The Seven Feasts of the Lord

PROPHETIC CHRISTMAS AT TABERNACLES - By Matt Leasher – www.raptureready.com

It’s that wonderful and joyous time of the year again when we celebrate the earthly birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. Every December we remember when God sent His Son from out of eternity and into this world to begin His ministry of salvation, although a careful observation of the Gospel of Luke shows us that Jesus didn’t actually come into the world in the month of December. If we follow the sequence of events leading up to His birth we find that Jesus was most likely born in the month of Tishri which is the 7th month on the Hebrew calendar and falls approximately every year between the middle of September and the middle of October. We know this because of the order of priesthood that fell to the father of John the Baptist. Allow me to explain.

We know that John the Baptist was 6 months older than Jesus because the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to inform her of her divine conception when Elizabeth, (John’s mother), was in her 6th month of pregnancy, (Luke 1:26, & 36). So establishing that Jesus was 6 months younger than John we then need to find out when John was born to find out when Jesus was born. We begin our sequence of events by observing that Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, was serving in the temple in the order of his priestly division, which was the division of Abijah. About 1000 years prior King David had appointed 24 divisions of priest that would serve in the temple throughout the year, two for every month. In 1 Chronicles 24:10 it tells us that the 8th order fell to Abijah, which was the order that Zacharias belonged to. Now the Hebrew religious year began in the month of Abib, (a.k.a. Nissan), which is about mid March. So the 8th order of priest would be due to serve in the temple sometime in June or early July. The angel appeared to Zacharias while he was serving in the temple and informed him that his wife Elizabeth would conceive a son even though she was well advanced in years. Now the difference between when the angel appeared to Mary to inform her of her conception and when the angel appeared to Zacharias to inform him of Elizabeth’s conception is that Mary was conceived at that moment by the Holy Spirit but Zacharias had to wait until his priestly duties were over and then go home and consummate the conception himself and so it says in Luke 1:23-24, So it was, as soon as the days of his service were completed, that he departed to his own house. Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived. So John the Baptist was most likely conceived in July, (or the 5th Hebrew month of Ab). If you count 9 months ahead you come to the month of Abib, (a.k.a. Nissan), which is near our March for the birth of John the Baptist. Now knowing that Mary had conceived while Elizabeth was in her 6th month this places the birth of Jesus 6 months after John in the month of Tishri, (which is Sept-Oct on our calendar). Had Luke not informed us that Zacharias was serving in the division of Abijah then we would never know where to begin our sequence of events to find out the time of the birth of our Savior but God doesn’t waste any words. Every single word is in the Bible for a reason.

Now that we have established the timing of our Savior’s birth there may be more than meets the eye to this discovery. The month of Tishri is the 7th month on the Hebrew calendar and the most holy as it contains the last three of the Feasts of the Lord that are listed in Leviticus 23. The first four Feasts are all in the spring and have been prophetically fulfilled by Jesus at His first advent and they are as follows:

Passover – Jesus was our sacrificial Passover lamb.

Feast of Unleavened Bread – Jesus was our sinless bread of life, (leaven being associated with sin by Hebrew custom).

Feast of Firstfruits – Jesus was the “first fruit” to be resurrected in glory. Annually the priests would take a sheaf of the harvest during this feast and wave it before the Lord to be accepted before they could reap the rest of the harvest. The unnamed saints in Matthew 27:52-53 that were resurrected after Jesus was resurrected were Jesus’ wave offering to the Lord. The harvest represents the harvest of souls.

Feast of Weeks, (a.k.a. Pentecost) – In the Old Testament this was an agricultural feast that celebrated the wheat harvest just before summer began. This Feast takes place 50 days after the priestly offering of firstfruits. Fifty days after Jesus was resurrected He sent down the Holy Spirit to form the Church and begin the Church Age that we are currently living in. The Holy Spirit is still graciously at work today in the fields of life harvesting souls unto salvation.

(This is just a brief overview of the prophetic significance of these Feasts as to go in depth is a vast study within itself).

The last three Feasts, which are all in the autumn, are yet to be prophetically fulfilled. They are the Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Trumpets, (a.k.a. Rosh Hashanah), is the Jewish New Year but also prophetically refers to the regathering of Israel which is then followed by the Day of Atonement, (a.k.a. Yom Kipper), and prophetically this will be fulfilled when the prophecy of Zechariah 12:10-14 comes to pass. Then on the 15th day of the 7th month comes the Feast of Tabernacles, (a.k.a. Feast of Ingathering & Feast of Booths). This is a 7 day feast that celebrates the gathering in of the harvest and also commemorates when the Israelites camped out in temporary shelters in the wilderness under the protection of God during their exodus from Egypt. It is during this Feast that Jesus may very well have been born. While we can’t be dogmatic about it there are some clues that relate to His birth and the harvest, which is what this joyous Feasts celebrates.

For one thing the Gospel of John says, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” (John 1:14). The Greek text translates the word “dwelt” as “tabernacle”. The Greek word skenoo literally means, “to pitch a tent”. So that verse literally reads “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us”. In context John is speaking of the birth of Christ. Another hint that Christ may very well have been born on the Feast of Tabernacles is in Isaiah 9:1-7. This prophetic section of Scripture is foretelling the coming of the Messiah unto Israel and in verse 2-3 it mentions that it would be during the “joy of the harvest” which is precisely what the Feast of Tabernacles is. It should also be noted that when Elizabeth heard of Mary’s pregnancy she said to Mary, “Blessed is the fruit of your womb”.

The seven Feasts of the Lord in Leviticus 23 are exactly what they are called, “Feasts of the Lord”. They are His Feasts, (see Leviticus 23:2), meaning they all relate to Him and point to His coming. It would only seem fitting that Jesus would be born on a Feast day. It would also seem fitting that Jesus would come again on a Feast day, perhaps the same day He came the first time? Perhaps the Rapture or the 2nd Coming will be during the Feast of Tabernacles? Perhaps both? While we can’t positively answer these questions we can find a clue in the 7th chapter of the Gospel of John that pertains to Jesus “secretly” attending the Feast of Tabernacles during His first advent that could be a foreshadow of the Rapture.

In John 7:2 it says that the Feast of Tabernacles was at hand and His brothers being in disbelief of Him were coaxing Him to go to the Feast and show Himself but Jesus said: You go up to this feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come. Then in verse 10 it says this: But when His brothers had gone up, then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Could this be a prophetic clue to the timing of the Rapture when He comes secretly for His faithful followers at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles?

In Numbers 10:10 the Lord commands that trumpets are to be blown on Feast days. The return of Christ, both the Rapture and 2nd Coming are described with trumpets being blown. In 1 Corinthians 15:52 it says: in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. The Feast of Tabernacles is the last Feast of the Lord on the Hebrew calendar and the Lord commanded that trumpets be blown on all Feast days. Could this be the last trump that the Holy Spirit led Paul to write about in his description of the coming Rapture? The seven days that make up the Feast of Tabernacles could also represent the seven years that we will be under God’s protection during the 7 year Tribulation dwelling in the rooms that Jesus has prepared for us, (John 14:1-4). See also Isaiah 26:19-21.

The sound of a trumpet is also associated with Christ’s physical return at the end of the Tribulation as described in Matthew 24:31. Could it be possible that the Feast of Tabernacles is the timing of Christ’s first advent, (birth at Christmas), Rapture and His 2nd Coming? Tabernacles is a 7 day Feast so we still wouldn’t know the day or the hour of His return but we are commanded to be watching and to be discerners of the times. (Matthew 16:3)

It is also interesting that the Feast of Tabernacles will also be celebrated during the millennial reign of Christ, (Zechariah 14:16 & Ezekiel 45:25). Surely Tabernacles is a Feast of high stature in the eyes of God if it will be celebrated forever and He wants us to know it. In Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 it says: “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven; A time to be born and a time to die.” God has pre-appointed times for everything under heaven and Jesus was “foreordained before the foundation of the world”, (1 Peter 1:20). If Jesus’ first advent fulfilled and coincided with the first 4 Feast of the Lord then it seems only logical that we look at the last 3 Feasts of the Lord for signs of His second coming. The Lord always provides signs of His coming before He comes.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14)

O’ Come, O’ Come Emmanuel!

Merry Christmas to all.

The Santa Hoax

The Santa Hoax ..............Grace Thru Faith article

Q. I recently received quite a shellacking from a co-worker when I was in the process of explaining some of the pagan origins of the traditions that are associated with Christmas. I had expressed my disdain for the practice of my church to include Santa Claus in this annual observance. I believe that Satan employs many different tactics to divert our attention from the saving grace of God. In this particular instance, it happens to be a ” jolly old elf”.


Aside from the obvious emphasis on materialism, I believe that the Santa hoax lays the dangerous groundwork for skepticism in the future beliefs of any child. I once witnessed such a troubling occurrence when, upon discovering the truth about Santa, an angry small boy questioned also the reality of Jesus. I am not certain that the secular world’s attempt to disassociate Christ’s name from the holiday is something that the Church should resist. Am I in error?

A. If you’re in error then we both are. A couple of years ago, I wrote an editorial suggesting we give Christmas, or Feast of Saturnalia as it was once known, back to the Pagans and begin celebrating the Lord’s birth in the early fall when it likely took place.

This would give Christians a chance to divest this important event of all the pagan and commercial baggage it’s picked up over the years and allow us to focus on its real meaning. It would also take us out of the battle for recognition with all the other religions who want to horn in on our holy day.

I believe Santa Claus is a false god, knowing everything and being everywhere, rewarding good folks and punishing bad ones. These are things only the Creator of the Universe can do.

The feast of the unknown day or hour

The Feast Of Trumpets And The Second Coming

Article of December 17, 2010 posted from Gracethurfaith.com

Q. I just found your site last week and have been on it every day since. I have studied the book of Revelation several times but reading your articles has given me a new excitement as I review your articles on the end times. You have an amazing site.

I have been told by a Christian Jew that the Feast of the Trumpets is the “The feast of the unknown day and hour”. And that will be the day of the Lord’s Second Coming and could be the day of the Rapture as well. He said this feast happens every seven years and is the only feast that is on the first day of the month. That in the Torah it says that two witnesses were sent out on the 29th day to watch when the first sign of the crescent moon would appear and the feast would begin.


He also said that Jesus was referring to this feast when He said we could not know the day and hour. That Jesus did not say we couldn’t know the time, just the day and hour. Exactly, what is the feast of the Trumpets? And could this relate to time of the rapture?

A. The feast of Trumpets was sometimes called “The feast of the unknown day and hour” because unlike other feasts, it began at the time of the new moon on the first day of the month known as Tishri. Around the time of the first day of every month, two witnesses were sent out to determine the first sighting of the crescent moon. Until this could be confirmed no one knew whether the new month had actually arrived. So the Feast of Trumpets came on a day and hour no one could know in advance. It was also called Rosh Hashanah which is the Jewish New Year, and marked the beginning of 10 days of intense spiritual preparation for the Day of Atonement.

If you read the text carefully, you’ll see that whenever Jesus said we could not know the day and hour, He was referring to the 2nd Coming, not the Rapture. So this lends more weight to the belief that the 2nd Coming will take place on the Feast of Trumpets in a year as yet unknown

They are the only people who have a Title Deed from God

Here are some of the promises in the Bible concerning Israel.
They are the only people who have a Title Deed from God as shown in the Bible.


Genesis 15:18-21 Title Deed given to Father Abraham

In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:
The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,
And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,
And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites*.
Note: * Jebusite is the nation that lived in Jerusalem before King David conquered it.
Genesis 21:12 Reaffirmed to Isaac:

And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.

Genesis 26:2-4 Promise reaffirmed to Jacob(who becomes Israel)
And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of:
3 Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father;
4 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed

Psalm 105:6-12 An Everlasting Covenant to Isarel, and their inheritance

6O ye seed of Abraham his servant, ye children of Jacob his chosen.
7He is the LORD our God: his judgments are in all the earth.
8He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.
9Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac;
10And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant:
11Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance:

Jeremiah 31:35-37 Dispite Israels Failures, God will not forget them

Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:
36If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
37Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.

Ezekiel 36:22-28 Why God does this...Because of God’s Holy Name’s Sake

Therefore say unto the house of Israel, thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for Mine Holy Name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went.
23And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
24For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.
25Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
26A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
28And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Luke 21:22-24 Jesus warned and confirmed Jews would suffer till the time of the Gentiles is complete

For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.
24And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

Matthew 23:37:29 Jesus said,
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.
38 Look, your house is left to you desolate.
39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'”

Zechariah Chapter 12 Israel will repent, mourning for the one they Pierced.

This is the word of the LORD concerning Israel. The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of man within him, declares:
2 I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem.
3 On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.
4 On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness, declares the LORD. I will keep a watchful eye over the house of Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the nations.
5 Then the leaders of Judah will say in their hearts, 'The people of Jerusalem are strong, because the LORD Almighty is their God.'
6 On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a brazier in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume right and left all the surrounding peoples, but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place.
7 The LORD will save the dwellings of Judah first, so that the honour of the house of David and of Jerusalem's inhabitants may not be greater than that of Judah.
8 On that day the LORD will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the LORD going before them.
9 On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.

Mourning for the One They Pierced
10 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
11 On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.
12 The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives,
13 the clan of the house of Levi and their wives, the clan of Shimei and their wives,
14 and all the rest of the clans and their wives.

Romans 9, 10, 11 All Israel will be saved according to God’s justice, not man’s

Romans 9
God's Sovereign Choice
1 I speak the truth in Christ— I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit—
2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race,
4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.
5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, for ever praised! Amen.
6 It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.
8 In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring.
9 For this was how the promise was stated: At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.
10 Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac.
11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad— in order that God's purpose in election might stand:
12 not by works but by him who calls— she was told, The older will serve the younger.
13 Just as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!
15 For he says to Moses,
I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?
20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'
21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
22 What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath— prepared for destruction?
23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—
24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
25 As he says in Hosea:
I will call them 'my people' who are not my people; and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one,
26 and,
It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,'You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God'.

27Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.

29It is just as Isaiah said previously:
Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.

Israel's Unbelief
30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;
31 but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.
32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling-stone.
33 As it is written:
See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.


Romans 10
1 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.
2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.
3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.
4 Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
5 Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: The man who does these things will live by them.
6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down)
7 or 'Who will descend into the deep?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
8 But what does it say? The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming:
9 That if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
11 As the Scripture says, Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.
12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile— the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him,
13 for, Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!
16 But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message?
17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
18 But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did:
Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

19Again I ask: Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says,
I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.

20And Isaiah boldly says,
I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.

21But concerning Israel he says,
All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.

Romans 11
The Remnant of Israel
1 I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah— how he appealed to God against Israel:
3 Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me?
4 And what was God's answer to him? I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
5 So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.
6 And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
7 What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened,
8 as it is written:
God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day.

9And David says:
May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling-block and a retribution for them.
10 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent for ever.

Ingrafted Branches
11 Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.
12 But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fulness bring!
13 I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry
14 in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them.
15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
16 If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root,
18 do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.
19 You will say then, Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.
20 Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
22 Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.
23 And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
24 After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

All Israel Will Be Saved
25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
27 And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.

28As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs,
29 for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.
30 Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience,
31 so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you.
32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Doxology
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?
35 Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen."

The real name of Easter is...First Fruits Sunday

Pentecost Sunday, marking the end of the Easter season on the Christian calendar,
is May 23 this year. Pentecost/Holy Spirit Connection And Why Jews Don’t See It
By Thomas S. McCall, Th.D.

For Believers in Jesus the Messiah, the dating of Pentecost is one of the most exquisite examples of type and fulfillment in the Scriptures. Pentecost means fifty,
and is actually fifty days from another Feast, First Fruits. These calculations are explained in Leviticus 23:10–11, 15–17. The Feast of First Fruits was to occur on the day after the Sabbath (verse 11), therefore always the Sunday of Passover week. Pentecost, then, was the day after the seventh following Sabbath (verses 15–16), which would be the fiftieth day after First Fruits
and also on a Sunday.The fulfillment of these Feasts is striking. Jesus died the Friday of Passover week and had to be buried hastily before sunset, which is when the Sabbath begins. His body remained in the borrowed sepulcher throughout the Sabbath day, but on that Sunday
morning, when the priest was to offer the First Fruits offering in the Temple,
Christ arose from the dead, the first fruits of them that slept (I Cor. 15:20).

For forty ensuing days, the Lord appeared to His disciples in His resurrection
body, and then ascended into Heaven. Ten days later, the Sunday of
the Feast of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Believers in
Jerusalem and created the ekklesia, the called out body of Christ, the Church.

These fulfillments were obviously no coincidence, but were part of the overall plan and purpose of God in verifying the powerful meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ, and the establishment of the new body of Believers.

From then on, the Jewish Believers in Christ must have repeatedly informed the people of Israel about the nature of the fulfillment of Passover, First Fruits, and Pentecost.

It must have made a great impact on the Jewish people who lived between the resurrection of Christ and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, a span of about forty years.

By way of response, Judaism’s rabbis decided that in this case the term Sabbath did not mean Saturday, but something else: the first day of Passover, or, more precisely, the first day of Unleavened Bread (the second day of Passover). What justification do they have for changing the meaning of Sabbath that way? There must have been a very strong motive to cause the Sages to interpret Sabbath as something
other than the regular sacred Saturday Sabbath.

Though we have no proof, we suggest that the change came some time after the resurrection of Christ and before the destruction of the Temple. Think of the impact the Jewish Believers must have had as they described the Lord’s resurrection on
the Sunday of Passover week at First Fruits and the coming of the Spirit seven Sundays later on Pentecost. The leaders must have been hard pressed to explain away the relevance of the Feasts and their fulfillment in Jesus.

The solution they came up with was to obfuscate the calendar in such a way as to make the connection less clear between the Feasts and their fulfillment in Christ and the Holy Spirit.

The strategy apparently worked because most Jewish people today—
like Christians—see no connection whatever between the Feasts and the
Messiah.

Instead of causing Jewish leaders to marvel over the relationship between
the Feasts and the Messiah, the current festival schedule leaves Jewish scholars
scratching their heads. They are perplexed over the vagueness of the dates
of First Fruits and Pentecost, and why there is no clear statement in the
Torah that Pentecost is the day Moses received the Law, which is the teaching
of the Sages.

Such appears to be part of the veil over the eyes of the majority of Jewish people that so tragically obscures the truth about the Messiah in the Law.

Nevertheless, many Jews today and a lot of gentiles who have no background
in these matters are being graciously enlightened and are receiving the Lord.

Please see pp. 18, 19 Levitt Letter
May 2010 edition to
order our study booklet,
CD, and/or audiocassette
The Spirit of Pentecost.

Cause us to return with perfect repentance to Thy presence.

There is so much history in this article I wanted to post it here on my blogspot.
I hope you have the time to read it


Israel: The Super Sign of the End-Times, - By Dr. Todd Baker – www.raptureready.com

February 24, 2010

It All Began With Abraham Israel: The Super Sign of the End-TimesBy Dr. Todd Baker
________________________________________

Preachers and theologians are often fond of saying that History is “His story,” meaning that God plans and determines the details and events that make up human history ruling over the process from beginning to end to fulfill His great purpose for Mankind. Nothing could be truer of Israel. The history of the Jewish people is “His story” played out within human history, which has been revealed, foretold, and written in the Bible. Israel’s history is supernatural from beginning to end. It began with the Patriarch Abraham some 4,000 years ago when God called this nomadic wanderer from Ur of the Chaldeans (Modern day Iraq) to leave his homeland and go into the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:1-3). Abraham obeyed that call and became the father of the nation Israel and the Jewish people. Though Abraham, and Sarah his wife, were well beyond the age of having children (Genesis 18:11), God miraculously rejuvenated the ninety-year old body of Sarah to bear them a son; Isaac through whom God would raise up the people and nation the Messiah would come through (Genesis 21:12). With the promised child came the Promised Land — the land that is called Israel - where Abraham and his descendants would live. In Genesis 13:15 and 17:7-8, God promised to give the land to Abraham and his descendants (the Jews) for an “everlasting possession” under the unconditional terms of an “everlasting covenant”:

“For all the land which you see I have given it to you and your descendants forever. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.”

Here we observe from Israel’s inception that the history of the Jewish people and their divine destiny is inextricably bound up with the land God promised them. The covenant referred to in Genesis 17:7-8 is formally called the Abrahamic Covenant. It is an eternal covenant made between God to Abraham and his descendants forever. God essentially established through this Covenant with Abraham a people from him (the Jewish people), a place for them (the land of Israel), so that the purpose of blessing all the nations of the world could occur in perpetuity, that is forever. Thus God gave the land of Israel to the Jews forever and to no other ethnic group or nation, protestations from the Arabs, Palestinians, and international community notwithstanding. One of the basic laws of Bible interpretation is the law of first mention. The law of first mention states that when a thing is mentioned for the first time in the Bible it carries the same meaning all throughout the Scriptures. It establishes the Bible as consistent in its meaning from beginning to end as it applies to persons, places, events, and things.

In Genesis 13:15 we have the first mention in Scripture stating that God gave the land of Israel to Abraham and the Jewish people forever. This truth is reiterated throughout the rest of Scripture and establishes the rightful owners of the land to be the Jews granted by divine right. There is no deviation or alteration by God from this covenant. It stands for all time. The ongoing struggle for Israel’s right to live in the Land of Promise has already been settled once and for all by the eternal counsel of God as codified and enacted in the Abrahamic Covenant. God has spoken and His Word on this matter is settled forever (Psalm 119:89); thus all the political wrangling about who the land belongs to is quite simply moot and in the end irrelevant and inconsequential. The current Middle East crisis centers around who owns the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. But unbelief coming from the world disputes and dismisses the whole issue being settled by the inerrant Word of God. One cannot begin to understand the current Middle East crisis and how it relates to Israel’s past, present and future without knowing and understanding the fundamental importance of this divine covenant. Author Richard Booker wisely wrote: “Indeed the key to understanding today’s headlines and tomorrow’s news lies in the past within the sacred covenant God made with Abraham.” (Richard Booker, Blow the Trumpet in Zion, p.17). In the series of articles to come, we will explore how this is true throughout the divine panoramic plan God has for Israel in the past, present, and future as revealed through Bible prophecy.
Part of the reason for the return of Israel's Messiah will be to enforce the everlasting decree of God's land grant to the Jewish people and to overthrow the nations of the world in league with the anti-Christ who will violently attempt to take the land away from them (Zech. 12-14; Ezekiel 47:13-48:35). In fact, the boundaries God gave for the Promised Land stretch from the river of Egypt (Wadi El-Arish) to the Euphrates River near the Syrian/Iraqi border (Gen. 15:18-21); an area yet to be occupied by the Jewish nation that well includes the two presently disputed areas of Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).

The covenant God made with Abraham not only would produce the Jewish people from his ("seed") posterity with a land to live in, but their presence in the world also would greatly benefit and bless Mankind. The Lord said: "And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). Indeed the Jews have brought the world immeasurable blessings. They wrote and preserved the Scriptures (the Bible), which is the number one best-seller in the world and were the people through whom the Messiah came to redeem humanity from sin (Romans 3:2; 9:5). The Jews wrote the Bible and the Messiah Jesus is a Jew.

God subsequently reaffirmed this covenant with Abraham to his son, Isaac, and Isaac's son, Jacob (Genesis 25:5-6; 35:9-15). From these three patriarchs, God eternally promised the land of Israel to the Jewish people. From a divine and biblical perspective then, the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people. And so God chose this Land and the Chosen People to play a central role in His plan of redemption for the world and mankind that naturally involves the past, present, and the future.

The plan of redemption for Israel and the world focuses around two epochal events - the first and second comings of the Messiah Jesus Christ. In both advents, Christ has and will personally come again directly to Israel. The covenant God made with Abraham plays a special significance and role in end-time Bible prophecy. The fact God guaranteed the people of Israel a national existence and homeland forever that brought the material and spiritual blessings through Jesus Christ to the Gentile nations basically defines and determines the primary focus of the whole eschatological program of God. The covenant of Abraham with the provisions of a land, nation, Messianic descendant, and blessing to the world is the building base and foundation upon which the plan of God is built and enlarged through the other covenants.
The creation of the Jewish people and the bestowal of a national homeland via the Abrahamic covenant were preparatory for the first coming of the Messiah. Gentiles who come to faith in Him are adopted into Abraham's family and receive the blessing promised through that covenant (Galatians 3:8; 14-29). And just as the establishment of the Jewish people as the nation of Israel was crucial to the first coming of Christ, so too Scripture indicates that the regathering of the Jews into their ancient homeland, after being scattered throughout the world for nearly 2,000 years, and the reestablishment of the nation of Israel are necessary for the second coming. In fact, it would serve as a super-sign that will set the stage for the prophesied series of events that will culminate in the return of Christ to Israel. Without the reconstitution of the nation of Israel in our generation, none of the events of End-time prophecy could occur or be possible.
Thomas Ice and Timothy Demy articulate and underscore this point well when they write:
God's plan for history always moves forward in relation to what He is doing with Israel. Thus, the fact that Israel has been and continues to be reconstituted as a nation is prophetically significant, so significant that it makes Israel God's super-sign of the end times. Were Israel not a nation again it would be impossible for events of the end times to occur since so many of them take place in that tiny country or in reference to it. But it has returned and so it is that all other aspects of Bible prophecy are also being prepared for the grand finale of history


Secular historians generally write history from an anthropocentric view; that is, how it relates and centers on Man and his development and various achievements in a closed universe. But the Bible concentrates on the historical fulfillment of God's covenantal relationship with the nation of Israel leading up to the first coming of the Messiah and His second coming to Israel in a supernatural fashion whereby God freely and arbitrarily intervenes in the affairs of man. In fact, the Bible says God determines the national boundaries and demographic habitations of humanity with the intent that the children of Israel could live in the land of Canaan in an area that would perfectly accommodate their numbers and allow for this. For Deuteronomy 32:8 says: "When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel." And all that the Bible has predicted about Israel's divine history thus far has literally come to pass.

So then it is only reasonable and natural to conclude that the prophecies about Israel's future will also literally be fulfilled. Bible Prophecy predicted as a super sign and precondition for the return of Christ the regathering of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland as the nation of Israel. That took place on May 14, 1948. The rest of this article will explore and explain how the modern nation of Israel is fulfilling this role as the super-sign to indicate the coming of Christ is close at hand and could very well happen in our generation.

The Bible predicts in Deuteronomy 30:1-3 that the return of the Lord Jesus Christ will occur sometime after the regathering and return of the Jews from world wide dispersion into the land of Israel. God gave this prophecy through Moses and the Jews just before God brought them into the land of Canaan. The Authorized Version of these verses is most telling:

"And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, And shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey His voice. According to all that I commanded thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; That then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee."

Notice the chronology or sequence of prophetic events here:

(1) God will bring the Jews back to the land of Israel from the nations of the world where they were scattered abroad by Him for their disobedience.

(2) During this regathering the Lord Himself "will return" and complete the restoration of all Israel back into the land.

In others words, when God begins to bring the Jews back into their land He gave them, Christ will return! The phrase "will return" is omitted from most modern translations of the Bible since the Masoretic text (upon which the majority of modern translations of the Old Testament are based upon) and the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) do not include it. But the Dead Sea Scrolls copied some 150 years before the birth of Christ and over 1,000 years older than any previously discovered manuscript of the Bible includes this very phrase! The passage reads as follows: "Then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from the peoples, [from] where the Lord your God has scattered you." (Martin Abegg, Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, p. 187). Thus, the phrase has good precedent for being included as from the original. And the prophecy given in Deuteronomy 30:3 foretells that when the Jews return to their ancient homeland from the Diaspora (the scattering of the Jews to all Gentile nations of the world after the Babylonian exile in 586 B.C. and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.), the Lord Jesus Christ will return. If we just had this prophecy alone in Scripture concerning the return of the Jews to Israel and the return of the Lord following it, this would be adequate alone to believe in His word that He would regather the Jews back to Israel and subsequently return at the second Coming. This unquestionably means in the words of author Homer Duncan that:

"For centuries, the prophecies concerning the regathering of Israel lay dormant in the Word of God. There was no outward indication that they would be fulfilled, but they are now being fulfilled before our eyes, and this can mean but one thing: THE COMING OF THE LORD DRAWS NEAR." (Homer Duncan, Israel: Past, Present, Future, p. 16)

There have been two dispersions in Israel’s history collectively referred to as the Diaspora. The first dispersion of Jews from the land of Israel began in 721 B.C. when the Assyrians invaded the Northern kingdom of Israel and led them away into captivity for their gross idolatry and disobedience to the Law of Moses (Isaiah 10:5-7; 2 Kings 17:5-23). The last stage of this dispersion occurred in 586 B.C. At that time the Babylonians armies led by King Nebuchadnezzar laid siege against Jerusalem at conquered the Southern Kingdom and took the Jews of Judea and Jerusalem captive into Babylon for seventy years (Jeremiah 25:4-12; Daniel 9:1-2; 2 Chronicles 36:14-20). In 539 B.C. the Persian king Cyrus issued a decree allowing 50,000 Jews to return to the land of Israel under the leadership of Ezra, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah (Ezra 1:1-6:22; Nehemiah 11:1-13:31). Both the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions are considered a single dispersion instead of two since half of the nation went into exile in 721 B.C. and the other half going into exile in 586 B.C. But before God scattered them in the first dispersion He gave them warning after warning to forsake their disobedient and wicked ways through His servants the prophets. Israel did not heed their warnings of divine judgment and calls for repentance. Because He knew they were reprobate and unwilling to return Him, the Lord displaced and scattered them from the Land (Jeremiah 5-6; 8:7-17; 2 Chronicles 36:14-17).

The second dispersion of the nation came in 70 A.D. when Titus and his Roman legions burned and razed Jerusalem and razed the Temple literally not leaving one stone upon another, thus fulfilling the prophecies of Micah and Jesus found in Micah 3:12 and Matthew 24:2. In fact in the early 1990’s archaeologists doing excavations along the southern part of the Western Wall unearthed a pile of those original Temple stones that were dismantled stone by massive stone in 70 A.D.—an ancient testament to the veracity of Jesus’ prophecy and the historical accuracy of the New Testament. The Bible not only predicted the fact of Israel’s dispersion but also the condition the Jews would be in during it. The Jews would not have a king to sit on David’s throne, nor would they have a Temple in Jerusalem or priesthood to offer sacrifices; and finally they would no longer worship idols. Hosea foresaw this dispersed state after 70 A.D. and predicted this to be Israel’s scattered condition “for many days.” Hosea 3:4-5 reads: “For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim.” In this prophecy as with several others found in the Old Testament, Israel’s state and condition is accurately described during the long world-wide dispersion of their nation that has existed between the First and Second Advent of the Messiah Jesus! A closer look at the text in Hosea 3 provides a very detailed corroboration of how this prophecy is being fulfilled from the time off the first century A.D. until now. This period of Jewish history, (which has already lasted for almost two thousand years) has been formally called by Jewish and secular historians “the Diaspora”; and it was foretold in the prophetic word in Hosea some 750 years before Christ!

In this dispersed state Israel would no longer have a “prince or king.” The throne of David has been vacant of a lineal successor (a prince) and broken down since 586 B.C. to this very day. This will remain so until the return of Jesus the Son of David who will sit on the Davidic throne after a long period of absence (see Ezekiel 21:25-27; Luke 1:32-33; Acts 15:14-17). With the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. and the subsequent dissolution of the Levitical priesthood Israel was left without the appropriate animal sacrifices or a Temple to sacrifice them in. They would no longer worship false gods in temples built with “Sacred Pillar” commonly used to worship the false gods of Canaan (Ex 34:13-14; Deut. 7:5). The “Ephod” was a part of the special dress the High Priest of Israel wore and also gave divine guidance and direction (Lev. 8:7; 1 Sam. 23:9-11; 30:7-8). Thus Israel would be scattered throughout the world without centralized spiritual leadership and guidance the High Priest provided for the nation. In addition to that the Jews would be free from idolatry and the worship of idols or the “Teraphim.” while in a scattered state. The teraphim images in ancient Israel were household idols used for objects of worship and the forbidden practice of divination (see Genesis. 31:19, 30, 32; Judges. 18:17, 24; 1 Samuel 15:23; 2 Kings. 23:24). When one closely examines the Prophecy of Hosea about the condition of Israel’s dispersion in their past, present and future, one cannot help but agree with the comments of C. I. Scofield on this same passage of prophetic Scripture:

“This prediction has been remarkably fulfilled in the condition of Israel since the time of Christ. Scattered, without political entity under a king or a prince, and performing no sacrifices since the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in A.D. 70, they have yet retained their identity and avoided idolatrous worship of sacred stones or idols. Chapter 3 is one of the classic O.T. passages describing Israel’s past, present, and future.” (The New Scofield Study Bible, p. 894).

The scattering of the Jewish people from the land of Israel throughout the nations of the world was a result of their disobedience to God’s law and their rejection of the Messiah. The first dispersion as mentioned in a prior article was the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity (721 and 586 B.C., respectively). The reason for this as unanimously witnessed by both the pre-exilic and exilic prophets was Israel’s gross idolatry and apostasy from the Lord (Jeremiah 7, 9; Isaiah 1-6; Ezekiel 8-11, et al.). The second dispersion occurred for Israel rejection and mistreatment of the Messiah who came to redeem them and offer the Messianic kingdom (Luke 19:41-44). But in the beginning of their national history God foretold all these things would happen as a warning to the nation through Moses right before the people of Israel were to enter the Promised Land. In Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28-32 Israel’s covenantal obligations as the Chosen Nation of God are spelled out by the Lord. The blessings that would accrue to their obedience are given and conversely the curses that would fall on them if they chose to walk contrary to the Lord and not obey him were clearly spelled out to the nation. A cursory reading of these pivotal chapters at once reveals a precise and accurate prophetic portrait of the history of the Jewish people that has been fulfilled to the letter for the last 3,500 years! “I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you” (Leviticus 26:33-39; Deuteronomy 28:64-67). This scattering of Israel to all the Gentile nations of the world would serve as a sign for all to see God’s reproach and displeasure for their disobedience to Him. “And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever” (Deut. 28:46).

Lest the reader think this too harsh the Kiddush (the standard daily prayer book used by religious Jews in synagogues all over the world) offers the following penitential prayer: “Cause us to return with perfect repentance to Thy presence. Pardon and forgive all our iniquities. Blot out and remove our transgressions and sins from Thy sight. Nullify the evil of the sentence decreed against us.” Now in our day with the recent partial restoration and regathering of the Jewish people back to Israel God is in the process of answering this very prayer. Throughout the long Diaspora God promised that He would preserve the Jewish people as a distinct people among the Gentile nations so that by and large they would not be assimilated or be expunged by them. “For I am with you says the Lord, to save you. Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, and will not let you go altogether unpunished. Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries” (Jeremiah 30:11; Ezekiel 6:8). The Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Romans all invaded Israel and conquered the Jews and subsequently led them captive away from the land to be scattered throughout the nations. After the dispersion of 70 A.D. the Jewish people were to live without a homeland for almost 2,000 years. All throughout that time they only survived in small numbers in isolated scattered communities. Their numbers greatly dwindled when they were hunted down and killed by the scores during the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Russian Pogroms, and the greatest of all numbers killed in the horrific Holocaust. This is precisely why most Jewish people do not accept Jesus as the Messiah because those very people who claimed to follow Him instigated and carried out these violent campaigns and atrocities against the Chosen People. Sadly the tragic prophecy of Jesus in John 16:2 has been fulfilled in one way through the form of ‘Christian’ anti-Semitism when He foretold to His Jewish disciples: “The time is coming that whoever kills you will think he offers God’s service.” The enemies of the Jews slanderously did so in the name of Jesus Christ—a sin the Christian Church has all been too guilty of throughout the centuries. On this point Messianic Jewish author Barry Rubin explains what the Gentile name “Jesus Christ” means to the average Jew. “To a Jewish person, Christ conducted the Crusades, invoked the Inquisition, and prompted persecution of Jews over the last twenty centuries. To a Jewish person, Christ is the first part of the term used by those who accuse Jews of deicide: “Christ-killers” (“You Bring the Bagels, I’ll Bring the Gospel,” p. 94). This brings us to our next point that we will take up in the next issue: Universal Anti-Semitism as one of the signs of the End-Times and for the return of Jesus the Messiah.

Thus far, we have looked at prophecies dealing with Israel's history up to the nation's worldwide dispersion in unbelief. The whole history of the Jewish people was foretold beforehand to them through Moses, the prophets, and the Messiah Jesus of Nazareth. While in that dispersed state, the Jewish people would be without land, kingly ruler, free from the idolatry of the past, and wandering from place to place throughout the nations of the world. This last condition aforementioned was popularized in Europe by the pejorative term "the wandering Jew" in the thirteenth century. The ugly and brutal fact of Anti-Semitism is a darker side of Jewish history, and along with the doctrine of hell is one of the most somber and grave subjects of Bible prophecy. Nevertheless, the God of Israel did indeed predict from the outset of their national history that the Jewish people would be hated, harmed, and persecuted by the Gentile nations of the world during the long period of the Diaspora. Deuteronomy 28:15-68 outlines this terrible time. A simple comparison between this passage of Scripture and the history of the Jewish people for the last two thousand years will unquestionably verify these prophecies have been fulfilled as exactly foretold and that the Bible is indeed inspired by the Omniscient God who foretells history before it comes to pass. What we have described and predicted in the above passage in Deuteronomy and other related passages found throughout Scripture is the prediction of the rise of anti-Semitism. The term anti-Semitism was coined by Wilhelm Marr in 1878 who himself was a virulent anti-Semite. Anti-Semitism simply defined is the racial and religious hatred of the Jewish people. The ugly phenomenon of Anti-Semitism began the moment God chose Abraham to father a new people through which the redeemer of the world would come and was the response of Satan himself to destroy the means by which in the "seed of the woman" he would meet his final end and defeat (Genesis 3:15).

The devil's simple strategy was thus: "Destroy the Jewish people and there will be no Savior to defeat me." After the first advent, his strategy is still in place as he has sought throughout the centuries following Christ to do the same so that this same Messiah will not come back to a restored Israel and fulfill those promises made to Israel that still await fulfillment at the Second Advent. Furthermore, God made a promise and oath in Jeremiah 31:35-37 that the Jewish people would continue as a nation in perpetuity - that is, forever. Satan's strategy for creating the inimical reality of anti-Semitism is nothing less than the complete annihilation and obliteration of the Jewish people so that this divine eternal promise of their permanent existence as the distinct chosen nation are nullified and God's integrity and Word are proven unreliable, false, and wrong. Indeed, when Yahweh chose Israel as the human channel for the Savior to come into the world and redeem humanity from sin and death, Satan targeted and chose them also for destruction knowing that they would be God's instrumental means by which he was to suffer ultimate defeat.

Revelation 12 uses symbolic images of a woman clothed with the son (Israel) and the fiery red dragon (Satan) to prophetically narrate the conflict that Satan has with Israel and how it will come to a head in the future seven-year tribulation period. Scripture explains that the ultimate cause and origin for anti-Semitism is supernatural and found in the perfidious design and person of Satan. Men like Haman, Hitler, and Pharaoh are human pawns to carry out "the final solution" against the Jewish people. But in the end, all people who attempt to harm and destroy the Chosen People, God will curse and overthrow with damnation in the end according to the solemn and eternal oath He swore to Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, in Genesis 12:3; "I will curse those who curse you."

In spite of all the terrible atrocities the Jewish people have suffered for the last 2,000 years, the God of Israel has kept them distinct and preserved as a separate people (for a chronological listing of Anti-Semitism attitudes and practices from 70 A.D. to 1970, see the book The Causes and Effects of Anti-Semitism by Paul E. Grosser and Edwin G. Halperin). One with a discerning mind can even see the subtle side of anti-Semitism by the condescending and accusatory manner in which Modern Israel is constantly spoken of by the news media (which in itself is a considerable subject to document and rightly comment upon; but presently, our study will stay within the perimeters of the Scripture and those Bible prophecies dealing with the Jewish people).

God foretold that during the long period of dispersion, the Jewish people would have no rest from the Gentile nations. They would be maligned, persecuted, and killed in large numbers wherever they sojourned due to the pervasive and perennial presence of anti-Semitism (see the prophecy of Leviticus 26:36-39). But in spite of this, the Lord has triumphantly preserved them and brought them back to their ancient homeland against all adverse odds. History has indisputably confirmed the aforementioned prophecy given some 3,400 years ago true and fulfilled in the history of the Jewish people, so much so that the summative observation from Paul Grosser and Edwin Halperin definitely applies here and underscores what God foretold would be their condition in the Diaspora:

"No people in history has been hated, maligned and persecuted so continuously and systematically as the Jews. In light of the history of anti-Semitism, the continued survival of the Jews and Judaism is a major historical triumph.... The continuity and persistence of anti-Semitism over the past nineteen centuries indicated that it is an integral part of Western culture. It has existed in slave, feudal, capitalist and socialist economic systems. It has existed in monarchies, aristocracies, theocracies, democracies, dictatorships, police states, and authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. It has existed in religious, secular, and atheistic societies. It has existed in rural and urban populations, in small towns and suburbs. It has existed even in places where there were no Jews. No matter what the Jews did, there has been no sure escape (The Causes and Effects of Anti-Semitism, pp. 339, 353)."

The Lord Jesus predicted that one of the signs indicating the end of this inter-advent age (i.e., the present time between the first and Second Advent of Jesus Christ) would be the universal hatred of the Jewish people by the Gentile nations on account of Him. "You shall be hated of all nations for My name's sake" (Matthew 24:9). World-wide anti-Semitism is thus a sign for Israel and the world that we are living near the period of the Messiah's return as foretold by Jesus almost 2,000 years ago in Matthew 24

The regathering and restoration of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland of Israel is one of the most prominent and recurring prophecies in Holy Scripture. As previously mentioned in past articles in this series, the Bible mentions two periods in which the Jewish people would be scattered from the land of Israel due to their disobedience to God. The first dispersion initially began with the Northern Kingdom of Israel being taken into exile and captivity by the Assyrian invaders around 721 B.C. and was completed when the Southern Kingdom was conquered and deported to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C. The Jews from the Northern Kingdom and Southern Kingdom were allowed to return to the land seventy years under the joint and capable leadership of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The Jews remained in the land for over four hundred years under Gentile supervision and control. The second dispersion of the Jews from the land, that was predicted by Jesus thirty years before it happened, occurred by the Romans in 70 A.D.
It is important to determine and distinguish which of the two dispersions is meant when looking at the prophecies that deal with the scattering and regathering of the Jewish people because the prophecies about the second dispersion and regathering are frequently made as an antecedent and conspicuous sign indicating the soon return of the Messiah to save the Jewish people (e.g., Deuteronomy. 30:1-3; Isaiah 11, 49, 51, 59-66; Jeremiah 3, 16, 23, 30-33, Ezekiel 11, 20, 34, 36-39; Hosea 2, 6, 11, 14, Joel 3; Amos 9; Obadiah 1 and so forth). Whenever these restoration/regathering prophecies to the land are found in Scripture they are prefaced or include the word “again” to thus denote a second time and must refer to the regathering after the second dispersion from Israel in A.D. 70. With both dispersions, the Jewish people never forgot their God-given homeland of Israel or its capital Jerusalem. The Psalms and the Prophets are filled with the Jewish longing and ardent desire to return to the land and worship the Lord in Jerusalem by those Jews who were scattered and removed from the land God gave to them forever (Genesis 17:7-8). This longing of several millennia is what the Jewish people simply call Zionism. Zionism has its roots squarely in the Jewish Bible and has been the unifying force for uniting Jews together as a people and a nation to return to the land of Israel and permanently remain there never to be removed or dispersed again. Zionism derives from the word Zion—another name for Jerusalem and by extension the land of Israel that has Biblical, national, religious political, and Messianic overtones and implications. Wendell Stearns in his excellent Biblical survey of Zionism provides a good comprehensive overview on the central place Zionism holds in the life of the Jewish people when he writes:

Zionism, formerly a desire realized in a movement first to establish, now to support the State of Israel, is a national, religious, and spiritual concept that goes back for millennia. It is debated as a concrete, geo-political concept and was struggled over, up to and since the physical restoration of the State. It has become the unifying concept of world Jewry, as much in the woes as in the wonders of Israel’s regained nationhood…For many, Zionism has become so completely identified as a national and political movement that secular Zionists resent the claims Judaism and Christianity have made upon it…Nevertheless to identify Zion and Zionism only as a recent phenomenon or to reckon it solely as a Jewish expression of mankind’s aspiration for ethnic and governmental sovereignty is a mistake. We err if we overlook the historical and spiritual foundations and core that make it such a pivotal force in today’s world” (Biblical Zionism, pp. xi-xii).

In the latter part of the nineteenth century Zionism enjoyed a strong reemergence and took on a more secular and geo-political outlook for the return of the Jewish people back to the land of Israel with the chief pioneer of modern Zionism, Theodore Herzl. Yet despite the lack of biblical of emphasis that is at the core of modern secular Zionism, God moved on Herzl to become one of the major influences to see the Jewish people return to the land. In several articles to come in this series, we will examine and explore how Zionism was the impetus God used for the rebirth of the nation of Israel in 1948 and was thus the greatest single fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the last two thousand years since the time of Christ. Zionism no doubt enjoyed a popular resurgence in the latter half of the nineteenth century due directly to the increasing hatred and hostility explicitly shown toward the Jews throughout Europe. That hatred and hostility has always been an inherent part of European culture dating back to the days of the Roman Empire. The greatest concentration of anti-Semitic hostilities against the Chosen People was in Eastern Europe and Russia. In fact, hatred for the Jews was so bad in Russia that the Czar in 1903 commissioned his secret police to forge a document entitled, The Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion.
This forgery allegedly was supposed to be the blueprint and planned conspiracy for Jewish world domination drawn up by a group of influential Jews as codified in the twenty-four protocols. The Czar was to use this fabrication to justify a bloody pogrom carried out throughout Russia and the Ukraine from 1903 to 1906.
Such a tidal wave of anti-Semitism that had and would engulf Europe in the 19th and the 20th centuries created a strong and unquenchable desire among many European Jews to return to their ancient homeland of Israel. This prompted an early leader and pioneer of Zionism, Russian Doctor, Leon Pinsker, to write a seminal work of Modern-day Zionism entitled Auto-Emancipation in 1882. In it, Pinsker basically proposed that the only solution to protect the Jewish people from ongoing anti-Semitism was for them to have a national homeland of their own. Initially, he thought this Jewish State could be established anywhere in the world, but eventually came to the firm conviction that such a homeland could only be planted where ancient Israel had originally been located.
A decade after this, Zionism’s political ideas and concepts for a Jewish homeland was formally defined by its leading proponent, Theodor Herzl, in his foundational work, The Jewish State. This book formed the constitutional basis for the First Zionist Congress convened on August 27, 1897, at Basle Switzerland; 204 delegates from 17 countries attended the Congress. Herzl worked tirelessly to gain support and backing for a Jewish State constantly traveling throughout Europe meeting with the monarchs, statesmen, and politicians to obtain legal acceptance for a Jewish homeland. At the Fifth Zionist Congress held in August 1903 (Herzl’s last before his death in 1904), Herzl tentatively accepted the British proposal to establish a Jewish State in the country of Uganda located in East Africa. After much debate and deliberation among the delegates of the Fifth Congress, the Uganda proposal was rejected. The delegates came to the firm and uncompromising conclusion that a Jewish State could only be established in the land of their ancestors—the land of Israel. This unshakable resolve would only grow, intensify, and be carried to eventual fruition some forty-five years later with the birth of the modern nation of Israel.
Theodor Herzl’s vision was really the greater vision of God to restore His people, Israel, to the land He gave to Abraham, their founding father, and his Jewish descendants after him for an eternal possession in fulfillment of those End-time prophecies that the Jews would be regathered back to Israel as a sign and pre-condition for the return of the Messiah—Jesus of Nazareth. Satan knows of these prophecies and, within a generation of these pioneers of Zionism, was allowed by the providence of God to try to subvert and prevent the Jewish people from returning to their ancient God-given homeland. But the die had already been cast. In the modern day movement of Zionism, God was beginning to focus His attention again on the “everlasting nation” so that many of the promises of their latter day restoration to the land in preparation for the Messiah’s return would be realized as supernaturally foretold in the Word of God. The prophecy of Isaiah 41:8-10 stands fulfilled in this distinct regard: “But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham My friend. You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest regions, and said to you: ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and have not cast you away. Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’”

The Quilt

"The Quilt Holes"

As I faced my Maker at the last judgment, I knelt before the Lord along with all the other souls.
Before each of us laid our lives like the squares of a quilt in many piles; an angel sat before each of us sewing our quilt squares together into a tapestry that is our life.
But as my angel took each piece of cloth off the pile, I noticed how ragged and empty each of my squares was. They were filled with giant holes. Each square was labelled with a part of my life that had been difficult, the challenges and temptations I was faced with in every day life. I saw hardships that I endured, which were the largest holes of all.
I glanced around me. Nobody else had such squares. Other than a tiny hole here and there, the other tapestries were filled with rich colour and the bright hues of worldly fortune. I gazed upon my own life and was disheartened.
My angel was sewing the ragged pieces of cloth together, threadbare and empty, like binding air.
Finally the time came when each life was to be displayed, held up to the light, the scrutiny of truth. The others rose; each in turn, holding up their tapestries. So filled their lives had been. My angel looked upon me and nodded for me to rise.
My gaze dropped to the ground in shame. I hadn't had all the earthly fortunes. I had love in my life and laughter. But there had also been trials of illness and wealth, and false accusations that took from me my world, as I knew it. I had to start over many times. I often struggled with the temptation to quit, only to somehow muster the strength to pick up and begin again. I spent many nights on my knees in prayer, asking for help and guidance in my life. I had often been held up to ridicule, which I endured painfully, each time offering it up to the Father in hopes that I would not melt within my skin beneath the judgmental gaze of those who unfairly judged me.
And now, I had to face the truth.. My life was what it was, and I had to accept it for what it was.
I rose and slowly lifted the combined squares of my life to the light.
An awe-filled gasp filled the air. I gazed around at the others who stared at me with wide eyes.
Then, I looked upon the tapestry before me. Light flooded the many holes, creating an image, the face of Christ. Then our Lord stood before me, with warmth and love in His eyes. He said, 'Every time you gave over your life to Me, it became My life, My hardships, and My struggles.
Each point of light in your life is when you stepped aside and let Me shine through, until there was more of Me than there was of you.'
May all our quilts be threadbare and worn, allowing Christ to shine through!
Father, bless all my family and friends in whatever it is that you know they may need this day! And may their life be full of your peace, prosperity and power as he/she seeks to have a closer relationship with you. Amen.