31 OCT 2019 · Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! Previously, we saw how the Old Testament Prophets warned Israel that God would soon discipline and exile His people. Not only that, God would use the very enemies of Israel as His instruments of discipline before these pagan nations were in turn judged by Him for their wickedness and cruelty. All these took place according to God’s word but that was not the end. The time is almost upon us now when Israel and the Church will again be severely tested and disciplined by God for their unfaithfulness. God will allow a satanic kingdom to rise up in these end times to threaten Israel even as more and more believers worldwide suffer at the hands of an increasingly Apostate Church that has fallen away from God. All these events will culminate in a final showdown outside Jerusalem, when Jesus will appear in the sky and return to save His people on this appointed day - The Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord is something mentioned by many of the Old Testament Prophets. It refers to the end of the world as we know it. To the Jews, it is that great day when the Messiah would come to deliver Israel from its enemies and usher in His eternal rule. To Christians, it is the glorious Second Coming of Jesus. Yet the Prophets had described it as a dreadful day, because it was the day when God’s discipline of His wayward people and judgment of His wicked enemies would reach its climax. It is the day when Jesus will return to put an end to the Antichrist’s last-ditch attempt to destroy Israel in the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, which is also known as the Valley of Decision. On that day, God will decide who are truly His - disciplined yet loved by Him and therefore awaiting deliverance - and who are reserved for judgment, condemnation and destruction. Like the Jewish day that begins at sunset, it will be a day that starts in darkness and night first before giving way to the glorious dawn of Jesus’ Millennial rule. Jesus Himself told us that He would return like a “thief in the night.” Be careful what we wish for because we may not be ready for it! But take heart! Even as God’s judgment unfolded for His enemies, the Prophets reassured Israel that there was ultimately comfort, hope and restoration for God’s people following His discipline. We saw this in the past, and will see it again in the future. In God’s Kairos, a faithful remnant of Jews returned from exile to rebuild the nation and the Temple, preparing the ground for Jesus’ first coming 2,000 years ago. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, the way of salvation and restoration was open to all mankind. Now in these last of last days, God once again brought about the return and regathering of the Jews in 1948. After a period of discipline during the Tribulation, Israel will acknowledge its Messiah at Jesus’ appearance and be fully restored as His Kingdom on earth during the Millennium and into eternity. The Church, which experienced a similar restoration during the Reformation, will also be comforted with this hope of final and eternal restoration as the Bride of Christ in the New Heaven, Earth and Jerusalem. Now, central to the entire narrative of the Old Testament Prophets was their prophecy of the Messiah as the Suffering Servant and Redeemer at His First Coming, before He returns on the Day of the Lord as the future King of Kings - Jesus Christ. There are at least 353 Old Testament prophecies that have already been fulfilled by Jesus at His first coming. We can be sure that He will fulfill the rest when He returns. In fact, all of creation and history, and God’s plan and purposes as revealed in the Bible, are about Jesus. The last few prophets of the Old Testament - Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi - urged the exiles to finish rebuilding the Temple because - as the verse above tells us - the Messiah’s coming would very much be linked to the Temple’s existence. God would also send a messenger to prepare the way before Him, and yet we

14 OCT 2019 · Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! In this and the next podcast, we will outline the common prophetic narrative running through the messages of the Old Testament Prophets: First, the Prophets warned Israel that God would soon discipline and exile His people. Instead of worshipping and trusting in God alone to protect the nation, Israel chased after the idols of its neighbours and relied on external political alliances for its survival. There was division and infighting within and between the two divided kingdoms, as well as widespread corruption and social injustice. Most of all, Israel had forsaken its mission as God’s lesser light to the world. As the end approached for these two kingdoms, there was widespread deception and many false prophets emerged who misled the people by promising peace or at most a short exile, instead of repenting of their sins and turning back to God. All that the Prophets foretold eventually came to pass during the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. This pattern of discipline and exile would take place again to Israel under the Romans in Jesus’ time after they rejected Him, an exile that would last almost 2,000 years. Although Israel has been reborn since 1948 in fulfilment of prophecy, it is currently a secular nation and will once again come under God’s discipline during the Tribulation (“time of Jacob’s trouble”) before it finally acknowledges Jesus as its Messiah.  The warnings of the Prophets also apply to the Church. Christians were - and continue to be - taken into spiritual exile and slavery as it were by apostasy and corruption within the Church. The condition of the Church will only grow worse as we near the end. Like Israel, the Church is equally guilty of breaking the commandments to love God and man. There is widespread idolatry, division, infighting and injustice. Even today, many Christians are held captive by oppressive human doctrines and superstitions, while others suffer real persecution. Yet those who are spared for now, like their Jewish brothers in the past, remained caught up with materialistic pursuits during this brief period of peace and prosperity and forgot their core mission to be God’s light to the world. Instead of heeding God’s Rhema which is being proclaimed even now and repenting, their ears itch for the lies of false teachers promising endless “blessings” of health, wealth and happiness. They ignore warnings of the coming persecution and exile that will be God’s means to discipline and refine His people until it is too late.  That the prophets should first reprimand their own countrymen is not surprising. In 1 Peter 4:17, Peter spoke of how God’s judgment would begin with his own household. But the Prophets also recognised and declared God’s sovereignty over and ultimate judgment of His enemies. It was God who stirred up the ancient empires as well as Israel’s pagan neighbours to act as His instruments to test and discipline His people. However, when their time was up, God would in turn bring about their eventual judgment for their wickedness and cruelty. The words of the Prophets were all fulfilled with the judgment and fall of every single one of these empires.  As we near the end of the Sixth Day of Creation and Jesus’ soon return, we can expect all the remaining prophecies to come to pass. We are told, especially by the Prophet Daniel, that a demonic kingdom of man will emerge to try to destroy and replace God’s Kingdom on earth. Like its predecessors, this revived Roman-Babylonian Empire will come against Israel as it rallies many nations behind it in an attempt to rule the world. We already see the beginnings of this happening on the global stage. Its ultimate goal is to lead a worldwide rebellion against Christ Himself.  And just like how the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel tried to strike deals and compromises with their neighbours and enemies alike instead of running to God, modern-day Israel and the increasingly Apostate Church wi

30 SEP 2019 · Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! Previously, we saw how God had progressively released His Rhema in His Kairos - first to the Old Testament Prophets, then to the Apostles and the Church, and now to those of us who recognise the signs of the times. These are not 3 separate messages but a single unified voice or prophetic narrative. If I could sum up this 3-part message in a simple sentence, it would be “the Messiah would come, came as Jesus, and will return soon to establish His Kingdom.” In this session, I want to highlight 3 very important aspects to understanding this prophetic narrative: First, this message that we are now called to proclaim is not something new to the Word of God - like a new book or chapter in addition to what has already been written in the Bible. The Bible itself warns us not to add to or subtract from God’s Word. It is a message that had been there all along, only that it was hidden in the Scriptures in various signs and symbols, peoples and events throughout the Bible, as we have seen for ourselves in our study so far of the first four Days of Creation.  God’s messengers in the past had in fact hinted at Its existence. Even as they prophesied and declared those things that were made known to them, they pointed to something more and the incompleteness of their own understanding.  Having said this however, this message is new in that what was hidden before - the Bible uses the term “mystery” - has now been made known to us in God’s Kairos.  Jesus spoke about this in Matthew 13:52. During His time, God’s written word consisted only of the Old Testament - also known as the Law and Prophets. This was because the rest of the Bible - the New Testament - had yet to be written. However, Jesus said that when those who taught God’s word became His disciples, they would find in the “storeroom” of the Old Testament not just the “old treasures” of what they already knew, but “new treasures” of mysteries and things unknown to them previously which were now made known and explained to them by God’s revelation.  The Apostle Paul is the best example of this - he used to possess only the “old treasures” of the Law and Prophets as a devout Pharisee or Jewish religious teacher. However, following his conversion, God revealed to Paul the two greatest mysteries hidden in the Old Testament - that of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the mystery of the Church opening the way for Gentiles into God’s Kingdom. His writings concerning these two mysteries make up almost half of the New Testament books.  Today, we are privileged to be that generation who will find in the Bible not just the “old treasures” of what have already been taught - the doctrines that make up our Christian faith - but also “new treasures” concerning the final mysteries surrounding the end times - understanding the signs of the times, knowing the nearness of Jesus’ return, recognising the trials that will arise and therefore preparing and equipping ourselves for what needs to be done - if we believe and receive God’s Rhema that is being released today.    Lastly, this message completes the entire picture, the culmination of a common prophetic narrative. As mentioned earlier, the Old Testament Prophets addressed various nations over a period of four centuries, bringing God’s Rhema to His people as well as His enemies. Yet there was a common theme or narrative shared by these prophets that would only be partially fulfilled during their time, nor was it completely fulfilled at the first coming of Jesus, but pointed to a distant future - a future which is now upon us - when God will bring about its eventual and complete fulfilment.  The thought of prophecies having partial and multiple gradual fulfilments should not surprise us given our earlier cyclical understanding of time. This idea is best reflected in the Jewish word for year (Shanah) - it shares the same root as the words “repeat” and “change” portraying time as an ascending helix,

29 SEP 2019 · Shalom Aleichem and welcome to the Issachar B7D Fellowship! Sunset today (Sunday, 29 September 2019) marks the beginning of a Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah - "head of the year") with the blowing of the Shofar (Ram's horn) to commemorate the Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah - "Day of Trumpets"). More importantly, this Feast is prophetic of Christ's return at the Last Trumpet. If we go by the official Jewish calendar, we are entering the Hebrew year AM 5780 (AM or Anno Mundi means year after Creation - meaning we are entering the 5780th year after Creation), but if we take into account the possibility that there are 165 missing years in this calendar (which I have covered in my study), then this brings us much closer to the end of the Sixth Millennium at AM 5945. In my own study, where I have based my dates on the chronology of people and events in the Bible, we are even nearer at AM 5979 before Christ returns to usher in His Millennial Sabbath Rule as symbolized by the Seventh Day of the original Creation account. Looking back, the Issachar B7D journey started three years earlier in May 2016 with a prophetic word that the Lord released in His Kairos or appointed time, a word that I was commissioned to write down. Although I didn't know then when or where it would end, God knew and in His Kairos exactly two years later, in May 2018, I finished putting down all that was needed to be said and the full B7D materials can be found here in my website. It was only recently that I realized how prophetic God's timing was. God ensured that I finished putting down His word for His people in the very month that Israel celebrated 70 years of nationhood since its rebirth in May 1948. It is my personal belief and deep conviction that God's final countdown started from that Kairos moment, meaning that some of us will live to witness Christ's return. Since then, I have put up short Youtube podcasts - each lasting just a few minutes - every first and fifteenth day of the month to unpack the word that the Lord has for His people to prepare this final generation for His soon return. We are now slightly past the halfway mark in my series of podcasts, which will end just before we enter into the next Jewish New Year in September 2020. From then on, I hope to faithfully repeat my series of podcasts every Sabbath or Friday evening, completing each cycle of the entire Issachar B7D message according to the cycle of the Jewish year, year after year after year, so as to keep the flame of God's Truth alive even as the world grows darker. I guess time will tell if I heard my Lord correctly or am I merely deluded. Like the men of Issachar, we are called to understand the times and know what we should do. For my wife and I, we have chosen to start realigning our lives to what we believe is God's Rhema for His people today, and that means recognizing and seizing every opportunity for fellowship now as God's means of preparing His people to encourage and support one another when the storms and trials eventually come until we see our Lord return in His glory or until He calls us home. "Let us not neglect meeting together ... but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:25) God bless you, Stephen & Wei Ling Lim Song credit - Yamma Ensemble (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnkb7M3dKTg)

29 SEP 2019 · Shalom Aleichem and welcome to the Issachar B7D Fellowship! Sunset today (Sunday, 29 September 2019) marks the beginning of a Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah - "head of the year") with the blowing of the Shofar (Ram's horn) to commemorate the Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah - "Day of Trumpets"). More importantly, this Feast is prophetic of Christ's return at the Last Trumpet. If we go by the official Jewish calendar, we are entering the Hebrew year AM 5780 (AM or Anno Mundi means year after Creation - meaning we are entering the 5780th year after Creation), but if we take into account the possibility that there are 165 missing years in this calendar (which I have covered in my study), then this brings us much closer to the end of the Sixth Millennium at AM 5945. In my own study, where I have based my dates on the chronology of people and events in the Bible, we are even nearer at AM 5979 before Christ returns to usher in His Millennial Sabbath Rule as symbolized by the Seventh Day of the original Creation account. Looking back, the Issachar B7D journey started three years earlier in May 2016 with a prophetic word that the Lord released in His Kairos or appointed time, a word that I was commissioned to write down. Although I didn't know then when or where it would end, God knew and in His Kairos exactly two years later, in May 2018, I finished putting down all that was needed to be said and the full B7D materials can be found here in my website. It was only recently that I realized how prophetic God's timing was. God ensured that I finished putting down His word for His people in the very month that Israel celebrated 70 years of nationhood since its rebirth in May 1948. It is my personal belief and deep conviction that God's final countdown started from that Kairos moment, meaning that some of us will live to witness Christ's return. Since then, I have put up short Youtube podcasts - each lasting just a few minutes - every first and fifteenth day of the month to unpack the word that the Lord has for His people to prepare this final generation for His soon return. We are now slightly past the halfway mark in my series of podcasts, which will end just before we enter into the next Jewish New Year in September 2020. From then on, I hope to faithfully repeat my series of podcasts every Sabbath or Friday evening, completing each cycle of the entire Issachar B7D message according to the cycle of the Jewish year, year after year after year, so as to keep the flame of God's Truth alive even as the world grows darker. I guess time will tell if I heard my Lord correctly or am I merely deluded. Like the men of Issachar, we are called to understand the times and know what we should do. For my wife and I, we have chosen to start realigning our lives to what we believe is God's Rhema for His people today, and that means recognizing and seizing every opportunity for fellowship now as God's means of preparing His people to encourage and support one another when the storms and trials eventually come until we see our Lord return in His glory or until He calls us home. "Let us not neglect meeting together ... but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:25) God bless you, Stephen & Wei Ling Lim Song credit - Yamma Ensemble (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnkb7M3dKTg)

14 SEP 2019 · 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 - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4f0848e9e5_0_4

31 AUG 2019 · 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 - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g50618e53f0_0_1

31 AUG 2019 · 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 - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g50618e53f0_0_1

14 AUG 2019 · 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 - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oJkmnecyCSWf2FF5hmGZyqV6q4aPC-fBwSrwZ1s5JuA/present#slide=id.g4f21611841_0_69

31 JUL 2019 · Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog! In our last session, we did an overview of the history of Israel - God’s Kingdom as revealed in the Old Testament. When we compare the history of the Church - God’s Kingdom as revealed in the New Testament and which Paul referred to as the Commonwealth of Israel in Eph 2:12 - against Israel we see a remarkable prophetic parallel between the two: First, the generation during the time of Jesus’ twelve apostles mirrored the Joshua generation. Both were characterised by general faithfulness to God - the Church under the leadership of the Apostles and elders who witnessed Jesus’ acts firsthand; Israel under the leadership of Joshua and the elders who witnessed God’s acts firsthand. Next, the period of the early Church Fathers. This era was similar to the period of the judges in that there was “no king” - no central scriptural authority defining what was Biblically or doctrinally correct, just as there was no central political authority in Israel then defining what was legally or morally correct. The Bible as we know it today was not decided upon until the 5th century. Consequently, everyone “did what was right in their own eyes” when it came to God’s Word, resulting in a cycle of false teachings and doctrines, convening of church councils to fight these errors, and a return to doctrinal truth until the next heresy hit, not unlike the cycles that defined the period of the judges.  Following that, we see the emergence of a human king combining both political, worldly power and spiritual authority with the dawn of the Christian Roman Empire and rise of the Roman Catholic Papacy. But while in the early years of Solomon we see Israel reflecting the rule and glory of God most fully with the completion of the Temple of God, in the Pope’s attempt to elevate himself above the other Church Patriarchs then, we see in the Church the rise of the rule of man and a monument/institution built to his own glory. We will elaborate on this in our later podcasts. This act ultimately led to the Great Schism of 1054 AD, marking the beginning of Day 6.   As the names implies, the Great Schism marked the beginning of division within the Church. Like the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah, we see the separation of the Eastern Orthodox and Western Roman Catholic Church, followed by Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, the various denominations, denominational vs non-denominational, charismatic vs non-charismatic and so forth. At the same time, Christians were - and continue to be - taken into spiritual exile and slavery as it were by the growing apostasy and corruption of the Church. In his work “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church” written almost 500 years ago, Martin Luther pointed out that just as the Jews were carried away from Jerusalem into captivity under the oppression of the Babylonian Empire, so in Europe during his time Christians had been carried away from the Scriptures and made subject to the power of the Roman Catholic Papacy through various unscriptural practices. This spread of deception and misuse of religious authority throughout the worldwide Church will only grow more and more as we reach the end of Day 6 with the revealing of the Antichrist.  But just as God restored the faithful among the Jews after a season of discipline, He restores the faithful among the Church in His Kairos. As in the days of Cyrus, God released His Rhema through Luther’s proclamation of the basic doctrines of faith, grace and scripture alone. This triggered the beginning of the return of God’s people back to His truth as found in the Bible with the Protestant Reformation of 1517, something that continues even today amidst the growing darkness both in the Church and in the world - until the fullness of the Gentiles is reached.  And then, in His Kairos, God Himself will return as Jesus the King of Kings. Amen, Come Lord Jesus (Rev 22:20).  Link to presentation - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1