Apocalyptic Times

Last spring we were reading and trying to understand Daniel, of the Old Testament, an ongoing challenge. Much of Daniel is prophetic. Some is of times near his day, some is of times in centuries near his day or around the time of Christ. Some is of our day. And it’s not always clear which is which.

There’s this verse in chapter 12 that we might be seeing in our day:

11 And from the time that the daily ^asacrifice shall be taken away, and the ^babomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.—Daniel 12:11

photo used from New York Times, found here

There was a day, back in 2020, just as the pandemic shutdown got underway, that might be meaningful here. I am talking from a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint perspective (opinions are mine, however; I do not represent the Church). We have temples, where we do ordinances (rites, practices, covenants) daily—except Sundays, when we hold our regular worship in church buildings. Temples are opt-in places. Meetings aren’t called for you to attend; you schedule yourself to go when you want to do temple worship.

We don’t do animal/blood sacrifice, as in ancient temples, although there are some other similarities to the temples from Moses’s day and Christ’s day. We do commit to sacrifice, but after Christ’s ultimate sacrifice, we are required to offer up a “broken heart and a contrite spirit.” We are asked to be humble and submissive to our Lord and Savior. So, it looks different, but we do offer up sacrifice daily in our temples.

On March 25, 2020, our prophet announced the closing of temples worldwide for a time, because of the pandemic. This was a week or two after church services were shut down (we were authorized to hold services in our homes), and a few days after missionaries serving all over the world were called home—either cutting their missions short, or changing to online missionary work, sometimes with hope of returning to their mission place later.

So, earlier this year we were looking at that verse in Daniel and thinking, what if it referred to that day—the day the temples were closed?

Almost since that day in 2020 we’d heard speculation about it, but back then the speculation went something like, “Well, if the temples stay closed for 3 ½ years [1290 days is a bit over 3 ½ years], then we’ll know that’s what it meant.”

But the temples opened back up. In some places within a couple of months. By August in our area. Only for what we call “live endowments,” not proxy work for the dead. We believe certain ordinances must be done for the living; if a person doesn’t get the opportunity in this life, then we living members can do that work as proxies for them. This provides them the opportunity to accept or reject it in the next life; we don’t start calling people members of the Church just because they have passed away but have had their work done in temples. Proxy work is a fairly unique practice in our religion, but it was understood by the early saints: read 1 Corinthians15:29, which talks of doing proxy baptisms for the dead. Anyway, back in 2020 we had limited use of our temples, adding a little more in phases, until we reopened with caution in June 2021, and we’ve remained open since.

So, it took us longer than maybe it needed to, but this past April, 2023, we were looking at this again and thinking, what if the verse wasn’t saying the temples would stay closed for 1290 days, but if it was just pointing to a starting point for that countdown? When would 1290 days later be?

We calculated, the long hard way, going month-by-month until we got to 1290 days. It turns out there’s an online calculator for such calculations. But we were right. It put us at October 6, 2023. Just days later I came across a video on the Christian Fire Poppy channel where she talked about this very thing. She calculated to October 7, 2023. The difference of a day was, we had calculated from the day of the announcement of the closing of temples, but, as she noted, the first day they were actually closed was the following day. So we made that adjustment.

The other part of the verse, “the abomination that maketh desolate set up,” adds meaning to the 1290 countdown. The temple shutdown happened because of the worldwide pandemic—a plague. As apocalyptic plagues go, it was actually rather mild, causing many deaths but not a third of the planet as such predictions make us envision. But our lives changed, literally and permanently, in March of 2020, because of a desolating sickness type of plague.

There are people who look at the words “abomination” and “desolation” and picture something specific that I am not persuaded is accurate. They picture a person—the anti-Christ—going into a temple, preferably a third temple in Jerusalem, and desecrating it. But when I read those words, I almost always see something more like the bad stuff to be poured out on the wicked world in the last days. If I’m right, then COVID-19 was one of the early plagues, and it was the cause of the temples being shut down in March 2020.

So what was going to happen on October 7, 2023? We didn’t know. There were a lot of other portentous things around that time. It was at the end of Sukkot, the Jewish feast of tabernacles, and a lot of things seem to line up on feast days. It was after the feast of trumpets (Rosh Hashanah) and the day of atonement (Yom Kippur). For our Church, it was week after our semi-annual worldwide General Conference (20 new temples were announced, to be built as soon as land is purchased and plans are drawn up). It would be a week before an eclipse crosses over the US, ending at Corpus Christi (meaning “body of Christ) in Texas. And there’s more about that eclipse, which happens this Saturday, being part of three eclipses that form the letter A, or aleph in Hebrew.

three eclipses over the US,
screenshot from this Christian Fire Poppy video

Also, there was a sign in the heavens—significantly full of imagery found in Revelation 12—in September 2017 right after the first of the three eclipses, and notably for us right after the Hurricane Harvey flood.  Jupiter was in the “womb” area of the constellation Virgo, where it had been in retrograde for 42 weeks (a gestation period), and then was “birthed” from the virgin. Anyway, a similar woman-in-the-sky sign reappeared this September, 2023, with various named asteroids playing a significant role. [You can see for yourself on Stellarium. I have tried, but I have needed the guidance of Christian Fire Poppy, who did additional videos on this in the last couple of months.]

woman-in-the-sky sign constellation, as shown by Christian Fire Poppy,
screenshot from here

So, things were looking portentous, but we didn’t know what to expect—anything from The Savior Appears to maybe an unnoticed hinge point that we would look back on later and see its importance. But we were watching, and curious.

I woke up Saturday, and my husband said Israel had been attacked by Hamas. I asked about the seriousness, because it seems that attacks are happening there all the time. This was different, he said. Much bigger. And later in the day Netanyahu announced that they were at war—the first time since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, October 6-25 of that year. Coincidentally.

Google Earth image of Israel,
screenshot from this Christian Homestead video

I don’t know what we’re seeing—in the apocalyptic sense. Is this the beginning of Armageddon? I don’t know.

I know it is horrible. The current count is around 1200 dead Israelis, which include a couple dozen American citizens. I’m praying for the people of Israel, and I support their right to self-defense.

People are wondering at the intelligence failures both of Israel and the United States; so am I. People are horrified at the brutality and savagery. Hamas has aimed at civilians, going house to house and kidnapping, raping, and murdering innocent people. The brutality has included beheading babies. The pagan god Moloch, the destroyer, reigns among the terrorists; although that is not the name they use, that is the character of their behavior. (See Jonathan Cahn’s Return of the Gods, mentioned here. Also this.) Horrifying images abound online. I have mostly avoided seeing them. I avoid violence even in movies—where you know it’s only make believe. Seeing real murder is traumatizing.

Ben Shapiro talks about the war against Israel,
clip on a Glenn Beck video, screenshot from here

Ben Shapiro makes a case for viewing the images, so you will know and not forget. He says,

Here’s the point. Nothing anyone has ever done to you or could ever do to you would cause you to do these things.

No territorial dispute would cause you to butcher babies. No squabble over territory would cause you to rape and abduct women. No so-called “occupation” would cause you to kidnap entire families or burn them alive in their homes.

I listened (but did not watch up close to my computer) his video Monday, October 9, “The Face of Absolute Evil,” which I recommend, as well as his written statement, which I quoted from above: “Why I Show The Horrific Images Of Hamas’ Atrocities.” [These may be behind a paywall, but you might search for the titles and find them elsewhere.]

There are plenty of sources to get news. I’ve also turned to Erick Stakelbeck,   who gives news of Israel all the time, but particularly now. And several YouTubers are passing along what they’ve found on X (formerly Twitter) and elsewhere. Troy Abels on The Last Dispensation channel has been passing along a lot of raw, up-to-the-minute information since La Haina. And for more professional opinions, I go to The Epoch Times, including EpochTV, and The Blaze.

Even mainstream sources are covering it—although they can’t seem to help but try to make a moral equivalency between these savage terrorists and Israel defending its right to exist. Note that Hamas is located in Gaza, southwest of Israel, along the coast. Since Israel turned that area over to Hamas in 2005 there are no Jewish settlements—indeed, no Jewish people—living there. They elect their own failed leaders, who keep the people ground down in poverty with the purpose, it seems to me, of keeping the people frustrated and angry so they can blame Israel for their hardships and inspire their people to hate and fight them.

There is no moral equivalency.

Ben Shapiro added that, while there is never a reason to praise the German Nazis, who murdered six million Jews in the last century, at least the Germans had the sense of shame about what they had done to try to hide it. These savages are recording their atrocities and posting them online, bragging to the world to see. They are proud of beheading babies and murdering families in front of each other, shooting them, beheading them, or dragging them behind vehicles. It is unspeakably evil.

Meanwhile, there are enclaves of supporters, in Europe, even in the US, who support these beasts for no other reason than they hate the Jews. Black Lives Matter in Chicago danced with joy in the streets. Similar celebrations took place in New York. Representative Ilhan Omar supports them. Representative AOC can’t bring herself to condemn the atrocities; she’d rather not give a statement.

The Biden administration has given lip service to support Israel. And it has moved ships in and around Israel—for support, for warning against Iran and others. Possibly also to warn Israel against too harsh a response. Note: there cannot be too harsh a response. But Israel has warned citizens of Gaza to evacuate, and have given specific 10-minute warnings to evacuate buildings used by Hamas officials. Hamas locates itself near hospitals, schools, and other innocents—and pressures its people to stay and get killed—so that the more civilized Israel can be painted as wicked killers of innocents. This has always been part of their fight against Israel. This is only an escalation now. But Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out Hamas entirely. There is no living with enemies who do such atrocities as part of their vow to wipe you off the face of the earth.

The Biden administration gave $6 billion to Iran a month or so ago, with a warning, “Now, don’t go using that for anything but humanitarian purposes, OK?” This is part of resurrecting the Obama deal, which was, let us give you money, and then you postpone your nuclear weapons pursuits for a decade. Trump reversed the deal; Biden is reinstating it. Meanwhile, most of that decade of postponement is already past, not that Iran was actually postponing anything. But this $6 billion appears to have made its way to Hamas. There have been reports of Farsi being spoken among the invaders; Farsi is spoken in Iran, while a Palestinian Arabic dialect is spoken in Gaza.

Another odd detail: the Taliban, in Afghanistan, have been requesting passage through various Muslim countries, to get where they could support Hamas. Meanwhile, also on Saturday, October 7, there was an earthquake in Afghanistan, killing 2000 people, with additional aftershock quakes since then. Coincidentally.

What happens next? I don’t know.

The next verse in Daniel says this:

12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.—Daniel 12:12

Is that starting after the 1290 days, or counting from the same starting place? Many people consider them consecutive. But if they have the same starting date, then it’s just 45 days longer than the 1290 days, which takes us to November 21, 2023. What might we see then? I don’t know. Maybe the end of this war, this siege. Maybe an escalation. Maybe we’ll recognize the two witnesses, from Revelation 11:3-11, prophesied to protect Jerusalem for 3 ½ years. I don’t know.

I only know that, when I saw war in Israel on the 50-year anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, 1290 days after the closing of the temples because of a plague of sickness, things that were unclear and scary are now very real. And still scary. But we know the end of the story—and it’s a glorious happy day for those who turn to God.

Today is the day to do any turning back to God that you need to do.

We should pray for the suffering in Israel, and wherever there is suffering, but particularly there right now. We should pray for peace, but do not expect it to come until the end of the Biblical story that we’re living in.

meme found on Facebook, here