(#30 5984) Day 4 - Prophetic Narrative & Rhema (Part 2 - Discipline vs Judgment)

FIRST POSTED ON 15 OCTOBER 2019.

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my Shabbat blog!

In this and the next podcast, we will outline the common prophetic narrative running through the messages of the Old Testament Prophets:

First, the Prophets warned Israel that God would soon discipline and exile His people - by Israel, I am referring collectively to both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel and Judah existing then. Instead of worshipping and trusting in God alone to protect the nation, Israel chased after the idols of its neighbours and relied on external political alliances for its survival. There was division and infighting within and between the two divided kingdoms, as well as widespread corruption and social injustice. Most of all, Israel had forsaken its mission as God’s lesser light to the world. As the end approached for these two kingdoms, there was widespread deception and many false prophets emerged who misled the people by promising peace or at most a short exile, instead of repenting of their sins and turning back to God.

All that the Prophets foretold eventually came to pass during the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. This pattern of discipline and exile would take place again to Israel under the Romans in Jesus’ time after they rejected Him, an exile that would last almost 2,000 years. Although Israel has been reborn since 1948 in fulfilment of prophecy, it is currently a secular nation and will once again come under God’s discipline during the Tribulation (“time of Jacob’s trouble”) before it finally acknowledges Jesus as its Messiah.

As mentioned before, the warnings of the Prophets also apply to the Church. We saw earlier how Christians were - and continue to be - taken into spiritual exile and slavery as it were by apostasy and corruption within the Church. The condition of the Church will only grow worse as we near the end. Like Israel, the Church is equally guilty of breaking the commandments to love God and man. There is widespread idolatry, division, infighting and injustice. Even today, many Christians are held captive by oppressive human doctrines and superstitions, while others suffer real persecution. Yet those who are spared for now, like their Jewish brothers in the past, remained caught up with materialistic pursuits during this brief period of peace and prosperity and forgot their core mission to be God’s light to the world. Instead of heeding God’s Rhema which is being proclaimed even now and repenting, their ears itch for the lies of false teachers promising endless “blessings” of health, wealth and happiness. They ignore warnings of the coming persecution and exile that will be God’s means to discipline and refine His people until it is too late.

That the prophets should first reprimand their own countrymen is not surprising. In 1 Peter 4:17, Peter spoke of how God’s judgment would begin with his own household. But the Prophets also recognised and declared God’s sovereignty over and ultimate judgment of His enemies. It was God who stirred up the ancient empires - from Egypt, Assyria and Babylon to Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome - as well as Israel’s pagan neighbours to act as His instruments to test and discipline His people. However, when their time was up, God would in turn bring about their eventual judgment for their wickedness and cruelty. The words of the Prophets were all fulfilled with the judgment and fall of every single one of these empires, the last being the Roman Empire in 476 AD.

Now, there are many passages in the Old Testament concerning Israel and its enemies that have yet to be fulfilled. As we near the end of the Sixth Day of Creation and Jesus’ soon return, we can expect all these remaining prophecies to come to pass. We are told, especially by the Prophet Daniel, that a demonic kingdom of man will emerge to try to destroy and replace God’s Kingdom on earth. Like its predecessors, this revived Roman-Babylonian Empire will come against Israel as it rallies many nations behind it in an attempt to rule the world. We already see the beginnings of this happening on the global stage. Its ultimate goal is to lead a worldwide rebellion against Christ Himself.

And just like how the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel tried to strike deals and compromises with their neighbours and enemies alike instead of running to God, modern-day Israel and the increasingly Apostate Church will do likewise with the nations of this world and ultimately with this evil empire itself. As with these two kingdoms, there will be a brief period of false peace, a lull before the storm. I draw this connection between the past and future because these two kingdoms are prophetic of modern-day Israel and the Church. Let me explain. The nation of Israel has usually been associated with Judah alone, because it was the exiles from Judah that returned from Babylon to resettle the Promised Land. Judah can also be said to be the legitimate kingdom, the true Israel of God, because it is home to Jerusalem and the royal line of King David and Jesus. The Church meanwhile is an ingrafted kingdom like the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Just as God tore away the ten tribes of Israel from Solomon’s son and gave it to Jeroboam, God tore away the kingdom from the Jews and gave it to the Gentile nations for a season. As we saw much earlier, this “mystery” of the Church was prophesied long ago by Jacob and will remain in effect until the “fullness of the Gentiles” have come in.

Now, for many of us, especially among the Protestant Churches, the idea that the Church will turn apostate and depart from God, like the idolatrous Northern Kingdom of Israel, is very hard to accept. Isn’t the Church the eternal Bride of Christ? At most, we believe that it must refer to some other “Church” and not our own - in fact, we won’t even label them as true churches at all. But that is precisely it. These institutional branches of the Church - the same earthly universal Church that we are all a part of - have become deformed to the point that we don’t even recognise them as belonging to the Body of Christ. But as the end draws nearer and darkness grows, so will the remaining branches of the Church suffer the same fate as the disease and rot of apostasy set in. It is only the true believers and children of God regardless of which church they come from, who will be made ready - often through the fires of apostasy and persecution - for the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. This is the mystery of the end-time Church - Mystery Babylon as described by John in the book of Revelations.

As we end this section, in God’s Kairos, this satanic kingdom will eventually betray its true colours. The false promise of world unity and peace will turn out to be a lie as division and war looms. This evil empire will turn against Israel and the Apostate Church and war against rival nations, as it strives to put its mark and authority on all mankind. As it crumbles and falls in its own wickedness, it will make a last ditch attempt to invade and destroy Israel, setting the stage for the next pivotal scene - to be continued in our next podcast.

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(#29 5984) Day 4 - Prophetic Narrative & Rhema (Part 1 - Understanding the Message)

FIRST POSTED ON 1 OCTOBER 2019.

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my Shabbat blog!

Previously, we saw how God had progressively released His Rhema in His Kairos - first to the Old Testament Prophets, then to the Apostles and the Church, and now to those of us who recognise the signs of the times. These are not 3 separate messages but a single unified voice or prophetic narrative. If I could sum up this 3-part message in a simple sentence, it would be “the Messiah would come, came as Jesus, and will return soon to establish His Kingdom.” In this session, I want to highlight 3 very important aspects to understanding this prophetic narrative:

First, this message that we are now called to proclaim is not something new to the Word of God - like a new book or chapter in addition to what has already been written in the Bible. The Bible itself warns us not to add to or subtract from God’s Word. It is a message that had been there all along, only that it was hidden in the Scriptures in various signs and symbols, peoples and events throughout the Bible, as we have seen for ourselves in our study so far of the first four Days of Creation.

God’s messengers in the past had in fact hinted at Its existence. Even as they prophesied and declared those things that were made known to them, they pointed to something more and the incompleteness of their own understanding.

Having said this however, this message is new in that what was hidden before - the Bible uses the term “mystery” - has now been made known to us in God’s Kairos.

Jesus spoke about this in Matthew 13:52. During His time, God’s written word consisted only of the Old Testament - also known as the Law and Prophets. This was because the rest of the Bible - the New Testament - had yet to be written. However, Jesus said that when those who taught God’s word became His disciples, they would find in the “storeroom” of the Old Testament not just the “old treasures” of what they already knew, but “new treasures” of mysteries and things unknown to them previously which were now made known and explained to them by God’s revelation.

The Apostle Paul is the best example of this - he used to possess only the “old treasures” of the Law and Prophets as a devout Pharisee or Jewish religious teacher. However, following his conversion, God revealed to Paul the two greatest mysteries hidden in the Old Testament - that of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the mystery of the Church opening the way for Gentiles into God’s Kingdom. His writings concerning these two mysteries make up almost half of the New Testament books.

Today, we are privileged to be that generation who will find in the Bible not just the “old treasures” of what have already been taught - the doctrines that make up our Christian faith - but also “new treasures” concerning the final mysteries surrounding the end times - understanding the signs of the times, knowing the nearness of Jesus’ return, recognising the trials that will arise and therefore preparing and equipping ourselves for what needs to be done - if we believe and receive God’s Rhema that is being released today.

Lastly, this message completes the entire picture, the culmination of a common prophetic narrative. As mentioned earlier, the Old Testament Prophets addressed various nations over a period of four centuries, bringing God’s Rhema to His people as well as His enemies. Yet there was a common theme or narrative shared by these prophets that would only be partially fulfilled during their time, nor was it completely fulfilled at the first coming of Jesus, but pointed to a distant future - a future which is now upon us - when God will bring about its eventual and complete fulfilment.

The thought of prophecies having partial and multiple gradual fulfilments should not surprise us given our earlier cyclical understanding of time. This idea is best reflected in the Jewish word for year (Shanah) - it shares the same root as the words “repeat” and “change” portraying time as an ascending helix, where there is a repeat/review of key historical events (history and prophecy repeating itself) but also change brought about by the multiple gradual fulfilment of prophecy.

Further, the prophetic narrative that we will be looking at here applies not only to Israel but also the Church. We learnt previously that what happened to Israel was not only instructive but prophetic of what would come upon the Church, as the Commonwealth of Israel during this period of grace.

Before we conclude, I just want to briefly mention that our understanding and interpretation above of God’s Rhema, His prophetic narrative throughout the Bible, is in line with the traditional Jewish approach to scriptural interpretation. Here, the “Pardes” approach speaks of four progressively deeper levels of interpretation - beginning with the literal or plain meaning of the text, followed by the allegorical or symbolic meaning, then comparative or by way of patterns and similar recurrences, and finally the secret or mystery that requires divine revelation and inspiration through the work of the Holy Spirit. We see this most clearly in our understanding of the 7 Days of Creation - literally, as describing God’s work of creation; symbolically as referring to the 7 millennia of world history; comparatively as seen in the patterns/similar recurrences of 7s pointing to the Sabbaths, High Sabbaths, Sabbaticals, Jubilee or Sabbatical of Sabbaticals, and the Millennial Sabbath; and finally the mystery revealed regarding the signs of the times and Jesus’ soon return in our generation.

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(#28 5984) Day 4 - The Prophets

FIRST POSTED ON 15 SEPTEMBER 2019.

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my Shabbat blog!

Previously, we learnt of God’s purpose for Israel to indirectly point to Jesus and pave the way for His coming and return through various aspects about the nation. But God didn’t stop at just that - He also spoke plainly to His people and to all mankind about Jesus (although God did not identify Jesus by name then) by sending Prophets throughout Israel’s history to proclaim His Rhema in His Kairos.

These Old Testament Prophets, who guided and warned Israel in their walk with God, served as God’s lesser light by prophesying the coming of a Messiah or Anointed One and His Kingdom.

In God’s Kairos, His Word literally came to life in Jesus, who died for our sins to fulfill His Rhema as spoken of in the Law and through these Prophets.

After His resurrection, Jesus commanded His Apostles to proclaim the Gospel or Good News that He was the Messiah and that His Kingdom had arrived - although for now, His Kingdom would be hidden in the hearts of His people, as they called by faith on His name for their spiritual salvation even as they waited for His physical return. Since then, every generation of the Church has reached out into the world to fulfill this Great Commission. This has been God’s Rhema in this Kairos period of His grace, kept hidden in previous ages but revealed to the Apostles and the Church (Eph 3:4-5), until the fullness of the Gentiles have come into His Kingdom.

Now, we are standing at the end of history, almost two thousand years since Jesus first came. We saw previously how we are very likely the last generation, the ones who will experience the end-time tribulation and finally witness Jesus’ return.

In this Kairos moment, God is once again releasing His Rhema to His people, kept hidden previously but now revealed through the signs of the times as understood in light of the Seven Days of Creation, which is to proclaim that Jesus the Messiah and His Kingdom will soon return. His Kingdom will no longer be confined within the hearts of people and, as described in Mt 11:12, “subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.” Instead, Jesus will set up His Millennial Kingdom to rule over the earth from His throne in Jerusalem, and Israel will be restored to fulfill its destiny as His kingdom of priests and holy nation.

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