Those Days Shall be Shortened

Last August, on a little tour following the Future Congress, I visited Pittsburgh to meet with Aaron Hermann. We were blessed to enjoy a remarkable week in the Lord's favor. During this season, some things began to unfold as the Lord opened to us some rather surprising insights. One item the Lord dropped on Aaron involved a key verse in Matthew 24.

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 (KJV)

God will have to shorten time because if He doesn't all flesh would be lost, not saved. He will, but not as a benefit for the elect: He's enlisting the elect to be His agents in shortening those days.

The YLT and Newberry interlinear render the text more clearly.

And if those days were not shortened, no flesh would have been saved; but because of the chosen, shall those days be shortened.

Matthew 24:22 (YLT)

and unless had been shortened those days not there would have been saved any flesh, but on account of the elect shall be shortened those days.

Matthew 24:22 (Newberry "Interlinear" - The Englishmans Greek New Testament)

The Bullinger's Companion Bible notes on verse 24 point to the note on verse 9, where he explains the meaning of "for the elect's sake" as being the same as verse 9's, "for My name's sake." Bullinger notes that, for = on account of. “For” is here the Greek preposition dia, and reference is made to Ap. 104 v. 2, where we read the following: “With the accusative it has the sense of on account of, or because of indicating both the exciting cause, the impulsive cause, or the prospective cause.”

The key word here is CAUSE. I'm getting technical so you may begin to perceive the role of the elect in this important passage, a people tasked with a special job. Instead of being the beneficiaries they are popularly thought to be, they will rather be responsible for the shortening of those days. Any flesh that will ultimately be saved will, in fact, be the recipient of the benefit of their mission. The elect, as a special forces team, have an unction from the sovereign Lord God on behalf of the flesh that will be saved. They will be commissioned and provisioned for this mission of mercy. Their mission objective, which is to shorten those days, will be achieved, and in this, the elect will become agents of salvation. What an awesome plan!

The nature of their objective is to shorten those days, which requires some explanation here. The duration of the target season, called great tribulation (megas thlipsis), will be limited by way of truncation. The Greek word for shortened is koloboo, which means to lop off, cut off, from the root word kolazo, “to lop or prune.” A good English translation is “truncate,” “To shorten by or as if by cutting off.” The “shortening of those days” is not a time acceleration or compression action but a lopping off. Whatever the “normal” number of days would otherwise be, it will be reduced to a set number, to the limit the Lord God appoints. This may be considered a time shift or displacement action.

If you read Matthew 24:22 paying attention to the grammar, you'll notice a shift in tense. It begins from the perspective of someone in the future writing about the past. “And if those days were not shortened, no flesh would have been saved;” Then, it reads from the perspective of someone looking to the future. “but because of the chosen, shall those days be shortened.” The shift in tense is a time shift that implies something about the subject of the verse.

The Lord God is not constrained in His activity by any laws of our space-time physics. He is also sovereign. These laws which bind us are merely servant constructs, artifacts of this present creation. Our deceitful Adversary is himself, if you will, a servant construct, created ultimately for the purpose of bringing the Sovereign God's will to pass. I write that here pretty casually, but if you ever really got hold of that you know you will never be the same.

What is coming upon the earth is without parallel. There is nothing new under the sun, it is true, yet in scope or scale, what is revealed in the following verse is coming soon.

For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.

Matthew 24:21

Radical measures will be taken in the supernatural war now being waged, and control over time itself is at stake. What the media and physicists involved with CERN's LHC won't tell you openly is that their search for the elusive God particle isn't for the discovery of “new physics” just to sate their curiosity, or even just to discover the secrets of how matter acquires its mass. E=MC². The letter C represents the speed of light, which has a time component. Hints have been dropped, as I've written about on the blog, that imply the real goal is actually to unlock the secrets of time. It's been claimed that the physicists may already have evidence of the Higgs Boson, even before reaching the current level of 8TeV, and they intend to increase the power significantly before the planned shutdown this November for 20 months of maintenance and upgrading. They are hell bent on their goals, literally.

Given the elect's commission to truncate “those days” you can bet there's a bid for control over time underway, and the enemies of the Lord God and His people will have victory. What has been assigned to the Enemy is just what is necessary, no more and no less. Ultimately, the Sovereign Lord God is just that, sovereign, and that's not “just” a title. He has set limits, and they will be enforced in appropriate ways and seasons, just as He has from ages past. He's engaging an elect for special missions. Those of you who understand, if you're not on that team, pray for those who are, and for every other special team being engaged in the Lord's service, as you may so be led.