| ...silence
in heaven about the space of half an hour. If you have gone very far into our site, you know that we have no patience with date setting for prophetic events. However, we cannot ignore the fact that the Bible is filled with "times" for preordained events. This is a classic example; but to understand the length of time presented in this verse, we must look at it in the light of prophetic language. The key given to the Church for deciphering prophetic timing is DANIEL’S SEVENTY WEEKS. (For a thorough study of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, go to booklet one and scroll down to chapter three of our on-line book CLOCK OF THE AGES. Use the "back" button on your browser to return to this page.) In brief, each week in Daniel’s Seventy Weeks is equal to 7 years. Using this key, let’s attempt to decipher the time period for a prophetic 30 minutes.
So, if we have properly applied the key of Daniel’s 70 Weeks, then "about the space of half an hour" will be close to if not exactly seven days. Next, let’s ask ourselves, what is heaven? what is meant by silence in heaven? what will be different in heaven that will bring about this silence? when will this happen and why is this silence important to the earth? First, what is heaven? When I began studying the Bible, I thought heaven to be God’s home, the place where HE lives. But as I began studying the Bible, I found God to be a Spirit Who has no need of a dwelling place as we normally think of shelter with our finite minds. King David also had trouble with this concept. In gratitude for the house that God had given him, He wanted to build God a house in return. But God sent word to David by the Prophet Nathan:
Although God had no need for a house; yet, he let it be built to honor His name. However, David, who was known for his valor in war, didn’t get to build the house. Instead, the chore was given to his son Solomon (1Ki. 8:17-21), a type of King Jesus—the Prince of Peace. And note that Solomon, the wisest man of the Old Testament, was given even more insight about the attributes of God.
This spiritual attribute of God has also been revealed to Israel through the Prophet Jeremiah.
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul also had insight into this characteristic of God, which he shared with the men of Athens at Mars Hill.
The Lord Jesus made it plain that God the Father has no need of a place in which to live when He explained that God was a Spirit.
(So then, God is a Spirit and as such, he is omnipresent [everywhere at once] and boundless. For example, if God were to send an object in a geometric straight line in any given direction, it would continue on forever; for who or what could stop it?) In addition, as we learn from Paul, not only is our body a house for our soul, but it is also a temple of the Holy Ghost.
Building upon this analogy, we can understand what Jesus meant when He said that in his Father’s house [i.e., in Christ Himself] are many mansions [born-again believers]. (This is only one of the metaphors in the Bible that denotes Christ and His Church.) So then, if heaven is not God’s residence, who resides there? Well, we are told in the Scriptures that it is the residence of Christ Jesus (God the Son), His Angels, and His glorified Church. So, what is heaven? It is the residence of the Son of God and of those of His creation that worship Him. This being so, what is meant by silence in heaven? Will everyone there be hushed for this prophetic half an hour? Or is this referring to a time(s) when the residents of heaven will be gone? This question brings the following Scriptures to mind.
These are just a couple of Scriptures showing that the Lord Jesus will be coming to earth with His angels and His glorified saints at the end of the first ½ of Daniel's 70th Week to set up His kingdom for the Kingdom Age. These Scriptures came to mind when I was first compiling my notes for this study. However, later, while fine tuning my notes, something about this timing bothered me. As powerful as the angels are depicted, surely the Lord won't need all of them to take care of the problems on earth at the end of our age. So, if this silence is because the residents of heaven have left, why would they all needed to have left at this point in time? Assuming that there will be a time when all of heaven will leave, and assuming that the end of our age will not be the time they leave, then when and why will they leave? Upon reflection it would seem that the when could be the time that Christ will come to the earth at the end of the 2nd ½ of Daniel's Week. Perhaps the why would then be that at this point in time, Christ Jesus will be finalizing his work with His creation: salvaging that which could be saved, destroying the old heaven and earth by fire, and building a new heaven and earth. Granted, we're told little of these final end-time events, but it would seem to me that all of heaven--if not needed--would at least want to be in on such a momentous task! There is one other element that might come to bear on this half and hour of silence. We've discussed how that the identities and events in the 1st ½ of Daniel’s 70th Week foreshadow the identities and events in the 2nd ½ of Daniel’s 70th Week; we might speculate, then, that there might very well be a similar 7days just prior to the Kingdom Age when Christ sets things in order for His earthly kingdom--sort of a foreshadowing in reverse--but this is just a speculation.
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