(#1 Session 4) Day 4 - The Prophets

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly 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.

Link to presentation.

(#12 Session 3) Day 4 - Reflections (For Such a Time as This)

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog!

The book of Esther is unique in that there was no mention of God throughout. Yet God’s hand was clearly at work through a young Jewish girl who had the courage to stand and speak His Rhema in His Kairos. As a result, God’s people was rescued from total destruction.

The evil in Esther’s time was the same evil that wiped out six million Jews during the Jewish Holocaust of World War Two. It is a solemn reminder that God’s enemies, led by Satan, will not stop seeking to destroy God’s people until Jesus returns in judgment. Even now, the world is lining up against Israel, while Christian communities are being persecuted everywhere. We are told that an end-time holocaust will come when “all who refused to worship the image [of Satan]” will be killed (Rev 13:15). Our Lord Himself had already warned us of what is to come - “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me … but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Mt 24:9-13). The enemy’s attacks are also being carried out within the Church itself as apostasy grows and the Truth of God is undermined. We are that generation that will not only see Jesus’ return to bring in the dawn of a glorious new millennium but also to live through the darkest of the darkest night before it.

As I had mentioned before, the purpose of the Issachar B7D Fellowship is not to speculate on dates but to understand the signs of the times so that we know how close we are to His coming. But more than that, we are called to know not just for sake of knowing, but so that we know what to do in such times. For the past 2,000 years, we have heard and heeded God’s Rhema in the form of the Great Commission. This must continue until the fullness of the Gentiles have come into the Kingdom. But we are now living in the last Jubilee; we are that final generation whom Jesus is speaking to in Matthew 24. It is time to recognise that the signs point to us, and that we should therefore hear and respond to His Rhema for us in this Kairos.

Like Ezra and Nehemiah, we are called to repair the foundations and rebuild the walls of our faith, both individually and together as one people of God, so that we will survive when the storms of internal apostasy and external persecution hit. Like Esther, we are to rescue His people, not just by bringing them into the Faith but to help them hang on to it until Jesus returns.

As the passage above tells us, God’s work and will can never be undermined, despite our inaction or outright disobedience. As Mordecai put it, “if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place.” God doesn’t need us, but He did choose us so that we have the privilege and joy of participating in His divine plan. May those who see the signs and hear God’s Rhema as we do persevere with the kind of faith and courage that Mordecai and Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah, had. After all, “who knows but that you have come to your … position for such a time as this?”

Link to presentation.

(#11 Session 3) Signs of the Times

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog!

Before we continue any further, I want us to consider the signs of the times found in our study of God’s Word so far. This is because we are called to understand them and not be like the hypocritical religious leaders in Jesus’ time who were not satisfied with those signs already given to them but demanded more. Ultimately, such individuals will never be convinced and will face the consequences of their unbelief.

We learnt earlier that we are reaching the end of the sixth millennium - AM 5978 (Aug 2019) in the calculation used here. If we go by the Jewish calendar, the year is 5779 but if we take into account the likelihood that there are 165 missing years in that calendar (unfortunately we don’t have time to get into this here), then this brings us to the Jewish year 5944 - which is close to our own calculation.

We further learnt that we are living in the 70th Jubilee cycle since the Israelites entered the Promised Land and in the 40th Jubilee cycle since Jesus’ first coming and birth of the Church, and that this could be the Final Jubilee cycle before He returns. Interestingly, Israel also celebrated in May 2018 70 years since its rebirth as a nation.

Lastly, in 2017, the Protestant Church celebrated 500 years since Luther’s proclamation. If Jesus first came about 530-odd years after Cyrus’ proclamation, going by that same time-frame, we could be looking at another 30-odd years before He returns. This fits in with our other indicators - all pointing to the next 20+ to 50+ years.

Now, some of you may object - did Jesus Himself not say that we will not know when He will return? That even He doesn’t know - only the Father knows - and that His coming will be like a thief in the night? I will address this in detail at the end of our entire study but at this point I just want to say that what we are doing here does not contradict what Jesus told us. We are not here to figure out exactly when Jesus is coming, to pinpoint the exact date of His return. But as the verses above suggest, we are expected to understand the signs of the times so that we know how near we are to His coming. Knowing how near is different from knowing the exact date, but it is also very different from saying that it could be now, in this generation, or a hundred generations from now, because that would make us wake up from our complacency.

So if we stop closing our minds and instead open our eyes, we will see that we are indeed the final generation. We are the ones Jesus spoke of when He said “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened” (Mt 24:34, Lk 21:32). No doubt many of us may pass away first before this happens, but the point here is that there will be those among us even now who will witness the events leading to Jesus’ return.

Going back to our other verse above, Jesus spoke of the sign of Jonah. In Mt 12:38-42, Jesus explained that this sign referred to His death and resurrection. But Jesus also mentioned how the men of Nineveh whom Jonah preached to repented, unlike the Jews of His day. Consequently, while the Ninevites were spared from God’s judgment which was supposed to come forty days later (Jon 3:4), for these unbelieving Jews, their end did come within their generation about forty years later with the Roman exile of 70 AD. Today, we are that generation to whom the sign of Jonah is once again given for a final time. We can either choose to repent and believe or continue ignoring the meaning of this and all the other signs I have listed here until it is too late.

Link to presentation.