For Fair Use Discussion and Educational Purposes

by John Little

Chapter One
Really?

A Solar Flare?

Yes. Really.

I know that this sounds a little strange, but all these prophets really are talking about a solar flare. And, I wish that they weren’t, but we are stuck with what they said, and not by what we want them to to have said.

Especially since they were speaking the words of God, and not their own.

In this chapter, I’ll give you an overview of Ezekiel’s Fire. I’ll talk about the science behind this catastrophe. But, once I’ve done that, I will take you through some of the myths that are guaranteed to keep you from seeing and understanding the evidence laid out in the Bible – and preparing.

I did not want to spend so much time talking about bad doctrine, but I’ve learned the hard way that a false interpretation of the Bible is blinding. And, you must remove those blinders if you are to see the big picture. I’ve been caught by false interpretation, myself. So, I understand how a false interpretation can bind and blind you – as well as how hard it is to escape such things.

Now, does a belief in a false interpretation make you less of a Christian?

Not necessarily.

We all suffer from error, in some form – when it comes to interpreting the Bible. Even now, I am sure that there is something, somewhere, that I am wrong about. I do my best to understand what the Holy Spirit teaches me, through the words of the Bible. But, at the best of times, I hold the truth with imperfect hands. So, be like the noble Bereans and search the scriptures to see if what I have written here, is true.

Hopefully, my exposure of false doctrine in this chapter will have swept our foundation clean, making it ready to receive the Biblical evidence that I show you in Chapter Two.

———————-

Here are the sections in Chapter One:

Introduction

A Solar Flare, Really?

Twisting the Bible

The Pre-Tribulation Rapture Lie

The Two Thousand Year War

Prophecy Clock – Is It All Over within a Couple of Decades?

http://www.ezekielsfire.com/chapter-one/

( I've decided to add most of chapter one here also "A Solar Flare, Really?" because it is just too Biblical to ignore. I hope you will read all of it; it is easy reading. Then go on to other chapters. Gerlinda)


Chapter One A Solar Flare, Really?


A Solar Flare, Really?


I grew up in a home where science and knowledge were important. Dad was a research chemist that loved spending time in the laboratory, and Mom was an opera singer. Both of them gave up those passions because they loved their kids more than their careers.

So, Dad gave up his research job at IU Medical Center and went to work in industry, and Mom gave up her music to stay home with us.

I thank God for them both.

But, putting passion before family doesn’t eliminate passion. So, all six kids grew up with a love for music and a knowledge of science. In fact, our dinner-table discussions ranged all over the place. And, once we got old enough, we had to get several sets of encyclopedias just to answer questions and settle arguments.

And, we got into a LOT of arguments.

Once I finally got the knack of reading, my own interest in science really took off – fueled by my Dad’s love for everything scientific. We did science fairs and science projects. We went to science museums. And, when Mom started homeschooling, Dad brought other homeschoolers over for science lessons – some of them quite explosive.

All of that launched me into the Physics Department at Butler University. I even spent a year as president of the local college chapter of the American Chemical Society. But, God had other plans for me, so my dream of doing research in high energy physics had to go on the shelf.

I was crushed.

But, just like my parents, I may have had to give up a career in science, but that didn’t mean that I had given up my passion for it. Science is a truly awesome and wonderful subject, and – when it is pure – it is a testimony of God’s fantastic, incomparable brilliance.

Unfortunately, we’ve corrupted the study of science, so very little of it is pure.

What a terrible shame.

Of course, you are probably wondering what I studied instead of Physics. Well, by the time I had crashed and burned on the shoals of advanced calculus, my interest in the story of Israel had grown by leaps and bounds.

The return of a modern Israel to the Middle East was the story of a plucky little bunch of people who defied the odds to survive and thrive. It was a fantastic story that had captivated my attention, and I found a professor of Political Science who was an expert on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

So, I found myself studying at IUPUI, under Dr. Winslow.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much that you could do with a a degree in Political Science, so I got my MBA. Finance and marketing are interesting subjects all by themselves, and I went on to have a short career managing investments at a tiny investment company in Jerusalem.

All of this means that I had just enough of a science background to see the scientific principles behind the prophecies described by Ezekiel, Isaiah and Zechariah. In fact, the Bible is full of science, if you are willing to look for it.

Although, please be careful. Trying to apply science to the Bible is a dangerous thing. What we call ‘science’ is a very, very limited view of what and how the Universe works. So, if there is ever a disagreement between science and the Bible, the Bible should always win.

Is there science in this prophecy in Ezekiel 39, Isaiah 30 and Zechariah 12?

Absolutely.

It’s not the main point of these prophecies, but it is still an important one. In fact, your life may hang upon your ability to prepare for the science behind this prophecy.

So, what is the science behind all of this?

The Science Behind This Prophecy

Science is absolutely fantastic, and if I had my choice, I would submerge myself in the pursuit of it, and let someone else deal with the issues that we are talking about here. But, God is smarter than I am, so He has given me this job.

So, let’s do a scientific analysis of the three verses that I claim to be linked together. Let’s start with the one that is easiest to handle:

Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound. – Isaiah 30:26

We will address only those parts that I have put in bold. I will be dealing with the other part in Chapter Two.

So, what does God mean when He says that…

…the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days?

I remember the first time that I read that verse by myself. I was completely mystified, and continued to be mystified at least once a year, when I read it.

How was the Moon going to be as bright as the Sun?

Just look out your window during the day, and it will be that bright out – at night.

What an incredible thought.

The I DON’T KNOW Shelf

Of course, because it was the Bible, I did what most Christians should do. I put the thought up on a mental shelf with the label, I don’t know. And, I let it sit there, gathering dust. After all, there’s a lot in the Bible that is completely mystifying, and the best response to such a verse is to say I don’t know until something comes along to answer that question for you.

For instance, a thousand years ago, it would have been impossible for Christians to imagine how everyone in the world could see the Two Witnesses, or the Second Coming of Christ. But, with the invention of Television and the Internet, it is now easy to imagine.

So, I just assumed that Isaiah 30:26 was going to be a miracle, and left it at that.

If someone had pressed me for a better explanation, I would probably have said that this would have been during the Millennium, or during the Tribulation – when such miracles appear to be commonplace.

And THAT is part of the reason why we have two main theories for these Last Days that are so wrong. We are attempting to answer questions that should remain unanswered until we have enough evidence to explain the situation.

A Natural Event

Isaiah 30:26 WILL be a miracle, but not in the way that most people think. God will use a natural event at a miraculous point in time – something that God has done often, in the Bible. But, I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

What is this ‘natural event’?

I’m saying that it’s a solar flare, but let’s take a close look at all the possible reasons for why the Sun could be seven times brighter than it is, right now:
◦The Sun just increases its light production
◦The Sun increases in size
◦The Sun explodes as a Supernova
◦The Sun shoots a solar flare at us

As far as I can tell, those are the only options that we have, as we address this verse. So, let’s look at them.

The Sun – 7X More Light

The simplest and most direct interpretation of Isaiah 30:26 is that the Sun just becomes seven times more bright. To put it another way, the Sun just produces seven times more light than before.

Period. End of story.

That COULD happen, but it would take a far more enormous miracle than you imagine. It’s not quite as ‘simple and direct’ as it would seem, when you look at what that means.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Since all of this is a miracle, it shouldn’t be any big deal for us to have another one. And, I agree – up to a point. So, let me ask you a question:

Have you noticed that God’s miracles tend to follow the natural order of the Universe?

God Uses Nature For His Miracles

They are still miracles, but God uses nature to cause them. Birds bring Elijah food. Lightening falls out of the sky to light sacrifices. Winds divide waters in two. Water floods the Earth. Donkeys speak to prophets…

(okay, so a talking donkey isn’t natural)

So – except for the donkey – these are all seemingly natural events that are completely unnatural in their timing. In fact, insurance companies have a term for this – an act of God. So, when we have a prophecy of an event, we should consider how God would use nature to achieve His miracle.

So, how would the Sun become seven times brighter?

Well, it just could become seven times brighter!

How would that happen naturally?

How The Sun Works

Well, physicists have spent a lot of time and money studying the Sun, and we’ve come up with some pretty good ideas about how the Sun works. Of course, they are ideas because we aren’t able to see directly inside of the Sun. Yet.

However, we have some pretty strong facts that are backing up our theories. For instance, we know that the Sun produces light via something called hydrogen fusion. And, hydrogen fusion happens only when you have enough hydrogen, at a certain temperature, under a certain pressure. If you are lacking in any one of those three elements, you are not going to get a self-sustaining, hydrogen fusion reaction.

And, without hydrogen fusion, there is no light and no Sun.

How does this hydrogen fusion work?

Well, let’s start with what the Sun is:

A huge (really HUGE) ball of hydrogen.

When you get THAT much hydrogen all together in one place, it generates quite a bit of gravity. Our own tiny planet generates quite a bit of gravity all by itself, and I’ve noticed that gravity has started to feel stronger as I get older.

Anyway, gravity tends to pull things together, and LOTS of gravity pulls things a LOT more. We call this pressure, and you can feel this at work, in your ears, when you go up and down hills.

So, we have lots of hydrogen under lots of pressure, and we also have lots of heat. Lots and lots of heat. Since we weren’t there with God created the Universe, we can’t know which came first. I’m just going to assume that God started everything simultaneously.

So anyway, we have hydrogen under fantastic pressures with massive amounts of heat. And THAT will cause a fusion reaction, every single time.

What is a fusion reaction?

Well, in terms of our discussion, it is the process of taking two hydrogen atoms that were quite happy to live their lives in solitude, bouncing about – until lots of heat and high pressure forced them together to become Helium. Forcing two hydrogen atoms to fuse into Helium produces light and even more heat, and a nasty explosion if you let that reaction happen on Earth – using something that we call a thermonuclear bomb.

Think of a fusion reaction as a lot like a very explosive marriage.

One of the reasons why so many scientists think that thermonuclear bombs are cool is because they get to demonstrate how the Sun works – here on Earth. I am happy to say that we don’t do many of those demonstrations anymore.

Why am I talking about all this?

Well, let me ask you a question:

Where is the most pressure in the Sun?

On the surface?

No.

At the very center.

I’m a Scuba diver, and I know that the deeper you go in the Ocean, the higher the pressure. In fact, it can be quite a problem if you suffer from an ear infection.

It’s the same for the Sun. The deeper you go below the surface of the Sun, the higher the pressure, and the higher the heat.

Light Comes From The Core

So, this tells us that all the light coming from the Sun actually comes from INSIDE the Sun – not the outside. In fact, it comes from the CORE of the Sun – where the greatest amount of pressure is. And, the light from the core must fight its way out, through all the layers of the Sun – so that it can be free to light our days and help plants grow.

Does this give us any insight into how the Sun could suddenly become seven times brighter?

Yes… and …No.

Remember that we are trying to find a plausible reason for why the Sun suddenly becomes seven times brighter. And yes, it is sudden, because the verses that we are referring to speak only in terms of a very short period of time.

This presents a problem for those of us who are stuck on just increasing the brightness of the Sun.

Why?

Because the Sun is remarkably consistent in producing light. For thousands of years, it was almost impossible to tell with the naked eye that there was any variation in the brightness of the Sun – called Solar Variation. And, so far we haven’t seen much variation at all – no more than 0.1% or 0.2%. For thousands of years.

Now, let me add another kink into the argument.

Remember when I said that light must fight its way out from the core so that it can shine upon us?

That is quite literally true.

Scientists have tried to calculate how much time it would take for a photon to escape the core of the Sun, bouncing from hydrogen atom to hydrogen atom before reaching open space. There are a lot of hydrogen atoms for a ray of light to dodge, which makes for an extremely long path for photons to travel. And, the lowest number that I’ve seen calculated is… drum roll please…

…four thousand years.

FOUR THOUSAND YEARS?!

Actually, that’s a low number. I’ve seen some estimates as high as 170,000 years. Some crazy people have said millions, but… like I said …I think that they’re crazy.

So, let’s chop that number down and assume that these well-intentioned scientists were off by a decimal point, and that light only take 400 years to get to us – once it has been generated.

Ouch. That’s still really long.

So… let’s say …FOUR years – which is TWO decimal points.

Extra Brightness Will Destroy The Earth

If it takes YEARS for a change in the real brightness of the Sun to reach us… well …that is a serious obstacle. Changes in the core of the Sun would need to happen years in advance, and happen for ONLY a very short period of time.

Why only for a short period of time?

Well, the only reason why the Earth isn’t a frozen ball of ice and rock is the amount of light being generated by the Sun. Space is a vacuum, so there’s no way for heat to reach Earth, except through light. And, if you increase the amount of light hitting the Earth, you increase the amount of heat on Earth.

So, how hot would Earth get, if the light hitting the Earth was seven times brighter?

Well, in the Summer, it reaches more than 100 degrees Farenheit (37.8° C). We get that temperature quite often in July and August, here in Taipei, and I am MISERABLE when that happens.

But, if the Sun was seven times brighter?

I wouldn’t be miserable.

I’d be DEAD.

But, what if the increase in brightness is only for a short time?

Well, THAT would be survivable – but, it would have to be a very, VERY short time.

Have you noticed that the hottest day of the year is AFTER the brightest day?

Normally, the hottest day of the year is on July 24th. And, that is more than a month from the brightest day of the year – June 21st. This means that it takes time for the Sun to heat things up for us.

So, we could probably survive a brief increase in the brightness of the Sun, but only if it was brief.

Maybe we could survive it if this increase in brightness was for just a day?

Well, the Lord did mention the word ‘day’. So, it really COULD be a period of 24 hours.

So, for those of us who insist that Isaiah 30:26 speaks of a Sun that suddenly brightens, we would also need to have that Sun suddenly reduce that brightness back to normal. And, this is on top of the knowledge that the light we are talking about takes years to get to Earth, in the first place.

Are you beginning to see how unlikely a simplistic answer like ‘the Sun just gets brighter’ is?

But, let’s not allow improbability keep us from examining this further.

Do We Have Examples In Nature?

Do we have evidence of other stars increasing in brightness by seven times, for a short period?

No, not really. At least no stars that are like our Sun.

You can look into variable stars and what causes them, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_star

The point is that our star – the Sun – is extremely stable. For it to oscillate in brightness just once – with an increase in brightness of seven times – well… um …that is just plain impossible to even imagine.

Another View From The Bible

Yes, I know that this is supposed to be a miracle, but there is a far simpler explanation for this miracle. And, we have another view of it in Ezekiel 39:6.

And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the Lord. – Ezekiel 39:6

Since I have illustrated the link between Ezekiel 39:6 and Isaiah 30:26, Ezekiel provides us with a far more simple explanation to Isaiah, than this incredible idea that the Sun would just increase in brightness by almost an order of magnitude, and then just as rapidly go back to normal – all without turning the Earth into a charred lump of carbon.

The kind of change that our Sun would need to go through – and then stop going through – would require something beyond our ability to contemplate. There just isn’t any way that we could foresee such an event.

This Is A Warning

In fact, I believe that the impossibility of this would negate its prophetic value.

Negate its prophetic value?

Yes.

Please remember that prophecy is given to us for a purpose, and that purpose is usually to warn us of something that is coming, so that we can prepare for it. And, the moment in time that Isaiah is speaking of in chapter 30 will require LOTS of preparation.

This increase in brightness isn’t just a sign. It is something that we will need to make deliberate preparations for. In fact our lives and our civilization is at stake, here.

But, let me wrap up this bit of thought by saying that I could be completely wrong about the significance of Isaiah 30:26. It really could be just a short period of time in which the sun is miraculously seven times brighter, and that’s it.

However, as we move forward in our discussion about this prophecy, you’ll quickly realize that there’s no that’s it. We live in a complex time with complex dangers, and this is no simple prophecy that you can simply dismiss.

There is too much at stake, and too many lives at risk.

Are you going to gamble on the fact that Isaiah is talking about a mere sign?

But, we haven’t reached the end of our discussion. Let’s continue our talk with another possible way that the Sun could visibly increase in brightness by seven times.

The Sun Increases In Size

One of the ways that a star like our Sun would increase in brightness – is to increase in size. This happens when a star goes off of something that we call main sequence.

Remember that I told you about the Sun being powered by Hydrogen fusion?

Right. Well, all good things eventually come to an end, and the Sun runs out of hydrogen at its core. That’s when the outer layers start fusing hydrogen – which would cause the Sun to increase in size to become a red giant.

We have watched this process happen in distant stars, and it is always explosive – causing stars to expand quickly, engulfing planets as it rapidly increases in size.

Scientists who have been watching our own star, calculate that our Sun will be bigger than the size of Earth’s orbit, when it becomes a Red Giant. The survival of Earth would depend upon whether the explosion is big enough to push Earth further away, and if the Sun loses enough mass for Earth to continue orbiting the Sun.

Of course, the question is somewhat moot, anyway – because no life on Earth would survive the process. We would be shaked and baked as we are being launched out into space.

And, if the Sun somehow DIDN’T grow to engulf Earth’s orbit… even if it was just ten or twenty times bigger than it is now …it would be so bright that it would kill all life on Earth – burn away the oceans, strip away the atmosphere and kill EVERYTHING.

So, an increase in size could NOT account for the Sun’s increase in brightness. Because it would kill us all, and defeat the purpose of the prophecy.

The Sun Explodes

There is another possibility which is even MORE ridiculous:

What if the Sun explodes?

(I’m only mentioning this to cover all the bases.)

Let me explain what would happen should the Sun blow up. Again, the Sun would immediately go off main sequence. The core of the Sun would collapse and the Sun would explode. The result would be something that we call a Supernova.

In ancient times, people observed a new, bright light in the sky, and called it a Nova – which is Latin for New. A nova is caused by a white dwarf star that consumes another star, in a binary star system, as they orbit about each other.

A supernova is caused by the core of a star collapsing, with an explosion as the result. The resulting blast will kick away the outer layers of the star and leave a dead core behind – or, at least one that smolders for a while. Bigger stars will explode and leave nothing behind.

Whatever the case, an exploding Sun would be bad news for all life on Earth. We would be vaporized.

So, Isaiah 30:26 cannot be talking about an explosion of the Sun.

The only possibility that is left is an explosion of a completely different kind.


http://www.ezekielsfire.com/chapter-one/a-solar-flare-really/

I really hope you won't short change yourself by not investigating this information. None of us know every aspect of Bible Prophecy so let a Wise Student of God's Word continue to learn. Gerlinda

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I have only begun to get into this topic by John Little. What he says here, which I will quote is something we should strongly consider.

Please remember that prophecy is given to us for a purpose, and that purpose is usually to warn us of something that is coming, so that we can prepare for it. And, the moment in time that Isaiah is speaking of in chapter 30 will require LOTS of preparation.

Steven continues to find these wonderful insights into many, many topics which the Bible covers. How can one not appreciate this? Yes, it takes dedication and time. It also takes willingness to be able to admit you don't know everything, such as the reason we may very well still be here until such time as the Seventh Angels blows his trumpet and calls up the Dead and then the Living will be changed to join them in the air.

Gerlinda