned to their land.

They didn't (Less than 50,000 returned) and God was therefore bound by His words in Leviticus 26:17-18 where He declared, "If also after these things, you do not obey me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins."

According to Arthur Bloomfield, Israel's remaining 360 years of siege was to be multiplied by 7. The remaining siege would therefore have been increased to 2,520 years.

The finishing of the rebuilt Temple in "apx." 516 BC, give or take a year, adding 2,520 years would indicate that the Jewish Jubilee expected to occur sometime between 2005 and 2010, could possibly be the time that Jesus Christ will begin to deliver Israel from her continual occupation by Gentiles.

The prophesied siege is to reach its full intensity during the final 7 years of this age (Luke 21:24).

...and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

Jesus begins to deliver Israel at the start of His reign apx. 3 years or so into the final 7 year time of tribulation according to Revelation 11:15-17.

Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever." And the twenty-four elders, who sit on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, "We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign.

Counting backward in time 3 or so years from the end of 2007, or 7 years from 2010, would theoretically place the pre-tribulation Rapture in the vicinity of 2003.

In verses 14 & 15 of the lone chapter of Jude, it is plainly demonstrated that the saints return with the Lord to the earth on the Day of Judgment.

It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."

Revelation 5:9-10 reveals that these redeemed saints of God are in Heaven with the Lord before the judgment of the earth begins in Revelation 6:1. In Revelation 19:7-14 we are once more shown that the saints will be already residing in Heaven before Christ returns to the earth to execute His final judgment.

And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. "You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth." (Revelation 5:9-10)

Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, "Come." (Revelation 6:1)

Just as in the days of Moses, recorded for us in Exodus 19:10-11, when God told the Jewish people to be prepared to meet Him on the 3rd day, so too does this passage have implications for this last generation.

The Lord also said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments; and let them be ready for the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

The Rapture, by our studies of the revelation of Scripture, will take place at least 7 years before the Second Coming of Christ.

At the close of the final 7 years, in like manner of Exodus 19:10-11, when Israel and all remaining tribulation saints have been sanctified by Christ, then the Lord will come down from Heaven in the sight of all the people as God has promised in Matthew 24:29-30.

The Lord also said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments; and let them be ready for the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. (Exodus 19:10-11)

"But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. "And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. (Matthew 24:29-30)

There are more patterns of the 3rd day and 7th day which could be cited, but what needs to be kept foremost in question is "why did God continually present these obviously illustrative patterns?" He has done this for His people.

One fine day, in a twinkling of an eye the true believers in Jesus Christ will be soaring through God's glorious heavens and so shall they forever be with their Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18).

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

If you would like to have the blessed confidence that when the Lord removes His Church from this wicked world you will not be left behind to face the horrible final years of Satan's rulership upon this earth, then come to Jesus Christ right this very moment with faith, trusting in His atoning blood for the forgiveness of your sins.

If your faith is sincere then rejoice and lift up your voice in joyous praise because your Redeemer lives and is most certainly returning soon to escort you to your eternal home.

The 7 thousandth and 3rd thousandth year are converging and let us "not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years" (2 Peter 3:8-9).

SOURCE: Rapture Watch

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