Chapter 20 The Pattern of Events 1933-1948
Contents
The Significance of June 11th 1938 and the Seven Years to 1945
It is outside the range of this writing to give more than the bare outline of the five years from June 12th 1933 to June 11th 1938, which was when 1,960 lunar years ended from October 23rd in AD 36. During these years a concentrated study of the whole of the Bible's chronological structure was called for. Six brethren were involved in this, and by the Spring of 1937 we were satisfied that every major difficulty in unravelling the whole time scheme of the Scriptures had been overcome, through prayerful waiting upon God, and through the amazing confirmation which is found in the Word itself when the actual truth is known.
The chronology of the Acts of the Apostles had been largely unveiled and it was seen that the opening of the Feast of Tabernacles (October 23rd) in AD 36 was an occasion of major importance with God. For it was then, following the Acts (chapter 10) Pentecost of that year, that the Lord's Jewish apostles in Jerusalem learned from Peter, and his 'six brethren', that 'God also to the Gentiles (had) granted repentance unto life.' We read also in Acts 11: 18, that when they heard about this dramatic event which had taken place at Caesarea, 'they held their peace, and glorified God.' Until that time, of course, the Gospel had been preached 'to none but unto the Jews only' (Acts 11:19).
We realised that just as Jesus had been born at the Feast of Tabernacles in 1 BC , so now the Church (Jew and Gentile) could be viewed as coming to the birth at the same 'Feast' in AD 36.
It had already been noted that the God Who had measured off the four periods of 490 years of 354 days each, from the death of Stephen in AD 33 to the day of the World Economic Conference on June 12th 1933 had also marked the end of 1,960 lunar years from the same starting-point. These terminated with the great earthquake on May 31st 1935 at Quetta, British Baluchistan, in which some 44,000 people lost their lives. So it was anticipated that the end of 1,960 true lunar years from October 22nd - 23rd AD 36, would also receive some marking from God.
By November 25th 1937 it had become possible to put into print in brief the whole of the Bible's chronology (with full astronomical data) to the end of the 6,000 years, and also to give the facts relating to the 'three days and three nights' of the death of Jesus, which He had referred to as 'the sign of the prophet Jonas' (Matthew 12: 39-40). On December 3rd 1937 this literature was sent to all the Bishops in the British Isles (at that time there were exactly '153' of them). Only five troubled to acknowledge these documents, and none showed any inclination to look more closely into the matter.
Those of us engaged in the research had by that time, of course, learnt that we were proceeding into 'the consummation of the age' , and that the words of Jesus concerning 'watching' for His return were daily becoming more and more pertinent, especially for those who held high office in the churches of Christendom.
It was an interesting fact that the evening of December 3rd 1937, when the above literature was sent to the 153 Bishops and many others (about 200 in all) was the true solar anniversary of our Lord's 'beginning of signs' in Cana of Galilee, in AD 29, when 'He made the water wine' (John 2: 1-11). We noticed that December 4th, when the documents were received, was just 12 times '153' days from the Meeting in London on November 25th 1932, at which '153' persons had been present, when we had taken the original step of faith in naming 'June 12th 1933' - then 200 days distant.
This turned our attention again to the Lord's last 'sign' - recorded in John 21 - where it was found that the numerical value of the Greek words for 'the net' (to diktuon) was 8 times 153, as mentioned in our Chapter Eighteen. This discovery concerning the duration of the ministry of Jesus being 8 x 153 days began to elucidate the meaning of 'the net' in John 21.
The net which He would use at the end of this age was His own testimony to His Church as He unveiled 'the things concerning Himself' (Luke 24:27). It was a net which would not be broken (see John 21: 11). It was God Who had 'made the ages' (that is, time-measurements) according to the literal translation of Hebrews 1: 2, revealing Himself and His Son through them.
It would be difficult now to attempt to describe the forebodings and fears of Europe in the year 1938, preceding the betrayal of Czechoslovakia to Hitler by France and Great Britain in September of that year, but it was clear to many that a renewal of hostilities which might again involve all the powers was becoming imminent. We noted that June 11th was marked by an earthquake in England which seemed to be a token one, as coming at the close of 1,960 years + 40 Jubilee years, making the '2,000' from AD 36. We remembered the tragedy of Quetta in 1935 (referred to above) when we knew the hand of God had been stretched out in providential judgment, because 'the third day' had come in this aspect of time.
June 11th 1938, then, was the close of another stage when, 'two days' of 'a thousand years' each being over, the 'third day' had arrived. But, instead of the 'judgment' being a sudden one as at Quetta there lay ahead for Europe and the World a terrible era of seven years to 1945 which would see the break-up of the existing order in Europe, and leave the nations as a whole divided into two great halves, commonly described as 'the Free World' and the world which lay behind 'the Iron Curtain.' During this period God would take in hand to perform His 'strange work' with the people of Israel to prepare them for the fulfilment of His covenant with Abraham when He should raise them up to nationhood in 1948.
As these seven years were to be patterned upon the same framework as the seven years of the Book of Revelation, it will be good to have this all clearly in mind before we proceed. In Revelation 11:3 we find a mention of '1,260 days'. (It will be seen by careful reading that the '42 months' of Rev 11:2 are actually to follow the first three and a half years which are spoken of as '1,260 days'). When these days are completed, in the middle of the 7 years, we find 'three days and an half' spoken of in Rev 11:9.
Then in Rev 12:6 we again come upon the first '1,260 days' which follow the vision of the 'child' being 'caught up to God and to His throne' in Rev 12:5. Later in this chapter, in Rev 12:14, we see 'a time (360 days), times (2 x 360 days) and half a time' (180 days) bringing the seven years to an end. Adding these days together, we find we again have a total of 1,260. (We find a further mention of '42 months' as the latter half of the 7 years, in chapter 13:5). The pattern, then, is simply 1,260 days, three and a half days and another 1,260 days.
The Timing of the Second World War was Fixed by the Holy Scriptures
As we have said, it is only possible to deal with the bare outlines of the War years and our starting point must be, in the first place, June 11th 1938.
From the morning of June 11th to the evening of November 25th, three and a half years later, in 1941 will be found to be '1,263 and a half days.' In the evening of this November 25th, 'the greatest recorded earthquake' until then, occurred at 6.08 pm (GMT) mercifully beneath the Atlantic Ocean. This was the first of a series of quakes which would belt the earth in the course of the next few days and seemed to herald the Japanese attack on 'Pearl Harbour' on December 7th, which brought the Western hemisphere into the War.
We will now take a fresh view of the above '1,263 and a half days' and date them from the hour of Noon, June 11th 1938 which, as we said, was marked by an earthquake in Britain, and measure them to Midnight on November 25th 1941. A further '1,260 days' will be found to reach exactly to Midnight on May 8th 1945, when the War in Europe actually ended, with hostilities ceasing at 12.01 am, and the act of surrender being signed in Berlin.
What we have seen in the above facts, therefore, is '2,000 years' (or, 1,960 true lunar years, with the addition of 40 Jubilee years) followed immediately by an exact patterning of the 7 years of the Book of Revelation (that is, '1,263 and a half days' and '1,260 days') to VE Day in 1945. All who remember how the third part of the Jewish race (6,000,000 people) perished under the Nazi regime, mainly in the last three and a half years of the War, will know that this second half of the seven years must have been allowed by God to foreshadow the days of the coming 'great tribulation', which, Jesus warned in Matthew 24: 21-30, will lead up to His actual return 'with power and great glory' (see also Revelation 19). In that final judgment era which impends over this world we read, in the symbolic language of Revelation 9:18, that 'the third part of men' will perish, as the Most High God turns His hand to purge this world of a Christendom which has become like 'the cities of the plain' (see Genesis 19: 29).
In other words, when the time design of the Second World War is analysed, it can be seen to have been a grim foreshadowing of a Third World War which is destined to erase our present corrupt civilisation from the earth, when its iniquity has come to the full.
But this is only the beginning of that which has to be told. Preceding the above 1,960 lunar years to June 11th 1938, which commenced with the day of October 23rd AD 36, lay another exact time-pattern of '1,263 and a half days' and '1,260 days' which we will now briefly examine.
The first named day in the Gospel of John (1: 29) was November 25th AD 29, when the Baptist 'seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world".' From noon of this day a span of exactly '1,263 and a half days' will be found to run to the Midnight of May 11th AD 33, that is, 'after eight days' from the Midnight of the resurrection of Jesus on May 3rd-4th (see John 20: 26-29). In this late evening our Lord's Second Appearing took place after His resurrection, and it was then that He restored His unbelieving disciple Thomas, which was needful before the journey into Galilee could begin.
It is significant that the hour of Midnight on May 11th in 1639 BC had seen the 'firstborn' let go from death in Egypt (Exodus 12: 29-51), the day of their actual exodus being May 12th. There is no doubt that Jesus (unseen, of course) and His disciples made their exodus from Jerusalem on this same date in the solar calendar in AD 33, and He 'went before them into Galilee' (see Matthew 28:7 & Mark 14: 28).
We can now measure the further '1,260 days' from the Midnight of May 11th AD 33 to the close of October 22nd in AD 36, when the 1,960 lunar years began. It was at the opening of this 'Feast of Tabernacles', as we have to remind ourselves, that the Lord, through Peter, was able to bring the other apostles in Jerusalem into fellowship with Himself, by revealing to them that 'God also to the Gentiles (had) granted repentance unto life' (Acts 11:18). Obviously, not until this vital rapport had been established between our Lord Jesus Christ in heaven and His twelve apostles on the earth could the Gospel be preached freely to the Gentiles, for we read in Acts 11: 19 that until AD 36 they had been 'preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.'
The Challenge of These Figures - 'The Net' in Action
When we held our original November 25th Meeting for Christians in 1932 we had no knowledge at all of the Bible's chronological framework, except for a very limited understanding of the 'seven times' of Daniel 4. We therefore, at that time, had no 'net'.
But in the winter of 1937 the position was entirely different. By then the Holy Spirit of God had brought to light and fashioned 'the net' which He was about to use. God knew that in 'as it were two hundred cubits' or days from November 25th 1937, He would be going into action, so a 'time-net' must be cast into 'the sea' of the Gentiles at the beginning of this period. The six brethren involved in this procedure, therefore, called a Press Conference in London, and a paper was read giving details of the Bible's Chronology from Creation to the end of the 6,000 Years in 1933, and also expounding the truth about 'the sign of the prophet Jonas' (Matthew 12: 39-40) (that is, the 'three days and three nights' of the death of Christ). Through the Associated Press, some 300 newsmen could have been present at this gathering at a London hotel on November 25th 1937 but, in the ordering of God, not one reporter turned up! The paper was, however, read and the facts put into print forthwith.
The ways of God are often comic to a degree, especially when He is dealing with a world which really holds His Word in contempt!
As already mentioned, on December 3rd some 200 copies of the literature unveiling the whole course of time were sent out to scholars and prominent people, including the '153' Bishops of the British Isles - this significant number being discovered after, and not before, the copies were despatched. So it was that, 200 days prior to the solar anniversary of Pentecost in 1938, the religious world, through its leaders, was apprised of the true facts to do with the 'sign of the prophet Jonas.'
This was a necessary part of the counsels of God, because He was about to perform a 'strange work' with the people of Jonah, the Jews of Europe. We need only remind ourselves of the exactitude of the '1,263 and-a-half days' and the further '1,260 days' - from the earthquake at noon on June 11th 1938, to the cessation of hostilities at Midnight (12.01 am) on May 8th-9th 1945, to see the mighty God of Jacob performing 'all things after the counsel of His own will' (Ephesians 1:11) and, as ever, performing them precisely on time.
The salvation of the remnant of European Jewry demanded a heavy sacrifice on the part of the allies, for it necessitated the invasion of the Continent on June 6th 1944 ('D-Day'). Much could be said about the significance of every such major movement during the War; as events unfolded before us we usually saw that the dates had a chronological significance. In the Spring of 1945, as the War ended, exactly three 'days' of 888 solar years were completed from 720 BC, when the ten tribes of Israel (whose kingdom was in Samaria) were swept away into captivity by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, as we read in 2 Kings 17: 5-18. How wonderful to see Jesus, Whose number is '888', stretching forth His hand to save His ancient people - the people of the prophet Jonah - after they had been swallowed up in 'the sea' of the nations for a full 'three days' (3 x 888 = 2,664 years).
The Four Thousand Years from Abram End in 1945
Abram left Haran on August 6th 2056 BC, on the first stage of his journey to enter the Land of Canaan. The date of this can be ascertained from Genesis 12: 4, where we are told that at this point 'Abram was seventy and five years old.' Those who are old enough to remember how the Second World War was brought to an end will not have forgotten the date of August 6th 1945 (exactly 4,000 solar years later, if we exclude from measurement the two whole days that Christ was in the tomb).
Blood, and fire, and pillars (lit. palm trees) of smoke' were surely the sign which riveted the attention of the whole world, as these great four days of a thousand years ended; for few could ignore the enormity of the effect on the world of the first use of the Atomic bomb in warfare on August 6th and 9th 1945 as a means of bringing the war in the East to a speedy termination (see Joel 2:30).
And when 4,000 Julian years of 365 and-a-quarter days were ended from that far-off initial step of obedience to the call of God on the part of the father of the Jewish race, Abram, when he set out from Haran after his father was dead (Act 7: 4), we arrive at the date of September 2nd 1945. This was when the Six Years War finally ended from September 1939 with the signing of the surrender document by Japan on board the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay.
'Israel shall be thy Name'
(Genesis 35:10)
At Midnight on May 14th 1948, President Truman granted de facto recognition to the new-born State of Israel simultaneously with its proclamation and, three days later, Soviet Russia granted Israel de jure recognition, on May 17th, from which date those watching the course of events with the aid of the Bible's chronology were able to trace back an exact 4,000 Julian Years to the day when God confirmed to Abram by a solemn covenant that his seed should inherit that land. That was in 2053 BC , when the prophecy of the 'four hundred years' to the Exodus from Egypt was given in Genesis chapter 15.
It was interesting to see America and Soviet Russia in agreement upon such a step as the recognition of the new State of Israel.
We must now mention briefly a time-patterning of God from the Birth of Jesus to the Birth of Israel in 1948, with which is connected a remarkable prophecy: 'Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against'.
These words are found in Luke 2: 34 and were uttered when Mary and Joseph had brought the Child Jesus to present Him to God, just forty days after His Nativitiy in Bethlehem, according to the Law. The date was December 8th 1 BC If we measure forward a full 2,000 years of 354 days, we shall find these reach to May 17th 1939 which was the day when Britain abrogated the Palestine Mandate and presented to Parliament a White Paper forbidding the return of Jews to Palestine after 1944. (This White Paper shocked Sir Winston Churchill and many others - who saw that Britain would ultimately have to pay dearly for such a flagrant betrayal of trust). However, God was then about to move and, nine years later to the day, the rise of the State of Israel was officially recognised by Russia (as stated above) - Russia being within the sphere of ancient 'Assyria' which power God had used to bring about the carrying away of Israel (the ten tribes) in the days of Hezekiah (see 2 Kings 17).
These 'two days' (2,000 years) and 'nine hours' (as expressed by the 9 solar years) were among several perfect time-designs of God, showing the year 1948 as the 'Midnight' of the Resurrection, for between 3 pm on Friday, and the Midnight of Sunday when Jesus was raised from the dead, we have the actual 'two days and nine hours' of death which have been the pattern of so many of God's wonderful works since the foundation of the world. (We shall mention the significance of the year 1948-9 as that in which the 'resurrection' of the new State was consummated, in our next Chapter).
'"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending," saith the Lord, "which is ... the Almighty"' (Revelation 1: 8)
Some years ago the Spirit of God revealed the significance of the number of days between Simeon's great prophecy of Luke 2: 34 to do with the 'rising again of many in Israel' and the fulfilment of his words in 1948.
When the error of 2 days in our Gregorian Solar Calendar is remembered, it should not be difficult to check the measurement of the 711,288 days between December 8th 1 BC and May 15th 1948.
Two most significant numbers make up these 711,288 days. '888' - the numerical value of the Name of Jesus - is multiplied by '801', which is simply '1' = 'Alpha' and '800', which is 'Omega' the last letter of the alphabet. So this total shows Jesus - Alpha and Omega - in resurrection power restoring Israel to the Land of Promise, following the all-out effort of Satan, through Hitler, to blot out God's ancient people.
The word for 'dove' (peristera), the well-known symbol of the Holy Spirit, also has the numerical value of 801.
Many have spent their lives discovering the unending marvels of Divine design in the Hebrew and Greek wording of Scripture; but it is only now, when it has been made possible to measure Time in the Bible, that the same 'watermark' (so to speak) can be seen in the pages of history. Let those beware who would think to turn back the pages of history by attempting to undo what the Lord God Almighty has been doing since 1948, when He commenced to fulfil His sworn promises to Abraham. The Arab Muslim world, as we know it, is unable to relinquish its objective which is to regain possession of the Jews' homeland.
The Bible's miraculous timing seals the stages of Israel's restoration to their land with the seal of 'the King's ring,' for it shows the fulfilment of the Word of God (see Esther 8: 8).
Chapter 21 The Establishment of the Modern State of Israel