(#1 5984) From Now to Eternity - Rhema & Kairos

NOTE: I WILL BE UPLOADING MY BLOG POSTS ON A WEEKLY BASIS EVERY SHABBAT (FRIDAY 7PM). FIRST POSTED ON 1 JULY 2018.

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to the Issachar B7D Fellowship!

This is the first of my Shabbat YouTube blog posts and I am so happy to be with you here today. I have named my YouTube blog “From Now to Eternity,” because I believe that the time has come to proclaim God’s living word, His Rhema, in this, His Kairos or appointed time. I pray that this will be an ongoing journal to equip and encourage all of you who are tuning in, all whom the Lord calls, to keep the faith until He returns to bring us all back to eternity.

Now, in my welcome video, I said that God has an urgent word for His people today so that, like the men of Issachar, we understand the times and know what we should do. What He wants to speak to us is apparent in the Bible when we consider it through the perspective of the 7 Days of Creation.

Let us now try and unpack this a bit more, starting with the words, God has an urgent word for His people today.

Here, we need to understand the concept of Rhema and Kairos.

Rhema literally means an “utterance”, God speaking to us. This is different from Logos, which refers to God’s written word that became flesh in Jesus. So whereas Logos is in a sense eternal, Rhema is very specific, at a particular point in time. Often, we experience God’s Rhema when the Holy Spirit prompts or convicts our hearts during our Quiet Times. So for instance, we may have read a Bible passage many times before, but one day the words from the passage suddenly “jumps” at us. That is Rhema, God speaking to us at that particular point in time. When God speaks, we are always touched and transformed in some way, because we know that God’s word never returns to Him empty (Isa 55:11).

Kairos meanwhile refers to that opportune time, usually for some form of action to take place. As we will see in our later sessions, it is that appointed or we could even use sacred (set apart) time. This is very different from Chronos or linear, historical time. So for instance, when God released His Rhema to you, that particular time was His Kairos - His opportune, appointed and even sacred or set apart - time for Him to release His word to you. In a sense, we could say that God acted at that point in time to speak to you, because we know that God’s word brings about change and transformation in our lives. Often, it also leads us into action as we respond to His Rhema.

So, let us summarise this - first, we are talking about God’s word, not my word, not my theories, theology, doctrine or perspective. It is not one among many. We are talking about what God is saying. Next, it is what God is saying to us today, not at any particular point in time, not the eternal word of God but what He wants to speak to us today.

So the key message here is that God wants to speak, to say something that is specific to us, at this particular point in history. That is what Rhema and Kairos is all about.

The Question is - do we believe?

Link to presentation.

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Annual Introduction - AM 5984 (2 October 2024 - 22 September 2025)

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to the Issachar B7D Fellowship!

Jews celebrate the Feast of Trumpets at sunset today by blowing the Shofar to mark the beginning of a Jewish New Year. We are another year closer to the end of the Sixth Millennium before Yeshua returns to usher in His Millennial Sabbath Rule as symbolized by the Seventh Day of the original Creation account. Until then, we pray for the day when Israel will celebrate this Feast recognizing Yeshua as their promised Messiah who will return at the Last Trumpet.  

We will soon mark the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks, the first territorial invasion of Israel since 1948. Our prayers go out to those affected by this tragedy. Others however have criticised Israel’s retaliation, putting the country under intense international pressure and isolation. Meanwhile, the entire region is on the brink of war, as tensions escalate between Israel and Iran. How do we make sense of all this in light of Yeshua’s soon return?

As Yeshua ministered over Jerusalem for the final time days before His crucifixion, He lamented, “how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Mt 23:37-39). Centuries earlier, Jeremiah had described this desolation as a “time of trouble for Jacob” when “‘cries of fear are heard … [when] every strong man [has] his hands on his stomach like a woman in labour, every face turned deathly pale … How awful that day will be! No other will be like it … but he will be saved out of it” (Jer 30:5-7). Elaborating on that day, “when all the nations of the world are gathered against her” (Zech 12:3), Zechariah said God would “set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem” (v. 9) while “pour[ing] out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him” (v. 10). God has allowed these things to happen to Israel as part of His merciful plan to redeem His rebellious and sinful people when they finally recognise Him in Yeshua. 

Last year, I spoke about how we are now living in the period of birth pains. What is happening to Israel today is part of this beginning of birth pains as described by Jeremiah earlier. We can expect more to come over Israel and the Church before Yeshua returns to birth His new creation. As citizens of God’s kingdom and Gentile members of the “commonwealth of Israel” (Eph 2:12), let us therefore look to God’s Truth and not be swayed by divisive arguments over Israel. Let us know His Will and seek Israel’s restoration, recognising that Israel’s “hardening in part” is only for a season “until the full number of Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:25-26). Let us not be conceited, “do not consider yourself superior … do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches [Israel], he will not spare you either” (Rom 11:18-21). Finally, let us approach Israel with God’s heart of mercy and not with a judgmental spirit, “because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).

God bless you and God bless Israel,

Stephen & Wei Ling Lim

Song credit - Yamma Ensemble (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnkb7...)

Link to e-Book - https://5722a1c4-623d-4701-a1bb-fc17c...

B7D - How This Came About

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to the Issachar B7D Fellowship!

Some of you may have wondered how this (B7D) came about. Although I have already penned this down in my website, I thought it may nonetheless be useful to speak briefly about it here.

I am a lay believer with my fair share of ups and downs, victories and defeats, in my past 38 years of walking with the Lord since accepting Jesus at the age of 13. Although I have been engaging in some form of personal Bible study or devotion for many years, it was only in 2001 that I started to study the Bible intentionally and systematically. However, I gave up after 7 years and threw away all my writings and materials. I felt empty and exhausted because I had tried to understand God’s Word by my own human effort but was going nowhere.

After a long time, God slowly restored me from the ground up. This started with my first fast when He taught me to pray in the Spirit, and then the gift of worship when my playing of the guitar improved tremendously. Then on 6 May 2016, while at a Friday fellowship meeting, an anointed pastor who spoke that evening released a prophetic word to Wei Ling and me. He saw a big clock and all he could think of were the words, “the time has come.” The time has come for us to move forward out of the wilderness into His plans and purposes for us. Turning to me, he said he saw a scroll and a quill, which meant revelation - that God wanted to speak to me, to tell me things - and that I needed to write them down. I restarted my Bible study and through it, God opened my ears to what He wanted to say to His people through His Word as recorded here and on YouTube and published as a book. ​

Although I didn't know then when or where this journey would end, God knew and in His Kairos exactly two years later (May 2018) I finished putting down what was needed to be said. It was only a year later that I realized how prophetic God's timing was. God ensured that I finished putting down His word for His people in the year that Israel celebrated 70 years of nationhood since its rebirth in May 1948. It is my personal belief and deep conviction that God's final countdown started from that Kairos moment - meaning that some of us will live to witness Christ's return. ​

May our Lord find us ready when He returns. ​

I will stand at my watch

and station myself on the ramparts;

I will look to see what he will say to me,

and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

Then the Lord replied:

“Write down the revelation

and make it plain on tablets

so that a herald may run with it.

For the revelation awaits an appointed time;

it speaks of the end

and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it;

it will certainly come

and will not delay.

- Habakkuk 2:1-3

Stephen and Wei Ling reside in Singapore, together with their daughter Gwyn. They worship at a local Anglican church.