It feels strange sitting here on a very grey, blustery day – 19th September 2023 – and thinking this, again. I’m not fazed that it’s the umpteenth possible rapture date we’ve considered over the past two years…each time one passes, we discover something new that the Lord is showing us in His word and in His world that points back to prophecy and forward to His coming to claim His bride, so though He may seem to tarry, He will be right on time. Here are a few thoughts about today…
Today is astronomical Rosh Hashanah. The Feast of Trumpets. The only feast where there was any ambiguity about its starting point, due to it beginning on a New Moon. The first sliver of the New Moon had to be sighted by two witnesses from Jerusalem, and verified before the priests (and later the Sanhedrin) before the feast could officially be proclaimed. But what if it’s cloudy? What if something obscures the moon, or it’s not in the right place on the right day? Exactly. “No one knows the day or the hour”…it’s an idiom referring to both Rosh Hashanah and the coming of the Bridegroom in a Jewish wedding (see my earlier post on that), but in both cases you’d have a pretty good idea of the season…the time of year, the likelihood. Even for a wedding, where the bride and her family had no definite date, it would be either one year, or at the most two years, after the date of the betrothal, and the bridegroom wasn’t to be late. So think of the anniversary, and you’ve got a pretty good guess. When was our betrothal to the Lord? When He created the New Covenant at Pesach in AD30…
‘Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day that I drink it new with you in My Father’s Kingdom.”‘
Matthew 26:27-29 NKJV
This wedding language, the language of the shared cup of betrothal, where the bride and groom share wine, and then don’t see each other again until they share the cup of consummation on their wedding day, would have resonated with the disciples, some of whom were married (like Peter), and who would all have been to many weddings. They’d also have immediately been reminded of a passage, which is still read in the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah TO THIS DAY:
“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah – not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my Law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people…for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more.”
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Now, almost 2,000 years later to the very year (in fact, with just one week of years left!), here we are, awaiting the return of our Blessed Hope, our Bridegroom. Jewish wedding celebrations often last a whole 7 days after the initial ceremony and consummation, so coming for your bride with a week to go until your second betrothal anniversary would be quite neat planning! And there are some other interesting facts that seem very relevant for today of all days: according to My Jewish Learning, Tuesdays are considered a good day for a wedding, because on the days of creation, the third day is the only day where the phrase “And God saw that it was good” appears twice, thereby giving it special significance. And a Rosh Chodesh, or beginning of a month is also an opportune and popular time because of the waxing moon symbolising growth and fertility. Now, granted, these are the traditions of men, and in a faith which has had lots of superstition and mysticism mixed with it over the centuries, but nonetheless that’s pretty interesting, because today is Tuesday and if the New Moon has been sighted (would have to have been elsewhere, as the UK is currently blanketed under miles of grey cloud!), that makes it the Rosh Chodesh of Tishri.
It’s also around the time of the feast of oil, the last of the firstfruits offerings, each 50 days apart, of barley, wheat, new wine, and then oil…the oil of the Holy Spirit in the lamps of the Wise Virgins in Jesus’ parable all about the rapture, perhaps? The Oil of Joy or Oil of Gladness with which Jesus was anointed (Psalm 45:7, also about a wedding!), and which He gives in abundance to His people? The sacred, beautifully blended and scented oil of consecration, used to consecrate priests and holy tabernacle vessels in Exodus 30:22-25? And where was oil stored, especially for ceremonial anointing? In a horn – the same sort of rams horn that was also fashioned into the Shofar, the Trumpet, blown at high days and holy days and fasts and feasts, and to gather the people for blessing or for war. All significant correlations, signs and hints perhaps, that this is the right season.
As I covered in my last post, the SDG summit is currently taking place at the UN, where they’re recommitting, or confirming, a 7 year push towards the dystopian New World Order that they are planning to impose upon the world. Daniel 9:27 talks about the confirming of a covenant “with many” at the start of the tribulation, and out of this, the antichrist will be revealed and will deceive many. AI and the deep fake are going to play a huge role in this new SDG push, and the deception surrounding aliens and UFOs is growing ever more intense. This is going to be how they discredit the Rapture and deceive the world; check this video out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn9JrotuNuk . And it’s not just Christians saying this; the New Agers are also saying similar things, only they will claim that those taken are the stubborn ones, unwilling to reach the higher level of consciousness and holding back the world from moving into the new Age of Aquarius, and enlightenment, with its own ‘saviour’ figure…Satan’s false Christ, the antichrist. I will post a testimony of a former New Ager who lays all this out clearly.
Peace and Safety – or Peace and Security – is the buzzword for this time of year at the UN, and has been for 75 years. It’s in the UN Charter, it’s reconfirmed every year at the annual UN conference, and this year it’s being even more underlined as the International Day of Peace is Thursday 21st Sept, the day after tomorrow, and they will be marking it alongside the SDG summit with “A rallying cry to leave no-one behind”…interesting choice of language if they’re not already clued into the fact that millions will in fact be left behind. Satan is limited in his understanding, but he’s not stupid – he’s constrained by the Holy Spirit and the presence of the Bride of Christ on earth, but when we’re taken, he is cast to earth with great wrath to take as many of the left-behinders with him as he can before he’s bound for 1,000 years (Revelation 12:9, 12 and 20:1-3). He knows his time is short, and whether he is cast to earth at the beginning of the tribulation or the middle (options differ), he wants to kill and maim and destroy as many as possible, especially Israel, in a vain attempt to prevent the return of the Lord Jesus to the Mount of Olives, which spells his doom. 1 Thessalonians 5:2 says that when Peace and Safety is announced, then sudden destruction will come upon them and they will not escape. In a way, the inescapable cycle of wars and disasters that has characterised the last 75-80 years is one fulfilment of this, but there will be a very specific fulfilment when the Tribulation starts, and that could be anytime now.
Israel is also in peace talks at the very same time as this SDG summit, which is interesting if there’s going to have to be some sort of new arrangement in the Middle East whereby a third temple can be constructed (Daniel and Jesus specifically say that the antichrist will do terrible things in the temple – Daniel 9:27 and Matthew 24:15 – and there currently isn’t one, hence the need to rebuild). The gathering and reconstruction of stuff for the temple furnishings and training of priests has been going on for decades, and there are several possible red heifers alive today for the consecrating ashes, so it’s all ready to go, just as you’d expect. The antichrist will turn on Israel, having been their false messiah at first, and he will persecute them horrifically, such that thousands upon thousand will flee into the wilderness from Israeli cities…but the Lord will have the last word, and He will defeat Satan and the antichrist at the end.
All this, and much more is happening now, at once, in tandem, and the heart of Jesus’ bride is lovesick for His imminent return. Will He come today? If He doesn’t, our hope is not in a date, but in the Lord of Heaven and Earth, and His timing is always perfect. I trust that He will come very soon, and we shall see how perfectly He has governed all things to bring out His purposes in just the right time. He is waiting for every last soul who will be a part of His bride to be brought into the fold before He comes for her, and when He does, nothing on earth can stop that amazing reunion!
Jeremiah 31:3 