We have come to a point in history where God is revealing a great amount of truth. He is revealing many things that believers have never known or understood before. Actually, in order to get to this point some 40 or plus years ago, God first had to uncover and reveal the calendar of history that is in the Bible, the Biblical calendar of history. This is why we can have all of these dates that we are thinking about, like the timing of the flood in 4990 B.C., as well as many other dates, and this is how we can project these dates into the New Testament Era, even into our day. This is why we can say that the Bible is teaching that we are very close to the end of the world and Christ’s return.
God laid out the calendar of history in the book of Genesis, in Genesis 5 and 11, and there are a couple of keys that help us to understand this calendar. If you read Genesis 5 or Genesis 11, you will read genealogical accounts.
It says in Genesis 5:3:
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:
The phrase “called his name” is one of the keys that tells us that God is speaking of immediate father-son relationships. In the Hebrew, the words are qara shem, “called his name.” So wherever we find qara shem, we know that this is referring to a direct father-to-son relationship—Adam to Seth in this case.
A couple of verses later in Genesis 5:6, it says:
And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos:
This verse does not use the phrase, “called his name.” It is not qara shem. “Begat” is a word that means someone has been begotten. It does not mean that Enos was born at the time when Seth was 105 years old. It means that someone in the line of Enos, Enos’ progenitor, someone who Enos will ultimately come from, entered the world or was born, but not Enos himself. Actually, this is the second key and the most important key in understanding the calendar of history.
It continues in Genesis 5:7-8:
And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.
Once Seth lives 912 years, he dies. At that point, Enos is born, as it says in Genesis 5:9:
And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan:
So Enos was born at Seth’s death, after Seth lived 912 years, and then we read of Enos going on in his life span. But God confounded this issue and clouded the water by saying that Enos was begotten. People have tended to think that this is the point at which Enos was actually born.
This is why a calendar of history has been developed by Christians that dates the world to only be about six or seven thousand years old. This is because they were trying to follow a methodology that, in reality, was not what God had in mind. We need to put, end-to-end, when the calendar reference patriarch died and then the one that was begotten by him. In this case, it was Seth to Enos. Enos was born. Then you count Enos’ life span and then the one after him who was born. When we do this, we come out with the correct calendar of history. At this point, we can connect Biblical dates to secular dates for confirmation.
As we follow this calendar of history through Genesis 5 and 11, we come down through the reign of the kings and we come to king Solomon. Most Biblical scholars would say that Solomon died in 930 B.C. or 931 B.C. Everyone knows that Solomon reigned for forty years. It is just within a year or two that most theologians place Solomon’s death, and they place his death between the years of 930 B.C. and 931 B.C.
If we are following this Biblical calendar, end-to-end, we will come all the way down through history and we will be able to fall right on the time when Solomon reigned. We know that this is correct and that it is the Biblical calendar of history. There are many other proofs we could do, but we know for certain that this is accurate. There is no question about this.
If any theologian or creation scientist or anyone else would just sit down with Mr. Camping’s book, Adam When?, or with a couple of other books of his, and think it through and work it out, they would find that this calendar is absolutely correct.
So when we go a little further on in Genesis 5, we read in Genesis 5:28:
And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son:
There are a few instances where “begat” is used and it is referring to an immediate father-son relationship, so understanding “begat” as someone who has been begotten down through the family line will not be true in every instance, but the context will reveal this. But we are on safe ground in understanding that Lamech was the immediate father of Noah because we read in Genesis 5:29:
And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.
Then it goes on to give more information.
So when we look at the calendar of history, we find that we can date the birth of Christ and that we can actually date Christ’s life very accurately. We can also find many dates for the destruction of Judah and the destruction of Israel in the north. So far, they all fall into line and yet there are verses in the Bible that really call for us to take a date, to take a point in history that God has written about in the Old Testament or in the Bible, and then to project that date into the future. In other words, we develop time paths, and time paths are very Biblical.
I do not know if everyone is aware of this, but Biblical time paths are not just something that someone thought would be a good idea. Time paths were not developed because someone sat around and asked, “Why do I not just do this?” Actually, God instructs this in the book of Daniel. In Daniel 9:24-25, we read:
Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: …
And it goes on.
So God is saying, “going forth of the commandment.” We can find this commandment in the Old Testament. This is the commandment that God gave Ezra the priest to bring the Law to Jerusalem. This would be the starting point, but it does not even matter what God is saying here in Daniel 9:25:
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: …
Because the sixty-nine weeks, or seven weeks and sixty and two weeks, nobody, nobody understands this to mean literal weeks. All theologians, even the crazy ones, recognize that God is giving a time path here into the future, towards the end of time. Most people recognize Daniel as dealing with the end times, that the prophecy of the book of Daniel is dealing with the end times, and here God is giving a time path. Start here; now I have to do some work I have to search it out and find out where the starting point is. From that point, I have to go to “Messiah the Prince.”
Then it goes on in Daniel 9:26-27:
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, …
So this would lead us to AD 33, when Jesus fulfilled all the Scriptures concerning the sacrifices that were pointing to Him.
Daniel 9:27 continues:
…and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
So the midst of the seventieth week was fulfilled on the Cross and then the last half of the seventieth week stretches throughout the whole New Testament Era. This is why we find references in Revelation to the two witnesses prophesying “a thousand two hundred and threescore days,” as we read in Revelation 11:3:
And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
This is three and a half years. Jesus fulfilled all righteousness and ended the sacrifices, the sacrificial system of Israel, at the Cross, and this was “in the midst of the week.” The second half of the week stretches throughout the New Testament Era and that is the 70th week. So God does give time paths. He does give time paths.
There are other things that we can look at that will show this. For example, when we are talking about taking a significant Old Testament date or a significant occurrence like the flood, we can take this information into the New Testament and find that a certain time path falls on such a day into the New Testament Era. So there is nothing wrong with doing this. There is nothing wrong with taking this information and checking it out.
So from the Biblical calendar of history, we find that the world was created in 1113 B.C. When we then add up the New Testament period with that 1113 date, we find that AD 1988 was the 13,000th year of history, thirteen thousand years exactly in 1988, which was just a little while ago.
God has given us information in the Bible indicating that the number thirteen ties in with the end. The number thirteen is related to the end. For instance, Jacob was 130 when he entered into Egypt, and this is 10 x 13. We also read that Jehoiada the priest was 130 when he died. Upon his death, that boy king who did right all the days of Jehoiada began to go astray. This is just as in 1988 when the Great Tribulation began, all the churches and congregations began to go astray. And there was Josiah the king, another boy king, who began to reign at age eight and he reigned for thirty-one years making him thirty-nine when he died, which is 3 x 13. Upon his death in 609 B.C., this historically began the 23-year period of the destruction of Jerusalem, climaxing in 587 B.C. with the city being destroyed. Another example of the number 13 is going around the walls of Jericho thirteen times. On the thirteenth time around, the walls fell down. This was not a picture of the end of the world, but this was actually pointing to the end of the church age. These examples are all part of the end of the world, as we get to this time in history that is right up against the very end of all things, and the Great Tribulation is a part of the end of the world.
There is a verse that we find in Deuteronomy 32:8 which says:
When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
Mr. Camping has made reference to this in his books. There were 12 tribes of Israel, but actually 13. There were 12 Apostles, but actually 13. And God has “set the bounds of the people” of the world “according to the number of the children of Israel” which are within the thirteen tribes. We can never know the number of the exact people that lived within Israel but we can know that there were 13 tribes, and that 13 relates to the end of the world.
Is not this what we are seeing as we come to 1988 and we can look back? We are seeing the world being given up to sin as it never has before in its history. We can see the church falling away with such an apostasy that has never been in the history of the world. And God tells us that the Great Tribulation is a time that the world has never seen nor will see. It is an awful time of leaving the true Gospel of the Bible and going apostate.
So when we put it all together, from the Biblical calendar of history, we do find that 1988 is a very important year. It connects to the end of the church age, just as Josiah and his death indicates, and just as Jehoiada’s death at 130 indicates, and just as Jacob entering into Egypt and leaving Canaan indicates. It is all connected to the falling away of the churches and congregations.
So from Pentecost in AD 33, we go to May 1988, which would be the 1955 years of the Church Age. And this number can be broken down into the significant numbers of 5 x 17 x 23, which just adds more information.
By the way, I am just going to throw something out here for the sake of interest. There are many people who think that Mr. Camping is the only person who has come up with seeing time paths in the Bible. They think that Mr. Camping is the only one that has come up with the breaking down of numbers. But I actually found a study by A. W. Pink online as he was studying the book of Exodus. I think that it was Exodus 16. Mr. Pink came up with some numbers and he broke them down, just like we have been doing today. I can not remember the exact numbers that he was using, but he also explained that a certain number represented this thing and a certain number represented that thing. Pink lived in the early twentieth century. I am not sure when he died. I think it was after WWI. But he broke down the numbers, and he had some of them similar to the understanding that we have today. A couple of his numbers were off, as far as the meaning of the number, but I just wanted to point out that in Pink’s case, we see a child of God who is using the same type of methodology.
I am just saying this to indicate that this type of understanding goes beyond Mr. Camping. It goes into the past; and if Pink did it, I am sure others have done it also. So it is not farfetched at all for us to take a number that we derive from the Bible and to break it down to see what its numbers mean and how can we understand these numbers.
So as we find out that the 1955 years of the Church Age ends in 1988, the 13,000th year of history, we then have a good basis for saying that the Church Age came to an end and that the Great Tribulation began. And the Great Tribulation could be 2300 days, or it could be 23 years, or it could be 70 years. So let us go 23 years from 1988. I think that it was May 21, 1988. So we travel 23 years from May 21, 1988. 23 is a number that God uses for tribulation or Great Tribulation. He has used this number in the past. So we get to May 21, 2011, and arriving at this date in this manner has nothing to do with the flood or anything like that. We came to May 21, 2011 from a whole independent approach than from coming to this date from Genesis and the flood account. This is all different information to arrive at 23 years or 8400 days, which is from May 21, 1988 to May 21, 2011.
At this point, let us go back to Genesis 7. Remember that we know from the Biblical calendar of history, a calendar that is very accurate, and this calendar is based on the life spans of the patriarchs. So in this case, Noah is the Biblical calendar patriarch. God is keeping the calendar by the life span of Noah and it is in Noah’s 600th year, as we read in Genesis 7:6:
And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
And we know that Noah’s 600th year was the year 4990 B.C. If anyone has not done this, I would suggest that you work this out yourself. If you do, you will be absolutely convinced. Work this out yourself and you will see that Noah’s 600th year was the year 4990 B.C.
So let us read from the beginning of Genesis 7. It says in Genesis 7:1-6:
And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
A little further down, we read about the flood. The flood began on the 17th day of the 2nd month of Noah’s life. This is how God was keeping count of the calendar. This is how He was keeping track of the calendar. So seven days prior would have been the 10th day of the 2nd month. [Note: the speaker mistakenly said “24th day” here rather than “10th day” which is what he intended.] God came to Noah on the 10th day of the 2nd month and said, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth.” So God told Noah, “yet seven days” before the rain is going to come, before the flood is going to come and the world is going to be destroyed.
Then we read in Genesis 7:9-11:
There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
So God began to judge the world with the flood, to destroy the earth and everything that had the breath of life. Except for Noah, his sons and their wives, and Noah’s wife that were in the Ark and except for the animals that God had brought into the Ark in pairs and sevens, everything else that had the breath of life upon the face of the whole earth was destroyed.
I know that we are familiar with this, but we are going to go back over it. We need to begin, very slowly, to go through this information to make sure that we understand it and that our understanding is correct and that we are not missing anything.
If we turn to 2 Peter 3, we will read about the flood and the end of the world in this chapter. It says in 2 Peter 3:3-9:
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us–ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
That is, all of God’s elect that God has planned to save will come to repentance. We know that when God says, “Beloved,” He is talking to true believers, and He tells us, “Be not ignorant.” If you are “ignorant,” it is because you do not understand something or because you have no knowledge of something. He says, “Be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” He says this in the context of the flood and the destruction of the second earth. Right in the middle, between these two events, right in the middle, God makes this statement. He is talking about Noah’s flood. Then He says to “be not ignorant of this one thing.” Then He goes into describing how the world is going to melt with “a fervent heat” and be destroyed by fire. Smack dab in the middle, “Be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years.”
And when we go back to Genesis 7:4, it says:
For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth…
Gold told Noah seven days before the flood came and the whole world was destroyed. Well, one day is as a thousand years. You have seven thousand years until the destruction of the world. You have seven thousand years to get into the Ark, which is safety. Of course, this points to the Lord Jesus and to becoming saved.
So after that seven days or seven thousand years, after the historical seven days, the earth was destroyed. And after the spiritual significant seven thousand years, or the reference into the future of seven thousand years, the world will be destroyed once again. This time, completely, fervently, with a heat that will melt everything and destroy everything.
God is telling us that we do not have to worry about this, but for only one thing. We could maybe not even be that concerned about it, except for one thing. And we have a Biblical calendar of history that just came to light within the last 40-45 years. I do not know exactly when God opened up Mr. Camping’s eyes, but now in looking at it, it is actually a simple math calculation. We have dates in place, which are 4990 + 2011 = 7001, but we minus 1 because there was no year 0. So we have the date that is exactly 7,000 years from the flood, perfect, exactly.
So we know exactly the date of 7000 years from the flood which means that we are at that time in history when there must be a falling away first that 2 Thessalonians 2 tells us must occur before Christ returns. First, there must be a time of increased wickedness in the world. Do we qualify? We do qualify, like the world has never seen.
So all of these things are in place. We are the generation; we are the ones who are alive upon the earth after 6,997 years almost since the flood, 6,997 years. There might be a few more months before it actually gets to 6,997, but it is about 3 ˝ years that are left. We are the ones who are alive three more years, and then we will find out. Three more years, then you will not have to hear this anymore. If we are incorrect, we will not be saying, “Yet seven days to 2011.” No, we will not be saying that. But if it is correct, time is short. Time is extremely short. We have just over three years yet to get into the Ark, to get into the saving Lord Jesus Christ, to get into His salvation plan, to beseech God for mercy. Well, you see, this is the predicament that mankind is in right now, because time is so short.
Let us continue in Genesis 7:11-16:
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; they, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.
“The Lord shut him in.” One thing that we did not mention is when we go 7,000 years from 4990 B.C. to AD 2011, where do we land? 2011 has twelve months in the year. Is it January? Is it June? Is it December? Is there anyway we can know when the 7,000th year will come to an end?
Well the problem is that God gave us the Biblical calendar of history and He tied it to patriarchal life spans, but we do not know how to understand what was the seventeenth day of the second month of Noah compared to the Hebrew calendar or compared to the Gregorian calendar or compared to the calendars that we are aware of today. That bit of information is lost. This is why for a while we were just saying 2011 is the end of the world and that it could come probably during the Feast of Tabernacles, which is the Feast of the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar or October 2011 in our calendar. Yet God does tell us it was the 17th day of the 2nd month, and when we go from May 21, 1988, there is an exact 8400 days or an exact 23 years to May 21, 2011.
May 21, 2011 is the 2nd month of the Hebrew calendar Iyyar but it is Iyyar 17. It is the 2nd month, the 17th day of the Biblical calendar, just as Genesis 7 speaks of the 17th day of the 2nd month of the calendar. God is telling us from a different path altogether, from 13,000 years of history, from the 1955 years of the Church Age, from May 21, 1988 to May 21, 2011, that is the Great Tribulation, a 23-year period. It ends on the 17th day of the 2nd month, which for all intents and purposes God is connecting to the flood which began on the 17th day of the 2nd month of Noah’s calendar. So we have an exact 7,000 years.
We know that this is the day now. We also know that May 21 or the 17th day of the 2nd month of the Hebrew calendar is the day when God will shut the door. He will shut them in and this is no coincidence. He tells us what happened once Noah and his family and all of the animals were in the Ark—the Lord shut him in. It does not actually say “door,” and I think one of the reasons for this is that God is letting us know that all those that He came to save are safe and secure in the Lord Jesus Christ. So it is not really saying that He shut them out. It is not saying that. It says, “The LORD shut them in.” He shut them in and so God is looking on the fact that He has saved those whom He came to save and now His salvation plan is over, so He shuts the door.
Unfortunately, historically, in the world of Noah’s day, the waters fell and all those people I am sure were greatly distressed. Probably some were coming to the Ark, “Let us in! Let us in!” But it was over by that point. And the same thing in 2011. God will shut the elect people of God in. He will save them. Every one of them will be safe and secure in the Lord Jesus, and then there will be… what? Then there will be what? I ask this question. This is the question. What is going to happen next? Well, in Genesis 7, there is a lot of language of what was going on with the flood of that day, and we read in Genesis 7:22-24:
All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
150 days is 5 months, and God tells us in the next chapter that it was on the 17th day of the 7th month that this was happening. So He spells it out. It was 5 months from the 17th day of the 2nd to the 17th day of the 7th month, and 150 days = 5 months, the 30-day months that they were using with the reference calendar patriarchs.
So we find, as we make this projection into the future, that May 21 falls short of a Feast that we were certain was going to be fulfilled before Christ’s return, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Ingathering, the Feast that has to do with gathering in the harvest. And God says that this is the Feast that comes at the end of the year. He says this a few times in the Bible, and yet May 21 is 5 months short, exactly 5 months short from this Feast and October 2011. We fall short 5 months and God says here with Noah that the waters prevailed upon the earth for 150 days, for 5 months.
By now we are getting more familiar with Revelation 9 and the reason for going here is because it speaks of 5 months. We know that 23 years is very solid to May 21, 7,000 years from the flood falling on the 17th day of the 2nd month of the Hebrew calendar, which is May 21. This date is locked in. I mean try—I am sure people have—try to move it, try to fit it somewhere else. You cannot. It is locked in. They are numbers that fit perfectly, numbers that no man could have put together. You cannot develop this. No one is smart enough to develop these kinds of scenarios and to have it fall perfectly into place like this. So we are 5 months short and Genesis 7 speaks of the waters being upon the earth for 5 months, and here in Revelation 9:1-5 we read:
And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
A little further on, it speaks of 5 months. The pit is being opened up, the “bottomless pit,” which is language of Hell and it is being opened up for 5 months. We still have more studying to do, but these things seem very solid, very, very exact as they are falling into place. 5 months from May 21 in our calendar is 153 days, and it is an exact 5 months to October 21, which is the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles where we would expect the Lord Jesus to return to fulfill the Feast—that third and final Feast—and for the world to end. We have expected this and so all of this information is the basis for everything else. This is why, all of a sudden, we are looking at our rapture in May, while the world continues on for 5 months. This is why we are wondering whether or not there is eternal suffering for the lost, or if this 5-month period of torment is the “greater damnation” for some and then they are totally destroyed because these things have fallen into place as the result of the leftover 5-month period, the leftover 153 days.