The LORD is well aware of this day. He has planned it since the beginning of creation. All the events that are to transpire have been carefully considered by him. Nothing will be an accident, although it may seem that many of the events look incidental from a human point of view. The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law (Deuteronomy 29:29). God has revealed this information concerning his Almighty Day of reckoning to his servants so that in the end he may be glorified. His Word will come to pass as scheduled. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry (Habakkuk 2:3). Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants (Amos 3:7). It is his good pleasure to allow you to know these things well in advance. Since we are the children of the day, he does not want us to remain ignorant of the times and seasons in which we live. To understand more perfectly what will happen on the Day of the LORD, he has graciously revealed to us yet another important, unique detail concerning the sky: “At evening time it shall be light.” Considering the data set forth on the solar eclipse occurring on August 2nd 2027 in the afternoon, or more precisely, 12:00 PM, and that if this remained a normal day as it was since the beginning of creation, the light would completely appear once again in the middle of the afternoon around 1:20 PM Israel Standard Time, well before evening time. The words of inspiration force us to accept that supernatural events will cause the light of the sun and the moon to be withdrawn until evening time. The details of how this will occur remain unknown to us, hence, the day "shall be known to the LORD." Regardless of any theory that is put forward, including the theory in which I present in this article, when it is subject to the most intense scrutiny, it fails to meet all scientific criteria of the natural world. In any event, it will require a miracle, which will be a true sign from heaven that the Lord Jesus Christ is present in the earth, and the world will be without excuse. The whole world will see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.
In spite of not knowing the specific details of what will occur, there are other parts of the inspired Word that give us more clues as to what will happen. Jesus himself, while sitting on the Mount of Olives, the exact location in which he intends to stand and fulfill the following prophecy, said that the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken (Matthew 24:29). If we were to take each of these facets of the prophecy literally, the first two make sense given the fact of the reality of solar eclipses. Both the sun and the moon will be dark. The third phrase, “the stars shall fall from heaven”, may at first glance appear to give us problems. How could we be asked to take this literally? The hard pressed would have to qualify what is meant by a star “falling from heaven.” Of course, if a star collided with earth, knowing how many times larger a star actually is, it would be an impractical expectation. Just as in the case when we say the sun is setting, we are using geocentric language, meaning that this is what appears to be happening from a point on earth. Even so, the stars falling from heaven will appear to do so from one’s perspective looking at the sky. In fact, to say that the stars are “falling from heaven” is equivalent to saying that the stars are setting in the west. If you consider it, every evening during a sunset it is possible to see the sun “fall from heaven.” Therefore, since the sun and the moon will be darkened, the stars will be visible in the sky, and you will see the stars moving in the sky from east to west. “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:27). This analogy is used to describe how universal his sign in heaven is. It will be seen by everyone worldwide. Because everyone is located on different points on earth, the sign must be able to be discerned wherever you happen to be. If the stars are setting in the west from a point in Jerusalem, it follows that stars are falling in the west from anywhere. It means that the earth is rotating at such a fast speed that it is possible to discern the movement of the stars. Is it unreasonable to expect this? After all, how would we expect for it to be light at evening time if the rotation of the earth was not supernaturally modified to rotate faster?
God said that he would “cause the sun to go down” at noon, and darken the earth on a clear day. On a natural day, starting at noon, the sun starts to make a natural course downward toward the horizon. Therefore on this day, its course toward the horizon must be special. The sun would appear to take a more dramatic course in the heavens. This is where we consider the fourth phrase of Jesus’ prophecy. “The powers of the heavens will be shaken.” On the day of the greatest earthquake ever recorded in human history, the earth will be removed out of its place (Isaiah 13:13). This will cause all people on earth to see the sky move irregularly, hence, the heavens shall shake. The sun, moon, and stars will no longer be bound to their normal cycles. Only God knows how these heavenly bodies will be manipulated. One facet that has been revealed to us is given by the prophet Habakkuk.
Habakkuk 3:11 - The sun [and] moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, [and] at the shining of thy glittering spear.
Upon first glance of the verse it should be noted that the “and” in between “sun” and “moon” is inserted by the King James translators and is absent from the Hebrew. While in most cases adding words does not interfere with a normal interpretation of an English passage, it does highlight the fact that this is a unique pairing in the Hebrew of the words “sun” and “moon.” This is the only place in the Old Testament where these two words appear together in succession with no modifiers. A look at the Young’s Literal Translation of this passage will prove to be most useful.
Habakkuk 3:11 - Sun -- moon -- hath stood -- a habitation, At the light thine arrows go on, At the brightness, the glittering of thy spear.
The language appears to be borrowed from the incident recorded in Joshua, in which the sun and the moon both stood still about the space of a whole day. However, it is apparent from the context that this is a different incident, spoken of prophetically. In fact, this event is yet to occur. It will occur on the Day of the LORD. When the sun goes down at noon, this is a reference to the moon blocking the view of the sun. Once the moon blocks out the sun, they become one entity to accomplish the celestial miracle, a Sun -- Moon. Another difference in the Young's Literal Translation is that the translators omit the word "still". It is not that the sun and moon need to stand still in the sky, but rather stand together. They stand together to form a habitation in the sky while watching the event from Jerusalem until evening time in Jerusalem. Even while the earth is rotating faster, from Jerusalem, the sun and the moon will appear to move across the sky together. Afterward, the sun and the moon resume their natural paths and cause the light to appear again at evening time. At the light of evening time the arrows go on, and at the brightness, the glittering of the spear.
One basic question I would put forward for consideration would be the following. Given that we have established that the rotation of the earth will be modified to rotate faster, how much will the earth rotate? Will the earth rotate just enough to cause the sun to appear to have moved six time zones until 6:00 PM at evening time, or, will the earth rotate a full day and six time zones? Of course the details are only known to God. However, I would like to submit a simple reason why we might expect the earth to rotate at least a full day and six additional time zones. We find recorded in the Bible of two incidents in which God manipulated the motion of the heavenly bodies. The first instance was the miracle of the sun and the moon standing still for about the space of a whole day.
Joshua 10:13 - And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
It is important to stress the word “about” a whole day, indicating that the amount of time did not quite reach a full day. The next occurrence in Scripture of when the heavenly bodies were manipulated was in the days of king Hezekiah, mentioned earlier. The sun moved backward ten degrees.
Isaiah 38:8 - Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.
There are 360 degrees in a circle. Half a circle would represent a 12 hour day, or 180 degrees. Therefore, 10 degrees would represent 12/18, two thirds of an hour, or 40 minutes. At this point we have to make an assumption that the 40 minutes completes the whole day from the day of Joshua.
The fact that these celestial miracles occurred is a testimony to the fact that the sky as we see it today is in fact what we should have seen yesterday. In other words, our sky is a day behind. Although the 24 hours go by, a new day is defined in the Jewish calendar by the setting of the sun. Today’s scientists falsely assume the sun set on a day that it did not when determining the position of the sky prior to Joshua's long day. The diagram below demonstrates this.
It shows the calendar week supposing Joshua's long day occurred on a Wednesday to show from Joshua’s point of view that he experienced an extra-long Wednesday. In order for the sky to catch up, since the time went by, the sun and the moon both need to make an additional course across the sky in a much shorter period of time. In fact, this may be one application of the phrase: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24:22). The scientists who are responsible for all of our technology that can calculate the position of the sun, moon, and stars from a view on earth start with the basic assumption that what we see in the sky today is in fact what the sky should look like today. Given that we have evidence from Scripture that the earth will rotate faster, is it too farfetched to suggest that God intends to reset the celestial clock on this day? Will he allow the earth to spin a full rotation and allow us to see the sky the way we would have seen it had the sun never stood still? If this is the case, it will give the world an even better opportunity to see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, to witness the stars falling in the west, more time to see the powers of the heavens shaken, and the whole earth will get a chance to see an impossibility: a Sun -- Moon standing together in its habitation with its brightness diminished, making its path across the sky from east to west. Furthermore, this would create a full day that is "not day, nor night".
Since our sky is a day behind, it should be recognized that the sky we will see on Monday August 2, 2027 should have appeared that way on Tuesday. This is depicted in the second row.
Therefore, when the sun sets the second time at evening time it will become Wednesday. Keep in mind that the sighting of the sliver of a new moon, whenever it occurs, always defaults to the first day of the month. On Monday August 2, 2027 there will be a new moon. The earth will spin so fast that the sun will set twice in a short space of time, well before a natural timing of Wednesday August 4th. Therefore, since the Jewish day is defined by the setting of the sun, there will be two Jewish days in a period of 24 hours. These two days are the rest of Monday Tammuz 29 and almost all of Tuesday Av 1. The Jewish month is normally scheduled to reset to Tuesday Av 1 at the next sighting of the new moon on Tuesday August 3, 2027 at 4:37 PM IDT, nearly 3 hours before that day’s sunset. In any event, the new month will occur between the celestial miracle which already contains a sunset, but before the sun sets the second time at evening time. On that second sunset it will be Wednesday Av 2, and 6 hours later at Midnight would be Wednesday August 4th for Gentiles. Going forward our sky will be consistent with the current day of the week.
One last question to consider is how much time is required to accomplish this miracle? Since the Day is only known to the LORD, only he knows the answer, and therefore the discussion will remain in the realm of speculation and conjecture. Once you consider that it will take some time to rotate the earth an extra time, it becomes necessary to rotate the earth more than 24 time zones in order for the apparent position of the sky to catch up. It will have to spin through at least the number of time zones for each hour the earth took to rotate. Referring back to the first time I mentioned that there was a fulfillment of Amos 8:9 in Matthew 27:45, a time frame is mentioned for the miracle. Darkness covered the land from the sixth hour unto the ninth hour. If this is any clue, I will submit that this darkness that was experienced in the land is a type for the darkness that will be experienced on the Day of the LORD. Since this celestial miracle took three hours to accomplish, on this basis, the earth will likewise be shaken, and the stars shall fall from heaven for the space of three hours. This means that the sun will have experienced a total number of six hours of global supernatural darkness.
Notice in the past from Genesis Chapter 1 just before the first day of creation that there was an excessive darkness. Darkness was upon the face of the deep. Before God created the light, it was dark during the diurnal period we know as light. Although we are not told precisely what time during the first day God created the light, only that it was before sunset, my model shows that at the end of day "0" at evening time (around sunset), God created the light. You would see the light in the following morning on the first day. This means that from morning until evening on day "0" it was dark, or 12 hours of darkness. “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” After the extra-long day in the time of Joshua the earth received a bonus of 24 hours of light, netting an extra 12 hours of light. In the time of Jesus Christ the earth lost 3 hours of light on the day he died. The supernatural darkness occurred when it was normally supposed to be light. The earth currently has a net extra 9 hours of light. The solar eclipse occurring at noon will once again cause the earth to supernaturally lose 3 more hours of light. The earth would still have a net positive 6 hours of light. Therefore, resetting the celestial clock on the Day of the LORD will justify the need to shift the earth an additional 6 time zones of light from noon until evening time! It means that the earth will spin through 30 time zones (instead of 24) in the space of 3 hours, which means the earth would reach a speed of 30/3, or 10 times the normal rotation! The effect of the earthquake will be immeasurable! It will take 1/10 of the normal time of 6 hours, a mere 36 minutes, for the sun to go down at noon to the horizon on its first trip. This situation raises further questions such as how life will be able to survive under such conditions. The force of the earthquake will doubtless cause the waves of the seas and oceans to become tumultuous. "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken" (Luke 21:25-26). Without divine intervention, the natural disasters alone would be enough to annihilate all the mortals. It must be the case that God will divinely control the weather events. God has given Jesus all authority and power in heaven and in earth. Just as in the boat on the Sea of Galilee, with the softly spoken words “Peace, be still” (Mark 4:39), he can cause any hurricane, any tsunami wave, or any quaking mountain to immediately cease in its destruction. As children of the day, we need not worry about tomorrow, nor about the events of the Day of the LORD, for tomorrow will worry about itself (Matthew 6:34). Follow the command of Jesus to watch for his second coming and pray always you are accounted worthy to escape all these things and to stand before the Son of Man (Luke 21:36).
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