In the midst of the gloom, one thing has given me cause for excitement. I discovered One for Israel. Allow me to backtrack for a moment.
It’s not just the Christian community that is watching September with a degree of trepidation. Signs – the last blood moon of the tetrad and another a partial eclipse of the sun, both linked to Jewish feast-days, are one thing, but it is the teetering stock-market which has given many people the jitters. Link this to two previous stock market collapses, 2001 and 2008, which both occurred, on the same day, at the end of the Jewish Shemitah year, and you have market analysts head-palming. This year’s Shemitah year ends on Sunday 13th September, which is not, of course, a trading day. But the last trading day of that week happens to be on the anniversary of another desperate day of collapse – 9/11.
As Bible-believing Christians, we are looking towards the fast-approaching Seventieth Week of Daniel (Dan 9:27) and each of these events seem to be bringing us closer to that time. Sixty-nine “weeks” were accomplished from the going forth of the command for the re-building of Jerusalem’s walls by Artaxerxes, king of Persia, to the time when Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem and was “cut off” (Dan 9:26) – crucified for the sin of the world. The next two-thousand years has been given over to the Gentile nations, during which time the Jews were “blinded” for our sake. (Romans 11:7,8)
No-one can be certain when this last “week of years” will begin, but Daniel 9 gives us a clue to look out for. A ‘prince’ connected to Rome, the nation that destroyed the temple, (Dan 9:26) will make a seven-year treaty with Israel. In the midst of that seven years, after 1,260 days, this same “peace-maker” will enter Jerusalem’s Third Temple and cause the sacrifice to cease. As we cross-reference scriptures in Revelation, we see that this is the final seven years before the return of Jesus Christ, known as Jacob’s Trouble (Jer 30:7).
Obviously, a treaty and a peace-maker is born of conflict. We have seen conflict ratcheted up across the Middle East during the last year and it is certain worse is to come.
If we flip back to Revelation 7, we see God turning back to his Chosen Nation, Israel, and sealing in his servants – 12 x 12, one hundred and forty-four thousand drawn from all the tribes except Dan, and with Joseph replacing Ephraim.
There has always been a remnant of Jewish believers who have followed Yeshua as Messiah. But as the Jewish nation recognises the sign from Daniel 9, a floodgate will be opened. The very presence of One For Israel tells me that the time is close – very close, for now Messianic Jews are taking the Word, the Gospel of Christ, to the length and breadth of Israel.
Furthermore, as Jews begin to witness to Jews, two things become obvious. 1) Gentiles are no longer needed to provoke the nation of Israel to jealousy (Roms 11:11) and, 2) The Church of Christ will not be Raptured until the full number of Jews come in. Ephesians 2:12-19 shows us plainly that the wall of partition between us is to be broken down creating a unity – access in one Spirit unto the Father. So would the Father allow one of His children to enter into that rest without the other sibling? Definitely not!
That work, which has begun in Israel, is still in its infancy and it will face intense persecution along the way. God is calling out men and women be equal to the task; they already know that accepting Yeshua as Messiah in a nation so hostile to the message, could cost them everything. But they also know that Jesus gave everything for them.
Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid.
Jeremiah 30:10
In my novel, Opus Dei, I cast the light on what is about to take place in Israel; the razing of the Dome of the Rock, the attack on the Iranian nuclear installations, the “peacemaker” who claims to be the son of David, and the appearance of the two Witnesses. Thirty years in the writing, thoroughly researched, this book is totally relevant now.
(Opus Dei is available also in Kindle in three parts. Behold the Branch, Part 3, covers the End Time events.)
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