I remember first hearing about the Three Days of Darkness (TDOD)
and thinking it was beyond creepy. Demons prowling around outside in the bodies
of your neighbors and family, begging you to open the door? C’mon, you can’t be
serious. That sounds like folklore.
No credence came from the vision being given through the
Roman Catholic Church (R.C.C.), which is looking a lot more like an arm of the Beast system each passing
day. I'm not bashing Catholics, either. I'm just questioning their leadership.
Other prophecies regarding this three days are connected to Mary (mother
of Jesus), referred to as the Lady of Fatima. A group of children in
Medjugorje, Portugal were allegedly told by an apparition of Mary to attend mass every first Friday and First
Saturday of each month, and to pray the Rosary (including the Hail
Mary) for intercession. She told them a lot about Russia and China, too.
There’s some merchandising around this prophecy, as well. According to
some so-called TDOD-prophets, Only 100% beeswax candles blessed by a priest in union with the "True Pope," Pope Gregory XVIII, will be able to be lit. The purveyors also recommend lighting the candles with similarly “blessed”
matches...available for purchase, of course. They insist nothing else will give light during the TDOD - not even regular
candles. So, only blessed candles and matches from this guy are supposed to work. Hmm. Uh-huh.
In common, all these historical prophecies issue strict
warnings about not looking outside while all of this is going on, which may
result in turning into a pillar of salt, or death, or even insanity.
The sky will
turn unusual colors, but there’s some discord about the actual colors that will
be shown. Within three days, a massive quake is supposed to strike, and the gates of Hell will be opened. That actually sounds a lot like Revelation doesn't it? Some say the released demons will take on a gaseous form and exhale poison, while
other say they’ll occupy the bodies of your friends and loved ones. Don’t
open the door to them. They’re obviously fakes, since nobody can survive poison
demon breath.
Given the fantastical descriptions and, more importantly, unreliable sources, you can see why I would question this prophecy. Some of it is far
beyond scriptural, and the appointing of any mere man-pontiff in the place of God is
something to which I will always emphatically object.
Still, a much more reasonable version of the TDOD is being
presented by people whose YouTube channels I have tested and found to be both
reasonable and scriptural. And most of them seem absolutely sincere. What are
we to believe?
Before I answer that, I want to make a major point to you. I can't count the number of videos I've watched about this topic, both pro and con. I've read many more arguments and counter-arguments, as well.
But more importantly, I’ve
read and researched every instance of “three days” in Scripture, the very best source of wisdom and prophecy.
There are 163 occurrences in the KJV among 73 verses. I removed thirteen of them from
my list because the words “three” and “days” were separated within the verse, or because the translation was “third day” versus “three days” and, in one instance, it
was referring to 33 days instead of three.
That’s 150 mentions of three days,
and in each instance the theme was a separation (time or distance), a
transformation, a testing, or a waiting period. That’s significant!
Based on what I saw in scripture, the pattern is that some important type of separation or culling takes place after a three day waiting period. I don't know which three days, and I don't know what kind of culling will take place. It could be as simple as a reference to the three days our Savior was entombed, or it could be something important on our horizon, related to God's plan of redemption.
Does the TDOD seem scary? Yes, but I won’t
be intimidated into hiding my head in the sand. The fact that it’s scary is an
excellent reason to really search the matter thoroughly.
Do I want the TDOD to be true? No, but under no circumstances am I going to turn away from it and proclaim it
irrelevant because it looks like it was co-opted by a fringe of the R.C.C. And here’s why:
What better place is there to hide the truth, than in the mouth
of a liar?
Don’t get all worked up. I'm just trying to present suggestions for how we should respond to the prophecies about TDOD that we hear, weighing them against scripture. And that, readers, is the big take-away from this
blog post. I even have a nifty little summary of the scriptures I studied that you can reference if you would like to dive in to them. They may help you to discern for
yourselves how much of the TDOD prophecies are false, and how much are true.
The rest of this post will answer the following two simple,
yet important, questions:
- How should we form our opinion about the TDOD prophecy?
- What does a reasonable response to it look like?
First, there are a variety of potential reactions
to prophecy. Some can be pride-based, suggesting to others that we
know more than they do, therefore the TDOD prophecies are clearly correct/incorrect.
Other reactions can be self-seeking, whipping up people into a frenzy to ensure
they keep coming back to us for a blog post, YouTube video, or to encourage us to buy a blessed
something-or-other as a talisman.
Some opinions can be fear-based, which might be the worst of all. Just because we don’t WANT the TDOD to be true, the source from which it has come is dismissed or devalued, leading us to shout, “It’s not scriptural!” I’ve
heard a lot of that, and given there are such interesting bits of scripture to
point to “three days” it's worthy of investigation.
So how, then, should we figure the TDOD out? I propose these
steps:
- Stop listening to other people (internet, social media, YouTube, etc.) and their opinions, regardless of where they stand. You’re going to come across every fear-monger and ear-tickler on the internet, and none of them are as reliable as God's word.
- Next, read scripture thoroughly. I recommend praying both before, and after, you have studied. If you enjoy the clarity that comes from a fast, do that as well.
- Ask God to tell you what you need to know. Don’t be afraid of the answer, because if you believe His word is true, then you also know how much He loves you, and how capable He is of saving his people. He literally has a 100% track record.
For me, this study has been challenging. I have never run into a subject that feels so opaque to me.
If you’ve followed my blog at all, you know that when I feel like God is
showing me something, it hits me all of a sudden, and I leave the subject
feeling confident of what I’ve learned. This time it's completely different. I
asked God to tell me if the TDOD was real, and I’ve had four separate dreams about it which
all had the same theme, just slightly different details (i.e., where I was
sitting, who was around me, and the manner in which the darkness spread). Each
time, people were screaming, running, and panicking as darkness spread on the horizon – but I wasn’t afraid.As part of this study, I asked God to please show me a series of threes if it was going to happen before the rapture, a series of fours if it was going to happen in conjunction with the rapture, and a series of fives if it happens after the rapture. He’d given me confirmations like that before, so it didn’t seem like a stretch to ask.
Guess what happened? I got both a series of threes AND a
series of fives. That’s not the decisive answer I was hoping for. Perhaps I’m
not asking the right question, or the answer is not for me to know. Maybe it’s for you
to know, or someone else. Maybe I need to refine my question.
Now that I’ve written an entire blog post without any conclusion whatsoever, I want to suggest a reasonable response to the TDOD prophecy. It's very, very simple.
Keep searching if you feel led, stay in the Word, and be prepared to the extent possible.
Keep searching if you feel led, stay in the Word, and be prepared to the extent possible.
We can rule out the possibility that a supreme
pontiff will be nominated by Paul and Peter, and that the head of the true church will just happen to be the new head
of the R.C.C. As I've said, I love the people but I don't love their leadership. Their history is pretty shady, too. Actually, if the TDOD does result in some allegedly annointed super-pope concurrent with the rapture, the world should be looking very carefully at that guy. He's rumored to be responsible for leading the world into an amazing future age of church growth and world peace. It doesn't line up with scripture, and it sounds more like a Great Deception. Just sayin'.
Also, according to some of the prophets, if both Russia and China are going to suddenly convert, it would have to happen immediately for it to occur before the end of the 70-year generation of Israel's re-birth as a nation. It didn't happen before May 2019, and it looks even less likely now.
As for the cataclysmic aspects of the prophecy, if the sky turns strange and wondrous colors something is obviously happening in our atmosphere, and it’s a good bet that it’s some kind of solar activity which could disrupt communications and power grids. I suggest we respond by having a sensible emergency plan that includes food, water, and heat sources. We should have that, anyway. I'm a fan of window coverings, too.
Also, according to some of the prophets, if both Russia and China are going to suddenly convert, it would have to happen immediately for it to occur before the end of the 70-year generation of Israel's re-birth as a nation. It didn't happen before May 2019, and it looks even less likely now.
As for the cataclysmic aspects of the prophecy, if the sky turns strange and wondrous colors something is obviously happening in our atmosphere, and it’s a good bet that it’s some kind of solar activity which could disrupt communications and power grids. I suggest we respond by having a sensible emergency plan that includes food, water, and heat sources. We should have that, anyway. I'm a fan of window coverings, too.
If a thick darkness suddenly spreads, I want to remind you of Exodus 10:22-23. The land of Goshen,
specifically the homes of God’s people, had light during that time of darkness. The word "had" isn't as mundane as "I had a hat on my head." It's more often used to describe becoming, coming to pass, and is conjunctive between the people, and the light they have.
As for the scarier aspects of the TDOD prophecy, if I heard screaming outside, you can be sure I'd stay safely hidden inside with my family and pray. It goes without saying that I wouldn't open the door to anyone who claims to be a long-dead friend (don't bother knocking!) – especially if they have demon breath. Oral hygiene is a non-negotiable for me.
Since the ONE allegedly blessed-candle-guy, Pope Gregory XVIII has apparently quit his job, we can rule out candles and matches blessed by him or his former sect. That said, regular
candles should always be on hand for an emergency and natural, unscented
beeswax is clean-burning, long-lasting, and pure.
Perhaps it was an expensive and unnecessary concession to TDOD prophecy, but I actually made some beeswax candles and gave them to friends. I also took that opportunity to melt down my massive collection of candle remnants into cute little candles in canning jars. It was fun. I know…I don’t seem like a person who likes fun. I don’t
even know why I saved those old candles, when I’m usually ruthless about old
junk laying around. But I did, and I happily up-cycled them, only setting the stove on fire once in the process.
But I digress.
Finally, and most importantly, we should always be prepared spiritually to meet
our Savior, no matter what the circumstances are. That includes a genuine relationship with God which includes spending time in the Word, and in prayer. Remember, TDOD or not, tomorrow is never guaranteed.
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