How convenient to be able to spiritualize events away that are meant to be taken literally. It allows you to find fulfillment in order to support you belief PW. With this type of interpretation one can make scripture mean whatever one wants to.
That last seven years of the seventy sevens that was decreed upon Israel and Jerusalem, is set to take place in conjunction with the end of the age and the time of the beast/antichrist. The "tribulation of those days" has not yet begun. The event of the sun, moon and stars--and there are several-- will be literal events that will take place as a result of the seals trumpets and bowl judgments leading up to the Lord's return to the earth to end the age.
Those events will take place just as they are written
AH, please read this entire post. I'm trying to help you and others who think as you do.
I realize you are set in your beliefs and not open to considering something different from what you've been taught and led to believe all your life. But I am not spiritualizing the cosmic disturbances. I am reducing them down to their original OT meaning and localizing them to the places where the divine judgment occurred. In other words, these judgments were not global as history tells us but they were very real to those who were to face God's punishment.
Please study these OT signs of pending judgment and destruction. The prophet Isaiah foretold God’s coming judgment against Babylon using images similar to those Jesus used in the Olivet Discourse. Around 701 BC, he uttered “the burden of Babylon,” part of which is:
Destruction of Babylon (~539 BC):
Isa 13 (truncated): The burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw...Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty...Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger...
Isaiah had little reason, from a human perspective, to believe Babylon’s world would end. This was, after all, the mightiest empire on earth. Yet the prophet said “the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty” (
Isaiah 13:6). Isaiah’s knowledge of this end-of-the-world event came from heaven.
God told the prophet about the coming “
cosmic collapse,” and he revealed the instrument by which it would occur. He said: “Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it” (
Isaiah 13:17). The fulfillment of this prophecy occurred when “the Medes put their fierce fighting force at the disposal of Cyrus the Persian and were involved with him in the overthrow of Babylonia in 539 B.C.”
[SUP]3[/SUP] God, using the armies of the Medes, brought an end to Babylon’s world!
God caused the stars of Babylon’s heaven to stop giving their light. Her sun became dark and her moon ceased to shine. Her “heavens and earth” removed out of their places.
These graphic and powerful images said
nothing about the physical universe. Instead, they portrayed the future, dramatic overthrow of this powerful empire. Babylon’s world was in God’s hands. It would endure only as long as he determined. Then it would collapse under his fiery judgment. The symbols Isaiah used left a lasting impression of what was about to happen.
We should not imagine that astrologers in Egypt (or any other nation) witnessed a change in the physical cosmos when Babylon’s world ended.
Destruction of Egypt:
Isa 19: The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it. And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.
"The Lord riding on a swift cloud?" Was that literal my friend? Notice the "presence of God," His Shekinah glory? Did God literally return and walk on earth? No, of course not, but His presence was felt.
Eze 32: Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him. . . . And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord GOD. I will also vex the hearts of many people, when I shall bring thy destruction among the nations, into the countries which thou hast not known.
Ralph H. Alexander says Ezekiel delivered this funeral dirge for Egypt in March 585 B.C. . . . The carnage would be so great that it would fill every ravine and mountain (
vv.5–6). It would be as if ‘a great darkness covered the land’ (
vv.7–8), demonstrating that Egypt’s great sun gods were impotent to help.
Cosmic collapse is a common image with earth-shaking events (cf.
Joel 2:28;
Acts 2). The nations who sang this funeral dirge would be stunned and horrified that Egypt had fallen in their midst (
vv.9–10).
Destruction of Idumea:
Isa 34: Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.
Brother AH, don't take my word for it (as if you would anyway), do a Google search and read some commentaries about the above passages from men much smarter than me. We should not mistake Isaiah’s meaning and assume he was describing the end of the physical cosmos. Idumea’s world ended in a cosmic collapse, but not one astrologer in any nation closed shop.
Destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD):
[SUP]29 [/SUP]“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. [SUP]30 [/SUP]Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. [SUP]31 [/SUP]And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Do you see any similarities between Mat 24 and the other passages I quoted? This "judgment language" was very familiar to those 1st century Jews to whom Jesus spoke. They understood it to mean that the presence of Christ would return to execute divine judgment on Israel after a period of tremendous tribulation, the likes no nation had ever endured or would ever endure. You need to place yourself in their shoes and see things through their prospective as Jesus was telling them what would happen to their great nation. He wasn't speaking to you or foretelling the end of the planet. Jesus used language which had specific meaning to them and was very clear to them. You are taking your understanding of the meaning of these "cosmic disturbances" and applying your understanding to them. This is your mistake.
FYI "Clouds of Heaven" mean "angelic armies" These were seen in 70 AD as the temple was being burned. Josephus records it. Until I read Josephus' "War of the Jews", I didn't understand. Now I do.
When Jesus gave the Olivet Discourse, God’s judgment was about to destroy the world inhabited by
Israel . The Mosaic age would soon finish its allotted duration; the Temple would fall. The sacrificial system instituted by Moses fifteen centuries earlier would cease. Jesus used the traditional signs of Israel’s prophets to describe these age-changing events.