‘Who has believed our report?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,

And as a root out of dry ground.

He has no form or comeliness;

And when we see Him,

There is no beauty that we should desire Him.

He is despised and rejected by men,

A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;

He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Surely He has borne our griefs

And carried our sorrows;

Yet we esteemed Him stricken,

Smitten by God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

And by His stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

We have turned, every one, to his own way;

And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,

Yet He opened not His mouth;

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,

And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

So He opened not His mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment,

And who will declare His generation?

For He was cut off from the land of the living;

For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.

And they made His grave with the wicked—

But with the rich at His death,

Because He had done no violence,

Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;

He has put Him to grief.

When You make His soul an offering for sin,

He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,

And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.

He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.

By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,

For He shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,

And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,

Because He poured out His soul unto death,

And He was numbered with the transgressors,

And He bore the sin of many,

And made intercession for the transgressors.’

Isaiah chapter 53

Jewish Messianic Interpretations of Isaiah 53 – Targum, Babylonian Talmud etc.

Day 7 of the Book of Mysteries by Jonathan Cahn

The teacher led me out into the desert ravine where we sat down in the sand, face to face. He picked up a stick, and, with the slightest of movements, created the smallest of marks in the sand.

“This can change your life,” he said.

“An apostrophe?”

“A yud.”

“What’s a yud?”

“A yud is a letter, the smallest of the Hebrew letters…barely more than a dot, so small you could miss it. From the letter yud came the Roman letters I and J. And from the yud came the Greek letter iota.

“As in, ‘not one iota’…?”

“Yes, or as in ‘not one jot’. It all comes from the same tiny letter.”

” So it’s the smallest of all letters. Why is it significant?”

“That’s the point…as the smallest of letters, it is the most significant. It is the yud that begins the greatest and most sacred of Hebrew words: the sacred Name of God, YHVH, begins with a yud. The land of God, Israel, begins with a yud in Hebrew – Yisrael. The city of God, Jerusalem, begins with a yud – Yerushalayim. And the Name Jesus, Yeshua in Hebrew, begins as well with a yud.”

“And what does it all mean?”

“The greatest of words begin with the smallest of letters. In the same way, the greatest of God’s works begin with the smallest of strokes. Life itself begins on a scale so small it can’t even be seen. It’s the secret of the yud.”

“And how does one apply it?”

“We are called to the new and to change. But by nature we avoid both newness and change. So how do you change? How do you go from a life of failure to a life of victory? It’s an overwhelming prospect. So how do you do it? With the yud. You start by taking the yud of steps, the smallest of steps but toward the greatest of changes. You don’t start out with a great victory, but you take the yud, one small action, one little step toward that great victory. You take that one step, that yud of courage, that iota of change, that smallest stroke of new beginnings, the yud of the life you’re called to live. You begin the greatest of things with the smallest of strokes. You begin by applying the secret of the yud.”

The Mission: Today, take the smallest of actions, but in a new direction, the first step toward the life of victory you’re called to live – the yud of a new journey.

Job 8:7; Acts 3:4-9

In Part 1 we covered the Spring feasts and their beautiful, chronological fulfilment in Yeshua Jesus’s first coming; now we look forward to the Autumn feasts, and at their prophetic significance for the end times, which we have been living through for the last century or so, culminating in these next seven years.

The Autumn Feasts

After Shavuot/Pentecost, there is a long gap before the next festivals, in the autumn. This gap is not dependent on a specific number of days after wherever Shavuot ended up, but rather, because the New Year starts on the first day of seventh month, the gap between them varies and is of uncertain length, year on year. This testifies of our experience of waiting, living in expectation of the trumpet call which announced the return of King Jesus to rapture His bride the church of believers. Now that this has happened, things may well have a more easily and clearly predictable timing.

The Feast of Trumpets is called Yom Teruah in Hebrew, which means a loud noise, or blast of the horn, rather than trumpet specifically. The feast is about the coming of the King and the gathering of the people to Him after a month-long preparation of sounding the shofar, prayer, teshuvah (repentance) and seeking after Him. It was a holy gathering of the people, a rest day, and they were to offer burnt sacrifices, all ultimately in preparation for the Day of Atonement. We learn in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 that there will be a great trumpet sound to usher in the return of the Messiah for His bride. Although Jesus opened the door of redemption 2,000 years ago, God has yet to ultimately redeem all things to Himself as He promised He would do in the age to come, the Millennial Kingdom, but this Day was a huge step on the way to that. The covenant of love between Messiah and His bride is being spiritually consummated now; those who had put their faith in Him during their earthly lives are now perfected, no longer living in bodies ruled by decay and sin and death, and we are rejoicing in the very presence of our Lord in resurrection bodies like His. The Apostle John put it like this in expectation of that Day:

‘Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.’

1 John 3:2-3, emphasis mine

Ten days later, on the tenth day of the seventh month, we have Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. The number ten signifies God’s claim for perfect obedience (think of the 10 commandments). In this special day of national repentance and sacrifice, the claims of God are met and the conscience of the people is cleared. It’s a time of affliction and humbling, repentance and cleansing. In ancient Israel, the high priest entered the Holiest Place, alone, with the blood of a lamb once a year on Yom Kippur, to atone for his own sin and the sin of the people. But Jesus, the last true high priest, has offered up His own blood, and entered God’s presence to make a way for us to be together with Him in the Holy of Holies. However, those who reject the sacrifice and forgiveness of Jesus will have to stand before the judgement seat with no cover of atonement; prayer, good deeds, and the blood of animals is not enough. Yom Kippur points towards the Day of Judgement, the great and terrible day of the Lord. I personally believe that Yom Kippur is the day when Jesus will return in power and glory at the end of the tribulation, seven years from now, when all Israel will finally recognise Him as the Messiah:

“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.”

Zechariah 12:10

Just as we knew that 2021 would be the year of the Rapture to literally fulfil the Feast of Trumpets, I think that Yom Kippur 2028 is a pretty good guide for the timing of Jesus’ final return to this earth to put this world right. You need to be right with Him before that happens, or before you face your own personal Day of Atonement after death; whichever comes first. Don’t delay – accept Messiah’s sacrifice on your behalf and be made right with the Judge of all the earth, who will always do what is right and just (Genesis 18:25).

Last of all we have the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot in Hebrew. This is the most joyful and exuberant of all the feasts in Leviticus. After hearing Ezra the priest read the instructions about how to celebrate Sukkot once the exiled Israelites had returned from Babylon, the people joyfully went to fulfil the command to go and build booths! God instructed His people to build booths/shelters, or sukkot as they’re called in Hebrew, to remind us of the forty years of journeying through the desert. A week spent in a flimsy shelters reminds us of the temporary nature of this life, and points to our eternal home in the world to come. We eat and celebrate and even sleep in the sukkot (weather-permitting!), and recount God’s faithfulness to one another with joy.

The wheat harvest and the grape harvest are both gathered before Sukkot. Israel as a nation is called God’s vine in many Old Testament prophetic books, and God is likened to the vine-tender. Jesus speaks of good crops of wheat being like fruitful believers, and also likened believers to the branches of Himself, the Vine. However, the Bible also warns us of grapes trodden down in God’s wrath, symbolic of the nations under judgement for evil. The agricultural harvesting and the sorting all happen before Sukkot, which is like a big harvest festival. Unlike the Feast of Unleavened Bread which is seven days long (seven being the number of perfection), this holiday lasts for eight days, which symbolises going beyond completion into eternity, resurrection and a new beginning. There are seven days of the feast, with an eighth day (known as sh’mini atzeret) of joyful rest at the end!

“So on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruits of the land, you are to keep the Feast of Adonai [the Lord] for seven days. The first day is to be a Shabbat rest, and the eighth day will also be a Shabbat rest.”

Leviticus 23:39

In Zechariah 2:10, God promises His people that He’s going to come and tabernacle with us, which finds its ultimate, physical, literal fulfilment in the Millennial reign of our King Messiah on the earth from Jerusalem, spoken of throughout the Old and New Testaments. This will happen in seven years time when He returns, but only those who love and trust Him may enter that Kingdom. Jesus makes it clear to us that He wants to live with us, and we with Him (John 14:23). In Jewish thought, a sukkah is also reminiscent of a chuppa, a wedding canopy of joy and holiness. This is another shelter that points to the ultimate wedding of the Bride and the Lamb; the ultimate rest. And after that 1,000 reign on earth, we enter Eternity, the Eighth Day, the state beyond the completion of all this world was meant to be, in the New Heavens and the New Earth described in Revelation 21:

‘Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” ‘

Revelation 21:1-4

This is how the calendar ends for all believers; joyful union with God. I pray with all my heart that all you who read this will give your lives to Messiah and become part of His Bride so that you, too, may have a part in this glorious future, together with me and many others over the millennia who have loved our wonderful God and entered His rest.

These two posts are based on several articles I have found, written by Jewish people themselves (credited at the bottom of this page), as these Messianic believers have a uniquely deep understanding of their own traditions. Their joy and fulfilment in recognising Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah, revealed in centuries of cherished observance, is wonderful to see and hear, and I hope you are as blessed as I have been, discovering this heritage for myself.

The first time I came across Jewish festivals and feasts was when Jewish believers came to our church and taught us about them; I remember having several Passover Seders, where we were taken through the traditional Seder and we got to experience the joy of seeing how each detail, each cup of sweet wine or taste of bitter herbs or crunch of matzah pointed beyond Exodus to the ultimate redemption we can have through the death of the Lamb of God. Other special memories are of the same Jewish friends teaching us about Sukkot, joyfully constructing a Sukkah and waving the Etrog and the Lulav, and of Hanukkah celebrations, spinning the dreidel, singing fun songs, cooking latkes, and lighting the beautiful Hanukkiah menorah each night for 8 nights.

Just because they were instituted under the Law, that doesn’t mean that the Jewish feasts have been abolished for believers in Yeshua; He kept the feasts and festivals perfectly as an observant Jewish rabbi, and in fact, the prophecies of the Millennial reign to come speak of all the nations of the world keeping the feast of Sukkot, and the world leaders coming up to Jerusalem to pay homage to Yeshua Jesus, who is the true King over all kings and rulers of the world. The feasts are a memorial and a beautiful picture of God and His faithfulness and His plan for mankind. Read on to discover more!

The first thing to talk about is the word for feast used in Hebrew. The word for “feast” is moed (מועד). This word is based on a very important root word yad, יעד. In general, we say that moed means “appointed time”, or set feast. But there is more to it. There is certainly a sense of destiny associated with the word, but the word is also used to talk about time: everlasting, like “Everlasting Father” (Isaiah 9:6). It also means “until”. There’s another associated meaning in the word עד: it is the Hebrew word for “witness”. In court a witness gives testimony to what they have seen and heard, telling something to the people listening about something they themselves have not experienced. The witness testifies and points to something that isn’t present, but has to be explained. So all together, the word for feast, moed, means a fixed appointed time of destiny which testifies and points to something that goes both backwards in time and forwards through eternity.

The first moed appointed in the Bible is the Shabbat. In Ezekiel 20:12 God says that the Shabbat is a sign between Him and His people, a holy day which serves as a reminder that He has set us aside to be a holy people. The pause each week reminds us that it’s God who created the world and the seven day week, and Jesus says that the Shabbat was created for our benefit. The rest from work helps us relate in a more healthy way to God, our families, our environment and ourselves. Hebrews chapter 4 also explains that it is a witness to the rest that Jesus would bring through His work on the cross. Now He has finished His work and is seated at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 10:12). Thanks to Yeshua, we can enter perfect rest with God through Him. Shabbat testifies to what Jesus did when He paid for our sin, and also what we have to look forward to when He returns in glory.

Another interesting thing about the Shabbat is that God made seven days in the week; six of work and one of rest. He could have chosen any number, but He chose seven. Many of the times and seasons mentioned in Genesis 1 are obvious to both humans and animals alike – nature knows the difference between night and day, spring, summer, fall and winter; even months going by as the moon waxes and wanes and the incredible ways that everything is interconnected in creation. But the days of the week? Only human beings know which day of the week it is – no animal knows whether it’s Shabbat or not! The six day working week and Shabbat was created by God for us. The whole world more or less keeps to this pattern, this seven days of completion, and this is also significant, as we shall see. It also points to the ages of history – 6,000 years of the (mis)rule of mankind plus 1,000 years of the reign of Messiah as a Shabbat millennium for the earth and all believers, yet to come, but very soon – only about 7 years away as you are reading this.

The Spring Feasts

The first set of feasts come in the Spring, and they are all related to one another:

In Exodus 12, God instructs the Israelites to start the calendar in the first month, which is now known as Nisan in the Spring. 

‘Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household…Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight…Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy youwhen I strike the land of Egypt.”‘

Exodus 12:1-3, 5-6, 13

When we think of the events of the Passover and the Exodus from Egypt, it’s hard to think of a more perfect picture for what was to come in Jesus! An innocent lamb without flaws was sacrificed in place of the firstborn, and the blood smeared on wood vertically and horizontally so that people who believed would be saved from death. Hammering the point home, Jesus was tested and found innocent, then He was beaten and betrayed, before his sacrifice for us on the wooden cross at exactly the same time Passover lambs were being checked and slaughtered. The picture is crystal clear. 

‘Get rid of the old hametz [leaven], so you may be a new batch, just as you are unleavened – for Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us.”

1 Corinthians 5:7

Then the people, after being redeemed by blood, passed through water and went on a long, hard journey before they finally arrived in the Promised Land. Similarly, after receiving salvation through the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world, we go through the waters of baptism and walk with God through hardships until we finally arrive in the place prepared for us, in His presence.

After the night of Passover itself, we enter the Feast of Unleavened Bread which lasts for seven days. This is a picture of our lives as believers here on earth, choosing to turn our back on sin, with leaven (hametz) being symbolic of sin. The unleavened bread also points to Jesus – matzah bread is striped and pierced, just as He was, and with no trace of leaven, which represents sin and pride. There is SO much more in Passover that points clearly and beautifully to Jesus, and of course, the Last Supper was a Passover Seder given new and deeper meaning by Jesus as He led the celebration. Perhaps I shall do a post specifically about Yeshua in the Passover, but this is a good summary for now.

The 14th of Nisan, the night of the Passover, falls on different days of the week each year as it is a lunar festival and the Hebrew calendar is based on lunar months, but we are told that the Feast of Firstfruits must always be celebrated on the first SUNDAY (called Yom Rishon ‘First Day’ in Hebrew) after Passover (Leviticus 23:15). This feast is unique in that it fixes the day of the week – of course it points to resurrection Sunday, as a prophetic witness to the day when Jesus gained victory over death. It is also unusual because although there are other sacrifices mentioned, there is no sin offering required for the festival of Firstfruits. Jesus was the firstfruits to rise again from the dead, never to die again, but He will not be the last! Now that we are almost at the end of the age, this harvest of which He was the firstfruits has almost been fulfilled – we were the generation that did not see death but rather joined Him in the Rapture, and now have glorious, new resurrection bodies like His. We have been changed, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:52), and you, too, can be changed and receive both eternal life now and a new body one day soon if you put your trust in Jesus.

Then from that Sunday of Firstfruits, God commands that His people should count seven weeks, known as the Omer, to the Feast of Weeks, or Shavuot in Hebrew, which means ‘weeks’ (Leviticus 23:16). This festival is also known as Pentecost, with pente meaning 50, because it’s 50 days since Firstfruits. Pentecost is the time when God poured out His Holy Spirit on the early believers, giving them His power to live a new life in the Messiah and take the gospel all over the world. Shavuot testifies to the gathering and inclusion of the Gentiles into the New Covenant. It is also the traditional date for the beginning of the Old Covenant – the giving of the Law at Sinai – which is seen as the betrothal of God to His covenant people Israel, with the Law as the marriage contract. The beautiful book of Ruth, all about love and redemption, takes place at Shavuot.

These Spring feasts are all connected and dependent on each other, and the basis and foundation is the blood of the Lamb. All the other Spring Feasts depend on when the night of Passover falls. Unleavened bread follows the Passover seder, and Firstfruits falls on whichever Sunday comes next… and Shavuot is counted seven weeks from then. But it all hinges on that night of blood on the doorframes. Eating the unleavened bread of a repentant lifestyle is no use without the salvation of blood (Hebrews 9:22). The Passover and the redemption of blood must come first, and is followed by the equipping of the Spirit to help us walk out our new lives in Him. 

So, all these Spring Feasts have been fulfilled in many ways by the first coming of Jesus as the meek, humble Lamb of God, specifically to fulfil perfectly the requirements of that first covenant of the Law, and then to shed His blood to seal a new betrothal in the New Covenant – which, by the way, was always the plan even under the Old Covenant, just as the Jewish people will always be God’s people:

“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 that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the 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 that 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.”

Jeremiah 31:31-33

Yeshua, whose Name means Salvation, came to reach out to His own Jewish people, and then through them to draw in the Gentiles who would believe on Him, and now, nearly 2,000 years later, we are coming to the end of the ‘times of the Gentiles’ (Luke 21:24), and His return is imminent. The autumn feasts that I will cover in Part 2 all point to these end times events, and you’ve already witnessed one of them in the Rapture – there is much yet to come!

Sources: https://www.oneforisrael.org/holidays/the-biblical-feasts-of-israel-all-point-to-jesus/ ; https://ruthsroad.org/ruths-road-life-together/ ; https://www.chosenpeople.org.uk/passoverourstory/ ; https://www.compellingtruth.org/Jewish-Feasts.html

Day 2 of The Book of Mysteries by Jonathan Cahn

It was by the second day that I realised that there would be no set time for the teacher’s coming. He came in the afternoon.

“Do you know the Name of God?” asked the teacher.

“I don’t know that I do.”

“It’s made up of four Hebrew letters, the yud, the hey, the vav, and the hey again: YHVH – יְהוָֹה. It’s the most sacred of names, so sacred some refuse to say it. And yet, you say it all the time.”

“The sacred Name of God?” I replied, “How could I, when I never knew it?”

“When you speak of yourself, you say the Name.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When you feel happy, you say, ‘I am happy.’ And when you’re not, you say ‘I am sad.’ When you tell others who you are, you say ‘I am’ followed by your name. YHVH means ‘I am’. It’s the Name of the Eternal, the Name of God. His Name is I Am.”

“Then we all say His Name.”

“Yes. And you have always said it. It is woven into the fabric of existence that when you speak of yourself, you must say His Name.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s because your existence comes from His existence. He is the I Am of all existence…the I Am of all I ams. Your own ‘I am’ only exists because of His I Am. And as you exist from Him, so it is only from Him that you can find the reason and purpose of your existence. Therefore, when you say your name, you must always speak His Name. And you must always speak His Name first.”

“Because…”

“Because His existence is first and your existence flows forth from His. That’s the flow of existence. Therefore, you must put Him first and then let everything flow from that. Let everything begin with Him and flow forth from Him. That’s the secret of life. To not only live for Him, but to live your life from Him, to live from His living, to move from His moving, to act from His actions, to feel from His heart, to be from His being, and to become who you are from who He is…I am.”

The Mission: Today, learn the secret of living each moment from His life, doing from His doing, loving from His love, and being from His being.

Exodus 3:14-15; Acts 17:28

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts,

Come to the waters;

And you who have no money,

Come, buy and eat.

Yes, come, buy wine and milk

Without money and without price.

Why do you ^[a]spend money for what is not bread,

And your wages for what does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,

And let your soul delight itself in abundance.

³ Incline your ear, and come to Me.

Hear, and your soul shall live;

And I will make an everlasting covenant with you—

The sure mercies of David.

⁴ Indeed I have given him as a witness to the people,

A leader and commander for the people.

⁵ Surely you shall call a nation you do not know,

And nations who do not know you shall run to you,

Because of the Lord your God,

And the Holy One of Israel;

For He has glorified you.”

Seek the Lord while He may be found,

Call upon Him while He is near.

⁷ Let the ^[b]wicked forsake his way,

And the unrighteous man his thoughts;

Let him return to the Lord,

And He will have mercy on him;

And to our God,

For He will abundantly pardon.“

For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,

And do not return there,

But water the earth,

And make it bring forth and bud,

That it may give seed to the sower

And bread to the eater,

¹¹ So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;

It shall not return to Me ^[c]void,

But it shall accomplish what I please,

And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

“For you shall go out with joy,

And be led out with peace;

The mountains and the hills

Shall break forth into singing before you,

And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

¹³ Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree,

And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree;

And it shall be to the Lord for a name,

For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

Footnotes
Isaiah 55:2 Lit. weigh out silver
Isaiah 55:7 Lit. man of iniquity
Isaiah 55:11 empty, without fruit

Day 1 of The Book of Mysteries by Jonathan Cahn

It was morning. The teacher came to my room holding a little clay jar.

“A question,” he said, “Can that which is little contain that which is big?”

“No,” I answered.

“Can that which is finite encompass that which is infinite?”

“No,” I said again.

“But it can,” he replied.

“How?”

He lifted the jar and removed the cap from the top.

“It can,” he said again. “It can if it is an open vessel. A closed vessel can never contain anything larger than its own size. But an open vessel has no limitations. It can now contain the blowing of the wind or the outpouring of the rain. It could even contain the flowing of a river.”

“It would take a long time to contain a river.”

“It could take forever, but the principle is the same.”

“And the reason you’re showing me this is…?”

“Which is larger, that which you know or that which you don’t?”

“That which I don’t know, I would think.”

“So then, it’s only wise that you seek that which you don’t know.”

“I guess.”

“But how do you contain that which is bigger than you…that which is bigger than your ability to comprehend?”

“By becoming an open vessel,” I said.

“Yes,” said the teacher. “Only by opening yourself up can you come to know that which you don’t already know. And only by becoming an open vessel can you contain that which is greater than yourself. The truth is always greater than our knowing. Your mind and heart are finite, clay jars. But the truth has no end. God has no end. The Eternal is infinite…always flowing.”

“Like the river”, I said.

“Yes,” he said, “but when the jar opens itself up, it becomes unlimited. It can contain the waters of the river…so now open your mind, your heart, and your life. For it is only the open vessel and an open heart that can contain the infinity of God.”

The Mission: Today, open your mind, your heart, and your life to that which you don’t yet know, that you might contain that which is greater than yourself.

Isaiah 11:1-9; Jeremiah 33:3; 2 Corinthians 4:7

Chapter 38:18 through chapter 39 is one of the most detailed prophecies about a specific war – or rather, attempted invasion – in the whole of Scripture; it paints a pretty terrifying and awesome picture of what God will do, and it leaves the reader in no doubt that when it happens, all people everywhere will know that this is a direct and supernatural intervention by God Himself on behalf of His people.

Firstly, there will be an enormous earthquake – and when I say enormous, I mean literally off-the-Richter-scale enormous:

‘Surely in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel, so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all creeping things that creep on the earth, and all men who are on the face of the earth shall shake at My presence. The mountains shall be thrown down, the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.’

Ezekiel 38:19-20

Interestingly, seismologists have been watching the earthquake situation in Israel very closely for many years, and have been predicting a major quake in the near future. Apparently the region has large earthquakes about every 100-150 years, and the last major one was in 1927 — a 6.2-magnitude tremor that killed 500 people and injured 700. The Times of Israel reported in December 2020 that Israel’s earthquake readiness isn’t good enough, and that the quakes could get larger (https://www.timesofisrael.com/major-earthquake-killing-hundreds-likely-to-hit-israel-in-coming-years-study/).

Following this, it seems the armies are about to flee the region, but God is not finished with them. Chapter 38 ends with a description of ‘flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone’ being rained down on the armies as they are sent into disarray on the mountains north of Israel – this is nothing short of an apocalyptic, direct and supernatural intervention, and thanks to our modern-day technology, the whole world will be able to watch this unfolding in real time.

‘And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal; and I will turn you around and lead you on, bringing you up from the far north, and bring you against the mountains of Israel. Then I will knock the bow out of your left hand, and cause the arrows to fall out of your right hand. You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples who are with you; I will give you to birds of prey of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. You shall fall on the open field; for I have spoken,” says the Lord God.’

Ezekiel 39:1-5

According to the narrative in this prophecy, the armies have barely reached the mountains of Israel (the Golan Heights) before God intervenes in this way, destroying weaponry and throwing the armies into confusion and self-destruction. He has done this before, on several occasions in Israel’s ancient history, notably in Exodus, as they were crossing the Red Sea, and in Judges, when Gideon leads his massively outnumbered little army against the Midianites. Both times God causes confusion and panic amongst the enemy forces, helping His people to win the victory. Here in Ezekiel, however, there isn’t a single mention of an Israeli army at this point, so the inference is that either they are taken so completely by surprise that they haven’t had time to mount a response, or that they are simply unprepared to counter such a massive invading force; quite a sobering thought for one of the world’s most advanced militaries. On this occasion, God does all the fighting for them.

The passage goes on to say that He will ‘send fire on Magog and all who live in security in the coastlands.’ (v.6). Quite what this means, apart from the obvious plain reading of the text is unclear, but the coastlands is a term used for the edge of the known world during Ezekiel’s time – some scholars believe that this includes the Iberian Peninsula and even the UK. The Phoenicians were known to have come as far north as Cornwall to trade for tin, and Tarshish is commonly accepted to indicate Spain. So just because this conflict takes place hundreds of miles away from us here, sitting cosy in the UK, that doesn’t mean we won’t be affected in some way. The purpose of this is very explicit; “Then they shall know that I am the Lord.” (v.6) God isn’t just having a capricious fit of fury like Zeus and his thunderbolts – His judgements, interventions and actions are all exact and precisely timed for bringing justice on evil and for the purpose of revealing His supreme power and glory so that in His love He can have mercy on those who repent and turn to Him for salvation.

It’s not just the nations around Israel who are being brought up short for wickedness, either. The next verse makes it clear that Israel has been profaning God’s holy Name, behaving in an unjust way that dishonours Him, and God has had enough. He is stepping in to defend His covenant people and His land because He had promised to do so in His ancient pledges to Abraham, David and the Jewish people as a whole, but He won’t let wickedness go unpunished in any nation.

“Then the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel. Surely it is coming, and it shall be done,” says the Lord God. “This is the day of which I have spoken.”

Ezekiel 39:7-8

At this point we have the first mention of human involvement. The invading armies have been thrown into complete destruction and the implication from the text is that there are no survivors – hardly surprising if fire and brimstone are involved. The only other place that we have a record of a fire and brimstone judgement like this is in Genesis when God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah, and the result of that is the wilderness surrounding the Dead Sea; it used to be the lush plains of the Jordan Valley, but now it is an eerie wasteland of ash and 98% pure sulphur concentration in pellets that still burst into toxic flame when touched with a match. The ruins of both cities have been found, and documented, corroborated with ancient sources such as Josephus, so if God is bringing a similar judgement here, similar results can be expected. The text in Ezekiel goes on to say that the people in the cities of Israel will go out and collect the weaponry, and they will be destroying it for seven years following the defeat. The text implies that they can somehow convert the weapons into an energy source, such that they won’t need natural energy resources for seven years (v. 9-10). Obviously, the language of the original text uses descriptions that ancient readers would understand; in no way am I saying that the armies will literally have old-style spears, swords, shields, and wooden implements. You have to read it with the ancient context in mind.

The text also says that the people of Israel will be burying dead bodies for seven months in order to ‘cleanse the land’. This could refer to a ceremonial cleansing, but also a very practical, everyday cleansing because there will be a lot of toxic substances left behind by this event. This cleansing and burying process is described in detail in verses 12-16, including specifics like search parties looking for human remains, and setting up markers by them wherever they are found so that teams of buriers can come and deal with them. Again, quite what this implies is unclear, but it could be that the weaponry brought against Israel by these armies is nuclear or contains other highly toxic substances that have polluted and contaminated both the land and the dead bodies, so specialists are needed to deal with it. Only time will tell.

“I will set My glory among the nations; all the nations shall see My judgment which I have executed, and My hand which I have laid on them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day forward.”

Ezekiel 39:21-22

The last few verses of Ezekiel 39 reiterate the purpose of all this; that God would be revealed in power both to the nations of the world, and also specifically to His people Israel who have been living in rebellion to His ways even after He gathered them back to their ancestral homeland and remade them as a nation. God is very clear that He will have mercy on all who turn to Him, whether Jew or Gentile, and He only brings final judgement when evil and wilful rejection of His laws has reached its absolute limit. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), and His purpose in drastic interventions is to shake people out of their apathy and bring them to the point where they have to make a decision for or against Him. He wants to have mercy and save.

“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord God. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!”

Ezekiel 18:30-32

When you see this come to pass, know that this is God’s ultimate purpose, and please believe and turn to Him in faith and repentance. As I write, I am not sure whether this will come before or after the Rapture, and if it’s afterwards, whether you will know who the Antichrist is yet, but there is a distinct possibility that he will rise to world dominance around this time, either in response to this crisis or just before, as Revelation describes a proud world-conquering figure riding out at the beginning of the Tribulation, and despite his promises of peace, war follows in his wake (Rev. 6:2-4). Or he may arise afterwards to take control and assure the world that he has the solution to Middle East peace. Whichever it is, DO NOT believe him. Only God has the solution to the mess we have made of this planet and of our societies, and He will ultimately have the victory, and bring real, lasting, beautiful peace for those who love and trust Him.

The prophet Ezekiel speaks in great detail about a terrible war which centres on Israel, but even for an area as disputed and war-torn as the Holy Land, the description in these two chapters has never matched any conflict to date. The prophecy has no specific indications as to the timing of the war and we are still waiting for it to happen as I write. Its wider context within Ezekiel’s writings points to a time after the restoration of Israel as a national entity, and as of 2019/2020, the political situation has never looked more ready for this war to erupt at any moment.

“Then say to them [the Israelites], ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again.’ “

Ezekiel 37:21-22

These verses come from the chapter immediately preceding the prophecy about the Gog and Magog war, and they refer to the restoration of Israel following the Holocaust – chapter 37 is all about raising a nation out of the dry bones of a genocidal destruction of the Jewish people – and as I have mentioned before, biblical prophecy often has two or more fulfilments, one short-term and one longer-term, messianic fulfilment. The ultimate restoration of Israel as God’s glorious nation will come when Jesus the Messiah returns, in about 7 years from the time you are reading this, but that does not diminish either the restoration of the nation after the Babylonian exile in Ezekiel’s day, or the the miracle of May 14th 1948, when this ancient people and nation was restored to their ancestral homeland to become a distinct nation state again ‘in one day’ as the prophet Isaiah had predicted (Isaiah 66:7-11), complete with an unbroken tradition, faith, language, and cultural identity after nearly 2,000 years of dispersion and exile amongst the nations of the world.

This sets the scene for chapter 38, where Israel is described as a nation of ‘unwalled villages’; a ‘peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls and having neither bars nor gates’ (v.11) – in other words the population are dwelling in relative security and safety, not in fortified communities behind walls and ramparts like ancient Jericho or Jerusalem. The verses go on to say that the enemy who comes against Israel at this time is coming ‘to take plunder and booty, to stretch out [their] hands against the waste places that are again inhabited, and against a people who are gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell in the midst of the land.’ (v.12). This indicates that the newly regathered and settled Israel will be prosperous at the time of the war, and will have enough material wealth to motivate the attackers to come and plunder them. Never before in history has this been the case until the past 70 years, and not even that long, for the fledging State of Israel was kept busy simply trying to defend herself against being annihilated multiple times – in 1948, 1967, and 1973 – all the while developing her agricultural and technological skills and quite literally bringing ‘the desert to blossom as a rose’ (Isaiah 35:1-2), managing to create fertile land and thriving communities on land that had been left to go to waste under the centuries of useless Ottoman occupation. Today, as in recent years, the economy of Israel is booming and Israeli technology, medicine, aid, scientific advancements, cultural and artistic excellence, food, and flowers are exported all over the world, to the enriching of many other nations – even the peoples of enemy regimes such as Iran who have benefitted from Israel’s incredible water-gathering and purification technologies.

But is that enough to make the attackers in the prophecy come down to plunder? Possibly, but unlikely. However, over the last several years, Israel has made stunning discoveries of natural gas – vast reserves just off their Mediterranean coastline – and from as recently as 2012 and 2013 they have had the infrastructure to access it; Tamar began pumping in 2013, and Leviathan in 2019. A Jerusalem Post article from December 29th, 2020, said that Israel would be natural gas-independent by 2022. Now this changes everything, as the major oil and gas suppliers in the region are of course Arab Muslim nations, and they are not taking kindly to a rival supplier, especially not when that rival is Israeli. To make matters more interesting still, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus signed a deal in late 2019/early 2020 to build a 1,900 km (1,180 mile) subsea pipeline to carry natural gas from the eastern Mediterranean’s rapidly developing gas fields through their countries, through Italy, and up into Europe. Reuters reported on January 2nd 2020 that Turkey was none too happy about this, and Turkey isn’t the only one. Russia’s biggest export, and the single most important contribution to its economy, is natural gas piped into Europe, and if it has competition from Israel, it will no longer have either the monopoly on European gas supplies, or the blackmailing leverage to be able to twist western arms into turning a blind eye to their appalling human rights records or the corruption that is rife within their government and oligarchy. Oil and gas are black gold, and Israel suddenly has rather a lot to offer.

‘ “Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you [Gog], ‘Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?’ ” ’

Ezekiel 38:13

This verse is very interesting – who are Sheba and Dedan or the merchants of Tarshish with their young lions? Well, historically, Sheba and Dedan are the peoples of the Arab Peninsula; Saudi, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Yemen. These Arab nations are characterised by both vast wealth and, unfortunately, Islamic extremism. Traditionally vehemently opposed to Israel, Saudi Arabia has produced some of the most deadly terrorists, followers of the Sunni Wahabi sect of Islam, and even behind the veneer of modern capitalist opulence in places like Dubai, not a single one of these countries wanted anything to do with the State of Israel. Yet in this verse they appear to be protesting the invasion and voicing opposition to it. That would have been unthinkable until 2019 and 2020. Suddenly and quite unexpectedly, Arab nations from the peninsula have opened diplomatic relations with Israel and normalised dealings between their nations, especially the UAE and Bahrain. Oman is warming up to Israel, and whilst Saudi Arabia isn’t quite there yet, they consider Israel’s determined opposition to Iranian Shiite dominance in the region to be a huge asset to them. Never before in the history of the Middle East have we seen such a political shift towards setting up a scene where it wouldn’t be impossible for the Arabian Peninsula to voice support for the Jewish State. Interesting? There’s more.

‘Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I am against you, O God, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops – many people are with you.”‘

Ezekiel 38:1-6

So, who are the attackers exactly, if they’re not Israel’s traditional Arab enemies?

Firstly, Gog is a biblical name to represent the spirit of evil, antisemitism, and antichrist, rather than a specific leader’s name, and the root of the word is linked to Agag, and the Amalakites, an ancient people group who were exceedingly wicked and antisemitic (Haman, of Purim infamy, was of the line of Agag, and of course his plans were to annihilate the entire Jewish people – read the book of Esther). The opening of Ezekiel 38 gives us some pretty big clues as to the specific peoples involved in this particular attack. Persia is the obvious one; Iran has been a basketcase of extremist Islam since the Ayatollah took over in 1979, and the regime there are bent on the destruction of Israel, even if it means destroying their own people in the process, which they have been doing quite successfully – Iranians live in horrible poverty and they suffer hugely at the hands of their evil government. Ethiopia and Libya are also fairly self-explanatory, with Libya being especially interesting because not only Iran, but also Turkey and Russia have stakes in that country and its warring governments. And as I mentioned earlier, Turkey and Russia both have economic reasons to be envious of Israel, even leaving aside Turkish president Erdogan’s explicit desire to destroy the Jewish state, conquer Jerusalem again and restore the Ottoman Empire. Not the kind of guy you want as a neighbour, really. Both these big nations appear again – in our prophecy. Rosh, Meschech and Tubal are tribes and peoples that sociologists, ethnographers, and historians have traced north from the Middle East into Eastern Europe and up into Russia, and Gomer and Togarmah are in Asia Minor; in other words, Turkey.

So we have a coalition of Russia, Turkey, Iran, Libya, Ethiopia, and possibly others, coming against Israel primarily for economic gain. These nations have also become intrenched in a crescent around Israel in recent years with the terrible civil war in Syria – the alliances are complex and confusing, but Russia and Iran are both heavily involved, and Lebanon (interestingly the country immediately to the north of Israel, as per the prophecy) is now also falling to pieces under the influence of Iranian proxy militia groups such as Hezbollah. The situation has never been more ripe for war, and the modern nations around Israel have never been in a more desperate state than they are now…all of which could prompt the situation in the prophecy at the slightest spark.

“Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “On that day when My people Israel dwell safely, will you not know it? Then you will come from your place out of the far north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army. You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes.” Thus says the Lord God: “Are you he of whom I have spoken in former days by My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for years in those days that I would bring you against them?”

Ezekiel 38:14-17 (emphasis mine)

I will go into more detail about what you might expect when this war breaks out in Part 2, but I just wanted to add a note here about the sovereignty of God through all of this. God gives man the freewill to act as he wants to, for good or evil, and for the most part, mankind blunders about rebelliously and chooses evil of one kind or another. But just because God doesn’t step in as we would perhaps presumptuously think He should when we see injustices around us, it doesn’t mean that He is not working behind the scenes to use the free choices that people make to bring about His will and reveal His truth. Job 42:2 says “I know You [God] can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.” Evil people don’t thwart God’s plans. So when the passage says that God will put hooks into the jaws of Gog and co. and draw them down against His people Israel, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a choice in the matter; in fact, it actually means that God is using their pre-determined evil intentions of destroying His people to showcase His glory and power and justice when He brings judgment on these wicked people. We will see this very clearly in Part 2, when God steps in, and all the nations will see who is really God.

The Bible is very clear that at some point during the final decade of human history, a global leader will arise who will take the reins of government during a time of crisis and will claim to be a man of peace. The emergence of this man is the trigger to begin the last seven years of human history, as described in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, and the book of Revelation; a time known to Christians as The Great Tribulation, after Jesus’ own words:

“For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been seen since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.”

Matthew 24:21

The Antichrist is described very graphically in the Old Testament book of the prophet Daniel, and these prophecies are confirmed and fleshed out in the final New Testament book of Revelation. He is described in both books as a beast – that is, one possessing inhuman, demonic attributes, though at first these will be veiled to most people. Think of the rise of Hitler and how he managed to have most of the population of Germany and the leaders of other nations under his hypnotic influence; this will not be too dissimilar from that. He will be a man of great power and influence, but also great evil; in fact, he will be the most evil man to ever walk the face of the earth. His power comes directly from Satan, and he will deceive or intimidate almost the whole world into following him. His rise to power will be meteoric and he will claim to have answers to many of the world’s most urgent issues, especially peace in the Middle East. One of the most important things for you to recognise is that he is alive and active right now, as you read this. I don’t know exactly when he will step onto the global stage, but it will be very soon now that the believers in Jesus have been raptured, and you must be able to recognise him and resist him.

Scripture references

In Daniel 7 the Antichrist is described as the ‘little horn’ who arises out of the fourth beast in Daniel’s vision (the Roman empire) and speaks blasphemous things against God. Power is given to him by 10 kings and he persecutes those who believe and trust in God for ‘a time, times and half a time’ (3½ years). Interestingly, the international scene is one in which nations are surrendering their sovereignty to regional power systems. Globalist politicians have already divided the world into 10 administrative regions upon which a proposed world government will be based. The 10 ‘kings’ who give their power to the beast may well be political leaders who arise out of these administrative regions, rather than being 10 individual nations. The one who emerges out of this world government system may well have a connection to Rome as his power base, as per the vision.

Daniel 9 speaks of ‘the prince who is to come’ who will make a covenant with Israel for 7 years, only to break that peace agreement half way through this period (i.e. after 3½ years) by setting up the ‘abomination of desolation’. According to Daniel 9:26, the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. This part of the prophecy has already been fulfilled when the Romans destroyed the Temple and the city of Jerusalem in AD 70, but Old Testament prophecy almost always has both an immediate fulfilment for the time and a longer-term fulfilment for the end of days. Some say therefore that the Antichrist will be a European (like the Romans were) or will have some connection with Rome, either religious or political (possibly both).

In Daniel 11 he appears as a contemptible person who comes in under a false peace, sets up the abomination of desolation, speaks blasphemies against God and magnifies himself against every god (i.e. he is against both the true God and the false gods of other religions). He directs worship/allegiance solely to himself and brings about the time of great tribulation.

Everything about antichrist in Daniel is confirmed in the New Testament. Jesus speaks of the abomination of desolation and the great tribulation that follows (Matthew 24). In 2 Thessalonians 2 Paul describes the Antichrist as the ‘Man of Sin’ who blasphemes God and sits as god in the Temple, deceives unbelievers by doing miracles in Satan’s power and is himself destroyed by the second coming of Jesus Christ at the very end of the Tribulation.

The most comprehensive picture of the Antichrist comes in the book of Revelation. In Chapter 13 we are told that he has the characteristics of the beasts of Daniel 7 and that he is given power by the dragon (Satan). He experiences some kind of counterfeit death and resurrection after which he receives world political power and worship through a one-world religion or ecumenical/New Age merging of religions, so that none can fight against him. He speaks proud words and blasphemies against God and acquires worldwide authority for two distinct periods of 42 months (3½ years) each, during which he persecutes Jews and Christians. A second beast, known as the false prophet, performs miracles by satanic power and causes an image of the beast (possibly some sort of AI which can move and speak and interact with humans) to be worshipped. This begins the second 3½ year period, and is the ‘abomination of desolation’ that is set up in the rebuilt Jewish Temple in Jerusalem as described by Jesus. Many of those who refuse to participate in this are killed and a system of total economic control is introduced whereby you cannot buy or sell unless you have the Mark of the Beast (666). This will likely be an ID of some sort – a digital implant or chip, a quantum dot tattoo, or even a vaccine containing nano-technology that makes you trackable and locks you into a system of transhumanism (merging human and artificial intelligence). PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THIS MARK! It will be very clear what it is when it is unveiled, especially that taking it is a direct rejection of God, and I think this will likely happen in around 3 1/2 years’ time from now. Revelation says that those who choose allegiance to the Antichrist through taking this mark will be unable to be redeemed and will face damnation for their rejection of God in favour of the antichrist system.

How do we recognise him?

Well, although there have been many antichrist figures in history, both religious and political, who have demanded worship from their people, persecuted minorities, especially Christians and Jews, and enforced systems of economic control on people, none have quite fitted all the descriptions above. Even in our lifetimes and the lifetimes of our parents or grandparents, we have seen types of antichrist in such figures as Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, and various other genocidal dictators. However the antichrist of Revelation 13 will be the only dictator in world history to achieve the goal of total world domination. Therefore he has not come yet.

Also, technology has never been at a level to facilitate the type of total surveillance society and population control described in Revelation as the Mark of the Beast…until now. Consider the Social Credit Score system of Communist China; this is merely a dress rehearsal for the type of system that will be unrolled over the whole world under the government of the Antichrist and his false prophet. Even vaccine passports and restrictions following the Covid-19 period that we have all just lived through are a step towards conditioning society to accept the erosion of basic freedoms and a state of constant answerability to the dictates of the state. Lockdowns, internet censorship, repression of freedom of speech, fear-mongering, and the propaganda narrative that all this is ‘all for the greater good’ will eventually become brute force, and the technology that we have become reliant upon for our modern lifestyles will enslave the majority of people to this evil system through their own choice to participate in it. See this website for more information about how this has been going on for decades already to exploit people’s goodwill and gain social compliance.

The Antichrist will appear at first to be a man of great peace, and many will hail him as a messiah figure, but he will be a false messiah bringing a false peace. Interestingly, many muslims and Jewish people are waiting and looking for a messiah figure to arise, but because they do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, many will be deceived by him. There are some clues we can look for to point out the characteristics of the Antichrist:

Look out for a man with hypnotic, smooth words, an aura of power, and links with the occult and masonic symbolism – look for biblical significance in his name, his ethnic origin, and his connections. Look for a man with startling intelligence, suave arrogance, and a total disregard for what others think of him; someone that exudes leadership and commands obedience. Look out for someone with influence in global finance, and in supranational organisations like the World Economic Forum and the European Union. Look for a man whose outward show is co-operation with world religious leaders like the Pope and various Imams or Rabbis, and who is at the forefront of creating an ecumenical blend of religions, especially the three Abrahamic faiths, to bring world peace. Expect to see a man who brokers a peace agreement with Israel but also with many other nations too, especially islamic nations, and those surrounding Israel. At some point too, there will be a cataclysmic, possibly even a nuclear conflict in the Middle East, which may well occur alongside the rise of the Antichrist (see my post on the War of Gog and Magog), after which he will claim to have solutions for world peace and reconciliation.

I can’t say who the Antichrist will be, but if you know what to look for, you will recognise him when he arrives on the scene, and I cannot emphasise enough that you must resist him and not allow him to deceive you into accepting his leadership. Only God can bring true peace through the return of the true Messiah, and in the end Jesus will defeat the Antichrist and throw him into the Lake of Fire – this whole huge satanic operation will last a comparatively short time and will be destroyed in a moment by His return, about seven years from now, along with all of us who have been taken. What you are about to experience is not an equal struggle between good and evil, but rather it’s a futile doomed rebellion, which Satan is leading. His only hope is to take as many people as he can to hell with him, and you can escape that by putting your trust in Jesus as your Messiah, Saviour and Lord. Please don’t be afraid – believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved!