Timeline Convergence Points To Ascension Day May 13 2021 Rapture

It's been an interesting year, 2020, and it's about to get more interesting, with the US elections next month, but what about 2021? I was almost certain that 2020 was going to be the year of the rapture, and you can read my reasoning behind that belief, in the post I wrote in June 2019, the link to which you can click on below:

https://steemit.com/life/@auskiwi/will-the-end-of-the-age-be-in-2020

In fact, I even thought the same thing about 2019, and about now, the skeptics reading this are all thinking, not another serial rapture date setter, this guy is just fixated on the rapture and won't let go of it. OK, I will grant you that I have been watching for the rapture, not just for the last couple of years, but in fact for the last 40 years, but here's the thing: at some point you have to be objective about it, and isolate some good solid reasons for why the rapture could happen in a given year, month, week, day or whatever. And the conclusion I have come down to, is that it all comes down to timelines.

So what is a timeline? To simplify it down to its essence, a timeline is what you get when you start counting days, months and years from a certain date, and end up with another certain date. You see, it's easy to have 20/20 hindsight about a date that happened in the past, because we already know what happened on that date. It's recorded in the history books, and it's pretty much indisputable. Not so with future dates. We don't know what is going to happen in the future, and that's what makes life so unpredictable, and/or unsettling/exciting, depending on which way you want to look at it.

So which rapture timelines have converged, and what makes them so important? Some of the most popular rapture timelines have been based on the Fig Tree Generation Prophecy which itself is based on the reference by Christ to the fig tree in the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24. The premise of this prophecy is that the generation Christ spoke about, that will not pass away until all these things take place, is the generation represented by the modern nation of Israel, which came into being on May 14, 1948. The reason why this generation is linked to Israel is that the nation of Israel is referred to as a fig tree in several places in the Old Testament.

Matthew 24: 32 “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors! 34 Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place

The Fig Tree Generation Prophecy has led to many a missed rapture date, a classic one being the notorious prophecy book "88 reasons Why The Rapture Will Be in 1988" by NASA engineer and Bible student Edgar C Whisenant. So why did this guy get it wrong? He had the wrong timeline. He thought that a generation was 40 years. Maybe it is in some sense, but in the biblical sense, and just from common sense, most people live to an age of between 70 and 80 years, which is exactly what is stated in Psalm 90:10.

The days of our lives are seventy years;
And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,
Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and WE FLY AWAY. (emphasis mine on those last 3 words!)

Now, I am not the first one to suggest this, but in short, if "all these things" includes the tribulation, which it clearly does, then the 7 year tribulation ends in 2028, 80 years after the state of Israel was founded in 1948, and the tribulation therefore begins on or by May 14, 2021, so it would be reasonable to assume that the rapture could happen at the latest by May 13, 2021.

So what was the other rapture timeline that converges on May 13, 2021? OK, I already alluded to it in the title of this article, but didn't Jesus ascend to heaven in AD 33, if we go by our Gregorian calendar, which was 1988 years ago? OK, so Mr Whisenant might think that was significant, if he were still alive (he's not, he passed away in 2001), but why would any timeline beginning with the Ascension of Jesus Christ end in the year 2021? If you have followed any of my previous blog posts, you will know my reasoning already, but may wonder why I am persisting with this argument. Well, I will persist with this timeline for one more year, after which the timeline really can't be stretched any further.

Here's my reasoning. Although we are pretty much 100% certain that our Gregorian calendar, the one that says we are in the year 2020, has been faithfully kept since 525 AD*, and was based on its predecessor, the Julian calendar, which was also faithfully kept by the Romans since the time of Julius Caesar, there is a little known anomaly in the Julian calendar, which occurred well after the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, caused by the antedating by 10 years of the reign of Tiberius, which has skewed our calendar by 10 years, and by sheer coincidence this antedating happened during the lifetime of Jesus Christ. What this means, is that all the dates in Christ's life (birth, ministry, death resurrection and ascension) that we thought we were certain of, are in fact 10 years later than they should have been.

• Correction, the Gregorian calendar didn't begin in 525 AD, I meant to say that the Anno Domini (AD) dating system began in 525 AD, at a time when the church was still using the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar didn't come into being until 10 centuries later, and was really only a minor revision of the Julian calendar, a correction which brought the calendar year more into sync with the solar year.

Think of it in this way: it's a kind of historical revisionism decreed after the fact by a Roman emperor, for the sake of his own ego, just because he could. The emperor in question, Tiberius, who was only the 2nd emperor after the 1st emperor Augustus, thought that it would be cool if the history books recorded that his reign as emperor started when he first became eligible to succeed Augustus, and in fact he did effectively run the empire for ten years before Augustus died, because Augustus was an old man who was no longer capable of this. But in later years, historians just assumed that Tiberius became emperor only after Augustus died (AD 14), which is only logical, except for the fact that Tiberius had already had the date of his rise to power written into the historical annals, the date which translated into the Gregorian calendar as AD 1.

Now, I didn't figure all this out myself, I'm not that smart and don't have that much time on my hands, but a Catholic biblical chronology researcher by the name of Ron Conte Jr. did and put the information on his Biblical Chronology website in 2003, where I found it using a Google search soon after that. That website has since been taken down by Ron, but is still in the Wayback Machine, where you can read it in the link below. Ron goes into this whole historical anomaly from several different angles, including astronomical events, the census that occurred at the time of Jesus birth etc, so if you want to read all that information it's all on the same website.

http://web.archive.org/web/20180802080750/http://www.biblicalchronology.com/tiberius.htm

OK, so how does all this tie into May 13, 2021? Well, if I am correct, there is a strong possibility that Jesus ascended to heaven on Ascension Day of the year 21 AD, a date which would not be possible if we were to go by our current calendar and the commonly accepted birth of Christ in 4 BC. Instead, if we assume the birth of Christ happened in 14 BC, here's how the timeline would run from Christ's birth to his ascension day, and then from ascension to May 13 2021:

BC
14 Jesus birth
13 1st birthday
12 2nd birthday
11 3rd birthday
10 4th birthday
9 5th birthday
8 6th birthday
7 7th birthday
6 8th birthday
5 9th birthday
4 10th birthday
3 11th birthday
2 12th birthday
1 13th birthday
AD - missing year (there was no year 0)
1 14th birthday
2 15th birthday
3 16th birthday
4 17th birthday
5 18th birthday
6 19th birthday
7 20th birthday
8 21st birthday
9 22nd birthday
10 23rd birthday
11 24th birthday
12 25th birthday
13 26th birthday
14 27th birthday
15 28th birthday
16 29th birthday
17 30th birthday
18 31st birthday
19 32nd birthday
20 33rd birthday
21 Ascension Day, 40 days after the Feast of First Fruits
22, etc, etc, for 2000 years...
2021 Ascension Day May 13, the 2000th anniversary of Jesus' rapture = our rapture, at the end of the 2nd millennium of the church age? Makes sense to me.

Update: I have decided to add a third timeline to this convergence theory. A lot of people are now aware of the Revelation 12 sign in the heavens which occurred on September 23, 2017. We are now 3 years and a few weeks into that timeline. So how many years should we expect the Revelation 12 timeline to run for? One theory is that this timeline mirrors a timeline in Matthew 2, that of the birth and subsequent flight to Egypt of Jesus as a 2 year old.

16 Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men

So hasn't that timeline expired already? Not quite. The Revelation 12 sign is about a woman in travail to give birth, and it parallels the pregnancy and birth of the man child Jesus, whose birth was signaled in advance by the star of Bethlehem which led the wise men to Jesus. It's quite possible that the sign first appeared 9 months before Jesus' birth, so if we were to calculate a timeline from the appearance of that sign to the time when Jesus departed to Egypt in advance of a threat to his life from Herod, which would mirror our departure from the earth in advance of a threat to our lives from the antichrist (the red dragon seeking to devour the man child), that timeline would consist of 9 months of pregnancy plus at least 2 years of childhood before the flight to Egypt.

A 2 year old does not become a 3 year old till a year later, so 3 years and 9 months is the longest that this timeline can run. If we count 3 years and 9 months (or 3 years and 40 weeks to be more precise) from September 23, 2017, the last possible date for the rapture would be 30 June 2021. So May 13 2021 falls well within that timeline. Not an exact match, but certainly interesting to see that convergence too.

One final timeline, which really isn't a rapture timeline, but a personal timeline for me, is the years of my life. Just by coincidence, my life began on 13 May, 1966, so May 13, 2021 is my 55th birthday. I like them numbers. I was born on Friday the 13th in 1966, which is not good luck if you are into numerology, but if this rapture timeline is correct, all's well that ends well with double grace (55). You can't determine the date of your own birth, but you can determine your response to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I gave my life to Jesus at the age of 10, and was baptized at the age of 14, so I will have been following Jesus for 45 years by the time I am raptured, if indeed this rapture date comes to pass. I have been aware of the rapture most of that time, and in fact I was thinking about it on the night of my baptism when I read the following verse to the congregation assembled in the Milford Baptist Church in Auckland, New Zealand. This photo was taken in a Baptist church in Australia which I currently attend. The end of the age may be upon us in 7 short months, after a wait of 2000 years.

Update 07/02/2021 With just over 3 months to go till the presumed rapture date (which could actually be a 2-day period of May 13/14 given that May 14 is the 73rd anniversary of the modern state of Israel), I am going to insert another interesting timeline which relates to the modern state of Israel.

There is a little-known prophecy found in the extra-canonical book of Enoch, known as the 70 shepherds prophecy, which states that the 12th and final shepherd of Israel in our modern era will precede the coming of the Messiah. You can watch a video below on this topic.

The reason that I have added an update on this, is that since I published this post last year, the 12th shepherd, who is the 12th prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has entered yet another political crisis, as the 23rd Knesset, or parliament of Israel was dissolved on December 23, 2020, and new elections will be held on March 23, 2021. Interestingly, in line with what seems to happen with every modern Israeli election, the result probably won't be decided on March 23, as due to the complicated nature of Israeli politics, there is usually a need after the election, for a ruling coalition to be negotiated between the various parties, as it is virtually impossible for one party to rule by itself.

Update 23/05/2021: We are now into the last 11 days of Yair Lapid's mandate to form a government, which will expire on June 2. Most of the time allocated for his mandate was spent waiting for the Gaza war to end, and now it is unclear whether Netanyahu will be ousted by a successful Yair Lapid attempt to form a government or whether a government will instead be chosen by the Knesset in the 21 days following that, or by a 5th election (not likely if the prophecy about the 4th gate failing to be rebuilt is correct).

Whatever the case, the Ascension Day rapture is still up for grabs, as it is unknown on what day Ascension Day actually fell in the year AD 21. It can in fact fall as late as June 4, so I am speculating that we could be looking at a May 27-28 window, or even June 3-4. If Netanyahu looks like he is on the way out in the next week, maybe the earlier window is the more likely.

The other variable, of course, is the reaction of Iran to the successful Israeli offensive against Hamas which has resulted in the destruction of a large part of their terror tunnel network. Will they now go on the offensive themselves through their proxies in Lebanon and/or Syria? Could that turn into the Gog/Magog invasion? We will see as time progresses...

Update 01/06/2021: OK, so we seem to have arrived at a tipping point for Israel's government. Naftali Bennett has announced he will be forming a government with Yair Lapid in the coming days.
Yair Lapid's mandate expires tomorrow, on June 2, so it's now or never for the national unity government proposed by Lapid and Bennett. Not only that, but at this time we are seeing sabre-rattling from Iran, so the Gog Magog war also looks like a distinct possibility. I have also noted that in AD 20, there was an Adar II intercalary month inserted, which produces the latest date possible for Ascension Day, possibly as late as June 7, which I didn't think possible, but hey, this is where we are at. The only way that scenario would work is if there is a kink in the AD dating system somewhere, and we are out one year, but hey, at this point all we can do is keep watching as the end-time countdown keeps rolling, and won't stop till the rapture. I have posted below a TV7 news video from Israel that mentions both the election news and the threatening announcement from Iran's Revolutionary Guard.