Well, the 19th came and went, and we’re still here! But quite possibly not for long; in fact we could be gone this time next week. Here’s why.

Firstly, I want to address anyone who thinks that this is just an exercise in constantly moving the goalposts…I’ve heard it said, and I don’t expect non-believers to understand our hope – though the kinder folk among them may try! But it’s truly sad when other Christians say it and attack us for doing what Jesus Himself said to do: watch! I have been through phases of not wanting to engage in this at all, so I do understand both points of view – it can be incredibly hard and stressful living in two parallel worlds; the “all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation” kinda everyday life in the world (see 2 Peter 3 for that reference), and the “look up and lift up your heads, because your salvation draws near” urgency that seems to grow with each new event or insight (look at Luke 21 for that reference). But each time a possible Rapture date comes and goes, we are doing what any good investigator or scientist or academic does when studying their discipline; one theory is laid aside when it’s no longer relevant, and it’s superseded each time by a new idea or discovery. God is the ultimate Master of secrets, signs, codes, pictures, mysteries and prophecies, and He is unraveling them at the time of His choosing to those who are seeking Him for wisdom. See what King Solomon, the wisest man in history, says in this Scripture:

“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; but the honour of kings to search out a matter.”

Proverbs 25:2

And yes, if you’re a believer, God has made you a king and a priest before Him forever (Revelation 1:6), so this applies to you too! Each time a potential Rapture date comes and goes, God is using those studies that went into it to deepen our faith, our appreciation of His designs and His beauty and His power and His sovereignty and His heart of love and patience and holiness, and each time, He also leads us on to the next clue as we follow this incredible treasure trail to His Kingdom.

So now; Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The next big date on the autumn calendar, and the day that I have felt for a long time with all my heart would be the date Jesus would return bodily at the end of the Tribulation. He will come in power and great glory to rescue Israel and to judge once and for all who has received Him as Saviour and therefore has a place in His kingdom, and who goes to eternal separation from Him in hell for their total rejection of Him. The Jewish people will finally see that HE is their atonement, and they will mourn and repent (Zechariah 12:10). I still believe this is the case, but there’s a specialness about THIS Yom Kippur, 2023, that means it’s a very high watch time for the Rapture.

Paul says that we will be raptured at “the Last Trumpet” in 1 Corinthians 15:52. So when is the Last Trumpet. There are many, many trumpet blasts, throughout Elul and the lead-up to Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets, and there are Trumpets throughout that festival – Leviticus 23:24 says that there is to be a blowing of trumpets for commemoration, but it doesn’t say what for. Then, according to the same chapter, you have the Day of Atonement, and there are no trumpets mentioned. Except during a very special year; every 50th year, the Jubilee. This was the year when all debts were cancelled, all slaves freed, and all ancestral land that had been sold reverted to it’s original owners. It prevented generations of servitude or usury, and helped the people learn the heart of their God for freedom and dignity. Here’s the shocking thing though; we have no record of this ever being observed. God calls His wayward people out several times in the words of the prophets for denying the Land her Sabbaths, in other words the Shemitah cycle and the Jubilees, and s0 we can conclude that this practice was neglected by sinful, greedy people…nothing changes in the heart of mankind, whoever they are, over the centuries. But God never neglects His own ordinances and covenants, and He has promised both the Land and the faithful remnant of His people a wonderful Sabbath rest and Jubilee when Messiah reigns on the earth. And 2023/24 ‘just happens’ to be a Jubilee Year. Interesting, huh? Let me go further.

In the Jubilee years, the Last Trumpet is actually the trumpet that declares the beginning of the Jubilee freedom:

“Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty thought all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession and each of you shall return to his family.”

Leviticus 25:9-10, NKJV

Now turn to Luke 4, where Jesus, who has just been tempted by Satan in the wilderness, returns to His hometown and on Shabbat is called to the Torah to read a portion for that day’s service. The Torah itself has already been read, and He is being called to read either the Haftorah or the Maftir – the text doesn’t give us enough clues as to whether these set reading cycles were fully developed at this point in the 1st century. In any case, He is handed the scroll of the majestic prophet Isaiah, and He reads this:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord…”

Isaiah 61:1-2a

Then He stops in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a verse (in English at least!) and hands the scroll back, to give a commentary on the Parshah, as would be quite normal for a learned Jewish man. We know that many people called Him Rabbi, so He was already known for His wisdom, but that day, He incenses the people by claiming that HE is the fulfilment of the prophecy. The acceptable year of the Lord is the Jubilee year, and it is widely accepted that this passage refers to Messiah and the Messianic age, hence their outrage. Interestingly, where He stops is a dividing line in the prophecy, into which 2,000 years nestle, between the Jubilee Year which began Jesus’ first ministry of healing, reconciliation, and ultimately spiritual atonement, and the “the day of vengeance of our God” which completes the verse. Perhaps the day that Jesus read this in the synagogue was indeed Yom Kippur – it would make sense that the Jubilee year was declared on that day – and it will be Yom Kippur when He returns to complete the prophecy in judgment and justice.

But this will be 7 years (one Shemitah cycle, one Sabbath) into a new Jubilee cycle because this year is a Jubilee. So if Jesus was to rapture us on the Last Trumpet of this autumn’s trumpets, on Yom Kippur, He is proclaiming liberty for the captives, for us who are still oppressed, in bondage in our flesh to sin and corruption and illness and death, and we will be given the freedom of new, resurrection bodies and taken HOME to heaven. Because we are not citizens of this world; when we were saved we were given citizenship of heaven, and though our souls are redeemed and bought by Jesus’ blood, and sealed by the Holy Spirit, our bodies are still awaiting part 2 of our salvation, the mortal becoming immortal, as described in 1 Corinthians 15. According to the passage in Leviticus, each person’s possession was to be returned to them at the Jubilee. We are Jesus’s possession; He bought us with His own blood, and has given us a down-payment of His promise to redeem us fully, physically, so when He comes back, still a Torah-observant Jew, a Son of David, He will claim that which is His, His bride the church. The picture is so beautiful, friends! It makes so much sense of all these passages and the heart of our covenant-keeping God!

So, when is Yom Kippur this year? Well, following on from astronomical Rosh Hashanah, it could be anytime between the 27th and 29th September, 2023. Watch this space. The case that I have tried to lay out above is only one facet of everything else going on around us that points to this being the last days of the last days before the Tribulation. Read my post on 2023 if you haven’t yet – there’s so much more I want to write about involving the SDG Summit/Agenda 2030, the climate hoax, the alien hoax, the sharp descent into complete depravity with the LGBT/Trans agenda attacking children, the transhumanist agenda, the readiness of the Temple Mount Faithful to restore temple worship…King Charles III possibly being the antichrist (okay, yes, I’ve said it!)…the convergence of signs and of the birth pains increasing; friends, if Jesus doesn’t come this year, I’m going to be shocked – not faith-shaken, but shocked; everything that Jesus and the prophets said is happening now, and I genuinely can’t see this world being able to go much longer without Divine intervention.

So let’s wait and watch and pray and share – come, Lord Jesus!