It Happened Again & This Time With A Math Lesson!

I'm currently reading a book by Max Lucado entitled, "What Happens Next."

Books seem to find me at critical times in my life and this seems to be one of those! Times when I am confronted (care-fronted) by the Spirit as to my quite progressive theology.

To me, this very moment, perhaps year 2025 and beyond, seems to be shaping up as critical to the Body of Christ!

The very culture of our nation is shifting and nationalism seems now championing the hearts of many who profess a faith now known globally as Christianity.

As a Baby Boomer, who's WWII veteran dad is still around at age 99 (12/20/25, Ben Bost turns 100!), I have been raised to love America.

Yet as well, I was taught to deeply love the church!

I must point out however, that my Pentecostal upbringing always layed claim to discovery of an empowerment that seems to have escaped the more "nominal"?

I digress!

Nevertheless, well instilled in me by Mom, a third generation Pentecostal and Dad, a hard working, unchurched, Great Depression farm boy, who married into the Pentecostal Church.

Their's was a conviction that one's affections should always be in a certain order.

First, a relationship with Christ, second only to those who follow the Christ, then after one's neighbor, the institution and the nation.

Things now seem a little sideways in 2025!

Of course for me, all that was overlayed by a scriptural understanding that was more toward the "Left Behind" variety of dispensational theology.

Of late, that too seems to have gotten a little distant given my preoccupation with the "here and now" directives that have driven my personal calling to community, over the institution long served.

Back to Lucado and the most recent of books that "seem to find me".

Lucado's book found its way to me through my dear wife, LaDonna.  She is the Missouri Synod Lutheran raised farm girl, turned English teacher that I married.

She has turned into a saint, though neither her sainthood nor her English teacher proficiencies have helped my tendencies toward run-on sentences.

Oh well, back to today's thoughts!

I had recently ordered a book for my wife entitled, "Glory Now Revealed" which frankly, well describes my her! Not the intent of the author I'm sure, but I was intrigued with the "why" behind her order. I decided to ask if I might read her new book?

We were going to be at our vacation home in Blowing Rock, so I was thinking I might have some down time. She then shared that she had left the book in Clemmons, but had another with her, Lucado's.

I picked it up, though per the title, somewhat reluctantly.

His book is a study of much of the prophetic, end-times story that I was raised upon, though now seldom ponder.

I must admit, all this does come back when my annual read through the scriptures has me either in the Book of Daniel or John's Revelation.

Ironically, or perhaps providentially, this Monday's blog post had caused me to ponder both.

Then, that very day, Bam! LaDonna's unexpected book found me.

In his on style, Lucado lays out Daniel's visitation and a time line for some 490 years of prophetic occurrences.

In fact, the time line was broken down for Daniel, as 49 years , then 434 years. If you do the math, thats only 483!

Those of you raised to understand things as Lucado and myself, know where this is going... the last 7 years are known as the Tribulation period.

We don't talk about that in church much anymore, given the controversy it tends to stir up.

Some of you have no idea what I am talking about!

Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib, Post- Trib...all Greek to many.

Yet, as Lucado explains, when Daniel captured his revelation, Babylon captivity had been in the headlines of the local news!

It would then later fall upon Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem destroyed during that era.

He would be given resources and permission in the month of April, 444 B.C.. Then, 483 years later, if one factors in the 360 days/year of the Jewish calendar, one lands during the Passover of 32 A.D. (See Daniel 9).

Nehemiah had set the clock ticking for "the appointed leader" (Messiah). "After 434 years, the appointed leader would be killed;" Dan. 9:26.

Wow!

Lucado then ties this to Palm Sunday and Jesus' words in Luke 19:41-44.

Controversy or not, you can't deny history.

Oh, as to the "when" of the last seven in Daniel's math, Lucado suggests first, a a time of grace for the grafting in of the Gentiles, "the Church Age".

Uhmmm?

As to where the concept of "rapture", the 3.5 year division of those last seven, the desecration of a new temple yet built, and where America fits in, I'll leave all that up to your understanding.

You may just want to grab a copy of the book, as we continue to "Reason Together"!

Of course, I'd recommend reading either mine or Lucado's, in parallel with 66 other Books!

Oh, Dad, you have more than 100 years ahead of you, in fact an eternity!