(#1 5983) 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?

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Annual Introduction - AM 5983 (15 September 2023 - 2 October 2024)

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 Jesus (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.

Last year, I spoke about the coming of the four horsemen described in Revelation 6. They represent the breaking of the first four of seven seals by Yeshua the Passover Lamb marking the beginning of God’s final act to redeem His Creation from evil. We know that Yeshua had similarly spoken of the coming deception, wars, famines and earthquakes as the “beginning of the ‘birth-pains’” (Mt 24:3-8). In the book of Romans, we also learn that Creation is “groaning as with the pains of childbirth” as it “waits eagerly for the sons of God to be revealed” (Rom 8:19-22). We see this being fulfilled right before our eyes in the climate change crisis.

Today, we are living in the period of birth pains. As every mother knows, the pain comes and goes but the frequency will grow more and more intense until the joyful day when she sees her newborn child. Last year, I spoke of the need for us to keep the faith, persevere in hope, and love the Body of Messiah as Yeshua’s return draws nearer. I know many of us are fearful of the trials to come. But take heart! God is with us and will be our strength. And more than that, we look forward to the “glory that will be revealed to us in the future” (Rom 8:18) just as a mother endures childbirth in anticipation of seeing her beloved.

With this in mind, let us continue to love, support and encourage one another so that we can rejoice together in God’s presence at the birth of His new Creation.

God bless you,

Stephen & Wei Ling Lim

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(#50 5982) Back to the Kairos Now

FIRST POSTED ON 15 AUGUST 2020. (Updates in BLUE)

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my Shabbat blog!

As we conclude with this final session, I want to leave you with these 3 key takeaways:

ONE, we are fast approaching the end - we are in the twilight of the Sixth Day of Creation before the Seventh Day arrives at sunset, the end of the summer harvest before the Fall Feasts begin, the 70th Jubilee from the time Israel possessed the Promised Land and 40th Jubilee from the time of Jesus’ first coming and birth of the Church, and the final generation that will witness His return.

TWO, we will be tested in unprecedented ways - Israel and the Church share a common prophetic destiny according to God’s eternal will. Israel’s rejection of Jesus at His first coming was part of the mystery of God’s will opening the way for the salvation of the Gentile nations through the Body of Christ. However, once the fullness of the Gentiles have come in, the keys of the Kingdom will be handed back to the Jews as the Church falls into deception and apostasy and this apostate Church ultimately rejects Christ in favour of the Antichrist. We who are the true Gentile children of God will join in the sufferings of our Jewish brethren as God refines both them and us as one Body in Him in preparation for His coming.

THREE, we need to equip ourselves and others in the Body of Christ - in view of the coming flood and fire of apostasy and persecution, we need to uphold one another within our own fellowship groups and beyond to (1) keep the Faith, (2) persevere in Hope, and (3) Love the Body. We can only stand (and withstand) individually when we stand together with fellow saints of God, being one in Spirit as we look past our local church, denomination and the Church as a whole to embrace our Jewish brothers and sisters in ushering in God’s Kingdom.

If you recall, we spoke of how, when David was rallying for support from the people to bring Israel under his rule following the death of King Saul, the men of the tribe of Issachar acted decisively to join him because they understood the times - meaning, God’s will for the nation then - and knew what Israel should do. They looked past the interests of their own tribe to join together with the other tribes of Israel to usher in God’s Kingdom rule through David.

In this Kairos Now, we believe that God is again speaking and releasing a similar message to His people. We, like the men of Issachar, need to hear, understand and act decisively in light of God’s Rhema and will to repair, rebuild and rescue His people and to release His prophetic word for this Kairos moment. We need to look past the interests of our own narrow “tribes” as it were to stand together with other like-minded saints and especially our Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ to rally behind and usher in the Kingdom of the Son of David, Jesus Christ. We do this “not by might nor by power” (Zech 4:6) as the world does, but by His Word (Rhema), Spirit and People that enables us to be overcomers in Faith, Hope and Love.

With this, we come to the end of our current study cycle and the end of another Jewish year. I hope you will join me here again in the new Jewish year (15 September 2023) as we begin a fresh cycle of faithfully hearing, understanding and acting on God’s Rhema until He returns to bring us back to eternity. Until then, may God’s Rhema and Spirit transform you into such future and Christ-ready fellowships in His Kairos. Amen!

Link to presentation.

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