The Church the Rapture will Leave Behind

A couple weeks ago I published The Rapture of the Church in which I hoped to encourage my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as we enter these last days.  As is always the case, God’s timing is perfect.  Right around that same time, I began reading the book of Revelation as I have been studying the New Testament this summer.  The comments I made in my Rapture post were still fresh in my heart and mind as I read through chapters 2 and 3 about the 7 churches.

To refresh your memory, the letters to the 7 churches are meaningful in a number of ways.  First, they were 7 letters written to 7 actual churches of the apostle John’s time, and addressed concerns and praised their good works.  Second, they are a message to individual churches all throughout the Church Age.  At some point or other we can see our own congregations in one or more of the Revelation churches.  Third, they also speak to us individually.  Who of us cannot read those letters and feel the conviction and/or hope from the Holy Spirit?  Finally, they are prophetic.  Each of the 7 churches represents a stage of the global Church throughout the whole Church Age, from the first to the last, in order.

In my rapture post, I pointed to the 6th church, Philadelphia, as the one who will be raptured to Heaven before the Great Tribulation, also known as the Time of Jacob’s Trouble.  And, I pointed to the 5th church, Sardis, as the age we are in now.  The Church looks like it is doing good, but it has fallen asleep and needs to wake up and prepare for Messiah’s return.

Revelation 3:1-4 (TLV) – To the angel of Messiah’s community in Sardis write:  “Thus says the One having the seven spirits of God and the seven stars:  I know your deeds–you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead.  Wake up, and strengthen what remains that was about to die.  For I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of My God.  So remember what you have received and heard–keep it, and repent.  If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you. But still, you have a few people in Sardis who have not stained their clothes.  They will walk with Me in white, because they are worthy.  The one who overcomes thus will be dressed in white clothes; I will never blot his name out of the Book of Life, and will confess his name before My Father and His angels.”

We are a church today who has fallen asleep.  We walk into church on Sunday, and out the exact same person.  We do not change.  Our words and deeds are hollow because we have tainted everything we do with compromise with the world.  Divorce, homosexuality, abortion, sexual impurity, the worship of money and false idols (and before you deny that, consider how many Christians idolize celebrities in Hollywood, the music industry, sports…simply observe their reaction when one of them dies).  The church today reeks of the contamination of worldly influence.  We do not fear God.  We have turned Him into a loveable, cuddly, caregiver.  The cold, hard truth of that is far too many in the Church today worship a god of their own making…he is an idol.  The God of the Bible, the One True God, YAHWEH, is to be feared and revered!  Yes, He is the God of the New Testament who loves us so much that He sent His son to die for us so that we could have a restored relationship with Him.  BUT.  He is also the very same God from the Old Testament who is holy and righteous and demands righteousness from His children.  The same God who opened the earth and swallowed the men and their families who dared to stand against Moses.  The same God who destroyed Sodam and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone for their sin.  We have lost sight of exactly who YAHWEH, the God of Israel is.  It is evidence in how we live, what we do, what we say.  Just turn on the local Christian music radio station.  I can hardly listen to it anymore.  There are a great many songs of worship and praise, but there are also many that are feel good, mushy songs.  There is little to no teaching.  No call to repentance.  Everything we do, whether good or bad, is understandable.  We think it is okay because the god we know wouldn’t ask us to live differently than what is comfortable for us.  We don’t know God.

The 6th church in Revelations 3 is the church in Philadelphia.  Prophetically speaking, it is the church that comes out of the Sardis age.  It is the people who do not stain their clothes, who overcome; the ones who wake up and repent, who strive to make their deeds complete in the sight of God.  This is the church who is rewarded for their faithfulness by being saved from the Great Tribulation.

Revelations 3:10-11 (TLV) – “Because you have kept My word about patient endurance, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is coming upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth.  I am coming soon–hold on to what you have, so that no one will take away your crown.”

I have always believed that the Rapture would take the church and there would be no one left, except the people who attended church, but never had really given their hearts to God and received His salvation.  But as I continued to read the rest of chapter 3, I felt a hard thunking in my soul from the Spirit.  The Rapture comes during the time of the 6th church, but there are 7 churches.  A part of the church is left behind.  As soon as I understood this word from the Spirit, I began praying for further understanding.  It came from a number of different places, and each time, God gave me an ah-hah as I understood another piece.

The first question is who will be left behind.

Revelation 3:15-17 (TLV) – “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.  Oh, that you were either cold or hot!  So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spew you out of My mouth.  For you say, ‘I am rich, I have made myself wealthy, and I need nothing.’  But you do not know that you are miserable and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.”

A new friend, and sister in Christ, gave me the word for this: the carnal Christian.  Paul talks about them in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 (TLV) – “And I, brothers and sisters, could not speak to you as Spirit-filled but as worldly–as infants in Messiah.  I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready.  Indeed, even now you are not yet ready, for you are still worldly.  For since there is jealousy and strife among you, arent’ you worldly and walking in a human way?”

Did you catch the word that connects the 7th church to the 5th church?  Deeds.  The part of the Church that is left behind are the Christians, and yes, I say Christians for such they are, who have not bothered to grow or striven to deepen their faith or relationship with God.  They believe, and they have received Yeshua’s (the Hebrew name of Jesus) salvation from their sins; that is salvation from judgement, but they have done nothing with it.  They still live in a way that looks exactly like the rest of the world.  There is nothing that sets them apart as different.  Paul calls it worldly.  They are content to live their spiritual life on fluff and cotton candy; milk, as an infant does.  The feel good music on the Christian radio station, and quite frankly, sung in our churches every Sunday.  Do we need the praise and worship songs?  Absolutely!  And I am in no way saying that we don’t.  Probably the thing that stands out the most to me is the listeners who call in giving the radio station credit for getting them through the day or even their salvation. That is a very tricky attitude of heart. The messages from the pulpit today refuse to call sin sin.  The Bible that sits on the shelf collecting dust.  Who even bothers to bring one to church anymore?  It used to be that people at least would do that much…it made them look like they were good Christians after all.  Prayer is said only at meals, and maybe in emergencies.  I hope that what I’m getting across is that this is the part of the church, unfortunately the growing part, that is content being a lukewarm, baby Christian; in it for the salvation, but not for the life.  If this doesn’t scare you for yourself, it probably scares you for someone you love.  And if it doesn’t at all, it should.

Jesus’ famous end times passage is in Matthew 24.  He follows that with warnings and instructions in the form of parables in chapter 25.  The first is the parable of the 10 virgins in which 10 young ladies are waiting for the Bridegroom to come for the wedding feast.  Five of the virgins have oil in their lamps, they are prepared, watching and waiting for the Bridegroom to come.  When He arrives, they are ready and are able to enter into the wedding feast.  The other 5, however, did not have oil, were not prepared, were not watching, and they were left outside.  When they asked to be let in, the Groom told them He didn’t know them.

The second parable is that of the talents.  A man goes on a journey.  He leaves a certain amount of talents (coins) with each of 3 servants.  While He is gone, the servants with 5 and 2 talents, respectively, both double the amount they are given.  However, the servant with 1 talent buries it and does nothing with it.  When the master returns, the 2 who doubled what they were given were told to enter into their master’s joy.  But the servant who did nothing with what he was given was thrown out into utter darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.  The master, of course is Yeshua.  The servants are the believers, and the talents represent the knowledge of God and His salvation.  What I want you to note is that it didn’t matter how much the servants were given, what mattered was that they did something with it, whether great or small.  Something was rewarded.  Nothing was punished.  It is the carnal Christian, who has the knowledge and salvation of God, but does nothing at all with it, who will be left behind.  If you are a slow grower, but are still growing, you are doing something.  Don’t let that be an excuse to not do more, though.  Continue daily to seek the Lord and strengthen your relationship with Him.

So what will happen to this part of the church, who remain to live out the 7 years of the Great Tribulation?

Revelation 3:18-22 (TLV) – “I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white clothes so that you may dress yourself and so the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed, and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.  Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline.  Therefore, be zealous and repent.  Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.  To the one who overcomes I will grant the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I myself overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Ruach [Spirit] is saying to Messiah’s communities.”

There are a couple of things I need to point out here.  First of all, Messiah’s communities refers to the Church.  Also, note that Yeshua says that He rebukes those He loves.  So this is definitely to part of the Church, believers who have received salvation.  But they were not taken in the Rapture because of their carnal/worldly ways.

The second is this: “buy from Me gold refined by fire,” and “the one who overcomes…just as I myself overcame.”  For this I need to take you ahead in Revelations to chapter 13:7-10 (TLV) – He [the beast, Satan] was also permitted to make war against the kedoshim [the saints, Christians] and overcome them, and he was given authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.  All who dwell on the earth shall worship him–everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain.  If anyone has an ear, let him hear.  If anyone is meant for captivity, to captivity he goes.  If anyone is to be killed by the sword, by the sword he must be killed.  Here is the perseverance and faith of the kedoshim.”

This is the refiners fire, and the way the Christians who remain will need to overcome, as Jesus overcame at the cross, through persecution, imprisonment and death.

Brothers and Sisters, I urge you, please, seek the Lord.  The end times are here.  We are seeing the evidence of it all around us every day.  Jesus said that we would know them when the world is like the times of Noah, when every thought and intent of man’s heart is evil.  The world glorifies violence, murder, deception, blasphemy, all kinds of messed up sexual immorality, and they are desperately trying to become gods themselves (changing the gender of people, rearranging DNA in a fetus to create their own life, cloning, etc.). Yeshua said that the times would be like the days of Lot when Soddam and Gomorrah were destroyed after the men of the city insisted on having sex with the men (angels) who came to see him.  Wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters abound.

Jesus also said the following in Matthew 24:14 (TLV) – “This Good News of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”  We just recently had a guest at our church who is part of a mission outreach that gets the Gospel message presented in other languages through film, but also through translated Scriptures.  He reported that it is estimated that the Gospel message will be available in every language in 5-7 years, and the Bible in every language by the year 2033.  That is only 16 years away.  16!!!  Possibly only 5, if the Lord raptures the Church when the Gospel message has been shared.  We cannot say exactly when Yeshua will return, but the point is that the time is short, and if we are awake, and paying attention, like the 5 virgins in Matthew 25, prepared with the oil in their lamps, we will see the Bridegroom coming.  We will not be caught unawares, as though He is a thief in the night, as He warned the church at Sardis.

The time is here, and we MUST wake up and prepare!  The Spirit is on the move, placing in the hearts of His people the urgency to prepare themselves and the church.  I am a witness to that in myself, but I am also witnessing it in others in my own congregation as well as globally.  God is giving us that wake up call, the one Yeshua gave to the church at Sardis, the 5th church, right before the church that is saved from the hour of trial.  The time for the rapture is near.  The Bridegroom is coming to take His bride.  If we are not ready, we will be left behind, and must then face the refining fires if we are to overcome and ultimately reign with Jesus on His thrown.

The words of an old song, based on Isaiah 55:6, comes to mind:

Seek the Lord, while He may be found.  Call upon Him while He is near.  Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thought, and let him return to the Lord, and to our God.  For He will abundantly pardon.  He will abundantly pardon you.  Return to the Lord.

It’s Undeniable: The End Times are Here…NOW

Here is a 2-part series, published on another site first.

For two thousand years, Christians all over the world have been watching the signs of the times, with an eye on the clouds, always waiting and wondering when Yeshua (Jesus) would return.  

They have witnessed, lived through, and died at the hands of unspeakable evil.  The words of Yeshua in Matthew 24 have been forever on our lips. There have been earthquakes, famines, pestilences, false prophets, wars and rumors of wars.  And always we have wondered how much worse can things get?  Surely this present evil is the last straw, the one which will bring God to the point of judgment.  Yet Yeshua has lingered- God’s patience for mankind reaching far beyond what our own sinful hearts can.  So when leaders in the Christian world today speak of the soon return of the Messiah, many scoff. Perhaps they have been so hardened by the wait that they no longer believe.

There is a problem with what 2000 years’ worth of Christians have looked at to determine the signs of the times, however.  In my 3-part article “Who is Israel? And What Role, If Any, Does She Play in God’s Kingdom” I explain how the Gentile church’s anti-Semitic history has not only removed the Jewishness from Jesus, Christianity, and the Bible, but has also effectively eliminated the importance of the Old Testament.  This, then, is the problem.

What Yeshua said in Matthew 24 was not the be all, end all of end time prophecy.  To get the complete picture, one must study a great deal of the Old Testament.  In fact, sixteen of the OT books are books of prophecy.  Many of the prophecies written there have already been fulfilled in the first coming of Messiah, and the events that happened to the nation of Judah in the year 70 AD when the Jews were scattered throughout the world.  Many others have not.  The only way to truly understand end-time prophecy is to study the Old Testament.

This is the year 2016, and I am telling you that the time of Yeshua’s return is near, very near.  Not because of the evil of this present age, not because of the increase in natural disasters, not because there is unbelievable unrest all over the world.  I am telling you this because of what is happening to and around Israel.  

Israel is the key to understanding end-time prophecy.

The rapture, the 2nd coming of Messiah, the Tribulation, they all center on Israel, not the Church.  When Israel became a nation in her own land in 1948, the ball was set in motion because that was a prophecy that had remained unfulfilled until that time.

I want to address a couple of terms.  First, the House of Israel and the House of Ephraim are one and the same.  They are the 10 tribes of Israel which became the Northern Kingdom after the time of King Solomon.  They were eventually assimilated by Assyria, not to be heard from until this past decade in which the remnant God preserved has begun to awaken and return to the Promised Land.

Second, the House of Judah was the 2 remaining tribes, which became the Southern Kingdom of Israel, or just Judah.  They were taken captive by Babylon (where they were first called Jews), but allowed to return to Jerusalem 70 years later (a fulfilled OT prophecy).  These same Jews were the ones who centuries later bore Yeshua (Jesus), and later played a major role in crucifying Him.  As a consequence, another 70 years later, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, and all the Jews were scattered throughout the world.  The land of Israel was gone, and the people were no longer a nation.  Finally, the Whole House of Israel is all 12 tribes of Israel, the House of Israel/Ephraim and the House of Judah, united as the original nation of Israel that God designed.

With this quick lesson in terminology under our belts, let’s start digging into what Ezekiel has to say about what is happening in our world today.

Ezekiel 36:7-12 (TLV) –

Therefore thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘I have lifted My hand. Surely the nations that surround you will themselves suffer scorn.  “‘But you, mountains of Israel, you will shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit for My people Israel; for their return is near.  For behold, I am for you. I will turn to you. You will be tilled and sown.  I will settle a large population upon you—the whole house of Israel, all of it. The cities will be inhabited. The desolate places will be built up.  I will multiply man and beast upon you. They will increase and be fruitful. I will cause you to be inhabited as you were before. I will do better for you than at your beginnings. You will know that I am Adonai.  I will cause people, my people Israel, to walk upon you. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance. You will no longer deprive them of children.’”

These verses are a promise from God that He would someday return the whole house of Israel to the land He promised them. This little bit of wording is so important in understanding what is being said here.  God said “the whole house of Israel, all of it.”  Israel has not been united since the civil war divided it after King Solomon died.

As I mentioned above, the House of Israel was assimilated by Assyria, and not heard from again.  That was during the time of the great prophets of Isaiah and Jeremiah, in 722 BC.  The House of Judah, which was captured by Babylon and returned to Jerusalem 70 years later, around 538 BC, was again evicted in 70 AD.  The two houses of Israel have not been the “whole house” since some time in the upper 800s BC.  And none of the nation of Israel, Judah or Israel/Ephraim, were in the land of Israel from the year 70 AD onward…until 1948.  

In that year, Israel was established as a nation again, and given at least a portion of the land that God had promised to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Even then, this was only the Jews…those of the House of Judah.  The House of Israel remained lost; lost to the world, but not to God.  God had promised to preserve a remnant of each of the tribes and return them to Israel.  This began in the late 1990s.

Small communities all over the world, who have maintained the Israeli Law of Moses for thousands of years began to awaken- a miracle of God.  They began to recognize themselves and their culture as being of Israel, and they began to seek to return to the land of Israel.  In 2005 Israel approved measures allowing these groups to begin returning home.  These groups are not Jewish, because they are not of the House of Judah (the tribes of Judah and Benjamin), but they are Israelites, from the House of Israel, identifying with the 10 lost tribes who were assimilated 2700+ years ago.  God is bringing the whole house of Israel back to the land.

In Ezekiel 37:15-22 God told Ezekiel to take two sticks.  On one, he was to write the name of Judah, and the other, Israel, each stick representing one of the two houses.  He was to bind the sticks together to symbolize that they would become one stick/nation again.  In verse 24 we are told that “My servant David will be king over them.”  Obviously, this was not in reference to King David, for he had died long before.  This is a reference to the millennial reign of Yeshua when He returns to set up His kingdom on earth, His thousand year reign.

End-time point number one:  the two houses of Israel (Judah and Israel/Ephraim) will be united as one nation again, and be brought back to the land of Israel by the time that Yeshua begins His thousand year reign on earth.  Judah has been back in the land since 1948, and the remaining tribes of Israel have been making their way back gradually since 2005, becoming the whole house of Israel that God talked about.

Next, take a half step back in Scripture to Ezekiel 36:27.  Here God tells His people that He will put His Spirit within them, and that they will keep His laws, and obey His rules.  Israel has returned, but they do not keep God’s laws- the Law of Moses as described in Exodus and Leviticus.  Even the most orthodox Jew who desires to keep the Law is unable to do it completely, because there is no temple.  Certain parts of the Law must be done at the Temple and require animal sacrifice.

With a Muslim mosque standing on the Holy Hill where the Temple of God must stand, how can this be an indicator that the end times are here?

This is how- which brings me to End-Times Point Number Two:  A third Temple will be built at some point during the end times because the AntiChrist will desecrate it.  A group of Orthodox Jews have begun to raise money and build the artifacts for the third Temple, including the altar, which will allow them to resume complete obedience to God and His Law, and which God Himself foretold in Ezekiel 36.  In fact, recently, the altar was completed to the great excitement of many who are following the progress, including myself.

The original Temple that King Solomon built was destroyed when Jerusalem was taken captive by Babylon, and its artifacts were taken as booty.  A second temple was built when Judah returned from that captivity 70 years later, and the artifacts were returned.  This temple was destroyed 70 years after the crucifixion of Yeshua.  The book of Revelation talks about a third Temple, the one that will be rebuilt during the first 3 ½ years of the Great Tribulation, and which will be desecrated by the Anti-Christ.

PART TWO

In part 1 of this article we examined two End-Time Points:  The first is that God promised to not only unite the divided Israel (the House of Judah, and the House of Israel, sometimes called the House of Ephraim), but also to return them to the land of Israel and rule them under one king, David (symbolic of Yeshua/Jesus).  In 1948, Judah was returned to the land of Israel, and as of 2005, the ten lost tribes of the House of Ephraim were beginning to return as well.  What remains is for that process to be completed and for Yeshua to return for His thousand year reign on earth.

The second point is that the book of Revelations speaks of a third Temple during the Great Tribulation, one that will be desecrated by the Anti-Christ.  God said, through Ezekiel, in chapter 36, that He would put His Spirit in the people of Israel and they would again obey His Laws (the Law of Moses).  This obedience to the Law is currently limited without a Temple because animal sacrifice, and certain other ordinances require the Temple and the altar.  In the past few years, a group of Orthodox Jews have been working to rebuild the Temple artifacts (which includes the recent completion of the altar) in preparation for the third Temple, as soon as they are able to do so.  Currently, a Muslim mosque stands on God’s Holy Hill, but rest assured, God will not allow this mockery forever, and with the building of the artifacts, that time appears to be nearing soon.

The world is currently setting the stage for the Gog/Magog war.  In Ezekiel 38:1-6, God gives a list of nations that He will turn toward Israel, and bring up against her.  It seems to be a general consensus that Gog/Magog is Russia.  Gog was a title for a prince, while Magog was the nation.  Also listed is Rosh (northern part of Russia that borders with Europe), Meshech (Moscow), and Tubal (Tobolsk of Siberia).  Verse 3 says, “Thus says the Lord God:  ‘Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.’”

In verses 5-6, God states that Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, Gomer and Togarmah will join Magog in this attack on Israel. Until 1935, the present day nation of Iran was called by its ancient name of Persia.  Gomer is believed to be possibly Germany, or at the very least part of the land which is now Turkey.  Togarmah is known to be in what is now Turkey.

Ezekiel 38:8-12 – “After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely.  You will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all your troops and many peoples with you.”   ‘Thus says the Lord God: “On that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in your mind, and you will make an evil plan:  You will say, ‘I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates’—to take plunder and to take booty, to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are again inhabited, and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell in the midst of the land.

What does this passage tell us?  First of all, notice that the people of Israel will be brought out from the nations and will be living in the land of Israel.  We know from part 1 of this article, and the review above, that the whole house of Israel is now in the process of being united, and living in the land.

Second, these verses speak of the people of Israel dwelling in safety.  Israel today faces many threats, to be sure.  However, their determination to never again go through anything like the WWII holocaust has led them to build up one of the best, if not the best military defense systems in the world.  They recognize that they need to be able to completely and independently defend themselves because there is no guarantee that any other nation will come to their defense.  The recent vote by the United Nations to allow Iran a pathway to obtaining nuclear weapons is a case in point.  Israel has certainly become a nation secure in its own defense.

Finally, this coming battle is not the Battle of Armageddon.  That battle is when Messiah returns at His second coming and defeats all the armies of the world.  The battle talked about here in Ezekiel is commonly called the Battle of Gog and Magog. The Battle of Armageddon will begin when all the nations of the world, led by the Anti-Christ, surround Israel with the intent to destroy her, completely obliterate her.  The Battle of Gog has a completely different intent.  Russia, Iran, Turkey, Libya, Ethiopia, and probably Germany, will surround Israel in order to plunder her riches.

Is Israel really wealthy enough to care about plundering her?  In the fall of 2015, a huge supply of oil was discovered in Israel’s Golan Heights that is estimated to be billions of gallons.  What does Russia need most?  Oil.  Around the same time as the oil find, Russia began to test the waters militarily.  They moved into Syria under the pretense of fighting ISIS.  How would the rest of the free world respond to their military advancement?  Well, it gave the news outlets something to talk about for a while.

Let’s bundle some of this together.  Israel is now so secure in their ability to defend themselves that they have signed agreements with none other than Russia and Turkey.  The end of last month, Israel and Russia signed an agreement in an effort to stabilize relations in the area.  At the same time, they signed an agreement with Turkey that would allow Israel to build a pipeline through Turkey to enable the transportation of natural gas to Europe.  What better evidence of Israel’s sense of security than agreements with these two nations?  This most certainly could lead to the “unwalled villages” mentioned in the passage above.

Let’s move on to verse 13 – “Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you [Gog], ‘Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?’”

Barely over a week after the Russian and Turkey deals, Israel revealed agreements with four African nations: Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.  They have offered humanitarian assistance and military aid, as well as education and training in the areas of science and military for decades.  In an effort to make Israel known as an independent military superpower in the region, they have now made this information public.

When the Gog alliance comes against Israel, there will be nations who will openly question their actions, but none will come to her aid.  Israel will stand alone.  The merchants of Tarshish are nations of East Africa.  Sheba and Dedan are England and Spain.

What about the United States?  Last fall, I wrote an article called King of Kings…Lord of Presidents (published on http://www.madisonscpc.net), in which I stated that I believe God is going to place Donald Trump in the office of president.  God has a plan to use this pagan leader to fulfill His purposes for the US.  This was confirmed for me when a contributing writer for Madisons CPC, Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, published a 3-part series entitled Trump: The Russian Connection in which she chronicles an amazing friendship between Donald Trump, a number of his campaign personnel, and highly influential Russians.

It will be interesting to see how that relationship plays out in the days, months, and years ahead now that Donald Trump is indeed President of the United States.

The world may turn their backs on Israel when the Battle of Gog begins, but God will not.  For the first time in centuries, God will make Himself known in a very obvious way.  Israel will know that God has not forgotten them.  And the rest of the world will know that Israel is still God’s chosen people, the apple of His eye.

As Russia, Turkey, Iran, Libya, Ethiopia, and Germany come against Israel, God will show the fury of His wrath.  There will be an earthquake so great that Ezekiel 38:20 says, “the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all creeping things that creep on the earth, and all men who are on the face of the earth shall shake at My presence.”  The mountains will crumble.

God will confuse the Israel’s enemies so that they will destroy each other.  There will be pestilence, flooding rains, hailstones, fire, and brimstone from heaven.  The whole world will know that He is GOD!  At the same time, the homelands of these warring nations will come under God’s judgement, as well.  The death toll of Israel’s enemies will be so great that it will take Israel seven months to bury all the dead, and seven years to completely destroy all of the weapons left by them.

The stage is set.  The only questions remaining are when, and what about the Christians?  Don’t they say anything? Do anything?  Some religious scholars believe that the Rapture will come before this time.  With the disappearance of millions of Christians, the world will be in complete chaos, including the markets, and will create a tremendous need to have control of massive oil reserves.  It would also explain the lack of the voice of the church in defense of Israel.

However, other scholars say that there is no evidence pointing in either direction, and so we Christians could very well be here on earth to witness the Gog/Magog war.

Yeshua said no one knows the day or the hour, not even Him.  However, He didn’t want us to be clueless either.  If He had, He would not have given us all the prophecies and signs that point to the end.  Prophecies are undeniably being fulfilled.  We cannot know the day or hour, but we can recognize the season, and it is now.  Prepare the way of the Lord, for He cometh!!

Keep one eye on Israel, and one eye on the clouds.  Come quickly Lord Yeshua!

*Scripture passages taken from the Tree of Life Version and the New King James Version.

The 7 Feasts of Israel and Their Link to Messianic Prophecy

Hello!

I have just finished a 3-part series about the Feasts of Israel and what part they play in the Messiah’s life.  It is absolutely amazing, and something we Gentile Christians miss far too often.  I promise you, you will be amazed!  These posts were originally published on another site.  I will post all three here for ease of access.

PART ONE

At the time of Moses, God commanded Israel to celebrate seven feasts.  They were Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Weeks, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles.  Passover through Weeks were spring feasts, while Trumpets through Tabernacles were fall feasts.  The question is, if these feasts were commanded for Israel to follow, what does it matter to the Church?  There are two primary answers.  First, as people grafted into the tree of Israel, every Christian should know and understand these feasts.  Truthfully we should follow them in some way on the appropriate days as well.  I’ll get more into that later.  The second reason is that each of these feasts is intricately connected to Messianic prophecy, some fulfilled, and others yet to be.

Before we begin looking at the feasts, let’s take a brief look at the Jewish calendar.  Israel today, and always, has followed a lunar calendar.  The first day of the month is the day after the new moon, with the first sliver of the moon.  The 14th of the month is always the full moon.  Every month is always 28 days.  This was established by God at the time of the Exodus.  The Jewish day (according to God in the creation story…and the evening and the morning was the first day) begins at sundown and ends the following sundown.  So the Sabbath actually begins Friday night at sunset, and ends Saturday at sunset.  The days of the week do not have names, as we do.  Sunday is the first day of the week; Monday is the second, and so on.  Saturday is not day six.  It is simply Sabbath.  The same was originally true of the months of the year.  Names were given during the time of captivity in Babylon.

Just as we, with the solar calendar, have a leap year in which we add a day to sort of readjust the calendar for the ¼ rotation, the Jewish calendar has a leap month, so to speak.  There is a 19-year cycle in which an extra month is added to the yearly calendar in years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19.  This does not have anything to do with our topic, but it is interesting.

One last thing about the Jewish calendar.  Just as we have different year markers, so do they.  By that I mean, the first of our calendar year is January 1.  A fiscal year can begin anytime a company chooses.  And for those of you, like me, who live in the education world, the new year begins in August or September.  In fact, I am known to wish my fellow teachers, and my students a happy new year on day one back to work.

Israel has a religious calendar and a civil calendar.  The religious calendar begins in the  spring.  The first day is in the month of Nissan, which comes during our time of March and into April.  The first day of the civil year is in the fall.  It is the 7th religious month, but the first civil month.  This is when they celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the new year, and when the number of the year turns over to the next.  In the month of Tishri (our September/October) this fall the Jewish year will turn over from 5776 to 5777.  Their years are calculated according to dates in the Bible from the time of creation.  So much for billions of years.  Since Jews, by in large, do not recognize the Christian calendar with BC and AD (before and after Christ), they use the terms Common or Christian Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE).

With this information, let’s get started on the feasts.  The first feast is probably the most familiar for the Christian.  It is Passover.  Passover was instilled by God before Moses even led Israel out of Egypt.  The Passover was the last of the ten plagues inflicted upon Egypt for not allowing God’s people to leave.  The Israelites were commanded to select a year old male sheep, without blemish, on the 10th day of the first month (Nissan).  They were to take it into their home for four days.  On the 14th they were to sacrifice this lamb, roast it, and eat it with bitter herbs and unleavened bread.

Very specific instructions were given.  It is especially important to note the lamb was to be without blemish.  They were also told not to break any bones.  The lamb was not to be moved outside of the house, and if any of the meat was not eaten, the whole thing was to be burned up.  The people were to brush blood from the lamb on the sides and top of the door frame of their house, and no one was to leave the house before morning.  That night, God went through all of Egypt and killed every firstborn male, human and beast, that was not covered by the blood.  It was the blood of the lamb that brought salvation from slavery in Egypt to the people of Israel.

Some of the keywords of this story should ring little bells in the mind of the Christian.  The lamb without blemish whose blood brought salvation, for one.  The Israelites were commanded to keep the Passover every year on the same date as a memorial to what God had done for them.  Yeshua (Jesus) was brought up observing the Passover and observed it during His adult life.  In fact, it was during the observance of the Passover that we find some striking parallels.

On the 10th day of Nissan, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, Yeshua, entered into Jerusalem in preparation for the Passover.  During the Passover meal, Yeshua took the bread (unleavened bread) broke it and said, “This is my body.”  (Leaven, in the Bible, represents sin.)  Yeshua equated the unleavened (sinless) bread to himself.  Yeshua also took the cup of wine and said, “This is my blood poured out for many.”

The Passover meal (and now what we call the Last Supper) was eaten at night, on the 14th of Nissan.  That date carried over to daylight…still the 14th, still Passover.  At nine a.m., Yeshua was put on the cross.  Six hours later, at three p.m., He died…on Passover.  The lamb without blemish, whose blood brought salvation from the slavery of sin.  The unleavened/sinless bread that was pierced for our sins.  The blood on the doorpost…taken upon ourselves through communion…that delivers us from eternal, spiritual death.

The Passover Feast was a celebration of what God had done for Israel and continues to be for them.  But as with many Jewish symbols established by God, there was a shadow of something more- a prophecy that was fulfilled in Yeshua.

There are six more feasts to cover, and we will get to those in future parts of this article, so please be watching for them.

PART TWO

In the first article of this series, we learned the Jewish calendar, established by God, is a lunar calendar.  The months are 28 days long, beginning on the first sliver after the new moon, with the middle of the month always being the full moon.  Each new day begins at sundown and ends at sundown the following day.  An understanding of the Jewish calendar is important to understand how and when the 7 Feasts are held, when the Sabbath actually is, and how these times relate to events in the life and death of Messiah.

We also looked at the first of the 7 Feasts God commanded the Israelites to observe, Passover.  Passover was not only a memorial to the physical salvation God gave the Israelites when He brought them out of slavery in Egypt, but also a symbol of the spiritual salvation that was given by Yeshua (Jesus) when He died on the cross.  In fact, Yeshua fulfilled the prophecy that is the Passover Feast when He became the young male lamb without blemish that was sacrificed for our salvation.  You can read that full article here.

Today we continue with the remainder of what are known as the Spring Feasts (Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Feast of Weeks or Pentecost).

The Passover always begins at sundown on the 14^th of the month of Nisan, regardless of what day of the week it was.  Because it was the 14^th of a lunar month, it was also on a full moon.  The year that Yeshua was crucified on Passover, the 14^th happened to begin (at sundown) on a Friday.  The very next day, the 15^th was the day beginning the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  That year it would have started on the Sabbath.  This was why Yeshua had to give up His spirit before sundown on Passover.  It was normal for a crucified person to take up to three days to die.  Yeshua died in six hours, so there would be time to bury His body before the Sabbath, which was also the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Unleavened bread, called Matzah, is bread made without yeast.  The Israelites in Egypt were commanded to make the dough for their exodus without yeast, because they would not have time to wait for it to rise before they fled.  They ate Matzah during the Passover meal and then carried uncooked Matzah dough with them when they left Egypt.  The bread itself is symbolic.  Leaven or yeast, in the Bible, is representative of sin.  When the bread is made, it is pierced all over, and covered with stripes, to make sure no rising takes place.  Then it is broken and eaten.  The Feast of Unleavened Bread lasts a full seven days.  The number seven in the Bible is very significant.  It means completeness or wholeness.

As with all of the Feasts, Unleavened Bread has Messianic prophetic meaning.  Yeshua was the Passover Lamb who was crucified on Passover.  He was also the unleavened bread; the bread that was completely without sin- pierced and striped for our sins.  Isaiah 53:5 (TLV) – “But He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities.  The chastisement for our shalom [peace] was upon Him, and by His stripes, we are healed.”

This is not a presumption made by people wishing to put meaning where there is none.  Consider the words of 1 Corinthians 11:23-24 (TLV): “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you—that the Lord Yeshua, on the night He was betrayed, took matzah; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘This is My body, which is for you.  Do this in memory of Me.’”

Yeshua, the Lamb without blemish, sacrificed on Passover:  prophecy fulfilled.

Yeshua, the lineless unleavened bread, broken and buried on the Feast of Unleavened Bread:  prophecy fulfilled.

The third Feast follows on the heels of Passover and Unleavened Bread.  In fact, it can sometimes fall in the middle of Unleavened Bread.  The Feast of First Fruits was first celebrated after the Israelites were at long last in the Promised Land and had produced a crop.  It was the celebration of the spring crops and the act of giving back to God the first fruits of what He had provided for them.  Again, Passover was the 14^th of Nisan, and Unleavened Bread, the 15^th, regardless of the day of the week.  The Feast of First Fruits was on the Sunday following the Sabbath that was during the time of the 7-day-long Feast of Unleavened Bread.  It is always on a Sunday.  Because Passover and Unleavened Bread were on Friday and Saturday in the year that Yeshua was crucified, it worked out perfectly that the very next day, the Sunday which would be the Feast of First Fruits, would be the third day, on which Yeshua was raised from the dead.  1 Corinthians 15:20 (TLV):  “But now Messiah has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

Feast prophecy #3:  fulfilled.

The last of the Spring Feasts is the Feast of Weeks.  It is exactly 50 days after Firstfruits.  Recall that Firstfruits is the Sunday after the Sabbath that is within Unleavened Bread.  Count from that Sabbath 7 weeks – 49 days from Sabbath to Sabbath, then add one more day to make 50.  Like the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks is always on a Sunday.  If you are good with calendars, you have perhaps already figured out that Weeks is what the Gentile church calls Pentecost (its Greek name).

All of the seven Feasts are given as commands in Leviticus 23.  Passover is mentioned, but most of its instructions were given in Exodus 12.  Leviticus records the Law as given to the people of Israel through Moses by God on Mt. Sinai.  Jewish tradition says that it took exactly 50 days for the Israelite people to travel from Egypt to Mt. Sinai, where they received God’s Law.  It was obedience to this law that determined God’s presence with the people.  In fact, in Exodus 32 we have the story of the golden calf.  Moses went up to Mt. Sinai to receive the Law from God.  While he was there, the people gave him up for dead, gathered gold jewelry, melted it down and made a golden calf to worship.  As a result, two very significant things happened.  The first is that about 3,000 men were killed for their leadership in building the calf (of interesting note is that no one from the tribe of Levi participated, and thus they received the blessing of being the tribe of priests).  Remember that number.

The second thing was that the Spirit of God would no longer be present within the camp.  Up to this point, God dwelt in the midst of the people.  He lead them by manifesting Himself as a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.  From this point on, His angel led the people, and God only met with Moses, outside of the camp, at the Tent of Meeting (Exodus 32:34; Exodus 33:1-3).

Now we jump back to the Feast of Weeks/Pentecost after Yeshua’s death and resurrection.  In the wilderness, at the time of the Feast of Weeks, God gave the people His Law, obedience to which determined how God dwelt with or manifested Himself with the people.  On the Feast of Weeks, after Yeshua went back to Heaven, God sent His Holy Spirit to dwell within His people, all who believe, both Jew and Gentile.  God’s presence was no longer dependent upon our obedience, but upon the belief and acceptance of the perfect obedience of Yeshua.  Because He was sinless, our acceptance of His sacrifice meant that we could never lose the presence of God within us by any doing of our own.

Note also the number I emphasized earlier:  3,000.  Three thousand men were lost in the wilderness due to their disobedience to the Law; their rejection of God as the God who saved them from bondage.  Acts 2:41 (TLV):  “So those who received his message were immersed, and that day about three thousand souls were added.”  Hundreds of years after 3,000 souls were lost, 3,000 were redeemed for their acceptance of God’s salvation from bondage, the bondage of sin.

Feast #4:  prophecy fulfilled.

PART THREE

In parts 1 and 2 of this series, we studied the Jewish calendar and four of the seven feasts established by God.  The first four are the spring feasts: Passover, Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and First Fruits.  They are all more than God-ordained feasts.  They are all also Messianic prophecies, which have been fulfilled.

Today we will look at the remaining three feasts, the fall feasts:  Trumpets, Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and Tabernacles (Sukkot)- all have yet to be fulfilled.

What is the significance to the long wait between the two sets of feasts?  You will recall that the spring feasts were all fulfilled through Messiah’s death, burial, resurrection and the coming of His Holy Spirit.  Each feast represented something significant about what happened in Israel’s past, but was also a prophecy that shadowed the coming of the Messiah.  They were all tied into the spring harvest, as well.

The Feast of First Fruits (on which Messiah was raised to life, and is called the First Fruits of the resurrected) is, in fact, the festival to give thanks to God for the spring harvest.  The spring harvest is the smaller harvest; its first produce is to be offered up to God as a sacrifice.  During the summer, the wheat crops are grown, and the larger crop is harvested in the fall. This is commemorated with the Feast of Trumpets.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells us that Messiah is the first fruits of those to be resurrected, and those who belong to Messiah are the seconds (1 Cor. 15:20-23).  Yeshua (Jesus) was raised to life on the day of the Feast of First Fruits.  The summer growing season is the time we are living in now.  The time after the spring harvest when the new seed is planted and grown for the greater harvest in the fall.  That harvest will be when Yeshua calls His church to Himself.

This opens up an interesting discussion regarding the Rapture of the Church.  Why believe that the Feast of Trumpets prophecy will be fulfilled by the Rapture?  During this feast, the shofar, or trumpets, are blown.  The trumpets were a signal to all Israelites to stop what they were doing and gather at the temple, whether the harvest was complete or not.  It was a call to gather before the presence of the Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52* says, “Behold, I tell you a mystery:  We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last shofar.  For the shofar [trumpet] will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.”

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17* – “For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the blast of God’s shofar, and the dead in Messiah shall rise first.  Then we who are alive, who are left behind, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air—and so we shall always be with the Lord.”

Both of these passages tell of a trumpet blast before all believers, dead first, then living, will be called into the presence of the Lord.  Yeshua, Himself, made this promise.  Look at what He says in John 14:2-3*:  “In My Father’s house there are many dwelling-places.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?  If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to Myself, so that where I am you may also be.”

In these verses, Yeshua was speaking in symbolic terms that the disciples, as Jews, would understand.  It was traditional for a groom to leave His bride with her family while he went off to build a home for them.  Once that home was completed, he would return to get her.  He would literally pick her up and carry her to their new home where they would live together.

In Matthew 25, we know that Yeshua refers to Himself as the groom.  His bride is the body of believers, both Jew and Gentile, who make up the Church [This does not include the unbelieving Jew.  Jeremiah 8:20 – “Harvest is past, summer is over, yet we are not saved.”  A remnant will be saved during the Tribulation.].  Yeshua was telling his disciples that when He left, He was going to prepare the marriage home, then come back and physically lift, and carry away, His bride to live with Him.

Now saying that the Feast of Trumpets will be the Rapture leads to another discussion, because we can pinpoint a date for the Feast of Trumpets.  Just as Yeshua fulfilled each of the spring feasts on their specific, and chronological dates, we can, at the very least, suspect that He will fulfill the fall feasts in a similar manner.  The Feast of Trumpets is always on the first day of the seventh month, the month of Tishri. This would be the first sliver after the new moon in September for us. Obviously, we cannot know the year, but I want to give you something to consider when it comes to date-setting.

Yeshua said plainly that no one knows the day or the hour, not even Him or the angels, only the Father (Matthew 24:36).   He was not talking about the Rapture of the Church in this passage.  He was talking about the Tribulation and the 2nd coming.  We can know this, because if we continue reading this passage in context, and without the chapter and verse breaks that have been added in, Yeshua wraps up this segment by talking about the Great White Throne Judgement (Matthew 25:31-46).  This is HUGE!  What He was saying is that no one knows the day or hour that He will return physically to earth and set up His earthly kingdom (the Millennial, or thousand year reign written about by John in Revelations 20).  Of course, all this being said, who can know the mind of God?

Here is what we have so far.  We know for a fact, that Yeshua personally fulfilled the prophecies of the first four feasts, the spring feasts, on their respective dates and in chronological order.  We know that we are currently living in the summer growing season before the fall harvest.  If one studies the Scriptures, specifically the Old Testament, one can also see quite clearly that God is a god of patterns.  It is a much bigger lesson than I have time to go into here.  But knowing this, and knowing what we do about the spring feasts, can we not then also know with some certainty that the fall feasts will also be fulfilled at least on their respective dates and in chronological order?

This next part gets a bit dicey.  I want to wrap up this series with this article, so I am going to move on to the next fall feast, the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.  This was the feast that every Israelite obeyed or was excommunicated.  It was the day when all Israel turned their hearts to God and confessed and mourned their sin.  Prophetically it will be the day when all Israel, as one, recognizes that Yeshua is their Messiah, and mourn that they rejected Him.  Zechariah 12:10* says “Then I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication, when they will look toward Me whom they pierced.  They will mourn for him as one mourns for an only son and grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for a firstborn.”  Chapter 13 describes God’s forgiveness of the Israelites for this sin.  As Hosea forgave his wife, the harlot, God too, will forgive His wife, Israel the unfaithful, and redeem her to Himself.  This atonement will mark the ending of the Great Tribulation, and usher in Yeshua’s return to earth for His kingdom (Zechariah 14 and Revelation 20), which then also is the last feast, the Feast of Sukkot or Tabernacles.

The Feast of Tabernacles is the feast the Israelites celebrated to honor God’s presence with them as they wandered through the wilderness and lived in sukkots (tabernacles…tents).  It is the time when Yeshua will live and reign in person on earth, His second coming.  This is also the only feast that will continue to be celebrated throughout eternity (Zechariah 14:16-19).

Every year, on that set date, all people of the earth will come to Jerusalem (the new Jerusalem) to worship in the presence of the King.

The dicey part?  We know the dates of the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles.  Atonement is on the 10th day of the 7th month (Tishri, the same month as the Feast of Trumpets), and the Feast of Tabernacles is on the 15th day of the same month.  Yeshua said that no one knows the day or the hour, and He was referring to His second coming, which would be the Feast of Tabernacles on the 15th of Tishri.  But, we also know that feast prophecies have been fulfilled on the exact dates and in the exact order.  What a conundrum!

I have prayed and prayed about this.  I have read and studied this.  As I sit here writing what I have learned, I share with you what is on my heart.  I believe that the Day of Atonement for Israel will come, and when it comes, it will usher in the 2nd coming of Yeshua, in that order, as the feasts have been celebrated for thousands of years.  Because no one knows the day or the hour, except the Father, I believe these dates will be re-established at new times.  It is on the date of Yeshua’s 2nd coming that we will all celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for eternity.  As with anyone with the gift of prophecy, and anyone who studies God’s Word for that matter, we can all be certain to not have a complete understanding of everything.  One thing I am certain of—there are three feasts remaining to be fulfilled.  I have no doubt that they will be.  And I have no doubt that the summer growing period is nearing its end, and fall will be here soon.

The bottom line is this:  Studying end time prophecy is intended to give us hope in God’s promises, and also to drive us to our knees to seek His work in preparing our hearts for those days.  I pray these articles have done that.

*All Scripture passages were taken from the Tree of Life Version of the Bible.

If you have been blessed by these articles, please take a moment to pray and thank God.